It was a ten and a half hours' drive in a burning sun and a cloud of white dust, through miles of very fertile and most English-looking country, with English hedges, English oak trees, and English post and rail fences. My first experience of travelling inland in Servia was a very fair sample. There were days when I sighed for the drivers of Montenegro and their wiry ponies, but I always reflected that it was the Servians that I had come to see and that I was seeing them. The Montenegrin is always anxious to get to the journey's end, but the Servian never seems to care whether he arrives or not, provided he can get enough black coffee on the way. He slugs along, takes innumerable rests, and is disappointed if you won't go to sleep in the middle of the day at a way-side inn. Nothing hurries him up; he looks at his watch and says it isn't dark yet, and lets the horses stand still while he rolls his hundredth cigarette. The horses are like the driver, and seldom trot unless urged to, though they are generally in fair condition. But the average Servian does everything in a leisurely manner, and horses and driver but follow the national fashion. I thought at first I was being taken along slowly because I was a foreigner, but I found that when I had native fellow-travellers we went slower still. Though my driver was a slug, he was always a very amiable and honest one, and he more than once offered to pay for my drinks. Valjevo is a large town (20,000 inhabitants), very prettily situated in well wooded country. Everyone was anxious to forward my plans. One gentleman most kindly made me out a tour for the whole of East Servia, drew me a map, and wrote the distances and fares upon the roads. Servia just now has a bad reputation in England; I owe it to Servia to say that in no other land have I met with greater kindness from complete strangers. Valjevo is a smart place, lighted by electric light. The crowd of fashionable ladies and swagger officers who were listening to the military band in the Park would not have looked out of place in the Rue de Rivoli or the Row. My new acquaintances were delighted to hear that I had learnt Servian in London. When I said that my teacher was a Pole, their joy was dashed, but they agreed that it was better than if I had learned from "a dirty Schwab" (_i.e_. German). The idea that the whole of London had to depend on one Pole for instruction did not seem right to them. Five million people in London and only one Pole to teach them! That Pole must be very rich! They were anxious to export native teachers at once, but I assured them that the Pole had all the pupils.