Pending the arrival of the guns, I explored the more remote and by no traveler hitherto visited section of the Berdas, charged by the Russian Red Cross and the English committees with the distribution of a considerable sum of gold amongst the wounded and families of the killed in that section. With a single _perianik_ (one of the Prince's bodyguard) and my horse boy, who served as interpreter, I set out for the great plains of the northeastern provinces, then menaced by an invasion of a strong division from Kolashin, intended to effect a diversion for the relief of Niksich. Climbing the heights which make a rim like the wall of a crater round the plain of Niksich, I reached a table-land _(planina)_ which rolls away to the frontier. I made my first halt at the monastery of Zupa, situated in a lovely valley where the fertility of the land supports a considerable population, and where the Russians had established a hospital. Nothing could exceed the kindness and humanity of those Russian surgeons. There was one poor patient who had received a ball in the mouth, which lodged in the neck and caused a suppuration, involving an artery, which burst into the wound. The carotid was tied, but the operation failed to stop the hemorrhage, and I found the surgeons relieving each other every quarter of an hour in holding a pledget of lint on the wound, in a determined effort to save the man's life if it were physically possible. The hospital was admirably conducted. In this beautiful valley I waited several days, wandering amongst the hills. There were flocks of wild pigeons and other game in the vicinity, and one morning of summer weather I took my gun and strolled out alone, having no apprehension of personal danger where there was no fighting population. Approaching a village curiously intent, I discovered an old woman, who, on seeing this unexplained stranger, armed, and with no company of her kin, set up a terrible hullabaloo, shouting, "The Turks! The Turks!" and calling the boys to the defense, and in a jiffy the whole village was up in alarm. I ran as fast as I could in the direction of the monastery, conscious that every boy in the valley had some old pistol, and would not even ask the questions I could not answer before immolating me in the defense of his village. Life is of no account in such circumstances, and the explanation would have been made too late to do me any good, but I never walked out again without my interpreter while in that country.