Because I did not wish to confine my observations to the coast towns, which are, after all, essentially Italian, I motored across Dalmatia at its widest part, from Zara, through Benkovac, Kistonje, and Knin, to the little hamlet of Kievo, on the Jugoslav frontier.  Though the Slav population of the Dalmatian hinterland is, according to the assertions of Belgrade, bitterly hostile to Italian rule, I did not detect a single symptom of animosity toward the Italian officers who were my companions on the part of the peasants whom we passed.  They displayed, on the contrary, the utmost courtesy and good feeling, the women, looking like huge and gaudily dressed dolls in their snowy blouses and embroidered aprons, courtesying, while the tall, fine-looking men gravely touched the little round caps which are the national head-gear of Dalmatia.

Kievo is the last town in Dalmatia, being only a few score yards from the Bosnian frontier.  Its little garrison was in command of a young Italian captain, a tall, slender fellow with the blond beard of a Viking and the dreamy eyes of a poet.  He had been stationed at this lonely outpost for seven months, he told me, and he welcomed us as a man wrecked on a desert island would welcome a rescue party.  In order to escape from the heat and filth and insects of the village, he had built in a near-by grove a sort of arbor, with a roof of interlaced branches to keep off the sun.  Its furnishings consisted of a home-made table, an army cot, two or three decrepit chairs, and a phonograph.  I did not need to inquire where he had obtained the phonograph, for on its cover was stenciled the familiar red triangle of the Y.M.C.A.—­the “Yimka,” as the Italians call it—­which operates more than 300 casas for the use of the Italian army.  While our host was preparing a dubious-looking drink from sweet, bright-colored syrups and lukewarm water, I amused myself by glancing over the little stack of records on the table.  They were, of course, nearly all Italian, but I came upon three that I knew well:  “Loch Lomond,” “Old Folks at Home” and “So Long, Letty.”  It was like meeting a party of old friends in a strange land.  I tried the later record, and though it was not very clear, for the captain’s supply of needles had run out and he had been reduced to using ordinary pins, it was startling to hear Charlotte Greenwood’s familiar voice caroling “So long, so long, Letty,” there on the borders of Bosnia, with a picket of curious Jugoslavs, rifles across their knees, seated on the rocky hillside, barely a stone’s throw away.  Still, come to think about it, the war produced many contrasts quite as strange, as, for example, when the New York Irish, the old 69th, crossed the Rhine with the regimental band playing “The Sidewalks of New York.”