general development of the race,-when all its prospects of realising a station amongst the European nations were obscured by a new and alien power-that of the Osmanlis-introduced as we have seen by Cantacuzenus himself, and who had gradually penetrated into the interior of Thrace.

It became imperative on the Servians to resist the Osmanlis to the utmost; they must either repel the enemy or expect their own destruction. But unfortunately Stephan Dushan died before he had completed the empire of which he had laid the foundation; and whilst the Osmanlis exhibited the strictest unity and a more compactly-knit fellowship, being all servants of one master, in Servia, on the contrary, the Woiwodes divided the political power among themselves; hence it did not remain doubtful which of the two parties would prove victorious in the contest. As in recent

times the Turkish annals contain accounts of battles not mentioned in those of western countries, whilst the Servian chronicles speak of others that are not recorded by the Turks, on both sides victories are spoken of as defeats, and defeats as victories.

But however imperfect our knowledge of the various occurrences of this war, it remains not the less certain that the Servians soon lost the Rumelian districts acquired by their predecessors, and that the chief vassals submitted one after another to the Turks. Once (in 1389) on the mountain heights, crowned by the chief seat of the Servian empire-on the field of Kossowa-the Servians, the Bosnians, and the Albanians stood united against the Osmanlis. But the Turks were stronger than all these nations combined. The particulars of the battle are obscured by national pride and the vagueness of song and of tradition; but the result is certain: from that day the Servians became subjects to the Osmanlis. The Sultan of the Osmanlis and the Servian Kraal were both slain in this terrible conflict; but their successors, Bajazet or Bayazid, and Stephan Lasarewitsch, entered into an agreement which formally established the inferior position of the Servians. Lasarewitsch even gave the Sultan his sister to wife, and undertook to render him military service in all his campaigns.

But such an unnatural alliance could not last long. Difference of religion soon gave rise to heartburning and hostility on the part of the Servians; whilst the Osmanlis on their side declared that they could not permit Christian princes to retain possession of strong forts and rich mines, lest they should use them to impede the progress of the true faith. About the year 1438, we find a mosque erected at Kruschewatz, and Turkish garrisons placed in the fortresses of Golubaz and Smederewo or Semendria, on the Danube; as also in Nowo-brdo, the most ancient of the Servian towns, in the immediate vicinity of the richest mines.

Under these circumstances, an alliance was brought about by the then Servian prince-George Brankowitsch-with the Slavonians of Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary, as also with the Bosnians. A powerful land force was organised, and so successful was this alliance that the renowned John Hunyad celebrated the Christmas of 1443 on the conquered snow plains of the Haemus, and the peace of Szegedin actually restored the whole of Servia.

Had the western potentates supported the inferior powers that still held their ground in this quarter, as also in the city of Constantinople, and had they at the same time occupied the attention of the Sultan, and endangered his forces by sea, it is reasonable to suppose that the Turks would never have subjugated a considerable portion of Europe, whilst the countries embraced in that occupation might have patiently awaited the opportunity for a general restoration.

But it was destined to be otherwise. As in the present day we see the Latin Church preferring the rule of the Osmanli to that of the Greek; so in the times we are now speaking of, the Slavonians preferred that of the Osmanlis to the sway of the Pope. The Servians invited the infidels into their fortresses that they might not not see their strongholds given over to a cardinal of the Romish Church. The chief nobles of the country, whom the Turks began to annihilate, under the Moslem plea that there was no necessity for keeping faith with an infidel, soon perceived that their only safety lay in embracing Islamism, and the conversion went on even more rapidly in Bosnia and Herzegovina than in Servia. The country soon became divided among Spahis, whom the inhabitants were bound to serve, both in their persons and in their property. A traveller of the sixteenth century, describes the people as poor captives, none of whom dared to lift up his head. A gleam of sunshine came with the successes of the Emperor Leopold, who extended his protection to the unfortunate Servians. But after a lapse of twenty years, owing more to the com. plication of European politics than to any increase of Turkish power, the liberated districts had to be given back again to the Turks. The Patriarch migrated into Hungary with 37,000 families, and the Turks appointed a successor at Ipek. Daniel, the Metropolitan of Montenegro, was made prisoner, and the Montenegrines retorted by a wholesale slaughter of the Turks.

On the advance of the Austrians in 1737, the Servians and Albanians once more rose in great numbers, their force amounting, it is said, to 20,000; but they were met by the Turks near the Kolubara, and their entire host slaughtered. The patriarch of Ipek was compelled to flee for safety to Montenegro. These events determined the Porte not to suffer the election of another Servian

Patriarch; Greek Bishops were placed over the Servian Church, and the people now found themselves wholly subject to the Turkish Government at Constantinople.

The Servians, however, never parted with the memory of their former independence. In 1788, Austria, which had taken the Servian Patriarchate under its protection, united with Russia for an attack on the Turks, as the Emperor Joseph said, "to revenge mankind on those barbarians." The Greeks manned a fleet, and there were movements in Albania and Macedonia; but the Servians lent the greatest amount of aid. They assisted in the reduction of Belgrade in 1789, and they seized upon Karanowaz and Kruschewaz. But upon this occasion, as upon all others, the interests of the Christian populations of Turkey had to give way to considerations of balance of power. Prussia was willing that Austria should extend her power on the Danube in return for concessions on the Polish frontier; but France threatened the whole constitution of the European powers. England and Holland interfered in favour of the status quo; and by the treaty of Sistowa, 1791, it was deemed sufficient to secure an amnesty, and Servia with all its fortresses was given back to the Sultan.

In the meantime Sultan Selim was, with the aid of French and English officers, working hard at the reformation of the whole system of Turkish military warfare. These reforms were strenously resisted by the Janissaries and Spahis. The Turkish empire was founded on conquest and forcible occupation, and it depended upon the superiority of the army under its pashas, upon the power held hereditarily, and exactions exercised in the towns and fortresses by the Spahis and Janissaries, often at variance with the Pasbas, and, above all, upon the jealousy of European powers.

Of all the Janissaries of the Empire, none had been more tur. bulent or arrogant, or were more opposed to the Sultan, than those at Belgrade, and Selim determined to rid himself of such an insubordinate soldiery. Their commanders assumed the title of Dahis, after the example of the so-called Deys of Barbary. Their chief Dahi was one Deli Achmet, "or mad Achmet," a common designation for a man of reckless bravery; and be was invited to meet the new pasha-Abu Bekir-at Nissa or Nish, where he was, according to oriental practice, disposed of by treachery. The possessions of the Janissaries were next forfeited, but to the Spahis were left their tithes and their Glawnitza.

Osman Passwan Oglu-a Turkuman from Asia Minor, and where he is still well remembered, and not an Osmanli-revolted in Widdin at the head of the Janissaries; so had also a large body of soldiers called Krdschalis, men who had been dismissed by the Porte, and who lived by serving pashas or peoples in revolt, or, when

this failed them, they plundered and levied contributions on their own account. They professed no religion in particular, and rode along on stately horses, with trappings of gold and silver and bearing costly arms. In their train were female slaves, Gjuwendi, in male attire, who not only served to amuse them in singing and dancing, but also followed them to battle, for the purpose of holding their horses when they fought on foot.

Passwan Oglu attached this motley band of irregulars to him by saying "The booty be yours, and mine the glory." It was in vain that the Porte sent troops against him; he not only held his own, but he extended his conquests, and soon directed his forces against Servia, which at that time was increasing in prosperity by its peculiar and most permanent source of wealth-the breeding of swine, realising even at that epoch £130,000 annually, by its commerce with Austria alone.

Hadji Mustafa, the then Pasha, called the Servians to arms to resist the new enemy. They, with the help of their Kneses and Heyducs,-men who had fled to the forests to avoid the oppression of the Turks, exercising the profession of banditti and robbers, and still in existence throughout the Balkan,-successfully opposed the progress of the Turkuman rebel. Yet strange to say, the pride of the Mussulmans revolted at the idea that old Moslems of the true faith should be driven by the Christians from their conquests; the Mufti declared that it was against the laws to permit Rayahs to chastise Moslems, and not only was Passwan admitted as a Pasha with three tails, but the Janissaries were actually sent back to Belgrade to curb the spirit of the Servians.

No sooner arrived there than they resumed their evil ways: they seized upon Schabaz, after murdering a Servian chief, and then upon Belgrade, killing the pasha; and they then divided the country among themselves, appointing four Dahis to rule separate districts. To the Porte they wrote laconically, "Hadji Mustafa had been a false Osmanli, who had sided with the Rayahs, and had now received his reward." Not content with appointing KabaDahis to rule the towns, and Su-Bashis to rule the villages, they claimed the actual proprietorship of the land, exercised the power of life and death, imposed the heaviest taxes, and reduced the Servians to a position little better than that of slavery. The SuBashis especially indulged in petty acts of tyranny, taking from the peasants their festive garments, turning them into menials, and appropriating to themselves the more beautiful women.

The Servians in their distress appealed to the Sultan. They were, they said, not only robbed and plundered, but they were attacked in their religion, their morality and their honour: no husband was secure in the possession of his wife, no father of his

daughter, no brother of his sister. The church, the cloisters, the people, all were outraged. The Sultan threatened "as the faithful could not fight against the faithful," to turn the Rayahs upon their oppressors. The Dahis met this threat by precautionary measures of unexampled atrocity. Not only the chiefs (Kneses and Kmetes), but every person of any consideration, whether it had been acquired by military prowess, morality, or wealth, was put to death. Horror prevailed throughout the country, and the belief was universal that it was intended to extirpate the entire popula

tion.

There are degrees even in the misery of a people. A certain amount of national spirit has never been wanting with the Servians, They felt that they had now arrived at a crisis which was to decide whether they were to remain a nation or to be annihilated; and the consciousness of this aroused them to exertion.

The country, as it descends towards the Danube and the Save, forms three divisions. Of these the central division is the most important-especially the forest region, called Schumadia. This division is separated from the others, on the one side, by the broad and frequently inundated valley of the Morava or Morawa, and on the other by the Kolubara, at its commencement a torrent, and further on flowing through extensive tracts of morass. In each of these districts a movement to commence a war, which was to extinguish an authority that was exercised in a manner so tyrannical, was originated by different leaders.

The leader in the forest region was George Petrowitsch, called by the Turks Kara or "black" George. He was a wealthy owner of swine, but had also been a Heyduc in his time, and he was considered as one of the most enterprising men in the country, as he was also one of the richest. Jacob Nenadowitsch-of whom Servian song records that his brother Alexa had, in his dying moments, charged him to revenge his death-led the insurgents on the further side of the Kolubara; whilst those on the other side of the Morava, were headed by Milenko, a man inclined to peace, but not so much so as to be blind to the danger in which he stood on account of his wealth and authority.

In all the three districts, the Turks were almost simultaneously driven from the villages. Nor did the insurgents long refrain from attacking the Palanks or Palankas-small towns, so called from the palisading round them. They first took Rudnik, and burned it, then other towns in succession, the Turkish population hastening to take refuge in the fortresses.

Thus commenced the insurrection of the Servians of which Kara George was soon appointed the chief, or Commendant Serbie, as was engraved on his seal. The Dahis held the fortresses and the large