His Highness has usually been accompanied on these visits by one or other of the ministers, but on this occasion, owing partly, no doubt, to his hurriedly-formed plans, he had with him only one of the aides-de-camp who had been of the shooting-party. The Prince’s carriage was preceded by half-a-dozen mounted guards, and followed by a like number, as an escort. This is a precaution which Prince Ferdinand’s advisers have prevailed with him, much against his will, to adopt of late, in view of the renewed activity of Russian agents and sedition-mongers throughout the Principality and the neighbouring States, where, indeed, a great anti-Bulgarian and anti-Turkish propaganda has been actively carried on for the past year; and in view also of the growing apprehension of his advisers that the recent success in this city of assassins in Russian pay, coupled with the immunity from punishment which the Czar’s representatives have shown their ability and readiness to secure for them, would prompt the conspirators, soon or late, to fly at higher game than either M. Stambuloff or the late Dr. Vulkovitch. That his Highness’s advisers were in the right has been proved by the attempt of yesterday. The event, however, may be said to offer encouragement at once to would-be regicides and to their intended victims, inasmuch as it has been shown yet once again to the former, how useless as a protection against assassins is the presence of an armed escort, and to the latter, how apt is a well-matured plot to be frustrated by a commonplace accident. The Prince’s carriage was expected to reach Samakoff about noon, and shortly before that hour a considerable number of persons had collected in the main street, while small crowds had gathered round the gates of the Prefecture and about the door of the American Mission-house, which is situated in a side street leading off the high road, and where the usual modest preparations had been made for the princely visit. His Highness, on arrival, after halting for a moment or two at the gate of the Prefecture where he did not alight, drove on through the town towards the Mission-house. At the moment when the carriage turned the corner into the narrower street, a man wearing the long black gown and brimless stovepipe hat of a priest of the orthodox church stood forward from the crowd, in which were several other persons dressed as he was, and, raising a revolver, took deliberate aim at his Highness. And then occurred the accident to which, in all probability, Prince Ferdinand owes his life. The cartridge did not explode. The sham priest lowered his weapon slightly, raised it once more, and again pulled the trigger; but as he did so the pistol barrel was struck up—the ball burying itself in the wall of a house across the street—and the assassin was seized and firmly held by many willing hands.