Strange to say, after this ordeal we put up at an excellent khan, the best we had seen in Servia, being a mixture of the German Wirthshaus, and the Italian osteria, kept by a Dalmatian, who had lived twelve years at Scutari in Albania.  His upper room was very neatly furnished and new carpeted.

In the afternoon we went to pay a visit to the Vayvode, who lived among gardens in the upper town, out of the stench of the bazaars.  Arrived at the house we mounted a few ruined steps, and passing through a little garden fenced with wooden paling, were shown into a little carpeted kiosk, where coffee and pipes were presented, but not partaken of by the Turks present, it being still Ramadan.  The Vayvode was an elderly man, with a white turban and a green benish, having weak eyes, and a alight hesitation in his speech; but civil and good-natured, without any of the absurd suspicions of the Mutsellim of Sokol.  He at once granted me permission to see the castle, with the remark, “Your seeing it can do us no good and no harm, Belgrade castle is like a bazaar, any one can go out and in that likes.”  In the course of conversation he told us that Ushitza is the principal remaining settlement of the Moslems in Servia; their number here amounting to three thousand five hundred, while there are only six hundred Servians, making altogether a population of somewhat more than four thousand souls.  The Vayvode himself spoke Turkish on this occasion; but the usual language at Sokol is Bosniac (the same as Servian).

We now took our leave of the Vayvode, and continued ascending the same street, composed of low one-storied houses, covered with irregular tiles, and inclosed with high wooden palings to secure as much privacy as possible for the harems.  The palings and gardens ceased; and on a terrace built on an open space stood a mosque, surrounded by a few trees; not cypresses, for the climate scarce allows of them, but those of the forests we had passed.  The portico was shattered to fragments, and remained as it was at the close of the revolution.  Close by, is a Turbieh or saint’s tomb, but nobody could tell me to whom or at what period it was erected.

Within a little inclosed garden I espied a strangely dressed figure, a dark-coloured Dervish, with long glossy black hair.  He proved to be a Persian, who had travelled all over the East.  Without the conical hat of his order, the Dervish would have made a fine study for a Neapolitan brigand; but his manners were easy, and his conversation plausible, like those of his countrymen, which form as wide a contrast to the silent hauteur of the Turk, and the rude fanaticism of the Bosniac, as can well be imagined.  His servant, a withered baboon-looking little fellow, in the same dress, now made his appearance and presented coffee.

Author.  “Who would have expected to see a Persian on the borders of Bosnia?  You Dervishes are great travellers.”

Dervish.  “You Ingleez travel a great deal more; not content with Frengistan, you go to Hind, and Sind, and Yemen.[9] The first Englishman I ever saw, was at Meshed, (south-east of the Caspian,) and now I meet you in Roumelly.”