With Igali’s sky-blue girdle encompassing my waist, and the Servian national colors fondly encircling my neck, I begin to feel quite a heraldic tremor creeping over me, and actually surprise myself casting wistful glances at the huge antiquated horse pistol stuck in yonder bull-whacker’s ample waistband; moreover, I really think that a pair of these Servian moccasins would not be bad foot-gear for riding the bicycle.  All up the Morava Valley the roads continue far better than I have expected to find in Servia, and we wheel merrily along, the Resara Mountains covered with dark pine forests, skirting the valley on the right, sometimes rising into peaks of quite respectable proportions.  The sun sinks behind the receding hills, it grows dusk, and finally dark, save the feeble light vouchsafed by the new moon, and our destination still lies several kilometres ahead.  But at about nine we roll safely into Jagodina, well-satisfied with the consciousness of having covered one hundred and forty-five kilometres to-day, in spite of delaying our start in the morning until eight o’clock, and the twenty kilometres of indifferent road between Grotzka and Semendria.  There has been no reclining under road-side mulberry-trees for my companion to catch up to-day, however; the Servian wheelman is altogether a speedier man than Igali, and, whether the road is rough or smooth, level or hilly, he is found close behind my rear wheel; my own shadow follows not more faithfully than does the “best rider in Servia.”

We start for Jagodina at 5.30 next morning, finding the roads a little heavy with sand in places, but otherwise all that a wheelman could wish.  Crossing a bridge over the Morava River, into Tchupria, we are required not only to foot it across, but to pay a toll for the bicycles, like any other wheeled vehicle.  At Tchupria it seems as though the whole town must be depopulated, so great is the throng of citizens that swarm about us.  Motley and picturesque even in their rags, one’s pen utterly fails to convey a correct idea of their appearance; besides Servians, Bulgarians, and Turks, and the Greek priests who never fail of being on hand, now appear Roumanians, wearing huge sheep-skin busbies, with the long, ragged edges of the wool dangling about eyes and ears, or, in the case of a more “dudish " person, clipped around smooth at the brim, making the head-gear look like a small, round, thatched roof.  Urchins, whose daily duty is to promenade the family goat around the streets, join in the procession, tugging their bearded charges after them; and a score of dogs, overjoyed beyond measure at the general commotion, romp about, and bark their joyous approval of it all.  To have crowds like this following one out of town makes a sensitive person feel uncomfortably like being chased out of a community for borrowing chickens by moonlight, or on account of some irregularity concerning hotel bills.  On occasions like this Orientals seemingly have not the slightest sense of dignity; portly, well-dressed citizens, priests, and military officers press forward among the crowds of peasants and unwashed frequenters of the streets, evidently more delighted with things about them than they have been for many a day before.