Author. "Are you a Chingany (gipsy)?"
Gipsy. "Yes."
Author. "Now I recollect most of the gipsies here are Moslems; how do you show your adherence to Islamism?"
Gipsy. "I go regularly to mosque, and say my prayers."
Author. "What language do you speak?"
Gipsy. "In business Turkish or Servian; but with my family Chingany."
I now asked the Cahwagi the cause of the guards being posted in the streets; and he told me of the attempt at Shabatz, by disguised hussars, in which the worthy collector met his death. Paul not returning, I felt impatient, and wondered what had become of him. At length he returned, and told me that he had been taken in the streets as a suspicious character, without a lantern, carried to the guard-house, and then to the house of the Natchalnik, to whom he presented the letter, and from whom he now returned, with a pandour, and a message to come immediately.
The Natchalnik met us half-way with the lanterns, and reproached me for not at once descending at his house. Being now fatigued, I soon went to bed in an apartment hung round with all sorts of arms. There were Albanian guns, Bosniac pistols, Vienna fowling-pieces, and all manner of Damascus and Khorassan blades.
Next morning, on awaking, I looked out at my window, and found myself in a species of kiosk, which hung over the Morava, now no longer a mountain stream, but a broad and almost navigable river. The lands on the opposite side were flat, but well cultivated, and two bridges, an old and a new one, spanned the river. Hence the name Tiupria, from the Turkish keupri (bridge,) for here the high road from Belgrade to Constantinople crosses the Morava.
The Natchalnik, a tall, muscular, broad-shouldered man, now entered, and, saluting me like an old friend, asked me how I slept.