Servia includes within its limits but a small proportion of all the Servians of Eastern Europe, but its inhabitants are probably not far wrong when they look upon themselves as the purest representatives of their race. They are, as a rule, tall, vigorous, with broad shoulders and an erect head. Their features are marked, the nose straight and often aquiline, and the cheek-bones a trifle prominent; the hair is abundant and rarely black, the eyes are piercing and cold, and a well-cultivated moustache imparts a military air to the men. The women, without being good-looking, have a noble presence, and their semi-oriental costume is distinguished by an admirable harmony of colours. Even in the towns, where French fashions carry the day, Servian ladies occasionally wear the national dress, consisting of a red vest, a belt and chemisette embroidered with pearls, strings of sequins, and a little fez stuck jauntily upon the head. Unfortunately the custom of the country requires that a Servian woman should have an abundance of black hair and a dazzling white complexion. Paint, dyes, and false tresses are universal in town and country. Even in the most remote villages the peasant women dye their hair and paint their cheeks, lips, {176} and eyebrows, frequently making use of poisonous substances injurious to health. Rich country-people are, moreover, in the habit of making an exhibition of their wealth by means of their clothes, which they overload with gold and silver ornaments and gewgaws of every kind. In some districts brides and young women wear a most extraordinary head-dress, consisting of an enormous crescent of cardboard, to which are attached nosegays, leaves, peacock feathers, and artificial roses with silver petals. This heavy head-dress may symbolize the “burdens of matrimony;” it certainly exposes the wearer to great inconvenience. The Servians are honourably distinguished amongst the people of the East by the nobility of their character, their dignified bearing, and, in spite of recent events, incontestable bravery. For centuries they resisted oppression, and, notwithstanding their isolation and poverty, they conquered their independence in the beginning of this century. They are said to be idle and suspicious—qualities which their former servitude accounts for—but at the same time honest and truthful. It is difficult to cheat them, but they themselves never cheat. Equals when under the dominion of the Turks, they are equals still. “There are no nobles amongst us,” they say, “for we are all nobles.” In their clear and sonorous language, so well suited to oratory, they fraternally address each other in the second person singular. Even prisoners are looked upon as brothers, and it is customary to permit a condemned criminal to visit his family on his giving his word of honour to return to prison.