admiration for our bicycles, produces a tattered memorandum and begs us
to favor him with our autographs, an act that of itself proves him to
be not without a degree of intelligence one would scarcely look for in
a sheepskin-clad shepherd of Slavonia. Igali gruffly bids the man
"begone," and aims a careless kick at the proffered memorandum; but seeing
no harm in the request, and, moreover, being perhaps by nature a trifle
more considerate of others, I comply. As he reads aloud, "United States,
America," to his comrades, they one and all lift their hats quite
reverently and place their brown hands over their hearts, for I suppose
they recognize in my ready compliance with the simple request, in
comparison with Igali's rude rebuff-which, by the way, no doubt comes
natural enough-the difference between the land of the prince and peasant,
and the land where "liberty, equality, and fraternity" is not a meaningless
motto - a land which I find every down-trodden peasant of Europe has heard
of, and looks upward to.

Soon after this incident we are passing a prune-orchard, when, as though
for our especial benefit, a couple of peasants working there begin singing
aloud, and with evident enthusiasm, some national melody, and as they
observe not our presence, at my suggestion we crouch behind a convenient
clump of bushes and for several minutes are favored with as fine a duet
as I have heard for many a day; but the situation becomes too ridiculous
for Igali, and it finally sends him into a roar of laughter that causes
the performance to terminate abruptly, and, rising into full view, we
doubtless repay the singers by letting them see us mount and ride into
their native village, but a few hundred yards distant. We are to-day
passing through villages where a bicycle has never been seen - this being
outside the area of Igali's peregrinations - and the whole population
invariably turns out en masse, clerks, proprietors, and customers in the
shops unceremoniously dropping everything and running to the streets;