Into the land of Montenegro, the land of the Black Mountains, which already threatened precipitously to bar our way, we must now force an entrance. Our first path, about two feet wide, ran through a thick wood; I went first, and led my horse, for, though there were plenty of men to lead it, I guessed that I should better be able to sympathise with the difficulties of the road, if I had to overcome them first myself; and I wished to choose the route. Colson, Jordan, Vooitch, George, and Ilia also each led a pony, and the Serbian men led the others, and the oxen. Our skeleton column was followed by other skeleton columns, and during all that day we tramped and splashed, and slipped, and scrambled, over rocks, and through scrub, in mud, and over slopes of ice and snow--a route impossible for carts. Roads had now ceased, and even the tracks were only those which had been trampled by the multitudes in front of us; over passes 5,000 feet high; between mountains 8,000 feet high; through snow, ice, boulders, unbroken forest, mud-holes, bridgeless rivers. And always those pitiless mountains glaring at the tragedy; mountains with steep, snow-covered slopes, or mountains of grey, bare rock, precipitous, shutting out, for thousands, all hope of return to home and nationhood. It would be impossible now to trek at night, and at dusk, I noticed ahead of us, a mountain slope covered with trees, which would give us partial shelter from the cold wind. Only another half hour's scramble, down a steep incline, in a thick wood, and rest, and fire, and supper would reward us. The last 100 yards of descent were precipitous, and at the top, my horse and I slipped on the ice, and we rolled together to the bottom. We picked ourselves up, shook ourselves, looked at each other--I was still holding the reins--and walked on. There was no one to say "Poor dear, are you hurt?" so it wasn't worth while to be hurt. Men who were passing, passed; they took no notice. Why should they? A broken leg, even a broken neck, more or less, of what consequence would such trifles be in the general havoc? During war, new values--are they better values?--are found for many things.