of the country generally, combined with the indescribably wild and rocky character of some parts of the foreground, and the sloping grass banks in others, to produce a picture at once grand and picturesque; but it was a picture of which the eye soon wearied and the appreciation palled.  There, as throughout the whole march to Niksich, the country abounds with the most magnificent defensible positions; natural parapets, whence a most destructive fire might be poured upon an advancing foe, and incapable of being turned by any flank movement; positions, in short, constructed for the enactment of a second Thermopylae.  No signs of humanity were to be found in that barren region.  Here and there the carcass of a stray horse, which had died probably of pure inanition, and afforded a scanty meal to the birds and beasts of prey, was the only sign of aught that had ever beat with the pulse of life.  Leaving the main body, I came up with a small party of engineer officers, employed in taking the angles on the line of march.  The serious inconvenience resulting from the want of a good map of these countries is now much felt.  True, it was partially removed by the existence of a map of Montenegro, including a portion of the Herzegovinian frontier, drawn by Major Cox[Q], R.E., and published by the Topographical Department, a copy of which I had presented to Omer Pacha, and which was much appreciated by him.  Very properly, however, he proposes that the country shall be surveyed by Turkish officers, and a map constructed upon their observations.  Its accuracy will be somewhat doubtful, if we may judge from the crude manner in which they set to work.  The only instruments employed were prismatic compasses, with which they jotted down angles at all the salient points, an orderly dragoon counting his horse’s paces in the intervening time, which was occasionally as much as twenty minutes.  Passing these I reach the advance guard, and still pressing on I soon find myself alone.  No, not quite alone; another turn of the rocks brings me abreast of a strange companion, his long flowing dress of yellow surge, and Dervish’s hat, with its hair-fringe, proclaim him to be one of that large class of religious devotees who live in indolence by working upon the superstition of their co-religionists.  My friend, however, was a man of some affluence, and very superior in all respects to the generality of his order.  By birth an Affghan, he has spent many years in the Herzegovina, and had followed the army for some weeks before I chanced to meet him.  Wherever there was a prospect of work or danger there were his little bay stallion and tufted lance always to be seen.  There was something weird-like in his presence, as he now sat like a statue on his horse, and anon darted forward with a flourish of his lance, sending up wreaths of blue smoke from the inseparable chibouque.  We thus rode in company until we overtook the small force of irregulars, who had been sent in advance of the