"BALKAN HOLIDAY".

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22836, 21 March 1936, Page 4

"BALKAN HOLIDAY".

AN EXCELLENT TRAVEL BOOK "Balkan Holiday." By David Footman. London: Helnemann. 16s. Mr Footman is an Englishman and a traveller. His "Balkan Holiday" was not his first essay into the countries east of the Adriatic. He knew what to look for, including previous acquaintances, and he recognises shrewdly, translates tersely, what he found. As he is an Englishman first, a traveller afterward, there is nothing in the personal glimpses of Mr Footman that the book provides indicating the subservience his name might suggest If his bed was not to his liking, or his food unpalatable to his exclusive taste, he complained. He appears to .accept the traditional Englishman s view that fault-finding is an obligation which he must observe conscientiously when in foreign countries. But Mr Footmans rather vain protestations regarding smells outside his bedroom windows are as much a part of the refreshing tone of Balkan Holidav ',' as his very acute comments upon more 'fundamental Balkan problems. The chronicle commences at Durazzo, in ilbania, then leads us across Yugoslavia by way of Belgrade to Zagreb, a route which provides observation in many aspects of Yugoslavian life. The impression that remains from the book is ot the poverty of both the Albanians and the Yugoslavs. Mr Footman concerns himself most with the peasants, and whatever may be the state of prosperity in secondary industry, the agrarian classes are miserably poor. A large proportion of the population of Yugoslavia, he says, is unable to afford meat except on the two big religious holidays of the year. The peasants are admittedly self-support-ing, even weaving their own clothes, but there are some things that must be bought—salt, paraffin, cotton yarn—and there is little money for these, low as the prices are. A natural misfortune, hail or flood or the death of a cow, is a calamity where the bulk of the taxpayers are impoverished. State aid cannot amount to much. An old man amused Mr Footman by his belief that all Englishmen are rich, but, thinking it over, he is not so amused. "Throughout the Balkans there is a background of hardship and grinding poverty. The old man was quite right in his way. The English are verv rich." But the young kingdom will muddle through. In spite of notorious maladministration of agrarian reform, more than half a million Yugoslavs have been settled on land of their own. Somebow or other they have established themselves, and will stay there. Mr Footman's excursions into tne economic and social condition of the countries that he visited are only a small part—a passing feature—in his book, lie has an eye for character, and can introduce a personality in a few lines. He tells his stories well, and they are excellent stories. One concerns a friend in Belgrade who had a favourite Alsatian dog? He made an arrangement with a head waiter, known as Rothermere, that when the dog came into the hotel lounge and appeared to be thirsty it should be given a bowl of milk. An account was rendered weekly, and when the waiter presented one bill the dog's owner noticed an item of 24 dinars for brandy. My dog never had a double Martell!. " he exclaimed. "No, sir,-; sa \i W em T„"Then what is this item?" "Your dog offered it to mc, sir, and I drank it. "Balkan Holiday" is as good a tale of unexciting but observant travel as may be read in a twelve month. It admits Mr Footman to that small company of writers who go abroad with their minds open.