iving me a lesson in swimming. Aunt
Kathryn grudged the time, but we overruled her, and atoned by promising
to go on each day after this to the bitter end, whatever that might be.

Next morning, by way of many hills and much fine scenery we travelled
towards a land beyond the motor zone. Though the roads were good enough,
if steep sometimes, judging by the manners of animals four-legged and
two-legged, automobiles were unknown. Only children were not surprised
at us; but then, children aren't easily surprised by new things, I've
noticed. They have had so few experiences to found impressions on, that
I suppose they would think a fiery chariot nothing extraordinary, much
less a motor-car. The costumes began to change from ordinary European
dress to something with a hint of the barbaric in it. Here and there we
would see a coarse-featured face as dark as that of a Mongolian, or
would hear a few curious words which the Chauffeulier said were Slavic.
The biting, alkaline names of the small Dalmatian towns through which we
ran seemed to shrivel our tongues and dry up our systems. There was much
thick, white dust, and, to the surprise of the amateurs of the party, we
once or twice had "side slip" in it.

How we hated the "mended" roads with their beds of stone, though near
rivers they were not so bad, as the pebbles instead of being sharp were
naturally rounded. But Aunt Kathryn wouldn't hear a word against the
country, which was _her_ country now. Once, when the cylinders refused
to work, for some reason best known to themselves or the evil spirits
that haunt them, we were "hung up" for twenty minutes, and surrounded
with strange, dark children from a neighbouring hamlet, Aunt Kathryn
insisted on giving each a coin of some sort, and received grinning
acknowledgments with the air of a crowned queen. "I daresay I shall have
tenants and retainers like these people," said she, with a wave of her
hand.

For a part of our journey down the narrow strip of strange coast, we had
on one side a range of stony mountains; on the other, only a little way
across the sea, lay desolate islands rising in tiers of pink rock out of
the milk-white Adriatic. But before long we lost the sea and the lonely
islands; for at a place named Segna our road turned inland and climbed a
high mountain--the Velebit--at whose feet we had been travelling.

As we were trying to make a run of more than a hundred and twenty-five
miles--a good deal for a heavily-