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"I expected you long ago," said he; "the Archbishop advised me of your arrival: but we thought something might have happened, or that you had missed us." "I prolonged my tour," said I, "beyond the limits of my original project. The circumstance of this convent having been the burial-place of Knes Lasar, was a sufficient motive for my on no account missing a sight of it."

The Duke of Moscouia, Basilius the sonne of Iohn, sent on a time two of his Captaines, named Simeon Pheodorowich Kurbski, & Knes Peter Vschatoi, to search the places beyond these mountaines, and to subdue the nations thereabout.

By far the most interesting building in Belgrade, however, is a low, tile-roofed, white-walled wine-shop at the corner of Knes Mihajelowa Uliza and Kolartsch Uliza, which is pointed out to visitors as "the Cradle of the War," for in the low-ceilinged room on the second floor is said to have been hatched the plot which resulted in the assassination of the Austrian archducal couple at Serajevo in the spring of 1914 and thereby precipitated Armageddon.

Saint Stephan is seen giving to the king of the day the banner of Servia, in the same way as Saint Mark gives the banner of the republic of Venice to the Doge, as seen on the old coins of that state. The process of embalming was carried to high perfection, for the mummy of the canonized Knes Lasar is to be seen to this day.

But here, at Manasia, "The battle towers, the donjon keep, The loophole grates, where captives weep. The flanking walls that round it sweep, In yellow lustre shone;" and we were quietly carried back to the year of our Lord 1400; for this castle and church were built by Stephan, Despot of Servia, the son of Knes Lasar.

A shattered gateway and ruined walls, are all that now remain of the once extensive palace of Knes Lasar Czar Serbski; but the chapel is as perfect as it was when it occupied the centre of the imperial quadrangle. It is a curious monument of the period, in a Byzantine sort of style; but not for a moment to be compared in beauty to the church of Studenitza.

This antique principle of tesselation applied by the Byzantines to perpendicular walls, and occasionally adopted and varied ad infinitum by the Saracens, is magnificently illustrated in the upper exterior of the ducal palace of Venice. Formation of the Servian Monarchy. Contest between the Latin and Greek Churches. Stephan Dushan. A Great Warrior. Results of his Victories. Knes Lasar.

His son Urosh, being a weak and incapable prince, was murdered by one of the generals of the army, and thus ended the Neman dynasty, after having subsisted 212 years, and produced eight kings and two emperors. The crown now devolved on Knes, or Prince Lasar, a connexion of the house of Neman, who was crowned Czar, but is more generally called Knes Lasar.

The body of Knes Lasar, after having been for some time hid, was buried here in 1394, remained till 1684, at which period it was taken over to Virdnik in Syrmium, where it remains to this day. In the cool of the evening the superior took me to a spring of clear delicious water, gushing from rocks environed with trees.

The author here introduces a dissertation on the history, laws, and customs of the ancient monarchy; but as our own business is rather with Servia as it is, than Servia as it was, we shall pass unnoticed the glories of the house of Neman the warlike trophies of Stephan Dushan the Powerful, at whose approach the Greek Emperor trembled within the walls of Constantinople and the tragical fate of Knes Lasar, with whom Servian independence fell on the fatal plain of Kossovo, June 15, 1389.