They Were Men In The Humblest Order Of Life,
Having Come To Meet Our Boat In The Hope Of Earning
Something by
carrying our luggage up to the city; but poor though they were, it
was plain that they were
Turks of the proud old school, and had not
yet forgotten the fierce, careless bearing of their once victorious
race.
Though the province of Servia generally has obtained a kind of
independence, yet Belgrade, as being a place of strength on the
frontier, is still garrisoned by Turkish troops under the command
of a Pasha. Whether the fellows who now surrounded us were
soldiers, or peaceful inhabitants, I did not understand: they wore
the old Turkish costume; vests and jackets of many and brilliant
colours, divided from the loose petticoat-trousers by heavy volumes
of shawl, so thickly folded around their waists as to give the
meagre wearers something of the dignity of true corpulence. This
cincture enclosed a whole bundle of weapons; no man bore less than
one brace of immensely long pistols, and a yataghan (or cutlass),
with a dagger or two of various shapes and sizes; most of these
arms were inlaid with silver, and highly burnished, so that they
contrasted shiningly with the decayed grandeur of the garments to
which they were attached (this carefulness of his arms is a point
of honour with the Osmanlee, who never allows his bright yataghan
to suffer from his own adversity); then the long drooping
mustachios, and the ample folds of the once white turbans, that
lowered over the piercing eyes, and the haggard features of the
men, gave them an air of gloomy pride, and that appearance of
trying to be disdainful under difficulties, which I have since seen
so often in those of the Ottoman people who live, and remember old
times; they seemed as if they were thinking that they would have
been more usefully, more honourably, and more piously employed in
cutting our throats than in carrying our portmanteaus.
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