examine his silk, manufactured at Carlstadt, for the International Exhibition.  On the ensuing morning, I crossed the Culpa, and inspected the works connected with the new railway to Trieste.  It is intended to be in a state of completion by the end of the coming autumn.  Several Englishmen are employed on the line, but I did not happen to come across any of them; every information was, however, given me by a Croatian gentleman, who has the superintendence of one-half of the line.  Moravian iron is used in preference to English, although its value on delivery is said to be the greater of the two.

Sissek was in ancient days a place of no small importance.  There, Attila put in to winter his fleet during one of his onslaughts on the decaying Roman empire.  Traces of the ancient city are often dug up, and many curiosities have been found, which would delight the heart of the modern antiquarian.  The return voyage to Brod was not remarkable for any strange incident, the passengers being almost entirely Austrian officers.  The number of troops massed by that power on her Slavonian and Croatian frontier would infer that she entertains no friendly feelings to her Turkish neighbours.  These amount to no less than 40,000 men, dispersed among the villages in the vicinity of Brod, and within a circumference of fourteen miles.  At Brod itself no fewer than 4,000 baggage-horses were held in readiness to take the field at any moment.  It requires no preternatural foresight to guess the destination of these troops.  They are not intended, as some suppose, to hold in check the free-thinking Slavonic subjects of Austria.  Nor is that province used as a penal settlement for the disaffected, as others would infer.  The whole history of Austria points to the real object with which they have been accumulated, viz. to be in readiness to obtain a footing in Bosnia, in the event of any insurrection in that province of sufficient importance to justify such a measure.  The utility of such a step would be questionable, as climate and exposure have more than once compelled the Austrians to relinquish the idea, even after they had obtained a substantial footing in the province.  The motives which would induce them to make another attempt are palpable enough; for, besides the advantages derivable from the possession of so beautiful and rich a country, Austria sees with alarm the increase of revolutionary principles in a province in such close proximity to her own.  And yet she has small reason for fear, since no single bond of union exists between the Slaves on either bank of the Save.

But even if this were not the case, surely her soundest policy would be to support and strengthen in every way the Turkish Government, since their interests are identical, viz. the preservation of order among the Slavish nations of the world.