If I were dying I could not have laid myself down on that floor, so we dragged the three tables together.  They were provokingly uneven, but with the aid of a sheepskin bunda, and our carpet-bags for pillows, we contrived something upon which to rest our tired limbs.  I should observe we had partially dried ourselves by a miserable fire fed with wet wood; in fact, everything was wet—­our plaids were soaked, and were useless as coverlets.

We had agreed to keep one candle burning, with the further precaution that we should sleep and tie through the night; for it was a cut-throat-looking place, and the countenance of the ordinary Servian is not reassuring.  It fell to my lot to have the first watch, and I lay awake staring at the roof, no great height above us.  Its dirt-stained rafters were lit up by the candle, and I soon became aware that the mainbody of the insects was performing a strategic movement highly creditable to the attacking party—­they dropped down upon us from the beams!  I will not pursue the subject farther, but as long as the candle burned I did not sleep a wink.  I suppose I must have dozed off towards morning, for H——­ roused me from a state of semi-unconsciousness, and “up we got and shook our lugs.”

The first thing I saw on pushing open the door was the steaming carcass of a sheep hung just outside, with a pool of blood on the very threshold!  In many places in Eastern Europe they have the disgusting habit of slaughtering the animals in the middle of the street.

As soon as we had swallowed a cup of hot coffee, which is always good in this part of the world, we lost no time in clearing out of the wretched hovel where we had passed the night.  On every side there were traces of last night’s tempest—­trees uprooted and lying across the road, walls blown down, and watercourses overflowing.  It came to my knowledge later that we got part of the same storm that had fallen with such devastating fury on Buda-Pest just twenty-four hours earlier.[3]

It is a fact worth noting that this storm affected a large area of Europe, travelling north-west to south-east.  A friend writing from the neighbourhood of Dresden made mention of a severe storm on the 24th of June; it broke upon Buda on the 26th, reaching us down in Servia on the 27th.

[Footnote 2:  Hungary and the Lower Danube, by Professor Hull, F.R.S., in Dublin University Magazine, March 1874.]

[Footnote 3:  Extract of a private letter, dated Buda-Pest, June 28th, from Mr Landor Crosse, which appeared in the ‘Daily News,’ July 6, 1875:  “We have had one of the most dreadful storms that has happened here in the memory of man.  I must tell you that on Saturday evening I was taking my coffee and cigar in the beautiful gardens of the Isle St Marguerite, opposite Buda-Pest, when a little after six o’clock a fearful hurricane arose very suddenly, sweeping over us with terrific force.  Branches of trees were carried along like feathers.