After coffee, sweetmeats, &c., we passed through the yard, and piercing the postern gate, unexpectedly came upon a most animated scene.  A green glade that ran up to the foot of the hill, was covered with the preparations for the approaching festivities—­wood was splitting, fires lighting, fifty or sixty sheep were spitted, pyramids of bread, dishes of all sorts and sizes, and jars of wine in wicker baskets were mingled with throat-cut fowls, lying on the banks of the stream aide by side with pigs at their last squeak.

Dinner was served in the refectory to about twenty individuals, including the monks and our party.  The Igoumen drank to the health of the prince, and then of Wucics and Petronievitch, declaring that thanks were due to God and those European powers who had brought about their return.  The shabby priest, with the gallows look, then sang a song of his own composition, on their return.  Not being able to understand it, I asked my neighbour what he thought of the song.  “Why,” said he, “the lay is worthy of the minstrel—­doggrel and dissonance.”  Some old national songs were sung, and I again asked my neighbour for a criticism on the poetry.  “That last song,” said he, “is like a river that flows easily and naturally from one beautiful valley to another.”

In the evening we went out, and the countless fires lighting up the lofty oaks had a most pleasing effect.  The sheep were by this time cut up, and lying in fragments, around which the supper parties were seated cross-legged.  Other peasants danced slowly, in a circle, to the drone of the somniferous Servian bagpipe.

When I went to bed, the assembled peasantry were in the full tide of merriment, but without excess.  The only person somewhat the worse of the bottle was the threadbare priest with the gallows look.

I fell asleep with a low confused murmur of droning bagpipes, jingling drinking cups, occasional laughter, and other noises.  I dreamed, I know not what absurdities; suddenly a solemn swelling chorus of countless voices gently interrupted my slumbers—­the room was filled with light, and the sun on high was beginning to begild an irregular parallelogram in the wainscot, when I started up, and hastily drew on some clothes.  Going out to the makaa, I perceived yesterday’s assembly of merry-making peasants quadrupled in number, and all dressed in their holiday costume, thickset on their knees down the avenue to the church, and following a noble old hymn, I sprang out of the postern, and, helping myself with the grasp of trunks of trees, and bared roots and bushes, clambered up one of the sides of the hollow, and attaining a clear space, looked down with wonder and pleasure on the singular scene.  The whole pit, of this theatre of verdure appeared covered with a carpet of white and crimson, for such were the prevailing colours of the rustic costumes.  When I thought of the trackless solitude of the sylvan ridges round me, I seemed to witness one of the early communions of Christianity, in those ages when incense ascended to the Olympic deities in gorgeous temples, while praise to the true God rose from the haunts of the wolf, the lonely cavern, or the subterranean vault.