herds of swine, grubbing at acorns and the roots of bushes, showed
that I was changing the scene, and making the acquaintance not only
of a new country, but of a new people. The peasants, instead of having
woolly caps and frieze clothes as in Bulgaria, all wore the red fez,
and were dressed mostly in blue cloth; some of those in the villages
wore black glazed caps; and in general the race appeared to be
physically stronger and nobler than that which I had left. The
Bulgarians seemed to be a set of silent serfs, deserving (when not
roused by some unusual circumstance) rather the name of machines than
of men: these Servian fellows seemed lazier, but all possessed a
manliness of address and demeanour, which cannot be discovered in the
Bulgarian.

Brza Palanka, at which we now arrived, is the only Danubian port which
the Servians possess, below the Iron Gates; consequently, the only one
which is in uninterrupted communication with Galatz and the sea. A
small Sicilian vessel, laden with salt, passed into the Black Sea, and
actually ascended the Danube to this point, which is within a few
hours of the Hungarian frontier. As we approached the Iron Gates, the
valley became a mere gorge, with barely room for the road, and
fumbling through a cavernous fortification, we soon came in sight of
the Austro-Hungarian frontier.

_New_ Orsova, one of the few remaining retreats of the Turks in
Servia, is built on an island, and with its frail houses of yawning
rafters looks very _old_. Old Orsova, opposite which we now arrived,
looked quite _new_, and bore the true German type of formal
white-washed houses, and high sharp ridged roofs, which called up
forthwith the image of a dining-hall, where, punctually as the
village-clock strikes the hour of twelve, a fair-haired, fat,