to defend themselves against the brigands. A more united family, the bishop assured me, could not be found, than the medley of priests and officials, Christian notables and Moslem divines, who gathered in the evening round the episcopal table, and drowned their sectarian differences in deep draughts of Kosana wine. Under its influence even my neighbour-an ascetic and toothless Archimandrite, who at first evidently viewed the proceedings with grave doubts as to their orthodoxy, and occasionally relieved his mind by whispering with a grim sardonic smile the name of Gladstone into my ear, as if it were a charm to exorcise evil spirits-relaxed into a more jovial humour, and, after the customary toasts had been disposed of, insisted upon drinking the health of every guest present in separate bumpers.

Rain was falling in torrents the next morning, and it was decided to postpone our start till noon. But even before that hour the weather had cleared up, and the sun gleamed through the clouds, lighting up the bright groups of quiet townsfolk who thronged the streets as we rode out of the town ; for it was Sunday, and church-time being over,

there was nothing for the Kosanlis to do but to loiter about the streets and show off their holiday attire, a task of love, which the gentler sex especially performed with much success, one dark-eyed damsel fairly taking my heart by storm, as, whipping off her little red high-peaked shoes in order not to soil them in the puddles, she tripped across the street and pelted me with rose-leaves. Outside the Greek schoolhouse the children of both sexes were drawn up in full battle array, under the command of masters and mistresses, and greeted us as we passed with the Sultan's anthem,—a healthy, bright-faced little army, whose joyous voices could still be heard carolling behind us as we wound over the hills, through acres and acres of vineyards. country which we now traversed was an undulating table-land, flanked on either side by ranges of hills running north and south perpendicularly to the frontier chain of the Kambouni. The fields looked fairly well cultivated, each being divided off from its neighbour by neatlypiled-up walls of loose stones. Small hamlets, which a minaret or the whitewashed dome of a veli generally marked as Turkish, nestled among

The

trees in the shallow depressions of the plateau ; and here and there a ruinous tower recalled the days when the derebeys held lawless sway over the land. Four hours' heavy riding, over tortuous tracks which the night's rain had converted into quagmires, brought us to our destination,a large Mussulman village called Kaïlar-or rather, as its plural termination indicates, two villages grown into one. Kaïlar has made no special mark in history; but it is not without a certain fame in the surrounding country, and I, or rather my horse, felt a peculiar interest to reach it for the unfortunate animal had been badly shod before leaving Larissa; and whenever I remonstrated on the subject with Hassan Tchaoush, whom Selami had told off to be my groom-in-waiting during the journey, that worthy sergeant had invariably answered: "Ah, Effendi! just wait till we get to Kaïlar: that's the place to have the horses shod. Wallah! there are no smiths in the world like unto the smiths of Kaïlar." Many towns and districts in Turkey thus have their speciality. The Albanians of Dibra are reputed as wood-cutters; the Bulgarians of Kezanli are celebrated gardeners; mon

astic Zitza furnishes the country with hanjis or ostlers; Kaïlar, it seems, is renowned for its smiths. Whether they be worthy of their fame is a point on which I must refer the reader to my faithful Rosinante.

The next morning we were off betimes; and in order to make up for the half-day we had lost at Kosana owing to the rain, we had to give up making the detour to Wlacho-Klissura, which Selami Pasha had originally proposed to take on our way, in order to enable me to visit the centre of the Roumanian propaganda among the Wallachs of Macedonia. Our route lay, as on the preceding day, over narrow undulating plains, flanked on either side by mountains; and, save that we were entering the Bulgarian region, and that, as we progressed northward, Bulgarian villages steadily preponderated over Turkish and Wallach, there were few features of interest to mark the journey. About three hours from Kaïlar, the Lake of Ostrovo came into sight. A century ago, fields and meadows and flourishing villages were to be seen where now lies a long sheet of dark-blue waters, reflecting, like a mirror, the barren slopes of Mount Bermius, which

west.

overhang its eastern shores. The long plateau which we had followed ever since leaving Kosana, sinks steadily towards the north until it is barred by a ridge of hills running across from east to The depression thus formed was formerly drained by a stream, which lost itself, no one knew whither, underground. But an earthquake, or some other cause, suddenly blocked up the channel, and the waters which ran down from the surrounding heights, failing to find an exit, accumulated in the hollow, and covering acre after acre of ground, and swallowing up hamlets and villages, have finally formed a lake, which is now nearly twelve miles in length and two in breadth. It is still slowly rising, inch by inch and year by year; and unless it can once more force open a subterranean passage for its waters, it must inevitably continue to rise until it reaches the level of the plateau which divides it off from the basin of the Vistritza. How many more prosperous homesteads, how many more acres of fertile land, will ere then be buried under the placid surface of its relentless waters!

After halting for our mid-day rest at a pretty

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