PODGORITZA AND RIJEKA
Travelling in Montenegro--in fine weather, be it said--is delightful
from start to finish. And to Shan, my Albanian driver, whose care,
fidelity, and good nature have added greatly to the success of many of
my tours, I owe a passing tribute. He is short and dark, a somewhat
mixed specimen of his race, and hails from near the borders, where folk
are apt to be so mixed that it is hard to tell which is the true type.
Careful of his three little horses, and always ready in an emergency, he
yet preserves the gay, inconsequent nature of a very young child. His
veneer of civilisation causes him to assume for short intervals an
appearance of great stiffness and dignity, but it melts suddenly, and
his natural spirits bubble through. Thus, at an inn door before
foreigners, he is stately, but in the kitchen to which I have been
invited to accompany him, he waves his arms wildly and performs a war
dance, chaffs the ladies, and makes himself highly agreeable. His tastes
are simple and easily satisfied. I have stood him several treats of his
own selection, and they usually cost about fourpence. One was an immense
liver which was toasted for him in hot wood ashes, and which he consumed
along with a whole loaf of bread--whereupon he expressed himself as
feeling much better. His generosity is unfailing; at the top of a pass,
in a heavy storm of sleet, he offered me the greatcoat he was wearing,
and he is always ready to help a distressed wayfarer. One awful evening,
when the rain was falling in torrents and it was rapidly growing dark,
we were hailed, between Rijeka and Cetinje, by a man in distress. A
sheep, his only one, which he was driving up to Cetinje, had fallen, wet
and exhausted, by the roadside, and he knew not what to do. Shan was
greatly concerned. He explained to me that the man was very poor, the
sheep very tired and also that the sheep was a very little one, then he
took it in his arms like a baby and arranged it on the box, where it
cuddled up against him for warmth, and, through wind, rain, and the
blackest night I have ever been out in, he drove three horses abreast,
held up an umbrella, nursed the sheep, and sang songs till we arrived
safely at our journey's end.
Acting on the principle of "Do as you would be done by," when his pouch
is full, he distributes tobacco lavishly along the route with a fine
"Damn-the-expense" air which one cannot but admire, and when not a shred
remains, he begs it, quite shamelessly, of everyone he meets. When I
first made his acquaintance, his appearance puzzled me. Learning that he
was an Albanian, I remarked upon the fact to him; he immediately crossed
himself hastily. "Yes, an Albanian," he admitted, "but Cattolici,
Cattolici," and he added as an extra attraction, "and I came to
Montenegro when I was very little." He persists in regarding me as a
co-religionist; for the fact that I am neither Orthodox nor Mohammedan
is to him quite sufficient proof. His Catholicism is quite original.
Unlike most Catholic Albanians, who display a horror of the Orthodox
Church, he is most pressing in his attentions to the Orthodox priests,
and will never, if he can help it, be left out of a circle of
conversation that includes one. One Easter Day I saw him persist in
kissing, in Orthodox fashion, the village priest, who having more than
enough osculation to go through with his own flock, did his best to
dodge him, but was loudly smacked upon the back of the neck. His views
upon doctrinal points are mixed, but his simple creed has taught him
faith, hope, and charity "which is the greatest of the three."
Withal he is a bit of a buck, and likes to cut a dash in what he
considers large towns. He strolls in when I am having dinner and
converses with the company at large; he makes me a flowery speech--he is
my servant; it is mine to command and his to obey; whatever I order he
will carry out with pleasure. When he learns that I shall not require
him till to-morrow, he beams all over his sun-tanned face. Then he
fidgets and makes pointless remarks. I do not help him. He strolls with
elaborate carelessness behind my chair and whispers hurriedly that towns
are very expensive, and if I would only advance him a florin or two of
his pay--I supply the needful, and later I meet him, a happy man,
playing the duke among a crowd of friends, to all of whom he introduces
me with great style and elegance. But his dissipations are very mild,
though from the swagger he puts on you would think they were bold and
bad. I have never seen him the worse for drink, and he is punctuality
itself and very honest. Child of the race with about the worst
reputation in Europe though he is, I would trust him under most
circumstances.
Leaving Cetinje by its only road, we soon reach the top of the pass, and
a sudden turn reveals the land beyond. We have come across Europe to the
edge of Christianity, and stand on the rocky fortress with the enemy in
sight. The white road serpentines down the mountain side, and far below
lies the green valley and its tiny village, Dobrsko Selo; on all sides
rise the crags wild and majestic; away in the distance gleams the great
silver lake of Skodra. Beyond it the blue Albanian mountains, their
peaks glittering with snow even in June, show fainter and fainter, and
the land of mystery and the unspeakable Turk fades into the sky--a scene
so magnificent and so impressive that it is worth all the journey from
England just to have looked at it.
We cast loose our third horse, and rattle all the way down to Rijeka,
skimming along the mountain side and swinging round the zigzags on a
road that it takes barely two hours to descend and quite three to climb
up again; for Cetinje lies 1900 feet above the sea, and Rijeka not much
more than 200 feet.
Rijeka means a stream, and the town so called is a cluster of most
picturesque, half-wooden houses, facing green trees and a ripple of
running water and backed by the mountain side--as pretty a place as one
need wish to see. The stream's full name is Rijeka Crnoievicheva, the
River of Crnoievich, but for everyday use town and river are simply
Rijeka. But its full name must not be forgotten, for it keeps alive the
fame of Ivan Beg Crnoievich, who ruled in the latter half of the
fifteenth century, in the days when Montenegro's worst troubles were
beginning. Unable to hold the plains of the Zeta against the Turk, Ivan
gathered his men together, burnt his old capital, Zabljak, near the head
of the lake, retired into the mountains, and founded Cetinje in 1484. He
built a castle above Rijeka as a defence to his new frontier, and swore
to hold the Black Mountain against all comers. But he meant his people
to grow as a nation worthily, and not to degenerate into a horde of
barbarians. He founded the monastery at Cetinje, appointed a bishop and
built churches. And--for he was quite abreast of his times--he sent to
Venice for type and started a printing press at Rijeka. In spite of the
difficulties and dangers that beset the Montenegrins, they printed their
first book little more than twenty years later than Caxton printed his
at Westminster. Ivan is not dead, but sleeps on the hill above Rijeka,
and he will one day awake and lead his people to victory. The printing
press was burned by the Turks, and the books which issued from it--fine
specimens of the printer's art--are rare.
The stream Rijeka is a very short one. It rises in some curious caverns
not much farther up the valley, and flows into the lake of Skodra. The
town is built of cranky little houses, half Turkish in style, with open
wooden galleries painted green--gimcrack affairs, that look as though
they might come down with a run any minute, when filled as they
frequently are with a party of heavy men. It has an old-world look, but,
as most of the town was burnt by the Turks in 1862, appearances are
deceptive. A perfect Bond Street of shops faces the river. Here you can
buy at a cheap rate all the necessaries of Montenegrin existence. In the
baker's shop the large round flat loaves of bread, very like those dug
up at Pompeii, are neatly covered with a white cloth to keep off the
flies.
Plenty of tobacco is grown in the neighbourhood. In the autumn the
cottages are festooned with the big leaves drying in the sun, and you
may see Albanians, sitting on their doorsteps, shredding up the fragrant
weed with a sharp knife into long, very fine strips till it looks like a
bunch of hair, shearing through a large pile swiftly, with machine--like
regularity and precision. Tobacco is a cheap luxury, and I am told
Montenegrin tobacco is good. Almost every man in Montenegro smokes from
morning till night, generally rolling up the next cigarette before the
last is finished.
The town possesses a burgomaster, a post-office, a steamboat office, a
Palace, and an inn, which provides a good dinner on market days. It is a
clean, prosperous, friendly, and very simple-minded place--I did not
realise how simple-minded till I spent an afternoon sitting on the wall
by the river, drawing the baker's shop, with some twenty Montenegrins
sitting round in a crimson and blue semicircle. It was in the days when
I knew nothing of the language, and the Boer War was as yet unfinished.
I drew, and my friend talked. A youth in Western garb acted as
interpreter. He ascertained whence we had come, and then remarked
airily, "Now, I come from Hungary, and I am walking to the Transvaal.
This man," pointing out a fine young Montenegrin, "is coming with me!"
Stumbling, voluble and excited, in very broken German, he unfolded their
crazy plan. They were both brave men and exceedingly rich. "I have two
thousand florins, and a hundred more or less makes no difference to
him," kept cropping up like the burden of a song. Their families had
wept and prayed, but had failed to turn them from their purpose. They
were going to walk to the Transvaal. "But you can't," we said. He was
hurt. "Of course not all the way," he knew that. They had meant to walk
across Albania to Salonika, but the Consul at Skodra had put a stop to
this dangerous scheme. Now they were going by sea from Cattaro to
Alexandria, and thence, also by sea, to Lorenzo Marques. After this,
they should "walk to the Transvaal." "Why don't you walk from
Alexandria?" we asked. He answered quite seriously that they had thought
of this, but they had been told there was a tribe of Arabs in the centre
of Africa even more ferocious than the Albanians, so, though they were
of course very brave men, they thought on the whole they preferred the
boat. When they arrived, they meant to fight on whichever side appeared
likely to win, and then they were going to pick up gold. We thought it
our duty to try and dissuade them from their wild-goose chase, but our
efforts were treated with scorn. "What can you do? You speak very little
German, and your friend nothing but Servian." "No, he doesn't," said the
Hungarian indignantly. "He speaks Albanian very well, and I--I know many
languages. I speak Servian and Hungarian." The idea that a place
existed where no one spoke these well-known tongues was to him most
ridiculous, and the Montenegrin, to whom it was imparted, smiled
incredulously. We urged the price of living and the cost of Machinery
required in gold-mining. The first he did not believe; the second he
thought very silly. The gold was there, and he was not such a fool as to
require a machine with which to pick it up.
[Illustration: BAKER'S SHOP, RIJEKA.--AUJAMAN AND TWO MONTENEGRINS.]
The Montenegrin, who had been bursting with a question for the last
quarter of an hour, insisted on its being put. "Could he buy a good
revolver in Johannesburg?" He waited anxiously for a reply. "You see,"
explained the Hungarian, "he must leave his in Montenegro." "But why? It
looks a very good one." The Montenegrin patted his weapon lovingly; he
only wished he could take it, it would be most useful, but ... in order
to reach the boat at Cattaro he must cross Austrian territory, and you
are not allowed to carry firearms in Austria! He shook his head
dolefully when we said that permission could surely be obtained. "No,
this was quite impossible; under no circumstances could it be managed.
You don't know what the Austrians are!" said the Hungarian mysteriously.
The unknown land, the unknown tongues, the British, the Boers, the
rumble-tumble ocean and the perils of the deep were all as nothing
beside the difficulty of crossing the one narrow strip of Austrian land.
We told him revolvers were plentiful in Johannesburg, and the prospect
of finding home comforts cheered him greatly. We parted the best of
friends.
From Rijeka the road rises rapidly again, and strikes over the hills,
winding through wild and very sparsely inhabited country. The mountain
range ends abruptly, and we see the broad plains stretching away below
us, with the white town of Podgoritza in the midst of it. The plain is
very obviously the bed of the now shrunken lake of Skodra, and the
water-worn pebbles are covered with but a thin layer of soil. But both
maize and tobacco seem to do well upon it, and every year more land is
taken into cultivation. The rough land is covered with wiry turf and low
bushes, and swarms with tortoises which graze deliberately by the
roadside. The river Moracha has cut itself a deep chasm in the loose
soil between us and the town, and tears along in blue-green swirls and
eddies. We have to overshoot the town to find the bridge, and we clatter
into Podgoritza six or seven hours after leaving Cetinje, according to
the weather and the state of the road.
Podgoritza is the biggest town in Montenegro, and has between five and
six thousand inhabitants. It is well situated for a trading centre, for
it is midway between Cetinje and Nikshitje, and is joined by a good road
to Plavnitza, on the lake of Scutari, so is in regular steamboat
communication with Skodra and with Antivari _via_ Virbazar. Its position
has always given it some importance. As a Turkish garrison town it was a
convenient centre from which to invade Montenegro; to the Montenegrin it
was part of his birthright--part of the ancient kingdom of Servia--and
as such to be wrested from the enemy. It was the brutal massacre of
twenty Montenegrins in and near the town in time of peace (October 1874)
that decided the Montenegrins to support the Herzegovinian insurrection
and declare war. Podgoritza was besieged and taken in October 1876. The
walls of the old town were blown to pieces with guns taken from the
Turks at Medun, and an entirely new town has since sprung up on the
opposite side of the stream Ribnitza. Podgoritza (= "At the Foot of the
Mountain"), if you have come straight from the West, is as amusing a
place as you need wish to visit. It has not so many show places as
Cetinje even, and its charm is quite undefinable. It consists in its
varied human crowd, its young barbarians all at play, its ideas that
date from the world's well--springs, subtly intermingled with Manchester
cottons, lemonade in glass-ball-stoppered bottles, and other blessings
of an enlightened present. The currents from the East and the West meet
here, the old world and the new; and those to whom the spectacle is of
interest, may sit upon the bridge and watch the old order changing.
The Montenegrin town of Podgoritza is clean and bright. The long wide
main street of white stone, red-roofed shops with their gay wares, and
the large open market square where the weekly bazaar is held, are full
of life. Both street and market-place are planted with little trees,
acacias and white mulberries; and the bright green foliage, the white
road, the red roofs, the green shutters, the variety of costume, make an
attractive scene in the blaze of the Southern sun. Across the gold-brown
plain rise the blue mountains where lies that invisible line the
frontier. The slim minarets of the old Turkish town shoot up and shimmer
white on sky and mountain; the river Ribnitza flows between the old town
and the new, and over the bridge passes an endless stream of strange
folk, the villagers of the plain and the half-wild natives of the
Albanian mountains passing from the world of the Middle Ages to a place
which feels, however faintly, the forces of the twentieth century.
Bullock carts, with two huge wheels and basket-work tops, trail slowly
past, groaning and screeching on their ungreased axles. Look well at the
carts, for our own forefathers used them in the eleventh century, and
they appear in the Harleian MSS.
Everything moves slowly. All day long folk draw water from the
stone-topped well on the open space between the old town and the
new--draw it slowly and laboriously, for there is no windlass or other
labour-saving contrivance, and the water is pulled up in a canvas bag
tied to a string. Three or four bagfuls go to one bucket.
In spite of the fact that Podgoritza is the centre of the
Anglo-Montenegrin Trading Company and deals in Manchester cottons, the
day seems distant when it will lose its other simple habits. I was
walking one day down the "High Street" with a friend, when a young
Albanian went to call on his tailor. He came out presently with a fine
new pair of the tight white trousers that his clan affects. He exhibited
them in the middle of the road to two or three friends, and they were
all evidently much struck with the make and embroidery. If the garments
were so charming "off," what would they be "on"! The whole party hurried
across to the shop door of the happy purchaser, and such an alarming
unbuckling and untying began to take place that we! discreetly went for
a little walk. On our return the transfer had been effected. Two
friends were grasping the garment by the front and back, and the wearer
was being energetically jigged and shaken into it. This was a tough job,
for it was skin-tight. The legs were then hooked-and-eyed up the back,
and presently the youth was strutting down the middle of the road
stiff-kneed and elegant, with the admiring eyes of Podgoritza upon him,
and a ridiculously self-conscious smile.
[Illustration: BULLOCK CART, PODGORITZA.]
Wandering gipsy tribes turn up here, too; mysterious roving gangs, their
scant possessions, tin pots and tent poles, piled on ponies; their
children, often as naked as they were born, perched on top of the load.
They have no abiding place; impelled by a primeval instinct, they pass
on eternally. Extraordinarily handsome savages some of them are, too. I
have seen them on the march--the men in front, three abreast, swinging
along like panthers; half stripped, clad in dirty white breeches and
cartridges; making up with firearms for deficiency in shirts, and
carrying, each man, in addition to his rifle, a long sheath knife and a
pistol in his red sash, their matted coal-black locks falling down to
their beady, glittering black eyes, which watch you like a cat's,
without ever looking you straight in the face. Their white teeth and the
brass cases of the cartridges sparkling against their swarthy skins,
they passed with their heads held high on their sinewy throats with an
air of fierce and sullen independence. Behind follow the boys, women,
and children, with all their worldly goods; golden-brown women with
scarlet lips and dazzling teeth, their hair hanging in a thick black
plait on either side of the face, like that of the ladies of ancient
Egypt; holding themselves like queens, and, unlike their lords and
masters, smiling very good-naturedly. So entirely do they appear to
belong to an unknown, untamed past, that I was astonished when one of
them, a splendid girl in tawny orange and crimson, addressed me in
fluent Italian outside the Podgoritza inn. "I am a gipsy. Are you
Italian?" Italy was her only idea of a foreign land, and England quite
unknown to her. She hazarded a guess that it was far off, and imparted
the information to a little crowd of Albanian and Montenegrin boys who
were hanging around. When the servant of the inn thought the crowd too
large, he came out to scatter it. The boys fled precipitately; the girl
stood her ground firmly, as one conscious of right, and told him what
she thought of him volubly and fiercely, her eyes flashing the while. He
retired discomfited, and she informed us superbly, "I told him the
ladies wished to speak to me!" Unlike the Montenegrins, she understood
at once that we were merely travelling for travelling's sake, and
regarded it as perfectly natural. She retired gracefully when she had
learnt what she wished to know.
The Montenegrin and Albanian gipsies are mostly Mohammedans, and what is
vaguely described as Pagan. They seldom or never, it is said, intermarry
with the people among whom they wander, but keep themselves entirely to
themselves. One day the old quarter of Podgoritza was agog with a
Mohammedan gipsy wedding. From across the river we heard the monotonous
rhythmic pulsation of a tambourine, and at intervals the long-drawn
Oriental yowl that means music. We strolled down to the bridge and
joined the very motley collection of sight-seers. Gay and filthy, they
gathered round us, and enjoyed at once the spectacle of two foreigners
of unknown origin and the festivity which was going on in the back
garden hard by. It could hardly be called a garden, it was the yard of a
squalid little hovel backing on the river, and was filled with women in
gorgeous raiment walking backwards and forwards in rows that met and
swayed apart, singing a long howling chant, while the pom-pom and
metallic jingle of the tambourine sounded over the voices with
mechanical regularity. Presently all fell aside and left a space, into
which leapt a dancing-girl, a mass of white silk gauze with a golden
zouave and belt and a dangling coin head-dress. She wreathed her arms
gracefully over her head and danced a complicated _pas-seul_ with great
aplomb and certainty, her white draperies swirling round her and her
gold embroideries flashing in the sunlight. When she ceased, the party
withdrew into the dirty little hut, and as we were now the whole
attraction to the obviously verminous crowd we withdrew also. The hut
was the headquarters of the bridegroom, and this was a preliminary
entertainment. Next morning, four carriages dashed into the town at
once, bringing the bride and her escort from Skodra in Albania. The
horses' heads were decorated with gaily embroidered muslin
handkerchiefs, and the bride's carriage was closely curtained and
veiled. The amount of men and weapons that poured out of the other
vehicles was astounding. When three carriages had unloaded, the bride's
carriage drove up close to the entrance of the yard in which the hut
stood, and the men made a long tunnel from door to door by holding up
white sheets; down this the bride fled safe and invisible, while
curiosity devoured the spectators on the bridge. Every window in the hut
was already shuttered and barred, and we thought there was no more to be
seen.
But our presence had been already noted. A commotion arose among the men
at the door of the hovel. A young Montenegrin onlooker came up, pulled
together all his foreign vocabulary and stammeringly explained, "They
wish you to go into their house." All the men in the crowd were consumed
with curiosity about the hidden bride, and obviously envied us the
invitation. We hesitated to plunge into the filthy hole. We didn't
hesitate long, though. The bride and her friends meant to show off their
finery to the foreigners; a dark swagger fellow who would take no denial
was sent out to fetch us, and we followed our escort obediently to the
cottage door. We paused a half-second on the doorstep; it looked bad
inside, but it was too late to go back. A passage was cleft for us
immediately, and we found ourselves in a long low room with a mud
floor--a noisome, squalid den in which one would not stable an English
donkey. There was no light except what came through the small door and
the chinks. It was packed with men; their beady, bright eyes and silver
weapons glittered, the only sparks of brightness in the gloom.
As my eyes got accustomed to the subdued light, I saw in the corner a
huge caldron of chunks of most unpleasant-looking boiled mutton, with
floating isles of fat, and my heart sank at the thought that perhaps
our invitation included the wedding breakfast. The men guarding the door
of the inner apartment parted, and we went in. No man, save the
bridegroom, entered here. It was a tiny hole of a room, but its dirty
stone walls were ablaze with glittering golden embroideries and it was
lighted by oil lamps. The floor was covered with women squatting close
together, their brown faces, all unveiled, showing very dark against
their gorgeous barbaric costumes. It was a fierce jostle of
colours--patches of scarlet, orange, purple and white, mellowed and
harmonised by the lavish use of gold over all, coin head-dresses,
necklaces, and girdles in reckless profusion. In the light of common day
it would doubtless resolve itself into copper-gilt and glass jewels, but
by lamplight it was all that could be desired. On a chair, the only one
in the room, with her back to the partition wall, so as to be quite
invisible to the men in the next room, sat the bride, upright,
motionless, rigid like an Eastern idol. Her hands lay in her lap, her
clothes were stiff with gold, and she was covered down to the knees with
a thick purple and gold veil. There she has to sit without moving all
day. She may not even, I am told, feed herself, but what nourishment she
is allowed is given her under the veil by one of the other ladies. At
her feet, cross-legged on the ground, sat the bridegroom, who I believe
had not yet seen her--quite the most decorative bridegroom I ever saw, a
good-looking fellow of about five-and-twenty, whose black and white
Albanian garments, tight-fitting, showed him off effectively, while the
arsenal of fancy weapons in his sash gave him the required touch of
savagery. He gazed fixedly at the purple veil, endeavouring vainly to
penetrate its mysteries, and, considering the trying circumstances in
which he was placed, seemed to be displaying a good deal of fortitude.
The air was heavy with scented pastilles, otherwise the human reek must
have been unbearable.
Everyone began to talk at once, and it was evident from their nods and
smiles that we had done the correct thing in coming. Unfortunately we
couldn't understand a word, but we bowed to everyone, repeated our
thanks, and tried to express our wonder and admiration. Whether we were
intended to stay or not I do not know, but, haunted by a desire to
escape with as small a collection of vermin as possible, and also to
evade the chunks of mutton in the caldron, we backed our way, bowing,
into the outer room after a few minutes, and were politely escorted to
the entrance. Judging by the smiles and bows of everyone, our visit gave
great satisfaction. After we left, the doors were shut, and there was a
long lull, during which the mutton was probably consumed. If so, we
escaped only just in time. In the afternoon the tambourines and
sing-songs started again, and far into the night the long-drawn yowls of
the epithalamium came down the wind.
In spite of the mixed Christian and Mohammedan population, excellent
order is maintained. The more I see of the Montenegrin, the more I am
struck with his power of keeping order. It is a favourite joke against
him that when he asks for a job and is questioned as to his
capabilities, he replies that he is prepared to "superintend," and it
turns out that he is unable to do anything else. But not even our own
policeman can perform the said "superintending" more quietly and
efficiently. To the traveller the Mohammedan is very friendly. The
attempt of a man to draw or photograph a woman is an insult which is not
readily forgiven and may lead to serious consequences, but as long as
one conforms to local customs these people are as kindly as one could
wish, and not by a long way so black as they have often been painted. As
a matter of fact a large proportion of the rows that occur all over the
world between different nationalities arise from someone's indiscreet
attentions to someone else's girl. And this is why a lady travelling
alone almost always has a friendly welcome, for on this point at any
rate she is above suspicion.
The Orthodox Montenegrin is equally anxious to make one feel at home. At
Easter-tide, when the whole town was greeting each other and giving pink
eggs, we were not left out. "Krsti uskrshnio je" ("Christ has risen") is
the greeting, to which one must reply, "Truly He has risen," accepting
the egg. People go from house to house, and eggs stand ready on the
table for the visitors, who kiss the master and mistress of the house
three times in the name of the Trinity. Montenegrin kisses--I speak
merely as an onlooker--are extremely hearty. It is surprising what a
number they get through on such a festival. For four days does the
Easter holiday last.
Montenegrins take their holidays quietly. It used to be said of the
Englishman that he takes his pleasures sadly. But that was before the
evolution of the race culminated in 'Any and 'Arriet. The Montenegrin
has not yet reached this pitch of civilisation. I wonder whether he
inevitably must, and if so, whether what he will gain will at all
compensate for what he must lose. For civilisation, as at present
understood, purchases luxuries at the price of physical deterioration.
High living is by no means always accompanied by high thinking, and ...
the end of it the future must show. When the Montenegrin has learnt what
a number of things he cannot possibly do without, let us hope he will be
in some way the better. It is certain he will be in many ways the worse.
Things Christian lie on one side of the Ribnitza, and things Mohammedan
on the other. The Turkish graveyard lies out beyond the old town,
forlorn and melancholy as they mostly are. The burial-ground of the
Orthodox is on the Montenegrin side of the town. The dead are borne to
the grave in an open coffin, and the waxen face of the corpse is
visible. The coffin-lid is carried next in the procession. I was told
that this curious custom originated in the fact that sham funerals were
used when the Balkan provinces were under Turkish rule as a means of
smuggling arms. But I doubt this tale. For the custom used to prevail in
Italy, and does still, I believe, in Spain. It is, in all probability,
much older than the Turks, and a tradition that dates from the days when
burning and not burial was the usual way of disposing of the dead and
the body was carried to the funeral pyre upon a bier. The open coffin,
the funeral songs, and the commemorative feasts annually held on the
graves by many of the South Slavs, the lights and incense burnt upon
the graves, and the lighted candles carried in the funeral processions
together reproduce, with extraordinary fidelity, the rites and
ceremonies of the Romans. And how much older they may be we know not.