The invasion of the Bosnian frontier by bands of Servian ruffians was a measure well calculated to arouse the fury of the Mussulmans; and if such has not been the case, it may be attributed to the rapid dispersion of the miscreants.  Little credit, indeed, accrued to Servia in these hostile demonstrations, for while the bands were composed of the lowest characters, and could only be brought together by payment, they quickly retreated across the frontier at the first show of resistance.  It is significant that these bands were in nearly all cases led by Montenegrins, a fact which indicates the decline of that spirit of military adventure to which the Haiduks of old (robbers) could at least lay some claim.  Discreditable as these proceedings were, worse ensued.

On the 5th of August a murderous attack was made upon a party of Mussulmans in the close vicinity of Belgrade, upon which occasion eight were killed and seventeen wounded.  No fire-arms were used, probably to avoid alarming the garrison.  The absence on that night from the capital of both Prince Milosch and his son, furnishes just grounds for suspecting them of complicity in the affair, while the presence of Sleftcha (notoriously a creature of Russia), and Tenko, among the murderers, clearly shows where and with what views the crime was devised.  On the same night, five Mussulmans who were sleeping in a vineyard at Kladova, on the Bulgarian frontier, were murdered by Servians, while an attack was made upon a third party.  The prospects of a country whose princes connive at, and whose ministers commit murder, cannot be very brilliant.  Whether other atrocities might have met with the sanction of Milosch it is impossible to say, for death cut him off in the latter part of September, 1860, full of years and crimes.  Not the least of these was the death of Kara George, who was treacherously murdered at his instigation.  But let us pass from so unattractive a retrospect to a consideration of the character and policy of the living prince who now holds the reins of government.

CHAPTER III.

The appointment of Prince Michael to the vacant throne of Servia was the first step towards the substitution of hereditary for elective succession.  One of the first measures of the new prince was to induce the Skuptschina, or National Assembly, to legalise for the future that which had been an infraction of the law.  The sixteen years which intervened between 1842, when Michael was ejected, and 1858, when Prince Milosch was reinstated, were passed by the former in the various capitals of Europe.  The high Vienna notions which he imbibed during that period have deprived him of the sympathy and affection of his semi-civilised subjects, as much as the uncultivated mind of his father deprived him of their respect.  Nor does the lack of sympathy appear to be one-sided.  And, in truth, that mind must be possessed of no ordinary amount of philanthropy which can apply itself to the improvement of a people at once so ignorant and vain, and who evince withal so little desire for enlightenment.