seemed a pity to let it live! It will take them
several generations to get new ideas. Why worry. All this talk of
going to Salonika is folly. This place is too much for us." His own
job were beautiful irrigation works which kept a whole district
fertile through the heats of summer. "But," he laughed, "the people
are not a bit pleased. They say that in the old days it rained when
it was God's will. They have quite forgotten they lost most of their
crops every year from the drought. This is a Schwab thing, so they
think it bad." On parting with him I took his advice and went where
I liked. I was "shadowed" a good deal and my correspondence was
generally ten days late, but otherwise was not interfered with.
Living in native houses and going as guest to festivities, weddings,
etc., as I had done in other Balkan lands was, however, impossible.
It would have got my hosts into trouble. As it was, the wife of an
official was very angry when I said I could get a meal in any
village. For she declared she and her husband had even been refused
coffee, the people all vowing they had none.

The reason for all the fuss was that the authorities were trying to
hide the fact that the country was going through a very bad crisis,
which was further exacerbated by the rumoured annexation; the open
talk of an advance towards Salonika; and the renewed political
activity of Russia and Serbia, which had now got England installed
again at Belgrade.

Speaking Serb, I found without difficulty that there was a very
strong Serb propaganda being worked from Belgrade among the
Orthodox, who at that time formed nearly two-fifths of the native
population. Next in number were the Moslems and after them the
Catholics, lastly several thousand Spanish Jews. Orthodox, Moslem
and Catholic native populations were entirely Slavonic. There was an
acute division between the Orthodox and the other two parties.

The Catholics and even some of the Moslems called themselves Croat,
and hated the term Serb. I had heard a report that in Croatia a
reconciliation between Serb and Croat had taken place. None was to
be seen in Bosnia. Only in the Herzegovina did the Catholic natives
wish union with Montenegro.

The bulk of the Moslems looked longingly towards Turkey. The
Orthodox, on the other hand, were violently pro-Serb, and feelings
between Austria and Serbia had risen to fever heat.

Towards the end of 1905, Pashitch, then Prime Minister of Serbia,
though already