Our destination was Stananitza, 40 kilometres distant, and the road lay through Pirot. Where was now the carpet-making industry? I had little thought that day at Rudnik, when I so much wished to go to Pirot, that I should visit the place so soon, but that carpet-seeing would not be on the programme. Congestion of convoys was great, and progress was slow; we were for hours crawling and stopping, and crawling, crawling, crawling through the town. I realised at once that there would be difficulty in keeping the column together owing to the different paces respectively of the cars, the horses, and the oxen. The cars wanted to go fast, the oxen wanted to go slow, and the horses neither fast nor slow; but I determined that first day that, as I myself couldn't go at three different paces, and as I was responsible for the safety of all, we must, by one means or another, keep together. The wagon horses had no objection to going at oxen pace, and the motors compromised by driving on for half an hour and then waiting, or else by starting half an hour after the rest of us. This plan was adopted throughout, with the result that during the whole of the next three months we never lost any of the convoy. [Illustration: BURYING OUR DEAD BY THE ROADSIDE] [Illustration: THE HISTORIC PLAIN OF KOSSOVO] CHAPTER XIX After Pirot the country was magnificent: narrow roads wound round and round, ascending the high mountains, and from view-points on the hills, we could see behind us, and before us, only interrupted by the curves of the mountain road, endless columns of the Serbian Army; this was not visible as soldiers, oxen, guns, and transport, but as the sinuous movement of a grey serpent winding itself round and round the mountain passes. I was surprised at finding that there were to be no outspans. In South Africa it was the invariable rule to rest the oxen for two hours after every three hours of trek. But now we were told that we must only halt when the columns ahead of us halted, and that was very occasionally, for a quarter of an hour at a time. Meals, therefore, were not a prominent feature of the day. When night fell we were still trekking, and from 5 p.m. the roads were atrocious, and in the pitchy darkness it was impossible to see the holes into which one's horse must stumble. We reached our goal at 9 o'clock: sixteen hours in the saddle without being tired was a good beginning. We were directed to our camping site, which was amongst herds of other convoys; but as the ground was swampy, and there was no room for tents, and we had to move off again at five next morning, we didn't unpack the tents, but slept in the cars. One of the chauffeurs had good luck: he fell into a hole six feet deep, invisible in the darkness, and didn't break his neck; he only cut his head.