ed up the centre of
the picture; but the house and stable, which had resounded with the
good-humoured laugh of the master, and the neighing of the well-fed
little stud (for horse-flesh was the weak side of our Esculapius),
were tenantless, ruinous, and silent. The doctor had died in the
interval at Widdin, in the service of Hussein Pasha. I mechanically
withdrew, abstracted from external nature by the "memory of joys that
were past, pleasant and mournful to the soul."

I then took a Turkish bath; but the inferiority of those in Belgrade
to similar luxuries in Constantinople, Damascus, and Cairo, was
strikingly apparent on entering. The edifice and the furniture were of
the commonest description. The floors of the interior of brick
instead of marble, and the plaster and the cement of the walls in a
most defective state. The atmosphere in the drying room was so cold
from the want of proper windows and doors, that I was afraid lest I
should catch a catarrh. The Oriental bath, when paved with fine
grained marbles, and well appointed in the departments of linen,
sherbet, and _narghile_, is a great luxury; but the bath at Belgrade
was altogether detestable. In the midst of the drying business a
violent dispute broke out between the proprietor and an Arnaout, whom
the former styled a _cokoshary_, or hen-eater, another term for a
robber; for when lawless Arnaouts arrive in a village, after eating up
half the contents of the poultry-yard, they demand a tribute in the
shape of _compensation for the wear and tear of their teeth_ while
consuming the provisions they have forcibly exacted.

CHAPTER VI.

Europeanization of Belgrade.--Lighting and Paving.--Interior of the
Fortress--Turkish Pasha.--Turkish Quarter.--Turkish
Population.--Panorama of Belgrade--Dinner party given by the Prince.

The melancholy I experienced in surveying the numerous traces of
desolation in Turkey was soon effaced at Belgrade. Here all was life
and activity. It was at the period of my first visit, in 1839, quite
an oriental town; but now the haughty parvenu spire of the cathedral
throws into the shade the minarets of the mosques, graceful even in
decay. Many of the bazaar-shops have been fronted and glazed. The
oriental dress has become much rarer; and houses several stories
high, in the German fashion, are springing up everywhere. But in two
important particulars Belgrade is as oriental as if it were situated
on the Tigris or Barrada--lighting