When Siegfried Kaper, the Czech author and travel writer, passed through Belgrade from nearby Zemun – at that time in another country – in 1850, it took him two hours of travel by boat to reach Belgrade. His luggage was carried by a black man – a released slave – he came upon mad dogs in the streets, and he rented the best room in Belgrade from an unamiable landlady, a room which, apart from parquet and a double door, merely had a rickety bed.