With the Serbs in Macedonia

2o6 WITH THE SERBS IN MACEDONIA
and there are several good, if rather inaccessible
forest districts.
The whole country, indeed, is a series of
mountains and plains, which make intercommunication
difficult and mean too much
water in winter. The barren areas are immense.
Shallow wide-spreading rivers, often dried up in
summer, are everywhere, and lakes of all sizes
are plentiful. But the grazing is bad— as witness
the lean condition of what little meat is eaten.
Mineral wealth appears to be mainly of the
company-prospectus variety. There is no coal
worth mentioning, though, judging from various
specimens we saw and tried to burn, there
will be plenty — about twenty thousand years
hence.
What can be done with a country like that ?
It is easy, of course, to talk about development
when one wanders through a poverty-stricken,
sun-scorched wilderness, where machinery is
practically unknown and the methods are all
out of date. But when one comes down to hard
facts and practical measures and paying propositions,
well, it is best to let somebody else
with money to burn take the developing in
hand !
A little has been done. At a few favourable
places factories with modern machinery have
been erected and are paying well. And in the