since sunrise, and had paddled twenty miles or more, therefore, after our first curiosity was satisfied, we thought we had better return to the village for luncheon, and come back again to see the afternoon drill. But the moment we began to move away, the suspicions of the whole camp were aroused at once, and from all sides came a chorus of shouts and cries in what seemed to us very violent and angry tones. In another instant we were the centre of an excited [Illustration: CARRYING WATER FOR THE CAMP, BRZA PLANKA] throng of fierce-looking rascals all armed with knives, and several of them with rifles and bayonets. Explanations were now futile, and, indeed, quite impossible, for our small stock of Servian words was soon exhausted, and, after making several attempts to push past the men who blocked our path, we finally yielded, and were marched off to the hut which was apparently the headquarters. Here we found two officers of the regular army, a captain and a lieutenant, who had charge of the encampment, the former being, as we now understood, the only captain in the camp, and therefore the one whom we had declared we were about to visit. [Illustration: “OUR GUARD,” SERVIAN MILITIA CAMP] The officers were naturally astonished at seeing two men in boating dress appear at the door of their hut, for the militiamen stood off at a respectful distance and sent us ahead to announce ourselves; however, they received us with great courtesy, gave us the only two chairs they had, and tried to conceal their bewilderment by urgent offers of hospitality. We produced our passports, displayed the great water-mark of the eagle and shield and the arms of the British Empire, and made ourselves as agreeable as possible, all the while wondering what was going to be the result of the interview. They seemed to be in no great hurry to get rid of us, and were evidently puzzled what to do with us anyhow; for there could be no question of the validity of our credentials, and they undoubtedly had received no orders to cover this unexpected episode. The difficulty lay in our inability to explain our business; for although we could understand the greater part of what they said, from the resemblance of the language to Russian, we had a very limited stock of Servian words to use in this emergency. Even if we had successfully managed the philological feat of explaining the object of our trip in comprehensible Servian, we should have found the same difficulty here as at every other place since the beginning of our voyage in convincing them that we were engaged in no commercial enterprise, but were simply on a pleasure excursion. The captain sent men in various directions to find some one who spoke German or Hungarian, and at last a gypsy was brought who was supposed to be a linguist. His German was limited to one phrase, “Was wollen Sie?” and not a word of Hungarian did he know, so he was promptly kicked out again. While they were scouring the camp for another interpreter, it