We now followed the river bed, every now and then wading from one side to the other of the shallow stream in a vain search for a forest-path which should lead in the right direction. We found Major Roskiević’s[182] map so completely out, that we really suspected that he had been the victim of the Vila’s enchantments—and who, conversant with the history of the building of Scodra, does not know that it is her practice to thwart engineers who presumptuously invade her precincts? And I would urge in proof of this hypothesis that her sacred mount, the Vila Gora of the peasants hereabouts, under whose brows we are now passing, is conspicuous by its absence on the Major’s chart. Before we had concluded our itinerary of Bosnia we had further proofs that the Vila or some other freakish sprite had possessed that unfortunate officer. Often has the Major played the part of a will-o’-the-wisp for our especial misguidance! At times he would display such extraordinary capacities of faith as to remove mountains. He would evolve streams which existed not, out of his inner consciousness, and when he conceived that this pleasantry had gone far enough he would swallow them up in the earth. He would transport villages bodily. He would run a broad valley through a mountain mass from which Xerxes would have recoiled, and bridge over chasms at which Stephenson would have shuddered. Not that his humour is always of this ponderous turn; oh no! he has his lighter veins, too, in which he will draw you a zigzagging road straight as a line, or pop the only path on the wrong side of the stream! At about 5 P.M. we found ourselves at the junction of the Ziraja and the Blatnica, as we learnt from some peasants—_for they never meet_ according to the Major. The peasants, who were dressed in the heavily ornamented quasi-Dalmatian costume of these mountains, and were of the type which it has pleased me to call Hunnish, were much delighted at a present of English needles from the ‘consuls.’ We now began ascending the Troghìr Planina by a faintly indicated woodman’s path, overshadowed by a beech-forest of finer growth than any we had yet seen, interspersed with equally majestic pines. Amongst these mysterious labyrinths we lost our path, and coming towards dusk on an inviting glade commanding a lovely mountain panorama, pitched on it as our place of bivouac for the night. Here we found no difficulty in collecting firewood for a cheery fire, and bracken enough to form a springy mattress; and having cooked our frugal supper, we submitted to be lulled to sleep by the chorus of tree-crickets above. The night was again fine; so that, except for the cold, which in the small hours of the morning was bitter—as it generally is when the camp fire has burnt down beyond recovery!—we passed a fairly comfortable night, till we were aroused by the droning of gnats in our ears, and were again on our way, before the sun.