unearthed from time to time in the fortress itself and the region round
about that came under its protection. So plentiful, indeed, are old coins
and relics of all sorts at Belgrade, that, as I am standing looking at
the collection in the window of an antiquary shop, the proprietor steps
out and presents me a small handful of copper coins of Byzantium as a
sort of bait that might perchance tempt one to enter and make a closer
inspection of his stock. By the famous Treaty of Berlin the Servians
gained their complete independence, and their country, from a principality,
paying tribute to the Sultan, changed to an independent kingdom with a
Servian on the throne, owing allegiance to nobody, and the people have
not yet ceased to show, in a thousand little ways, their thorough
appreciation of the change; besides filling the picture-galleries of
their museum with portraits of Servian heroes, battle-flags, and other
gentle reminders of their past history, they have, among other practical
methods of manifesting how they feel about the departure of the dominating
crescent from among them, turned the leading Turkish mosque into a gas-
house. One of the most interesting relics in the Servian capital is an
old Roman well, dug from the brow of the fortress hill to below the level
of the Danube, for furnishing water to the city when cut off from the
river by a besieging army. It is an enormous affair, a tubular brick
wall about forty feet in circumference and two hundred and fifty feet
deep, outside of which a stone stairway, winding round and round the
shaft, leads from top to bottom. Openings through the wall, six feet
high and three wide, occur at regular intervals all the way down, and,
as we follow our ragged guide down, down into the damp and darkness by
the feeble light of a tallow candle in a broken lantern, I cannot help
thinking that these o'erhandy openings leading into the dark, watery
depths have, in the tragic history of Belgrade, doubtless been responsible
for the mysterious disappearance of more than one objectionable person.
It is not without certain involuntary misgivings that I take the lantern