AND THEIR FOUNDER, DR.
ELSIE INGLIS."

"The object of my letter is not to make known what I have told you; what
follows is more important.

"Dr. Inglis was present in person at the unveiling and benediction of
the fountain. The idea was to give her a proof of the people's gratitude
by erecting an original monument which, in recalling those strenuous
days, would combine a value practical and real, solving the question of
a pure drinking-water, and cutting off the danger of an epidemic at the
root; and also, the impression that she had after visiting a number of
fountains in the environs of Mladanovatz and its villages left her no
rest (as she said later), and produced in her an idea, long thought
over, and eventually expressed in the following conversation:

"'Look here, Captain P----, I have a scheme which absorbs me more and
more, and becomes in me a fixed idea. You suffer in Serbia, and are
often subject to epidemics, through nothing else but bad water. I have
been thinking it over, and would like to ameliorate as much as possible
this deplorable state of affairs. I have the intention of addressing an
appeal to the people of Great Britain, and asking them to inaugurate a
fund which would create the opportunity of constructing in each Serbian
village a fountain of good drinking-water. And then, I should return to
Serbia, and with you--I hope that you are willing, since you have
already built so many of these fountains round about--should go from
village to village erecting these fountains. It will be, after the war,
my unique and greatest desire to do this for the Serbs.'

"Oh, great friend of Serbia! Thy clear-sighted spirit was to have but a
glimpse of one of the most essential necessities of the Serbian people.
Thy frail and fragile body has not permitted thee to enjoy the pleasure
to which thou hast devoted so much love. For the well-being of this dear
people thou hast given thyself entirely, even thy noble life. What a
misfortune indeed for us!

"May Heaven send thee eternal peace, so much merited, and so much
desired by all those who knew thee, and above all and especially by all
those Serbian hearts who have found in thee a great human friend."

Dr. Inglis wrote every week to the committee. In the letters written
towards the end of September we are aware of the anxiety about the
future which is beginning to make itself felt.

"Last week Austrian aeroplanes were 'announced,' and the
au