in some places in the fir forests almost reddened the ground, and, having pushed the offerings in at the door, ran like wild creatures, as if to escape being noticed. Huge haystacks dotted the plain, and the population seemed prosperous. We pushed on to the frontier post at Dobrilovina through glades of fir-trees with pasture intervening, as the soil was rocky or fertile, and reached the margin of the Tara late in the afternoon, a good day's ride from Aluga. The Tara has cut itself a cañon like those of the Yellowstone, and on a little space of alluvial land at the bottom lies the convent, a building of the Servian Empire, curiously spared by the Turkish invasions. We descended 2500 feet, measured by my aneroid, to the flat, where the monks made us most welcome. We walked along the river, a rapid and shallow stream filled with trout, which refused to take any lure I could show them,--and the monks said that they ate only the crayfish which abounded in the river. We went to sleep, to be awakened at midnight by the scouts who came in to tell us that the Turks were out from Kolashin, and that some thousands of Albanians of the Rascian country were raiding in advance, and had already thrown their left far beyond us. Had they known we were there, we might have been taken in a trap from which only fleet fugitives would have escaped. With the dawn we were in our saddles again, and, by the urgent advice of Peiovich, I took the back track, while the battalion threw itself across the country to skirmish, and retard the advance of the Turks while reinforcements could be brought up. "Ride hard," said the voivode, "and keep ahead of the Albanians, for when it comes to fighting we shall probably have to disperse and every man provide for himself, and you do not know the country. Tell the Prince to hurry up reinforcements." I lunched in the schoolhouse of Aluga, and pushed on for Bukowitza and Shawnik, where the invasion would be stopped with certainty. Half way to Bukowitza there burst on us a terrific thunderstorm, with torrents of rain. One bolt struck so near us that the concussion knocked my _perianik_ down, and my horse jumped up on all fours as I never saw a horse do before, but neither was touched by the lightning, and we arrived at the first house of Bukowitza drenched and tired, having knocked the two days' march into one.