other, we went as slowly as the resistless current would let us, fascinated by the cheerful busy life, and always finding each new scene more attractive than the last. Here the Servian women were beating their coarse garments, and hanging them untidily to dry on the framework of the carts. A few rods lower down, at a bivouac of Saxons, piles of beautiful white linen and the freshest of blue garments contrasted agreeably with the squalor of the neighboring camp. These peasants we found polite but reserved; the Servians were usually noisy and talkative, and the Magyars cheery, sympathetic, and communicative. Far down the glassy reach beyond Ó Szlankamen to the east a long range of flat hills now appeared, marking the course of the sluggish Theiss, and on the opposite bank we saw great rocks, scarcely distinguishable from the hard mud bluffs, but marking a distinct geological change in the landscape. Here on the scorched hill-sides frequent villages were baking in the hot sun, and copper-covered monstrosities of church-spires flashed and glistened in the brilliant light. A ruined castle towered high above the river where the hills crowd the stream out of its course, and then the river broadened into a lake-like expanse, and stretched away until the left bank, always flat and without a break, lost itself entirely in the distance, and sky and water seemed to meet as at the sea horizon. Far away to the south bold blue peaks, the sentinels of the northern range of mountainous Servia, showed where Belgrade stands; and, in pleasant perspective, high bluffs on the right bank, with here and there a church spire, were reflected with all the glories of the midsummer sky in the perfect mirror of the majestic stream. A wonderful sunset glow colored all the landscape as we encamped under a high bluff, in full sight of Semlin and the Servian capital beyond. We fancied we could see in the glowing distance slender minarets behind the great fortress which guards the frontier, and in the perfect quiet of the lingering twilight imagined we could hear the hum of the busy towns. The song of the shepherd on the opposite meadows echoed sweetly as we lay by the camp-fire that [Illustration: THRESHING WHEAT] beautiful evening and enjoyed for the first time in our wanderings an hour or two of delightful leisure in the open air. [Illustration: A CROATIAN BIVOUAC]