found themselves with barely sufficient resources to keep themselves from want.  To add to their discouragement, the greatest uncertainty prevailed as to Hungary’s future.  In order to obtain an idea of just how familiar the inhabitants of the rural districts were with political conditions, I asked four intelligent-looking men in succession who was the ruler of Hungary and what was its present form of government.  The first opined that the Archduke Joseph had been chosen king; another ventured the belief that the country was a republic with Bela Kun as president; the third asserted that Hungary had been annexed to Rumania; while the last man I questioned said quite frankly that he didn’t know who was running the country, or what its form of government was, and that he didn’t much care.  As a result of the decision of the Peace Conference which awarded Transylvania to Rumania and divided the Banat between Rumania and Jugoslavia, Hungary finds herself stripped of virtually all her forests, all her mines, all her oil wells, and all of her manufactories save those in Budapest, thus stripping the bankrupt and demoralized nation of practically all of her resources save her wheat-fields.  I talked with a number of Americans and English who were conversant with Hungary’s internal condition and they agreed that it was doubtful if the country, stripped of its richest territories, deprived of most of its resources, and hemmed in by hostile and jealous peoples, could long exist as an independent state.  On several occasions I heard the opinion expressed that sooner or later the Hungarians, in order to save themselves from complete ruin, would ask to be admitted to the Jugoslav Confederation, thereby obtaining for their products an outlet to the sea.  In any event, the Hungarians appear to have a more friendly feeling for their Jugoslav neighbors than for the Rumanians, whom they charge with a deliberate attempt to bring about their economic ruin.

In spite of the prohibitive cost of labor and materials, we found that the traces of the Austrian bombardment of Belgrade in 1914, which did enormous damage to the Serbian capital, were rapidly being effaced and that the city was fast resuming its pre-war appearance.  The place was as busy as a boom town in the oil country.  The Grand Hotel, where the food was the best and cheapest we found in the Balkans, was filled to the doors with officers, politicians, members of parliament—­for the Skupshtina was in session—­relief workers, commercial travelers and concession seekers, and the huge Hotel Moskowa, built, I believe, with Russian capital, was about to reopen.  Architecturally, Belgrade shows many traces of Muscovite influence, many of the more important buildings having the ornate facades of pink, green and purple tiles, the colored glass windows, and the gilded domes which are so characteristically Russian.  Though the main thoroughfare of the city, formerly called the Terasia but now known as Milan Street, is admirably paved with wooden blocks, the