in defying the Ottoman power with a handful of men and the miserable supply of provisions at their disposal.
After luncheon we went outside, where, after half an hour, we were joined by Peko, Phillipovich, and Vukalovich, and one or two other heads of the movement. All of them were manly, rough-looking fellows, but it was only Peko who gave us the least idea of intellectual force. His massive head and jaw seemed made to command, and judging by the way he was listened to, his fellow-countrymen thought the same. His reputation as a warrior would of itself entitle him to respect, for he is a man who is now about sixty, and during the course of his life has fought sixty-two battles. What particularly excited their ire was the Andrassy note. "As if," they said, "Turkey could carry out any promised reforms? As well ask a dead tree to bear fruit." Nothing will induce these people to go back to their homes, unless they have a surer guarantee than Turkey seems inclined to give. Their dream, of course, is to have a Slav principality in the centre of Europe, under a prince of their own choosing: but this, we fear, they will never be allowed to realize. They therefore ask, for the present, to be put on the footing of Servia, only paying a tax to Turkey; and this they might be able to achieve, if not interfered with by one of the greater powers.
The understanding between the chiefs and their followers seems complete, for whatever Peko said in his dry, funny way, was always greeted with a murmur of assent. There is said to be some jealousy between him and Socica; but of this we could discern nothing, as they were extremely cordial to one another in manner.
As the shadows grew longer, and evening came on, we thought it as well to prepare for our return. Peko and Socica insisted on riding back with us as far as the Austrian frontier. It was a procession that would have astonished Rotten Row. In front rode the two chiefs, whilst behind we were escorted by a number of their followers, whose horses plunged and kicked in a most uncomfortable manner for me, stuck as I was on my insecure sidesaddle.
At last we came to the place where we had to part, and with many wishes for the success of the cause on the one hand, and thanks for our visit and hopes for our speedy return on the other, we bade adieu to these brave fellows.
"Tell every one in England," said Peko, "that we are fighting for our homes and hearths; and beg them not to support the Turk any longer."
LIGHTNING-PRINTS.
Very curious results are sometimes produced by lightning, calculated to incite wonderment in the minds of persons unversed in the phenomena of electricity, and to set scientific men thinking and experimenting on the probable causes of these appearances. Of the destruction of ships and houses by lightning we do not speak, nor of the more lamentable cases in which persons have been struck dead by such visitations. The phenomena more immediately in view are lightning figures or pictures, impressions burnt into the surface of the object struck, and presenting resemblances concerning which fancy has been allowed to draw fanciful conclusions.
Marks, remarkably tree-like, have sometimes been found on the bodies of persons struck by lightning. MM. Bossut and Leroy, in 1786, reported to the Académie des Sciences a case of this kind, and accounted for it by supposing that the lightning in its passage through the body had forced the blood into the vessels of the skin, and thus all the ramifications of these vessels were visible on the surface. Arago adopted a similar explanation, in regard to a case which occurred in France much more recently: two persons standing near a poplar-tree were struck by lightning, and on the breast of each were found marks closely resembling the branchlets of the poplar.
More strictly belonging to those instances in which the lightning-marks resemble familiar objects is one that occurred in a Somersetshire village in 1812. One version of the story is, that "six sheep reposing in a meadow surrounded by woods were killed by lightning; and when the skins were taken from the animals, a facsimile of a portion of the surrounding scenery was visible on the inner surface of each skin." The other version is that, about turnip-sowing time, a farmer and his men were engaged in the fields, when a violent storm of thunder and lightning came on, and three out of four valuable rams, which had taken shelter under a tree, were killed; when the skins reached the fellmonger, on the inside of each was found depicted a very accurate representation of the tree under which the
