months.  He has a very good library of their books of all kinds; and, as he tells me, spends the greatest part of his life there.  I pass for a great scholar with him, by relating to him some of the Persian tales, which I find are genuine.  At first he believed I understood Persian.  I have frequent disputes with him concerning the difference of our customs, particularly the confinement of women.  He assures me, there is nothing at all in it; only, says he, we have the advantage, that when our wives cheat us, nobody knows it.  He has wit, and is more polite than many Christian men of quality.  I am very much entertained with him.—­He has had the curiosity to make one of our servants set him an alphabet of our letters, and can already write a good Roman hand.  But these amusements do not hinder my wishing heartily to be out of this place; though the weather is colder than I believe it ever was, any where, but in Greenland.—­We have a very large stove constantly kept hot, and yet the windows of the room are frozen on the inside.—­God knows when I may have an opportunity of sending this letter:  but I have written it, for the discharge of my own conscience and you cannot now reproach me, that one of yours makes ten of mine.  Adieu.

LET.  XXV.

To HER R. H. THE PRINCESS OF WALES
[Footnote:  The late Queen Caroline.]

Adrianople, April 1.  O. S. 1717.

I HAVE now, madam, finished a journey that has not been undertaken by any Christian since the time of the Greek emperors:  and I shall not regret all the fatigues I have suffered in it, if it gives me an opportunity of amusing your R. H. by an account of places utterly unknown amongst us; the emperor’s ambassadors, and those few English that have come hither, always going on the Danube to Nicopolis.  But the river was now frozen, and Mr W——­ was so zealous for the service of his Majesty, that he would not defer his journey to wait for the conveniency of that passage.  We crossed the deserts of Servia (sic), almost quite over-grown with wood, through a country naturally fertile.  The inhabitants are industrious; but the oppression of the peasants is so great, they are forced to abandon their houses, and neglect their tillage, all they have being a prey to the janizaries, whenever they please to seize upon it.  We had a guard of five hundred of them, and I was almost in tears every day, to see their insolencies (sic) in the poor villages through which we passed.—­After seven days travelling through thick woods, we came to Nissa, once the capital of Servia, situated in a fine plain on the river Nissava, in a very good air, and so fruitful a soil, that the great plenty is hardly credible.  I was certainly assured, that the quantity of wine last vintage was so prodigious, that they were forced to dig holes in the earth to put it in, not having vessels enough in the town to hold it.  The happiness of this plenty is scarce perceived by the oppressed people.