Even a machine as powerful as ours could not continue indefinitely to plow its way through continually deepening snow up a steep and narrow road, and finally it gave up its hopeless task and slid gently from the road into a deep snow-bank, against which it reclined like some prehistoric monster taking a rest.

After an hour of unsuccessful attempts to extricate it, we realized that, unless we were to remain in the forest until the spring thaws set in, we must go in search of assistance. So, leaving John to guard the car, Ladew and I started off in the teeth of what had now become first cousin to a blizzard. After floundering for miles through snow-drifts, we saw, rising above the tree-tops, a thin spiral of smoke, and a few minutes later we came upon a hamlet-a single winding street, bordered by quaint, gabled houses with steep-pitched, red-tiled roofs and pictures frescoed on their plastered walls-set down in a forest

clearing. clearing. The men of the village, driven indoors by the storm, were gathered about the fire in the taproom of the Gasthaus, puffing slowly at their long-stemmed pipes. In our halting German we explained our predicament and asked for men and horses, for which we offered to pay liberally. But no one stirred. It was quite evident that our room was preferable to our company. "Verdamte französische Schwein-hunde!" I heard a bearded fellow, drying his boots at the fire, mutter surlily.

"But we are not French," I exclaimed quickly. "We are Americans." My words worked an instantaneous change.

"So you 're the fellows who ended the war?" said a tall young peasant, the black-and-white ribbon of the Iron Cross in his buttonhole. "That 's quite a different thing. We'll be glad to do anything we can to help you." So while the innkeeper, now as deferential as he had been sullen, set out a

meal of cold ham, black bread, cheese, and something that passed for coffee, our erstwhile enemies hurried out to procure chains and shovels and to harness their horses. Thus we spent the night in a most comfortable hotel in Stuttgart. Judging by the great difficulty which we had in obtaining accommodation in the hotels in the larger cities, all Germany had started traveling. For that matter, the same conditions prevailed all the way to Bukharest. Most of the people who crowded the hotels appeared to be traveling on business, however, rather than for pleasure. All Germany seemed to be hard at work. The reich may be in desperate straits financially, but intense commercial activity was every where apparent. To assert that Germany can never "come back" is to betray a profound ignorance of the industry, energy, and patience of its people.

We had planned to cross into Czecho-Slovakia at Eger and spend the night at Carlsbad, which, by the way, has regained much of its pre-war popularity; but, upon reaching Bayreuth, we learned that the snow was still deep in the northern passes of the Böhmerwald and that our best route lay through Pilsen.

Night and a blinding snow were falling when we reached Rothaupt, a hamlet on the frontier of CzechoSlovakia, so our plan of pushing on to Pilsen had, perforce, to be abandoned. But we did not greatly mind, for the prospect of spending a stormy night in a village inn on the edge of the Great Bohemian Forest appealed to us as

being very picturesque and romantic. My conception of Bohemian inns had been drawn from "The Bohemian Girl" and "The Prince of Pilsen," and though I did not expect to be greeted

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by a bevy of beautiful damsels in short red skirts and black velvet bodices, I did expect a cozy bedroom, with a fire leaping and crackling on an open hearth, and a bed with clean linen. But the inn at Rothaupt was a rude shock, and sleeping in it so impossible that we decided to pass the night sitting up in the tap-room. However, we were delightfully surprised when an old German couple named Hüttl, who in some way had heard of our predicament, offered us the use of the spare room in their cottage. By this time it was bitterly cold and our teeth were chattering, but our volunteer host started a roaring fire in the great porcelain stove, which occupied nearly a quarter of the little room, the son of the burgomaster appeared with a bottle of liquid fire, which was labeled cognac, and Frau Hüttl, after forcing us to put our chilled feet into buckets of hot water, fed us on eggs, black bread, and steaming coffee. And when we departed, they firmly refused to accept any recompense for their kindness, so that we had to leave some money

looking.

The next morning, as we were preparing to resume our journey, the local customs official appeared at the cottage and informed us that on the car we must make a deposit of 276,000 crowns. It seemed that he and the schoolmaster had spent the greater part of the night figuring it out. We We patiently explained that we did not have any such amount of currency with us, that the nearest bank was at Mies, thirty miles away, and that, being Sunday, it would be closed, anyway. But he was adamantine in his determination that we must pay before we would be permitted to go on.

"But what can we do?" I demanded. "We have n't enough money with us, and we can't get it until we reach a bank."

"Zurück nach Deutschland" ("Go back to Germany"), he replied stolidly. "Not by a damned sight!" I told him, losing my temper, and flourished in his face the letters of introduction given me by the Czecho-Slovak minister in Washington. With the assistance of the schoolmaster he laboriously deciphered them. The letters adThe letters addressed to President Masaryk, to Premier Beneš, and to the minister of

temptuously, as though he had never heard of them; but when he came upon one addressed to the minister of finance his manner underwent an immediate change.

"Why did n't you show me this letter in the beginning?" he asked respectfully. "These people"-and he indicated the letters to the president and the premier-"mean nothing to me, but the finance minister is my boss. If you are friends of his, it's not my business to stop you."

For the first dozen miles beyond Rothaupt the road zigzagged up the heavily forested range of the Böhmerwald, where the snow was so deep that it looked for a time as though we would repeat our experience in the Black Forest. But as we dropped down into the valley of the Mies the country-side turned from white to brown, and in the air was the scent of spring. We paused in Mies only long enough to take a picture of its cobble-paved market-place, lined by old, old buildings with step gables and elaborate rococo decorations; then on to Pilsen, where we lunched at a hotel whose restaurant windows overlook the beautiful Smetana Promenade, and watched the chic Bohemian women and the offi

cers in their smart uniforms saunter by, and from tall, thin goblets of Bohemian glass sipped the beer for which the city is famous.

As the road from Pilsen to Prague was in good condition, John stepped on the accelerator, and we covered the seventy-five miles at a speed that made the telegraph poles look like the palings in a picket-fence. Prague is one of the most beautiful and interesting cities in Europe. Its numerous towers and baroque palaces, the broad river, with its stately bridges, and the heights on the left bank, crowned by the venerable Hradčany, combine to form a singularly attractive picture the interest of which is enhanced by its historical associations.

We went several hundred miles out of our way in order to visit CzechoSlovakia, because we wished to see for ourselves how this young nation, still scarcely out of its swaddling clothes, was progressing. So far as our superficial opportunities for observation permitted us to judge, it is making remarkable progress. The whole country was ahum with industry. The hotels were crowded with business men and commercial travelers, and the shops with customers. In the streets, it is true, there were more men in uni

form than seemed necessary for a nation whose security is not seriously threatened, but a people with the history of the Czechs can hardly be expected to discard their military traditions in a day.

From Prague our way led down the winding Moldau, where the wooded hills lay on each side and formed the valley through which we rode; through Budweis to Linz, and thence along the north bank of the Danube to Vienna. I was no stranger in the Austrian capital, for I had been there many times before the war, but this time the city seemed unfamiliar to me, though where the difference lay I could not at first determine. But shortly I realized that its unfamiliar aspect was due to the disappearance of the old-time evidences of wealth and fashion, to the absence of brilliant uniforms, the equipages of the rich, and the trappings of royalty, and at night to the insufficiency of the street lighting. Even in the Bristol we had hot water only in the mornings, and the rooms were never quite warm enough for comfort.

In Germany and, to a lesser extent, in Czecho-Slovakia we had had some experience with depreciated currency, but it was not until we reached Vienna

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that we realized what monetary depreciation means when carried to the nth degree. The morning after our arrival I drew one hundred and fifty dollars on my letter of credit, and for the first time in my life found myself a millionaire that is to say, an Austrian millionaire. The bundle of currency which was pushed across the counter was so large that I could not get all the notes in my pockets, and had to carry part of them back to the hotel in my hand.

While we were in Czecho-Slovakia we learned of the death of the exEmperor Karl in his distant place of exile, and on the day after our arrival in Vienna I attended the mass which was said in St. Stephan's Cathedral for the repose of his soul. There were more than five thousand persons in the great cathedral, and twice as many more, who had been unable to obtain admission, were assembled in the square outside. In that silent, sad assemblage were archdukes in fur coats and top-hats whose pictures I had seen many times in the illustrated papers. After the mass was over the company formed in procession, bareheaded and with tears rolling down the cheeks of many of them, and marched slowly through the city streets, singing the old imperial anthem. The sidewalks between which the procession moved were black with silent onlookers, and the windows and roofs and balconies of the buildings along the route were white with fluttering handkerchiefs. I do not think that this demonstration was so much a tribute of affection to the weak, ineffective, wellintentioned young man who was the last of the emperor-kings as it was a final farewell to the dynasty which for more than six hundred years had ruled

Austria for good and evil, and to the brilliancy and grandeur for which that dynasty stood. In any event, it was a very impressive and affecting spectacle, and I am glad to have seen it.

Upon leaving Vienna we were warned by our friends that before reaching Budapest we would experience many delays and difficulties. One of the secretaries of our legation told us that on a recent trip between the two cities he had been stopped and his papers examined twenty-one times, and this despite the fact that he was a diplomatic courier. And we were warned by Colonel Briggs, the American military attaché, that numerous bands of francs-tireurs were roaming the Burgenland, the debated territory between Austria and Hungary, and that, if we did not exercise great caution, we would be stopped by bullets. As it turned out, we were not stopped at all; indeed, we did not even know when we crossed the Hungarian frontier, and the only armed man that we saw, barring soldiers, was a gamekeeper. If you wish to have any peace of mind, it is well not to take such pessimistic predictions too seriously. Experience has taught me that trouble is always in the next country.

When we reached Budapest we found the city in deep mourning for Karl, who was King of Hungary as well as Emperor of Austria. From the windows of nearly all the buildings floated long black streamers, and the officers who thronged the streets and restaurants wore mourning-bands on their sleeves and knots of crape on their sword-hilts. Though Austria has become a republic, Hungary remains a kingdom, and devotion to the imperial house still runs fierce and strong in the veins of the people. The Austrians