opposite Belgrade, and since leaving the Fruskagora Mountains the country
has been a level plain, and the roads fairly smooth. But Igali has
naturally become doubly cautious since his succession of misadventures
this morning, and as, while waiting for him to overtake me, I recline
beneath the mulberry-trees near the village of Batainitz and survey the
blue mountains of Servia looming up to the southward through the evening
haze, he rides up and proposes Batainitz as our halting-place for the
night, adding persuasively, "There will be no ferry-boat across to
Belgrade to-night, and we can easily catch the first boat in the morning."
I reluctantly agree, though advocating going on to Semlin this evening.
While our supper is being prepared we are taken in hand by the leading
merchant of the village and "turned loose" in an orchard of small
fruits and early pears, and from thence conducted to a large gypsy
encampment in the outskirts of the village, where, in acknowledgment of
the honor of our visit-and a few kreuzers by way of supplement - the
"flower of the camp," a blooming damsel, about the shade of a total
eclipse, kisses the backs of our hands, and the men play a strumming
monotone with sticks and an inverted wooden trough, while the women dance
in a most lively and not ungraceful manner. These gypsy bands are a happy
crowd of vagabonds, looking as though they had never a single care in
all the world; the men wear long, flowing hair, and to the ordinary
costume of the peasant is added many a gewgaw, worn with a careless
jaunty grace that fails not to carry with it a certain charm in spite
of unkempt locks and dirty faces. The women wear a minimum of clothes
and a profusion of beads and trinkets, and the children go stark naked
or partly dressed.

Unmistakable evidence that one is approaching the Orient appears in the
semi-Oriental costumes. of the peasantry and roving gypsy bands, as we
gradually near the Servian capital. An Oriental costume in Eszek is