The day after our ride there was nothing doing, and it was difficult to make any plan. I spent most of the day lying about the big garden, as many of the soldiers did. There were pleasant gullies, and beyond lay the long, rambling, white-walled village with a pretty church. The village girls were all on the way thither dressed in bright colours. It seemed that there were services twice a day; and the people, who were Poles, met whenever they heard the cannon, to pray for the success of the Russian arms. I sat for some time in the church. The younger girls all knelt before the chancel and sang a long and beautiful prayer, into which, in the second half of each stave, there joined the voices of the men behind. Then the priest, who looked both kind and clever, had a talk with the younger children. Poland is one of the few countries where all the church music is congregational, and it is often sung very beautifully. For the Pole the church is the fortress and shelter of his country; and in this terrible war, which has fallen so hardly on Poland, this comfort is more needed and more real than ever. It is many times that the inhabitants of this region, especially old peasant women, have told me how they feared the coming of the Germans. The Staff was a very pleasant company. The chief, also a general, had the face and manner of a conscientious English country gentleman; he was widely read in military history, and his judgments were always weighed. The senior adjutant had been contusioned and invalided, but somehow had managed to return almost at once; he was humorous and talkative; in his room he had a placard, "There is no air in this room, don't spoil your health and GO AWAY." Over the General's door he had written, "Don't disturb work or rest." Two officers examined our prisoners, assisted by a Czech interpreter. There was one very militant Austrian German, who would have it that Austria would win; he was so rude about the Austrian Slavs that I asked him at the end whether Austria wanted the Slavs. He said they wished to be quit of Galicia, and in fact of all their Slav provinces; I suggested that Austria proper and Tirol might find their natural place inside the German empire; he answered with alacrity, "Of course, far better under Wilhelm II." It is a view which offers possibilities of a settlement; but I did not see how it would suit Austria. In the evening the Cossacks, encamped in different groups in the wood, struck up their strange songs and the Russian national hymn, which they have their own way of singing, suggestive of cadences in the music of the north of England. I came back from a walk in the cornfields to hear that the General invited me to come with him the next day.