Somewhere beyond this house Jan's inside began to cry for food, two
biscuits and a cup of _café au lait_ being little upon which to found a
long day's riding. He tentatively tried a "compressed luncheon." Its
action was satisfactory, but whether it resulted from real nourishment
contained in the black-looking glue, or whether it came from a sticking
together of the coating of the stomach, we have not yet decided. Jo
preferred rather to endure the hunger.

Bogami had quite a charm; for instance, he appreciated our troubles with
the beasts we were riding. Jo's horse stumbled a good deal on the
downhills; her saddle was very uncomfortable and so narrow that she
could never change her position. We came into most magnificent scenery,
the beauty of which made a deep impression even upon our empty selves.
There were deep green valleys, rising to peaks and hills which faded
away ridge behind ridge of blue into the distant Serbian mountains,
great pine woods of delicate drooping trees which came down and folded
in on every side, and though it was almost September there were
strawberries still ripe at the edge of the road, little red luscious
blobs amidst the green.

Metalka at one o'clock, and we were on the real Montenegrin frontier.
There are two Metalkas, a Montenegrin and an Austrian, and they are
divided one from the other by a strip of land some ten yards across
which rips the village in two like the track of a little cyclone. Bogami
directed us to a shanty labelled "Hotel of Europe." A large woman was
blocking the door; we demanded food, she took no notice. Hunger was
clamouring within us. We demanded a second time. She waved her hand
majestically to her rival in Austria, at whose tables Montenegrin
officers were sitting with coffee.