norance gives their priests occasion to impose several new notions
upon them. These fellows, letting their hair and beard grow
inviolate, make exactly the figure of the Indian bramins (sic). They
are heirs-general to all the money of the laity; for which, in
return, they give them formal passports signed and sealed for heaven;
and the wives and children only inherit the house and cattle. In
most other points they follow the Greek church.--This little
digression has interrupted my telling you we passed over the fields
of Carlowitz, where the last great victory was obtained by prince
Eugene over the Turks. The marks of that glorious bloody day are yet
recent, the field being yet strewed with the skulls and carcasses of
unburied men, horses, and camels. I could not look, without horror,
on such numbers of mangled human bodies, nor without reflecting on
the injustice of war, that makes murder not only necessary but
meritorious. Nothing seems to be a plainer proof of the
_irrationality_ of mankind (whatever fine claims we pretend to
reason) than the rage with which they contest for a small spot of
ground, when such vast parts of fruitful earth lie quite uninhabited.
'Tis true, custom has now made it unavoidable; but can there be a
greater demonstration of want of reason, than a custom being firmly
established, so plainly contrary to the interest of man in general?
I am a good deal inclined to believe Mr Hobbs, that the _state of
nature_ is a _state of war_; but thence I conclude human nature, not
rational, if the word reason means common sense, as I suppose it
does. I have a great many admirable arguments to support this
refection; I won't however trouble you with them, but return, in a
plain style, to the history of my travels.

WE were met at Betsko (a village in the midway between Belgrade and
Peterwaradin) by an aga of the janizaries, with a body of Turks,
exceeding the Germans by one hundred men, though the bassa had
engaged to send exactly the same number. You may judge by this of
their fears. I am really persuaded, that they hardly thought the
odds of one hundred men set them even with the Germans; however, I
was very uneasy till they were parted, fearing some quarrel might
arise, notwithstanding the parole given. We came late to Belgrade,
the deep snows making the ascent to it very difficult. It seems a
strong city, fortified on the east side by the Danube; and on the
south by the river Save, and was form