We again started after mid-day, with the captain and his momkes, and, proceeding through meadows, arrived at Zhitchka Jicha.  This is an ancient Servian convent, of Byzantine architecture, where seven kings of Servia were crowned, a door being broken into the wall for the entrance of each sovereign, and built up again on his departure.  It is situated on a rising ground, just where the river Ybar enters the plain of Karanovatz.  The environs are beautiful.  The hills are of moderate height, covered with verdure and foliage; only campaniles were wanting to the illusion of my being in Italy, somewhere about Verona or Vicenza, where the last picturesque undulations of the Alps meet the bountiful alluvia of the Po.  Quitting the valley of the Morava, we struck southwards into the highlands.  Here the scene changed; the valley of the Ybar became narrow, the vegetation scanty; and, at evening, we arrived at a tent made of thick matted branches of trees, which had been strewn for us with fresh hay.  The elders of Magletch, a hamlet an hour off, came with an offer of their services, in case they were wanted.

The sun set; and a bright crackling fire of withered branches of pine, mingling its light with the rays of the moon in the clear chill of a September evening, threw a wild and unworldly pallor over the sterile scene of our bivouac, and the uncouth figures of the elders.  They offered me a supper; but contenting myself with a roasted head of Indian corn, and rolling my cloak and pea jacket about me, I fell asleep:  but felt so cold that, at two o’clock, I roused the encampment, sounded to horse, and, in a few minutes, was again mounting the steep paths that lead to Studenitza.

Day gradually dawned, and the scene became wilder and wilder; not a chalet was to be seen, for the ruined castle of Magletch on its lone crag, betokened nothing of humanity.  Tall cedars replaced the oak and the beech, the scanty herbage was covered with hoar-frost.  The clear brooks murmured chillingly down the unshaded gullies, and a grand line of sterile peaks to the South, showed me that I was approaching the backbone of the Balkan.  All on a sadden I found the path overlooking a valley, with a few cocks of hay on a narrow meadow; and another turn of the road showed me the lines of a Byzantine edifice with a graceful dome, sheltered in a wood from the chilling winter blasts of this highland region.  Descending, and crossing the stream, we now proceeded up to the eminence on which the convent was placed, and I perceived thick walls and stout turrets, which bade a sturdy defiance to all hostile intentions, except such as might be supported by artillery.

On dismounting and entering the wicket, I found myself in an extensive court, one side of which was formed by a newly built crescent-shaped cloister; the other by a line of irregular out-houses with wooden stairs, chardacks and other picturesque but fragile appendages of Turkish domestic architecture.