I must say that there is a degree of cleanliness within doors, which I
had been led to consider as somewhat foreign to the habits of Slaavic
populations. The lady of the Austrian consul-general in Belgrade told
me that she was struck with the propriety of the dwellings of the
poor, as contrasted with those in Galicia, where she had resided for
many years; and every traveller in Germany is struck with the
difference which exists between the villages of Bohemia and those in
Saxony, and other adjacent German provinces.

From Palesh we started with fine weather for Skela, through a
beautifully wooded park, some fields being here and there inclosed
with wattling. Skela is a new ferry on the Save, to facilitate the
communication with Austria.

Near here are redoubts, where Kara Georg, the father of the reigning
prince, held out during the disasters of 1813, until all the women and
children were transferred in safety to the Austrian territory. Here we
met a very pretty girl, who, in answer to the salute of my
fellow-travellers, bent herself almost to the earth. On asking the
reason, I was told that she was a bride, whom custom compels, for a
stated period, to make this humble reverence.

We then came to the Skela, and seeing a large house within an
enclosure, I asked what it was, and was told that it was the
reconciliation-house, (_primiritelnj sud_,) a court of first instance,
in which cases are decided by the village elders, without expense to
the litigants, and beyond which suits are seldom carried to the higher
courts. There is throughout all the interior of Servia a stout
opposition to the nascent lawyer class in Belgrade. I have been more