with scrambling haste down the mountain-side toward our road ahead, look like veritable brigands heading us off with a view to capturing us.  But they are peacefully disposed goatherds, who, alpenstocks in hand, are endeavoring to see “what in the world those queer-looking things are, coming up the road.”  Their tuneful noise, as they play on some kind of an instrument, greets our ears from a dozen mountain-slopes round about us, as we put our shoulders to the wheel, and gradually approach the summit.  Tortoises are occasionally surprised basking in the sunbeams in the middle of the road; when molested they hiss quite audibly in protest, but if passed peacefully by they are seen shuffling off into the bushes, as though thankful to escape.  Unhappy oxen are toiling patiently upward, literally inch by inch, dragging heavy, creaking wagons, loaded with miscellaneous importations, prominent among which I notice square cans of American petroleum.  Men on horseback are encountered, the long guns of the Orient slung at their backs, and knife and pistols in sash, looking altogether ferocious.  Not only are these people perfectly harmless, however, but I verily think it would take a good deal of aggravation to make them even think of fighting.  The fellow whose horse we frightened down a rocky embankment, at the imminent risk of breaking the neck of both horse and rider, had both gun, knife, and pistols; yet, though he probably thinks us emissaries of the evil one, he is in no sense a dangerous character, his weapons being merely gewgaws to adorn his person.  Finally, the summit of this range is gained, and the long, grateful descent into the valley of the Nissava River begins.  The surface during this descent, though averaging very good, is not always of the smoothest; several dismounts are found to be necessary, and many places ridden over require a quick hand and ready eye to pass.  The Servians have made a capital point in fixing their new boundary-line south of this mountain-range.

Mountaineers are said to be “always freemen;” one can with equal truthfulness add that the costumes of mountaineers’ wives and daughters are always more picturesque than those of their sisters in the valleys.  In these Balkan Mountains their costumes are a truly wonderful blending of colors, to say nothing of fantastic patterns, apparently a medley of ideas borrowed from Occident and Orient.  One woman we have just passed is wearing the loose, flowing pantaloons of the Orient, of a bright-yellow color, a tight-fitting jacket of equally bright blue; around her waist is folded many times a red and blue striped waistband, while both head and feet are bare.  This is no holiday attire; it is plainly the ordinary every-day costume.