A BENDT IN THE FOREST OF BELGRADE.       97

The village is only inhabited by the richest amongst the Christians, who meet every night at a fountain, forty paces from my house, to sing and dance. The beauty and dress of the women exactly resemble the ideas of the ancient nymphs, as they are given us by the representations of the poets and painters."(*)

When the fair and gifted Ambassadress sketched this beautiful picture of the spot, she must have been, as she herself expresses it, "in the middle of a wood;" for, until the summer of 1823, the Valley of Belgrade was rich in chestnut, beech, oak, walnut, lime-trees, plantains, and every description of forest timber; but, unfortunately for the lover of "the gay green wood," the recesses of Belgrade became at that period the retreat of parties of the scattered Janissaries, who had escaped during the massacre; and, who, carrying along with them all the surviving rabble of the city who had espoused their cause, and sided with them during the carnage, divided themselves between the forest of Belgrade and the heights of Moudania; the more active passing over into Asia Minor, and infesting the mountains of Broussa; and the less far-seeing, concealing themselves in the dense woods bordering the Black Sea. Here the wretched men subsisted for a time on fruits and herbs; but, despairing of brighter fortune, they soon became desperate, and sallying forth upon every chance traveller, in parties of eight or ten, as they had associated themselves, they constantly robbed, and occasionally murdered, until the roads were considered to be impassable. Various, and even strenuous efforts were made by the government to capture or disperse them, but as they amounted to some hundreds, they set at defiance both the soldiery and the police; and although an occasional straggler was captured by the troops, summarily strangled, and his body flung by the wayside for the purpose of terrifying his comrades into submission, no effect was produced; until the Sultan, irritated and wearied by their prolonged enormities, decided on setting fire to the forest, and thus destroying their stronghold. This expedient was accordingly adopted; the woods were ignited in several directions, and a military cordon established on the heights, with strict orders to fire upon every individual who attempted to escape. Could the mind have been freed from the consciousness that the fierce flames were serving as the ministers of a painful and relentless death, the scene would have been surpassingly magnificent!

The primeval forest which had stood tall and dark upon the earth in solemn grandeur for centuries, challenging the antiquity of the hoary heights beyond, and excluding from its mysterious depths the brightness of the stars;

(*) Lady Montagu's Letters, Vol. I. page 162, Sharpe's edition.