Surely it was one of the quaintest experiences of a varied and
adventurous life.
The tiny house in which I was given quarters had an earthen floor,
and consisted of two rooms, the ceilings and walls of which were
blackened by the smoke of years. The owner was an old man with a wife
and married daughter, the latter being a pretty young woman of about
nineteen, dressed in the gorgeous gala costume with golden sequins,
identical with those I saw down at Scutari during the _festà_. In my
honour she wore her finest garments, and her husband, a good-looking
young fellow five years her senior, seemed justly proud of her. His
name was Lûk. I named him “Lucky,” but he did not appreciate the wit.
He was, I found, one of the chiefs bodyguard who had come to greet me
at the confines of the Skreli territory, and proved a most sociable
fellow, ever ready to render me a service.
“These good people will look after you and make you as comfortable
as they can,” my host said, when he had introduced me to them. “I
have to go along the ravine, but will return in time to eat with you
this evening. You like good cigarettes? I will send you some.” And he
shook my hands, and, turning, went out, stalking again at the head of
his ferocious-looking band.
The bedroom, occupied in common by the family, was given over to me.
My bed on the floor was a big sack filled with dried maize-leaves. It
was not inviting, but Palok, having examined it critically, declared
it to be “_Cosi-cosi!_” and, having slept out for a couple of nights,
I was compelled to accept his verdict.
The girl in the sequins boiled us coffee over the fire, and with her
father and husband I sat outside the house in the golden sunset,
smoking and chatting. Both were full of curiosity. England was to
them a mere legendary land, but they knew more of London. When I
mentioned it, they declared that it could not possibly be so large as
Skodra!
I told them of Cettigné and of other towns in Montenegro I had
visited, but they held all Montenegro in contempt, for were they not
always raiding over the frontier? Lûk declared that he had walked in
Podgoritza openly, and in the market-place shot a man with whom he
was in _gyak_, or blood-feud.
“I walked out again, and no one dared to stop me,” he added, with
pride. “It would have been worse for them if they had!”
“But the Montenegrins are no cowards” I ventured to remark.
“Certainly not. They are very brave, but they dare not follow us
here. They always get lost in the mountains, and once they lose their
way they lose their lives,” he added, with a grin. “Our men killed
four over yonder mountain a few days ago.”
“The blood-feud?”
“Of course. It arose out of that.”
From the half-dozen other poor mountain homes came forth men, women,
and children, who grouped around us, watching us with curiosity.
According to Palok, rumour had at first gone round that I was a
prisoner, therefore they had refrained from gathering round to see
me. Now, however, they knew the truth, they welcomed me as their
guest.
Just before it grew dark the _Baryaktar_ returned, followed by
his bodyguard, without whom he never seemed to move. They did his
bidding, executed his orders, and were ever at his beck and call--the
picked men of the tribe.
While Vatt squatted on the floor, I sat on my battered old suit-case,
and together we ate a kind of mutton stew, rather rich but not
unpalatable. There was an absence of table cutlery, therefore we ate
with the aid of our pocket-knives and fingers. Now and then the old
woman would pick a tit-bit out of the pot and hand it to me with her
fingers. I was compelled to accept the well-meant hospitality, even
though her hands were not particularly clean.
The hot dish was tasty, but I could not manage the sour black bread,
for it was mouldy and gritty into the bargain.
It was a weird picture, the interior of that lowly hut, lit by a dim
oil lamp similar to those used by the early Greeks. The uncertain
firelight glinted on the sequin-ornamented dresses of the chieftain
and of Lûk’s pretty wife, throwing, now and then, into relief those
strangely unfamiliar faces that recalled the barbarians of an age
bygone and forgotten. The very language they were speaking was, as an
unwritten one, utterly incomprehensible and unintelligible to any but
the born Albanian.
It was difficult to believe that it was really only a very few weeks
ago that I had driven a car from London down to Brighton, that I had
dined at White’s, and, with a lady, had trod the red carpet of the
Savoy after the theatre.
And to-night I was actually having supper with real live brigands of
the mountains!
Lûk produced a bottle of _rakhi_, and Vatt Marashi lifted his tin mug
to me. I took a little of the potent spirit in the bottom of my own
drinking-cup, and tossed it off. It was not half so bad as I expected.
Then, as I rubbed my eyes, on account of the smoke, the chief took me
outside the house, and in the clear moonlight we sat down with Palok
on a big rock to chat.
He rolled me a cigarette of most excellent Turkish tobacco--of his
own growing, he told me--lit one himself, and we sipped the thick,
sweet coffee brought to us by Lûk’s wife.
The scene stretching before us was superb--a magnificent panorama
of mountains, some tipped with snow, white and brilliant under
the moonbeams. Below us, the valley was a great chasm, and lay in
unfathomable blackness.
With my strange host, I chatted about many subjects, and found him
far more intelligent than I would have believed. Keen-witted, quick
of perception, just in his judgment, and yet filled with an intense
hatred alike for both Turk and Montenegrin, he explained to me many
things of great interest.
He told me of the glorious traditions of his sturdy race, and of the
prince of the Skender Beg family, who, they hoped, would one day come
back to rule them.
“We, the chieftains, hold authority from him,” he declared. “Oh, yes,
he will come some day. Of that we are quite certain.”
“Englishmen have never dared to come here, have they?” I asked, with
some curiosity.
“Only once, a year or two ago. I discovered three of your compatriots
poking about in the rocks and chipping little pieces off. I had them
captured, and brought to me. At first I thought I would hold them to
ransom and make the Turks pay. But they were evidently poor fellows,
for their clothes were worn almost to rags, and they had very little
money. So I gave them their money back and sent them with an escort
down to the plain, forbidding them to enter our country again. I
wonder why they came, and why they were chipping the rocks?”
I told him that they were evidently mining prospectors; that
Englishmen travelled all over the world to discover minerals; and
that a mine in his country would be a source of great wealth. But my
explanation did not appeal to him. He could not see why they were
chipping off those pieces of rock. It was not flint, otherwise they
might have wanted them for gun-locks. No, the trio were distinctly
suspicious characters, and he was glad that he had expelled them.
“Have you ever held an Englishman to ransom?” I inquired.
“One. Five years ago. He came here shooting--after bears, I think.
He was evidently a great gentleman, for his guns were beautiful. The
Turks paid promptly.”
“Because he was an Englishman, eh?”
“Most probably,” he laughed. “Are they afraid of you English as they
are afraid of us?”
Soon afterwards he bade me good-night. Then I threw myself down on
my mattress of leaves and listened to the snoring of Palok and the
assembled family in the adjoining room.
I had thought Skodra barbaric, but here I was in an utterly unknown
corner of the earth, in an absolutely savage land--a land that knew no
law and acknowledged no master; a land that is the same to-day, even
after the war, as it was in the days of Diocletian and of Constantine
the Great--Albania the Unchanging.
CHAPTER FOUR
In Savage Europe--Real Brigands Before the Camera--The Brigand
Beauty and the Blood-Feud--Another Brigand Chief Offers me
“Sport”--A Murderer Tells his Strange Story--King Nicholas
Writes me a Poem--His Majesty Fines one of his Subjects
Five Francs and Pockets the Money.
On the day following the events recorded in the previous chapter,
we were climbing the rocks--for Vatt and his bodyguard thought that
they might get a shot at a bear--when there was a sudden alarm. The
hawk-like eyes of my companions espied strangers, and a sudden halt
was called. In a moment we were all under cover of the rocks. Every
man unslung his rifle, and Vatt himself, with knit brows, drew his
big silver-butted pistol, while I crouched behind a rock expecting
something to happen.
Nothing, however, did happen. But, a few moments later, there were
shouts from the opposite side of the defile, and my companions,
leaving the shelter of the rocks, waved their rifles over their heads
as a sign of greeting.
Vatt, replacing his pistol in his belt, spoke in a loud, sharp voice,
and received an answer. Those mountaineers can throw their voices
long distances, and be heard distinctly, a fact I often noticed.
Palok told me that the strangers were of the neighbouring tribe, the
Kastrati, and that their chief, Dêd Presci, had come to pay Vatt a
visit.
This was fortunate for me, since it gave me an opportunity of meeting
the other ruler of Northern Albania. Next to the Skreli the Kastrati
are most powerful in the Accursed Mountains, even to-day after the
war.
Half-an-hour later we met our visitors. Dressed very similarly to
my companions, they wore white, tasselless fezes instead of the
little white skull-cap, while the black stripes down their trousers
were somewhat different. The two chieftains touched foreheads, and
afterwards I was introduced. Dêd Presci, a round-faced, pleasant man,
rather stout and burly, his hair cut in mediæval style, gripped me
warmly by the hand, saying:
“I heard that you were in Skodra during the _festà_. Some of my men
told me there was an Englishman. But I never expected to meet you.
Perhaps you are coming across to see me, eh? If so, you are quite
welcome.”
“I may come next year to shoot, with a couple of English friends. May
I visit you then?”
“Most certainly. You have only, through one of our men down in
Skodra, to warn me of your coming, and I will give you safe escort,”
was his reply. “If you are fond of sport, you will find plenty with
us. Only bring a tent, and perhaps some provisions; for our food is
not what you foreigners are used to.”
“Then I shall return one day before long,” I promised.
“Do. You need fear nothing, you know. We never betray a friend.”
“Or forgive an enemy,” added Vatt, laughing.
“Especially if he be a Turk,” I remarked; whereat both chiefs laughed
in chorus.
That evening, in a small lonely house on the mountainside, I ate with
the pair; and the moon had long risen before Palok and I returned to
Lûk’s.
My camera was, from the first, regarded with a good deal of
suspicion, and it was with very great difficulty that I persuaded
anybody to be photographed. Many surreptitious snapshots I took with
a small Brownie camera, for unfortunately I had run out of films
for my larger Kodak. Those photographs, the first ever taken of the
Skreli brigands, may be found in my book.
[Illustration: VATT MARASHI, Chief of the Skreli brigands.]
[Illustration: The Brigand woman who carried on the blood feud.]
Early one morning, soon after sunrise, I was walking with Lûk and
Palok when a young woman passed us.
“That is Mrika Koi Marashut,” Lûk remarked.
“And who is she?” I asked.
“Mrika, the woman who carried on the blood-feud,” was his answer.
“Two years ago she was the most beautiful girl of our tribe, and
had a dozen men ready to marry her. She married Lez, a smart young
man from the Pulati side, and one of the _Baryaktar’s_ bodyguard,
like myself. A month after their marriage Lez was treacherously
killed by his brother, who lived down by the White Drin and was
violently in love with her. When she received the news she became
half demented by grief. But, by slow degrees, she formed her plans
for avenging her husband’s death, and for carrying on the blood-feud,
and, having no male relatives, resolved to take it on herself. She
therefore left us and was absent nearly a year, during which time
she persistently followed her brother-in-law first to Ochrida, in
Macedonia, then to Uskub, Prisrend, and many other places, always
awaiting her opportunity to strike the blow. This came one afternoon
when her husband’s assassin was walking in the main street in Skodra,
and she took Lez’s pistol from her belt and blew his face away. It
was valiant of a woman, was it not? But not only that,” he went on.
“Having killed the murderer, she went straight to his parents’ house,
three days’ journey, and shot them both dead. Since then she has
been back with us, now that poor Lez’s death has been avenged. I was
sorry he died,” he added regretfully, “for he was one of my dearest
friends.”
Murder is hardly a crime in Albania, for there life is cheap--very
cheap. An enemy or a stranger is shot like a dog, and left at the
roadside.
Palok told me of an incident that truly illustrates the utter
disregard the Albanian has for other people’s lives. He was once with
a man of the Hoti tribe--on the Montenegrin frontier--who had just
obtained a new rifle, probably from a murdered Turkish soldier. While
he was inspecting it a man passed close by, a stranger, whereupon the
man with the new gun raised it to his shoulder, took aim, and fired.
The stranger fell dead. Palok remonstrated, but his companion merely
said that he was testing his gun’s accuracy. Was it not better, he
asked, to test it that way, instead of waiting till face to face with
an enemy?
The assassin in that region is never punished, except by those who
take up the blood-feud. If the murder takes place in a town the
guilty one escapes to the mountains, or gets away into Macedonia, or
Serbia, where perhaps he earns his living by sawing firewood. Every
few years the Sultan issued an _irade_ “for the pacification of the
blood,” as it is put, and the murderer then returned. He paid a small
tax to the Government, after which he cannot be arrested; and if he
pays about three hundred crowns to the relatives of his victim, the
blood-feud is at an end.
This, however, does not apply to the mountain tribes. They care not a
jot for the Sultan’s _irades_ or the new King of Jugo-Slavia. There
is no law, except that of the blood-feud, the vendetta falling on the
murderer and on his next male relative. Many are the curious facts
that I have heard regarding the blood-feud and the Albanian laws of
hospitality.
A case in point was that of a young man named Koi, a friend of Lûk’s,
a tall, wiry youth, of somewhat sinister expression--a typical bandit.
I was talking about the hospitality extended by the various tribes to
each other, when Kol passed and Lûk beckoned him, saying:
“He has just had a curious experience in the Klementi country. Let
him relate it to you.”
So at Lûk’s invitation the young fellow accepted one of my
cigarettes, placed his rifle against the wall, and flung himself down
on a small boulder near us.
He blew a cloud of smoke from his thin lips, stroked his knees with
his hands, and looked at me with considerable curiosity, wondering
why I should want to know his story.
“The stranger is interested in your adventures with the Klementi.
Tell him all about them,” said Palok.
“Bah!” he said, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. “It was
nothing--mere chance--luck, if you like to call it so. There is
nothing to tell.”
“But what there is interests the Englishman. He is the _Baryaktar’s_
guest, remember,” Lûk remarked.
“Well,” said the young man reluctantly, and Palok translated his
words as follow: “The fact is that I was in blood-feud with a man of
the Klementi, and went over there to kill him. I laid in wait one
evening, and as he drove home his sheep I shot him from behind a
rock. He had killed my father, therefore I had a just right to avenge
his blood. My shot, however, aroused the whole valley, and I knew
that I, the only stranger, would be suspected and killed. Therefore I
sped away down the valley in the darkness till I reached a small mean
house. An old woman was there, and I craved food and shelter for the
night. She gave me food at once, for, like ourselves, the Klementi
never send a stranger away. I was hungry, for I had crossed into the
Klementi region in secret, and dared not seek food lest my presence
became known to the man I intended to kill. Scarcely had I eaten
the meal the old woman gave me when there came the sound of voices
outside, and to my horror I saw four men carrying in the body of my
victim.
“‘See!’ they cried to the woman who was befriending me. ‘One of the
Skreli has killed your son!’
“Then I knew that it was the murdered man’s mother who had given me
shelter. A moment later the men, among whom was the elder brother of
the victim, discovered me.
“‘See!’ they cried. ‘There is your son’s murderer. We will kill him!’
“I stood with my back to the wall, knowing well that my last moment
had come. The dead man’s brother raised his rifle while I drew my
pistol, prepared at least to fire once more before I died. I was
caught like a rat in a trap!
“The old woman, however, seeing my position and my helplessness,
cried:
“‘No! Enough! Though he has killed your brother, you may not touch
him! He is beneath our roof! He has eaten our bread, and our
protection must remain over him till to-morrow’s sunset. Remember, my
son, it is our law.’
“The man dropped his rifle, and his friends drew back at the old
woman’s reproof.
“‘Go!’ she said to me, after glancing at her son’s body. ‘You have
eaten our bread, and therefore you cannot be harmed.’
“‘Yes, go,’ added my victim’s brother. ‘Till to-morrow’s sunset I
will not follow. But after that I shall track you down, and, before
heaven, I will kill you!’
“Need I say that I took up my rifle, and, leaving the house,
travelled quickly all night and all next day, until I returned here?
But,” added Koi, with a slight sigh, “we shall meet one day, and he
will most certainly kill me!”
Is there any other country in the world where such a strict code of
honour exists? I am inclined to think not.
Had I been in the midst of a highly civilized people--a foreigner
wandering in the wilds of Scotland, for example--I certainly should
never have received the many charming kindnesses that I did at the
hands of those rough, uncivilized tribes. Climbing like cats up the
mountain-sides as they did, I was often compelled to lag behind,
being unused to such walking. But, laughing merrily, those armed
banditti would catch hold of my arms and pull me up the steeper
places; they would roll cigarettes for me, become distressed when I
grew fagged, and fetch and carry for me like children.
My neat automatic pistol was greatly admired as being a
much more handy and serviceable weapon than their own big
pistols--Austrian-made revolvers fitted to antique silver butts that
had once done service to flintlocks. My weapon with its magazine was
declared a marvel of ingenuity, and on many occasions Vatt and his
men amused themselves by firing with it at targets.
Once he remarked, with a grim smile, that it would be a very handy
weapon against the Turks. Where could he get one? Was it costly?
When I promised to send him one through a mutual friend in the bazaar
down in Scutari, as souvenir of my visit, his joy knew no bounds.
A month later I fulfilled my promise, sending it across from Sofia,
and I received an acknowledgment of its safe receipt.
I wonder whether or not he used it against the hated Turk? I know he
has survived the Great War, and he no doubt struts about with it in
his belt, a greater chief than all the others, because he possesses
the very latest and deadliest of weapons. He is to-day still Chief of
the Skreli, who defied the whole of the Turkish army.
On the same evening of my return to Cettigné from the Skreli country
I had audience of King Nicholas, who listened with greatest interest
to my account of Vatt Marashi and his tribesmen; for the latter were
constantly raiding on his frontier.
After hearing me for over an hour he invested me with the dark-blue
enamelled cross of the Order of Danilo, with its cherry-and-white
ribbon. Knowing His Majesty to be a poet of no mean distinction, I
ventured to ask him if he would write me a poem.
He laughed and replied vaguely, “Perhaps.”
Two days later a large envelope was ceremoniously delivered to me
containing the following in Serbian, in his own bold handwriting:
S’ veledušnog Albiona
Pružiše se dvije ruke
Crnoj Gori da pomogu
U junačke njene muke
S’ vrućom rječu na ustima
Gladston diže Crnogorce
A Tenison za najprve
U svijet ih broi borce
Na glas svoih Velikana
Britanski se narod trže
Da pomože da zaštiti.
Crnu Goru iz najbrže
Posla svoje bojne ladje
Sto na tečnost gospostvuju
Veledušno da zašitite
Domovinu milu Moju
O fala ti po sto puta
Blagorodni lyudi Soju
Dok je svjeta dok je greda
Nad Ulcinjem koje stoju
Hraniće ti blagodamost
Ova šaka sokolava
Koima si u pomoci
Stiga putem od valova.
It was later translated into English by my friend Count Chedo
Mijatovitch as follows:
From the great-souled Albion,
Two arms were stretched
To help Montenegro
In her heroic sufferings.
With fiery word on his lips
Gladstone lifts up Montenegrins,
Whilst Tennyson declared them
The very first fighters in the world.
On the call of their great men
British people rose up
In quickest manner, to help
And to protect Montenegro.
They despatched their warships.
Which rule over the seas.
Generously to protect
My Fatherland so dear to me.
Oh! thanks to thee, hundredfold thanks,
Noble race of men.
As long as the world lasts,
As long as the mountains above Dulcigno stand.
Will remain grateful to thee
This handful of falcons.
To whose help thou didst come
By the road of the waves.
Dear old King Nicholas was ever a paternal monarch. Each Thursday
morning he would sit in a big arm-chair beneath the portico of his
Palace, accessible to any of his subjects who wished to petition
him. He would listen to their troubles, give friendly advice, and
frequently dispense a rough-and-ready justice.
On one occasion, while walking in the main street of Cettigné, I saw
him stop a man and ask for his revolver. The man addressed drew his
weapon from his belt and gave it sheepishly to the king, who examined
it, and, finding it unloaded, promptly fined him five francs. The
man paid merrily, while His Majesty pocketed the money, with a smile
of evident satisfaction! There was a law that everyone must go
armed, and anyone found with a weapon without cartridges was liable
to a fine. It was apparently His Majesty’s delight to go about and
administer the law--to his own advantage!
When I went to the Palace to wish him farewell, he gave me several
messages to his friends in England, and on that occasion presented me
to his Consort, Queen Milena, a very handsome, white-haired woman,
whose daughter the Queen of Italy much resembles. It is only while
writing this page that Her Majesty’s death has occurred in Italy, and
she has been buried side by side with her husband, in the picturesque
Russian cemetery, overlooking the blue Mediterranean, at San Remo.
Her two other daughters I met while the pretty Princess Xenia was
assisting me with the photographs--Princess Militza, who married the
Grand Duke Peter of Russia, and Princess Stana, who became wife of
the Grand Duke Nicholas. Both were pretty, dark-eyed girls, devoted
to tennis, and hoping that one day Cettigné would establish a
golf-course.
They had been in Rome with their sister, the Queen, on several
occasions, and one afternoon as we sat at tea on the verandah of
Prince Mirko’s house Princess Stana sighed and said:
“Oh! how I wish we were back in Rome! Elena always gives us such a
glorious time at the Quirinal.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The Love Romance of King Peter of Serbia--His Majesty the
Most Misjudged Monarch in Europe--He is my Friend through
Fifteen Years--A King Incognito and his Troubles--His Many
Kindnesses to me--Prince George and the Ladies of the
Ballet.