e powerful
and Lasar the good, than another began a lay of Kara Georg, the
"William Tell" of these mountains. Sometimes when we came to a good
echo the pistols were fired off; at one place the noise had aroused a
peasant, who came running across the grass to the road crying out, "O
good men, the night is advancing: go no further, but tarry with me:
the stranger will have a plain supper and a hard couch, but a hearty
welcome." We thanked him for his proffer, but held on.

At about ten o'clock we entered a thick dark wood, and after an ascent
of a quarter of an hour emerged upon a fine open lawn in front of a
large house with lights gleaming in the windows. The ripple of the
Drina was no longer audible, but we saw it at some distance below us,
like a cuirass of polished steel. As we entered the inclosure we found
the house in a bustle. The captain, a tall strong corpulent man of
about forty years of age, came forward and welcomed me.

"I almost despaired of your coming to-night," said he; "for on this
ticklish frontier it is always safer to terminate one's journey by
sunset. The rogues pass so easily from one side of the water to the
other, that it is difficult to clear the country of them."

He then led me into the house, and going through a passage, entered a
square room of larger dimensions than is usual in the rural parts of
Servia. A good Turkey carpet covered the upper part of the room, which
was fenced round by cushions placed against the wall, but not raised
above the level of the floor. The wall of the lower end of the room
had a row of strong wooden pegs, on which were hung the hereditary and
holyday clothes of the family, for males and females. Furs, velvets,
gold embroidery, and silver mounted Bosniac pistols, guns, and
carbines elaborately ornamented.

The captain, who appeared to be a plain, simple, and somewhat jolly
sort of man, now presented me to his wife, who came from the Austrian
aide of the Save, and spoke German. She seemed, and indeed was, a trim
methodical housewife, as the order of her domestic arrangements
clearly showed. Another female, whom I afterwards learned to be the
wife of an individual of the neighbourhood who was absent, attracted
my attention. Her age was about four and twenty, when the lines of
thinking begin to mingle with those of early youth. In fact, from her
tint I saw that she would soon be _passata_: her features too were by
no means classical or regular, and yet she had u