balance of my relief fund, which I distributed,
and 30 pounds for myself. More he could not give. The Italian consul
said an Italian coasting-boat would touch that night, and that as it
was impossible for me to go to Austria I had better take the kavas'
family to Brindisi and there tranship them, see the British consul,
and learn what was happening. If things were all right, I could
return and make fresh arrangements for the relief work. Without
money it was useless to stay, as the whole of the mass of wretched
sufferers would come to me for help, which I could not give. And at
10 p.m. I left for Brindisi. Shortly before the boat started an
American came on board and shouted: "They've got news at the
consulates that your people are in it, too." But I did not take it
at all seriously.

Only next day at the British consulate, after I had transhipped my
proteges and been examined for small-pox by the doctor--for I was
from an infected area--did I learn to my amazement that not only had
Great Britain declared war, but to my shame and disgust had done so
on the side of the Slav. After that I really did not care what
happened. The cup of my humiliation was full.

No more help could be got for the refugees. It was no use to go
back. The difficulty was indeed to go anywhere. I wondered which
flag would fly in Valona next time I saw it--the Austrian or the
Italian.

Had I had enough money I should have gone to the Pacific islands, or
anywhere out of the dirty squabbles of Europe. As it was, the only
thing to do was to clear out of Italy lest she should be drawn in by
the Triple Alliance. A White Star liner chartered to take off
British tourists, who were swarming down from the Tyrol and South
Germany, took about a thousand of us from Genoa on August 13th.

It was years since I had been with a large crowd of English. They
seemed to me a strange race. To me the boat was the acme of comfort,
and coolness, and cleanliness. But the bulk of my compatriots
thought they were roughing it. I thought of the seventy thousand
houseless creatures under the sun and the rain, starving on a daily
bread dole--and these people wanted two or three courses for
breakfast. None of them had seen war. None knew what a burnt village
or a rotting corpse, or a living man with his abdomen shot through
was like. None had the faintest idea of the thing that had happened.
Many would have liked, I believe, to throw me overboard when I said
that the war wo