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 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
p