Ostrog is one of the three sanctuaries of Montenegro, the others being Moratcha, on the old Servian frontier, and Piperski Celia, above the fortress of Spuz, where the valley of the Zeta then entered into the Turkish dominions. The convent is on a site of singular beauty and salubrity, on a fertile plateau several hundred feet above the valley of the Zeta, at the foot of a precipice, in the face of which is a cave enlarged into a chapel, where lies the body of St. Basil, a Herzegovinian bishop of the early days of the Turkish conquest, who did his Christian duty by the scattered Orthodox Christians in Herzegovina and Montenegro, visiting stealthily and at the constant risk of his life the little groups of the faithful over a territory vast for the supervision of one man. He died in this refuge, and was buried at the foot of the cliff; but on an attempt being made to remove the body some years later, it was found to be uncorrupted, upon which he was canonized, and the body was placed in a fine coffin and removed to the little chapel, which has a single window also rock-cut and is only to be approached by a narrow stairway of the same structure. Outside, at the foot of the cliff, is the convent, in which reside two or three priests and as many _kalogheri_, constituting the community, for the convents of the Orthodox church are not communities of idle devotees, but of men who are mostly engaged in the culture of the land belonging to the convent, when not engaged in the performance of the rites of the church. The hegumenos I found to be more a man of war than one of ritual, and really the commander of an outpost of observation on the frontier towards Niksich. He delighted more in arms than in the mass, and I made a firm friend of him by the gift of a small Colt's revolver. I was permitted to see the body of St. Basil in the chapel, which was filled with a fragrance like that of cedar wood, which I naïvely attributed to the wood of the coffin, when the attendant protested with indignation that what I smelled was the odor of sanctity. I was incompetent to distinguish it. St. Basil is held in great reverence for his miracles, and immense numbers of pilgrims come to his annual festa with their sick from all the country round, even Mussulman families from Albania paying their devotions in the hope and faith of cures, and it is said that many miracles take place every year.