Servia and the Servians

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER THE THIRD. BELGRADE?BEAUTY OF SITUATION?CITADEL?DRUSE PRISONERS? TURKISH PASHAS ? GATES ? CITY?WHARF ? TURKISH SHOPS? MARKET?THE SAVE?SUBURBS. FEW capital cities in Europe have a finer or, commercially speaking, a better situation than Belgrade. Its position on a kind of promontory at the junction...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER THE THIRD. BELGRADE?BEAUTY OF SITUATION?CITADEL?DRUSE PRISONERS? TURKISH PASHAS ? GATES ? CITY?WHARF ? TURKISH SHOPS? MARKET?THE SAVE?SUBURBS. FEW capital cities in Europe have a finer or, commercially speaking, a better situation than Belgrade. Its position on a kind of promontory at the junction of the Save and the Danube, gives it the command of the trade of both these important rivers; whilst the rising ground on which the city is built, which looks all the higher from the contrast which it presents to the long low banks which characterise the left or Hungarian side of both these rivers, adds greatly to its picturesque effect. The whole of the houses in the city, as they rise tier above tier, are seen at one view as the ground slopes upward from the Save on the west, or from the Danube on the east. The walls of these houses are almost invariably white, and the effect of this is heightened, and the houses are made to look all the whiter, from their standing out from amongst the green foliage of lilac, fig, walnut, chestnut, and other trees, which, as in all Oriental towns, surround many of the houses. These mingled rows of treesand houses give the city an aspect of great beauty. The view which the eye rests upon on all sides, is, indeed, very pleasing and striking. The fortress with its large mosque, and the palace of the Pasha adjoining, comes first into sight; and then a little beyond the glacis, the tower of the cathedral, surmounted by its spire of chocolate colour and gold, situated on the highest ridge of the city, and looking down upon mosques and minarets, upon low, red-tiled, and quaint Turkish shops, and more ambitious German houses. From whatever quarter the traveller approaches Belgrade, the beauty of its situation is very impressive. Whether he is com...