the majestic character who won the admiration of Europe, whose genius
as a soldier was praised by Napoleon the Great, and who freed his
countrymen from bondage,--Kara-George was a swineherd in the woods of
the Schaumadia until the wind of the spirit fanned his brow and called
him from his simple toil to immortalize his homely name.

Master Josef and his fellows in Orsova did not hate the Servians with
the bitterness manifested toward the Roumanians, yet they considered
them as aliens and as dangerous conspirators against the public weal.
"Who knows at what moment they may go over to the Russians?" was the
constant cry. And in process of time they went, but although Master
Josef had professed the utmost willingness to take up arms on such an
occasion, it does not appear that he did it, doubtless preferring, on
reflection, the quiet of his inn and his flask of white wine in the
courtyard rather than an excursion among the trans-Danubian hills and
the chances of an untoward fate at the point of a Servian knife. It
is not astonishing that the two peoples do not understand each other,
although only a strip of water separates their frontiers for a long
stretch; for the difference in language and in its written form is a
most effectual barrier to intercourse. The Servians learn something of
the Hungarian dialects, since they come to till the rich lands of the
Banat in the summer season. Bulgarians and Servians by thousands find
employment in Hungary in summer, and return home when autumn sets
in. But the dreams and ambitions of the two peoples have nothing in
common. Servia looks longingly to Slavic unification, and is anxious
to secure for herself a predominance in the new nation to be moulded
out of the old scattered elements: Hungary believes that the
consolidation of the Slavs would place her in a dangerous and
humiliating position, and conspires day and night to compass
exactly the reverse of Servian wishes. Thus the two countries are
theoretically at peace and practically at war. While the conflict of
1877 was in progress collisions between Servian and Hungarian were of
almost daily occurrence.

The Hungarian's intolerance of the Slav does not proceed from unworthy
jealousy, but rather from an exaggerated idea of the importance of his
own country, and of the evils which might befall it if the old Serb
stock began to renew its ancient glory. In corners of Hungary, such as
Orsova, the peasant imagines that his native lan