In the Balkan Peninsula, monasteries are more than places of refuge for people with monastic minds, they minister to a wider public, and are at once hostels and shrines, centres of food supply and travellers’ gossip, where merchants market, while monks pray and sing. Their pious founders have left a saintly work behind them, theirs is an incense burnt in the furnace of affliction, mounting to heaven on waves of gratitude. The Monastery of St. Joachim stands in a quiet valley, a mile or more from the main road which links Bulgarian Kjustendil with Turkish Uskub, or in Servian Skoplje. Down this main road the tide of war had swept, leaving a trail of empty granaries, of violated homes, and frightened, wailing children. The people bore these trials patiently, there was naught else to do, but when despair had overcome their hope, they one and all, Christians and infidels alike, sought consolation at the monastery set amid dark green trees. Thither there flocked a hungry, homeless crowd, seeking first food and shelter, then repose, and finding all in the great caravanserai, left standing by the tolerant Turks. One evening, during the first Balkan War, a Servian officer and I arrived on horseback at the monastery gate. Close by there rose a spring covered with slabs of stone, the water tricking through an iron pipe into a rough-hewn trough. We paused to let our horses drink, and saw, lying upon the ground, a man, or what was left of one. His form was rigid, motionless, only the eyes moved, bright, black, beady eyes, which flitted restlessly from face to face, then turned towards the setting sun and stared, undazzled, at the flaming pageant, only to leave it soon, and throw quick glances here and there at objects nearer and more human. His story was soon told. He was a Bulgarian soldier, struck by a Turkish bullet near the spine and paralysed. Some peasants had found him in a field, and, filled with pity, had brought him to where he lay, so that, at least, he should not die alone. A woman had brought a pillow for his head, a monk knelt at his other side repeating words that solace dying men. And then he spoke. The voice, though weak, rang clear; in a hushed silence, it gave the final message of a man whose earthly course was run. Neither the woman nor the priest had touched the peasant’s heart. His thoughts were far away, but not with wife or children, nor did the welfare of his soul trouble his dying moments. He had a farm in the Maritza valley, not far from Philippopolis, there he had spent his life, and lavished all his love and care. To him that strip of land was very dear, and, dying, he remembered it, to give some last instructions for the next autumn sowing. CHAPTER VIII “1914” PEACE AND WAR