As we were breakfasting next day our driver, who had been most unpleasant the whole time, sidled up and asked Jan to sign a paper. While Jan was doing so the driver burst into a volley of explanations. We thought that he was asking for a tip, but made out that he had lost (or gambled) the ten kronen which his employer had given to him for expenses. We had intended to give him no tip, for on the yesterday he had refused to carry our bags, but this made us waver. We asked Mr. Rad, etc., what we should do.
"Sign his paper," he answered gruffly, "and kick him out; he's only a dirty Turk anyhow."
The mayor sent our horses round early; but we stuck to our decision to start in the afternoon, and ordered lunch at twelve. There was a huge crowd gathered in front of the inn, and we saw that the Pasha and his harem were off. One wife wore a blue furniture cover over her, one a green, and one a brown, so that he might know them apart from the outside, for they all had heavy black veils before their faces. The Pasha himself seemed rather a decent fellow, and had much of the air of a curate conducting a school feast. Four children were thrust into two baskets which were slung on each side of one small horse, and various furniture, including a small bath (or large basin), was strapped on to others, and the Pasha followed by his wives set off walking, the Pasha occasionally throwing a graceful remark behind him.
The mayor lunched with us, and for a man who has, as he says, anæmia of the stomach, chronic dysentery, and inflammation of the intestines, he ate most freely, and if such is his daily habit, he deserved all he had got.
Our guide was the most picturesque we have yet had. He was an Albanian with a shaven poll save for a tuft by which the angels will one day lift him to heaven, small white cap like a saucer, over which was wound a twisted dirty white scarf, short white coat heavily embroidered with black braid, tight trousers, also heavily embroidered, but the waistband only pulled up to where the buttock begins to slide away—we wondered continuously why they never fell off—and the long space between coat and trousers filled with tightly wound red and orange belt. He called himself Ramases, or some such name. Our saddles were pretty good, the stirrups like shovels, the horses the best (barring at the Front) we had had since Prepolji.
We rode over a creaky bridge, Jan's horse refusing, so he went through the river, and out into the new road which is being made to Ipek. Men and women, almost all in Albanian costumes, were scraping, digging, drilling and blasting; some of the women wore a costume we had not yet seen, very short cotton skirt above the knees, and long, embroidered leggings. We passed this high-road "in posse" and, the little horses stepping along, presently caught up a trail of donkeys, the proprietor of which, a friend of Ramases, had a face like a post-impressionist sculpture.
We passed the donkeys and came to the usual sort of café, rough log hut, fire on floor—but one of the women therein gave Jo her only apple—decidedly we were away from Pod.
On again along river valleys. Jan's saddle had a knob in the seat that began to insinuate. On every hill were cut maize patches, the red stubble in the sunset looking like fields of blood.
In the dusk we came to Velika, a wooden witchlike village, where we were to stay the night, and where, as we had expected, the Pasha, ten minutes ahead of us, had commandeered all the accommodation. The captain, however, was very good, and gave us a policeman to find lodgings for us. By this time it was dark. He led us into a pitch black lane where the mud came over our boots, then we clambered up a loose earth cliff and stood looking into a room whose only light was from a small fire, as usual on the floor. Over the fire was a large pot, and a meagre-faced woman was stirring the brew. Behind her a small baby in a red and white striped blanket was pushed up to its armpits through a hole on four legs, where it hung. In a dark corner a small boy was worrying a black cat.