and plum-trees, whsose distilled fruit furnish an eau-de-vie much sought after in commerce.

Blessed with a soft and temperate climate, Servia, with her panorama of mountains, which vary to infinitude their forms and colours, her verdant valleys, the innumerable water-courses which traverse her and carry their tribute to the Save and the Danube, revives, by her freshness and the picturesqueness of her aspect, the countenance of the traveller, saddened by the gloomy aridity of the mountains of Croatia and the Herzegovina, or fatigued by the monotony of the large plains of Hungary and Wallachia. The poetic description which Lamartine has traced in his "Voyage en Orient" does not exceed the reality:"In traversing these soli"tudes, where, during so many days' "march, the eye perceives, however dis"tant its range, nothing but the uniform "and sombre undulation of oak-leaves "which covers the valleys and moun“tains—a veritable ocean of foliage, "which is not pierced by even the sharp "point of a minaret or a spire; in de"scending from time to time deep gorges "where roars a river, where the forest re"tires a short way to give place to well"cultivated fields, to some pretty houses "of new timber, to saw-mills and the "like built on the banks of rivers; in "seeing immense flocks, conducted by "young and pretty girls, elegantly clad, "issuing from colonnades of lofty trees, "and returning in the evening to their "homes, the children leaving school, "the pope (village pastor) sitting at his "house door, the old men entering the "communal house to deliberate-I "fancied myself amid the forests of "North America, at the instant of the "birth of a people or the establishment "of a new colony."

Servia possesses few towns of importance. Its capital, Belgrade (Beograd, "the white city "), has barely more than 20,000 inhabitants. The population of the principal centres of districts-Semendria, Chabatz, Negotin, Kragouïvatz, Iagodina, Vatievo, Tchoupria-fluctuates between 12,000 and 6,000.

The total population of the principality is, according to the last census (1859), 1,105,645 souls, or 1,105 souls per square mile. In this number are about 1,086,000 Servians, 2,000 Israelites, and 15,000 Tsiganes or Bohemians. The Israelites inhabit Belgrade almost exclusively. The Bohemians are, for the most part, nomades, as in Hungary and Wallachia. Two-thirds call themselves Christians; the rest Mussulmans. In reality, they are all Pagans. The Mussulmans occupy, by virtue of treaties, the fortresses of Belgrade, Semendria, Chabatz, Feth-Islam.

Politically speaking, Servia forms a state tributary to, but not dependent on, the Ottoman Porte. Even the fortresses occupied by the Turks are reputed as Servian territory. It is not bound to furnish any contingent or war-subsidy. It preserves its national standard in tricolour stripes, and maintains, at Constantinople, a political agent accredited to the Porte.

The government is a hereditary monarchy. The sovereign has the title of Kniaz, and is styled His Serene Highness. The prince is chief of the executive power. He governs with the concurrence of responsible ministers. He promulgates the laws and ordinances, nominates to public employments, places his signature to conventions and treaties, and alone represents the nation before foreign powers. He concurs with the Senate in amending laws of lesser importance, and with the Senate and National Assembly in the amendment of fundamental laws.

The Senate is composed of seventeen members, named by the prince. No one can become a senator if he is not, at least, thirty-five years of age, and if he has not filled for ten years important State functions. The heir-presumptive to the throne sits by right in the Senate after the age of eighteen. He has a deliberative voice at one-and-twenty. The president and vice-president are nominated by the prince. The senators are nominated for life. They can, however, on demand, or according to the initiative of the prince, have a retiring pension.

The ordinary National Assembly (skoupchtina) is convoked every three years, or at shorter intervals if the prince deems it convenient. It deliberates on all questions which the Government submits to its examination, proposes motu proprio every measure which it thinks proper to augment the wellbeing and lighten the charges of the country, and names of its own body a committee or commission charged to audit the treasury accounts. No change can be introduced into the constitution, and no modification of taxes, no cession or change of a part of the territory can take place without its consent.

The Skoupchtina is composed of deputies from districts and towns, in the proportion of one deputy for every 2,000 electors. Every Servian citizen of full age and paying taxes is an elector. At the age of thirty he is eligible. Now, as every Servian pays taxes, it follows that every one is an elector, and consequently eligible. The deputies are inviolable and receive a salary during the whole duration of the session.

Another Assembly, called extraordinary, is convoked, in case of the vacancy of the throne, either for the purpose of electing a new prince from the survivors of the kniaz, or, in default of a male descendant of his house, to approve of the choice made by him of an heirpresumptive, or, in fine, to nominate the members of a Council of Regency. The number of members of this Assembly is four times that of the members of the ordinary Skoupchtina.

The ordinary Assembly is convoked by the prince. He can dissolve it, but must convoke a new one within three months at most. The prince nominates the president, vice-president, and the secretaries of the ordinary Assembly. The president, the vice-president, and secretaries of the extraordinary Assemblies are elected by the Assembly itself.

The Central Administration, regulated by the Law of the 5th of March, 1862, comprises seven ministers: Interior, Finance, Foreign Affairs, Justice, Public Instruction and Worship, War, Public Works. The ministers are named by

the prince, and are responsible. One of them, designated by the prince, presides in the Cabinet, and is its reputed chief. He countersigns, in this capacity, acts emanating from the princely prerogative. The ministers are present at the sittings, and take part in the labours of the Senate, but without a deliberate vote. For purposes of administration, Servia is divided into districts (departments) to the number of 17 (18 with the city of Belgrade, which, of itself, forms a separate district), 61 cantons or arrondissements, and 1,066 communes, composed of 36 urban or city-towns, and 1,030 markettowns and villages.1

At the head of Departments and of Arrondissements are prefects and subprefects, who have the supreme administration of the finances, public instruction, &c. The Commune is governed by a chief (kmete, starechina), whose functions partake at once of those of mayor, receiver of taxes, and justice of the peace. As administrator, he has care of the revenues of the commune, publishes the laws, and transmits the orders of the Government, of which he is informed by the sub-prefect of the arrondissement. financial agent, he apportions or levies the rates, with the help of the scoupe (a kind of council composed of the heads of houses and aldermen, startsi, of the village), and has them collected. As magistrate, with two aids or assessors, he forms the justice-of-peace court of the commune.

As

This organization of the commune, the germ of which is found in most of the Christian provinces of Turkey in Europe, has nowhere appeared so complete and so fruitful of good consequences as in Servia. "Every Sunday," says a Servian publicist, "all the heads "of houses unite to form the skoupe. "The meeting is held in open air, and "lasts for four or five hours. In the "centre sits the starechina of the

village, surrounded by the startsi. "Assisted by these experienced old

1 To make these divisions more intelligible, let us suppose, as in Great Britain, counties, divisions of counties, cities, boroughs, and united boroughs.

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men, and his two assessors, and con"trolled by the heads of houses, the "starechina judges publicly the dif "ferences of the villagers, deliberates "with them respecting the wants of "the village, and reads the decrees of "the Government, so that the head of "the house may be able to communicate "them to the persons who compose his "household."

The starechina and his assessors are elected by the skoupe. All the other functionaries, administrative and judiciary, are nominated by the prince, on the proposal of the ministers, and cannot be dismissed save in virtue of a sentence of the tribunals.

The judicial hierarchy comprises 1,214 tribunals, or rural courts of the peace, composed of the starechina and his assessors, and judging without appeal for sums under 100 piastres, or 16s. 8d. sterling; besides eighteen principal courts (tribunaux de première instance)-one for the city of Belgrade, the others sitting at the head-quarters of the seventeen districts-aud one High Court of Appeal and Cassation, divided into three chambers, two civil and one criminal. Hitherto the procedure and information has been in writing, except before the Justice of Peace Courts, where causes are introduced verbally and in a summary manner. The code of civil procedure, promulgated in 1860, has put an end to this anomaly, by giving publicity and hearing to all judicial proceedings and debates in every court. The new criminal code, dating from the same year, no longer retains in its procedureborrowed for the most part from French and Prussian codes-any trace of the sometimes excessive rigour of the ancient Servian laws. The punishment of death is applied only to murder with premeditation. Penal service with hard labour cannot exceed the duration of twenty years. It is the same with regard to punishment for political offences. The criminal code, at present referred to the Senate, does not admit of any inquisitorial measure, and testifies a respect for common right and individual liberty

which the legislation of the most civilized nations does not always profess.

The Religion of the state is the Greek Orthodox. The Servian Church is Autocephalous-that is to say, while owning the supremacy of the Patriarch of Constantinople, she governs herself by her Metropolitan and his Synod, in complete independence of the cecumenical see. The metropolitan is nominated directly by the prince, and receives the canonical investiture of the patriarch. With the three diocesan bishops of Oujitza, Chabatz, and Negotin, he forms the Synod, which has supreme direction of the affairs of the Church. The bishops are nominated by the Synod, with the sanction of the prince.

The four Servian dioceses (including that of Belgrade) comprise 361 churches or chapels, 43 monasteries, 668 secular priests, and 128 monks and nuns. The maintenance and repair of the churches are charged to the parishes. But the clergy, with the exception of the metropolitan and bishops, are unpaid. The monks live on the produce of the lands of the monasteries; the secular priests, by church fees, the tariff for which was fixed by the late Prince Milosh.

Most

of them besides have a small field which they cultivate, and which procures them the necessary surplus for their sustenance. They are slenderly educated, honest, laborious, and very patriotic. They possess all the masculine virtues of the people, with whom they live confounded.

All religions are freely professed in Servia. Not only does the law tolerate, but the Government aids and encourages, in a manner, the worship of Dissenters. The Serbo-Catholic community of Belgrade, having been without the means of meeting the expenses of a church, the Government placed at its disposal a State edifice, which has been converted into a temporary chapel. The Protestant community has received a large piece of ground, in the centre of the town, on which they have built a church and a residence for the pastor. The pastor and the curé receive a salary fixed by the State.

It is the custom each year, on Christmas Eve, for the reigning princess to invite into her palace the poor children of the capital, and distribute to each a new dress, with cakes and a small sum of money. These gifts are given to all children without distinction of religion; and, last year, on the occasion of this touching ceremony, might have been seen, pressing around the charming Princess Julie, pêle-mêle, with her Catholic co-religionists, a swarm of little boys and girls, Greeks, Protestants, Jews, &c. The Mussulmans alone, whether through indifference or pride, refused to be present.

According to the annual reports published by the Department of Public Instruction and Worship, at the close of the scholastic year 1860-61, Servia had 370 schools, in which gratuitous education was given to all comers. The primary schools, to the number of 359, are frequented by 12,079 pupils. These schools are distinguished as town or village schools, the first divided into four, the last into three classes. Secondary and professional instruction are attended by 1,100 pupils, six gymnasiums, and two practical schools, one of commerce, the other of arts and trades. Superior instruction is represented by the theological faculty (bogoslovia), and by the two faculties of philosophy and law, united under the designation of Lyceum. The Government besides undertakes the maintenance of a certain number of young men, whom it sends to finish their education in the great universities of Germany, France, and Italy.

Besides these establishments, depending on the Ministry of Public Instruction and Worship, there has existed, since 1849, a military school of artillery at Belgrade, and an agricultural school at Topchidar, depending, the first on the Ministry of War, the second on the Ministry of the Interior.

The schools are under the superintendence of a superior council of twelve members, instituted in 1851. This council has for its useful auxiliary the Servian Literary Society, founded in 1841, during the first reign and under the

auspices of Prince Michel. This institute, divided into five classes (Servian language and literature, history, philosophy, law, the natural sciences), and comprising in its body nearly all the political and literary notabilities not only in Servia, but of southern Slavonia, publishes annually a annually a collection of Memoires, which has now reached the twelfth volume.

To appreciate the progress made in public instruction in Servia, we must report from the starting point. Primary schools do not date from more than half a century ago. Before 1804, there were not two men in the whole principality who could read. The two founders of the national independence-Karageorge, and Miloch, father of the present princecould not write their names. In 1838 the number of children attending the public schools did not reach 3,000. That number has been quintupled in four-and-twenty years.

The Oustaf, the constitutional law of 1838, has not limited the number of men which Servia has the right to call under arms. The figure of the standing army, however, has never exceeded, until lately, four or five thousand men, except during the Eastern war, when it was raised exceptionally to eight thousand men. This effective, augmented even by the reserve, was far from constituting a military force, in proportion either to the wants or the resources of Servia. The Servian militia, established not so much for defence as for a territorial police, is inadequate to the ordinary services of garrisons in a country nearly double the extent of Belgium.

Nevertheless, no people in Europe unites in a higher degree the elements of a good military organization. Except that the Servian bends to discipline in time of peace with difficulty, and dislikes garrison service, he possesses all the qualities that constitute a soldier. Temperate, inured to fatigue, contented with little, intrepid to daring, war introduces no change into his ordinary habits. His ordinary life is that of a trooper. Winter and summer, he sleeps stretched on a rug or a sheepskin.