carf, short white coat heavily embroidered with
black braid, tight trousers, also heavily embroidered, but the waistband
only pulled up to where the buttock begins to slide away--we wondered
continuously why they never fell off--and the long space between coat
and trousers filled with tightly wound red and orange belt. He called
himself Ramases, or some such name. Our saddles were pretty good, the
stirrups like shovels, the horses the best (barring at the Front) we had
had since Prepolji.

We rode over a creaky bridge, Jan's horse refusing, so he went through
the river, and out into the new road which is being made to Ipek. Men
and women, almost all in Albanian costumes, were scraping, digging,
drilling and blasting; some of the women wore a costume we had not yet
seen, very short cotton skirt above the knees, and long, embroidered
leggings. We passed this high-road "in posse" and, the little horses
stepping along, presently caught up a trail of donkeys, the proprietor
of which, a friend of Ramases, had a face like a post-impressionist
sculpture.

We passed the donkeys and came to the usual sort of cafe, rough log hut,
fire on floor--but one of the women therein gave Jo her only
apple--decidedly we were away from Pod.

On again along river valleys. Jan's saddle had a knob in the seat that
began to insinuate. On every hill were cut maize patches, the red
stubble in the sunset looking like fields of blood.

In the dusk we came to Velika, a wooden witchlike village, where we were
to stay the night, and where, as we had expected, the Pasha, ten minutes
ahead of us, had commandeered all the accommodation. The captain,
however, was very good, and gave us a policeman to find lodgings for us.
By this time it was dark. He led us into a pitch black lane where the
mud came over our boots, then we clambered up a loose earth cliff and
stood looking into a room whose only light was from a small fire, as
usual on the floor. Over the fire was a large pot, and a meagre-faced
woman was stirring the brew. Behind her a small baby in a red and white
striped blanket was pushed up to its armpits through a hole on four
legs, where it hung. In a dark corner a small boy was worrying a black
cat.

"Can you give these English a bed?" demanded the policeman.

The woman shook her head sadly. "Mozhe," she said, which means "It is
possible."

After supper, Bovril and cheese omelette, we went out to seek the cafe.
We trudged back through the m