transgressed, that both the passers-by, and even waggons, should move out of their way while my lords are taking their repose; and it goes ill with him who should kick, or even, without hostile intent, stumble upon the prostrate sanitary officer, since he and his fellows—a score of whom (you may be sure) are ready at hand—are quick in taking the law into their own hands. Nor can their insulter expect either aid or pity from the bystanders; for the citizens, rightly considering their profession as necessary to the public health, invest their person with a certain sanctity; and, doubtless, were these brutish scavengers expelled by one gate, pestilence would stalk in by the other. Then there is another class of functionaries with whom the streets of Serajevo, and one in particular, are literally swarming, and who are even more brutal than this precious Sanitary Board. These are the Zaptiehs—call them, if you please, gendarmes, police, enlisting sergeants, soldiers, tax-collectors, executioners—for they are Jacks-of-all-trades. They are the factotums of the Mahometan government—a terrible engine in the hands of tyranny—ready to execute its worst behests. We have seen them as the instruments of the tax-farmer or the bishop, wringing the little hoards of penury from the miserable rayah—or playing the part of apparitors in those Inquisition scenes of torture. These are the hired bravoes who live at free-quarters in the Christian villages; rob, violate—and in many cases murder—whom they will. There are of course exceptions; and their worst offences are nothing to the infamy of the Government which lets loose ignorant fanatics among a population whom their creed teaches them to count as dogs, and which leaves them, without pay sufficient for their bare subsistence, to plunder those whom they nominally protect. When in the presence of Europeans they usually possess tact sufficient to keep on their good behaviour; but from the atrocious scenes of which I myself was a witness at the Christian pilgrimage, their conduct, when freed from any restraint of foreign surveillance, may be faintly imagined. Those who have had most acquaintance with the country described them to us as ‘covering the land like a blight.’ Though there are enough of them in Serajevo in all conscience, we were assured that the number at present here is smaller than usual, since many have been sent out to collect the Redìf or reserve, and many have been hastily draughted into the soldiery. To-day a gang of these commissioned bandits has been scouring the country with orders to seize thirty horses, but they have only been able to lay hands on a couple. The Government exercises the right of seizing horses at need. Nominally it is only a loan, but the peasants rarely see their beasts back, and dare not hope for recompense of any kind; besides which the owner is often impressed himself as kiradjì or driver, without receiving a penny for this _corvée_. This forced labour and seizure of