I have taken care not to manifest any curiosity, whatever I may have felt.
This would certainly arouse suspicion, and might ultimately cause disaster to my hopes of aiding the nation in their struggle to preserve their freedom.
These fierce mountaineers are strangely--almost unduly--suspicious, and the only way to win their confidence is to begin the trusting.

A young American attache of the Embassy at Vienna, who had made a journey through the Land of the Blue Mountains, once put it to me in this form: "Keep your head shut, and they'll open theirs.

If you don't, they'll open it for you--down to the chine!" It was quite apparent to me that they were completing some fresh arrangements for signalling with a code of their own.

This was natural enough, and in no way inconsistent with the measure of friendliness already shown to me.

Where there are neither telegraphs, railways, nor roads, any effective form of communication must--can only be purely personal.