n the
Turkish quarter, occupied by tradespeople, who subsist almost
exclusively by the wants of their co-religionists living in the
quarter, as well as of the Turkish garrison in the fortress. The only
one of this class who frequented me, was the public writer, who had
several assistants; he was not a native of Belgrade, but a Bulgarian
Turk from Ternovo. He drew up petitions to the Pasha in due form, and,
moreover, engraved seals very neatly. His assistants, when not
engaged in either of these occupations, copied Korans for sale. His
own handwriting was excellent, and he knew all the styles, Arab,
Deewanee, Persian, Reka, &c. What keeps him mostly in my mind, was the
delight with which he entered into, and illustrated, the proverbs at
the end of M. Joubert's grammar, which the secretary of the Russian
Consul-general had lent him. Some of the proverbs are so applicable to
Oriental manners, that I hope the reader will excuse the digression.

"Kiss the hand thou hast not been able to cut."

"Hide thy friend's name from thine enemy."

"Eat and drink with thy friend; never buy and sell with him."

"This is a fast day, said the cat, seeing the liver she could not get
at."

"Of three things one--Power, gold, or quit the town."

"The candle does not light its base."

"The orphan cuts his own navel-string," &c.

The rural population of Servia must necessarily advance slowly, but
each five years, for a generation to come, will,--I have little
doubt,--alter the aspect of the town population, as much relatively
as the five that are by-gone. Let the lines of railway now in progress
from Belgium to Hungary be completed, and Belgrade may again become a
stage in the high road to the East. A line by the valleys of the
Morava and the Maritsa, with its large towns, Philippopoli and
Adrianople, is certainly not more chimerical and absurd than many that
are now projected. Who can doubt of its _ultimate_ accomplishment, in
spite of the alternate precipitancy and prostration of enterprise?
Meanwhile imagination loses itself in attempting to picture the
altered face of affairs in these secluded regions, when subjected to
the operation of a revolution, which posterity will pronounce to be
greater than those which made the fifteenth century the morning of the
just terminated period of civilization.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Poetry.--Journalism.--The Fine Arts.--The Lyceum.--Mineralogical
cabinet.--Museum.--Servian Education.

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