ost welcome
fugginess. The hostess brought us rakia, coffee and walnuts, and did her
utmost to make us comfortable. Montenegrins crowded in, and discussed
the probable end of the war. There was little enthusiasm shown, most of
the talk was of the hardships, and a little grumbling that the farms
were going to pieces because of the lack of men.

Before leaving Plevlie, Dr. Clemow had presented Jan with a box of Red
Cross cigars, and he handed one to the captain. The official received it
gratefully.

"Ah!" he said. "Cigars, eh! One does not often see those nowadays."

The cigar was a Trichinopoli. Jan said nothing, but watched. The captain
lit the cigar manfully, and for some minutes puffed, looking the
apotheosis of aristocracy. Presently his puffing ceased, he looked
thoughtful, and then saying that he had forgotten an important paper
which he had not signed, he fled. We found the cigars most useful
afterwards, as a sort of spiritual disinfector, infallible against
bores.

Into the cracks of the ceiling were stuck white and yellow flowers,
thyme and other plants, till the roof looked like an inverted
flower-bed. We had noticed this custom before, and asked Mike if it had
any significance.

"Oh yes," he answered, "all dose tings, dey stuck up dere 'gainst de
fleas 'n bugs."

This was translated into Serbian, and the woman boxed his ears.

We supped on meat--three courses--meat, meat, meat, and so tough that
our teeth bounced off, and we were compelled to bolt the morsels whole.
One course tired us out, weary as we already were with our journey, but
Mike, making up for his former abstinence, wolfed all his own share and
what remained over from ours.

The night was so cold that we went to bed in our clothes, and even then
could not sleep for hours.

We woke with difficulty to a glorious day, and found that what we had
thought yesterday to be a plain was in truth a great plateau surrounded
by towering grey mountains on which were gulfs and gullies filled with
eternal snow. Jabliak is a queer village, fifty or sixty weathered
wooden houses--with the high-peaked roof of Northern Serbia--flung down
into this wilderness, where the grass and crops fight for existence with
the pushing stones, and where the summer is so short that the captain's
plum tree--the only one--will not ripen save in exceptional years. Never
a wheel comes to Jabliak, and so it is a village without streets.
Everything which passes here is horse-o