The American has not yet ousted the Turk from Serbia, and the bite from
our wheel banged off the revolutions of our sedate passing. Trsternik's
church--modern but good taste--gleamed like a jewel in the sun against
the dark hills. On either hand were maize fields with stalks as tall as
a man, their feathery tops veiling the intense green of the herbage with
a film, russet like cobwebs spun in the setting sun. There were plum
orchards--for the manufacture of plum brandy--so thick with fruit that
there was more purple than green in the branches, and between the trunks
showed square white ruddy-roofed hovels with great squat tile-decked
chimneys. Some of the houses were painted with decorations of bright
colours, vases of flowers or soldiers, and on one was a detachment of
crudely drawn horsemen, dark on the white walls, meant to represent the
heroes of old Serbian poetry.

To Krusevatz the valley broadened, and the sinking sun tinted the
widening maize-tops till the fields were great squares of gold. We had
no lights in the train, and presently dusk closed down, seeming to shut
each up within his or her own mind. The hills grew very dark and
distant, and on the faint rising mist the trees seemed to stand about
with their hands in their pockets like vegetable Charlie Chaplins.

A junction, and a rush for tables at the little out-of-door restaurant.
In the country from which we have just come all seemed peace, but here
in truth was war. Passing shadowy in the faint lights were soldiers;
soldiers crouched in heaps in the dark corners of the station; yet more
soldiers and soldiers again huddled in great square box trucks or open
waggons waiting patiently for the train which was four or five hours
late. There were women with them, wives or sisters or daughters, with
great heavy knapsacks and stolid unexpressive faces.