The gendarmes were fairly well mounted, but the only animals that we could obtain were two tiny pack-ponies full of tantalising pack-train habits. They were strong little beasts, and could travel all day without showing fatigue, but it was impossible to get them out of a pack-train gait, and under no circumstance would they travel side by side. After the Count had struggled desperately with his little brute for quite an hour, he borrowed one of the officer’s spurs, and we all halted while he sat on a rock and fastened it to a foot; for had we not waited, the Count’s animal, having no other to follow, would have taken him back to its stable. When the old man mounted again his temper had cooled, and instead of giving his pony a vicious kick, as I expected, he brought his heels together gently but firmly. The horse lifted a hind leg and kicked viciously at the bite. But this did not rid him of the annoyance, so he turned his head around and sought the insect with his teeth. For this he got a kick in the nose, and then began to learn what the spur meant. The price for the hire of the ponies was absurd, a franc a day apiece; and we paid another franc a day for a boy to go with us and care for them. This boy was wise; he came along on foot. From the crest of the first high hill Macedonia came into view. The land sweeps on as one; there is no line to mark where Occident ends and Orient begins; but somewhere down there the order of things reverses. Here, where we stood, the Mohamedan is the infidel; across the valley the Christian is the _giaour_. We took a course generally along the Struma, as near the border as we could pass without being halted by frontier guards. We kept to the north bank as much as possible; when compelled, because of bad ground, to take the south side, we did not lose sight of the river, for there was no other line to keep us within the border. There was no high road on our route, and for many miles not even a footpath. We had no guide, and neither of the gendarmes had been over the route before. Consequently we had often to retrace our steps and make long détours, sometimes for miles, when we happened to get into a ‘blind’ cañon or meet the edge of a mountain side too steep for descent. Once, while following the river (which was generally fordable), we came to a gorge less than a hundred feet in breadth, through which the water poured swift and deep, and on both sides the mountains rose almost perpendicularly. We could not venture the horses into the seething waters, nor was it possible to get them up the steep slopes, so we were obliged to make our way back up stream until we found an incline gradual enough to climb.