The Distances At Which We Got Relays Of Horses Varied Greatly; Some
Were Not More Than Fifteen Or Twenty Miles, But Twice, I Think, We
Performed A Whole Day's Journey Of More Than Sixty Miles With The
Same Beasts.
When at last we came out from the forest our road lay through
scenes like those of an English park.
The green sward unfenced,
and left to the free pasture of cattle, was dotted with groups of
stately trees, and here and there darkened over with larger masses
of wood, that seemed gathered together for bounding the domain, and
shutting out some "infernal" fellow-creature in the shape of a
newly made squire; in one or two spots the hanging copses looked
down upon a lawn below with such sheltering mien, that seeing the
like in England you would have been tempted almost to ask the name
of the spend-thrift, or the madman who had dared to pull down "the
old hall."
There are few countries less infested by "lions" than the provinces
on this part of your route. You are not called upon to "drop a
tear" over the tomb of "the once brilliant" anybody, or to pay
your "tribute of respect" to anything dead or alive. There are no
Servian or Bulgarian litterateurs with whom it would be positively
disgraceful not to form an acquaintance; you have no staring, no
praising to get through; the only public building of any interest
that lies on the road is of modern date, but is said to be a good
specimen of Oriental architecture; it is of a pyramidical shape,
and is made up of thirty thousand skulls, contributed by the
rebellious Servians in the early part (I believe) of this century:
I am not at all sure of my date, but I fancy it was in the year
1806 that the first skull was laid.
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