Excepting the gypsy-like faces of these Sluin folk, the features of the Karlovac Croats agreed with those of the Agramers, to such an extent as emboldens me to delineate certain main characteristics. The nose is finely cut, but flattens out towards the forehead, between which and it runs a deep furrow, which I recollect noticing among many Roumans. The face is hairless save for a moustache on the upper lip, sometimes twirled into ferocity; and scanty whiskers under the cheek-bone, as in Serbia, Bosnia, and Dalmatia. The hair is often light, in the children sometimes quite auburn; the eyes are of varying shades of grey and blue, lurking, as so frequently among the Illyrian Sclaves, in a pan-like socket. Hence shadow surrounds the eyes below as above, which gives a peculiar character to South Sclavonic beauty from the Bocche di Cattaro to the Lower Danube. So deep at times is the surrounding shade that a poet of the race might compare his mistress’s eyes to turquoises chaliced in a setting of ebony! But the deepset roving eyes of the Croat, on which he prides himself so highly, are often at first sight repellent, suggesting suspicion and cruelty, though redeeming lines of good-humour eddy round. Taken as a whole, the face is wanting in the power and massiveness of the Teutonic. Contrasted with the Serbs, the Croats are neither so tall nor so finely proportioned; their countenance is less open, beauty rarer. The Croats bitterly lamented to us over the idleness of their peasants; their neighbours, Italian and Slavonian,[158] were much better workers. They are incorrigible drunkards; indeed we saw enough intoxication at Karlovac Fair, and all the wine shops of the town were filled to overflowing; wine, not _slivovitz_ or plum-brandy, being here the drink. But with all their faults the Croats are kind and good-humoured, and certainly neither at Agram nor at Karlovac had we any reason to complain of a want of friendliness. The hospitality of a Karlovatzer was quite overpowering. We were passing his house during a slight shower, when he literally dragged us in and forced on us his native wine—on which for politeness’ sake, I will express no opinion—diluted with flat Seltzer-water from Croatian springs, till we begged for mercy. The Croats make flat Seltzer-water effervesce with a small wooden instrument rejoicing in the name of ‘_Didlideilshek_.’