The same want of energy has had the most baneful effect upon commerce, the very existence of which is merely nominal. Even at Belgrade the common necessaries of life are daily imported from the Austrian banks of the Danube. No one is more alive to the deplorable state of affairs than the reigning Prince, whose long residence in the capitals of Europe has familiarised him with their bustling scenes of thriving activity. Well will it be for Servia and himself, if he shall turn the experience which he has acquired to some practical account. Any doubts which he may previously have entertained regarding the misery of the country, and the moral degradation of his subjects, were removed effectually by all that he witnessed in a recent expedition into the interior--miserable hovels, uncultivated fields, magnificent forests wantonly destroyed, were the sights which met him at every turn. At length some restrictions have been placed on the wilful abuse of the greatest source of wealth which the country possesses. Nor are they premature, for the reckless destruction of the forests, combined with a failure of the acorns during the past year, produced serious distress. Already has the export trade of pigs diminished by one-third of the average of former years. This is immediately owing to the necessity of feeding them on Indian corn, a process which proves too expensive for their poverty-stricken owners, and which in this respect places the pig and its proprietor upon an equality. The latter live almost entirely upon maize and sliegovich, a kind of rakee made out of plums, and extremely fiery. The mode of treatment of their women, an infallible sign of civilisation or the reverse, was brought prominently to the Prince's notice by the following circumstance:--Having, in company with the Princess, visited the cottage of a thriving pig-owner, he observed the presence of three daughters of the house. These young ladies showed unmistakeable signs of approaching old-maidism, and the parental philosophy settled the question of their future pretty conclusively. 'Why,' said he, in reply to a question put by the Prince touching the solitary condition of the damsels, 'should I allow them to marry, when each of them is worth more than three fat pigs to me.' Manners must have changed very much for the worse since the days of Ami Boué, or it is difficult to conceive upon what he founds his assertion that labour is not imposed upon Servian women. Indeed it would be surprising were it not so, when they are subjected by the laws of the land to the indignity of the bastinado, from which even men, save soldiers, are exempted in Mahometan Turkey.