the heat was intense; but gaining the top, we were rewarded by a grand
view of the Balkan Mountains rising directly south. We ought to have
made out Widdin and a stretch of the Danube at Palanka; but the middle
of the day is the worst time for the details of a distant view.

Shortly after this we arrived at a small uncivilised-looking village.
The men were powerfully built in point of figure, and the women rather
handsome. Both sexes wear picturesque garments. This village, like many
others of the same kind, we found encircled by plum-orchards. Thousands
of barrels of dried plums are sent from Servia every year, not only to
Western Europe, but to America. Besides the consumption of the fruit in
its innocent form of prunes, it is made into the spirit called
_slivovitz_, the curse of Hungary and Roumania.

We made a halt at this village, and sent out a man to look up some
horses. He brought in several, but none of them were strong enough for
my purpose. It was then proposed that we should ride on to the next
village. Here we got dinner but no horses. The meal was very simple but
not unpalatable, finishing up with excellent Turkish coffee.

I am writing now of the _status quo ante bellum_, and I must say I was
struck with the well-to-do aspect of the peasants in Servia. By peasants
I mean the class answering to the German _bauer_. It is true they lack
many things that Western civilisation regards as necessaries; but have
they not had the Turks for their masters far into this century? Turning
over Lady Mary Wortley Montague's Letters,[4] there occurs the
following paragraph in her account of a journey through Servia in
1717:--

"We crossed the deserts of Servia, almost quite overgrown with wood,