The rest of the journey along the beautiful valley of the Tara was easy

and uneventful, and we reached Kolashin early in the evening. Kolashin

is tiny, primitive, and most kindly. Rich grass meadows surround it;

wooded hills, thick with fir and beech, ring it round, and over them

tower the rugged blue peaks of the mountains; a new Switzerland waiting

to be explored. Timber is cheap, the houses are I wood-roofed with

shingles which bleach to a warm silver-grey, and the upper storeys of

such houses as possess them are mainly of wood. We pulled up at the door

of a small drink-shop. Boshko, in great form and very important,

explained me volubly to all inquirers. We went upstairs into a big

guest-room; Montenegrin, inasmuch as it contained bedsteads and rifles

and a long divan; Western, for it had a table and several chairs;

altogether sumptuous and luxurious as compared with "kod nas." To Boshko

it was a sort of Cecil or Savoy. Mine host, ragged and excited, his

wife, a dark lean woman with anxious eyes, a girl from next door who was

always referred to as "the djevojka" (maiden), and Ljubitza, the

thirteen-year-old daughter and maid-of-all-work, flocked in with rakija

and suggestions. The telegraphist and another man, who were regular

boarders, came to help. Then the djevojka came straight to the point.

"Which bed shall you sleep in?" she asked. I had been wondering this

myself, for it is undoubtedly easier to be Montenegrin by day than by

night. The telegraphist, one of the goodliest of Montenegro's many

handsome sons, came to my rescue. "She is a stranger and does not know

us," he said; "perhaps she will wish to sleep alone." To the surprise of

the rest of the company, I rose at once to this suggestion. "You are

just like the Italian Vice-Consul at Skodra," they cried. "He came here

once for ten days' shooting, and he had a room alone all the time!"

There was luckily a second apartment, and I was soon installed in great

state, and all the company too. My letter of introduction to the Serdar

produced a profound impression. The simple-minded folk seeing that the

envelope was open, thought it public property, and read it joyfully

aloud. It was couched in complimentary terms. "What a beautiful letter!"

they cried, and as the room was pretty full, I was thus favourably

introduced wholesale. As for the jovial Serdar, nothing could exceed his

kindness. He and the doctor, much-travelled men, asked me as to my

journey and where I had slept _en route._ "Brskut" overpowered them, for

they knew the sort of life to which I was accustomed. After Brskut, it

did not matter where I went. "Lives in London and has slept at Brskut

'kod nas'! You are a Montenegrin now," cried the Serdar, and he and the

doctor roared with laughter. But another man, who knew only Montenegro,

could not see where the joke came in.

Kolashin, as I have said, is primitive, but that it should be civilised

at all is greatly to its credit. Thirty years ago this out-of-the-way

corner was under Turkish rule and as wild as is Albania to-day, for the

whole energy of the people was devoted to wresting the land back from

the Turk. Three times did they take Kolashin, three times were they

forced to yield it again to superior numbers. The grim persistency of

the men of the Kolashin district succeeded, and since 1877 Kolashin has

become the fourth in importance of Montenegrin towns. Cut off from the

world by the lack of a road, snowed up for nearly four months of the

year, its resources are at present unworked and unworkable, but its

magnificent forests and its fine pasture should spell money in the

future. Montenegro has been blamed for not opening up more speedily her

newly acquired lands. It is possible that the delay is by no means an

evil, for it has saved the people from being overwhelmed by a mass of

Western ideas for which their minds are as yet unready; ideas which, ill

assimilated and misunderstood, and forced with a rush upon Servia, have

worked disastrously in that unhappy land. The men of Kolashin are huge

and extremely strong, and are good hewers of stone, road-makers, and

builders, when shown how to set to work. With their splendid physique,

they require a good deal of labour to work off their steam and keep them

out of mischief. Inter-tribal blood-feuds are not yet quite extinct, but

the rule of the present Serdar is fast putting a stop to them; the place

is growing under his hands, and the people look up to him as to a

father.

The Serdar took me to the "weapon show" of the district. The battalion,

500 strong, was drawn up in a meadow outside the town, three companies

of stalwart fellows, each company with its barjak (colours), a white

flag with a red cross. A row of hoary old war-dogs had come out to sun

themselves and see what sort of a show the younger generation made;

grand old boys--long, lean, sinewy, with white hair and bright deep-set

eyes, their old war medals on the breasts of their ragged coats; some of

them arrayed martially for the occasion with silver-mounted handjars, or

flintlocks, thrust in their sashes. And about the Serdar's popularity

with young and old there was no mistake. He introduced me to the old

soldiers. The Montenegrins' pride in the veterans who have helped to

redeem the land is very touching. "Look at him," they say, pointing to

an old, old man who is sitting almost helpless at his door. "He is a

'veliki junak' (great hero); he fought," etc. etc. To be thought

"veliki junak" is every man's ambition. "Junashtvo" (heroism) fills a

large place in the mind of the Montenegrin, who is brought up on tales

of the cool daring and extraordinary pluck of his forebears. "Be a brave

boy, like Milosh Obilich," I heard a mother say to her little boy who

was crying; nor can I easily forget the mighty youth, clean-limbed,

clear-eyed, and the pink of courtesy, who told me with great earnestness

that he wished to be "a hero like Hayduk Veljko!"

Every man is a soldier. The "weapon show" takes place ten times a year,

either on a Sunday or a saint's day. Marching and formal drill are

hateful to the mountaineers, but they love their guns like their

children, and it is the pride and joy of every man that he is always

ready to fight for his country. The Serdar's five hundred were, so he

told me, all splendid shots. As we were leaving, one of the veterans

came forward and said that they thanked me for coming so far to see

them, and thought I was "very brave." "Very brave" is what the

Montenegrin likes best to be considered, so it was the poor old boys

prettiest idea of a compliment.

Every thing at Kolashin was kind to me but the weather. I was

storm-bound for many days, and riding over the mountains was impossible.

I resigned myself till the clouds chose to lift, and tried to see Europe

through the eyes of Kolashin; and learnt much of the earth and the

bareness thereof; and how little it requires to make life worth living,

provided there are no Turks about; and of people who live looking death

in the face on bloody frontiers; and of simple, honest souls who have

lived all their lives among these mountains, who burn with a patriotism

that only death can destroy, men the guiding star of whose existence is

the Great Servian Idea, who would lay down their lives cheerfully any

day to help its realisation. The nearer you come to the frontier, the

more do you feel the ache of the old wound. "Old Servia" lies but a few

miles away crying to be saved, and such is the force of environment that

you find yourself one day filled with a desire to sit behind rocks and

shoot Turks for the redemption of that hapless land.

My companions all regarded Kolashin as a great centre of business and

civilisation, for they had come from far wilder parts. My hostess was

born at Gusinje, the stronghold of one of the fiercest Arnaout tribes.

"It is a beautiful town," she says, "larger even than Kolashin; but you

cannot go there; they will shoot you." She and her friends spent a happy

hour turning out the meagre contents of my saddle-bags, pricing all the

articles, and trying some on. That none of my clothes were woven at

home amazed them, "all made in a fabrik," they could scarce credit it.

It seemed too good to be true. What with spinning, weaving, and making,

they said they had hardly time to make a new garment before the old was

worn out. More and more women came to see the show, and their naive

remarks threw a strange light upon their lives.

The family's hut was a windowless, chimneyless, wooden shanty, devoid of

all furniture save a few lumps of wood and a bench, and the rafters were

black and shiny with smoke. Plenty of light came in, though there was no

window, for no two planks met. A Singers sewing-machine, which sat on

the floor, looked a forlorn and hopeless anachronism, for all else

belonged to the twelfth century at latest. Certainly the huge and

shapeless meals did--the lumps of flesh, the lamb seethed whole in a

pot, and the flat brown loaves of rye bread. A Montenegrin can go for a

surprising time without food, can live on very little, but when food is

plentiful his appetite is colossal. These worthy people used to serve me

with enough food for a week. Because I could not clear it all up,

Ljubitza used to run in at odd intervals with lumps of bread, bowls of

milk, glasses of sliva, onions, and other delicacies, to tempt my

appetite. My window gave on the balcony, so there was room for many

people to look in, see me eat and urge me to further efforts. When they

assembled also to see my toilet operations, about which the ladies were

very curious, I had to nail up my waterproof by way of protection.

Whereupon a baffled female opened the window. The establishment

possessed one tin basin, which I shared with the gentlemen in the next

room. I captured it over night and handed it out to them in the morning

on the balcony, where they took it in turns to squat while Ljubitza

poured water over their hands and heads and they scrubbed their faces.

It is not the thing to wash in your room in Montenegro, and my hostess

thought me very peculiar upon this point. And in spite of the

"lick-and-a-promise" system, folk always looked clean.

On market day the inn was crammed. Supper in the big room went on till

ten o'clock. Ljubitza hung around the door of my room and suggested that

there were two beds in it, did I still prefer sleeping alone? I said

very firmly that I did, whereupon her mother came and threw out sketchy

suggestions of a similar nature. For in these parts no one ever thinks

of undressing to go to bed, and it never occurs to anyone that you could

wish to do so. The "guest-room" is made to contain as many as it will;

mattresses are spread on the floor and coverlets supplied; nor did the

regular boarders seem to have the least objection to sharing their room

with ten or twelve strangers. But there are no "strangers" in

Montenegro. You ask a man all his private affairs to begin with, address

him as "my brother," and call him by his Christian name. Nor in spite of

the overcrowding are the rooms ever stuffy, for all the windows, and

possibly the door too, are left open. Not even the tiny cottages are

close. At Cetinje one day I met two excited Frenchmen who had just been

over the barracks, and their astonishment was so great that they

imparted it to me. "Figure to yourself," they said, "two hundred men

slept in there last night and the air is as fresh as upon the mountain!

But it is astonishing! Parole d'honneur, if you but put your nose into

one of our casernes, you are asphyxiated, positively asphyxiated!" And

I, who am acquainted with the rich, gamey odour of the French "Tommy,"

had no difficulty in believing it.

Life up at Kolashin is mainly a struggle to get enough to eat and a roof

overhead. In the lamb season meat is cheap and plentiful. Corn comes

chiefly from the lower plains, and there is often lack of bread; in the

winter folk fare very hardly. Even in fat times milk and maize-flour

boiled in olive oil form the staple food of the peasantry. Nature is

quite unthwarted by Science; only the very fit survive, and those have

iron constitutions.

A good deal has been written about the very inferior position of women

in Montenegro. Some writers have even gone as far as saying that the

Montenegrins despise their wives, apologise for mentioning their

existence, and do not allow them to appear in company at all. My own

experience does not bear out these reports, which possibly originate in

the fact that most books on the Serb people have been written by men,

and that centuries of experience of the Turk and his methods have

implanted a deep distrust of every foreign man in the heart of the wild

Montenegrin, both man and woman. Men I had never seen before used to say

to me, "Good-night. Sleep safely, I shall be near," and I regarded it

only as a formula until one night it was varied by "Good-night. Lock

your door to-night. There is an Italian in the house!" But their belief

in each other seemed to be great. The women were always telling me what

wonderful men their husbands were, and the men were equally

complimentary about their wives. They laid great stress on the part

which the women had played in Montenegro's struggle for freedom, saying

that the Montenegrins were fine soldiers because not only their fathers

but their mothers were heroes. The conditions of life have been such

that until twenty-five years ago defending his home and his flocks took

up almost the man's whole time. All other work fell naturally to the

women. The work is certainly very heavy, but so it was and is in every

country where there is no labour-saving machinery. The women themselves

do not appear to regard it as at all unfair. At any rate, they

constantly advised me strongly to settle in the country and do as they

did. It is very usual for many members of the same family to live

together. The real thorn in the side of a Montenegrin woman, then, is a

sister-in-law who does not do her full share of the work. "Is your

sister-in-law good?" was a stock question. "Very good." The fervour of

the immediate reply, "Thank God. How fortunate!" was most enlightening.

Kolashin was hospitable, and pressed me to stay indefinitely. Boshko,

gorged with lamb, was in great glory and in no hurry to go. But one day

the clouds lifted, the mountain tops showed clear, and I issued marching

orders. Armed with two letters of introduction to Voyvode Lakich, the

head man of Andrijevitza, we started in the grey of the morning in the

company of a ragged Mohammedan Albanian and a young Mohammedan tradesman

from Podgoritza, a great swell, who Boshko assured me was one of his

dearest friends. He rode a showy white pony and gave himself airs.

Boshko admired him hugely, and referred to him always as the Turchin.

Boshko had a great faculty for hero worship, and recommended several of

the objects of his admiration to me as likely to make suitable husbands.

All being ready for a start, the inevitable rakija appeared, and I had

to drink stirrup-cups with the friends I was leaving. I thought two

sufficient. "You must take the third," said one of the regular boarders,

"for the Holy Trinity." "She does not know about the Trinity," said

someone hastily in an undertone; "they do not have the Trinity in her

land." The surprise and delight of the company on learning that we did

was great. We all swallowed a third glass with enthusiasm, and I said

adieu. Alat, my chestnut, was very cheerful after his long rest, but the

steep path soon tamed him. We went up a thousand rugged feet quickly,

Alat hurrying after the Turchin, who sang, shouted, and rode recklessly.

Boshko panted behind. We drew rein at the top of the ridge and awaited

him. The ragged man kept up with never a sob. Below, around, above, lay

wild and wooded mountains and bare peaks. "Which way?" said the Turchin.

"Knowest thou, O Boshko?" "Not I, so God slay me!" was his cheerful

answer; "I thought that thou knewest!" "By the one God, not I." "This

way or that, as there is a God above me, I know not." And so on and so

on. The Turchin, a reckless, feckless young thing, burst out laughing,

dug a spur into his pony and swung him round, whipped out his revolver,

fired it over my head out of pure light-headedness, and saying, "We will

go this way; God grant it does not lead to the frontier," plunged into

a wood on the left. "God grant it doesn't," said Boshko fervently, for

he had a mighty respect for frontiers.

The track was mud and loose rock. We dismounted and filed through the

wood, winding higher and higher up the mountain side. From time to time

all three men halloed to herdsmen above and below us, to learn if we

were on the right track. Some said we were and some that we were not.

The Turchin said it was less trouble to go on than to go back, but that

we should probably arrive at Berani of the Turks, and then "God help

us," which terrified Boshko. The ragged man observed the peaks carefully

and said he thought he knew. Then down came a driving, drenching mist

and hid everything. The Turchin shivered and got into a greatcoat. I

struggled, streaming, over slippery stones, and the loose ones bounded

down the mountain side. At last we came to a wide level where the track

branched, the fog lifted, and the ragged man was certain of the way. The

rain was bitterly chill, snow lay in patches on the ground, and the

aneroid registered 5200 feet. Above us rose the bare peak of Bach. We

were on good turf, could mount again, and Alat was as tame as a snail.

The ragged man steered us cleverly across country, and the sun came out.

We put up at a bunch of incredibly wretched huts, mere lean-to's of

planks, so low that one could only stand upright in the middle. The

people, who were in rags that barely held together, brought us milk in a

wooden bowl, out of which we all three ate with wooden ladles. For the

Turchin, being Albanian, had no scruples about feeding with

unbelievers. A very aged woman, ninety years old, crouched by the fire,

which was stirred up to dry my wet clothes. When I wished to pay on

leaving, the master of the house flared up. He was a

magnificent-looking fellow, who bore himself right kingly in spite of

his rags. "I am a soldier," he said; "nothing is sold in my house." I

had to leave with thanks and handshakes, for they would take nothing at

all, and I felt ashamed of having eaten their food, they were so poor.

We tracked down to Andrijevitza, which we reached about four in the

afternoon. The scenery when the mist rose was grand. Great snow peaks

above and flowery grassy slopes below, with all the wild charm of an

undiscovered country upon them.

Andrijevitza is a tiny, tiny place (2200 feet above the sea), nestled in

a valley on the banks of the Lim, which hurries down from the lands of

Plava and Gusinje, and is here joined by a little tributary. I put up at

the bakers shop, a funny little house built on a slope. It accommodated

a cow in the basement and fowls in the roof. These began to scrattle and

peck about four in the morning, you woke with the feeling that they were

raking for corn in your head, and the baker's wife, who kindly let me

share her bedroom and saved me from the general guest-room, used to

hammer on the ceiling with my umbrella by way of quieting them. Life at

Andrijevitza is somewhat rough, but I fared exceedingly well; for the

kindness, courtesy, and hospitality of everyone more than made up for

the barbaric simplicity of all domestic arrangements. Nor did it ever

occur to anyone that I was not living in the lap of luxury, for I had

every comfort that money can buy--in Andrijevitza. Compared with

Andrijevitza, Kolashin is large and wealthy. Andrijevitza is poor,

proud, honest and self-respecting--and it has a right to be proud, for

it is the very last outpost of civilisation in that direction. The

border and the Turk are but four miles away, the men of Andrijevitza are

fighting frontiersmen, and their head is that "veliki junak," Voyvode

Lakich.

Voyvode Lakich--the eagle-eyed, grey-headed warrior, the beloved of his

people, a terror to the Turks--is a type of all that is fine in Old

Montenegro. One of a long line of fighting men, his honest eyes, his

hearty laugh, and the simple dignity of his bearing command entire trust

at first sight, and the respect with which he is regarded tell that he

is a born leader of men, a Duke (dux) in the old sense of the word. His

courtly old wife called on me at once with her daughter-in-law, and

proceeded to welcome me in the orthodox style with glasses of rakija.

Poor old lady, she was really no more addicted to raw spirits than I am,

and gasped between each glass; but in spite of my efforts the proper

forms had to be observed, and we duly swallowed the three glasses

required by Christianity and the laws of hospitality. She marvelled

greatly over my journey, for she herself had never left the

neighbourhood. Her nephew, she said, was a great traveller; "he had been

to Nikshitje, Podgoritza, and Cetinje." She was the great lady of the

land and much respected, but has lived a life of toil and poverty and

danger compared with which the life of our own "working classes" is one

of pampered luxury. I do not think that there is anyone in Montenegro

whose soul is imperilled by great possessions. When I had once left

Podgoritza, and the world, behind me, my two small saddle-bags were

regarded as an inordinate amount of luggage. "You have quite enough

clothes on. What can you need these for? Leave them here, and call for

them on the way back." No one travels with more than can be tied up in a

pocket-handkerchief, and what that minimum consists of I have never

rightly fathomed.

Life at Andrijevitza is earnest; it is either quiet to dulness, or it is

filled with very grim realities. For the Albanians across the border are

an ever-present danger. The Powers of Europe, represented by many worthy

gentlemen, met at Berlin in 1878, and together they swept and raked the

Turkish Empire and bedded it out into states. Now, it is no light task

to plant out nationalities about which you know little, in a land about

which you possibly know less. Nor was the welfare of the said

nationalities quite the only thing that absorbed the Council's

attention. It is therefore not very surprising that the nationalities

most concerned were not best pleased with the results. The nearest

brothers of Montenegro are in Old Servia, but the uniting of the Serb

peoples did not fall in with Austria's aspirations. Montenegro cried for

bread and her brothers; she was given, largely, stones and Albanians.

Gusinje and Plava were included in Montenegrin boundaries, and trouble

began at once. Order was only restored by substituting Dulcigno for this

robbers' nest. Gusinje and Plava were left to the Albanians, but the

corrected frontier was not delimited for some time, was the source of

much fighting, and to this day is not strictly observed. As someone

picturesquely observed, "it floats"--mainly on blood. And the

representations made on the subject to Constantinople by the

Montenegrins have not been more successful than any other

representations made in that quarter unbacked by ironclads. At

Andrijevitza not only the Crimea but the Treaty of Berlin are writ up

very large against us. And the apathy of England towards the suffering

of the Balkan Christians is a bitter thing to all the Serb peoples. Down

on a frontier with the enemy almost in sight, the feeling becomes

intense. "Your people have been our enemies," said someone, "and you

know it, but you have come alone all the way here among us. When you go

home, you must tell the truth about us. It is all we ask of you." For

that England can be really aware of what life under the Turk has meant

for the Balkan people, none who have lived that life,' can credit.

The peasants and flocks had not yet gone to the upper pastures for the

summer, and until they are there, travelling on the border heights is

dangerous for solitary wanderers, owing to constant Albanian incursions.

The murder of a Montenegrin herd-boy last year gave rise to a good deal

of fighting, and at Mokra, on the very edge, things were still "not

good."

Owing to the farce of Austro-Russian reform, and other reasons, Gusinje

was apparently just then in a supersensitive frame of mind. I gave up

Gusinje reluctantly, and planned to see Berani on a market day. The

valiant Boshko was reluctant. "We must go without a revolver," he said,

"and I do not know the road." "We go freely to market," said I. "O

Boshko, thou art afraid." "I am not afraid," said Boshko indignantly,

"but I dare not." So I consented to his engaging a second man, and

relieved his mind. When the moment for departure came, he divested

himself mournfully of his beloved six-shooter, hung it on a nail next my

spare skirt, and looked ridiculously nude and ashamed.

We rode with a long string of pack-beasts on a good track down the

valley of the Lim. Before we had been going an hour, grey clouds swept

down upon us and rain began; but everyone vowed it would be fine, and I

foolishly pushed on. A guard of dirty Nizams cowered at the entrance of

a loopholed shanty, and a Turkish "kula" (blockhouse) was perched on the

hill on either side of the valley. The telegraph wire, which had

hitherto run trim and straight between upright and regular poles, now

drooped in limp festoons from one crooked "clothes-prop" to another. We

were in Turkey. No place looks really jolly in the rain, but in many

lands rain means new life, hope, and plenty. In Turkey it is grey

desolation; the untilled land, the wretched Christian peasantry, the

squalid huts, sodden and soaked, seem all rotting together in a land

whereon the sun will never shine again. We splashed on. No one took any

notice of us, for we were going to market. The Turkish blockhouses,

"half an hour apart" along the frontier, were left behind us. We slopped

past a yellow guard-house and more gaunt Nizams and rode into Berani, a

small town of, for the most part, crooked houses of timber and mud, a

wide main street, a large market-place, two wooden mosques, and a

fortress.

The inn, kept by a Serb, was far better than the look of the place led

one to expect. The man was from Ipek and his wife from Novibazar, and

they welcomed me warmly, A visit from a foreign Christian was an unusual

event, and the question was what course it would be most diplomatic to

pursue with regard to the authorities. I was begged not to seek them,

but to leave them to hunt me, if they thought fit. A Czech who had come

about a fortnight ago had gone straight to the Kaimmakam, had been

promptly ordered back across the frontier, and a guard had been set to

watch the inn and see that he did not leave it except to return whence

he came. Mine host hoped I would not bring the police upon him. "But I

have a letter and a passport," I said; for, with the blood of the

dominant race in me, the idea of sneaking in corners from the Ottoman

eye was most unpleasing. To the Christian subjects of the Ottoman it

seemed the only natural and sensible way of acting. "What is a letter or

a passport?" they cried; "here you are with the Turks." There was a

marked unwillingness on the part of everyone to take me to the

Kaimmakam, and the Czechs plan had failed, so I decided, by way of

experiment, to see Berani before I was hunted out of it. Meanwhile they

pointed out the great man to me through the wooden grating that covered

the window. He went into his official residence, and it was suggested

that we should now go out. It was interesting to see how entirely

suitable this furtive way of setting about things was considered.

The rain had ceased, and the market was crowded with Montenegrins and

the Serb peasants of the neighbourhood. In this part of the country the

peasantry is all Serb and Christian. The Mohammedans are the army of

occupation that holds the land, the Nizams, Zaptiehs (police), and

officials, and a certain amount of tradesfolk in the town. These latter

are in many cases the descendants of Mohammedanised Serbs, as is also

the Kaimmakam himself. The most remarkable fact about Berani is that the

Montenegrin national cap is on sale in the main street. That this is

permitted is astonishing, for it does not take one long to see that the

Christian population is heart and soul with the Prince. In the course of

the last war Berani was taken several times and was held by the

Montenegrins. The people's hopes ran high. "But," they say, "it lies in

good land, so the Council of Berlin gave it back to the Turks. See the

fine meadows and the fields that should be ours! And but little grows in

them, for they gave it back to those devils."

Down came the rain like a fusillade, and I spent a cold, damp afternoon

in the public room of the inn. A man who said he was German was waiting

to interview me. He was a watchmaker by trade. He started at once on the

death of King Alexander. Which of the Powers did I think had brought

this about? Did I think it would affect the future of Old Servia? He was

so anxious to know my opinion on the subject that I had none. "Servia"

was the only word that the Serbs at the next table could understand, and

it made them nervous. They ordered drinks and got me into their circle

as soon as possible, asking, "What have you told him? He is a dirty

German. He will denounce you to the authorities." They were a frank,

hospitable, kindly set, of whom I afterwards saw much. I did my best to

convince them that the manner of Alexander's death was worse than a

crime--for it was a blunder; but though we remained very good friends, I

never succeeded.

I went to Berani on purpose to see Giurgovi "Stupovi, the monastery

church of St. George; for in Turkey you should always have a harmless

and suitable reason for travelling, and I watched the rain dismally. It

looked like the Deluge, and forty days of it would have settled the

Eastern Question as far as the Turk is concerned. Monastery hunting was

out of the question. I went upstairs, sat cross-legged on a divan to

warm myself, and nursed the cat for the same purpose. My hostess did her

best to entertain me and called in any number of her friends, and I

began to make the acquaintance of the women of Old Servia, of whom I was

to learn more later. These women came to see me whenever they had the

chance; I was a stranger and quite a new sight, and no matter what I was

doing or how tired I might be, they questioned me with pitiless

persistency. Such interviews on the top of a long day's ride are

wearisome to the last degree, but in travelling in these lands there is

only one road to success, and that is, never to lose patience with the

people under any circumstances. They were extremely ignorant; England

conveyed no idea to them. Beyond their own immediate surroundings they

knew nothing at all, and their mental horizon was bounded by Turks. I

asked no questions, and let the information dribble out unaided.

Omitting a mass of childish and personal questions, the conversation was

always more or less on this pattern:--

"Hast thou a father?"

"No."

"Did the Turks kill him?"

"No." This caused surprise.

"Hast thou brothers?"

"Yes."

"Glory be to God! How many Turks have they killed?" for my male

relatives were always credited with a martial ardour which they are far

from possessing. The news that they had killed none caused

disappointment. Then--

"Is thy vilayet (province) far off?"

"Very far."

"Five days?"

"More."

"God help thee! Are there many Turks in thy vilayet?"

"None."

"No Turks? Dear God, it is a marvel!" And so on and so on. Attempts to

start a new topic brought back the old one. "What a pretty child!"

elicited only "He has no father. The Turks killed him." And all these

things are trivial details; but "little straws show which way the wind

blows," and their dull "everydayness" is more eloquent of helpless

suffering than are columns of disputed atrocities. And through it all

these people cling with a doglike fidelity to their Church and the

belief that the God of their fathers will one day give them back the

land which should be theirs. I remember few grimmer things than these

wretched women and their Turk-haunted lives.

Tired out, damp and chilled right through, I shrank from facing the

ceaseless downpour, and to the great relief of my two men, stayed the

night at Berani. The trouser-legged landlady made me a very respectable

bed in a room with a lock on the door. Supper--which was always on the

point of coming, but did not arrive till ten o'clock--consisted of a

great chunk of flesh in a large tin dish full of funny stuff. The lady

tore the shoulder-blade off with her fingers and offered it me to begin

on. It was a failure as a meal. I dismissed the whole company, to their

infinite regret, locked the door, ate all my "siege ration" of

chocolate, went to bed, and slept like a log. In the middle of the night

a violent attempt to open the door woke me. I was too tired to worry at

first. Then I cried, "What is it?" No answer and stillness. It was pitch

dark, and there were no matches. In a little while the attempt began

again. Then I recognised that the sound was inside the room, and grasped

the situation. The cat I had been nursing was shut up inside the room,

and her two kittens were squealing outside. She was making wild efforts

to get to them. I let her out, and saw by a flickering lamp that the

rain was streaming through the roof and the whole landing was a lake.

Next morning my landlady said the cats had frightened her very much in

the night. Midnight noises were more alarming to her than to me, and

probably for very good reason.

It was still drizzling when I left Berani early for the monastery, which

is but a little way outside the town. The church is celebrated as being

the oldest in the Balkan peninsula. It was built by Stefan Nemanja, the

first of that line of Nemanja kings who led Servia to glory. He ruled

from the middle of the twelfth century, abdicated a few years before

his death (which took place in 1195?), and retired to Mount Athos. He

was canonised, and as St. Simeone is still greatly revered. The old

monastery was burnt by the Turks, but the church, wrecked of all

decoration and robbed of its treasure, still stands. It is a long,

barrel-vaulted building, with an apse at one end and a narthex at the

other. The masonry is rough, coarse, and irregular. A Roman gravestone

is built into the wall upside down near the side door. Inside no trace

of wall painting remains, but one piece of an inscription in which

Stefan's name appears. All is forlorn and melancholy. A large assembly

of folk were there to welcome me, and we had to retire to the monastery

and partake of rakija. The most interesting figures were the head of the

monastery and a wild-eyed priest, whose long grey locks were twisted up

under his cap. He wore striped Albanian leg-gear and had a revolver

thrust in his sash, though Christians are forbidden to carry weapons in

Turkey. He rode off on a pony, and had presumably leaked in over the

frontier and evaded the authorities; but I thought it would be useless

to ask questions on such a delicate subject. We returned to Andrijevitza

by another road, thus avoiding Berani and the guard at its entrance,

which seemed to me a very unnecessary precaution, but pleased my guides

extremely.

At Andrijevitza I found the Czech of whom I had heard at Berani, a

Professor of botany who was making a detailed study of the flora of

Montenegro, a good-natured, jolly man, who was a good friend to me, and

to whom I am indebted for several interesting pieces of information.

Commenting on the number of vipers which are to be met with on the

hillsides, he told me that the people all still believe in the existence

of serpents of enormous size, fabulous dragons in fact. A man once told

him that he had seen one, 20 metres long, and swore "By God, I saw it

with these eyes." Nothing would convince him that his eyes had deceived

him, and his comrades firmly believed the tale. They have many medicinal

herbs, the secret of which they jealously guard. One plant in particular

they consider an infallible cure for snake-bite, but he never succeeded

in inducing them to show it him. It would lose its power, they said, if

they told. Cats all know it, and go off and eat it if bitten.

The Montenegrin flora, which includes many plants peculiar to the

district, had never been completely worked before, and beyond the

frontier was quite unknown to science. He was wild to plant-hunt there,

but his encounter with the Kaimmakam had been so unpleasant that he had

reluctantly given up all hopes of doing so for the present. The

Kaimmakam, he said, and the Voyvode were friendly enough a short time

back, but the political situation was just then strained, and I had been

lucky to escape an interview.

Everyone wanted to know how I had fared, and I was asked round to the

Voyvode's house. The baker's lady took me. We went up an outside

staircase into a tiny room with a hearthstone and an iron pot in it, and

from this into another room, where the Voyvode's lady welcomed me

cordially. Her daughter-in-law and her son came in, followed by the

Voyvode and his secretary, the kapetan. It was a tiny whitewashed room

with a bare wooden floor, a table, three wooden chairs, and a

bench--quite devoid of all the comforts of an English labourer's

cottage; and portraits of Prince Nikola and the Russian and Italian

Royal Families were the only exceptions to its Spartan simplicity.

Hospitality was the order of the day. Rakija was produced, a plate of

cheese and another of little lumps of ham, and a fork. All clinked

glasses, took it in turns to eat little bits of ham off the fork, and

were very festive. I have seldom met more charming people. The Voyvode

was loud in his contempt for Boshko, and vexed that I should have had to

pay a second man. This sealed Boshko's fate. He was, though

well-meaning, quite incompetent as a guide. I paid him off and dismissed

him. Alat had to go too, and the saddle, as Boshko dared not return

without them.

Events followed thick and fast. Sunday was Kosovo Day, and Monday market

day. A crowd of strange beings flocked in from Gusinje, wild mountain

Albanians, with heads swathed in white cloths and restless, watchful

eyes. But the bringing of weapons to market has been lately forbidden,

and they had nothing more lethal upon them than well-filled cartridge

belts, with which even the little boys were equipped. Our interest in

one another was mutual, and I spent most of the morning in the market

and down by the river, where they were selling and slaughtering sheep

and goats, and the purple puddles were so suitable to the scene that

they ceased to be revolting. Gusinje, being forbidden, fascinated me

exceedingly, and I was charmed to find a Gusinje man had put up for the

night at my hostelry. Djoka was his name; he was as stripey as a tiger;

his sun-tanned face was baked and weathered into lines, and his dark

brown eyes glittered and sparkled. "Art thou Christian or Mohammedan?"

he was asked when his "visitors' form" was being filled in. He looked up

lazily from the bench where he was a-sprawl, and "By God, I know not,"

was all the reply he vouchsafed. We entertained one another for most of

the afternoon. He had never seen drawing done before, and his interest

was intense. He asked to be drawn so that people could see his new

cartridge belt, and posed with a view to showing as much of it as

possible. "But I must have a gun," he said. The idea of lending a

Gusinje man a rifle even for the purposes of fine art was scouted by the

Montenegrins, and we had to do without. He sat motionless and unblinking

for twenty minutes; then unluckily the onlookers told him it was quite

finished. He jumped up, and so many came to see that further sitting was

impossible.

The Botanik and I consulted him about going to Gusinje. He was in high

good humour, for his portrait pleased him greatly. "We only want to

see," said the Botanik. "I pick flowers and make them into hay, and the

lady will draw you pictures. We will make no politik." "Thou art a man,

and they will not believe thee," said Djoka firmly; "and for thee, lady,

it is better not. Perhaps there is danger, perhaps there is not. In

Gusinje there is no law. Next year thou shalt come, and thou also." "Why

will it be possible next year and not now?" I asked; but Djoka merely

stared straight in front of him with a blank face and repeated what he

had said before. And his final good-bye to me was an oracular "Next

year, O lady."

Meanwhile, outside in the street people were busy putting up flags, for

it was the eve of Prince Danilo's birthday. Night fell--it grows dark

early in these valleys--and one Marko rushed in to say the Voyvode

wanted me at once. We flew to the market-place, where flared a huge

bonfire ringed round by all the men of the neighbourhood, squatting or

standing in an expectant circle. On one side sat the Voyvode, with the

priest on his right hand and all his officers round him. There was a

table in front of him with five glasses and a huge flagon of rakija.

Place was made for the Botanik and for me on the Voyvode's left. He

turned to me. "My falcons!" he said in a voice of love and pride, as he

glanced round his men. There was a blue-black night sky overhead with

never a star in it. The petroleum-fed bonfire leapt into a waving banner

of flame and threw hot light on the faces of veterans, stern

frontiersmen, and eager boys, illuminating weapons, blue and crimson

uniforms, medals and gold stitchery in one brave blaze. The kapetan, who

was sitting next us, whipped out his revolver, fired it overhead, and

the fun began. Anyone who felt inspired burst into song, and anyone that

chose joined in. The village rang with national ballads shouted at the

full pitch of huge voices, with the wildest enthusiasm, and a running

fire of revolver shots marked time barbarically--ball cartridge, of

course. Anyone who, carried away by his feelings, fired all six barrels

in succession, was loudly applauded. The glasses were filled, and the

rakija flowed with embarrassing profusion. The Montenegrins are very

moderate drinkers, but it was etiquette for every man of rank to drink

with the guests. The five glasses flew from hand to hand, and the

Botanik and I were hard put to it as one captain after another filled a

glass to us; for to refuse is an insult. "Drink," said the Botanik

desperately, "drink. What must be, must." From time to time the fire was

fed, and, as it blazed again, one youth with a wild yell would challenge

another to dance. Leaping up into the air like young stags, they dashed

into the middle of the ring, dancing madly a kind of Highland fling,

with the flaming bonfire as background, yelling savagely the while they

drew their revolvers, leapt higher and higher, and on the top of the

leap fired over the heads of the shouting crowd, who in their turn beat

time with a volley of bullets; while against the darkness of the night,

fire flashed from the muzzles of upturned weapons all round the ring.

"Take care, brothers! take care!" cried the Voyvode at intervals, when

the angle of fire was dangerously low. And as each pair of youths

finished their dance they threw their arms round each others necks and

kissed one another heartily on both cheeks before making room for

another couple. When both cartridges and rakija were about exhausted,

the Voyvode stood up. "Enough, brothers! Enough!" and he started the

national hymn, "God save Montenegro," which was sung with a wild fervour

about which there was no mistake. Glasses were filled for the final

toast, and we drank to the Gospodar and all his family, and to the

speedy restoration of the ruler of Great Servia to his rightful throne

at Prisren. "Now, my falcons, go!" said the Voyvode. The party abruptly

dispersed, and the bonfire died away.

But the wave of patriotism had surged too high to subside at once. The

musical talent of the neighbourhood flocked to the guest-room at the

baker's, the gusle passed from hand to hand, and each man in turn vied

with his comrades in long historic ballads. Those who meant to go home

brought their rifles with them, "for it is dark"; those who meant to

stay hung up their revolvers and took their belts off. How those fellows

sang!--sang till the sweat glistened upon their brows, their faces

flushed, and the veins stood out upon their throats. Nor did there seem

to be any end to the number of verses each man knew. The gusle has but

one string, and as a musical instrument it is about as poor a one as has

ever been devised; it was monotonously on one or two minor notes varied

only by a curious trill that recurs perpetually, but to the Montenegrin

it is what the bagpipes are to the Highlander. It calls up all that is

Montenegrin within him. They sang of Kosovo and of the Servo-Bulgarian

war and of the border fights of the neighbourhood. The song ended often

in a yell of triumph, and the singer threw himself back exhausted by the

emotions he had lived through. Djoka, the man from Gusinje, took his

turn and varied the subject of song by singing the sorrows of a Turkish

woman whose husband the Montenegrins had killed. He sang in a clear high

voice, and manipulated the gusle more skilfully than any other man I

have heard. "Dost thou hear the wailing of the cuckoo till the city

echoes to her woe? The snow is falling and the earth is frost-bound.

That that thou hearest is no cuckoo; it is the voice of a woman that

cries for her murdered man," etc., and the Montenegrins retorted with a

similar song in which the conditions were reversed. When everyone had

sung himself hoarse we suddenly discovered it was one o'clock in the

morning. The boy began hastily strewing mattresses, and I retired into

the back bedroom with the baker's wife, to find there the tired-out

Botanik, who was sleeping the sleep of exhaustion and had to be aroused.

Next morning at nine o'clock there was a solemn service in the little

church. The "heads," in gala costume, marched in front and the rest of

the village trailed after. I could not follow the prayers accurately,

but the name of Prisren recurred many times, and the church was filled

with kneeling warriors who prayed with painful intensity for the

redemption of Stara Srbija. For the saving of Old Servia and the union

of the Serb peoples is the star by which the Serb steers, the goal of

his desires, the ideal for which he lives and is ready to die. We walked

out serious and very silent into the sunshine, and the emotional strain

was visible on many faces. The Voyvode introduced me to an officer who

had arrived that morning and explained my tour to him briefly. "We want

you to see Old Servia," said the Voyvode. I was formed up in line with

the "heads," and we marched back to the village, and on the way they

talked of Stara Srbija and of Stara Srbija. "It was the heart of our

empire, and you must see it," said the officer. This was a new idea to

me and soared beyond my wildest plans. That hapless corner of the

Turkish empire was left after the last war to be ravaged by the

Albanians. Until the Russians insisted upon forcing a consul into

Mitrovitza, none of the Powers knew or cared what was passing in that

dark corner, and travellers were denied access. My map ceased at the

Montenegrin frontier, and beyond was a blank. I pondered the question

till we arrived at the village.

The market-place was arranged as on the night before; we took our seats

and repeated last nights entertainment, minus the bonfire and revolvers,

for the Voyvode said that more firing would make the Albanians think

that fighting was taking place and bring them over the border in force.

Patriotism was hotter than ever, and "the falcons" sang "Onamo, onamo,"

"Yonder, yonder let me see Prisren," with great energy. We drank all the

proper healths, we sang the national hymn, and the party broke up. This

time, however, the "heads" adjourned to the Voyvode's and took the

Botanik and me with them. The little room was quite full of men in

festal garb covered with gold and medals; we ate hot mutton and little

bits of ham with our fingers, and drank rakija. The Voyvode proposed my

health, said I was like the swallow that flew south, and that, like the

swallow, I must come again next year. And they all drank to me but not

to England, though I noticed that they drank to Bohemia as well as to

the Botanik with much warmth. Then they turned their attention to urging

me to Stara Srbija. I consulted the Botanik. "Go," he said; "the only

danger is from Albanians, and they never touch a woman." I looked at all

the "heads," and trusted them. The Voyvode said he would give me a

letter that would take me over, and the kapetan that he would find me a

man and a horse. The "heart of our empire and the throne of our kings"

began to exercise an irresistible fascination over me. I said I would

start that very afternoon, and did. I was to ride to Berani, thence to

Pech (Ipek), thence to Dechani; from Dechani to Prisren and back to

Andrijevitza across country--or rather, I was to try to do so, but the

whole expedition was pleasingly vague, as it depended entirely upon

"circumstances," that were all Turks, and therefore uncontrollable.

Everyone was full of enthusiasm, and told me above all things to go to

Dechani, the most holy shrine in Stara Srbija. My belongings were then

overhauled, for it was necessary to ride as light as possible. I tipped

all my things on to the bed. Quite a number of people came to help. My

idea was chocolate and underclothing. The Montenegrins thought

otherwise. One stalwart fellow took my second skirt off the wall.

"This," he said, "is very pretty and not heavy. Take it. Then if you

meet any foreign consuls you can walk about with them." This bright idea

pleased everyone, for your Montenegrin dearly loves "to peacock." They

selected a scarlet silk necktie to complete the conquest of the consuls,

and considered that this was all the outfit that was absolutely

necessary. The kapetan arrived with the letter, the pony, and the guide.

"I give you this lady to take care of," he said; "you will protect her

and serve her well, or when you come back you will go to prison." I

laughed. "I am not joking," he said sternly. I mounted with my gay

light-heartedness rather dashed, waved "good-bye" and started. The pony

was a wiry one, the wooden pack-saddle padded with a cape quite

comfortable, except that loops of cord were its only stirrups, and the

clean, honest eyes of Radovan, the man to whom I had been handed over,

filled me with trust from the first. The road to Berani was now lonely.

Near the border a man on horseback suddenly clattered across the valley.

"Woman," he shouted, "stop!" "Go on, and do not speak," said Radovan;

"he is a Turk, and a bad one. If he wishes to ask something he knows

that he should ask me." The Turk drew alongside. "Woman, answer me. What

is the time?" Radovan looked at the sky and gave the approximate hour.

The Turk took no notice but shouted at me again. After this he said a

good deal in a language I did not understand, and rode away. Radovan

laughed. "I know that man," he said; "he wanted to see if you had a good

watch."

We reached Berani, and this time, as there was no market to explain our

errand, were challenged at once and told to wait at the inn. The inn was

amazingly excited at hearing my proposed route, and foretold failure. No

foreigner had been passed through for many years. I awaited a summons

before the Kaimmakam with anxiety. "There he is!" they cried, and I was

suddenly shouted for to be interviewed in the middle of the main street.

He was a long, lean, morose individual, who snapped, "What do you want?"

in Serb, and was taken aback at my errand and nationality. He was

doubtful, very doubtful. Inspired by previous experience of Turkish

ignorance, I tried a bold bluff that was not "bakshish," and rather to

my own surprise I scored a sullen permission. Having successfully played

the empire, I gave him the Voyvode's letter. "Voyvode Lakich," he said,

"h'm, Voyvode Lakich, Voyvode Lakich." He tore it open, read it, smiled

grimly, indicated that he had had quite enough of me for the present,

and turned away with my passport and the letter, muttering "Voyvode

Lakich" as he went. The inn and its customers were exultant. "You will

be quite safe," said a woman; "the Turks will not dare touch you. They

are afraid of your friends across the frontier, and know you would be

nobly avenged." She believed this piece of nonsense, poor thing, and her

chance remark threw a swift sidelight on a dark life where "safety"

depends on power of revenge. My host, hostess, Radovan, and I passed the

evening together round a pan of food. They were in high good-humour, for

I was expected somehow to champion the Christian cause! If England only

knew she could not fail to act! "The Turks," said my host, "killed my

father before my eyes when I was fifteen"--His wife, with a cry of

alarm, shut the window lest he should be overheard.

I had planned to start early next morning, but had no such luck. My

passport had not been stamped. This was explained by the fact that the

gentleman to whose department it belonged had lost a daughter. He

intended to weep all day, and could not be interrupted. I protested, and

was told that two or three days could make no difference to anyone, and

was kept in a pleasing state of uncertainty as to what was to happen.

Late in the evening I received orders to start next morning at four with

some traders and a zaptieh as escort. Radovan disguised himself as a

Turkish subject, and we started punctually in the grey dawn. It was very

cold, and the entire landscape was blotted out by driving rain. We

crossed the Lim by a wooden bridge full of holes, which a portion of

the Turkish army had been trying to mend by stuffing sticks into them.

Half blinded by the rain, we breasted the hill and waited on the top for

the "drushtvo" (company) and the zaptieh, who soon appeared like ghosts

out of the fog. The track was pretty bad, the landscape quite invisible,

and we rode through a wilderness in a ceaseless downpour. The way was

enlivened only by murder stones, which were pretty frequent. "That's the

Bohemian," said the zaptieh. "Who shot him?" said someone. "God knows,"

said the zaptieh stolidly, "how should I?" We slopped on. "Those were

traders," said the zaptieh presently (there were two stones this time).

"Were they robbed?" asked one of the drushtvo, a trader himself. "By

God, I know not. There was nothing on them when they were found." And so

on and so on. At eleven the weather cleared quite suddenly; the clouds

rolled away and disclosed scenery that was startlingly magnificent. We

had been mounting all the time and were on vast uplands. The huge peak

of Kom of the Vassoievich towered from Montenegro and a border

blockhouse showed clear on a ridge. "That's Mokra," said the zaptieh,

and he laughed and tapped his rifle--an unnecessary pantomime, for the

land told its own tale.

It is "a land that is not inhabited." There are miles and miles of the

richest pasture, where no flocks feed,--they would cost the herdsman's

life,--rich valleys where no man dwells, and great lonely forests of

stately fir trees. We were in Arnaoutluk (Albania), a land where nothing

is done and where under Turkish government nothing can be done. A few

most wretched shanties--Albanian, of course--were the only human

habitations I saw. The Albanian hordes who till lately had held the

district and completely blocked the trade route had been for the time

being driven back, and now the road was once again practicable. Radovan

spoke Albanian fluently, as did also the zaptieh. We got some smoky milk

and some coffee at an Albanian hut (which stank frightfully, for the

walls were covered with raw ox-hides nailed up to dry), and sat on the

floor and drank out of the same bowl while a party of weird wild men

sprawled round and asked questions. They kindly threw logs on the fire

that I might dry my clothes, and only charged fivepence for our

refreshments. Then on, and we passed through Rugove, a small Albanian

village consisting of a handful of cottages and a wooden mosque, a

sinister spot, the scene of the recent arrest of some revolutionary

chieftains and a good deal of bloodshed, and plunged into the valley of

the Bistritza, thickly forested with fir trees. The steep hillside was a

tangle of roots or streaming with liquid mud, through which I slithered

on foot for some miles, and the pack-animals staggered along with

difficulty, pecking and stumbling. We got ahead of the drushtvo, but as

the light was beginning to wane the zaptieh called a halt, and we waited

for them. I had been told ten or twelve hours would take us to Ipek, and

my heart sank. When we joined forces everyone was dead tired. Poor

Radovan was so done that I begged him to ride my pony, but he refused,

and the track was soon such that I too had to walk.

It was an extraordinarily wild and impressive scene. The cliffs on the

opposite side rose in a perpendicular wall, there was a night sky

overhead, and the moon came out and glittered on the torrent that

spouted and roared below. It was pitch dark under the trees, and

numberless tiny fireflies flashed and disappeared. We staggered and

scrambled over the rocky path, which was too narrow in many places to

let one animal pass another. I walked ahead with the zaptieh, who

uttered loud yells to warn any other caravan of our approach. We heard

yells ahead, and the narrow valley echoed with unearthly howls. We met,

and as we were all cross and tired, we backed, scrambled, and shouted,

in a tangle as each party tried to make the other give way. I divided

the last lump of dry bread with the zaptieh and Radovan as we tramped

out from under the trees, and the valley was wide and bare. On the steep

cliff was an inscription in Turkish with a great blot of crimson under

it--only paint, but it showed mysterious in the moonlight and struck

awe into all beholders except myself. As no one could read it they

called a halt, began to discuss its probable meaning, and were in no

hurry to start again. I walked on and the zaptieh followed, and we came

to the end of the gorge. "Pech very soon," said the zaptieh; "ride,

lady, ride, the way is good." I mounted reluctantly, for it was not, and

very nearly came to grief in consequence.

At last, after sixteen and a half hours on the march, we clattered over

a stony breakwater by the river's edge to the big iron-faced gates of

the monastery, which is surrounded by a high stone wall. The zaptieh

banged the heavy knocker, the gates were opened cautiously, I slid from

my weary beast, and we entered. Here were some long white buildings, a

fountain, and a group of men sitting on the ground. The Iguman came

forward to welcome me. He proved later to be a friend indeed, but now he

and the others were too much overcome by astonishment and curiosity to

think of anything else but satisfying it. They gave me a chair, a

rickety hard thing, and I sat stiff and tired in the chill moonlight and

enumerated my brothers, sisters, and other relatives in answer to a

flood of questions. One man who was gnawing a piece of meat kindly

offered me a clammy lump by way of refreshment. Radovan asked if we

could have some hay for the horse, and was told there was none at all

and none could be got till the next day. I was so sorry for the poor

brute that I forgot my own fatigues. It was turned loose in the

monastery enclosure to pick up what it could, but as that had been fed

over by geese the fare was very scanty. The Iguman meanwhile was

arranging for me. It was lucky that there were other guests in the house

or I should have fared hardly, for it was the fast of SS. Peter and

Paul. As it was, supper was just ready. The company was most kind to me,

and, when I had fed, the Iguman conducted me to the room which was

reserved for the Vladika when he visited the monastery. It had a proper

bedstead in it! I wished the Iguman "good-night," tumbled into bed

without further investigations, and did not find out till next morning

that I had not only the Vladika's room but in all probability his sheets

also.

The Iguman came early to see me, gave me a lump of sweet stuff and a

tumbler full of boiled milk and sugar for breakfast,--for no one in

these parts thinks of eating anything solid before midday,--and we went

out to see the churches. The Patriarchia of Pech, formerly the seat of

the Archbishop of Servia, was, to the grief of the Serbs, made dependent

on the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1766 by the Turkish Government.

Of the four little churches neatly fitted together to form one large,

irregular, dome-sprinkled building, three, including the Church of the

Virgin and the Saborna Crkva (cathedral), were built by the Patriarch

Arsenio, and are, I was told, nearly eight hundred years old. The fourth

and smallest, St. Nikola, was added later by the Patriarch Makario. The

churches are entered by a portico, the tiled roof of which is supported

on wooden posts and which leads into a long narthex. The Saborna Crkva

is by far the largest. Nor is it easy to give an idea of the interior of

any of these churches. The general effect, made up of a mass of

extraordinary detail, is old-world and barbaric in the extreme. The

walls are entirely covered with frescoes of the most primitive

description, a jumble of fierce colours toned by age into a rich

harmony. Quantities of cut glass chandeliers hang from the roof, and

from these again dangle numbers of ostrich eggs. Dim gilt ikons and holy

pictures, blackened by the tapers that with pious zeal are stuck on

their frames by a blob of hot wax, hang on the walls. Reading desks,

taper stands, candle-sticks, all are of the most early pattern and the

rudest make. A curious seat, under a canopy hung with dingle-dangles, is

the throne upon which was crowned Stefan Dechanski, the Sveti Kralj. And

this curious primitive art, that now looks exotic, Eastern, foreign,

once swayed the art of all Europe. We find its traces in our own Norman

architecture; we find them in the early churches of Italy. It reached

its highest stage of development in St. Sophia, and St. Mark's, Venice,

but it is now dead and done for. Art is no exception to the rule, that

all things are blighted in the land on which the Turk has laid a hand.

After his arrival all further development was arrested.

The monastery covers a good deal of ground. There are long rambling

guest-houses for the crowds that come on pilgrimage days, rooms with

long fixed tables spreading out into a large round at one end for the

accommodation of those of high degree. One of these buildings is of the

same date as the church. Timbered, wide-eaved, and picturesque, it is a

wonderful relic of mediæval days. This was doubtless the sort of

accommodation Chaucer's pilgrims put up with. Pilgrims in those days

were as ready to sleep in rows on the floor as they are in the Balkans

now, and their luggage was doubtless brought down to the same

irreducible minimum.

[Illustration: IPEK, OLD SERVIA.]

CHAPTER XVIII

TO DECHANI AND BACK TO PODGORITZA

Having shown me all over the monastery, the Iguman suggested that

Dechani was only three hours' ride, and that, as my pony was fed and

refreshed, I could easily ride over in the cool of the afternoon.

Dechani was his joy, and no English traveller had been allowed to go

there for twelve or fifteen years. Though my interest in the churches of

the Patriarchia pleased him much, "You must see Dechani," was his

constant cry, and he spared no pains to get me there. But my passport

had been taken off to the Sud (police bureau) by the zaptieh, and

without a passport even a three hours' ride was, I was told, an

impossibility. It is one thing to give up a passport and quite another

thing to get it back. It was a Friday, moreover, the Turkish holy day,

and the passport department refused to act till the evening. I proposed

to employ the afternoon by a walk through Pech, and evoked a chorus of

dismay and horror. Radovan said briefly, "It is better that thou goest

not"; the monastery people prayed me not to go. And the reason was "the

Nizams." It was Friday, and the streets would be full of them. The fear

of the Christians as to the fate of a woman among Nizams off duty

amounted to terror; they offered instead to take me up a little hill

whence I could see the town in safety. They would not hear of my going

to town with only one protector, and as, in event of "a row," the blame

would probably fall most heavily upon any local Christian mixed up in

it, I gave up my plan reluctantly.

Now the Nizams were part of the much-vaunted Austro-Russian reform

scheme, and were supposed to be there in the interests of the Christian

population.

The story of Old Servia is one of uninterrupted misery. The suffering of

the Christian peoples in the Balkans is no new thing. It began with the

advent of the Turk, and will continue while he remains. As long ago as

1690 the intolerable lot of the Serbs of Old Servia induced no less than

37,000 zadrugas (family groups, including uncles and cousins) to migrate

to Hungary. The Albanians then spread over the vacated lands, which they

have been permitted to harry with impunity ever since. A small unarmed

Christian population "regulated" by Albanians is not merely unable to

rise, it is unable to cry loudly enough to be heard, and there was no

foreign consul to make reports. It was not until the Russians (who with

extraordinary diplomatic skill lose no opportunity of winning the love

of the Slavs of the Balkans) forced Stcherbina into Mitrovitza in 1902

that any light was shed upon the condition of this hapless land. The

Albanians promptly shot him. The Christians regard him as the man that

died to save them, and cherish his portrait. Until Stcherbina came they

lived in a state of terror, and all that the tax-gatherers spared the

Albanians looted. Owing to his death, the Government had sent the Nizams

to subdue the Albanians.

There were some 30,000 Nizams quartered in and around Pech, I was told,

and from the "safe little hill" the vast camps around the town were very

visible. It was only the presence of these troops that made it possible

to go from one place to another; the pass I had ridden had been open a

bare two months. The situation, as I found it, was that the people lived

in present terror of the Nizams and in future terror of the Albanians,

who would return as soon as they were withdrawn. The town had to feed

the troops, and bread and hay were dear. All Friday afternoon Turkish

officers came sight-seeing to the Patriarchia, dashed into the

courtyard, shouted for someone to hold their horses, were supplied with

coffee and tobacco, and were conducted round the churches by the Iguman.

Gangs of Tommies, too, swarmed in, and the monastery people, who, I

noticed, never let them enter the church unattended, were quite tired

out. By request I sat well apart on the farther side, for "the Turks

will say bad things to you." Knowing no Turkish, I thought this would

not matter; but as the others could not see things from this point of

view, I spent the afternoon with the various Christian visitors who came

in. Among these were a schoolmaster and a young theological student who

came from Dechani.

By the evening, as nothing had been heard of my passport, the Iguman

became very anxious; folk seemed to think there was going to be trouble,

and told me that the Pasha was a "ljuta zmija" (a fierce serpent). A

final message to the Sud brought the reply that the passport and two

zaptiehs would arrive at the monastery at eight next morning. Eight

came and passed, and nothing happened. The monastery decided I must go

myself to the Sud. The Iguman, another monk, the schoolmaster, the

theology student, Radovan, and the pony all came too. I was very much

ashamed of giving so much trouble, but they would not hear of my going

with less escort. We first went round outside the town, as "our Catholic

brethren" wished to see me before I left. They were Franciscans, mostly

Italian, and were exceedingly civil. Their house was far better found

and evidently much wealthier than the Orthodox establishment, and the

rakija which they pressed upon me with lavish hospitality was most

alarmingly strong. I was glad to find that the representatives of the

two Christian Churches were on very friendly terms, and was given to

understand that the Frati were the only people who had any civilising

effect upon the Albanians. Unfortunately, their flock is but small, the

mass of the Albanians here being Moslem.

From the Catholic house we went through the town. It is a fairly large

place, too dirty to be picturesque. Filthy and awful with a frowsy

squalor, it swarms with street dogs, dogs that explain why the dog is

called an unclean animal in the East, great wolfish beasts, a mass of

unhealed scars, scabby, covered with mange, hairless, horrible. The

shops are all mean little booths with little in them and nothing of

interest; water, fairly clean, flows in a channel down all the main

streets. Most of the houses are built of mud, and are mere hovels. The

pavement, of course, is vile, and there are a dozen or more small

mosques. It was bazaar day, and crowds of filthy, ragged people were

swarming in, but seemed to have little for sale. Weapons had recently

been prohibited in the town, so, said the Iguman, there was now no

danger on bazaar day. Of well-armed zaptiehs and of Nizams there was no

lack--the place swarmed with them.

At last we arrived at the Sud, went into a yard full of zaptiehs and

armed men, were sent into an office by the entrance, and told to wait a

little. We did. A man came in and said he knew nothing about an English

passport. The Iguman and I were sent up a ramshackle wooden staircase on

to a large landing crowded with awful filthy people, stinking and a-buzz

with flies, wild-eyed and apparently half starved. The air was hot and

heavy, and the constant clamour of imploring voices ceased only when

from time to time a zaptieh bounced in and bellowed. Streaming with

perspiration, I pulled out my handkerchief, and with it a little hard

crust of the day before yesterday's bread. A man snatched it almost

before it touched the floor, and bolted it like a wild beast. It was

terrible; but I dared not offer money, nor show that I had any. At last

an official asked us into an office, a stuffy den, but better than the

Inferno outside. Clerks who tried to look European on chairs, but spoilt

the effect by sitting cross-legged, were scratching backwards writing,

and passing it through "buttery hatches" with desperate energy. We were

told to "wait," and were given coffee. The Iguman up till now had shown

no signs of impatience. "They must give you permission; you are

English," was his constant cry. Now he began to ask questions of

everyone that came in. And no one had heard of an English passport. I

told him I would give up Dechani. He replied that the Turks were always

like this, "and you must see it, you must."

Then we were ordered to another office. This belonged to a very great

personage, the Pasha himself, I believe. After a hurried and whispered

conversation between several people, I was told to wait outside the

door. A voice was loudly raised within, and the Iguman came flying out.

We were to return to the first office again! We went. It was crowded,

and we were told to wait.

By this time I felt so strongly that Oriental methods did not suit me at

all that I said "No, thank you" to coffee, and told the official that

if he did not give me my passport at once I would go back to Berani

without it. This great linguistic effort amazed him so much that he

explained the delay. They had sent a telegram about me, and were

awaiting the reply. A voice from the crowd said suddenly in French,

"Mademoiselle is without doubt English! They do not know what to do

about you. They are afraid to stop you, but they dare not let you travel

farther. They have sent for instructions to Uskub. I too am waiting for

my teskereh, but you will have yours first; you are English. No one here

understands French; one may talk. If you had been here a few weeks ago

you could have gone to Uskub, and met the newspaper correspondents. Now

they are all gone." He came nearer, and added in a lower voice, "They

think it is all over, and it has not begun." I was aware of this, and

hastily squashed his remarks on such a dangerous subject. The official

was occupied in bellowing at the crowd of poor wretches who were

applying for passes. And they were all told to wait. One luckless boy

who had two women with him cried out wildly that they had nothing to

eat, that they wished to go to work as reapers, and had waited many

days. "By God, it is true," cried a voice from the crowd; but the

official only bellowed at him, and he had to give place to the next

applicant. They were all Serb-speaking peasants in the last stages of

misery. Finally, I was told that my passport should be sent me very

soon, and that I was to go.

We went to a house in the Christians' quarter of the town, where the men

who had accompanied me were waiting with many others. Everyone was

absorbed in a handful of newspaper cuttings that had just been brought

in a dirty, much-worn envelope. They contained an account of the Servian

murders. It was the 6th of July, and till then no details of the affair

had come through! Even then the accounts were so meagre that they

appeared to be some of the first published. They were grim and brief.

"Death of Queen Draga," ran one. "Queen Draga is dead. The circumstances

of her death are not exactly known, but there were many revolver wounds

in her body." A piece of journalism which requires some beating.

Two mounted zaptiehs clattered into the yard at one o'clock, and I was

told to start at once. They were to take me to Dechani and bring me

back. I was to go nowhere else, and the Pasha would keep my passport. I

had hoped to push right on to Prisren from Dechani, but was outwitted.

As for returning across country to Andrijevitza, that, I was told, was

out of the question. The Albanians were up, and even with an escort of

Nizams we should probably not get through without a fight. We set off

for Dechani at once. The school teacher and the student both rode with

me, and the former most kindly lent me his horse, a very good one. We

rode over the undulating plain, and they showed me where Kosovo lay,

where Mitrovitza, and where Prisren. The two zaptiehs, both Moslem, were

apparently as much interested in Kosovo as were the Christians. One,

Yakoub, was a Bosnian, and his Mohammedanism sat exceeding light upon

him. He was delighted with the job of riding about with me; his

discourse was all of the Montenegrins, and their great valour, and of

that hero, Milosh Obilich, who slew the wicked Sultan Murad. "He was a

veliki junak! Come with me, and I will show you his grave," said Yakoub

enthusiastically. But he wore the Sultan's uniform, and of his two

uncles one was a Pasha and the other a Kaimmakam! He was a fair-haired,

blue-eyed young fellow bubbling with animal spirits, singing songs and

making his horse plunge out of pure light-heartedness. The conversion of

his forefathers, doubtless for the sake of peace and quiet, to Islam had

placed him in the class of the rulers and not of the ruled. It therefore

naturally never occurred to him to doubt the superiority of

Mohammedanism, but the heroes that he cherished in his heart were all

Christian, and belonged to the days of Tsar Lazar and the great Servian

empire.

The ride was a short and easy one. The land is rich and fertile but

little cultivated, for it is constantly liable to be raided. Such crops

as there were, were splendid, and the grass grew thick in the fields.

It was hard to believe that the country had been impassable two months

before, or that there was any present danger, but the few peasants who

were going our way clung to our party carefully; all the houses, and

there were very few, were more like blockhouses, had no windows on the

ground floor and none larger than loopholes above, and Yakoub thought it

necessary to assure us every few minutes that nothing would happen

to-day. The monastery, which lies about 1500 feet above sea-level,

appeared as a white church surrounded by outbuildings at the entrance of

a magnificently wooded valley, through which flows a small river, the

Dechanski Bistritza, the one slope rich with stately chestnuts and the

other fir-clad. Robbed of its broad lands, which have been swooped on by

the Albanians, who at the time of my visit made further progress up the

valley impossible, it lies precariously on the bloody edge of things,

and only the wonderful white marble church tells of its former glory. It

was being used as a military outpost, and twenty-five Nizams and an

officer were quartered on the monastery, which had also a guard of its

own, a set of Mohammedan Albanians, who were said to be very loyal. They

looked like a wild-beast show, spoke nothing but Albanian, had the most

elegant manners, and I was never allowed outside the monastery gate

without a couple of them.

Dechani dates from the palmy days of the Servian empire, and is its

finest monument. The church, built by a Dalmatian from Cattaro, is of

white and dull red marble, striped in the manner familiar to us in

Italy, and would be a fine building anywhere. Here, a unique specimen

in a land almostly entirely given over to barbarism, it is looked upon

as something almost miraculous, and is regarded with a veneration which

has not improbably worked upon the superstitious souls of the Albanians

and saved it from destruction. And to the Serb it is an outward and

visible sign that this land is his. Though it has been the Turk's for

five hundred years, he has set no such mark upon it. Roughly speaking,

he has spent those five centuries in camping out on it temporarily as an

army of occupation! Nothing is more surprising about him than the speed

with which all visible signs of his existence can be wiped out, but the

stain he has left upon the souls of the people is, alas! harder to

erase.

Stefan VII., King of Servia, known on account of his pious works as the

Sveti Kralj (holy king), built Dechani in the first half of the

fourteenth century. Mediæval Servia, like the rest of Mediæval Europe,

was a place were careers were apt to be brief, bloody, and brilliant.

The Turks did not find a highly civilised people and overwhelm them with

barbarism. They found a people who, though steadily progressing, were no

better than their neighbours, and they arrested their further

development. Stefan VII.'s career as king was covered with glory--he

subdued the Bulgarians and was successful against the Greeks--but it

came to an abrupt and untimely end. He was murdered in 1336 in his

castle, Zvechan, near Mitrovitza. It is said by some that he was

strangled by order of his son Stefan, whose nickname, Dushan, has been

interpreted to mean the Strangler (dushiti, to strangle). But the

patriotic Serb, who cannot bear to cast a slur on the maker of great

Servia, states simply that he "was murdered," and derives Dushan from

"dusha," the soul, Stefan the Soul of the nation. The dead king was

canonised as St. Stefan Dechanski and is extraordinarily celebrated as a

miracle worker. His death is pictured upon his shrine; two men tug the

ends of a cord that is twisted round his neck, and an angel fetches his

soul. He is, I was told, exceedingly good, and it is of no use to

approach him in prayer if you have any bad thought in your heart. He

helps the poor and performs the most marvellous cures. The belief in his

power is far spread, even Yakoub had a sort of sneaking respect for him,

and I was bidden to prepare my mind for the visit to the Sveti Kralj

even before I had left Berani. Nor does he, alone, protect the church.

Once a Turk stole a jewel from a picture of the Holy Mother of God.

Shortly afterwards he was found dead and unwounded! Then the jewel was

found upon him, and it was known that the Holy Mother of God had slain

him, for to die of anything but a wound was clearly a great marvel. I

stood by the shrine of the murdered Sveti Kralj in the church that he

had built, and thought of Alexander and his end as reported in the dirty

newspaper cuttings of that morning. The school teacher talked of

Stcherbina's death at Mitrovitza, and the old world and the new seemed

very close together.

The whole interior of the church is elaborately frescoed. All the faces

that are within reach from the ground have been poked out, but those

above are very well preserved. The line of Nemanja kings that covers one

wall of the narthex is especially interesting. The magnificent old

Ikonostasis is of carved and gilt wood (cleverly restored). Its pillars

are all wreathed and twined with plants, birds, and beasts elaborately

coloured and carved in very high relief, and the whole mass of brown

gold and colour is very rich in effect. The floor is paved with white

and dull red marble, and the piers which support the roof are in several

instances monolithic. The tomb of the Sveti Kralj's sister Helena (also,

I believe, canonised) stands in the body of the church, and a big cross

from Russia, recently presented.

The two marbles from which the church is entirely built were quarried in

the immediate neighbourhood. It is thirty metres high to the base of the

cupola. Doors and windows are all elaborately and splendidly carved, and

the whole is in such a wonderfully good state of preservation that it is

small wonder that the people have deep faith in the protecting power of

the Sveti Kralj, and believe that in the whole world there is no

building quite so beautiful. The treasures of the monastery are all

dispersed, and its books and MSS. relating to the old kings of Servia

are scattered. The folk at the monastery are now miserably poor, and

toil in their few fields for a bare living. The feeding of the soldiers

quartered upon them strained their resources sadly.

Having seen the church, I was taken to see a spring of effervescent

mineral water which rises on the bank of the river opposite the

monastery, and is considered a great wonder. To get at it we had to walk

up the valley for about ten minutes and cross a bridge. The student and

the schoolmaster took me, and the two Albanian zaptiehs and Yakoub came

too. It was very hot, and they all felt the heat much more than I did.

When we had duly drunk of the water and cooled a bit, Yakoub remarked it

was a pity to go all the way back in the sun, when the monastery was so

near; if the lady would only take her boots off, we could all cross the

river. This tender care for his own comfort was very characteristic of

Yakoub. The student asked me timidly if I had ever done such a thing. I

had. They were delighted, and we all took to the water. It was very much

deeper and swifter than I expected, and the bottom very slippery. I

narrowly escaped having the bath that I was greatly in need of, but we

all got through, climbed the hedge into the monastery orchard, and lay

out in the shade. Yakoub being warm, took off his cartridge belt, threw

down his rifle, strewed his weapons about, bared his chest, spread a wet

handkerchief on it, and sighed with satisfaction. Weapons as worn by him

were certainly uncomfortable. He had a large revolver and a sheath-knife

with a blade some ten inches long shoved down inside his trousers, and

could not bend till he had fished them out. He gave me the lot to play

with, and took my lock-backed pocket-knife to examine in return. His

knife was a beauty, with a broad, deeply grooved blade, "for the blood,"

he explained. It tapered to a fine point, slid into a leather

silver-mounted sheath, and had belonged to his grandfather. He pointed

out its fine edge, spat on the blade, and shaved the tip of his chin

delicately.

The Albanians contributed their silver-mounted revolvers to the

collection, for they were most anxious to assist in entertaining me, and

the conversation ran entirely on murdered monarchs. Yakoub was in his

element. He ran through all the recent assassinations, including that

of President McKinley. "And not one in England!" he said regretfully.

Not wishing to be out of it, I contributed Charles the First. No one had

heard of him, and it excited great interest. "How did you kill him?"

asked Yakoub eagerly. "We cut his head off." He roared with laughter.

Shooting is a death for soldiers and gentlemen; head-cutting is a way of

triumphing over a contemptible foe. The idea of cutting off a king's

head pleased him so that he passed it on to the Albanians, whose faces

became wreathed in smiles. "But we killed one," said Yakoub, for he felt

that I at present held the record, and did not wish to be cut out. "We

killed Abdul Aziz like this," and he turned up his sleeve and prodded

the veins of his arm with his knife tip. Alexander's death struck him as

very humorous, but he disapproved most strongly of the shooting of

Draga. He pondered some minutes on the list of dead rulers, then he

cried suddenly, "I would not be a king; if I could, I would not be a

king! A king lives in a prison. Everyone wishes to kill him. He is

always afraid. Day and night he is afraid. I would be like thee, O lady.

I would have enough money to live, and I would see the world. Thou goest

everywhere, seest all things, and no one wishes to kill thee. Thou art a

woman, but men serve thee. By God, that is a marvel!"

We returned to the monastery, and I went to evening service in the

church. The tiny congregation consisted of the half-dozen men of the

monastery and a few Christian peasants. I was put in a conspicuous

place, had a special censing all to myself, and felt much embarrassed.

The evening was exhausting, as the whole party, zaptiehs and all, took

it in turns to keep me company and ask me questions, and displayed

endless patience in making me understand and reply. I did not get supper

till half-past nine, and then, dead tired, begged the company to leave

me. They all left but the student, who had been specially instructed to

look after me. He was a very civil, gentlemanly youth of Servian blood,

with a sad face and a timid, hunted air. He waited till the footsteps

died away down the corridor; then he said anxiously, "Lock the door

to-night. The Nizams will come. They are very, very bad; all from Asia."

I had, of course, intended to lock the door, Nizams or no Nizams, and

thought he was nervous, so did not pay much attention to this. As he

left, Radovan came in. He looked all round, tried the iron window bars,

the lock, and the staple the bolt shot into. "All is strong," he said;

"lock the door and turn the key twice. The Nizams will come in the

night. They have been talking about you. They are devils. All from Asia.

They have long knives." He drew his finger across his throat, dropped

his head on one side, and gave a clicking gasp so horribly realistic

that I suspect it was studied from nature. "They will do 'that,' just

for what is in your saddle-bag. They will say the Christians have done

it, and the officer will believe them." Radovan was in grim earnest. He

waited outside till he heard the lock shoot twice, said "Sleep safely,"

and left me. I had no weapon of any kind, and was excessively tired, so

I decided that there was no object in sitting up to have one's throat

cut, and that violent surgical operations are better performed under

chloroform. I slept heavily till morning, and shall never know if that

door were tried. Personally, I think that the danger was exaggerated.

People, after all, are mainly governed by expediency, and killing a

British subject was really not worth the trouble. I tell the facts as

they occurred, to show the estimation in which the army of the reformers

is held. To put the position briefly: no man's life or property is

considered safe from the Albanians, and no woman's honour from the

Nizams, in "Old Servia." Savage as are the Albanians, I have been told

repeatedly that they never assault women.

Next morning I woke up and shook myself, and the student brought a

quarter of a pint of water, and kindly superintended the washing of my

hands and face. The arrangements were all primitive: towel and

table-napkin were one and the same, and the spoon and fork were cleaned

on my pillow; but then it is a great thing to have a spoon, fork, or

pillow at all.

I went down into the yard and began drawing. Out came the Turkish

officer, a young lieutenant. I was scared, for Turks are said to

disapprove of all drawing, and I feared to lose all my notes. As luck

would have it, he had never seen anybody sketch before, and was

childishly delighted. He looked at everything I had done, and then

wanted to see a drawing made. Yakoub, the enterprising, at once

suggested sitting for his portrait, and did so. The lieutenant was now

enthusiastic, made no objection to my little camera, which I had

hitherto carefully concealed from all but Christian eyes, and would, I

believe, have let me photograph him had I dared ask. He left to drill

his men, but his curiosity soon brought him back again. This time we

had a formal interview in my room. The monastery people attended humbly,

the officer came in style with several zaptiehs; there was much saluting

and salaaming. Radovan stood in the background and listened. I alone

knew that he was a Montenegrin. The lieutenant was quite a young

fellow--small, slim, and dark, with clean-cut, good features. He was

smart and dapper as to his uniform, and wore tight, shiny boots of a

most unpractical nature. He spoke nothing but Turkish, of which I know

no word. He had never before, I believe, talked with a foreign lady,

seemed to find my unveiledness most embarrassing, and spoke with his

eyes discreetly cast down. He preferred speaking sideways over my

shoulder. In striving to understand him I once looked him squarely in

the eyes, and he turned his head abruptly.

The conversation was sufficiently droll. Yakoub stood at attention and

translated. Turkish is a flowery tongue. The lieutenant began glibly

with many bows and smiles, using his hands to gesticulate freely. He had

very good hands and neat joints. After some minutes he paused. "The

officer says," said Yakoub briefly, "that it is a great pleasure to him

that you have come." "I thank the officer very much," said I. Yakoub

enlarged this into a speech three minutes long, punctuated with salaams

and gesticulation, and the lieutenant again expressed himself as highly

delighted. He himself was from Stamboul, and was in this part of the

country for the first time. It was a great wonder to him to find it so

savage. He hoped I did not think all Turkey was like this. In

Constantinople it was very different. There all was good; Christians

and Turks lived together as friends, and there was no danger, "no more

than with you in England." I accepted this statement, and thought of the

Armenian massacre. "The officer," said Yakoub, "hears that you have been

before among the Albanians. He sees them for the first time. He wishes

to know what you think of them." "They are brave," I replied, "and

intelligent, but they are wild, they know nothing, and they live like

animals." I dared not add, "They have no government and no law." This,

edited by Yakoub, met with great approval. "The officer says that is

true. They have great intelligence; they must have schools in all the

towns and villages. There will be schools, and all will be reformed." It

occurred to me that the Turks, having held Albania for some four

centuries, might have thought out some plan of the sort before, but I

merely replied that schools were truly necessary. The officer was great

on reform. The Sultan of Turkey, the King of England, and the Emperor of

Germany were, he said, the only sovereigns in Europe who had

intelligence, and, between them, all would soon be reformed. I was

overcome with the company with which we were classed, and struck dumb,

but Yakoub expressed the delight which I ought to have felt. There was

much more of reform, of which the lieutenant seemed very sanguine.

Already all was very well. He was young and enthusiastic, and I felt

sorry for him, for I knew of the storm that was about to burst in

Macedonia, and had already been warned to travel in no train on Turkish

territory, more especially in none that contained troops. And all the

time, the people of the monastery sat round and said nothing, and all

the while the lieutenant babbled on. Then to my surprise Yakoub said,

"The officer wishes you to see everything. Take as many Nizams as you

wish, and go to Gusinje if it is pleasing to you, and thence back into

Montenegro." This was a handsome offer, and I wanted badly to go. But

the officer did not propose to come himself, and I remembered the

warnings of the night before. My passport was in the hands of the Pasha

at Pech, and I felt I was responsible for Radovan. If Radovan were

detected as a Montenegrin in the heart of Albania, it might cost him his

life; if anything happened to me he had been promised prison. I glanced

at him for a casting vote, and the haggard anxiety of his face left no

room for doubt. I thanked the officer, and said I should return to Pech.

Whereupon he gallantly said that he would escort me thither, and I

returned in great style with five zaptiehs and an officer. Conversation

was difficult, for he considered it polite to ride so that his horse's

head was level with my knee, and Yakoub had to ride by him and shout it

all on. He pointed out that I was being well taken care of, and begged

that I would tell my people of the reformed state of the country. I must

therefore emphasise the fact that it was possible to ride for three

hours without being shot at, for this he admired greatly. He was

exceedingly kind, and said he would see that I had zaptiehs to take me

back to Berani. When we came to the parting of the ways--for he was

going to the camp and I to the monastery--he suddenly rode up alongside,

and with a valiant attempt at being European, looked me full in the

face, shook hands rather shyly, said, "Bon voyage, mamzelle," and

clattered off. We rode through the Christian side of the town, and the

people came to their doors and said, "Welcome, lady," as I passed.

Yakoub followed me in high good-humour, to say that the officer had

promised him the job of escorting me to Berani. This had been manoeuvred

by Radovan. "Yakoub," he said, "is a Turk, but he is a good Turk. He has

no money. Give him a bakshish, then he will come to Berani with us."

The gay Bosnian, with his crude views and the schoolboy glee with which

he accepted his "tip," was such an amusement to me that I was glad of

his further society. His conversation was often quaint to excess. At the

monastery he was severely Turkish. They offered him a glass of wine,

which he refused with contempt. "I am a Turk! I drink no wine," and the

conscious virtue upon his countenance was a sight to see. He, however,

expended my gift on copious libations of rakija, which he tipped down

like so much water, and he came furnished with a large bottleful in his

saddle-bag for the return trip. Rakija, it seems, is not mentioned in the

Koran. Not that what is or is not mentioned in it seemed to trouble him.

I spent almost the whole of three days with him, and I never saw him

make the least attempt at a prayer. The foreign Nizams, on the other

hand, prayed about the country freely. But he was very certain that he

was a good Mohammedan. He told me one day, with a wicked grin, that he

was on the side of the Boers. "Why?" I asked. "Because they are Turks,"

said Yakoub promptly. The student and the schoolmaster were present,

and we all roared with laughter. Yakoub was disconcerted. "What are

they, then? Catholic or Pravoslavni?" "Prodesdan," said I. This was a

blow to him, for it seems that "Prodesdan" is quite the lowest form of

Christian. "But war is always between Turks and Christians," he

objected; "they must be Turks. How many mosques are there in the

Transvaal?" "None." He thereupon lost all further interest in the Boers.

He came from near Prijepolje, and had great contempt for Bosnians who

live under Austrian rule. As for the Austrians--he made a face and spat.

But in spite of his Turkish sympathies he had acquired none of the

Turk's imperturbability, and leapt from one emotion to another. Over his

wife he was quite sentimental; over the fact that he was childless he

was greatly depressed. "I am twenty-eight," he said gloomily, "and in

three months I shall be an officer, but I have no son." He counted on

his fingers, and did a little arithmetic. "I might have three by now,"

he added simply, "but there is not one, not one." "Dost thou very much

wish a son?" I asked. Yakoub was very much in earnest. "By God," he

cried, "it would be a great delight to me. I wish a son that shall be a

veliki junak!" and he entered into some very quaint particulars. No

longer the rollicking gendarme, he sat on the floor, an unhappy man who

required comforting. "Thou are yet young," I said; "I hope thou wilt

have a son that is a veliki junak." "Mashallah I will and I hope that

thou wilt too!" said Yakoub politely. After which I considered the

subject sufficiently thrashed out.

The return ride to Berani was easier than the previous journey.

Unhampered by a caravan, and provided through the lieutenant's kindness

with two mounted gendarmes, we made good progress. The Pasha stuck to my

passport till the last minute, as Yakoub pointed out with a grin when he

returned it to me as we were starting. He also volunteered that it was a

good thing that I had not gone with the officers Nizams, but gave no

answer when I asked "Why?" The Pasha, it may be of interest to note,

has, according to the papers, been recently dismissed from his post.

Yakoub's relatives are, for all I know to the contrary, still in power.

The defile by daylight was extraordinarily beautiful. About half-way

through it Yakoub announced that he thought it was safe now, and that if

I were not afraid the second zaptieh might go back. I told him I was

quite willing, as I had had but one man before, and he was on foot. This

seemed to surprise him much. They pulled up at the only hut in the pass,

and had a long consultation with its Albanian owners, the result of

which was that the second man rode with us to the top. I was glad that

when riding this road in the dark I had not realised it was in quite

such a touch-and-go condition. "No danger now," said Yakoub cheerfully

as we rode out into the open, and the second man returned with a party

of four zaptiehs and an officer that we here fell in with. "Three months

ago I would not have dared ride that way with only one other man; by

God, no! Not if the officer had told me. All the woods filled with wild

Arnaouts, perhaps a man behind every rock. Piff-paff and you are dead,

shot in your living heart! As there is a God I would not have dared it.

If one had to go, it was with thirty men or more. Now the caravans can

pass again." But he continued to ride with his rifle ready on his knees

until we were almost at Berani.

A sudden and most violent thunderstorm on the hilltop drove us in a

hurry to the stinking "Han," and the rain came down in such sheets that

I was glad to be under cover, even in such a hole. It was full of

Albanians. We waited full three-quarters of an hour and drank coffee. I

was anxious to start as soon as the rain slackened, but Yakoub did not

mean to get a wetting. He was very happy discoursing in Albanian to a

large and admiring circle, to whom he was a great man. He told them, so

he explained to me, that in my country the men always waited on the

women, which they all agreed was a most extraordinary state of things.

They all sat round and gazed at me as though I were possessed of

peculiar power, and I returned their unblinking stare. "He and I both

serve her," said Yakoub, pointing at Radovan, and Radovan murmured,

"They think you are like an officer."

The rain lifted. Radovan went out with my saddle-bag. Yakoub rolled up

his overcoat, and went down to strap it on his saddle. His parting words

of affection, and the kisses which he lavished on the most casual

acquaintances, always took much time; so to hurry matters I picked up

the rest of our belongings, followed out on to the balcony, and handed

down my waterproof and cape. Yakoub looked up from his saddle-girths.

"Give me my Martini and my cartridges," he said. I dangled the belt down

to him, tucked the rifle under my arm with my umbrella, and descended.

He took his Martini with a beaming smile and a twinkle, most humorous,

in his eyes. "Now _thou_ hast served _me_?" he said; "it is right." He

got off his little trick with great neatness, and was vastly pleased

with himself. I have no doubt he left the rifle on purpose. He

considered it a very fine weapon. It was of American

make--Peabody-Martini. All the Turkish gendarmerie are thus armed. It

carries only one cartridge, and according to Radovan is very inferior to

the repeating rifles of the Montenegrins. The ride over the grassy

uplands was splendid; the ground was ablaze with flowers, and the peaks

rose violently blue from a black belt of pinewood. Yakoub hopped off his

horse and played like a child. The hill sloped away steeply below us in

a great incline of grass, down, down for full a thousand feet. His joy

was to balance flat rocks on edge, and to send them spinning into the

depths. He shouted with laughter as they leapt and span. Even Radovan,

the serious, found it amusing, and we wasted some minutes over this

pleasing pastime, which people who are inclined to giddiness would not

have enjoyed.

It was quite dark when we got into Berani. The landlady rushed out when

she heard our horse hoofs, for she was expecting her husband, who had

also gone to Pech. Their only daughter, who had married and gone there a

year ago, had just had her first child. It was a boy. The happy

grandfather, on hearing the news (brought through by a caravan), leapt

on his horse and rode over in hot haste. The joy of grand-mamma, aged

thirty-one, was boundless. It is a grand thing for a woman to have a

son, she said. Then all the men in the place go to her room and sing

and dance and drink rakija, for joy that another man is born! Having

seen "grandpapa," I was able to report that all was well; and she took

us in and fed us on eggs and milk, for nothing else could be got at that

time of night. I bakshished Yakoub for the last time, and told him it

was "for coffee," which delighted him immensely, and he filled himself

up with rakija until Radovan, who was exceedingly temperate, was

scandalised. But no amount of liquor seemed to affect the Moslem's hard

head.

We left for Andrijevitza early next morning, Radovan once more a happy

man in a Montenegrin cap. As we passed the guard-house Yakoub flew out

for a final farewell, and discovered, for the first time, that Radovan

was a Montenegrin. This he considered a splendid joke; he slapped his

thigh and shouted with laughter, and we parted very good friends.

Frontier life contains many mysteries which I am unable to unravel.

Radovan was much relieved when we had crossed the Montenegrin border,

and I too felt that I had come home again. The vague, indescribable,

ever-present dread of "something"; the sense of general insecurity that

leads people to shut the window before speaking, to glance mechanically

round to see who is within earshot; the general sense of oppression

hanging like a cloud over all things, rolled away. We were in a land

which is wild and rough, if you will, but safe and free.

I have no space to tell of all the fun I had on my return. Andrijevitza

was pleased with me, and was lavishly hospitable. Time was flying, and I

was due home. The herdsmen had driven their flocks to the summer

pasturage, and I arranged that Radovan should pilot me over the

mountains on the first fine day. We had a final grand night with the

gusle, and then, having kissed the ladies and drunk stirrup-cups with

the men, I tore myself away with extreme reluctance, and started up Kom

of the Vassoievich shortly after the "white" dawn, with the knowledge

that I might wander many leagues over the face of the earth before I met

a set of kinder friends than the fighting frontiersmen of Montenegro.

Proud, self-respecting, fiercely unyielding by long inheritance of

temper, they are outwardly very gentle and courteous, so courteous that

it is only on very rare occasions that a certain grim tightening of a

strong, square jaw, a gleam of very white teeth, and a sudden leap of

lightning to the eye reveal in a flash their possibilities as foes. With

an extraordinary lot of strength in their physique, they have very

little knowledge how to apply it and hardly any enterprise. This is due

mainly to entire ignorance of how to set about things. In the one branch

of industry they understand, "junashtvo," they are certainly not

deficient in energy. They are very pious, and never say they are going

to do anything without adding, "God willing." If you forget to say this,

someone generally puts it in for you very seriously. They are very

honest, and their standard of morality is high. And they are

extraordinarily visionary, and dream dreams of the great Servian empire

that is to be, where everyone will be free and happy. Exceedingly poor,

they are also exceedingly hospitable, and will share with a friend as

long as they have anything to share. It is true that they have the

defects of their qualities, but their qualities are such that there are

many more civilised places that would be the better for a leavening of

them.

Radovan and I started up the slopes of Kom of the Vassoievich, and I was

promised a fine day. I owed a good deal to this strong, ragged,

level-headed man who had piloted me safely through a somewhat risky

enterprise, and was glad of his further company. He had displayed the

most extraordinary tact throughout the tour, and, while playing the part

of a humble horse-boy who asked for my orders, had managed and arranged

everything. Silent and watchful, he was always in the background; he

slipped in his pieces of information quietly, told me what to pay, whom

to pay, had very definite ideas as to whom I was to speak to or could be

left alone with; ascertained, when buying forage for the horse in the

town, the state of the country, and passed me the news in three words

when he handed me the change. But he never spoke a word unless it was

required. On his native hills he was conversational. He had been again

to Berani, and told me with a grin that the "ljuta zmija," the

Kaimmakam, had asked, "Where is that Englishwoman?" and had been very

angry when told, "She has eaten, has fed her horse, and is gone." "It

was better so," said Radovan oracularly, and he added, with a laugh,

"and Yakoub knew." I was unaware that I had been spirited back across

the frontier, and it gave me much food for reflection.

The ascent was easy over steep grass slopes, Radovan pointing out all

the landmarks. He told of the Voyvode's prowess. He loved the Voyvode,

and showed me down below at the head of the valley the old home of the

Voyvode's family. He told me of his own little cottage, his field of

corn and his plum trees, and of his wife and three children, one, thank

God, a boy.

We had just reached the shoulder of the mountain, and were about 5300

feet up, when a thick fog swept down upon us and driving rain. "We must

go to a friends hut," said Radovan; "it is poor but dry." We forged on

through the most awful weather; dense mist-wreaths swathed everything,

and all the world was blotted out. We came to a collection of tiny

hovels, Radovan's friend welcomed us, and we crawled in out of the wet.

His hut was a shed made of a few planks; I could only stand upright in

the middle. The mud floor was dug out about six inches and a heap of

logs blazed in a hole at one end. Near the fire a very young calf was

tethered; there was also a half-blind woman, three girls, and two hens.

We were warmly greeted; my host spread a straw mat for me to sit on,

brought in my saddle-bags, and threw wood on the fire. "This is how we

live in the 'katun,'" said he. "We are poor, and it is the best we can

give you. You are very welcome." He made me a couch with his greatcoat

and my saddle-bags, and started cooking the dinner, for it was midday. He

slung a big pot, poured olive oil in it, and stirred in coarse maize

flour as it boiled. "My poor wife cannot see well," he said, "and I do

all this. We went all the way to Cetinje to the doctor, but he did

nothing to the eye that is blind, nothing at all; he only did things to

the eye that she can still see a little with." He finished making the

porridge, sprinkled some sugar on it, and poured it into a bowl.

"Here we never see bread or meat; we eat milk and maize. It is good

food. Up on the mountains it is very healthy, thanks be to God and St.

Peter, and the water is good." He insisted on my eating his food and not

my own, saying, "You will need that to-morrow." And as it was warm, and

I was cold and hungry, I found it not unpalatable, and finished up with

a bowl of milk. The rest of the party found it very good, as it was

extra sweet on my account.

The youngest girl, a child of fourteen, I had not noticed much before,

as she had sat all the time huddled in a heap on the other side of the

fire, and the hut was full of smoke. Now she began rocking to and fro,

crying, "Oh, my foot, my foot!" Her father explained that a few days

before she had upset the caldron of boiling milk over her foot, and that

it pained her so that she could not sleep. An old woman from the next

hut came in to look at it. The poor girl drew up her skirt and showed

the foot swathed in the filthiest handkerchief. I was horrified, jumped

up, and hurried round to the wind side of the fire where she lay and

there was no smoke and one could see. The people here have enormous

faith in the healing power of any stranger, and they were most delighted

when I offered to look at the injury. She peeled off the dirty rags. The

skin was off the whole instep; it was dressed with mud and grass, and

the edges were angry and forming matter. It evidently pained her

horribly. She was a plucky little thing, and let me strip off the

pudding of mud and matter, clear the place of grass, and dress it with

clean handkerchiefs and lanoline. Her skin was very thick and as hard as

leather. The fresh dressing relieved her greatly, and as the rain had

just lifted I went out to have a look round.

For a few minutes the view was incomparably grand. The huge jagged

summit of Kom rose up abruptly from the grass not a quarter of a mile

away, and stood all bare and lonely, quite white on an angry purple sky,

for the fog had frozen upon it. Down below great snakes of mist clung

and crawled, and the distant peaks rose one behind the other, violently

and vividly blue. It was extraordinarily majestic and as silent as

death. Down swept the storm again with a fusillade of chill hail. Even

the hut a few yards away was invisible. We struggled back to it, my host

remarking, "You will have to stay the night 'kod nas.' If you try to go

farther you will be lost on the mountains."

The little girl with the bad foot was much happier and her father

greatly pleased. "Here," he said, "we either get well or we die. There

is no help for us. But, thanks be to God and St. Peter, we are very

healthy. We have had much trouble. My only son is dead; my poor wife

nearly blind. My three brothers are all dead and have left no sons!" He

sat down by the injured child and cuddled her. "She is very brave," he

said; "I call her my little son." The child smiled with pleasure. They

begged me to do something to the woman's eye, but that, of course, was

impossible. The rain fell in torrents! We huddled round the fire. At

Radovan's request I gave them my sketch-book to look at, and was

surprised at the rapidity with which they recognised everything, telling

the names of all the people who lived in the houses, and laughing

heartily over the Gusinje man and Yakoub. The wind whistled between the

planks, the dense smoke eddied round the little hut; they piled on

sticks and began preparations for supper. Then a terrible thing

happened. The woman threw down a little maize and called the hens. They

came, a white and a yellow one. There was a whispered talk, and I heard

"the pretty one." The yellow hen was caught and given to the lame child

to hold. "Now we shall have no more eggs!" she said sadly. I was

horrified, for I grasped at once that the hen was to be sacrificed to

me. I begged for its life. "Thou must eat meat," said my host. I pleaded

vainly that I had eggs and cheese in my bag. "Thou hast given," he said,

pointing to the child's foot, "and we must give. This night thou shalt

eat meat." The child caressed the hen. I cannot tell how unhappy I felt.

Two cows, a little flock of sheep, and these two hens were all they had

in the world. Last year they had had to eat ferns, and they were braver

and better and in all ways more deserving than I. "He that hath, to him

shall be given," is a bitter thing. My prayers shook the man's

resolution for a moment, but so anxious was he to do what he believed to

be his duty, that without more ado, and before he should alter his mind,

he suddenly whipped out a big knife and sliced off the hen's head with

one swift stroke. The neck twitched convulsively. We sat round and

watched the blood drip, dripping in silence. Everyone felt it was a

rather serious event. He tore the bird to pieces with his fingers with

great dexterity, and put it to boil in a tin basin. As it had no lid, he

went out and picked dock leaves to cover the pot with and replaced them

as fast as they were burnt. Meanwhile he gave me the liver, warmed

through in the wood ashes, as a snack. In due time I was seated before

the fowl's remains spread on a piece of board, and the family sat round

to see me enjoy it. Alas! the muscular bird, swiftly boiled, was like

the hardest indiarubber, and I knew not what to do. Eat of it I must

somehow. With the little blade of my pen-knife I minced it fine, and

said that the English did so. Then I swallowed pellets of it, and

everyone was much pleased. I handed round bread, which was a rare

luxury, and they polished off the rest of the fowl in a jiffey, drank up

the broth, and were quite lively after their meal.

I dressed the bad foot again, and was pleased to find that the rest of

the dirt came off with the dressing and the place looked healthy. The

child lay down and went to sleep at once. Outside all was blackness and

wet, and I began to feel that the rest of my life was going to be spent

storm-bound on Kom of the Vassoievich. They pitched wood on the fire.

The man said it would be a cold night. We lay down with our feet towards

the blaze. I wrapped my head in my waterproof to keep off the bitter

blast that whistled through the wide crannies. Radovan went to the next

hut. There was not room for us all on the floor. My host took off his

coat and spread it over me, wrapped himself in his greatcoat, and lay

down by my side. "So thou shalt sleep warm," he said. His wife and

daughters cuddled up on the other side of him, and in five minutes they

were all asleep. I lay and listened to the drip of the rain outside and

the steady grind of the calf chewing cud in the corner. The surviving

hen roosted on a peg and muttered softly to herself, and I slept, and

slept soundly. We woke in the chill grey dawn, and they kindled the

fire. The lame child had slept the whole night through. I dressed the

wound a third time, gave them the lanoline and most of my handkerchiefs,

and told them to keep the place clean and it would soon be well. Their

gratitude was painful, and they thanked God and St. Peter who had sent

me. The death of the hen lay heavy on my soul, and I succeeded in making

the woman accept a little money. She refused at first, but when she

found I really meant it, the tears came to her eyes and they all kissed

my hands and dress. I rode away feeling much overcome. The sun had not

struggled out, and we tracked through dripping beech woods dim with

mist, out on to lone slopes and into solemn valleys, where we were the

only living things, till in the evening I saw once more the little

shingled houses of Kolashin, and drew rein at the inn door.

There is little more for me to tell. On my return journey I was deeply

touched by the reception we met everywhere, and filled with amazement.

Now at last, people said, England would know what life was in Stara

Srbija. Many of them considered I had risked my life for the cause, and

could not thank me enough. They even sent their greetings to the mother

who had let me come to help them. I felt very humble, and had to accept

hospitality that was undeserved, for I knew that I had done very little

and the results would be still less.

After Stara Srbija the route seemed absurdly easy. I avoided Brskut and

went by way of Morachki Monastir. It is the oldest monastery in

Montenegro, and was founded by Vuk, governor of the Zeta, brother of

Stefan Prvovenchani and St. Sava, which makes it six hundred years old.

It stands in a lonesome valley, sheltered and fertile but quite cut off

from all the rest of the world, and has successfully resisted the Turks,

who have more than once attacked it furiously. Like all the other

monasteries that have had to struggle for existence, it is surrounded by

a high wall. It was the eve of St. Peter's day, and the courtyard was

filled with mountain men, who had come to take the communion on the

morrow. The Archimandrite, a man of splendid stature and military

bearing, and courteous as they all are, came out and welcomed us right

royally. He was vividly interested in our journey, gave Radovan the

praise he so well deserved, and filled him with joy. For the

Archimandrite is a "veliki junak," and praise from his lips was very

sweet. I rejoiced that Radovan was getting his due.

This monastery church is of very great interest to the archæologist, as

it has never fallen into Turkish hands and is in perfect preservation.

The inner doors of black wood inlaid with ivory are very beautiful and

the frescoes which cover the walls are in excellent condition. The

church is whitewashed without and roofed with wooden shingles. The outer

wall is boldly frescoed on either side the main door, St. George slays

the dragon decoratively from a white steed, and a large picture of the

Last Judgment shows souls struggling to ascend the ladder to heaven,

aided by angels above and torn at by devils below. The doorway and whole

group of paintings are protected by a big wooden porch. Service on

St. Peter's day was very solemn, and the crowd of communicants made it

last for several hours. I came out from it, more deeply than ever

impressed with the fact that it is largely her loyalty to her church

that has, so far, saved Montenegro.

[Illustration: PODGORITZA.]

I dined at midday with the Archimandrite, who was most hospitable and

jovial, and gave me a massive, solid meal, to tackle which required a

good deal more heroism than a trip to Stara Srbija.

He saw me off next morning with a stirrup-cup of rakija so potent that

neither Radovan nor I could manage the Trinity in it, and we made our

way back to Podgoritza. Podgoritza was a surprise to me. I came to it

out of the wilderness, and was astonished at its size, luxury, and

magnificence. Then I understood the point of view of the man who had

asked me a quantity of questions about London, its population, whether

it were really true that there were a hundred trains a day, bazaar every

day, electric light, etc., and ended by saying, "And do the potatoes

grow well there?" "London is a large town," I said, "all houses,

houses." "I know that," he replied; "I asked, do the potatoes grow well

in London?" "Do potatoes grow in London? What extraordinary ignorance!

One can scarcely believe it possible," said an Englishman in a London

suburb when he heard this tale. He is "culchawed," and devotes time and

labour to improving the minds of "our parish." "And what were the

theatres like in these out-of-the-way places?" he asked. We were talking

of Stara Srbija.

Now I sat under the white mulberry trees at the door of the inn and

admired Podgoritza. For a few weeks I had looked at civilisation across

a gap of centuries from the "back of beyond," and things look very

different from that point of view, more different than anyone who has

lived at one end of Europe only can ever realise. And, still in the grip

of the wilderness, I parted from Radovan with regret and many promises

to return next year for a tour so wild and extensive that it is to

resemble a young campaign.

It was the end of July; Podgoritza was sizzling and sweltering in the

summer sun. It received me warmly in every sense of the word. But the

change from the chilly heights of Kom to the baking plain was too trying

to induce a long stay. Besides, as everyone said, "you are coming back

next year." I made a pilgrimage one morning to the grave of Marko

Drekalovich, the "dobar junak" to whose wild valour, military skill, and

indomitable spirit this corner of Montenegro largely owes its freedom,

and who now sleeps on the rugged heights of Medun that he tore from the

Turks, and I returned to Cetinje. A carriage and a road were a strange

enough experience, and as for Montenegro's joy, the only motor car, I

admired it almost as much as do the Montenegrins. Once at Cetinje the

spell was broken, and from Cetinje to London one whirls in a few days in

the lap of luxury, second class.

I left the Balkan peninsula not with "good-bye" but with "do vidjenja"

(au revoir). The story of its peoples is tragic, their future looks

black, and they have few friends. It is the fashion just now to make a

great deal of capital out of the fact that these Christian peoples do

not love one another as, of course, all Christians should, and to say

that each one is so jealous of the other that it is impossible to help

them. This is rather idle talk, and not unlike that of the pot that

called the kettle black. Race instinct, one of the strongest of the

human passions, has as yet shown no tendency to die out anywhere. It

seems, therefore, a little unreasonable to expect the Balkan peoples to

be the ones to set an example to the rest of the world by dropping all

international jealousies and national aspirations. After all, they do

but love one another as France does Germany. International jealousy is

certainly at the root of the present grievous condition of affairs in

the Balkans, but it is the jealousy not only of the Balkan peoples but

that of other nations which are supposed to be older and wiser and whose

quarrels are of even longer standing.

I have no patent medicine to offer for the present trouble. It has got

beyond pillules and homoeopathic doses, and nothing but the extirpation

of the centre of disease can have any lasting effect. As long as the

Turk is permitted to "govern" Christian peoples, so long will there be

trouble in the Balkans. That the Balkan Slavs are not as black as they

have often been painted I have tried to show by telling how they have

treated me. If they do not possess all the virtues of civilisation they

are free from many of its vices. I have found them kindly, generous, and

honest, and I wish them very well.

End of Project Gutenberg's Through the Land of the Serb, by Mary Edith Durham