al portal, and Wucics and Petronievitch, grey with the dust
with which the immense cavalcade had besprinkled them, came forward,
kissed the cross and gospels, which the archbishop presented to them,
and, kneeling down, returned thanks for their safe restoration. On
regaining their legs, the archbishop advanced to the edge of the
platform, and began a discourse describing the grief the nation had
experienced at their departure, the universal joy for their return,
and the hope that they would ever keep peace and union in view in all
matters of state, and that in their duties to the state they must
never forget their responsibility to the Most High.

Wucics, dressed in the coarse frieze jacket and boots of a Servian
peasant, heard with a reverential inclination of the head the
elegantly polished discourse of the gold-bedizened prelate, but nought
relaxed one single muscle of that adamantine visage; the finer but
more luminous features of Petronievitch were evidently under the
control of a less powerful will. At certain passages of the discourse,
his intelligent eye was moistened with tears. Two deacons then prayed
successively for the Sultan, the Emperor of Russia, and the prince.

And now uprose from every tongue, and every heart, a hymn for the
longevity of Wucics and Petronievitch. "The solemn song for many days"
is the expressive title of this sublime chant. This hymn is so old
that its origin is lost in the obscure dawn of Christianity in the
East, and so massive, so nobly simple, as to be beyond the ravages of
time, and the caprices of convention.

The procession then returned, the band playing the Wucics march, to
the houses of the two heroes of the day.

We dined; and just as dessert appeared the whiz of a rocket announced
the commencement of fire-works. As most of us had seen the splendid
bouquet of rockets, which, during the fetes of July, amuse the
Parisians, we entertained slender expectations of being pleased with
an illumination at Belgrade. On going out, however, the scene proved
highly interesting. In the grand square were two columns _a la
Vicentina_, covered with lamps. One side of the square was illuminated
with the word Wucics, and the other with the word Avram in colossal
letters. At a later period of the evening the downs were covered with
fires roasting innumerable sheep and oxen, a custom which seems in all
countries to accompany popular rejoicing.

I had never seen a Servian full-dress ball, b