SERVIA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 250, 12 October 1876, Page 4

SERVIA

{Leisure Hour) Servia is about one-fifth smaller than Scotland, and sparsely occupied by 1,352,000 inhabitants. Like Scotland, it is a land of mountains. On th« south-west the mountains consist of offshoots of the Dinaric Alps, and elsewhere the branches of the Bilkin chain. One of these, gathered info a knotty group in the centre of the country, forms the Rudrik mountains. Another running northward*, meets a range of the Carpathians, and with it forma the " iron gates" of the Danube. Nothing can exceed the wildness and stern sublimity of this celebrated portal, through which the great river flows. Generally speaking, Servia is traversed from south to north by extensive mountain ridges. These form valleys which nowhere extend into plains. In its physical features the country is not unlike Bosnia and the Herzegovina, but with its green and well wooded hills it is in striking contrast to the bare and sterile region of Montenegro. As Montenegro was the uncoDquered remnant of the old Servian empire, and therefore the little principality of the Black Mountain, may in that Bense be held as its truest representative. Modern Servia, however, on account alike of name, resource?, and geographical position, claims continuity of national life with the Servia of the 14th oentury. The motto of its Princes of the present houße of Obrenovitch is "Time and my right." Their armß represent a white cross on a red field, and on the cross is inscribed the dates 1539 — 1815; between them lies a drawn sword. The first data commemorates the fatal fight of Kossova, when the Servians, overthrown by the Ottoman arms, became a subject people; the second marks the year wheu Milosch Obrenovitch went from his dwelling among the mountains of the interior to the church of Takovo to rise anew the standard of revolt. The drawn swords between the dates may be taken to indicate that the attitude of the subject Serbs on the Danube duriog four long centuries of Turkish rule was not one servile submission, but of a nourished antagonism. What givee importance to the revolt of 1815 is°that it resulted in the permanent acknowledgment of Servia by the Porte hs a aeH'-governing though still tributary power, under native rulers. Rervia restored to the Serbs brought back with it the hope, at some future time, of entire independence, and of an exten Bion of territory co-extensive wiih the old Servian Kingdom. Nor do the free and warlike inhabitants of the B.'ack Mountain entertain any jealousy of ihe national aspiration of their brethren on the Danube. The two Serb powers are in ciose alliance, and between the families of the respective Princes there exists a cordial friendship.