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.
“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 suddenly occurred to us to say we were engineers, believing that this must be a recognized profession along the Danube. The word “Ingenieur” acted like a charm. The captain immediately apologized for his stupidity in not understanding our position sooner, and called a guard to conduct us safely to the lines, saying that he could not let us remain in the camp, for the orders were against it; besides, there would be nothing to see, for the soldiers were going to have their after-dinner nap, and the parade would not take place until evening. We shook hands cordially with both officers, and followed the brawny chested peasant towards the road to the village. As we marched across the parade-ground we could not resist the