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SETTLEMENT OF THE AFFAIR.

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two wives live together to this day in the house of Simo at Zhupa. The archbishop, since the departure of the Turks, has repeatedly called on Simo to repudiate his second wife; but the principal obstacle is the first wife, who looks upon the second as a sort of sister: under these anomalous circumstances, Simo was under a sort of excommunication, until he made a fashion of repudiating the second wife, by the first adopting her as a sister."

The captain, who was an intelligent modest man, would fain have kept me till next day; but I felt anxious to get to Alexinatz; and on arrival at a hill called Vrbnitzkobrdo, the vale of the Morava again opened upon us in all its beauty and fertility, in the midst of which lay Krushevatz, which was the last metropolis of the Servian empire; and even now scarce can fancy picture to itself a nobler site for an internal capital. Situated halfway between the source and the mouth of the Morava, the plain has breadth enough for swelling zones of suburbs, suburban villas, gardens,

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NATCHALNIK OF KRUSHEVATZ.

It was far in the night when we arrived at Krushevatz. The Natchalnik was waiting with lanterns, and gave us a hearty welcome. As I went upstairs his wife kissed my hand, and I in sport wished to kiss her's; but the Natchalnik said, "We still hold to the old national custom, that the wife kisses the hand of a stranger." Our host was a fair-haired man, with small features and person, a brisk manner and sharp intelligence, but tempered by a slight spice of vanity. The tout ensemble reminded me of the Berlin character.

Natchalnik. "I am afraid that, happy as we are to receive such strangers as you, we are not sufficiently acquainted with the proper ceremonies to be used on the occasion."

Author. "The stranger must conform to the usage of the country, not the country to the standard of the stranger. I came here to see the Servians as they are in their own nature, and not in their imitations of Europe. In the East there is more ceremony than in the West; and if you go to Europe you will be surprised at the absence of ceremonious compliments there."

NATIONAL CHARACTER.

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Natchalnik. "The people in the interior are a simple and uncorrupted race; their only monitor is nature."

Author. "That is true: the European who judges of the Servians by the intrigues of Belgrade, will form an unfavourable opinion of them; the mass of the nation, in spite of its faults, is sound. Many of the men at the head of affairs, such as Simitch, Garashanin, &c., are men of integrity; but in the second class at Belgrade, there is a great mixture of rogues."

Natchalnik. "I know the common people well: they are laborious, grateful, and obedient; they bear ill-usage for a time, but in the end get impatient, and are with difficulty appeased. When I or any other governor say to one of the people, 'Brother, this or that must be done,' he crosses his hands on his breast, and says, 'It shall be done;' but he takes particular notice of what I do, and whether I perform what is due on my part. If I fail, woe betide me. The Obrenovitch party forgot this; hence their fall."

Next day we went to look at the remains of Servian royalty. A shattered gateway and ruined

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ANCIENT SERVIAN PALACE.

walls, are all that now remain of the once extensive palace of Knes Lasar Czar Serbski; but the chapel is as perfect as it was when it occupied the centre of the imperial quadrangle. It is a curious monument of the period, in a Byzantine sort of style; but not for a moment to be compared in beauty to the church of Studenitza. Above one of the doors is carved the double eagle, the insignium of empire. The great solidity of this edifice recommended it to the Turks as an arsenal; hence its careful preservation. The late Servian governor had the Vandalism to whitewash the exterior, so that at a distance it looks like a vulgar parish church. Within is a great deal of gilding and bad painting; pity that the late governor did not whitewash the inside instead of the out. The Natchalnik told me, that under the whitewash fine bricks were disposed in diamond figures between the stones. This antique principle of tesselation applied by the Byzantines to perpendicular walls, and occasionally adopted and varied ad infinitum by the Saracens, is magnificently illustrated in the upper exterior of the ducal palace of Venice.

CHAPTER XX.

Formation of the Servian Monarchy.-Contest between the Latin and Greek Churches.-Stephan Dushan.-A Great Warrior. Results of his Victories.-Knes Lasar.-Invasion of Amurath.-Battle of Kossovo.-Death of Lasar and Amurath.-Fall of the Servian Monarchy.-General

Observations.

I CANNOT present what I have to say on the feudal monarchy of Servia more appropriately than in connexion with the architectural monuments of the period.

The Servians, known in Europe from the seventh century, at which period they migrated from the Carpathians to the Danube, were in the twelfth century divided into petty states.

"Le premier Roi fut un soldat heureux."

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