miserable and filthy in the extreme. The total number of mosques is seventeen.

The afternoon being now advanced, I went to

call

upon the Mutsellim. His konak was situated in a solitary street, close to the fields. Going through an archway, we found ourselves in the court of a house of two stories. The ground-floor was the prison, with small windows and grated wooden bars. Above was an open corridor, on which the apartments of the Bey opened. Two rusty, old fashioned cannons were in the middle of the court. Two wretched-looking men, and a woman, detained for theft, occupied one of the cells. They asked us if we knew where somebody, with an unpronounceable name, had gone. But not having had the honour of knowing any body of the light-fingered profession, we could give no satisfactory information on the subject.

The Momke, whom we had asked after the governor, now re-descended the rickety steps, and announced that the Bey was still asleep; so I walked out, but in the course of our ramble learned

THE CEMETERY.

201

that he was afraid to see us, on account of the fanatics in the town: for, from the immediate vicinity of this place to Servia, the inhabitants entertain a stronger hatred of Christians than is usual in the other parts of Turkey, where commerce, and the presence of Frank influences, cause appearances to be respected. But the people here recollected only of one party of Franks ever visiting the town'.

We now sauntered into the fields; and seeing the cemetery, which promised from its elevation to afford a good general view of the town, we ascended, and were sorry to see so really pleasing a situation abused by filth, indolence, and barbarism.

The castle was on the elevated centre of the town; and the town sloping on all sides down to the gardens, was as nearly as possible in the centre of the plain. When we had sufficiently examined the carved stone kaouks and turbans on the tomb stones, we re-descended towards the town. A savage-looking Bosniac now started up from behind a low outhouse, and trembling with rage and

1 I presume Messrs. Boué and party.

202

INSULTING RECEPTION.

fanaticism began to abuse us: "Giaours, kafirs, spies! I know what you have come for. Do you expect to see your cross planted some day on the castle?"

The old story, thought I to myself; the fellow takes me for a military engineer, exhausting the resources of my art in a plan for the reduction of the redoubtable fortress and city of Novibazar.

"Take care how you insult an honourable gentleman," said the over-rider; "we will complain to the Bey."

"What do we care for the Bey?" said the fellow, laughing in the exuberance of his impudence. I now stopped, looked him full in the face, and asked him coolly what he wanted.

"I will show you that when you get into the bazaar," and then he suddenly bolted down a lane out of sight.

A Christian, who had been hanging on at a short distance, came up and said

"I advise you to take yourself out of the dust as quickly as possible. The whole town is in a state of alarm; and unless you are prepared for resistance, something serious may happen: for the

PRECIPITATE DEPARTURE.

203

fellows here are all wild Arnaouts, and do not understand travelling Franks."

"Your advice is a good one; I am obliged to you for the hint, and I will attend to it."

Had there been a Pasha or consul in the place, I would have got the fellow punished for his insolence: but knowing that our small party was no match for armed fanatics, and that there was nothing more to be seen in the place, we avoided the bazaar, and went round by a side street, paid our khan bill', and, mounting our horses, trotted rapidly out of the town, for fear of a stray shot; but the over-rider on getting clear of the suburbs instead of relaxing got into a gallop.

"Halt," cried I, "we are clear of the rascals, and fairly out of town;" and coming up to the eminence crowned with the Giurgeve Stupovi, on which was a church, said to have been built by Stephen Dushan the Powerful, I resolved to ascend, and got the over-rider to go so far; but some Bosniacs in a field warned us off with menacing gestures. The over-rider said, "For

1 The Austrian zwanziger goes here for only three piastres; in Servia it goes for five.

204

A SERVIAN VICE-CONSUL.

God's sake let us go straight home. If I go back to Novibazar my life may be taken."

Not wishing to bring the poor fellow into trouble, I gave up the project, and returned to the quarantine.

Novibazar, which is about ten hours distant from the territory of Montenegro, and thrice that distance from Scutari, is, politically speaking, in the Pashalic of Bosnia. The Servian or Bosniac language here ceases to be the preponderating language, and the Albanian begins and stretches southward to Epirus. But through all the Pashalic of Scutari, Servian is much spoken.

Colonel Hodges, her Britannic Majesty's first consul-general in Servia, a gentleman of great activity and intelligence, from the laudable desire to procure the establishment of an entrepôt for British manufactures in the interior, got a certain chieftain of a clan Vassoevitch, named British vice-consul at Novibazar. From this man's influence, there can be no doubt that had he stuck to trade he might have proved useful; but, inflated with vanity, he irritated the fana