from which we might be parting for ever?--No; all our treasures lay
safely stowed in the boat, and we were ready to follow them to the
ends of the earth. Now, therefore, we shook hands with our Semlin
friends, who immediately retreated for three or four paces, so as
to leave us in the centre of a space between them and the
"compromised" officer. The latter then advanced, and asking once
more if we had done with the civilised world, held forth his hand.
I met it with mine, and there was an end to Christendom for many a
day to come.

We soon neared the southern bank of the river, but no sounds came
down from the blank walls above, and there was no living thing that
we could yet see, except one great hovering bird of the vulture
race, flying low, and intent, and wheeling round and round over the
pest-accursed city.

But presently there issued from the postern a group of human
beings--beings with immortal souls, and possibly some reasoning
faculties; but to me the grand point was this, that they had real,
substantial, and incontrovertible turbans. They made for the point
towards which we were steering, and when at last I sprang upon the
shore, I heard, and saw myself now first surrounded by men of
Asiatic blood. I have since ridden through the land of the
Osmanlees, from the Servian border to the Golden Horn--from the
Gulf of Satalieh to the tomb of Achilles; but never have I seen
such ultra-Turkish looking fellows as those who received me on the
banks of the Save. They were men in the humblest order of life,
having come to meet our boat in the hope of earning something by
carrying our luggage up to the city; but poor though they were, it
was plain that they were Turks of the proud old school, and had not