With the Serbs in Macedonia

THE NATIVES 191
amount if there were no children— a policy the
reverse of that of Mr. Lloyd George. As there
are two or three priests in each village they are
obliged to eke out a living by farming for themselves.
Fees did not produce much. Competition,
no doubt, kept the prices down.
A ''rich'' villager, we were informed, paid four
francs for a marriage, but the usual rate was
two francs, and very poor men were married
for nothing. For a funeral the family would
give a sum according to their means, say fifty
francs in the case of a ''
rich ''
man, for the
benefit of the deceased's soul. This was divided
equally among all the guests, and the priest only
to the
got his share with the rest ! It was up
it to the
guests to pocket their share or to give
poor as they pleased. The tombstones were
rough slabs of granite, usually of different
shapes for men and women, the top of that of the
former being crudely carved to represent a fez.
The mosques were commonly very bare and
poorly decorated, and judging from one or two
furtive peeps inside the evening call to prayer
did not produce much response. In the fields,
however, one often saw them cease work and
pray with their backs to the sun—
''
thrilling Eastern
a truly
" sight to European eyes.
It was nearly always possible, by the way, for
any officer to enter any mosque for a considera-