d and silver thread.
When I thought of the trackless solitude of the sylvan ridges around me,
I seemed to witness one of the early communions of Christianity, in
those ages when incense ascended to the Olympic deities in gorgeous
temples, while praise to the true God rose from the haunts of the wolf,
the lonely cavern, or the subterranean vault."

After witnessing this interesting reunion of a regenerated and Christian
nation, Mr Paton took leave of the Superior, who parted from him with
the words--"God be praised that Servia has at length seen the day when
strangers come from afar to see and know the people!" and, passing
through the double ranks of the peasantry, who took leave of him with
the valediction of _Srentnj poot!_ (a good journey,) repeated by a
thousand voices, he rode on through the never-ceasing oak-forests,
broken here and there by plantations of every variety of tree, to
Krupena. Here he was received by the captain of the district at the
head of a small troop of irregular cavalry, and hospitably entertained
for the night. On the following day he started, "toiling upwards through
woods and wilds of a more rocky character than on the previous day," to
the ridge of the Gutchevo range, whence he looked down on Sokol, a
fortress still held by the Turks, and which, on its inaccessible
position, "built" (as described by M. Ninitch) "on the capital of a
column of rock," was the only one never taken by the Servians; while the
background was formed by the mountains of Bosnia, rising range over
range in the distance. They reached the valley by a narrow winding path
on the face of a precipitous descent, and entered the town; but their
visit was ill-timed. It was Ramadan; the Disdar Aga was, or was said to
be, asleep, and the castle could not be seen in his absence; and Mr
Paton's enquiries from the Mutsellim, who acted as their cicerone, as to
the height of the rock on which the citadel was built above the valley,
only made him suspected of being an engineer surveying the stronghold
with a view to its capture. After climbing up a pinnacle of rock which
overlooked the abyss, he was compelled to return _re infecta_; "and when
we got a little way along the valley, I looked back; Sokol looked like a
little castle of Edinburgh placed in the clouds; and a precipice on the
other side of the valley presented a perpendicular stature of not less
than five hundred feet."

A few hours travelling from Sokol brought Mr Paton to