Servia and the Servians 1862 William Denton

96 SEBYIA. .4ND THE SERYU.NS.
some way or ·another, the day is devoted to thememory
of the dead, and these are supposed to be
honoured by the dances which take place on the
green, which is really a part of the cemetery for
that' purpose kept free from graves. A religious dance
may sound strange to us, in much the same way-
• as a Servian would be unable to connect the idea of
a bustling bazaar with the Christian duty of almsgiving.
We have come to associate the idea of
dancing with a crowded ball-room, or to regard it as
the relaxation after a day of toil on the village green ;
l,ut with the ancients the dance was an act of religious
worship; and theatrical entertainments were observances
rendered to the gods of heathenism. In these dances
upon the cemetery-green and in the midst of the graves,
we have perhaps a relic of the olden times-a solemn
commemoration of the departed in the very place where
their ashes mingle with common earth.
The cemetery of St. Mark, which is the general
burial-place for all the Christian population of Belgrade,
to whatever rite they belong, lies on the outskirts
of the city, and rests in part upon a gigantic
stone quarry, which supplies large quantities of the
building materials used in the construction of the
houses of the city. Most of the cemeteries in Servia,
and amo~t the Servian population of Slavonia, which
I have seen, are either on the top of hills or on their
slopes. The unhealthy low ground of· Semlin, where
the living die, and the healthy high ground which has
been chosen for the burial of the dead, has ~n ~
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