Jan's horse was like an early "John" drawing of a slender but antiquated siren, all beautiful curves. Jo's would in England long ago have taken the boat to Antwerp; her saddle stood up in a huge hump behind and had a steeple in front, and was covered by what looked like an old bearskin hearthrug in a temper, one stirrup like a fire shovel was yards too long, the other far too short, and were set well at the back.
"What queer horses!" we remarked.
"Bogami," said Bogami; "when there are no horses these are good horses, Bogami."
"Where is the secretary?"
"Bogami nesnam" (don't know).
From Uzhitze we had good horses, from Prepolji moderate, now these; imagination staggered at what we should descend to if we did a fourth lap to Cettinje, for instance, but we climbed up. Jo with her queerly placed stirrups perched forward something like a racing cyclist. Bogami's horse was innocent of garniture, save for a piece of chain bound about its lower jaw, but he slung his great coat over the saw edge of its backbone and leapt on. He must have had a coccyx of cast iron. We had to kick the animals into a walk—there were fifty kilometres to go.
After a while we began to wonder if it would not be quicker to get off and foot it, but we did catch up and eventually pass a Red Cross Turk. We saw a soldier striding ahead. By kicks and shouts we raised a sprint along the level road; we drew even with him, and then began a race; on the uphills we beat him, on the downhills he caught up and passed in front. He was a taciturn fellow, and save that he was going to Fochar we learnt nothing about him. On a long uphill we gained a hundred yards, and by supreme efforts held our gains. He eventually disappeared from view, and we were rejoicing at our speed when we realized that the telegraph wires were no longer with us—one can always find the nearest way by following the telegraph, for governments do not waste wire. Jan looked for them and found them streaming away to the left, and among them, well up on the horizon, our enemy the soldier.
"Look," we cried to Bogami, "isn't that the shortest way? The wires go there."
"Bogami," he replied; "wires can, horses can't, bogami."
There is a fine military road to Chainitza, made by the Austrians, but it remains a white necklace on the hills, almost an ornament to the landscape. No one seemed to use it, while our old Turkish road which snaked and twisted up and down was pitted with the hoofs of countless horses. It is a stony path, and our animals were shod with flat plates instead of horseshoes; they slipped and slithered, and we wondered if in youth they had ever had lessons in skating.