[Illustration:  ALBANIAN MULE DRIVERS CAMPING.]

We started as early as possible—­dawn.  Whatmough, Cutting, Jo and Jan lost the road, but were eventually rescued by a policeman.  About eleven one of the carriages broke down, and we had to repair it with tree and wire.  Here the houses were again like fortresses, and everybody stared at us as though we came from the moon.

We reached the bank opposite Alessio—­a small Turkish-looking village divided between a mud-bank and a hillside.  We were about to turn over the bridge when news was brought that a motor-boat belonging to Essad was in San Giovanni harbour.  We sent a policeman galloping on to stop it, and followed as fast as our meagre horses would allow.  We also heard that a submarine had been in the port the day before and had tried to torpedo the ships lying there—­but had missed.

We cantered on, pressing along a stony road which was almost level with the salt marshes on either side.  San Giovanni appeared after about an hour and a half.  We rode down on to the beach.  The motor-boat was getting up anchor.  We yelled to the skipper, but he understood no Serb; so we translated through a Turk who was lounging about.  The skipper said that he could not embark us there as it was Montenegrin territory, but that if we would go back to Alessio he would wait for us at the mouth of the river and take us down that very night.  This seemed too good to be true and we hurried back, passing an Austrian torpedo which had run up on the brown sand—­a present from yesterday’s raid.  We turned the others and cantered ahead to get a boat; reached the bridge once more and crossed into Albania.  Officials ran from all sides to stop us, but we ignored them, dismounted, and ran to the side of the river where boats were loading, overloading with passengers.  The boatmen refused to take us if we had no passes from the governor.

We hunted the governor’s office up the hillside, panting in our haste.  We burst in upon him.  He was a dirty man in an unclean shirt and unkempt trousers.

“We want to go by the motor-boat,” we explained.

“Who are you?” he asked, picking his teeth.

“We are the English about whom the governor of Scutari has telegraphed.”

“I don’t know anything about you,” he said.  His manner was ungracious.

“But,” we said, “they assured us that they had telegraphed from Scutari.”

The telegraph clerk was brought, and denied that any message had come.

“Anyhow,” said the governor, “the motor-boat is for Albanian soldiers only, and has gone twenty minutes ago.  I can do nothing for you without authority from Durazzo.”

We wandered dismally back through the town and were immediately arrested by the bridge officials because we had not paid the toll rates.  We paid double to get rid of them.

We found an inn.  It was the usual sort of building only of stone, and so dirtier than the others.  Some travelling show seemed to have left its scenery in lieu of its bill, for bits of painted canvas did duty as partitions.