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EASTER.

grains of corn on the floor. He then advances and stirs up the wood on the fire, so that it crackles and emits sparks; on which the First Foot says, As many sparks so many cattle, so many horses, so many goats, so many sheep, so many boars, so many bee hives, and so much luck and prosperity.” He then throws a little money into the ashes, or hangs some hemp on the door; and Christmas ends with presents and festivities.

At Easter, they amuse themselves with the game of breaking hard-boiled eggs, having first examined those of an opponent to see that they are not filled with wax. From this time until Ascension day the common formula of greeting is "Christ has arisen !" to which answer is made, "Yes; he has truly arisen or ascended!" And on the second Monday after Easter the graves of dead relations are visited.

One of the most extraordinary customs of Servia is that of the Dodola. When a long drought has taken place, a handsome young woman is stripped, and so dressed up with grass, flowers, cabbage and other leaves, that her face is scarcely visible; she then, in company with several girls of

twelve or fifteen

house singing a

years of age, goes from house to song, the burden of which is a

wish for rain. It is then the custom of the mistress of the house at which the Dodola is stopped to throw a little water on her. This custom used also to be kept up in the Servian districts of Hungary, but has been forbidden by the priests.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Town life. The public offices.-Manners half-Oriental halfEuropean. Merchants and Tradesmen.-Turkish population.-Porters.-Barbers.-Cafés.-Public Writer.

ON passing from the country to the town the politician views with interest the transitional state of society: but the student of manners finds nothing salient, picturesque, or remarkable; every thing is verging to German routine. If you meet a young man in any department, and ask what he does; he tells you that he is a Concepist or Protocollist.

In the public offices, the paper is, as in Germany, atrociously coarse, being something like that with which parcels are wrapped up in England; and sand is used instead of blotting paper. They

commence business early in the morning, at eight o'clock, and go on till twelve, at which hour every body goes to the mid-day meal. They commence again at four o'clock, and terminate at seven, which is the hour of supper. The reason of this is, that almost every body takes a siesta.

The public offices throughout the interior of Servia are plain houses, with white-washed walls, deal desks, shelves, and presses, but having been recently built, have generally a respectable appearance. The Chancery of State and Senate house are also quite new constructions, close to the palace; but in the country, a Natchalnik transacts a great deal of business in his own house.

Servia contains within itself the forms of the East and the West, as separately and distinctly as possible. See a Natchalnik in the back woods squatted on his divan, with his enormous trowsers, smoking his pipe, and listening to the contents of a paper, which his secretary, crouching and kneeling on the carpet, reads to him, and you have the Bey, the Kaimacam, or the Mutsellim before you. See M. Petronievitch scribbling in

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his cabinet, and you have the Fürstlicher HausHof-Staats- und Conferenz-Minister of the meridian of Saxe or Hesse.

Servia being an agricultural country, and not possessing a sea-port, there does not exist an influential, mercantile, or capitalist class per se. Greeks, Jews, and Tsinsars, form a considerable proportion of those engaged in the foreign trade: it is to be remarked that most of this class are secret adherents of the Obrenovitch party, while the wealthy native Servians support Kara Georgevitch.

In Belgrade, the best tradesmen are Germans, or Servians, who have learned their business at Pesth, or Temeswar; but nearly all the retailers are Servians.

Having treated so fully the aspects and machinery of Oriental life, in my work on native society in Damascus and Aleppo, it is not necessary that I should say here any thing of Moslem manners and customs. The Turks in Belgrade are nearly all of a very poor class, and follow the humblest occupations. The river navigation causes many hands to be employed in boating; and it always