I have experienced storms in Norway, and in the Swiss and Austrian Alps,
but I never remember anything to equal this outburst of the elements.
To stop still or to go forward was almost equally difficult, but we
struggled on somehow at the rate, I should think, of a mile and a half
in the hour. The horses were thoroughly demoralised, as one says of
defeated troops, and stumbled recklessly at every obstacle. The driver
was a stupid fellow, without an ounce of pluck in his composition, and
declared more than once that he would not go on, preferring to stop
under such shelter as the trees afforded. We were of another mind, and
insisted on his pushing on. One of us walked at the horses' heads, and
thus we splashed and blundered on for three mortal hours, wishing all
the time that we had slept at Milanovacz. The route became so much worse
that I declared we must have missed the track. We were apparently in a
deep gully, traversed by a mountain torrent hardly a foot below the
level of our road; but the Servian said he knew we were "all right," and
that we should come directly to a house where we could get shelter.
He had hardly spoken when H---- descried some lights not very far ahead,
and in less than ten minutes we came alongside a good-sized hut, which
turned out to be the welcome wine-shop the driver had promised us. Here
was a roof anyhow, so we entered, hoping for supper and beds in the
wayside inn.
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