ber collars, and bad teeth be
indissolubly bound to "Education Bills" and "Factory Acts"? Why should
the Serbian peasant be forced to give up his beautiful costume for
celluloid cuffs, lose his artistic instincts in exchange for a made-up
tie? It is the march of civilization, dear people, and must on no
account be hindered.

Coming back to Serbia from Montenegro was like slipping from a warm into
a cool bath. One is irresistibly reminded that the Lords of Serbia
withdrew to Montenegro, leaving the peasantry behind, for every peasant
in the black mountains is a noble and carries a noble's dignity; while
Karageorge was a pig farmer. There is a warmth in Montenegro--save only
Pod.--which is not so evident in its larger brother; a welcome, which is
not so easily found in Serbia. The Montenegrin peasant is like a great
child, looking at the varied world with thirteenth-century unspoiled
eyes; centuries of Turkish oppression has dulled the wit of the Serb,
and at the outbreak of the war Teutonic culture was completing the
process.

We passed beneath the shadow of Shar Dagh, the highest peak in the
peninsula, six thousand feet from the plain, springing straight up to a
point for all to admire, a mountain indeed.

We reached Uskub at dusk, found a hotel, and went out to dine. The
restaurant was empty, but through a half-open door one could hear the
sounds of music. The restaurant walls were--superfluously--decorated
with paintings of food which almost took away one's appetite; but one
enormous panel of a dressed sucking pig riding in a Lohengrin-like
chariot over a purple sea amused us.

In the beer hall a tinkly mandoline orchestra was playing, and a woman
without a voice sang a popular song--one thought of the women on the
Rieka River--a tired girl dressed in faded tights did a few easy
contortions between the tables, and in a bored manner collected her meed
of halfpence--we thought of the cheery idiot of Scutari. Was it worth
it, we asked each other, this tinsel culture to which we had returned?
And not bothering to answer the question went back to our hotel and to
bed.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIII

USKUB

Uskub is a Smell on one side of which is built a prim little French town
finished off with conventionally placed poplars in true Latin style; and
on the other side lies a disreputable, rambling Turkish village
culminating in a cone of rock upon which is the old fortress called the
Grad.

The country