ners, and they rode
through in the snow. Since then typhus had raged, two of their number
had been very ill, and one had died. Their energy had been tremendous,
and everywhere in the country they were spoken of as the wonderful
English hospital, and even from Chainitza, where there was a Russian
hospital, soldiers walked a long day's march in order to be treated by
the English.

Dr. Roger's rival was there, the perpetrator of ninety hernia operations
a week--or was it more?

All this on tinned food!

Our hotel room proved large and comfortable with a talkative willing
Turk in attendance. We slept immensely and were wakened by yet another
horrible cock crowing. All Balkan cocks seem to have bronchitis.

Plevlie is a red-tiled nucleus with a fringe of wood-roofed Serb houses
planted round it. There are ten mosques, while the only Greek church
stands forlorn on the other side of the great hollow two miles away.

The town is not really Montenegrin. It has the cosmopolitan character of
all the Sanjak, Turks, Austro-Turks and Serbs--a mixture like that at
Marseilles or Port Said.

The shops are Turkish, though their turbaned owners, sitting
cross-legged on the floor-counters, can speak only Serb--a thing which
puzzled us at the time.

We saw veiled women and semi-veiled children everywhere, thickly
latticed windows with curious eyes peeping through, and yards with high
wooden palings above to prevent the possible young men on the houses
opposite from catching a glimpse of the fair ladies in the gardens.

Plenty of long-legged Montenegrin officers--with flat caps bearing the
King's initials, and five rings representing the dynasties of the ruling
house--filled the streets, and also the inevitable ragged soldiers with
gorgeous bags on their backs.

Some of the women, too, were wearing these caps, but theirs were yet
smaller and tipped over their noses, like the pork pie hat of our
grandmothers. One closely veiled woman showed the silhouette sticking up
through her veil just like a blacking tin.

The Mahommedan is much more fanatic in these parts than his more
civilized brother of Salonika or Constantinople. Women of the two
religions do not visit. The hatred is partially political, and Jo began
to realize that her dream of visiting a harem would not be easy to
achieve. We met three women walking down a lonely street. Although their
faces were covered with several thicknesses of black chiffon, they
modestly placed t