f a country
having the sixth largest population in Europe and has taken his place in
Rumanian history beside Stephen the Great and Michael the Brave as
Ferdinand the Liberator.

CHAPTER VII

MAKING A NATION TO ORDER

From the young officers who wore on their shoulders the silver greyhound
of the American Courier Service we heard many discouraging tales of the
annoyances and discomforts for which we must be prepared in traveling
through Hungary, the Banat and Jugoslavia. But, to tell the truth, I did
not take these warnings very seriously, for I had observed that a
profoundly pessimistic attitude of mind characterized all of the
Americans or English whose duties had kept them in the Balkans for any
length of time. In Salonika this mental condition was referred to as
"the Balkan tap"--derived, no doubt, from the verb "to knock," as with a
hammer--and it usually implied that those suffering from the ailment had
outstayed their period of usefulness and should be sent home.

Thrice weekly a train composed of an assortment of ramshackle and
dilapidated coaches, called by courtesy the Orient Express, which
maintained an average speed of fifteen miles an hour, left Bucharest for
Vincovce, a small junction town in the Banat, where it was supposed to
make connections with the south-bound Simplon Express from Paris to
Belgrade and with the north-bound express from Belgrade to Paris. The
Simplon Express likewise ran thrice weekly, so, if the connections were
missed at Vincovce, the passengers were compelled to spend at least two
days in a small Hungarian town which was notorious, even in that region,
for its discomforts and its dirt. All went well with us, however, the
train at one time attaining the dizzy speed of thirty miles an hour,
until, in a particularly desolate portion of the great Hungarian plain,
we came to an abrupt halt. When, after a half hour's wait, I descended
to ascertain the cause of the delay, I found the train crew surrounded
by a group of indignant and protesting passengers.

"What's the trouble?" I inquired.

"The engineer claims that he has run out of coal," some one answered.
"But he says that there is a coal depot three or four kilometers ahead
and that, if each first-class passenger will contribute fifty francs,
and each second-class passenger twenty francs, he figures that it will
enable him to buy just enough coal to reach Vincovce. Otherwise, he
says, we will probably miss both connectio