I was returning by carriage one warm, humid afternoon, from the cool environs of Topchidere Park, when I noticed a regiment of Servian soldiery drilling on the parade ground near one of the barracks. Suddenly the order to stack arms was given. Two of the privates rushed with all possible speed to the barracks and returned with a couple of violins. As they commenced the typical Slavonic music of the “Kola” the nine hundred and more officers and men linked arms and, forming one long line of white coats and caps, blue breeches and black boots, went through the mystic mazes of the national Servian dance with much precision, no little amount of gusto and a great deal of effervescent enthusiasm. As I witnessed this “Kola” it was nothing if not an inspiring sight. CHAPTER IV THE SERVIAN DYNASTIES Karageorge—Milosh Obrenovitch—Murder of Karageorge—Turkey Grants the Title of Prince—Milosh Abdicates—Abdication of Prince Michael—Alexander Abdicates—Prince Milosh Re-installed, His Death and the Re-election of Prince Michael—Murder of Michael—Prince Milan’s Marriage, Abdication and Death—Alexander Elected. The very early history of Servia and her peoples has been daubed so freely with myth and fable that it would be confusing and tedious to enter into it. Instead, I shall confine myself to the brief narration of the two later dynasties, explanatory of the world-renowned friction between them. Of all the capitals of the world none deserves more unquestionably the sobriquet of “The Capital of Crime,” as I have named a later chapter, than that of Servia. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century four reigning monarchs have been ruthlessly murdered in or near Belgrade, and four others have been forced to abdicate. What would have been the fate of these latter had they not foreseen it can readily be imagined. King-killing is chronic with the Servians and there are to-day twenty-nine men incarcerated in the prison at Belgrade, charged with plotting against the life of the present ruler, King Peter Karageorgevitch. The history of these national tragedies, the latest of which, in 1903, shocked the civilized world, begins with the histories of the two royal families of Servia, and takes us back a hundred years, to a time when the country was suffering the most from the perennial invasions of the bloodthirsty Mohammedans.