Once I went "butterfly hunting" in Dalmatia. Cattaro, the capital, has
been the scene of much bombarding during the present war.
More than a hundred years ago it was bombarded by the British fleet
and taken. It was then supposed to be impregnable. It lies at the head
of a loch some fifteen miles long, and in some parts but a few hundred
yards wide, in a trough between mountains. From Cattaro, at the
head of the loch, a zig-zag road leads up the mountain side over the
frontier into Montenegro.
When the British ships endeavoured to attack from the seaward,
the channel was closed by chains and booms put across it. But the
defenders had reckoned without the resourcefulness of the British
"handyman," and a few days later, to the utter astonishment of the
garrison, guns began to bombard them from the top of a neighbouring
mountain!
The British captain had landed his guns on the Adriatic shore, and by
means of timber slides rigged up on the mountain side he had hauled
his guns bodily up the rocky steeps to the very summit of the
mountain.
He fixed up his batteries, and was eventually able to bombard the town
with such effect that it had to surrender.
It was perhaps characteristic of us that we only took the town because
it was held by our enemies. We did not want it, and when we had got
it we did not know what to do with it. We therefore handed it over to
the Montenegrins, and thus gave them a seaport of their own. For this
feat the Montenegrins have always had a feeling of admiration and of
gratitude to the British, and, though by terms of ulterior treaties
it was eventually handed over to Dalmatia, the Montenegrins have never
forgotten our goodwill towards them on this occasion.
But other batteries have since been built upon these mountain tops,
and it was my business to investigate their positions, strength, and
armaments.
I went armed with most effective weapons for the purpose, which have
served me well in many a similar campaign. I took a sketch-book,
in which were numerous pictures--some finished, others only partly
done--of butterflies of every degree and rank, from a "Red Admiral" to
a "Painted Lady."
Carrying this book and a colour-box, and a butterfly net in my hand,
I was above all suspicion to anyone who met me on the lonely mountain
side, even in the neighbourhood of the forts.
I was hunting butterflies, and it was always a good introduction
with which to go to anyone who was watching me with suspicion. Quite
frankly, with my sketch-book in hand, I would ask innocently whether
he had seen such-and-such a butterfly in the neighbourhood, as I was
anxious to catch one. Ninety-nine out of a hundred did not know one
butterfly from another--any more than I do--so one was on fairly
safe ground in that way, and they thoroughly sympathised with the mad
Englishman who was hunting these insects.
They did not look sufficiently closely into the sketches of
butterflies to notice that the delicately drawn veins of the wings
were exact representations, in plan, of their own fort, and that the
spots on the wings denoted the number and position of guns and their
different calibres.
On another occasion I found it a simple disguise to go as a fisherman
into the country which I wanted to examine.
My business was to find some passes in the mountains, and report
whether they were feasible for the passage of troops. I therefore
wandered up the various streams which led over the hills, and
by quietly fishing about I was able to make surveys of the whole
neighbourhood.
But on one occasion a countryman constituted himself my guide, and
insisted on sticking to me all the morning, showing me places where
fish could be caught. I was not, as a matter of fact, much of a
fisherman at that time, nor had I any desire to catch fish, and my
tackle was of a very ramshackle description for the purpose.
I flogged the water assiduously with an impossible fly, just to keep
the man's attention from my real work, in the hope that he would
eventually get tired of it and go away. But not he! He watched me with
the greatest interest for a long time, and eventually explained that
he did not know anything about fly fishing, but had a much better
system of getting the fish together before casting a worm or
slug-among-them.
His system he then proceeded to demonstrate, which was to spit into
the water. This certainly attracted a run of fish, and then he said
that if only he had a worm he could catch any number.
I eventually got rid of him by sending him to procure such, and while
he was away I made myself scarce and clambered over the ridge to
another valley.