these works are read with attention, and welcomed with enthusiasm.

The Servians, whether of this principality, or the adjoining provinces of Bosnia, Herzegowina and Tchernegoria, as well as in Austria and Hungary, appear to me to be the noblest race of all the Slavonians; their bold, martial bearing arrests attention at the first glance— broad shoulders, athletic and robust, they present the very model of a soldier. Taken in general, they are about the middle height; still, I have seen not a few who might be admitted into our Life Guards.

Like every people just emancipated from a servitude of centuries, the Servian cannot be expected to exhibit in his features a high intellectual expression. He is lively and poetic; and the blue, or hazel eye, dark chesnut hair, oval face and good-humoured smile, are all perfectly European; while the truth you see reflected in every lineament of his honest countenance creates a confidence in his integrity, which is seldom, or never, misplaced; more primitive in his ideas and habits than the matter-of-fact native of the West, he preserves in his manners and customs many traces of the ancients, their poetry and superstition. In religious matters he is not altogether so great a bigot, at least, in this principality, as his brethren in the other provinces of European Turkey. Still, being a member of a Church so exclusive as the schismatic Greek, he is imbued with a certain degree of intolerance, which has burst forth into action during every epoch in the history of his

country down to the present day, and may be said to be the cause of all his misfortunes.

In Bosnia, Croatia and Herzegowina, where we find Servian Mussulmen, Servian schismatic Greeks, and Servian Roman Catholics, this intolerance prevails to such a deplorable extent, that these provinces might be termed the battle-field of European religious strife; there rayahs of the Greek Church, rayahs of the Roman Church, each in their turn make common cause with the infidel Mussulman, in the hope of exterminating their detested rival.

So early as the year 1448, these Servians of the Greek Church, jealous of the victories of the Hungarian hero, Hunyad, deserted him on the field of battle, and joined the Turks, dreading that if he should be victorious, he would compel them to adopt the Latin creed as their rule of faith. The same feeling was again manifested at the capitulation of Belgrade, in 1521, and was the principal cause of that fortress remaining so long in the hands of the Osmanli.

This bitter religious animosity displayed itself only a few years since, during the Servian War of Independence. The Turkish army, consisting of from thirty to forty thousand men, for the most part composed of the valiant spahis of Albania and Bosnia, invaded Servia. This fanatic host was now assembled with the two-fold object of regaining their lost pachaliks and spahiliks, and of revenging themselves on a Giaour people, from whose prowess they had so often suffered defeat; exulting in

their numbers they felt certain of victory, certain of trampling the Cross for ever in the dust. When we take the circumstances of great fanatical excitement on the part of this invading host into consideration, this cannot surprize us; but when we learn that a large body of Christians of the Latin creed, natives of Turkish Croatia, joined the Osmanli army as volunteers, and ranged themselves beneath the standard of the Crescent in their crusade against the liberties of the Slavon-Greek Christians in Servia, we must pass our severest condemnation on the spiritual advisers of this poor, ignorant people, who, in their animosity towards a rival faith, could have so far forgotten the humanizing principles of Christianity, which inculcates love and charity to all mankind; for we cannot suppose, that, unless excited by their clergy, any hope of plunder or enmity could have impelled them to assist in the extermination of their own race and brother Christians of Servia.

Perhaps history, in all her dark records of human crime, has not a page blackened by more atrocious deeds than those perpetrated by this invading army. I was informed by more than one eye-witness, that so complete was the work of destruction, the country, as these hell-hounds advanced, resembled not a desert, but a charnel-house; neither youth nor beauty, neither age, nor infirmity nor sickness, stayed the sword: all were mercilessly slaughtered, the villages were burnt, the forests set on fire; and every man caught with arms in his hands was impaled.

Happily for Servia, she possessed a master mind

VOL. I.

H

equal in energy and patriotism to the emergency. Tzerni George saved his country; and we hope that his name, and the deed, will be chronicled for ever in the history of Servia. With only seven thousand infantry, and about from two to three thousand cavalry, he entirely routed the Turkish host. A Seraskier and two Pachas fell on the field of battle, together with the bravest Beys and Spahis of Bosnia and Albania.

This glorious and decisive battle placed Tzerni George at the head of Servia; he became the idol of his countrymen, and the terror of the Turks; and by his undaunted courage and great military talents, he won the entire confidence of the people, and infused into them a determination to wring their independence from the tyrants who had so long oppressed them.

We cannot, then, wonder, that having achieved his emancipation by a succession of brilliant victories, the Servian of this Principality, however humble his position in life, feels a proud confidence in himself, which he is by no means backward in exhibiting. This patriotism induces him to yield obedience to the laws of his country, and attaches him sincerely to the land for which he so nobly bled. There is also about this people a degree of natural good sense, which serves as an effective substitute for political experience. This was manifested in a prominent degree on a recent occasion, when the independence of the country was in great danger. Having succeeded in overthrowing the tyrannical government of the ill-advised and despotic Milosh, and his weak son, Michaeli, and elevated the

reigning Prince, Alexander, to sovereign power; they were threatened with invasion by Austria and Russia. These menaces they utterly disregarded, being determined to support the Prince of their choice, whatever might be the consequences. Time has proved his worthiness to fill the high station he occupies; and the Servians have the satisfaction of evincing how deeply they feel indebted to, and how sincerely they reverence the memory of, his noble father, the unfortunate Tzerni George.

When we reflect that their long and fearful struggle for independence has only recently terminated, and by which their resources must have been weakened; when we remember the ordeal through which they had to pass during the reign of Milosh, whose expulsion from the country must have created disunion and separate interests, those great hindrances to the establishment of confidence in a government, and the advancement of prosperity; we must yield our admiration to the energy, the firmness of purpose, and the public virtue of a people, as yet comparatively strangers to the civilization and enlightenment of the age.

Without having any especial bias in favour of the Servian, beyond that of the inhabitant of any other of the various nationalities of European Turkey, we must come to the conclusion that they possess all the elements of a people, destined at no distant period to form, with their more civilized brethren of Austria and Hungary, a mighty nation; this may be predicted with the more certainty of success, now that ill-advised Austria