than once amused on hearing an advocate, greedy of practice, style
this laudable economy and patriarchal simplicity--"Avarice and
aversion from civilization." As it began to rain we entered a tavern,
and ordered a fowl to be roasted, as the soup and stews of yester-even
were not to my taste. A booby, with idiocy marked on his countenance,
was lounging about the door, and when our mid-day meal was done I
ordered the man to give him a glass 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