It was five o’clock when we arrived at a great wall of mud bricks, infinitely higher and better built than those surrounding the average Macedonian dwelling, but dilapidated and showing long want of care. The walls enclosed a vast irregular area, and entirely obscured the view within. We drove round wondering and asking questions of our Turk, which he ignored with a smile. Finally, we approached a high gate designed after the fashion of that leading to the Sublime Porte. Our driver stood up on the box and began a hallooing, which burst like trumpet blasts on the still surroundings. It was some time before a far-off answer came over the walls. The call and the reply were continued, the latter drawing gradually nearer, and after some minutes a man spoke through a keyhole not less than five inches high. Our Turk descended from the carriage-box, was recognised by him within, and told to wait until the key was fetched. We then peered through the keyhole, and after a brief interval spied the inmate returning from the house toiling under the weight of an iron key of robust diameter and a foot and a half long. The huge oak gate was swung back, and we entered, greeted with a dignified salaam and a shake of the hand. There are no social classes among the Turks across which the hand-shake is debarred. Deference is shown superiors only in the salaam, a pasha receiving a lower bow with an extra twist of the hand than that given a bey, and a bey a lower dip of hand and head than a bimbashee, a bimbashee than an ordinary mortal effendi. The Turk who welcomed us was the keeper, and, with his wife, the only occupant of this vast estate, the empty home of an exiled bey. The house was shown to us by both the keeper and his wife, who, though, of course, a Mohamedan woman, wore no veil. The house was handsome for this part of the country, but depleted even of furniture. The only pictures on the walls were common paintings on the plaster now cracked and falling. The harem, where marble divans for five wives were built in nooks, was filled with newly harvested grain. A bold rooster, the only lord of the manor, cackled to half a dozen happy hens and scattered the corn. We helped the keeper eject the usurper and his feminine following. A bridge, resembling the Bridge of Sighs, led out of the harem into the dwelling of the exiled lord, bare like the other house. We climbed the creaky, dust-covered stairs to a turret at the point of the roof, which overlooked the surrounding walls and afforded a view of the encircling mountains. A brilliant southern sun was setting in an Oriental sky, and a train of three buffalo teams, silhouetted in the glow, crept along the sky-line. [Illustration: ALBANIAN WOMEN.]