The professor dined with us.  He is an Anglophile, and was determined after the war to go to England in order to discover the secret of her greatness.  He had a theory that it lay in our educational laws, which he wanted to transplant into Serbia wholesale.  Jan thought not, and suggested that it might lie even deeper than that.

Next day was a Prazhnik, or feast day, and the great square was crowded with peasantry in their beautiful hand-woven clothes.  There were soldiers straight back from the lines chaffing and flirting with the pretty girls, and presently a group began to dance the “Kola” about a man who played a pipe.  It is not difficult to dance the Kola.  You join hands till a ring is formed, and then shuffle round and round.  If you have aspirations to style you fling your legs about as much as space will allow, and we noticed how much better the men danced than the girls, who were almost all very clumsy.

We were to be called at six, so went to bed early, and in spite of the odours from the yard slept soundly.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV

ACROSS THE FRONTIER

We got up in good time, breakfasted, but there was no sign of horses.  After waiting two hours a square man was brought up to us by the waiter and introduced as our guide.  The professor, who had promised to see us off, was apparently clinging to his bed, for he did not come.  Our guide was a taciturn, loose-limbed fellow, but had nice eyes and a charming manner; he helped us on to our horses, and off we went.  Jan was rather anxious at the start, for he had done very little riding since childhood; but his horse was quiet, and soon he had persuaded himself that he was a cavalier from birth.  Jo was riding astride for the second time in her life.

We took the road to Zlatibor (golden hill).  There was a heavy mist, the hills were just outlined in faint washes on the fog, and as we mounted the zig-zag path, higher and higher, the town became small and fairylike beneath us; and a soldiers’ camp made a queer chessboard on the green of the valley.  Jo’s horse cast a shoe almost at the start, but the guide said that it did not matter.  We went on and ever up, our horses clambering like goats.  The scenery was on the whole very English, and not unlike the Devonshire side of Dartmoor.

Our guide took us a two mile detour to show us his house.  Later we reached a tiny village with a queer church.  We off-saddled for a moment, and were welcomed by the inhabitants, who gave us Turkish coffee and plum brandy (rakia), while in exchange we made them cigarettes of English tobacco.  At sixteen kilometres we reached a larger village, where we decided to lunch.  We were astonished by the sudden appearance of a French doctor.  He was delighted to see us, more so when he found that we both spoke French, and invited us to coffee.  We lunched with our guide at the local inn.  We ordered pig; indeed there was nothing else to order.