re for any budding Turners, but we two had
still eight hours to go and not money enough to loiter. On the higher
peaks of the mountains there was already a fresh powdering of snow; in
the valleys the clouds had almost cleared away, leaving a thin film of
moisture which made shadows of pure ultramarine beneath the trees. Your
modern commercial grinder cannot sell you this colour, it needs some of
that pure jewel powder which old Swan kept in a bottle for use on his
masterpiece, but found never a subject noble enough. Some of that stuff
prepared from the receipt of old Cennino Cennini which ends "this is a
work, fine and delicate, suitable for the hands of young maidens, but
beware of old women." Pure Lapis Lazuli.

[Illustration: THE IPEK PASS IN WINTER.]

But it became difficult even for us to admire landscape, for breakfast
had disappeared within us, and lunch seemed far away, so once more
recourse to the "compressed luncheon." There are three stages in the
taste of the "Tabloid." Stage one, when it smacks of glue; stage two,
when it has a flavour of inferior beef tea, say 11.30 a.m.; stage three,
when it resembles nothing but the gravy of the most delicious beef
steak. That is about 2.30, and your lunch some hours in retard. We
had reached stage three, and even Jo succumbed to the charms of the
"Tab."

Famished we came to a cafe.

"Eggs?" we gasped to the host.

"Nema" (haven't got any), he replied.

"Milk?"

"Nema."

"Cheese?" crescendo.

"Nema."

"Bread?" fortissimo.

"Nema."

Despairing we swallowed three more luncheon tablets each and whined for
tea. Ramases, who seemed to get along on tea alone, promised us a
well-stocked cafe in an hour and a half.

The second cafe was purely Albanian. We climbed up some rickety stairs
into a room which had--strange to relate--a fireplace. About the room
was a sleeping dais where three or four black and white ruffians were
couched. There was a little window with a deep seat into which we
squeezed and loudly demanded eggs, bread and cheese. An old woman all
rags and tatters came in and squeezed up alongside, where she crouched,
spinning a long wool thread and staring up into Jo's face. Several cats
were lounging about the room, but one came close and began to squirm as
though she were "setting" a mouse. Suddenly she pounced, seized the old
woman's food bag from her feet, swept it on to the floor, and
disappeared with it beneath the dais, where all the rest of t