TO CETTINJE
The rain poured all night. At five o'clock they called us, telling us
_not_ to wake up as the motor would come later. At six they knocked
again, saying--
"Get up quickly; the carriage is at the door."
No explanations.
We hurried so much that we left our best soap and our mascot, a
beautiful little wooden chicken, behind for ever. The major was waiting
in the bar room.
We were sorry to say good-bye, he was lonely, and we liked him; but we
lost no time, as we were seven hours from Podgoritza and goodness knows
how far from Cettinje.
The carriage and coachman were the same as yesterday's, but his
expression was so lugubrious in the downpouring rain that he looked
another man.
Just outside the village he picked up a friend and put her in the
carriage. She was a velvet-coated old lady with a flat white face and
two bright birdlike brown eyes which she never took off us.
Conversation was impossible, as she had only one tooth, round which her
speech whistled unintelligibly, and she hiccuped loudly once in every
half-hour. We were most uncomfortable. The hood was up, and a piece of
tarpaulin was stretched from it across to the coachman's seat, blocking
out the view except for the little we could see through a tiny triangle.
What with three humans, our bags, the old lady's bundle, and an enormous
sponge cake, we were very cramped, and whenever we tried to move a
stiffened knee her bright eye was on it, and she made some suitable
remark to which we always had to answer with "Ne rasumem," "I don't
understand," the while beaming at her to show we appreciated her efforts
to put us at our ease.
The mist and rain entirely obscured the view. Now and then a tree showed
as a thumb-mark on the grey. We little knew that we were passing through
some of the most marvellous scenery in Europe.
The carriage settled down with a bump. Something wrong with the harness;
string was produced, and it was made usable for the next half-hour.
Carriages in Montenegro must have been designed in the days when
builders thought more of voluptuous curves than of breaking strains, for
we have never been in one of them without many halts, during which the
coachman endeavoured to tie the carriage together with string or wire to
prevent it from coming in two.
We stopped at wayside inns and politely treated the old lady to coffee
at a penny a cup to make up for our inappreciation of her conversational
powers.
Women passed carrying the usual enormous bundles. Sometimes they were
accompanied by husbands or brothers, who strolled along entirely
unladen.
Jo busily sketched everybody she saw.
Passers-by demanded, "What is she doing?" and the onlookers answered--
"She is writing us;" for everything that is done with pencil on paper is
to them writing.
One pretty young woman shook her fist, laughing--
"If I could write, I would write _you_," she said.
We were no longer in the Sanjak. Turkish influence had vanished, and we
longed to see the famous Black Mountains of old Montenegro.
At Danilograd we marvelled at the enormous expensive bridge which seemed
to lead to nothing but a couple of tiny villages. We missed the
picturesque Turkish houses, built indeed only for to-day like their
roads, but full of unexpected corners and mysterious balconies. The
Montenegrin houses were small and simple, four walls and a roof, like
the drawing of a three-year-old child. The only thing lacking was the
curly smoke coming from the chimney. Broad streets lined with these
houses were unexhilarating in effect, and would have been more
depressing except for the bright colours with which they were painted.
When the horses were replete after their midday meal we loaded up,
adding to our numbers a taciturn man who sat on the box. We rolled on to
Podgoritza, arriving at two o'clock in a steady downpour.
Podgoritza seemed unaware of our arrival. The streets were empty, and
the Prefect's offices were tenanted only by the porter, a Turk, who
remarked that the Prefect was taking his siesta, and seemed to think
that was the end of it.
This was awful, after being Highnesses for a week, to be treated just
like ordinary people, and perhaps to lose all chance of reaching
Cettinje that night.
"Produce the Prefect," said Jo, stamping her foot, but the Turk only
smiled and suggested a visit to the adjutant's office. Back to the
carriage we went and drove to a place like a luggage depôt. No adjutant,
nothing but giggling boys. Our coachman became restive and said his
horses were tired of the rain, so we deposited the old lady,
substituted a man in American clothes who seemed sympathetic, and drove
back to the Prefect's office with him. There we found a sleepy
lieutenant who ordered coffee, while our American-speaking friend
explained to him that we were very Great People, and that something
ought immediately to be done for us. So the officer promised to get the
Prefect as soon as possible, and we went to the hotel to drink more
coffee with our baggy-trousered friend, who told us that he was one of a
huge contingent of Montenegrins who had travelled from America to fight
for the little country. "Say, who are your pals?" said a nasal voice,
and the owner, a pleasant-looking man in a broad-shouldered mackintosh,
took a seat at our table. He was also a Montenegrin, and had been mining
in America for some years. More coffees were ordered. We confided to the
new American Montenegrin that we did not like Podgoritza, and he tried
to find excuses--the hour, the bad weather. The hotel-keeper came up and
intimated in awestruck tones that the Prefect had just looked in with
some friends.
Our appearance did not seem to impress the Prefect in the least, and
small wonder. He owned to having received a telegram about us, but there
was no motor-car available for that day, and he departed.
"The Prefect is only more unpleasant than Podgoritza," said Jo to the
American in the mackintosh; but he deduced dyspepsia.
The Prefect, having been to his office and having seen the lieutenant,
came back in five minutes, rather more suave in manner, and announced
impressively that he was going to give us his own carriage.
But the rain, the giggling boys, the smiling Turk, and the sudden drop
from royalty to insignificance had been rankling in Jo's mind. She sat
back haughtily and remarked--
"But the Sirdar promised us a motor-car."
"I will go and see if it is possible," said the Prefect, and he dashed
out into the rain. He returned full of apologies. All the motors were
out, but he would send his carriage round immediately. "A delightful
carriage," he added.
It arrived--a landau such as one would find at Waddingsgate-super-Mare,
so free from scars that every Montenegrin turned to look at it.
The hotel-keepers, our American friends, and the Prefect and his captain
stood pointing out its beauties, and we left them standing in the rain.
"I shall always put on side in this country," said Jo as she bit a large
mouthful of cheese.
We pounded along, and the day slowly grew darker. We passed an
encampment, where the firelight thrown up on to the trees made a weird
and jolly sight.
The hours passed by slowly. Suddenly (our coachman was probably dozing)
we ran into something. It was a carriage, a square grey thing. Our
coachman howled to it, and it started slowly forward up the steep hill.
A bright light streamed from the windows and cut a radiant path in the
foggy rains. Some one threw away a cigar-end. The wet road shining in
the glare of our pink candles, and the lightning flashing intermittently
so that the mountain-tops sprang out to disappear again in the darkness;
we felt as if we were living in the introduction of a mystery story from
the _Strand Magazine_.
At last in the misty rain we saw the aura of the lights of Cettinje. At
last we wound slowly into wet streets, passed our mysterious companion
without being able to see who was in it, and so to the hotel. Since the
morning we had driven fourteen hours, and we were glad beyond measure to
stretch and to find really comfortable beds.
The next day we got up early. There was much to do. We were to see the
War Minister about Scutari, to present a letter of introduction to the
English minister, and to inspect the town.
Nature has half filled a big crater with silt, and the Montenegrins
have half covered it with Cettinje.
It is a polychromatic village of little square houses, cheerfully
dreary, and one does not see its uses except to be out of the way. The
only building with any architectural beauty is the monastery where the
old bishops reigned, and which must have many a queer tale to tell.
Asking for the Count de Salis, the English minister, we were directed to
the diplomatic street, a collection of tiny houses grouped respectfully
in front of the Palace, which itself was no larger than a Park Lane
house laid edgeways, and with the paint peeling from its walls.
Over the front door of each little house a sort of barber's pole stuck
outwards, striped with the national colours of the minister living
within.
We noticed with pride and relief that the Count de Salis' pole was
painted a reticent white. The sympathetic old lady who opened the door
directed us to the Legation. There we found him inspecting the damages
wreaked by the storm of overnight. The Legation was big and cold, and as
the handsome fireplaces sent out by the British Board of Works were for
anthracite only (and Montenegro produces only wood), the English
minister preferred his warm cottage to the unheated Palace.
He wished us luck in our quest for Scutari, and asked us to tea. We
then hurried to an awful building where the governing of Montenegro was
done--a concrete erection, presented to Montenegro by the British
Government, and an exact imitation of one of our workhouses. Here we
found the Minister of War, a gorgeously dressed little man with a
pleasant grandfatherly gleam in his eye. He only spoke Serbian, but with
him was an unshaven young man whose chest was covered with gold
danglers, who immediately began to air his quite passable French. We
explained what we had been doing and what we wanted to do. The War
Minister had not heard of US from the Sirdar, who had been resting after
his terrific ride, but said that they were to see each other that day.
The little man beamed upon us, and said they always wished to do
anything for the English, but he must first see the Sirdar.
"By the bye," he said, "I forgot to introduce you. This is Prince Peter,
commander of the forces on the Adriatic coast." The young man arose and
clicked his heels. We too got up. He shook hands with us solemnly, and
Jo, unused to addressing Royalty, said, "Dobra Dan" (Good day).
Then we all sat down again, a further rendezvous was arranged for the
evening, and we left, carrying away the impression that the War Minister
and we had bowed thirty times to each other before we got out of the
door.
Out in the streets, as we were sketching, we saw a large smile under a
Staff officer's cap bearing down upon us. It was the Sirdar, quite
rested and looking twenty years younger. He was going to the War
Minister's, and promised to arrange at once for our visit to Scutari. He
looked at our cryptic drawings of road scavengers, threw up his hands
and ejaculating "Kako"--strode out of our lives.
Tea in the little house with the discreet white pole was a great
pleasure. Such tea we had not drunk since leaving England--butter, jam
made by the old housekeeper, who pointed this out to us when she brought
in a relay of hot water.
She was the daughter of a man who had been exiled from his village
because he had taken a prominent part in a blood feud, and the old
Gospodar had told him he would be healthier elsewhere. So they had
emigrated as far as Serbia, where she had learnt to read and write.
A lady of good family but bad character suddenly decided to leave
Montenegro, and fled to the shores of Cattaro, carrying with her a large
number of State secrets. The Court was aghast. What was to be done?
A villain was needed. The father was decided upon, and with the help of
the lady's brothers she was kidnapped, carried back to Montenegro, and
disappeared for ever. For which noble work he was permitted to return to
his village.
The old lady had a supreme contempt for the Montenegrins who had not
"travelled," but she looked upon the growing pomp of the Court with
suspicion.
"Ah," she said, "those were fine days when the king was only the
Gospodar, and there were none of these gold embroidered uniforms about,
and the Queen and I used to slide down the Palace banisters together."
In those days the Royal family inhabited the top story only, while the
ground floor was filled with wood for the winter. Just round the corner
was the old pink palace, now used as a riding school. It had been the
first place in Montenegro to possess a billiard-table. So,
billiard-tables being rarer and more curious than kings--the palace had
been called the BILLIADO.
The Queen, whatever agility she may have possessed once when navigating
banisters, is now a sedate and domestic person, and doesn't hold with
bluestockings, notwithstanding the "Higher Education" of some of her
daughters.
The story goes that once when the King was away she inaugurated one of
those thorough-paced spring cleanings dear to most women's hearts;
ordered the dining-room furniture into the street, and superintended the
beating of it. Women hold a poor position in Montenegro, but one of
character can carry all before her. A well-known English nurse was
managing a hospital in Cettinje during the first Balkan War. One of her
patients, though well connected as peasants often are in Montenegro, was
a drunken old reprobate, and she told the authorities he must go. They
demurred--his relations must not be offended. She insisted. They did
nothing. One morning they found him, bed and all, in the middle of the
street opposite the King's palace.
The authorities swallowed their lesson.
In the evening we walked over the stony hills with our host, and first
had a glimpse of the real character of the country which had for so long
kept the Turks at bay. One realized how much the people owed to the land
for their boasted independence. Barren rock and scrub oak, no army could
live here in sufficient numbers to subdue even a semi-warlike nation.
Cettinje has been burned many a time by the Moslem, but starvation
eventually drove him back to the fatter plains of the Sanjak, leaving a
profitless victory behind him. Napoleon and Moscow over again.
More miners from America passed with their showy machine-woven clothes,
accompanied by their wives, who had evidently stayed behind in the old
country. Otherwise they would have picked up new-fangled ideas about the
rights of women, and would certainly have refused to shoulder the
enormous American suit cases while their men ambled carelessly in front.
The next day we had a further interview with the War Minister, who
introduced to us a man in corduroys, the only really round-faced person
we had met in Montenegro. Part of his name was "Ob," so as we forgot the
rest of it we called him Dr. Ob. He was the minister of drains, and such
things. As nothing had been previously explained to him about us, he
covered his mystification by hailing us jovially, after which he
misconstrued everything we said.
He became very excited when we said we had brought 14,000 kilos of
stores into Montenegro.
"But we have not got it yet," he ejaculated. We explained that it was
for the English hospital, and he subsided, very disappointed.
Scutari was talked over again, and Dr. Ob promised to come and tell us
that evening if Cettinje could supply a motor for the next morning.
More bows and smiles, and we left wondering. Montenegrins always promise
even when they have no intention of performance--something like the
stage Irishman,--and we were surprised when Dr. Ob met us in the evening
and said that the motor was arranged for next morning at eight.
We tea'd with the count once more. In the next house lived a gorgeous
old gentleman, and we heard that he had been War Minister for forty odd
years. After thirty years or so of office it was considered that he
could better uphold the dignity of his position were he able to sign his
name. So he had to learn.
[Illustration]