A JOURNEY INTO THE BERDAS Pending the arrival of the guns, I explored the more remote and by no traveler hitherto visited section of the Berdas, charged by the Russian Red Cross and the English committees with the distribution of a considerable sum of gold amongst the wounded and families of the killed in that section.

With a single _perianik_ (one of the Prince's bodyguard) and my horse boy, who served as interpreter, I set out for the great plains of the northeastern provinces, then menaced by an invasion of a strong division from Kolashin, intended to effect a diversion for the relief of Niksich.

Climbing the heights which make a rim like the wall of a crater round the plain of Niksich, I reached a table-land _( planina)_ which rolls away to the frontier.

I made my first halt at the monastery of Zupa, situated in a lovely valley where the fertility of the land supports a considerable population, and where the Russians had established a hospital.

Nothing could exceed the kindness and humanity of those Russian surgeons.