, and all this must have
happened under the very noses of the Englishmen who had supervised the
loading. Some of the prisoners said that they were starving, so we
distributed our spare crusts amongst them, and they ate them greedily
enough.

In the fields by the railway were queer pallid green plants which
puzzled us. They were like tall cabbages, and shone with a curious
ghostly intensity in the gloaming.

We dangled our feet over the side of our waggon watching the flitting
scenery. At one point we passed a train in which were other English
people, who stared amazed at us and waved their hands as we disappeared.
Dusk was down when we passed Vrntze, and we reached the gorges of Ovchar
in the dark. We thundered through tunnels and out over hanging
precipices, the river beneath us a faint band of greyish light in the
blackness of the mountains.

Uzhitze in the morning at 4.30; it was cold and wet. Jan wanted to hurry
off to the hotel, but Jo sensibly refused, and we settled down till a
decent hour.

The hotel was a huge room with a smaller yard; on the one side of the
yard were the kitchens, etc., and on the other a string of bedrooms. We
then crossed the big square to the Nachanlik's (or mayor's) office.

Outside the mayor's office we found an old friend. He had been a patient
in our hospital, and gangrene, following typhus, had so poisoned his
legs that both were amputated. He had been discharged the day before,
and had travelled up from Vrntze, some eight hours, in an open truck.
The Serbian authorities had brought him from the station and had propped
him on a wooden bench outside the mayor's office, where he had remained
all night, and where we found him. He was a charming fellow, though very
silent. Once when Jo had remarked upon this silence he had answered,
"When a man has no longer any legs it is fitting that he should be
silent."

He was waiting for his father, who lived twelve hours away in the
mountains. The old man came with a donkey, and there was a most
affecting meeting between the old father and his poor mutilated son.
Tears flowed freely on either side, for Serbs are still simple enough to
be unashamed of emotion. The donkey had an ordinary saddle, on to which
our friend was hoisted. He balanced tentatively for a moment, then shook
his head. A pack-saddle was substituted.

"It is hard," he said, "young enough, and yet like a useless bale of
goods."

Twenty hours he had endured, and yet had twe