Servia and the Servians 1862 William Denton

118 SBRYIA. LND PHB SBRrIAN8.
girdle, ornamented with thongs dyed of various colours,
was bound round their waist ; a pair of leggings and
shoes, made of thin strips of leather, curiously fastened
together, protected their feet ; and a small
round felt hat, in which was jauntily stuck a peacock's
feather, covered their heads, and completed their simple
costume.
For upwards of an hour we were employed in climbing
the side of the hill which overhangs Milanowatz.
Although not much more than two thousand feet
above the level of the river which we we;re leaving, yet
the winding nature of the road and the steepness of
the ascent, even with all the advantage of the zigzags
by which we reached the top, took our ponies more
than an hour to place us on the summit. For a short
distance the way was a tolerably smooth one, but for
the most part our road could only be compared to the
piece of rough ground which is sometimes seen at the
entrance to a ploughed field, where the clay soil is cut up
by innumerable wheels of all dimensions, and the mts
have been afterwards baked hard by the sun. As the
waggons jolted over these roads in posse, which, however,
were certainly in no sense of the word, roads
in esse, it was with difficulty that we could keep our
seats by clinging to the side of the waggons. When,
however, we had reached the summit, we soon forgot
all this discomfort in the beauty of the scenery.
At our feet gleamed in the morning sun the Danube,
flowing in countless eddies as the river rushed over the
various ledges of rock which stretch across the bed of the
Digitized by Gobgle