In the side walls of the ruins are blocked-up openings. I was told they were doors, they looked like windows. Where the blocking stones are loose, you can see the fresco that clings to the sides and sills--fresco of the earlier kind, showing that the openings were blocked previous to the re-painting of the walls. One of these openings was built up at each coronation, I was told--a curious custom that requires explanation. All that I could learn was that the "doorways" proved the "fact," and the "fact" accounted for the "doorways." Six kings of the old days were crowned here, it is said. The first was Stefan Prvovenchani; who the others were I have failed to learn. The personages of Servian history are apt to loom large through a fog of uncertainty and to elude all attempts at exact information. The tradition of coronation has been revived, and Alexander Obrenovich was here crowned king. It was just a week before the day appointed for the coronation of Edward VII. when I stood in the roofless ruins of the hall of Servia's kings, and I felt glad that we were at the other end of Europe when the Turks came. In the archway under the tower are some fairly preserved frescoes, and a crowned figure, said to be a portrait of Stefan Prvovenchani himself, stares from the ruins of the building raised to glorify his line. The likeness, I take it, is a purely fancy one. These were the last old frescoes I saw in Servia. All of them tell the same tale, namely, that judging by the architecture, the costume, furniture, and various articles for domestic use that appear in them, the Servians of those days were not behind Europe in general civilisation. My guide, a friendly young monk, knew naught of architecture, and his ideas of history were but vague.