Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family | Page 7

elders sat, the youngers stood at a distance;--so respectful is youth
to age in all this eastern world. The first figure in the former group was
the father of our host; the acrid humours of extreme age had crimsoned
his eye-lids, and his head shook from side to side, as he attempted to
rise to salute me, but I held him to his seat. The wife of our host was a
model of fragile delicate beauty. Her nose, mouth, and chin, were
exquisitely chiselled, and her skin was smooth and white as alabaster;

but the eye-lid drooped; the eye hung fire, and under each orb the skin
was slightly blue, but so blending with the paleness of the rest of the
face, as rather to give distinctness to the character of beauty, than to
detract from the general effect. Her second child hung on her left arm,
and a certain graceful negligence in the plaits of her hair and the
arrangement of her bosom, showed that the cares of the young mother
had superseded the nicety of the coquette.
The only other person in the company worthy of remark, was a Frank.
His surtout was of cloth of second or third quality, but profusely
braided. His stock appeared to strangle him, and a diamond breast-pin
was stuck in a shirt of texture one degree removed from sail-cloth. His
blood, as I afterwards learned, was so crossed by Greek, Tsinsar, and
Wallachian varieties, that it would have puzzled the united genealogists
of Europe to tell his breed; and his language was a mangled subdivision
of that dialect which passes for French in the fashionable centres of the
Grecaille.
Exquisite. "Quangt etes vous venie, Monsieur?"
Author. "Il y a huit jours."
Exquisite (looking at a large ring on his fore finger). "Ce sont de bons
diables dans ce pays-ci; mais tout est un po barbare."
"Assez barbare," said I, as I saw that the exquisite's nails were in the
deepest possible mourning.
Exquisite. "Avez vous ete a Boukarest?"
Author. "Non--pas encore."
Exquisite. "Ah je wous assire que Boukarest est maintenant comme
Paris et Londres;"
Author. "Avez-vous vu Paris et Londres?"
Exquisite. "Non--mais Boukarest vaut cent fois Galatz et Braila."

During this colloquy, the gipsy music was playing; the first fiddle was
really not bad: and the nonchalant rogue-humour of his countenance
did not belie his alliance to that large family, which has produced "so
many blackguards, but never a single blockhead."
Dinner was now announced. F----'s wife, relieved of her child, acted as
first waitress. The fare consisted mostly of varieties of fowl, with a
pilaff of rice, in the Turkish manner, all decidedly good; but the wine
rather sweet and muddy. When I asked for a glass of water, it was
handed me in a little bowl of silver, which mine hostess had just dashed
into a jar of filtered lymph. Dinner concluded, the party rose, each
crossing himself, and reciting a short formula of prayer; meanwhile a
youthful relation of the house stood with the washing-basin and soap
turret poised on his left hand, while with the right he poured on my
hands water from a slender-spouted tin ewer. Behind him stood the
hostess holding a clean towel with a tiny web of silver thread running
across its extremities, and on my right stood the ex-diners with sleeves
tucked up, all in a row, waiting their turn at the wash-hand basin.
After smoking a chibouque, I took my leave; for I had promised to
spend the afternoon in the house of a Swiss, who, along with the agent
of the steam-boat company and a third individual, made up the sum
total of the resident Franko-Levantines in Roustchouk.
A gun fired in the evening warned me that the steamer had arrived; and,
anxious to push on for Servia, I embarked forthwith.
CHAPTER III.
River Steaming.--Arrival at Widdin--Jew.--Comfortless
Khan.--Wretched appearance of Widdin.--Hussein Pasha.--M.
Petronievitch.--Steam Balloon.
River steaming is, according to my notions, the best of all sorts of
locomotion. Steam at sea makes you sick, and the voyage is generally
over before you have gained your sea legs and your land appetite. In
mail or stage you have no sickness and see the country, but you are
squeezed sideways by helpless corpulence, and in front cooped into

uneasiness by two pairs of egotistical knees and toes. As for
locomotives, tunnels, cuts, and viaducts--this is not travelling to see the
country, but arrival without seeing it. This eighth wonder of the world,
so admirably adapted for business, is the despair of picturesque tourists,
as well as post-horse, chaise, and gig letters. Our cathedral towns,
instead of being distinguished from afar by their cloud-capt towers, are
only recognizable at their respective stations by the pyramids of
gooseberry tarts and ham sandwiches being at one place at the