Eothen, or, Traces of Travel Brought Home from the East

Eothen, by A. W. Kinglake
The Project Gutenberg eBook, Eothen, by A. W. Kinglake
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Eothen
Author: A. W. Kinglake
Release Date: August 7, 2008 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8
[eBook #282]
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EOTHEN***
Transcribed from the 1898 George Newnes edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
EOTHEN—A. W. KINGSLAKE
CHAPTER I—OVER THE BORDER
At Semlin I still was encompassed by the scenes and the sounds of familiar life; the din of a busy world still vexed and cheered me; the unveiled faces of women still shone in the light of day. Yet, whenever I chose to look southward, I saw the Ottoman’s fortress—austere, and darkly impending high over the vale of the Danube—historic Belgrade. I had come, as it were, to the end of this wheel-going Europe, and now my eyes would see the splendour and havoc of the East.
The two frontier towns are less than a cannon-shot distant, and yet their people hold no communion. The Hungarian on the north, and the Turk and Servian on the southern side of the Save are as much asunder as though there were fifty broad provinces that lay in the path between them. Of the men that bustled around me in the streets of Semlin there was not, perhaps, one ...