"How far are we from Tutigne?" we asked.
"Four hours," said a dignified Albanian, who had joined our party.
"No, two hours," said another.
"Three at most," corrected a third.
The first man lifted his hand. "I say four hours, and it is four hours. With such horses as these we crawl."
We reached a desolate tableland at dusk. Here the horses halted for some while. With the halt came a sudden desire to stay there for good. It seemed as if we should never reach Tutigne. The evening brought with it chilly damp breezes, and the footsore company was getting quite disheartened.
"Let us camp here," said everybody.
But the policeman had a mailbag to deliver that night, and we had to push on. Experienced as we were in Serbian roads, never had we seen such mud. Down, down sank our feet, and we could only extract them again clinging to the carts with the sound of a violent kiss. We tried to escape it by climbing into the thick brushwood, only to find it again, stickier and more slippery, while the bushes grasped us with thorny arms and athletically switched our faces. A moonless darkness came upon us and we had to walk just behind the carriages, peering at the square yard of road illuminated by candles in our penny lanterns.
Occasionally a voice greeted us. We asked how far Tutigne was.