and other hebdomadals.  Formerly Foreign-Office messengers were the cast-off butlers and valets of secretaries of state.  For some time back they have been taken from the half-pay list and the educated classes.  One or two can boast of very fair literary attainments; and a man who once a year spends a few weeks in all the principal capitals of Europe, from Madrid to St. Petersburg and Constantinople, necessarily picks up a great knowledge of the world.  The British messengers post out from London to Semlin, where they leave their carriages, ride across to Alexinatz on the Bulgarian frontier, whence the despatches are carried by a Tartar to Constantinople, via Philippopoli and Adrianople.

On arriving at Alexinatz, a good English dinner awaited us at the konak of the queen’s messenger.  It seemed so odd, and yet was so very comfortable, to have roast beef, plum pudding, sherry, brown stout, Stilton cheese, and other insular groceries at the foot of the Balkan.  There was, moreover, a small library, with which the temporary occupants of the konak killed the month’s interval between arrival and departure.

Next day I visited the quarantine buildings with the inspector; they are all new, and erected in the Austrian manner.  The number of those who purge their quarantine is about fourteen thousand individuals per annum, being mostly Bulgarians who wander into Servia at harvest time, and place at the disposal of the haughty, warlike, and somewhat indolent Servians their more humble and laborious services.  A village of three hundred houses, a church, and a national school, have sprung up within the last few years at this point.  The imports from Roumelia and Bulgaria are mostly Cordovan leather; the exports, Austrian manufactures, which pass through Servia.

When the new macadamized road from Belgrade to this point is finished, there can be no doubt that the trade will increase.  The possible effect of which is, that the British manufactures, which are sold at the fairs of Transbalkan Bulgaria, may be subject to greater competition.  After spending a few days at Alexinatz, I started with post horses for Tiupria, as the horse I had ridden had been so severely galled, that I was obliged to send him to Belgrade.

Tiupria, being on the high road across Servia, has a large khan, at which I put up.  I had observed armed guards at the entrance of the town, and felt at a loss to account for the cause.  The rooms of the khan being uninhabitable, I sent Paul with my letter of introduction to the Natchalnik, and sat down in the khan kitchen, which was a parlour at the same time; an apartment, with a brick floor, one side of which was fitted up with a broad wooden bench (the bare boards being in every respect preferable in such cases to cushions, as one has a better chance of cleanliness).

The other side of the apartment was like a hedge alehouse in England, with a long table and moveable benches.  Several Servians sat here drinking coffee and smoking; others drinking wine.  The Cahwagi was standing with his apron on, at a little charcoal furnace, stirring his small coffee-pot until the cream came.  I ordered some wine for myself, as well as the Suregee, but the latter said, “I do not drink wine.”  I now looked him in the face, and saw that he was of a very dark complexion; for I had made the last stage after sunset, and had not remarked him.