nder Obrenovitch who had no direct
heir. Failing one, she was one of the nearest relations to the
Obrenovitch dynasty. The astute Prince Nikola, having married a
daughter to the Karageorge claimant to the throne, now strove to
make assurance doubly sure by marrying a son to a possible rival
candidate. My diary notes though: "It seems there has been a lot of
bother about it and that it was nearly 'off' as Papa Constantinovitch
required Mirko to put down a considerable amount in florins. And
Mirko could not produce them. I suppose he has now borrowed on his
expectation of the Serbian throne. Which is, I imagine, his only
asset."

I confess that at this time I did not know the Balkans and saw all
these doings humorously, as a comic operetta. But the comic operas
of the Balkans are written in blood and what was then fun to me was
to end in a world tragedy.

My route to Belgrade was by boat to Fiume and thence by rail via
Agram. On the boat I picked up a Croatian lady and her daughter, who
moped miserably in the hot and stuffy cabin till they ventured to
ask my permission to sit with me on deck. "You are English, so the
men will not dare annoy us," they said, "if we are with you." Only
English women, they declared, could travel as I did. The mere idea
of a journey in Serbia terrified them and they assured me it was
quite impossible.

And the cheap hotel in Agram, to which they recommended me, was of
the same opinion. The company there assured me that King Alexander
was drinking himself to death, and were loud in their expression of
contempt for land and people. In those days union between Croatia
and Serbia was possible only if Croatia swallowed Serbia. And not
very long after I was in Agram riots took place in which the Serbs
of the town were attacked and plundered.

As the train lumbered over the plains north of the Save, on the way
to Belgrade, my fellow travellers, too, thought I was bound on a mad
and impossible errand. As is usual in the Near East they all
cross-examined me about my private affairs with boring persistency,
and their verdict was that not even a British passport would see me
through. "You will never see Serbia," they declared. I did though.
For, being wholly innocent of any plots, all the efforts of all the
multitudinous police of Serbia failed to turn me from my plan. "The
wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous is as bold as a
lion."

The train thundered over the iron bridge at nigh