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.
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