s of _slivovitsa_, as plum brandy is
called. He then came forward, trembling, as if about to receive
sentence of death, and taking off his greasy fez, said, "I drink to
our prince Kara Georgovich, and to the progress and enlightenment of
the nation." I looked with astonishment at the torn, wretched
habiliments of this idiot swineherd. He was too stupid to entertain
these sentiments himself; but this trifling circumstance was the
feather which indicated how the wind blew. The Servians are by no
means a nation of talkers; they are a serious people; and if the
determination to rise were not in the minds of the people, it would
not be on the lips of the baboon-visaged oaf of an insignificant
hamlet.

The rain now began to pour in torrents, so to make the most of it, we
ordered another magnum of strong red wine, and procured from the
neighbourhood a blind fiddler, who had acquired a local reputation.
His instrument, the favourite one of Servia, is styled a _goosely_,
being a testudo-formed viol; no doubt a relic of the antique, for the
Servian monarchy derived all its arts from the Greeks of the Lower
Empire. But the musical entertainment, in spite of the magnum of wine,
and the jovial challenges of our fellow traveller from the Drina,
threw me into a species of melancholy. The voice of the minstrel, and
the tone of the instrument, were soft and melodious, but so
profoundly plaintive as to be painful. The song described the
struggle of Osman Bairactar with Michael, a Servian chief, and, as it
was explained to me, called up successive images of a war of
extermination, with its pyramids of ghastly trunkless heads, and
fields of charcoal, to mark the site of some peaceful village, amid
the blaze of which its inhabitants had wandered to an eternal home in
the snows and trackless woods of the Balkan. When I looked out of the
tavern window the dense vapours and torrents of rain did not elevate
my spirits; and when I cast my eyes on the minstrel I saw a peasant,
whose robust frame might have supported a large family, reduced by the
privation of sight, to waste his best years in strumming on a
monotonous viol for a few piastres.

I flung him a gratuity, and begged him to desist.

After musing an hour, I again ordered the horses, although it still
rained, and set forth, the road being close to the river, at one part
of which a fleet of decked boats were moored. I perceived that they
were all navigated by Bosniac Moslems, one of w