path: root/41499-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41499 ***

THROUGH THE LANDS OF THE SERB

By

MARY E. DURHAM

LONDON

EDWARD ARNOLD

1904


DEDICATED

TO

MY MOTHER


[Illustration: MONTENEGRIN WOMEN, CETINJE.]



CONTENTS

PART I

MONTENEGRO AND THE WAY THERE

    I. CATTARO--NJEGUSHI--CETINJE
   II. PODGORITZA AND RIJEKA
  III. OSTROG
   IV. NIKSHITJE AND DUKLE
    V. OUR LADY AMONG THE ROCKS
   VI. ANTIVARI
  VII. OF THE NORTH ALBANIAN
 VIII. SKODRA
   IX. SKODRA TO DULCIGNO

PART II

OF SERVIA

    X. BELGRADE
   XI. SMEDEREVO--SHABATZ--VALJEVO--UB--OBRENOVATZ
  XII. NISH
 XIII. PIROT
  XIV. EAST SERVIA
   XV. THE SHUMADIA AND SOUTH-WEST SERVIA
  XVI. KRUSHEVATZ

PART III

MONTENEGRO AND OLD SERVIA

1903

 XVII. KOLASHIN--ANDRIJEVITZA--BERANI--PECH
XVIII. TO DECHANI AND BACK TO PODGORITZA

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

    MONTENEGRIN WOMEN, CETINJE
    CEMETERY NEAR CETINJE
    BAKER'S SHOP, RIJEKA--ALBANIAN AND TWO
    MONTENEGRINS
    BULLOCK CART, PODGORITZA
    UPPER MONASTERY, OSTROG
    RUINS OF ANTIVARI
    MOUNTAIN ALBANIANS IN MARKET, PODGORITZA
    STREET IN BAZAAR, SKODRA
    SKODRA
    MOSQUE, SKODRA
    SHOP IN BAZAAR, SKODRA
    MONTENEGRIN PLOUGH
    SERVIAN PEASANT
    TRAVELLING GIPSIES, RIJEKA, MONTENEGRO
    SOLDIERS' MONUMENTS
    CHURCH, STUDENITZA--WEST DOOR.
    CORONATION CHURCH, KRALJEVO
    TSAR LAZAR'S CASTLE
    CHURCH, KRUSHEVATZ--SIDE WINDOW OF APSE
    THE PATRIARCHIA, IPEK (PECH)
    PODGORITZA
    MAP OF THE LANDS OF THE SERB


    PUBLISHER'S NOTE

          In the spelling of proper names the
          system adopted in the _Times Atlas_ has
          been followed as nearly as possible.
          Owing to the absence of Miss Durham in
          Macedonia, the following pages have not
          had the advantage of her revision in
          going through the press.



PART I

MONTENEGRO AND THE WAY THERE

     "What land is this?"
     "This is Illyria, lady."
                     _Twelfth Night._




THROUGH THE LANDS OF THE SERB


CHAPTER I

CATTARO--NJEGUSHI--CETINJE


I do not know where the East proper begins, nor does it greatly matter,
but it is somewhere on the farther side of the Adriatic, the
island-studded coast which the Venetians once held. At any rate, as soon
as you leave Trieste you touch the bubbling edge of the ever-simmering
Eastern Question, and the unpopularity of the ruling German element is
very obvious. "I--do--not--speak--German," said a young officer
laboriously, "I am Bocchese"; and as we approached the Bocche he
emphasised the fact that he was a Slav returning to a Slav land. Party
politics run high even on the steamboat.

We awoke one morning to find the second-class saloon turned into a
Herzegovinian camp, piled with gay saddle-bags and rugs upon which
squatted, cross-legged, a couple of families in full native costume, and
the air was thick with the highly scented tobacco which the whole party
smoked incessantly. The friendly steward, a Dalmatian Italian,
whispered hastily, "This is a Herzegovinian family, signorin'. Do you
like the Herzegovinese?" Rather taken aback, and not knowing what his
politics were, I replied, stupidly enough, "I find their costume very
interesting," This frivolous remark hurt the steward deeply.
"Signorin'," he said very gravely, "these are some of the bravest men in
the world. Each one of these that you see would fight till he died."
Then in a mysterious undertone, "They cannot live without freedom ...
they are leaving their own land ... it has been taken, as you know, by
the Austrian.... They are going to Montenegro, to a free country. They
have taken with them all their possessions, and they go to find
freedom."

I looked at them with a curious sense of pity. Though they knew it not,
they were the survivors of an old, old world, the old world which still
lingers in out-of-the-way corners, and it was from the twentieth century
quite as much as from the Teuton they were endeavouring to flee. All
these parti-coloured saddle-bags and little bundles tied up in cotton
handkerchiefs represented the worldly goods of three generations, who
had left the land of their forebears and were upon a quest as mystical
as any conceived by mediæval knight--they were seeking the shrine of
Liberty. "Of old sat Freedom on the heights"; let us hope they found her
there! I never saw them again.

On the other hand, in a boat with Austrian sympathies, the tale is very
different. "I am a Viennese, Fräulein. Imagine what it is to me to have
to travel in this dreary place! The people?--they are a rough,
discontented set. Very ignorant. Very bad. No, I should not advise you to
go to Montenegro--a most mischievous race." "And what about Bosnia and
the Herzegovina?" "Oh, you will be quite safe there; _we_ govern that.
They are a bad lot, though! But we don't stand any nonsense."

Thus either party seizes upon the stranger and tries to prevent his
views being "prejudiced." He seldom has need to complain that he has
heard one side only; but there is a Catholic side, an Orthodox side, a
Mohammedan side, there are German, Slav, Italian, Turkish, and Albanian
sides; and when he has heard them all he feels far less capable of
forming an opinion on the Eastern Question than he did before.

Dalmatia has its charms, but tourists swarm there, and the picturesque
corners are being rapidly pulled down to provide suitable accommodation
for them. Let us pass on, then, nor pause till we have wound our way
through that wonderful maze of fiords, the Bocche, and landed on the
quay at Cattaro. Cattaro is a tiny, greatly coveted, much-fought-for
town. The natural port for Montenegro but the property of Austria, it
swelters, breathless, on a strip of shore, with the waters in front of
it, and the great wall of the Black Mountain rising sheer up behind. Its
"heart's in the Highlands," but the enemy holds it as a garrison town;
the Austrian army pervades the neighbourhood, and a big fort, lurking
opposite, commands the one road from mountain to coast. Cattaro, after
all, is only a half-way house to Montenegro, and this is why Austria
lavishes so many troops upon it.

Behind the town starts the rough zigzag track, the celebrated "ladder of
Cattaro," which until 1879 was the only path into Montenegro, and is
the one the peasants still use. The making of the road was for a long
while dreaded by the Montenegrins, who argued that a road that will
serve for a cart will also serve for artillery. A tangible, visible gun
was their idea of the means by which changes are wrought; but the road
that can let in artillery can let in something more subtle,
irresistible, and change-working. The road was made, and there is now no
barrier to prevent the twentieth century creeping up silently and
sweeping over this old-world land almost before its force is recognised.
Whether the hardy mountain race which has successfully withstood the
gory onslaught of the Turk for five hundred years, will come out
unscathed from a bloodless encounter with Western so-called civilisation
Time alone can tell.

The road from Cattaro to Cetinje has been so often written of that it is
idle to describe it once again, nor can any words do it justice. After
some three hours' climbing, we pass the last Austrian black-and-yellow
post, and the driver, if he be a son of the mountain, points to the
ground and says, "Crnagora!" (Tsernagora). Crnagora, gaunt, grey, drear,
a chaos of limestone crags piled one on the other in inextricable
confusion, the bare wind-swept bones of a dead world. The first view of
the land comes as a shock. The horror of desolation, the endless series
of bare mountain tops, the arid wilderness of bare rock majestic in its
rugged loneliness, tell with one blow of the sufferings of centuries.
The next instant fills one with respect and admiration for the people
who have preferred liberty in this wilderness to slavery in fat lands.

Wherever possible, little patches of ground are cultivated, carefully
banked up with stones to save the precious soil from being washed away,
and up on the mountain sides scrubby oaks dwarfed and twisted by the
wind find a foothold among the crags. Most of the men carry revolvers,
and the eye soon becomes so much accustomed to weapons that on a return
to unarmed lands everyone appears, for a few days, to be rather
undressed. The road winds, the red roofs of Njegushi come in sight, and
we make our first halt in a Montenegrin town, and rest our weary horses.

We enter the little inn, and our coachman claims his revolver, which is
hanging with several others behind the bar, for none are allowed to
enter Austria; they are deposited in some house near the frontier and
picked up on the way back. George Stanisich, the big landlord, hurries
up his womenkind to make ready a meal, looks after the drinks, and
converses cheerfully on the topics of the day--preferably on the war, if
there happens to be one. "Junastvo" (that is, heroism--"deeds of
derring-do") is a subject that occupies a large space in the Montenegrin
mind, and no wonder, and every man's ambition is to be considered a
"dobar junak" (valiant warrior) and worthy of his forefathers.

Njegushi cannot fail to make a most vivid impression on the mind, for it
is the entrance to a world that is new and strange. The little
stone-paved room of the inn, hung with portraits of the Prince and the
Tsar and Tsaritsa of Russia; the row of loaded revolvers in the bar; the
blind minstrel who squats by the door and sings his long monotonous
chant while he scrapes upon his one-stringed gusle; and the tall,
dignified men in their picturesque garb, all belong to an unknown
existence, and the world we have always known is left far below at the
foot of the mountain. In Njegushi one feels that one has come a long way
from England. It is, in fact, easy to travel much farther without being
so far off. Yet the Montenegrin love of liberty and fair play and the
Montenegrin sense of honour have made me feel more at home in this far
corner of Europe than in any other foreign land.

Njegushi is the Prince's birthplace. His ancestors were some of a number
of Herzegovinians who, intolerant of the Turk, emigrated in the
fifteenth century. The village they left was called Njegushi, and they
gave the same name to their new home. In connection with this I give
here a curious tale which I have met with more than once. I repeat it as
told; my informants, Servians, believed it firmly, but I can find no
confirmation of it.

When these Herzegovinese migrated to Montenegro, a large body of them
went yet farther afield and settled in the mountains of Abyssinia, among
them a branch of the family of Petrovich of Njegushi, from which is
directly descended Menelik, who preserves the title of Negus and is a
distant cousin of Prince Nikola of Montenegro, and to this large
admixture of Slav blood the Abyssinians owe their fine stature and their
high standard of civilisation, as compared with the neighbouring African
tribes.

The house of the Prince stands on the left of the road as we leave the
town. The road ascends once more; a steep pull up through a bleakness of
grey crags; we reach the top of the pass (3350 feet), and turn a corner.
"Cetinje!" (Tsetinye), says the driver briefly, and there, in the
mountain-locked plain far below, lies the little red-roofed town, a
village city, a kindergarten capital, one of the quaintest sights in
Europe, so tiny, so entirely wanting in the usual stock properties of a
big town and yet so consciously a capital. Two wide streets which run
parallel and are joined by various cross streets make up the greater
part of it, and it has some 3000 inhabitants. As we enter the town the
first building of importance stands up on the left hand, brand-new, a
white stone building with a black roof. To any other capital it would
not be remarkable either for size or beauty; here it looms large and
portentous. It is the biggest building in the town, and it is the Palace
of the Austro-Hungarian Legation. Not to be outdone, Russia has just
erected an equally magnificent building at the other end of the town,
which now lies between representatives of the two rival powers. "Which
things are an allegory." Twenty years ago Cetinje was a collection of
thatched hovels. To-day, modest as they are, the houses are all solidly
built and roofed with tiles. Few more than one storey high, many
consisting only of a ground floor, all of them devoid of any attempt at
architecture; not a moulding, a cornice, or a porch breaks the general
baldness: they are more like a row of toy houses all out of the same box
than anything else. The road is very wide, and very white; a row of
little clipped trees border it on each side, so clipped that they afford
at present about as much shade as telegraph posts, and they all appear
to have come out of the same box too. It is all very clean, very neat;
not a whiff offends the tenderest nostril, not a cabbage stalk lies in
the gutter. It is not merely a toy, but a brand-new one that has not yet
been played with.

Cetinje is poor, but dignified and self-respecting. A French or Italian
village of the same size clatters, shouts, and screams. Cetinje is never
in a hurry, and seldom excited. It contains few important buildings. The
only ones of any historic interest are the monastery, the little tower
on the hill above it where were formerly stuck the heads of slain Turks,
and the old Palace called the Biljardo from the fact that it contained
Montenegro's first billiard-table. It now affords quarters for various
officials and the Court of Justice. There are no lawyers in Montenegro,
and this is said to simplify matters greatly. The Prince is the final
Court of Appeal, and reads and considers the petition of any of his
subjects that are in difficulties. Such faith have folk in his judgment
that Mohammedan subjects of the Sultan have been known to tramp to
Crnagora in order to have a quarrel settled by the Gospodar. That he
possesses a keen insight into these semi-civilised people and a
remarkable power of handling them is evident from the order that is
maintained throughout his lands even among the large Mohammedan Albanian
population, and it would undoubtedly have been much better for the
Balkan peoples had he had larger scope for his administrative powers.

Cetinje's other attractions are the park, the theatre, and the market,
where the stranger will have plenty of opportunity of wrestling with the
language.

The language is one of the amusements of Montenegro. It is not an easy
one. I hunted it about London for months, and it landed me in strange
places. The schools and systems that teach all the languages of Europe,
Asia, Africa, and America know it not. In the course of my chase I
caught a Roumanian, a Hungarian, and an Albanian, but I got no nearer to
it. I pursued it to a Balkan Consulate, which proved to consist entirely
of Englishmen who knew no word of the tongue, but kindly communicated
with a Ministry which consisted, so they said, entirely of very charming
men, with whom I should certainly be pleased. The Ministry was puzzled,
but wished to give me every encouragement. It had never before had such
a run upon its language. It suggested that the most suitable person to
instruct me would be an ex-Minister who had come over to attend the
funeral of Queen Victoria. The ex-Minister was very polite, but wrote
that he was on the point of returning to his native land. He therefore
proposed that a certain gallant and dashing officer, attache to the
Legation, should be instructed to call and converse with me once a week.
"No remuneration, of course," he added, "must be offered to the gallant
captain." "But suppose," I said feebly, "the captain doesn't care about
the job; it seems a little awkward, doesn't it?" "Oh no," said the
Consul, exultant; "when he hears it is by the orders of X., he won't
dare refuse." As I am not a character in one of Mr. Anthony Hope's
novels, but merely live in a London suburb, I thanked everybody and
retired upon a small grammar, dazzled by the fierce light that my
inquiries had shed upon the workings of this Balkan State, and wondering
if all the others were equally ready to loan out Ministers and attaches
to unknown foreigners.

There is a childish simplicity about the conversation of the up-country
peasant folk that is quite charming. They are as pleased with a
stranger who will talk to them as is a child with a kitten that will
run after a string, and, like children, they have no scruples about
asking what in a more "grown-up" state of society would be considered
indiscreet questions, including even the state of one's inside. The
women begin the conversation and retail the details to their lords and
masters, who, burning with curiosity, stand aloof with great dignity for
a little while, and end by crowding out the women altogether. Neither
men nor women have the vaguest idea whence I come nor to what manner of
life I am accustomed. When they learn that I have come in a train and a
steamboat, their amazement is unbounded. That I come from a far countrie
that is full of gold is obvious. "And thou hast come so far to see us?
Bravo!" Much patting on the back, and sometimes an affectionate squeeze
from an enthusiastic lady, who at once informs the men that I am very
thin and very hard. "Bravo! thou art brave. Art married?" "No." Great
excitement and much whispering. "Wait, wait," says a woman, and she
shouts "Milosh! Milosh!" at the top of her voice. Milosh edges his way
through the crowd. He is a tall, sun-tanned thing of about eighteen
years, with the eyes of a startled stag. His mother stands on tiptoe and
whispers in his ear that this is a chance not to be lightly thrown away.
A broad smile spreads over Milosh's face. He looks coy, and twiddles his
fingers. "Ask her! ask her!" say the ladies encouragingly. "Ask her!"
say the men. Milosh plucks up courage, thumps his chest and blurts out,
"Wilt thou have me?" "No, thank you," I say, laughing; and Milosh
retires amid the jeers of his friends, but really much relieved.
"Milosh, thou art not beautiful enough," say the men; and they suggest
one Gavro as being more likely to please. Gavro takes Milosh's place
with great alacrity, and the same ceremony is repeated. The crowd enjoys
itself vastly, and tries to fit me out with a really handsome specimen.
I glance round, and my eye is momentarily caught by a very goodly youth.
"No! no! he's mine, he's mine!" cries a woman, who seizes him by the
arm, and he is hastily withdrawn from competition amid shouts of
laughter. "I have no money," says one youth frankly, "but thou hast
perhaps enough." "And he is good and beautiful," say his friends. For
they are all cheerfully aware that their faces are their only fortunes.
There is a barbaric simplicity and a lack of any attempt at romance
about the proposed arrangements which is exquisitely funny, for they are
far too honest to pretend that I possess any attractions beyond my
supposed wealth. I have often wondered what the crowd would do if I
accepted someone temporarily, but have never dared try. Five offers in
twenty minutes is about my highest record.

But all these are country amusements. Cetinje is far too civilised a
city to indulge in them, and to "see Montenegro" we must wander much
farther afield.

[Illustration: CEMETERY NEAR CETINJE.]




CHAPTER II

PODGORITZA AND RIJEKA


Travelling in Montenegro--in fine weather, be it said--is delightful
from start to finish. And to Shan, my Albanian driver, whose care,
fidelity, and good nature have added greatly to the success of many of
my tours, I owe a passing tribute. He is short and dark, a somewhat
mixed specimen of his race, and hails from near the borders, where folk
are apt to be so mixed that it is hard to tell which is the true type.
Careful of his three little horses, and always ready in an emergency, he
yet preserves the gay, inconsequent nature of a very young child. His
veneer of civilisation causes him to assume for short intervals an
appearance of great stiffness and dignity, but it melts suddenly, and
his natural spirits bubble through. Thus, at an inn door before
foreigners, he is stately, but in the kitchen to which I have been
invited to accompany him, he waves his arms wildly and performs a war
dance, chaffs the ladies, and makes himself highly agreeable. His tastes
are simple and easily satisfied. I have stood him several treats of his
own selection, and they usually cost about fourpence. One was an immense
liver which was toasted for him in hot wood ashes, and which he consumed
along with a whole loaf of bread--whereupon he expressed himself as
feeling much better. His generosity is unfailing; at the top of a pass,
in a heavy storm of sleet, he offered me the greatcoat he was wearing,
and he is always ready to help a distressed wayfarer. One awful evening,
when the rain was falling in torrents and it was rapidly growing dark,
we were hailed, between Rijeka and Cetinje, by a man in distress. A
sheep, his only one, which he was driving up to Cetinje, had fallen, wet
and exhausted, by the roadside, and he knew not what to do. Shan was
greatly concerned. He explained to me that the man was very poor, the
sheep very tired and also that the sheep was a very little one, then he
took it in his arms like a baby and arranged it on the box, where it
cuddled up against him for warmth, and, through wind, rain, and the
blackest night I have ever been out in, he drove three horses abreast,
held up an umbrella, nursed the sheep, and sang songs till we arrived
safely at our journey's end.

Acting on the principle of "Do as you would be done by," when his pouch
is full, he distributes tobacco lavishly along the route with a fine
"Damn-the-expense" air which one cannot but admire, and when not a shred
remains, he begs it, quite shamelessly, of everyone he meets. When I
first made his acquaintance, his appearance puzzled me. Learning that he
was an Albanian, I remarked upon the fact to him; he immediately crossed
himself hastily. "Yes, an Albanian," he admitted, "but Cattolici,
Cattolici," and he added as an extra attraction, "and I came to
Montenegro when I was very little." He persists in regarding me as a
co-religionist; for the fact that I am neither Orthodox nor Mohammedan
is to him quite sufficient proof. His Catholicism is quite original.
Unlike most Catholic Albanians, who display a horror of the Orthodox
Church, he is most pressing in his attentions to the Orthodox priests,
and will never, if he can help it, be left out of a circle of
conversation that includes one. One Easter Day I saw him persist in
kissing, in Orthodox fashion, the village priest, who having more than
enough osculation to go through with his own flock, did his best to
dodge him, but was loudly smacked upon the back of the neck. His views
upon doctrinal points are mixed, but his simple creed has taught him
faith, hope, and charity "which is the greatest of the three."

Withal he is a bit of a buck, and likes to cut a dash in what he
considers large towns. He strolls in when I am having dinner and
converses with the company at large; he makes me a flowery speech--he is
my servant; it is mine to command and his to obey; whatever I order he
will carry out with pleasure. When he learns that I shall not require
him till to-morrow, he beams all over his sun-tanned face. Then he
fidgets and makes pointless remarks. I do not help him. He strolls with
elaborate carelessness behind my chair and whispers hurriedly that towns
are very expensive, and if I would only advance him a florin or two of
his pay--I supply the needful, and later I meet him, a happy man,
playing the duke among a crowd of friends, to all of whom he introduces
me with great style and elegance. But his dissipations are very mild,
though from the swagger he puts on you would think they were bold and
bad. I have never seen him the worse for drink, and he is punctuality
itself and very honest. Child of the race with about the worst
reputation in Europe though he is, I would trust him under most
circumstances.

Leaving Cetinje by its only road, we soon reach the top of the pass, and
a sudden turn reveals the land beyond. We have come across Europe to the
edge of Christianity, and stand on the rocky fortress with the enemy in
sight. The white road serpentines down the mountain side, and far below
lies the green valley and its tiny village, Dobrsko Selo; on all sides
rise the crags wild and majestic; away in the distance gleams the great
silver lake of Skodra. Beyond it the blue Albanian mountains, their
peaks glittering with snow even in June, show fainter and fainter, and
the land of mystery and the unspeakable Turk fades into the sky--a scene
so magnificent and so impressive that it is worth all the journey from
England just to have looked at it.

We cast loose our third horse, and rattle all the way down to Rijeka,
skimming along the mountain side and swinging round the zigzags on a
road that it takes barely two hours to descend and quite three to climb
up again; for Cetinje lies 1900 feet above the sea, and Rijeka not much
more than 200 feet.

Rijeka means a stream, and the town so called is a cluster of most
picturesque, half-wooden houses, facing green trees and a ripple of
running water and backed by the mountain side--as pretty a place as one
need wish to see. The stream's full name is Rijeka Crnoievicheva, the
River of Crnoievich, but for everyday use town and river are simply
Rijeka. But its full name must not be forgotten, for it keeps alive the
fame of Ivan Beg Crnoievich, who ruled in the latter half of the
fifteenth century, in the days when Montenegro's worst troubles were
beginning. Unable to hold the plains of the Zeta against the Turk, Ivan
gathered his men together, burnt his old capital, Zabljak, near the head
of the lake, retired into the mountains, and founded Cetinje in 1484. He
built a castle above Rijeka as a defence to his new frontier, and swore
to hold the Black Mountain against all comers. But he meant his people
to grow as a nation worthily, and not to degenerate into a horde of
barbarians. He founded the monastery at Cetinje, appointed a bishop and
built churches. And--for he was quite abreast of his times--he sent to
Venice for type and started a printing press at Rijeka. In spite of the
difficulties and dangers that beset the Montenegrins, they printed their
first book little more than twenty years later than Caxton printed his
at Westminster. Ivan is not dead, but sleeps on the hill above Rijeka,
and he will one day awake and lead his people to victory. The printing
press was burned by the Turks, and the books which issued from it--fine
specimens of the printer's art--are rare.

The stream Rijeka is a very short one. It rises in some curious caverns
not much farther up the valley, and flows into the lake of Skodra. The
town is built of cranky little houses, half Turkish in style, with open
wooden galleries painted green--gimcrack affairs, that look as though
they might come down with a run any minute, when filled as they
frequently are with a party of heavy men. It has an old-world look, but,
as most of the town was burnt by the Turks in 1862, appearances are
deceptive. A perfect Bond Street of shops faces the river. Here you can
buy at a cheap rate all the necessaries of Montenegrin existence. In the
baker's shop the large round flat loaves of bread, very like those dug
up at Pompeii, are neatly covered with a white cloth to keep off the
flies.

Plenty of tobacco is grown in the neighbourhood. In the autumn the
cottages are festooned with the big leaves drying in the sun, and you
may see Albanians, sitting on their doorsteps, shredding up the fragrant
weed with a sharp knife into long, very fine strips till it looks like a
bunch of hair, shearing through a large pile swiftly, with machine--like
regularity and precision. Tobacco is a cheap luxury, and I am told
Montenegrin tobacco is good. Almost every man in Montenegro smokes from
morning till night, generally rolling up the next cigarette before the
last is finished.

The town possesses a burgomaster, a post-office, a steamboat office, a
Palace, and an inn, which provides a good dinner on market days. It is a
clean, prosperous, friendly, and very simple-minded place--I did not
realise how simple-minded till I spent an afternoon sitting on the wall
by the river, drawing the baker's shop, with some twenty Montenegrins
sitting round in a crimson and blue semicircle. It was in the days when
I knew nothing of the language, and the Boer War was as yet unfinished.
I drew, and my friend talked. A youth in Western garb acted as
interpreter. He ascertained whence we had come, and then remarked
airily, "Now, I come from Hungary, and I am walking to the Transvaal.
This man," pointing out a fine young Montenegrin, "is coming with me!"
Stumbling, voluble and excited, in very broken German, he unfolded their
crazy plan. They were both brave men and exceedingly rich. "I have two
thousand florins, and a hundred more or less makes no difference to
him," kept cropping up like the burden of a song. Their families had
wept and prayed, but had failed to turn them from their purpose. They
were going to walk to the Transvaal. "But you can't," we said. He was
hurt. "Of course not all the way," he knew that. They had meant to walk
across Albania to Salonika, but the Consul at Skodra had put a stop to
this dangerous scheme. Now they were going by sea from Cattaro to
Alexandria, and thence, also by sea, to Lorenzo Marques. After this,
they should "walk to the Transvaal." "Why don't you walk from
Alexandria?" we asked. He answered quite seriously that they had thought
of this, but they had been told there was a tribe of Arabs in the centre
of Africa even more ferocious than the Albanians, so, though they were
of course very brave men, they thought on the whole they preferred the
boat. When they arrived, they meant to fight on whichever side appeared
likely to win, and then they were going to pick up gold. We thought it
our duty to try and dissuade them from their wild-goose chase, but our
efforts were treated with scorn. "What can you do? You speak very little
German, and your friend nothing but Servian." "No, he doesn't," said the
Hungarian indignantly. "He speaks Albanian very well, and I--I know many
languages. I speak Servian and Hungarian." The idea that a place
existed where no one spoke these well-known tongues was to him most
ridiculous, and the Montenegrin, to whom it was imparted, smiled
incredulously. We urged the price of living and the cost of Machinery
required in gold-mining. The first he did not believe; the second he
thought very silly. The gold was there, and he was not such a fool as to
require a machine with which to pick it up.

[Illustration: BAKER'S SHOP, RIJEKA.--AUJAMAN AND TWO MONTENEGRINS.]

The Montenegrin, who had been bursting with a question for the last
quarter of an hour, insisted on its being put. "Could he buy a good
revolver in Johannesburg?" He waited anxiously for a reply. "You see,"
explained the Hungarian, "he must leave his in Montenegro." "But why? It
looks a very good one." The Montenegrin patted his weapon lovingly; he
only wished he could take it, it would be most useful, but ... in order
to reach the boat at Cattaro he must cross Austrian territory, and you
are not allowed to carry firearms in Austria! He shook his head
dolefully when we said that permission could surely be obtained. "No,
this was quite impossible; under no circumstances could it be managed.
You don't know what the Austrians are!" said the Hungarian mysteriously.
The unknown land, the unknown tongues, the British, the Boers, the
rumble-tumble ocean and the perils of the deep were all as nothing
beside the difficulty of crossing the one narrow strip of Austrian land.
We told him revolvers were plentiful in Johannesburg, and the prospect
of finding home comforts cheered him greatly. We parted the best of
friends.

From Rijeka the road rises rapidly again, and strikes over the hills,
winding through wild and very sparsely inhabited country. The mountain
range ends abruptly, and we see the broad plains stretching away below
us, with the white town of Podgoritza in the midst of it. The plain is
very obviously the bed of the now shrunken lake of Skodra, and the
water-worn pebbles are covered with but a thin layer of soil. But both
maize and tobacco seem to do well upon it, and every year more land is
taken into cultivation. The rough land is covered with wiry turf and low
bushes, and swarms with tortoises which graze deliberately by the
roadside. The river Moracha has cut itself a deep chasm in the loose
soil between us and the town, and tears along in blue-green swirls and
eddies. We have to overshoot the town to find the bridge, and we clatter
into Podgoritza six or seven hours after leaving Cetinje, according to
the weather and the state of the road.

Podgoritza is the biggest town in Montenegro, and has between five and
six thousand inhabitants. It is well situated for a trading centre, for
it is midway between Cetinje and Nikshitje, and is joined by a good road
to Plavnitza, on the lake of Scutari, so is in regular steamboat
communication with Skodra and with Antivari _via_ Virbazar. Its position
has always given it some importance. As a Turkish garrison town it was a
convenient centre from which to invade Montenegro; to the Montenegrin it
was part of his birthright--part of the ancient kingdom of Servia--and
as such to be wrested from the enemy. It was the brutal massacre of
twenty Montenegrins in and near the town in time of peace (October 1874)
that decided the Montenegrins to support the Herzegovinian insurrection
and declare war. Podgoritza was besieged and taken in October 1876. The
walls of the old town were blown to pieces with guns taken from the
Turks at Medun, and an entirely new town has since sprung up on the
opposite side of the stream Ribnitza. Podgoritza (= "At the Foot of the
Mountain"), if you have come straight from the West, is as amusing a
place as you need wish to visit. It has not so many show places as
Cetinje even, and its charm is quite undefinable. It consists in its
varied human crowd, its young barbarians all at play, its ideas that
date from the world's well--springs, subtly intermingled with Manchester
cottons, lemonade in glass-ball-stoppered bottles, and other blessings
of an enlightened present. The currents from the East and the West meet
here, the old world and the new; and those to whom the spectacle is of
interest, may sit upon the bridge and watch the old order changing.

The Montenegrin town of Podgoritza is clean and bright. The long wide
main street of white stone, red-roofed shops with their gay wares, and
the large open market square where the weekly bazaar is held, are full
of life. Both street and market-place are planted with little trees,
acacias and white mulberries; and the bright green foliage, the white
road, the red roofs, the green shutters, the variety of costume, make an
attractive scene in the blaze of the Southern sun. Across the gold-brown
plain rise the blue mountains where lies that invisible line the
frontier. The slim minarets of the old Turkish town shoot up and shimmer
white on sky and mountain; the river Ribnitza flows between the old town
and the new, and over the bridge passes an endless stream of strange
folk, the villagers of the plain and the half-wild natives of the
Albanian mountains passing from the world of the Middle Ages to a place
which feels, however faintly, the forces of the twentieth century.
Bullock carts, with two huge wheels and basket-work tops, trail slowly
past, groaning and screeching on their ungreased axles. Look well at the
carts, for our own forefathers used them in the eleventh century, and
they appear in the Harleian MSS.

Everything moves slowly. All day long folk draw water from the
stone-topped well on the open space between the old town and the
new--draw it slowly and laboriously, for there is no windlass or other
labour-saving contrivance, and the water is pulled up in a canvas bag
tied to a string. Three or four bagfuls go to one bucket.

In spite of the fact that Podgoritza is the centre of the
Anglo-Montenegrin Trading Company and deals in Manchester cottons, the
day seems distant when it will lose its other simple habits. I was
walking one day down the "High Street" with a friend, when a young
Albanian went to call on his tailor. He came out presently with a fine
new pair of the tight white trousers that his clan affects. He exhibited
them in the middle of the road to two or three friends, and they were
all evidently much struck with the make and embroidery. If the garments
were so charming "off," what would they be "on"! The whole party hurried
across to the shop door of the happy purchaser, and such an alarming
unbuckling and untying began to take place that we! discreetly went for
a little walk. On our return the transfer had been effected. Two
friends were grasping the garment by the front and back, and the wearer
was being energetically jigged and shaken into it. This was a tough job,
for it was skin-tight. The legs were then hooked-and-eyed up the back,
and presently the youth was strutting down the middle of the road
stiff-kneed and elegant, with the admiring eyes of Podgoritza upon him,
and a ridiculously self-conscious smile.

[Illustration: BULLOCK CART, PODGORITZA.]

Wandering gipsy tribes turn up here, too; mysterious roving gangs, their
scant possessions, tin pots and tent poles, piled on ponies; their
children, often as naked as they were born, perched on top of the load.
They have no abiding place; impelled by a primeval instinct, they pass
on eternally. Extraordinarily handsome savages some of them are, too. I
have seen them on the march--the men in front, three abreast, swinging
along like panthers; half stripped, clad in dirty white breeches and
cartridges; making up with firearms for deficiency in shirts, and
carrying, each man, in addition to his rifle, a long sheath knife and a
pistol in his red sash, their matted coal-black locks falling down to
their beady, glittering black eyes, which watch you like a cat's,
without ever looking you straight in the face. Their white teeth and the
brass cases of the cartridges sparkling against their swarthy skins,
they passed with their heads held high on their sinewy throats with an
air of fierce and sullen independence. Behind follow the boys, women,
and children, with all their worldly goods; golden-brown women with
scarlet lips and dazzling teeth, their hair hanging in a thick black
plait on either side of the face, like that of the ladies of ancient
Egypt; holding themselves like queens, and, unlike their lords and
masters, smiling very good-naturedly. So entirely do they appear to
belong to an unknown, untamed past, that I was astonished when one of
them, a splendid girl in tawny orange and crimson, addressed me in
fluent Italian outside the Podgoritza inn. "I am a gipsy. Are you
Italian?" Italy was her only idea of a foreign land, and England quite
unknown to her. She hazarded a guess that it was far off, and imparted
the information to a little crowd of Albanian and Montenegrin boys who
were hanging around. When the servant of the inn thought the crowd too
large, he came out to scatter it. The boys fled precipitately; the girl
stood her ground firmly, as one conscious of right, and told him what
she thought of him volubly and fiercely, her eyes flashing the while. He
retired discomfited, and she informed us superbly, "I told him the
ladies wished to speak to me!" Unlike the Montenegrins, she understood
at once that we were merely travelling for travelling's sake, and
regarded it as perfectly natural. She retired gracefully when she had
learnt what she wished to know.

The Montenegrin and Albanian gipsies are mostly Mohammedans, and what is
vaguely described as Pagan. They seldom or never, it is said, intermarry
with the people among whom they wander, but keep themselves entirely to
themselves. One day the old quarter of Podgoritza was agog with a
Mohammedan gipsy wedding. From across the river we heard the monotonous
rhythmic pulsation of a tambourine, and at intervals the long-drawn
Oriental yowl that means music. We strolled down to the bridge and
joined the very motley collection of sight-seers. Gay and filthy, they
gathered round us, and enjoyed at once the spectacle of two foreigners
of unknown origin and the festivity which was going on in the back
garden hard by. It could hardly be called a garden, it was the yard of a
squalid little hovel backing on the river, and was filled with women in
gorgeous raiment walking backwards and forwards in rows that met and
swayed apart, singing a long howling chant, while the pom-pom and
metallic jingle of the tambourine sounded over the voices with
mechanical regularity. Presently all fell aside and left a space, into
which leapt a dancing-girl, a mass of white silk gauze with a golden
zouave and belt and a dangling coin head-dress. She wreathed her arms
gracefully over her head and danced a complicated _pas-seul_ with great
aplomb and certainty, her white draperies swirling round her and her
gold embroideries flashing in the sunlight. When she ceased, the party
withdrew into the dirty little hut, and as we were now the whole
attraction to the obviously verminous crowd we withdrew also. The hut
was the headquarters of the bridegroom, and this was a preliminary
entertainment. Next morning, four carriages dashed into the town at
once, bringing the bride and her escort from Skodra in Albania. The
horses' heads were decorated with gaily embroidered muslin
handkerchiefs, and the bride's carriage was closely curtained and
veiled. The amount of men and weapons that poured out of the other
vehicles was astounding. When three carriages had unloaded, the bride's
carriage drove up close to the entrance of the yard in which the hut
stood, and the men made a long tunnel from door to door by holding up
white sheets; down this the bride fled safe and invisible, while
curiosity devoured the spectators on the bridge. Every window in the hut
was already shuttered and barred, and we thought there was no more to be
seen.

But our presence had been already noted. A commotion arose among the men
at the door of the hovel. A young Montenegrin onlooker came up, pulled
together all his foreign vocabulary and stammeringly explained, "They
wish you to go into their house." All the men in the crowd were consumed
with curiosity about the hidden bride, and obviously envied us the
invitation. We hesitated to plunge into the filthy hole. We didn't
hesitate long, though. The bride and her friends meant to show off their
finery to the foreigners; a dark swagger fellow who would take no denial
was sent out to fetch us, and we followed our escort obediently to the
cottage door. We paused a half-second on the doorstep; it looked bad
inside, but it was too late to go back. A passage was cleft for us
immediately, and we found ourselves in a long low room with a mud
floor--a noisome, squalid den in which one would not stable an English
donkey. There was no light except what came through the small door and
the chinks. It was packed with men; their beady, bright eyes and silver
weapons glittered, the only sparks of brightness in the gloom.

As my eyes got accustomed to the subdued light, I saw in the corner a
huge caldron of chunks of most unpleasant-looking boiled mutton, with
floating isles of fat, and my heart sank at the thought that perhaps
our invitation included the wedding breakfast. The men guarding the door
of the inner apartment parted, and we went in. No man, save the
bridegroom, entered here. It was a tiny hole of a room, but its dirty
stone walls were ablaze with glittering golden embroideries and it was
lighted by oil lamps. The floor was covered with women squatting close
together, their brown faces, all unveiled, showing very dark against
their gorgeous barbaric costumes. It was a fierce jostle of
colours--patches of scarlet, orange, purple and white, mellowed and
harmonised by the lavish use of gold over all, coin head-dresses,
necklaces, and girdles in reckless profusion. In the light of common day
it would doubtless resolve itself into copper-gilt and glass jewels, but
by lamplight it was all that could be desired. On a chair, the only one
in the room, with her back to the partition wall, so as to be quite
invisible to the men in the next room, sat the bride, upright,
motionless, rigid like an Eastern idol. Her hands lay in her lap, her
clothes were stiff with gold, and she was covered down to the knees with
a thick purple and gold veil. There she has to sit without moving all
day. She may not even, I am told, feed herself, but what nourishment she
is allowed is given her under the veil by one of the other ladies. At
her feet, cross-legged on the ground, sat the bridegroom, who I believe
had not yet seen her--quite the most decorative bridegroom I ever saw, a
good-looking fellow of about five-and-twenty, whose black and white
Albanian garments, tight-fitting, showed him off effectively, while the
arsenal of fancy weapons in his sash gave him the required touch of
savagery. He gazed fixedly at the purple veil, endeavouring vainly to
penetrate its mysteries, and, considering the trying circumstances in
which he was placed, seemed to be displaying a good deal of fortitude.
The air was heavy with scented pastilles, otherwise the human reek must
have been unbearable.

Everyone began to talk at once, and it was evident from their nods and
smiles that we had done the correct thing in coming. Unfortunately we
couldn't understand a word, but we bowed to everyone, repeated our
thanks, and tried to express our wonder and admiration. Whether we were
intended to stay or not I do not know, but, haunted by a desire to
escape with as small a collection of vermin as possible, and also to
evade the chunks of mutton in the caldron, we backed our way, bowing,
into the outer room after a few minutes, and were politely escorted to
the entrance. Judging by the smiles and bows of everyone, our visit gave
great satisfaction. After we left, the doors were shut, and there was a
long lull, during which the mutton was probably consumed. If so, we
escaped only just in time. In the afternoon the tambourines and
sing-songs started again, and far into the night the long-drawn yowls of
the epithalamium came down the wind.

In spite of the mixed Christian and Mohammedan population, excellent
order is maintained. The more I see of the Montenegrin, the more I am
struck with his power of keeping order. It is a favourite joke against
him that when he asks for a job and is questioned as to his
capabilities, he replies that he is prepared to "superintend," and it
turns out that he is unable to do anything else. But not even our own
policeman can perform the said "superintending" more quietly and
efficiently. To the traveller the Mohammedan is very friendly. The
attempt of a man to draw or photograph a woman is an insult which is not
readily forgiven and may lead to serious consequences, but as long as
one conforms to local customs these people are as kindly as one could
wish, and not by a long way so black as they have often been painted. As
a matter of fact a large proportion of the rows that occur all over the
world between different nationalities arise from someone's indiscreet
attentions to someone else's girl. And this is why a lady travelling
alone almost always has a friendly welcome, for on this point at any
rate she is above suspicion.

The Orthodox Montenegrin is equally anxious to make one feel at home. At
Easter-tide, when the whole town was greeting each other and giving pink
eggs, we were not left out. "Krsti uskrshnio je" ("Christ has risen") is
the greeting, to which one must reply, "Truly He has risen," accepting
the egg. People go from house to house, and eggs stand ready on the
table for the visitors, who kiss the master and mistress of the house
three times in the name of the Trinity. Montenegrin kisses--I speak
merely as an onlooker--are extremely hearty. It is surprising what a
number they get through on such a festival. For four days does the
Easter holiday last.

Montenegrins take their holidays quietly. It used to be said of the
Englishman that he takes his pleasures sadly. But that was before the
evolution of the race culminated in 'Any and 'Arriet. The Montenegrin
has not yet reached this pitch of civilisation. I wonder whether he
inevitably must, and if so, whether what he will gain will at all
compensate for what he must lose. For civilisation, as at present
understood, purchases luxuries at the price of physical deterioration.
High living is by no means always accompanied by high thinking, and ...
the end of it the future must show. When the Montenegrin has learnt what
a number of things he cannot possibly do without, let us hope he will be
in some way the better. It is certain he will be in many ways the worse.

Things Christian lie on one side of the Ribnitza, and things Mohammedan
on the other. The Turkish graveyard lies out beyond the old town,
forlorn and melancholy as they mostly are. The burial-ground of the
Orthodox is on the Montenegrin side of the town. The dead are borne to
the grave in an open coffin, and the waxen face of the corpse is
visible. The coffin-lid is carried next in the procession. I was told
that this curious custom originated in the fact that sham funerals were
used when the Balkan provinces were under Turkish rule as a means of
smuggling arms. But I doubt this tale. For the custom used to prevail in
Italy, and does still, I believe, in Spain. It is, in all probability,
much older than the Turks, and a tradition that dates from the days when
burning and not burial was the usual way of disposing of the dead and
the body was carried to the funeral pyre upon a bier. The open coffin,
the funeral songs, and the commemorative feasts annually held on the
graves by many of the South Slavs, the lights and incense burnt upon
the graves, and the lighted candles carried in the funeral processions
together reproduce, with extraordinary fidelity, the rites and
ceremonies of the Romans. And how much older they may be we know not.




CHAPTER III

OSTROG


I have driven the road many a time since, and I have been again to
Ostrog, but I shall never forget that day three years ago when I went
there for the first time. It was the only part of that journey about
which our advisers said we should find no difficulty; "foreign
languages" were spoken, and there would be no trouble about
accommodation. We started from Podgoritza early and in high spirits.

The valley of the Zeta is green and well cultivated. It narrows as we
ascend it, and an isolated hill crowned with the ruins of a Turkish
fortress stands up commandingly in the middle. This is the "bloody"
Spuzh of the ballads, the stronghold that guarded the former Turkish
frontier. Montenegro at this point was barely fifteen miles across, and
Spuzh and Nikshitje gripped it on either hand. From being a border town
with an exciting existence Spuzh has subsided into an unimportant
village. Danilovgrad, on the other hand, a few miles farther on, a town
founded in memory of the late Prince, is full of life, and though a bit
rudimentary at present, shows signs of soon becoming large and
flourishing. It is possible now to drive right up to the lower
monastery of Ostrog by a fine new road, but this did not yet exist on
my first visit, and we pulled up at Bogatich--a poverty-stricken
collection of huts and a tiny church. A tall, lean, sad-eyed
Montenegrin, with his left arm in a sling, came out of the little "han"
to greet us, bringing with him a strong whiff of carbolic. They were a
melancholy little household. His wife, who brought water for our reeking
horses, had had her right arm taken off an inch or two below the elbow,
and carried the bucket horribly in the crook of the stump. They cheered
up when they heard we wanted a guide to the monastery, and called their
daughter from the shed for the purpose.

She came out, a shy, wild-looking thing of about fifteen, barefooted,
her knitting in her hands, accepted the job at once, tied our two
hand-bags on her back with a bit of cord, and we started up in search of
the unknown, armed with a leg of cold mutton, a loaf of black bread, a
sketch-book, and a flask of brandy.

It was midday, and almost midsummer; the air was heavy with thunder, and
no breath of a breeze stirred as we scrambled up the loose stones. The
girl snorted loudly like a pig, to show us the way we should go, and
took us, in true Montenegrin fashion, straight up from point to point
without heeding the zigzags of the horse-track except where the
steepness of the rock compelled her. The way soon became steeper and
steeper, in fact a mere rock scramble, and it was abominably hot; and
when suddenly our plucky little guide, who had as yet shown no signs of
fatigue, gave out all her breath with a long whistle and pointed to the
nearest patch of shade, we gladly called a halt. The great advantage of
a girl-guide is that she takes you to the right place and you can rest
on the way. Little boys as a general rule are vague and inconsequent;
they pick up crowds of friends _en route_, even in the most desolate and
apparently uninhabited spots, and you don't generally arrive at your
destination. Either they don't know the way, or they conduct you to
another spot, for reasons of their own.

We sat with our girl, and made futile attempts to converse with her. It
was a wild, lonely spot, and save the rough track worn by generations of
pilgrims, as rugged as it was created. Great grey limestone rocks arose
around us, with sturdy young trees sprouting in the crannies; a small
grey snake wound its way over the sunbaked stones, and a tortoise
scrambled about the grass alongside. The valley shimmered in a hot haze
far below, and beyond towered the bare crags of the opposite mountains.
We seemed a very long way from anywhere. Appearances were however
deceptive, as a short scramble brought us to a wall, a gateway, and some
buildings. The girl seemed to think we had now arrived, and we imagined
that we were about to find the guest-house where French, Italian, and
German were spoken. We passed through the gateway on to a long wide
shelf on the mountain side, 1900 feet above the sea. Two or three very
poor cottages stood at the entrance, and at the farther end a tiny
church, crudely painted with a maroon dado of geometrical patterns, and
three small houses all apparently shut up and uninhabited. Not a soul
was to be seen. The girl went into one of the cottages and fetched a
tin pot of cold water, which we all drank greedily, seeing which the
cottage woman came out and supplied us with as much as we required, and
gave us a bench to sit on. She was mildly concerned at our appearance,
for we had sweated all through our shirts, and the girl had left a black
hand-print on my back, but she spoke no word of any other language but
her own, and speedily retired again to her cottage. We sat on the bench
and pondered, feeling very forlorn. If this were Ostrog, as the girl
assured us with vigorous nods, it was not worth the roasting scramble.
We were miserably disappointed, but decided that, as we had come to see
Ostrog, we would see it properly, and that, if there were any
inhabitants, they had not finished the midday siesta. We squeezed into a
patch of shadow and cut up the mutton and black bread with a
pocket-knife; the girl gladly assisted, and ate like a wolf, bolting
large chunks with great appetite. There was quite a cheery lot of brandy
in the flask, and as we carefully packed up the remains of the meal, in
case of a siege, we felt very much better.

Then down the wide white path from the houses came a man, an old, old
man in Western garb. He tottered up, and we hailed him in all our known
languages; French and Italian failed, but he responded to German, and
started at once on his own autobiography. He was an old soldier, he had
fought under Karageorgevich. Now he had retired here to end his days.
"They" had sent him here, and "they" had made him dig his grave. It was
waiting for him on the mountain side. He was very lonely, and had no
one to talk to. As soon as we could stem the torrent of his remarks, we
asked him about quarters for the night. "Had we an introduction from the
Archimandrite at Cetinje?" "No?" Then we had better go back where we had
come from, and we had better start at once, if we meant to get to
Nikshitje that night. We were appalled. He repeated obstinately, "You
must go, and if you take my advice, you will go at once. I can do
nothing for you. They," he admitted mysteriously, "cannot bear me. It is
useless for me to ask them. They can speak nothing but Servian, and you
will not be able to make them understand. They would have to send for
me. Moreover, they are asleep." He pointed to "their" house. We asked
when "they" were likely to wake up again, and he said it would be in
about an hour's time. We doubted his statements, for his air was very
malevolent, so as our little maiden was already coiled up on the ground
fast asleep, we thought it would be just as well to rest until "they"
could be appealed to. The old gentleman "who had no one to talk to" went
off and indulged in an animated conversation with the cottage woman,
while we dozed under a tree. When we aroused ourselves again, not much
rested, we saw the shutters of "their" house were now open, so we
marched up to the front door, knocked, and awaited results tremulously.

Nothing happened; we knocked a second time, and fled down the steps.
Immediately the door flew open, and there was the Archimandrite of
Ostrog himself, in long black gown, crimson sash, and high velvet hat--a
little old man whose thin iron-grey locks flowed on his shoulders. He
came rushing down the steps and shook us by the hands, saying, "Dobar
dan, dobar dan" (good-day), as heartily as though he had been expecting
us and we had come at last. We said, "Dobar dan," also, with enthusiasm,
and then the conversation came to an abrupt conclusion. He showed us
with great ceremony into his sitting-room, and made us sit on the sofa,
while he sat opposite on a chair. We felt acutely uncomfortable--not one
single word of English, French, German, or Italian did the good man
know. We made him understand that we had come from England, which amazed
him, and that we had walked from Bogatich. Then we stuck hopelessly and
helplessly, while he, undaunted, went on in his native language. It
seemed as if our climb to Ostrog had failed, and that flight was all
that was left for us. We got up and said "good-bye" politely. Our
departure he would by no means permit. "Sjedite, sjedite!" he cried,
waving us back to the sofa, and down we sat again, feeling much worse. A
Montenegrin about six feet four inches in height, clad in a huge brown
overcoat, answered his summoning bell, and presently returned with two
glasses of cold water on a brass tray which he offered to us
ceremoniously, towering over us and watching us with lofty toleration,
as a big dog does a little one. He waited patiently until we had drunk
every drop, collected the glasses, and silently retired from the room
backwards.

A horrible silence ensued. We took out our watches and showed them to
each other, in hopes that the Archimandrite would then understand that
our time was really up. But no. A fearful wrestle with the language
followed, and lasted till the Big-Dog Montenegrin reappeared, this time
with two cups of coffee. We obediently began to consume this, and the
Archimandrite, despairing of ever making us understand single-handed,
instructed his servant to fetch the gentleman-who-spoke-German. Through
him we were at once informed that the Archimandrite offered us
hospitality for the night in the house over the way. We were much
amazed, and accepted gratefully. With apologies, he then inquired if we
were married, and hastened to assure us that there was no disgrace
attached to the fact that we were not. We were slightly dismayed when we
were told we now had the Archimandrite's gracious permission to visit
the shrine, and that we were to start at once.

We were put upon the right track and left to our own devices. We had
been up since five, and had only had a scrappy, unhappy doze under the
tree, so we told each other we would go to sleep on the first piece of
ground that was flat enough. Having zigzagged up some way through the
wood, we lay down on a piece of grass, and should have been asleep in a
minute had not two natives appeared, an old man and a handsome lad. They
seemed much interested and concerned. I merely said it was very hot, and
hoped it would be enough for them. Not a bit of it. They started an
argument. I said I didn't speak the language, so they shouted to make it
clearer, and kept pointing up the path. What they meant I did not know.
It was evident, though, that the Handsome Lad did not mean to be trifled
with. He squatted alongside of us and shouted in my ear, while the old
man sat down and showed signs of staying as long as we did. So we
wearily started upwards again, and the Montenegrins, delighted at having
made us understand, went their way much pleased with their own
cleverness. We dared not rest again, and soon reached the upper
monastery of Ostrog, which was so strange and unexpected that the sight
of it did away with all thoughts of fatigue at once.

The path ended on a terrace cut in the rock 2500 feet above the sea. The
small guest-house stood against the mountain side, and a flight of newly
made steps led up through a stone doorway to a series of caverns in the
cliff face, cunningly built in and walled up to form tiny rooms, which
cling to the rock like swallows' nests. The big natural arch of rock
that overshadows them all is grimed with the dead black of smoke, and
two great white crosses painted on the cliff mark the shrine. Straight
above rises the almost perpendicular wall of bare rock, and far below
lies the valley. This is the eagle eyrie that, in 1862, Mirko Petrovich,
the Princes father, and twenty-eight men held for eight days against the
Turkish army of, it is said, ten thousand men. The Turks tried vainly to
shell the tiny stronghold, and even a determined attempt to smoke out
the gallant band failed. Mirko and his men, when they had used all their
ammunition and had rolled down rocks upon the enemy, succeeded in
escaping over the mountains, under cover of night, and reached Rijeka
with the loss of one man only. It is a tale which yet brings the light
of battle to the eyes of the Montenegrin and sends his fingers to
caress the butt of his revolver, and must be heard from Montenegrin lips
to be appreciated. A hundred years before, thirty men held this same
cavern against an army, and wild as these tales sound, the first glance
at the place forces belief. Twice only have the Turks succeeded in
occupying it. Once after Mirko and his men left it, and once in 1877,
when Suleiman Pasha held it, sent the proud message to Constantinople
that he had conquered Montenegro and that it was time to appoint a
Turkish governor--and was soon in hot retreat to Spuzh, losing half his
men on the way. The lower monastery has, on the other hand, been burnt
and rebuilt some ten times.

We sat and stared at the scene of these wild doings. The black,
smoke-grimed cavern told of the fierce struggle, and the great white
cross of the holy man whose body rests within. Sveti Vasili (St. Basil),
a local saint, was, early in the eighteenth century, Metropolitan of the
Herzegovina. In his old age he sought refuge in the mountains from
Turkish persecution, and passed his last days in this remote cavern
cared for and reverenced by the Christian peasants. Shortly after his
death they scooped out the rock and formed and dedicated to him the tiny
chapel where his body still rests. His shrine is held in the profoundest
veneration, and on Trinity Sunday (O.S.) pilgrims flock thither in
thousands, tramping on foot from Bosnia, the Herzegovina, from Albania,
even from the uttermost corners of the Balkan peninsula--a wonderful and
most impressive sight. Not Christians alone but also Mohammedans come to
the shrine of St. Vasili of Ostrog, for "four hundred years of apostasy
have not obliterated among the Bosnian Mussulmans a sort of
superstitious trust in the efficacy of the faith of their fathers," and
they come in hopes of help to the shrine of the man who suffered for it.
And so also do those strange folk, the Mohammedan Albanians. I have
passed the night up there in pilgrimage-time, when the mountain side was
a great camp and the greater part of the pilgrims slept by watch fires
under the stars; but in spite of the mixed nationalities and the
difference of religion, perfect order prevailed, and I saw many acts of
friendliness and consideration between folk from very different parts.

The precious relics have always been removed in times of danger, and
saved from the fate of those of the Servian St. Sava, which were
publicly burned by the Turks. They were, of course, removed during the
last war. The coffin is not a weighty one and the soldiers were strong,
but it became so heavy as they were carrying it down the valley that
they knew not what to do. This they took as a sign from the saint that
they should stop. They awaited the Turks, and triumphantly defeated
them. At the close of the war the relics were restored to the chapel
without any difficulty.

As we sat and looked at the knot of little cliff huts, a figure quite in
keeping with them came through the doorway and slowly approached us. A
magnificent old giant, with a silver beard and long white locks that
flowed upon his shoulders, and showed him to be a priest. A tall black
astrachan cap was on his head, and in spite of the heat he wore a heavy
cloak of dark blue cloth lined with fur, a long blue tunic, and wide
knickerbockers shoved into heavy leather boots at the knee. His high cap
and his big cloak gave him great dignity, and he welcomed us with superb
stateliness. Then, intimating we were to follow him, he conducted us to
his residence. It was a narrow little cave fronted in with planks. Here
we had to sit down while he fumbled at what was apparently a small
cupboard door. He threw it open, and behold--an oil painting of himself,
set in a gorgeous gilt frame that contrasted oddly with its rough
surroundings. It was evidently a presentation portrait, and he sat down
beaming by the side of it, for us to have every opportunity of admiring
the likeness. We spread all our scanty stock of Servian adjectives of
approval about recklessly, and the result was that from some mysterious
corner he produced a black bottle and a small liqueur glass, opaque with
dirt. He held the glass up to the light and looked at it critically;
even he realised that it was unclean; then he put in his thumb, which
was also encrusted with the grime of ages, and he screwed it round and
round. No effect whatever was produced on glass or thumb, for the dirt
in both cases was ingrained. For one awful second he contemplated his
thumb, and I thought he was going to suck it and make a further effort;
but no, he was apparently satisfied, and he filled the glass with a pale
spirit, which we hoped was strong enough to kill the germs. We drank his
health with a show of enthusiasm which seemed to gratify him, for he
patted us both affectionately.

[Illustration: UPPER MONASTERY OSTROG.]

He then showed us up a wooden step ladder to a still tinier cavern, a
dim cabin almost filled up by his bed, whose not over white sheets
betrayed the unpleasing fact that Ostrog was still subject to nocturnal
attacks and much bloodshed. In a glass case on the wall hung his two
medals, one Russian, the other Montenegrin, and, next these, three
signed and sealed documents in Cyrillic characters. He began reading out
place-names in Montenegro, Bosnia, and the Herzegovina, pointing to his
medals, and would gladly have "fought all his battles o'er again," if we
could but have understood him. His great treasure he displayed last, a
large and handsome walking-stick elaborately mounted in gold filigree
set with plates engraved with the said names. His admiration for it was
unbounded, and he handled it respectfully. The rugged old giant, and his
trophies, standing huge in his tiny lair up in the heart of the
mountains, the light from the little window falling on his silver hair
and beard, the glittering filigree, the dim squalid background, his
pride and glee over his treasures, and the royal air with which he
showed them, conjured up a whole life-drama in one swift instant. He
broke the spell himself by putting the stick carefully back into its
case, and, bowing and crossing himself reverently before a little ikon
of Our Lady, led the way out to the chapel.

The entrance was a low, narrow, rough-cut slit; he bowed twice and
crossed himself, saw that we did the same, then stooped down and went
into a small irregular cavern, its rough-hewn walls rudely frescoed with
Byzantine figures. It was very dark; one small window, hacked through
the cliff face, and the narrow doorway alone lighted it. Upon the rough
ikonostasis he pointed out the figure of St. Vasili in bishop's robes.
Then slowly and solemnly he began lighting the candles, striking a light
with flint and steel. It took him a long time, and his age was betrayed
by his tremulous hands and evidently weak sight. When he had finished,
and the cavern was a-twinkle with tiny flames, he approached the shrine.
Removing the covering, he fumbled with the lock, opened it, and then
threw back the lid slowly and respectfully. There lay the embalmed body
of the saint; the slipper-clad feet, the embroidered robes, and the gold
crucifix on the breast, only, showing. Modern science and ancient faith
had combined for perhaps the first and the last time, and the face and
hands of the saint were neatly covered with carbolised cotton-wool. I
was jolted back into the twentieth century with a rough shock. The sense
of smell--perhaps because it is a wild-beast one--brings up its trains
of associations more swiftly than any other, and the life of the old
world and the life of the modern one leapt up in sharp contrast.

To the old man, on the other hand, the scent was the odour of sanctity.
He was filled with awe and reverence, and gazed at the body like one
seeing a wondrous vision for the first time. He bent down slowly and
kissed the slippered feet, the crucifix on the breast, and the
cotton-wool over the face, crossing himself each time. Then, fearful
lest we should omit any part of the ceremony, he seized us each in turn
by the back of the neck, poked our heads into the coffin and held them
down on the right spots. We followed carefully the example he had set,
and completed our pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Vasili. He slowly
closed and locked the coffin, and rearranged the drapery upon it. Then
we debated together as to how an offering was to be made. He, however,
helped us out of the difficulty. He took a small metal bowl from the
window, placed it reverently upon the coffin and counted some very small
coins into it ostentatiously, clink, clink, then turned his back
discreetly and began slowly extinguishing the candles. He allowed just
sufficient time to carry out the approved ritual, and hurried back
eagerly to inspect the bowl. It appeared that we had acted quite
correctly on this occasion also. Coming out through the narrow door into
the open air again, we prepared to go; but the old man stopped us,
pointed upwards, and shouted for someone. The "someone" came, and turned
out to be the Handsome and Haughty Lad who had so cruelly chivied us
down below. He gazed at us with a superior smile, and in obedience to
his orders led us up to a yet higher cavern, where he showed us a spring
of very cold clear water. This is highly prized by the pilgrims to the
shrine, who all bring bottles or gourds to fetch some away in. The Lad,
I think, expected us to do so, and as he had, as he imagined, made us
understand by shouting before, he tried the same system again with great
violence. We hastily remunerated him for his trouble, in hopes of
changing his ideas, and he was sufficiently mollified to shake hands
with us. Whereupon we said good-bye, and left him.

Evening was drawing in when we reached the lower monastery, and service
had just come to an end in the little church. The Archimandrite,
followed by his small congregation, came out as we approached. We were
sleepy, dirty, and hungry, and the prospect of another interview in
Servian before getting food or rest was almost too much for us. To our
dismay, we were again conducted to the Archimandrites sitting-room. Our
relief was great when we heard the words, "Vous parlez français,
mesdemoiselles?" and we were introduced to a tall man in the long black
robes and high cap of the Orthodox ecclesiasts. Singularly beautiful,
his long brown hair flowing on his shoulders, he stood there more like a
magnificent Leonardo da Vinci than a living human being. He spoke gently
and kindly in the oddest broken French, expressing himself in little
rudimentary sentences, begging us to be seated and telling us we were
very welcome; "for we are Christians," he said simply, "and is not
hospitality one of the first of the Christian virtues? I, too, am a
guest here to-night. But you who have come so far to see us, it is the
least we can do for you. From England," he repeated, "alone, all the way
from England to see Montenegro, quelle voyage! véritablement des héros!
In Montenegro you are as safe, vous savez, as in your own homes, but the
journey--all across Europe, that is another thing!" The Archimandrite,
he explained, regretted that our room was so long in being prepared for
us. "It is because we have had a pilgrimage here lately and have had to
accommodate very many people. Therefore there was no place suitably
furnished for you, but they are putting down the carpets, and it will
soon be finished." We were horrified, and begged they would not take so
much trouble; but he would not hear of it. "Oh, it is a great pleasure
to us all to know that in England there is such a good opinion of
Montenegro that two ladies will come all alone into our country and
trust us; that the English should wish to know us!" I felt like an
impostor; it was embarrassing to be given hospitality as the bearer of
good-tidings from Great Britain, but to our innocent-minded entertainer
the idea seemed quite simple and sufficient. He had nothing but good to
say of everyone. For the two small boys who came in with the usual cold
water and coffee, he was filled with admiration--their build, their
muscular limbs, their honest, open faces. "Montenegrin faces," he said,
"ah! but they are beautiful my faithful Montenegrins! It is my life," he
went on, "to help these poor people. I have a church, a little, little
church, away among the rocks. It is there that I live. If I had known,
mesdemoiselles, before, that you were travelling this way, it would have
given me great pleasure to show it to you. But I did not know until
yesterday"; and he added, with a smile at our astonishment, "Oh yes, in
this country, vous savez, one hears of all strangers."

The conversation was broken off by the announcement that our rooms were
ready, and we all went over in a solemn little procession to the house
over the way, the two ecclesiasts, the four servants and ourselves, and
were shown in with many apologies for the poorness of the accommodation.
The dear good people were putting the finishing touches when we entered,
and had arranged two large rooms most comfortably. The Archimandrite
satisfied himself that the water jugs were full, that we had soap, and
that the beds were all right. Then both gentlemen shook hands with us
and wished us good-night, and withdrew. An anxious quarter of an hour
followed, during which we wondered whether we were going to be fed or
not, and regretted that we had bestowed the remains of the bread and
mutton on the girl; for we had been knocking about since five a.m., and
it was now eight p.m. Then there came a most welcome knock at the door,
and we were taken to a large dining-room and a good dinner. It was a
solemn meal. We were waited on by four men, who came in and out
silently, supplied our wants, stood at attention and gazed at us
stolidly. The largest was about six feet four and built to match, but
extremely tame in spite of his weapons and his I size. I don't think he
had the least idea how very small he made us feel.

Early next morning the Archimandrite and our friend were already about,
and came to see us breakfast and to beg that we would write our names in
the visitors' book. We said all that we could in the way of thanks to
our kind entertainer; he murmured a blessing over us, we shook hands,
and were soon wandering down the mountain side.




CHAPTER IV

NIKSHITJE AND DUKLE


Nikshitje is but two hours' drive from the beginning of the Ostrog
track, over a mountain pass and down on to a big plain. Nikshitje, says
the Prince, is to be his new capital, and work is going on there
actively. That it cannot be the capital yet a while seems pretty
certain, for it is a very long way from anywhere, and the foreign
Consuls and Ministers, who at present lament their isolation from the
world and all its joys at Cetinje, would all cry "Jamais, jamais!" in
their best diplomatic French, if called upon to transfer themselves to
the heart of the land. It is certainly very beautifully situated; the
wall of mountains which encircle the big plain is as fine as any in the
country, and it is neither so cold in winter as is Cetinje, nor in
summer so hot and close as the low-lying plain of Podgoritza. But until
there is a road or a railroad that will connect Nikshitje quickly with
the coast, it cannot compete in importance with Cetinje. A line that
would connect Servia with Antivari _via_ Nikshitje, join the two Servian
peoples, and give Servia a port for export, is so much against Austrian
interests, both commercial and political, that Austria will under no
conditions permit it to pass through any territory over which she has
control. There is no speedier way of drawing truthful political
opinions from a mixed company of various nationalities than to design
fancy railroads over tender territories. At present no line exists in
the Balkan peninsula that runs from north-east to south-west. And in the
present disgraceful state of all territory that is under Turkish
"government" no new lines through any of the Sultan's property are
probable. The love of the Montenegrin for Nikshitje is based partly on
sentimental grounds; for the taking of Nikshitje, the biggest Turkish
stronghold on their northern frontier, was one of the chief events of
the last war. Nikshitje fell in 1877, after a four months' siege
conducted by Prince Nikola himself.

That the Prince really intends Nikshitje to be the capital of his
country is evident. We have a forecast of its coming splendour in the
large and really fine church dedicated to St. Vasili, which stands well
placed on a little hill, close by a solid and well-proportioned
building, designed with a stern simplicity well in keeping with the
Montenegrin spirit. Within, it is lofty and spacious, and the bare stone
walls are hung with lists of those who fell in the last war. Russia
found the money, and Montenegro the labour. The mouldings and capitals
are all cut by Montenegrins, and the engineer that built it is a
Montenegrin. Nikshitje has a right to be proud of it. At the foot of the
hill on which the new church stands is a tiny little old church, the
church of the Montenegrins in Turkish times. In those dark days it was
almost completely buried under the earth for safety. Now, with the
addition of a fat new tower, it shows itself in the light of day.

The battered ruins of the great Turkish fort that was once a thorn in
Montenegro's side stand on the long low hill that overlooks the town,
and a stone or two with Turkish inscriptions and a few Turkish guns upon
the grass are all that tell of its former holders. Whatever the future
may have in store for the Montenegrins, let us hope that it will always
be remembered to their credit that they have played an heroic part in
the freeing of Europe from the Ottoman curse. A tumbledown mosque and
some dozen Mohammedan Albanian families are now the only traces left in
Nikshitje of the Asiatic invader.

Beyond the town, the land is well cultivated, and maize, tobacco, rye,
and potatoes flourish, provided there is sufficient rainfall in the
summer. Montenegro at present needs, more than anything, some system of
water storage. A superfluity of rain falls in the wet seasons, and the
melted snow swells the streams to torrents, but this all flows away for
lack of dams or cisterns, and in a spell of hot weather the ground is
parched. In the summer of 1902 no drop of rain fell between the middle
of May and the beginning of September; there was no corn for food, and
no tobacco for export. The people in the mountains, who depend on the
plains for corn, were in terrible straits, were reduced to eating fern,
grass, and beech bark, and were only saved from starvation by buying
foreign maize with the money that had been intended for road-making and
other public works.

While Nikshitje, the capital that is to be, is slowly growing, Dukle
(Dioclea), the capital that was, the birthplace of the line of Nemanja
kings who led Servia to greatness, is slowly mouldering on the plain of
Podgoritza. Long prior to Servian days Dukle was known to the world.
Already in the early years of the Christian era the Romans had conquered
Illyria and organised it as a Roman province, and Dioclea, as it was
then called, has come down to fame as the reputed birthplace of
Diocletian. Some two and a half miles from Podgoritza, where Zeta and
Moracha meet, lies all that is left of the old town. "The parents of
Diocletian," says Gibbon, "had been slaves in the house of Anulinus, a
Roman senator; nor was he himself distinguished by any other name than
that which he derived from a small town in Dalmatia from whence his
mother deduced her origin." Whether Dukle is or is not the "small town
in Dalmatia," I cannot tell. It is, at any rate, known to be among the
first towns taken from the Illyrians by the Romans. It would be
interesting to learn whether it is not to a considerable intermixture of
the aboriginal Illyrian blood that the Montenegrins owe their
superiority to the other Serbs. Some theory is required to account for
it, and as the strength of the Servian empire arose from this particular
corner, and as the Albanians, their next-door neighbours, are believed
to be direct descendants of these same Illyrians, this seems to be the
most workable one. There is a certain indefinable quality best described
as "gameness," and this both Albanians and Montenegrins possess to a
marked degree. It is also the quality of the Herzegovinese, who are
mountain men too, and it was in the mountains, we are told, that the
aboriginal inhabitants lived after the Servian invasion.

Be this as it may, Dukle, by Podgoritza, was a Roman town of some size,
and was afterwards the capital of the early kingdom of Servia. It is a
forlorn, lonesome, "sic transit" spot, inhabited by numbers of tortoises
peering about with their aged, old-world little faces and wrinkled,
leathery necks. Tesseræ work up through the turf, fine cornices and
mouldings lie about among the brambles, and the live green acanthus
flourishes near the stony leaves of big Corinthian capitals. One
slab-paved road remains, all that is left of what appears to have been a
forum, some fifty yards long, with the bases of columns strewn along it
at intervals, and at the farther end of it the remains of a small
building with a round apse. A man lives in a hut hard by and cultivates
a few patches of ground among the ruins, which are so smothered in
vegetation that it is difficult to form any good idea of the plan of the
town. It was explored about ten years ago by some archæologists, but
there is probably a good deal yet to be found, as the peasants still
pick up many coins and odds and ends of bronze work. The remains of a
small basilica church have been dug out, whose broken shafts and bits of
marble chancel rails are strewn on the ground, and tesseræ are plentiful
among the grass. The marble remains of the forum and many of the
cornices and mouldings that are scattered about the ruins are Roman, but
a large proportion of the houses, the foundations of which cover several
acres, are, I believe, of a later date, and may belong to the old
Servian town. A bas-relief of Diana--a mediocre enough specimen of
art--lies among the bushes on a bank, gaining a strange pathos from her
surroundings, as she stares with stony eyes, the only survivor of the
dead capital. All around stand the everlasting hills, keeping majestic
watch over the ruins which have seen the passing of two empires, and the
river tears along through a stony chasm hard by, and the lean rugged
figures of the one or two peasants among the ruins only add to the
loneliness.

But this place was once the centre of such learning and civilisation as
the land possessed, and "the Monk of Dioclea" was one of Servia's
earliest chroniclers. The now almost forgotten town is marked in the map
of Ptolemy (_circa_ 150 A.D.). It is mentioned as a famous town in 1162,
and it was given by King Milutin as the residence for his son in 1317.
After this date little or nothing is heard of it, nor is it known when
finally it ceased to be inhabited and crumbled into decay.




CHAPTER V

OUR LADY AMONG THE ROCKS


     "To drawe folk to Heaven by fairnesse
     By good ensample, this was his busynesse.
     For Christe's lawe and his apostles twelve
     He taught, but first he followed it himself."


A rough jolt over the wide bare plain; a heavy rainstorm blurring the
bleak mountains of the Turkish frontier; no living being in sight save
an Albanian woman with her few sheep cowering under the lee of a bush;
cut off from the rest of the world by the enshrouding mist, we drove
over one of the desolate places of the earth in quest of the little
church among the rocks. Of a sudden the sun burst through, hot and
brilliant; the plain quivered, golden and glittering, through the rising
steam; the clouds parted and rolled back, and revealed the mountains all
around us, fiercely, vividly blue, and as lonely as the day they were
created.

Two small rocky hills rose up out of the plain, and our driver pulled up
suddenly. "You must go on foot," he said; "it is not far," and he
pointed to a stony track round the hillside. Doubtfully we started among
the rocks and wild pomegranates, till turning a corner we struck a
well-marked footpath, and saw the tall black-robed figure of our friend
awaiting us at the top of the ascent. "I saw a carriage across the
plain," he said, as he came forward, "and I knew it must be you." He
welcomed us cordially, and turned towards his little domain. A bare
stone wall built up against the hillside with a big wooden cross at the
top, and a tiny cottage with a patch of cultivated ground close by, were
all that could be seen of it. All around were wild and untouched rock
and bush. "My little church," he said, as he led the way to the
entrance, "was not built by hands. It was made by God. His church among
the rocks." He crossed himself, and we entered.

He lit a taper and held it aloft. We were in a long narrow cavern,
water-worn, with traces of stalactite deposit on the rough walls. At the
farther end the altar candles burned brightly, lighting up the picture
of Our Lady over it, and making the rest of the cave darker by contrast.
"See," he said, "it is veritably a church! Is it not in the form of a
cross?" and he showed us how a smaller cave opened into it on either
side, making a rude nave and transept. The walls at the chancel end were
painted with saints and angels, quaint and stiff, their archaic
Byzantine forms in perfect keeping with the rough surroundings, and
therefore true decoration. "When I have celebrated the Messe here," he
continued, "when I have prayed all alone in the silence, then holy
things come to me, pictures, vous savez, and I paint them here upon the
wall." He held up his taper and threw light upon a great head of Christ.
"This is the last I have made. There is no paint left," he added simply.
"Nor do I know really which is the proper way to use it. I cannot, I
think, take long to learn. My poor attempts, they give pleasure to my
people, and they understand."

He led the way into the tiny transept on the left. "Here, you see, I
have made for them the Holy Sepulchre"; and we saw by the light of the
little taper a bier covered with a black and gold cloth, and a painting
of the dead Christ. "They come to me, the poor wayfarers, for
consolation, so weary, so suffering. I tell them of Him. I bring them in
here and I show them the wounds on His feet. Then they understand. So I
can teach them. To help the afflicted, that is religion. Some days I
write, songs of religion, of the visions that I see; for the light that
is given to us we must employ to show the path toothers." He looked
inspired as he stood there, a majestic black-robed figure, the taper,
like a guiding star, in his hands, the light of the altar candles
falling on his finely cut spiritual features, the solitary sentinel of
this Christian outpost. "The church of God, built by His hands in the
wilderness; to care for it is all my life," he said humbly. He
extinguished the lights, and we stepped out into the sunshine. By the
side of the church he pointed out a second cavern in which rises a clear
spring of water, the same, maybe, which carved the nave and transepts.
It makes the hermitage possible in this otherwise waterless spot, and
flows off underground to hew its way silently through the rock.

We turned to say good-bye to him. "But no!" he cried, "you have come so
far to see me, I beg you will rest for a while in my house. When shall I
again see visitors from England?" He led the way into his cottage;
visitors, not only from England but from the outside world at all, are
scarce with him. I think we called to his mind a whole host of
recollections; for he started at once, and the time flew as he unfolded
the story of his life in little sentences, earnestly and quickly, from
time to time drawing his black gown across his breast with a swift
dramatic action that gave point to his speech. He had been educated in a
Russian university, and thence had gone to Paris. He regretted not
having visited London. "It seemed so far," he said; "now it seems that I
was so near!" But all the time the mountains called to him. "I cannot
live away from the mountains and my poor Montenegrins. In the great
towns, it was here that I wished to be. I intended to come here and to
make a large monastery. But my family did not wish me to lead the
religious life. My grandfather was a rich man--not what in England you
would call rich, but rich in Montenegro. When I became religious, he
gave me none of the money, not any. I have not been able to carry out my
plan. It was God's will. My work is here. It is to help my poor
Montenegrins to keep their faith. Without faith what is a nation? Ah! I
have travelled and I have seen sad things. But in your country,
mademoiselle, they have faith. The Church of England and our Church,
they have differences, that is true, but they are slight. We are all
Christians; there are so many points upon which we can agree. We must
not let those others separate us. Your Church has shown great friendship
to ours. Your Archbishop has sent us a letter not long ago. It has given
great pleasure. Your Church is a Church; you have deacons, bishops; but
in Switzerland--the Protestants--that I cannot understand. It is sad.

"Savez-vous," he went on, "I know what a war is. I was a soldier in our
last war. We are all soldiers here, you see." "Where were you?" I asked.
"It was in the valley of the Zeta--the Turks came down." He stared
wide-eyed at a vision of horror and broke off. "It is too horrible to
speak of--these scenes; it is all horrible in war. I have seen it. Pray
God that we shall have peace. But a day of trial is coming to my poor
Montenegrins. Ah, mademoiselle, you understand them. They are so
uncivilised and so rough, but they are so good, so simple. You, who
travel among them, know how good they are. You will tell them in
England--will you not?--of my poor people. Civilisation brings knowledge
and many, many wonders, but it does not bring happiness. These poor good
people, they have no idea what life is out in the great world, and it is
coming to them. And I know what it means, this civilisation. I have
lived in Paris--in Paris, savez-vous," he said vehemently. "All I can do
is to help them to keep their faith. Till now they have lived with God
and the mountains. Here they come to me, the poor, the afflicted, they
come to me for help. Some nights I give shelter to as many as fifteen
wayfarers. Then they tell me their troubles, and I pray with them. Some
of them," he admitted regretfully, "have not lived quite rightly. In the
morning I celebrate the Messe in my little chapel, and then they go on
their way comforted. On Sundays many people come, and I speak to them,
here before the chapel, the words that are given to me. It is very
little that one needs in this life. We have so short a time here."

A boy, his pupil and his only companion in his hermitage, came in with
coffee, and the giving and the accepting of this simple refreshment
seemed to give our host great pleasure. He questioned us about our
relatives, and told us of his own. "Once," he remarked quite casually,
"I was married," but he did not pursue the subject. He told us of the
days when there were only twenty houses in Cetinje--when the chiefs of
the land used to meet in council with the Prince, all sitting on the
ground in a bare shed where a sheep was roasting for their dinner; how
the Prince used to sit under a tree and try prisoners; how there were no
roads, no towns, only a few collections of thatched huts. All this only
twenty years ago! The poetic, imaginative nature of the Montenegrin. "He
lives with the things he imagines. Even now, you see how he carries his
gun, his revolver, his knife! He likes to think that he is guarding his
house and his land. The weapons are a symbol to him. No Montenegrin
likes to go unarmed. In the evening, when he returns to his little
cottage, his wife meets him. She takes his gun and puts it in the
corner. His weapons are laid aside. It is all peace; he is returned to
his wife and children. That is old life. Now it is even said that a
railway will be made. But who knows? Where can there be money for such
an undertaking?" Truly railway companies and all such things seemed
impossibly remote as we sat in this lonely hermitage listening to the
hopes and fears of the ascetic visionary. When we arose to say good-bye,
he stood over us in the doorway and gave us his blessing.

We stepped out into the world again, and looked over the rough moorland
plain. The Turkish frontier fort shone white upon the mountain side
some three miles away, and there was no other sign of life as we stared
over the lonely land. He read our thoughts at once. "It is a wild spot,
yes, and a rough journey that you have made to see me. Few strangers
have yet been here. One day three of your countrymen came, but you are
the first Englishwomen. It is lonely, and even a little dangerous. You
must not try to cross the plain when it is dark, for there are bad men
who rob and kill. Yonder, that is Albania. It is so easy for them to
come across. Even last night there were armed men; they came up towards
my little house and they threatened me with their guns." "And what did
you do?" we asked eagerly. "I stood here," he said simply, "and I cried
to them, 'The Lord God has said, Thou shalt not kill.' Then they went
away," he added, after a pause, in a matter-of-fact manner.

What a scene! The fearless figure alone under the night sky, and the
gang of human beasts shrinking awestruck down the rocks as they heard
out of the darkness "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." We said
farewell. He stood at the top of the path for a few minutes watching our
descent, and as we turned the corner we saw his tall dark figure turning
towards the little chapel "which is his life."




CHAPTER VI

ANTIVARI


Antivari is not easily reached from Cetinje. You can retreat to Cattaro
and then take the weekly steamer. If, however, you have come to
Montenegro to see Montenegro, it is better to choose the cross-country
route. I have been there more than once, but the first journey thither
will suffice. We were raw to the country and knew nothing of the
language, so everyone tried to persuade us not to go, or at any rate to
take an interpreter. But unless a route is so complicated that a guide
is absolutely necessary, I infinitely prefer worrying it out alone; and
as for languages, everyone knows that one wants food, drink, and sleep.
The only precautions we took were to ascertain that there was an "inn
with three beds" at Prstan, the port for Antivari, and to get the hotel
to telegraph for a couple of horses to meet us at Virbazar, and we
started from Rijeka in the early morning, by steamer. Arrived off
Virbazar, we clambered down into a large canoe, along with sixteen
Montenegrins, to whom we were a deeply interesting sight, and proceeded
very slowly up the river, for the boat was heavily laden with freight
and passengers. Neither Montenegrins nor Albanians have much idea of
paddling their own canoes. They merely stab and prod the water at
irregular intervals with wooden shovels, expending a good deal of energy
with very little result; but they wobble along somehow. We speculated
anxiously as to what we should do if the horses had not turned up, and
were much relieved to see a respectable pair of steeds on the bank.
Virbazar is a tiny village on an island on the river, and has no
particular features save its bridge. This is a singular structure. It is
built of stone, but is so narrow that it is only passable by foot
passengers single file. Even if wide enough, though, vehicles would find
a difficulty in tackling it, for it changes its style of architecture
abruptly in the middle, and, having begun well and loftily, drops
suddenly and proceeds to the farther bank with smaller arches and a
narrower path at a much lower level. Whether rival architects started
from opposite sides, or whether one-half is a "restoration" of the
other, and if so which, I do not know. I think, however, it must have
been evolved by Turks.

We picked our way across it, attended of course by a fair proportion of
the population, and made our way towards the horses. The population
objected strongly to our claiming them, but as we persisted, someone had
the sense to go and fetch the horse-boy. He, a swarthy Albanian--a wiry,
cheerful thing about twenty--produced from the recesses of his garments
our telegram. This was read aloud, everyone was satisfied, our
mysterious appearance was explained, and the "two good horses" were led
up on to the high road. In Montenegro one must always ride astride. Of
course it would be possible to take a side-saddle, but I do not think
it would be any advantage. The horses are not accustomed to it, and the
mountain tracks are very bad. It is much easier to balance on a
scrambling horse when astride; it is possible to dismount in a hurry on
either side, and it is far less tiring for a very long day's ride, both
to horse and rider.

There is a very good carriage road to Antivari, but no carriages to go
on it. The only diligence runs once a week; sometimes it fits the boat,
and sometimes it doesn't. There is a bridle path which is a short cut,
but is so rough that a good deal of it must be done on foot. The road
winds up the Crmnitza valley--green, rich, and fertile, a land of vines,
maize, and tobacco. Higher up, the mountain sides are well wooded. At
the top of the pass the scenery is superb. There is always a strange
fascination about the top of a pass. When once it is reached there seems
to be no limit set to our wanderings; we enter a new land, and plunge
into the beyond--the beyond that is ever a-calling. The top of the
Crmnitza valley is crowned by the ruins of a Turkish fort; twenty-five
years ago this was Turkish territory, and our horse-boy was a son of the
conquered soil. He was a Mohammedan Albanian, and seemed to think he had
got a most amusing job. He made the most violent efforts to talk to us,
roared with laughter when we did not understand, and poured out torrents
of conversation when we did. We plunged down the old bridle track, and
scrambled over rocks and bushes along the mountain side. At one point he
stopped us and treated us to an amusingly realistic pantomime of cutting
off heads and throwing bodies down the rocks. It was a pity we had not
command of his language, for this pathless, rugged hillside, with the
battered remains of another Turkish fortress on the shoulder below us,
was a fine background for a gory tale. Far away below us, beyond the
silver-grey olives on the slopes and the fertile plain, gleamed the blue
Adriatic; a few cottages clustered on the edge of the bay, and the road
led straight to them. "Prstan!" said the boy, and we thought we were
nearly there; but there were weary zigzags before we reined up our tired
beasts in the waning light by the edge of the sea.

A gipsy camp, a post-office, half a dozen dilapidated cottages, a
harbour about the size of a pocket-handkerchief, the Prince's country
house, and a lonely beach where the waves splashed--this was Prstan, and
the farthest and smallest of the cottages was the "inn with the three
beds." The beds are all in the same room, which is also the dining-room,
and there is nothing of the stiff conventionality about the
establishment that one finds in a hotel starred by Bædeker, but all is
clean and the food is excellent, and Maria Bulatovich, the kindly
hostess, speaks Italian.

We started betimes next morning to see Antivari. The local coffee
stall--a packing-case set up on end with an Albanian coiled up inside
it--was doing a roaring trade, and the gipsy camp hard by was getting up
and shaking itself. Antivari lies some three miles inland. You don't see
it till you are nearly arrived, as it is stowed away between two great
mountain spurs. The road twists and twines through magnificent olive
gardens, where huge hoary giants sprawl in a thousand grotesque shapes;
you turn a corner, suddenly Antivari appears, and the first sight of it
is very startling. On a rocky eminence in the midst of the hollow stands
gaunt and grim the dismantled Turkish town--battlements, walls,
roofless houses and shattered churches--just as it was left after the
war, a terrible relic, the grey bones of a city mouldering under the sun
and sky, like a gibbeted felon.

We climbed up the steep street of the modern bazaar, with its cranky
little wooden shops and gay Albanian inhabitants, to the big gateway of
the old town. A sentinel is always on guard here, but in response to the
magic word "Engleske" he smilingly passed us in. It is a dead, creepy,
ghostly city, strangled and throttled with a tangle of vines and
brambles which rend the walls and wreathe door and arch. A forest of fig
trees and cherry plums run riot in room and court, and find root-hole on
the topmost battlements. Grass grows knee-high in streets that, even
now, are thickly strewn with rusty fragments of shells; beautiful pieces
of mouldings and a window or two tell of the old town of the Venetians,
and the remains of fresco still fade and crumble on the church walls.
Man has departed, and nature has stepped in, and is surely and silently
finishing the work of destruction. We wandered for an hour in this
ghostly spot, looking over the battlements, a sheer drop into the valley
below, wrestling with the vegetation, and haunted by a feeling that in
spite of the blue sky and sunshine none of it was real.

[Illustration: RUINS OF ANTIVARI.]

Antivari fell in January 1878, after a long siege. The defenders made a
gallant resistance, and, when forced to surrender, laid a train to
the powder magazine. Prince Nikola had a very narrow escape from the
ensuing explosion, and the already shattered city was ruined beyond the
possibility of repair.

Antivari is marked on the map, but one's first impression of it is that
there is now no such place, so scattered are the houses and so scanty
the population. Yet it speaks three languages--Turkish, Servian, and
Albanian; is divided by three religions--Mohammedan, Orthodox, and Roman
Catholic; and has a Roman Catholic Archbishop all to itself. The
bishopric is a very old one, established originally at Dioclea, but
transferred to Antivari, some say as early as the tenth century.
Antivari was Venetian till 1479, and the flock must then have been a
large one; now it is reduced to some six hundred souls, all Albanian. At
least, so they call themselves. But just as every Mohammedan tells you
he is a "Turk," and every one of the Orthodox that he is a Montenegrin,
so does every Roman Catholic say that he is an Albanian; and three men
who in feature, complexion, and build are as alike as three individuals
can well be, will all swear, and really believe, that they all belong to
different races. It is not improbable that they are a blend of all
three. Most of the inhabitants are Mohammedan. The district is but
thinly populated, and is said to be fever-stricken.

Down below on the plain, among the scattered houses, are the ruins of
the konak of the former Turkish Pasha, Selim Beg, whose tyranny is still
fresh in the minds of the people. The Christians especially were his
victims, and many are the tales of the tortures he inflicted. To one
unfortunate man he gave a thousand blows upon the soles of the feet
When Antivari fell, Selim Beg, who was as cowardly as he was cruel, fled
in terror to hide himself from the victorious Montenegrins. Fate so
ordained that he rushed for shelter to the house of this same tortured
Christian. Terror--stricken, Selim recognised his former victim, and
abjectly begged for mercy, and the man to whom he had shown none threw
himself on his knees before the crucifix and in an ecstasy poured forth
his thanks to the Lord, who had thus permitted him to witness the
humiliation of his enemy. "He hath thrown down the mighty from their
seats, and exalted them of low degree." He spared the life of his
torturer, and Selim Beg, after making a servile attempt to gain the
friendship of Prince Nikola, retired to Corfu, where, according to my
informant, he died "like the beast that he was." This curiously dramatic
tale, the truth of which is, I believe, undisputed, throws a strong
light upon the Albanian and the sanctity of the "guest"--the man who
begs shelter.

We returned to Prstan and Maria's hospitable roof, and all further
explorations in the afternoon were put a stop to by the weather. In
rushed Maria and shut and barred the door, for the wind was hurling the
rain in sheets against the cottage, and we sat in semi-darkness, lit up
now and then by a blaze of lightning. Suddenly there came a loud
knocking at the door. I grappled with the iron bar, dragged it back with
difficulty, and admitted a tall old Montenegrin, whose wet coat,
dripping pony, and travelling-bag showed he had come to stay. His
amazement at seeing us was quite funny. I thought of the third bed and
my heart sank. But Maria transferred herself to the kitchen, and gave up
her room to the new-comer. It was evident from her excitement that she
considered him to be of great importance. He was, in fact, a relative of
the Prince.

We had a gay dinner that night. The little Austrian Vice-Consul, who was
a Hungarian, turned up, and the old Montenegrin was resplendent in his
best clothes, for he was going to the Palace that evening. He was a
tall, thin, handsome man, with a most kindly face and exquisite manners,
and was painfully anxious that we should have the best of everything the
resources of the place could supply. He told us (the Hungarian
translating) that he had met two English ladies once before, in 1865! It
was a very long journey, he wondered how we had dared to come. When once
in Montenegro everyone was safe--but travelling through all the other
countries! The English, he had been told, wanted to see and know
everything; they travelled everywhere. It must be a very expensive
habit! It had perhaps cost us one hundred florins (about £8) to come
this distance. We admitted that it had, and he seemed overcome by the
amount. "And it takes not only money but _time_" said my companion. He
laughed merrily. "Time! What is time? Time is nothing. You live, and
then you die." The idea of reckoning "time" tickled him vastly. "Time,"
said the Hungarian, to show his superior knowledge, "is thought very
much of by the English. I have been told that they have a proverb which
says 'Time is money.'" We corroborated this report--to the astonishment
of both men, for even the Hungarian thought this was going rather far.
The Montenegrin thought it one of the wildest statements he had ever met
with, and shook his puzzled head, but his kindly eyes twinkled with fun.

I think I see him now as he wished us good-night--a resplendent figure
in his green embroidered coat, his crimson and gold waistcoat, his dark
blue knickerbockers, white gaiters and new sandals, bowing himself
backwards through the little door with simple dignity, his tall lean
form slightly bent by age--a splendid type of the Montenegrin of the old
regime. I had a strange feeling of having known him years ago. As he
passed from the room I recognised, with a sudden illuminating flash,
Chaucer's

     "A knyghte there was and that a worthy man
     That from the time that he first began
     To riden out, he loved chivalrie,
     Truth and honoure, freedom and courtesie.
     Full worthie was he in his lordes warre....
     He was a very perfect gentle knyghte," etc.

And had he not too "fought often for his faith" against "a hethen in
Turkeye"? The truth of the mediæval picture charmed me, and the knight
armed with a white cotton umbrella went off in a shandrydan to pay his
respects at the Palace on the beach.

The weather never cleared, so we saw no more of Antivari that time.
Blinding torrential rain and fierce blasts of wind crashed on the
cottage walls. The fat frogs in the pond sat up, and their hoarse
shouts, "brek-kek-kek-kek-koax-koax," resounded in every lull of the
storm. We waited for the only diligence, and returned by it to Virbazar,
and had as travelling companion our old friend of the inn, who, to our
distress, would persist in occupying the small seat back to the horses,
and was miserably uncomfortable in consequence. At last neither of us
dared stir, as the slightest movement on our part brought an apology for
the inconvenience he was sure he was causing us. To make up for this, he
tried to tell us all about the road as we went along, though speaking
Italian was a great labour to him. He had taken part in the siege of
Antivari. "Ah!" he said, "that was terrible. All those weeks. And in the
winter. They are brave men, the Turks." He pointed down the valley
where, through rifts in the mist, we could see the stream. "The Austrian
frontier," he said sadly. "Austrian. And we gave our blood for that
land. It was ours. And they took it from us. They gave it to Austria. I
do not understand it." I do not think that the affairs of the outer
world entered into his head at all. Montenegro and abstract justice were
all he wanted. Russia was a distant Providence who would assist the
right to prevail. But the wheels within wheels and the shuffling of
international politics were a mystery to his primitive, honest soul.

There were many things that puzzled him. We passed a village. "This is
all Mohammedan," he said. "There is a mosque below. We have built them a
school. It is a good school, but they will not go to it. They say they
do not care for education! They are strange people, these Albanians!" He
sighed and shook his head. He looked on the village school as the first
step on the path of sweetness and light. I had a vision of the Board
School child, the "penny dreadful," and the novelette with a paper
pattern of the last new sleeve included. I think he was double my age,
but he made me feel very old. We passed a school; the sun had come out
at last, and the playground was full of sturdy young Montenegrins. He
smiled at them with pleasure, and I was glad to think that he cannot
survive long enough to have his dream of enlightened Montenegro
shattered. He said good-bye to us not long after, and we saw the last of
him as he entered his modest little house on the mountain side.

The remainder of the drive did not take long. We were soon in Virbazar,
and once again a cause of local excitement. By the help of a man who
spoke a little German, we were made to understand that we could go for
nothing in the common boat to the steamer, but that for a florin we
could have a very good one all to ourselves. It would have been too
unkind to disappoint them, and we were such rare birds! We delighted
every one by accepting the offer of a private boat.

When the boat was ready, we did not feel quite so pleased. It was a
canoe with two bent-wood chairs arranged in it as a sort of throne at
one end, and looked remarkably topheavy. The crew, two tall youths and a
boy, were in great glee at having secured such a job, and conducted us
to our seats with much ceremony before a large crowd. Off we pushed, and
made a lordly, if somewhat wobbly progress down stream. All went well
till we were suddenly aroused by the steamers hooter. Then our crew were
seized with a wild and irresistible desire to make a rapid, showy finish
to the voyage. "Really," said my friend, "it requires all my faith in
Montenegrins to feel safe." The words were scarcely out of her mouth
when round swung the canoe in response to a violent stroke of the
paddle, and out she shot, chair and all, as if from a catapult. I hadn't
even time to grab at her. A vision of grey skirts, a splash, and she was
gone! "Well, never mind; she can swim," thought I, as the waters closed
over her. The next instant I had to hurl myself almost over the other
side, to right the boat, as the two men, completely scared, both leaned
out at once, and as nearly as possible capsized the whole thing. The boy
came to my side, the men perceived that the foreign lady was not going
to drown, and the panic passed over. Their idea of helping her in was
remarkable--they grasped large handfuls and tugged. I believe they
pulled her in by one leg. The misery and dismay on their faces when she
at last stood up in the boat dripping and streaming were so unutterably
funny that we both roared with laughter. They were greatly relieved at
this, but most anxious to make her look respectable before going on
board the steamer, and wrung her out with such vigour and muscle that I
thought she would come to pieces. Then having picked up the chair and
hat, they paddled in a subdued and gingerly manner to the steamboat,
were shy about accepting the florin, and thanked for it repeatedly. The
captain, when he learned our plight, laughed as though he would never
stop, and put the one cabin and a bucket at our disposal. We improvised
a costume out of two nightgowns, a waterproof, and a brush-and-comb bag,
poured olive oil into her watch and brandy into her, and although it
rained all the rest of the way back to Cetinje no evil results ensued to
either of them. But the episode has become a legend of the lake, and
two years after I heard an Albanian retailing it to an interested
audience. The point of the story was the extreme cold-bloodedness of the
English, as shown by the heartless way I laughed at my friend's
misfortune!




CHAPTER VII

OF THE NORTH ALBANIAN


          "The wild ass, whose house I have made the
          wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings. He
          scorneth the multitude of the city, neither
          regardeth he the crying of the driver."


The difficulty of the "Eastern Question," as it is called, lies in the
fact that it is not "a" question at all but a mass of questions, the
answering of any one of which makes all the others harder of solution.
Of all these, the Albanian question is the hardest to solve, and has not
as yet received the attention that it calls for and will shortly compel.
Few people in the West--none, I might almost say, who have not been to
Albania--can realise that to-day in Europe there lives a whole race, a
primeval lot of raw human beings, in a land that is not only almost
entirely without carriageable roads, but in which in many cases the only
tracks are even too bad for riding, the conditions of life are those of
prehistoric barbarism, and the mass of the people have barely even
attained a mediæval stage of civilisation.

When the Albanian arrived in Europe none knows, and authorities differ
as to his possible relationships with other people, but there is no I
manner of doubt that he is the direct descendant of the wild tribes that
were in the Balkan peninsula before the Greeks and before the Romans,
and have been variously described as Thracians, Macedonians, and
Illyrians, according to the part they inhabited. They are described as
having been fierce fighters and very wild, and they furnished Rome with
some of her best soldiers. Nor were they lacking in brain power; men of
barbarian Balkan blood arose who ruled their conquerors and provided the
Roman empire with a list of emperors that includes Diocletian and
Constantine the Great.

Empires have risen and empires have passed away, and the Albanian has
remained the same wild thing. The might of Rome waned; the Servian, the
Venetian, and the Ottoman have followed in turn. "Annexed" but never
subdued, the Albanian merely retired to the fastnesses of the mountains
and followed the devices of his own heart, regardless of his so-called
ruler. The Albanian of to-day is nominally under Turkish rule, but
nominally only.

The Albanian's position with regard to Turkey is a very peculiar one.
The Turk, so his friends tell us, has many admirable qualities, but even
those who love him best do not pretend that he has ever attempted to
civilise, cultivate, or in any way improve the condition of, his subject
races. Under the Turk all development is arrested, and nothing ripens.
The Albanian, for the most part, remains at the point where he had
arrived when the Turk found him, and except that he has adopted the
revolver and breechloading rifle, he has not advanced an inch. He is the
survival of a past that is dead and forgotten in West Europe.

His language has troubled philologists considerably. It is a soft, not
unpleasant-sounding tongue, full of double "shshshes" and queer
consonant sounds; such queer ones that it fits no known alphabet, and he
has never found out how to write it down. Quite recently several
attempts have been made, mostly by foreigners, to tame this wild
language to an alphabet, and three or four different systems have been
evolved, all more or less unsatisfactory, as no alphabet unaided can
cope with its peculiar sounds. One in which Roman letters are used and
plentifully strewn with accents, both above and below, is the most
favoured in North Albania, but the Turk does not allow Albanian as a
school language, the mass of the people speak nothing else, and Albania
remains a land without a literature, without a history, without even a
daily paper. To possess and use an unwritten language in Europe in the
twentieth century is no mean feat It carries one back to remote
prehistoric times, confronts one with blank unwritten days, and suggests
forcibly that the Albanian is probably possessed of raw primeval and
perhaps better-left-unwritten ideas. Our search for the live antique
cannot take us much further. But the Albanians, in spite of their
antiquity, are incredibly young as a people, and blankly ignorant of the
outer world. They are still in the earliest stage of a nation's life
history, and have not yet advanced beyond the tribal form of life.

At an early date--some say as early as the fourth century, but this
seems doubtful--the Albanians became Christian. I have failed to
discover what man or men succeeded in thus powerfully influencing this
very conservative people. It is a remarkable fact that, though all the
other Christians of the Balkans early declared for the Eastern Church
and all the Pope's efforts to reclaim them failed, the Christian
Albanians of the North have remained faithfully Roman Catholic.

The mountains of Albania, like those of Montenegro, are a series of
natural fastnesses, among which a small army of attack is massacred and
a large one starves. Moreover, a large part of the land was not worth
the expense of taking. The tribes were exceedingly ferocious, and would
have taken a great deal of conquering, but as they had no leader under
whom they could combine and make organised attacks, they were not the
danger to the Turks that the Montenegrins were. Moreover, the fact that
they belonged to the Western and not to the Eastern Church prevented
them from making common cause with the other Christian peoples. Once and
once only were they on the point of obtaining recognised national
existence, and this was under the leadership of the great Skender Beg.
But Skender Beg died in 1467, and as yet no one has arisen capable of
welding the semi-independent tribes into a solid whole. The Turks
purchase peace from them by leaving them to do as they please among
their mountains. The Albanians purchase privileges from the Turks by
fighting for them and supplying the Turkish army, as they did formerly
the Roman, with some of its best soldiers. And Albania to-day remains
separated into a number of distinct tribes, which are governed by their
own chieftains according to unwritten laws which have been handed down
orally from a very remote past. The Turkish "Government" has
practically no say in the matter. At any rate, what it says it has not
the power to enforce.

The Albanian is ignorant and untrained, but he is no fool. His one
ruling idea has been to go on being Albanian in the manner of his
fathers. He perceived quickly all the points that would enable him to do
so, and he seized upon them. The mountain people in the more
inaccessible parts retained their Christianity. The Albanians who
swooped upon the plains vacated by the Serbs found it greatly to their
advantage to profess Mohammedanism, and both Mohammedan and Roman
Catholic were ready to make common cause against the Christians of the
Eastern Church. So indispensable have the Albanians made themselves to
the Turkish Government that it has been forced to concede to them every
license, lest it should lose their support. Far from making any attempt
at civilising them, it has never scrupled to make use of their savagery
in warfare, and in warfare the Albanian can be exceedingly savage. Never
from the beginning of time has he been taught anything that the Western
world thinks necessary; never in the majority of cases has the most
rudimentary education come his way. His Mohammedanism and his
Christianity he practises in an original and Albanian manner, and in his
heart he is influenced mainly by traditional beliefs and superstitions
which are probably far older than either. He purchased his freedom by
making himself useful to the Turk, and the Turk has left him in the
lowest depths of barbarism. The only schools that exist in the land are
those of the Italian and Austrian Frati, and such civilisation as the
Albanian possesses he owes to the labours of these devoted men. As for
travelling and means of communication, it seems probable that the roads
to-day are far inferior to what they were in the time of the Romans. And
this is the land of the only one of her subject races with which Turkey
has been "friends." The deplorable state of Albania is an even stronger
indictment against Turkish "government" than that of Macedonia. To-day
the country is practically in a state of anarchy. Little or nothing is
done in the way of cultivation; blood-feuds rage, and men are shot for
quarrels that are family inheritances and originated for long-forgotten
reasons in the dark ages.

Human life is cheap, very cheap. An ordinary Englishman has more
scruples about killing a cat than an Albanian has about shooting a man.
Indeed, the Albanian has many of the physical attributes of a beast of
prey. A lean, wiry thing, all tough sinew and as supple as a panther, he
moves with a long, easy stride, quite silently, for his feet are shod
with pliant leathern sandals with which he grips the rock as he climbs.
He is heavily armed, and as he goes his keen eyes watch ceaselessly for
the foe he is always expecting to meet. There is nothing more
characteristic of the up-country tribesman than those ever-searching
eyes. I have met him many a time in the Montenegrin markets, in the
weekly bazaar in his capital, and on the prowl with his rifle far in the
country. Up hill or down hill, over paths that are more like dry torrent
beds, it is all the same to him; he keeps an even, swift pace, and he
watches all the time. Dressed as he is, in tightly-fitting striped
leg-gear and in a short black cape, his appearance is extraordinarily
mediæval, and he seems to have stepped straight out of a Florentine
fresco. His sash is full of silver-mounted weapons, he twists his
tawny-moustache, and he admires himself exceedingly. He walks with a
long rolling stride, planting his feet quite flat like a camel or an
elephant--a gait which gives him an oddly animal appearance. His boldly
striped garments, with their lines and zigzags of black embroidery,
recall the markings of the tiger, the zebra, and sundry venomous snakes
and insects. He seems to obey the laws that govern the markings of
ferocious beasts; his swift, silent footsteps enhance the resemblance,
and his colouring is protective; he disappears completely into a rocky
background. The black patterns vary according to the tribe he hails
from. If you ask his name, he generally gives you his tribal one as
well, and points over the mountains towards his district. He is
So-and-So, for instance, of the Hotti or the Shoshi. Most men, whether
Christian or Mohammedan, have their heads shaven; sometimes on the
temples only, the rest of the hair standing out in a great bush;
sometimes the entire head, with the exception of one long lock that
dangles down the back. There are two distinct types of Albanians--a dark
type with black hair, brown eyes, and clean-cut features, and a very
fair type, grey or blue-eyed, taller and more powerfully built. To this
class belong almost all the shaven-headed men with the dangling locks, a
row of whom, squatting on their heels, look remarkably like a lot of
half-moulted vultures. According to popular belief, the long lock is to
serve as a handle to carry home the head when severed. A head, it seems,
can be carried only by the ear, or by inserting a finger in the mouth,
and this latter practice the owner of the head, when alive, objects to!

But in spite of his wild-beast appearance and his many obvious faults,
the Albanian is by no means all bad. I will almost say that he possesses
the instincts of a gentleman. At any rate, he "plays fair," according to
his own very peculiar creed. He boasts that he has never betrayed a
friend nor spared a foe. It is true that "not sparing" includes torture
and various and most horrible atrocities, but it is a great mistake in
considering any of the Balkan peoples to make too much capital out of
"atrocities." A century ago every race, including our own, considered
the infliction of hideous suffering the legitimate way of punishing
comparatively small crimes. At the risk of being laughed at, I will say
that I do not believe the Albanian is by nature cruel. The life of the
poor up-country peasant is hard and rough beyond what anyone who has
only lived in a civilised country can realise, and the life of such a
man's beasts is of necessity a hard one also. But though I have met him
with his flocks on the hillsides and have watched him carefully in
street and market, I have never seen the Albanian torturing an animal
for the fun of the thing, as does the Neapolitan, the Provençal, and the
Spaniard. The revolting "jokes" with lame and helpless animals which can
be seen any day in the streets of Naples are not to be met with in the
capital of the bloodthirsty Albanian.

[ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN ALBANIANS IN MARKET, PODGORITZA.]

I have trusted the Albanian somewhat recklessly, I have been told; I
have given him plenty of chances of robbing me, and several of making
away with me altogether; but he has always treated me with a fine
courtesy, and has never taken a mean advantage. He is a brave man, and
he is an intelligent man. When he gets the chance, he learns quickly and
picks up foreign languages speedily. And when he succeeds in leaving his
native land and escaping the awful blight of the Ottoman, he often shows
great business capacity, and a surprising power of adapting himself to
circumstances.

The ordinary Christian Albanian of the town is very different from the
up-country savage, and is a pathetically childish person. He tries very
hard to be civilised, but his ideas on the subject are vague. How far he
is from understanding the prejudices of the twentieth century the
following conversation will show. It is one of many similar. I was
walking up the steep, cobble-stony bazaar-street of Antivari late one
afternoon in the summer of 1902. The shop owners stood at their doors to
see me pass. Presently a man came forward, a tall, fair, grey-eyed
fellow. He spoke very politely in a mishmash of Servian and Italian. "I
have never seen a foreign woman before," he said, "will you come into my
shop and talk to me?" I followed him into his shop. As I was
unmistakably from the West, he gave me a tiny box to sit on, and then
squatted neatly on the ground himself, called for coffee, and started
conversation. He was amazed at my nationality, and showed me some cotton
labelled "Best hard yarn" among his goods. Otherwise "England" conveyed
no idea to him. England, having no designs on Albania, does not count
much as a Power with the ordinary Albanian, but is merely something
distant and harmless that does not matter, whereas an eye is kept on
Austria and on Italy, and Russia is regarded with extreme suspicion.

"And you have come all this journey to see us!" he cried. "It is
wonderful! I am a Christian Albanian. I am Catholic." Here he crossed
himself vigorously to show that he really was, for in these lands your
position in this world and the next depends mainly upon how this is
done. "Ah, but you should see Skodra!" I told him I knew it well, and he
beamed with pleasure. We discussed its charms and the unsurpassed
magnificence of its shops. "And it is in the hands of those devils the
Turks. Ah, the devils! I came here eighteen years ago with my father,
because this is a free land. Here all is safe, but it is a poor country.
When I was a boy I was bad. I went to the school of the Frati, but I
would not learn. Now I know nothing, and I speak Italian, oh, so badly!"
He rocked himself sadly to and fro with his big account-book on his
knees. Son of the race with the worst reputation in Europe and born in
one of Europe's worst governed corners, he lamented (as which of us has
not done?) the lost chances of his youth and his lack of book-learning.
To comfort him, I told him his people in Skodra had been very good to
me. He cheered up. "Why do you come here?" he asked. "Why do you not
travel in my country?" I said that I was told that it was a bad time and
the country very dangerous. He considered the question earnestly, and
looked me all over. Then he said seriously, "No; my people are very good
to women, they will not hurt you. But there is no government, so the bad
people do what they like. There are some bad people; Turks, all Turks.
But there is no fear. Truly they will take all your money, but they will
not hurt you. That," he said simply, "would not be honest. My people are
all honest. You must not shoot a woman, for she cannot shoot you. Now
with a man it is different; you must shoot him, or he will shoot you
first. Also you cannot take his money if you do not shoot him first." To
all of which points I agreed.

"Truly it is a misfortune," he continued, "that there is no government.
If we had only a king!" "Do you think you will have one?" I asked. He
chuckled mysteriously. The air just then was thick with rumours of a
Castriot descendant of the Skender Beg family who at that very moment
was reported to be awaiting an opportunity for landing in Albania.
Reports of his fabulous wealth were arousing much excitement in the
breasts of his prospective subjects, but I fancy a rumour of their
custom of "shooting first" must have reached his ears; for, so far, this
middle-aged gentleman, whose life has been passed in Italian palazzos,
has shown no hurry to take up his inheritance. My friend's ideas were
vague and formless, and he could get no farther than "a king for Albania
and death to those devils the Turks." After a little more talk, I got up
to say good-bye. But he insisted upon my having more coffee first. "It
is true that I am poor," he said, "but I am not too poor to give two
cups of coffee to one who has come so far to see us. Some day in your
country you will see some poor devil from Skodra, and you will be good
to him because his people are your friends." Nothing could exceed the
grace with which he proffered hospitality to a stranger guest, but he
saw no objection to robbery with murder if committed according to rule;
and he prided himself on his Christianity. He shook hands with me very
heartily. "A pleasant journey," he said. "Remember me when you meet a
Skodra-Albanian in London. I shall never see you again--never, never."
The sun was setting rather dismally, and with "nikad, nikad" (never)
ringing in my ears and the gaunt ruins of the dead city before me, I
felt quite as depressed as the Albanian. Truly the Albanian outlook is
not a cheerful one.

In the larger towns, where Turkish troops are quartered and there are
plenty of Mohammedan officials, the Christians are in the minority, and
their cowed manner makes it fairly obvious that they have a poor time.
But the Christians of the mountains very much hold their own. The
Mirdite tribe in the heights between the Drin and the coast is entirely
Christian and one of the most fiercely independent. The town Christian
who has picked up a smattering of education from the foreign Frati, has
had a peep at the outside world and vaguely realises the blessings of
life in a well-ordered land, sighs for some form of civilised
government. Some have even told me that they wish to be "taken" by
somebody--"by Austria, or Italy, or you, or anybody. It could not be
worse than it is now." But the mass of the people resent most fiercely
the idea of any foreign interference, and cling fast to their wild and
traditional manner of life. Whether Christian or Mussulman, the Albanian
is intensely Albanian. A Christian will introduce you to a Mohammedan
and say, "He is a Turk, but not a bad Turk; he is good like me; he is
Albanian." The Christian that the Albanian Mussulman persecutes is, as a
rule, the Christian of another race. Between Christian and Mohammedan
Albanian there is plenty of quarrelling, but then so there is between
Christian and Christian, Mohammedan and Mohammedan. It is of the
blood-feud, intertribal kind, played according to rule; for even in
Albania it is possible, if the rules be not observed, for killing a man
to be murder. When a common enemy threatens, a "bessa" (truce with one
another) is proclaimed, and they unite against him. The chief tribes in
Northernmost Albania are the Hotti along by the Montenegrin frontier and
by the lake; the Shoshi and the men of Shialla and of Skreli in the
mountains above the plain of Skodra; the Mirdites in the mountains
between the Drin and the coast; and the Klementi on the Montenegrin
frontiers by Mokra and Andrijevitza.

The Turks from time to time, when the Albanians have been more than
usually lively, by various means (including treachery) have contrived to
give the chieftains of one and another "appointments" in remote corners
of Asia Minor, but with no results so far, except that the people,
deprived of the only man who had any authority over them, became yet
more unmanageable. Even the mildest of the town Christians takes a
delight in pointing out in the bazaar the tobacco which has paid no duty
and saying, "We pay no tax for tobacco; we are Albanian, and we do not
like to." The Turks have been unable to enforce this tax, and have to
content themselves by searching the baggage that leaves the country and
opening the hand-bags of tourists to prevent tobacco from leaving
untaxed.

The Albanians seldom do anything they "do not like," and they are quick
to object to any interference. Just now they have been objecting to
"reformation" on Austro-Russian lines. The so-called reforms were the
laughing-stock of everybody--Servian, Montenegrin, and Albanian--when I
was out there last summer. For the Albanian's "unreformedness" has
always been his chief attraction in Turkish eyes, and in order to give
him every opportunity to behave in an "unreformed" manner, when the
spirit moved him, the Turk in recognition of his services in the last
war supplied the Albanian lavishly with weapons. Christians throughout
the Turkish dominions have always been forbidden to carry arms. The
Christian Albanian alone has this privilege. Every mountain man has
firearms of some sort, many of them fairly modern rifles. It is one
thing to give a man a gun and quite another to take it away from him.
When the weapons were merely used upon the wretched unarmed Servian
peasants in the plains of Old Servia, not a soul in any part of Europe
save Russia paid the smallest attention; but when Stcherbina, the
Russian Consul, fell a victim, it was a different matter, and the Turks
found themselves in the unpleasant position of having either to offend
Russia or to quarrel with their best allies. They proceeded to "reform"
Albania on truly Turkish lines. They chased the Albanians out of the
territory they had had no business to have swooped upon, and they
arrested a few leaders as a matter of form. The Albanians were
astonished and rather aggrieved, for they had done very little more
than they had always been given to understand they might do. Further
interference might have alienated the Albanians altogether, but as for
the sake of appearances and the "reform scheme" some non-Mohammedan
officials had to be appointed, the Turks sent an Armenian and a Jew,
called respectively Isaac and Jacob, to Skodra. Isaac and Jacob were
shot in the main street in the day-time, and as far as I have heard
their situations are still vacant. The affair caused some little amount
of excitement, nevertheless the Albanians did not wish to resort to
violence so long as the "Government" did not make itself disagreeable.
There is an old tomb in Skodra, the last resting-place of some minor
Mohammedan saint. Shortly after the deaths of Isaac and Jacob some
mysterious writing was found upon the tomb. Though written in very
ordinary charcoal, it was obviously of more or less divine origin, and
the people anxiously waited the deciphering of the message. It proved to
be merely a piece of a verse from the Koran conferring a vague blessing
upon somebody. "Allah be praised!" said an old hodja, greatly relieved,
"it has not told us to go and shoot any more reformers!"

There were a great many more soldiers in Skodra than before. I asked
several people the reason of this, in order to see what they would say.
They one and all said, with a smile, "The Turks want to reform Albania,
but they are obliged to send the soldiers to the towns, because the
people in the country do not like them!" The town swarmed with soldiers.
An officer rushed at my old guide, whom I was employing to interpret for
me in the bazaar, and abused him in a loud voice till I interfered; a
soldier seized and beat very severely a wretched little boy who begged
of me, and my efforts on his behalf were of no avail; and these were all
the results of the reforms that I saw or heard of in Skodra.

But the idea seems gaining ground that the Albanian in the event of a
war may cease to support a dying cause and elect to play a game of his
own. When, as must inevitably be shortly the case, Macedonia is under a
Christian governor, Albania will be yet more separated from the present
seat of government (Constantinople), and the situation will become
acute. I heard a good deal about "the king that is to be." Many Serbs
even expressed their opinion that the Albanians would be a great deal
better if their independence were recognised; saying that at present
they are responsible to no one; the Turk incites them to commit
atrocities, and washes his hands of all they do; and that left to
themselves the Albanians would develop into a fine people. That they
have the makings of a fine people is probably true. That they are now
capable of self-government is quite another thing. Unlike the other
Balkan peoples, they have no past, no former empire. Their history is
all "years that the locusts have eaten." What is to become of the
Albanians? is one of the hardest of all the Eastern questions. Austria
desires to have the answering of it.




CHAPTER VIII

SKODRA


Skodra is the capital of North Albania. In our maps it is usually called
Scutari--a name which causes it to be confused with the other and far
better known Scutari on the Bosporus. In a French paper I once read an
account of "the Prince of Montenegro's palace on the Bosporus" which
described the Princes country place at Podgoritza, near the lake of
Scutari. But the French seldom shine as geographers.

Skodra can be reached from the port of St. Giovanni di Medua, at which a
line of Lloyd steamers calls regularly. From thence a ride of nine
hours, if you can find a horse, will take you by a very bad road to the
town. But even from the Turks, who take a _couleur-de-rose_ view of the
resources of their land, I failed to learn that the route offered any
attractions. It can also be reached by a steamer which, when there is
enough water in the river, ascends the Bojana as far as Obotti, whence a
barge will wobble you up to the town in an hour or thereabouts.

By far the prettiest and pleasantest route is that from Cetinje by the
lake. The _Danitza_, the chief vessel of the Montenegrin squadron
according to the engineer, runs twice a week from Rijeka. It is a
clean, tidy little boat built in Glasgow, and is very fairly punctual as
to time. The sluggish stream meanders slowly in and out the hills; the
channel of deep water serpentines through acres of water-lilies, white
and yellow, whose leaves form a dense mat on the surface and a happy
hunting-ground for the water birds--duck, moorhens, herons, spoonbills,
and pelicans. It is a færie river, with the magic of the hills upon it,
all silent save for the flap of the herons that rise as the boat glides
past. Half choked with reeds and weeds which grow rankly luxuriant and
rot in tangles, it tells of the making of the fertile lands of
Montenegro, for the plains are all ancient lake beds from which the
water has retreated. One hears without surprise that fever haunts the
river in autumn, but, judging by the healthy appearance of the folk of
the neighbourhood, it cannot be of a very virulent type, and at no time
of the year have I met with any mosquitoes.

At the rivers mouth stand wretched shanties of rock and brushwood, the
dwellings of the fisher-folk who reap, in the late autumn, a plenteous
harvest. Vast shoals of small fish called "scoranze" rush up the lake
from the sea, and are netted in such thousands that, dried and salted,
they form one of Montenegro's chief exports.

[ILLUSTRATION: STREET IN BAZAAR SKODRA.]

We pass the island of Vranina and glide out into the great green lake,
leave the heights of Montenegro behind us, and see at the farther end
the "Accursed Mountains" of Albania purple in the distance. The waters
of the lake, according to the Albanians, are endowed with marvellous
curative properties. You must drink of them for a month, and then, no
matter what is your disease, you "throw it all up," or else you die!--a
severe kill--or--cure remedy upon which I have never experimented. We
stop at Plavnitza and at Virbazar to pick up passengers, who come out in
big canoes with long, upturned, pointed prows, and the deck is soon
crowded with gay baggage and its strange owners, all of whom are usually
anxious to make friends. You have only to show an interest in the
women's babies and the men's weapons to secure entertainment for the
rest of the voyage. "Show the lady your new gun," said a tall Albanian
to a youth. He passed over a Russian repeating rifle. A woman who was
standing near hastily got out of the way. The Albanian expressed
contempt. "It might go off," said the woman. "Well, what if it did?"
laughed the Albanian. "Look at me. I've been shot twice. It's nothing.
Once I was hit here," he touched his shoulder; "and the doctor cut out
the ball with a knife," he added with great satisfaction. "My brother
died," said the woman briefly.

So on, in leisurely fashion, till at the end of the lake we see the
Crescent flying from an antiquated warship--the red flag and the dying
moon that we falsely call the "crescent," for it will never wax again. I
confess that I never see it on the borders without a curious thrill. I
was brought up to consider the Turk a virtuous and much injured
individual. Now I never cross his frontier without hoping soon to be
able to witness his departure from Europe.

A shattered fortress frowns on the hill, a row of ramshackle buildings
lines the shore, a filthy crowd fills the custom-house steps.
Scutari--Albanese, Skodra at last. Time rolls back from the invisible
boundary against which the centuries have beaten in vain, and before us
lies the land of a prehistoric people and the life of past ages. Canoes
big and little come paddling out in a scrambling hugger-mugger;
Montenegro becomes, for the time being, a type of all that is most
civilised in West Europe, and we leave it behind us on the steamboat.

The custom-house is a dark den, in which everyone shouts at once and
tumbles over everyone else. Smuggle your dictionary, if you have one, in
an under pocket; there is no knowing, says the Turk, what a book in a
foreign language may contain, so away with them all. There are few
things more deadly. Passports are, or are not, asked for according to
the amount of political tension. I have heard of two individuals who
"rushed" that frontier by the aid of receipted bills, the stamps on
which gave them a pleasingly official air, and have twice myself crossed
the Turkish frontier "when I hadn't ought." Anyone with an ounce of wits
can, I believe. And really there is something to be said for a passport
system that is warranted to exclude no one but the fools. The Persian
who inspects the passports, on this occasion, merely asked for our
names, which were too much for him. We gave him our visiting cards; he
copied our Christian names letter by letter, then, exhausted by the
effort, he added London as sufficient address, and the ceremony was
complete. He is a humble youth, will accept twopence as bakshish, and be
your dog for a florin. Like most Turkish officials, he exists, I
presume, on the pickings of his office. And the nation he loves the
best in all Europe varies according to the nationality of the individual
he is addressing.

One gets used to arriving at Skodra as one does to most other things,
but the first visit is an amazement. It will be some time before I
forget that day when we emerged for the first time from that
custom-house. The captain of the steamer ruthlessly whacked off all the
would-be porters except one small boy, and bade him take us to the
carriage stand. Off sped the boy like a hare, threading the mazes of the
bazaar, dodging round corners and plunging down dark airless passages,
his bare feet gripping the pavement, we following hard on his heels,
dazzled by sun-spots, blinded in the darkness, confused by the unwonted
sights, and slithering on the slippery cobblestones which slope down to
the gutter in the middle where the pack-asses walk and the muck
accumulates. Finally, after a ten minutes' chase, he halted us
breathless on an open space on the farther side of the bazaar, stowed us
into the remains of a peagreen fly, and accepted sixpence with
gratitude. Off we rumbled down a lane that, but for its wayfarers, might
be English, so familiar are its hedges, ditches, bramble and clematis,
and we reached the residential part of the town and a decent hostelry in
about twenty minutes.

Skodra is not merely an interesting spot to visit from Cetinje; it also
belongs rightly and properly to Servian history. From a very early
period (it is said the seventh century) it formed part of the Servian
territories, and it remained unconquered after the fatal battle of
Kosovo. It was the capital of George Balsha, Prince of the Zeta, and was
resigned by him into the hands not of the Turks, but the Venetians,
traces of whose architecture yet remain in the town. Though more than
once attacked, it was not taken by the Turks until 1479, and then only
after a siege of six months. Now the Turk holds Skodra, the Albanian
calls it his, and the Montenegrin has never forgotten that it once
formed part of the great Servian Empire. According to the Albanian, it
is the finest city in Europe, and when he tells you so he is proudly
speaking what he believes to be the literal truth. To him it is an ideal
spot, the model of what a capital should be, and the centre of his
universe.

The Albanian may be caught young, and tamed; he may wander into far
countries; he does a good trade in Rome; he may even live years in
England; but for him a glory always hangs over the capital of his
country. He is rare in London; there are only two or three of him, and
he was hard to find. I tracked him to a far suburb, and when he learnt
whence I had come his enthusiasm was unbounded. The greatness and
magnificence of his country made it not at all surprising that the whole
of Europe coveted it, and he gloried in the fact. "Not that Russia, nor
them Austria, nor nobody," he said, "was going to have it! English mans
silly mans; no understand my people. My people all one week like that";
here he whirled his arms wildly round his head; "next week go back work.
Olright. War with Turks? No, ain't going to be none." "Isn't the Turkish
government a hard one?" I asked. "There ain't no government," said he
gleefully. "What about the taxes?" "Oo pay?" said the Tame Albanian;
"you tell me that." Money, he admitted, had to be raised at intervals,
but you always lived in hope that it would be raised in some other
district, and if you displayed a proper amount of spirit it was. In the
days of his youth he had fought for the Turks. "I Bashi-bazouk," he said
with pride; "reg'lar army all them Mohammedans. I Catholic. I good
Christian. I Bashi-bazouk." To us Bashi-bazoukdom and Christianity are
odd yoke-fellows. To him, quite right and proper.

Head of a flourishing business in London, and clad in a smart overcoat
and a billycock hat, he sat down cross-legged on the floor, and his eyes
sparkled as he thought of the good old Bashi-bazouk days. To London he
came because, as everyone knows, "there is lot of money in London." He
knew no word of English and but little Italian; had scarcely any money;
his entire stock in trade consisted of some native costumes and some
silver filigree work. Failure would seem to have been inevitable, but
the pluck and enterprise of the ex-Bashi-bazouk overcame all
difficulties. "You think my country wild country," said he; "now I tell
you--London; it big bad place. Five million peoples in London. My God,
what a lot of criminals! In my country no man starve. He knock at door.
'What you want?' 'I hungry.' 'Olright, you come in.' He give him bread,
he give him wine. In London you say, 'You git 'long, or I call a
p'leece.'" Wherever a Christian Albanian requires help, he has but to
knock at the door of another Christian Albanian and say so. No payment
is ever thought of. "How should we live," said a man to me, "if we did
not help one another?" Compared with Albania, London, even now in the
eyes of the ex-Bashi-bazouk, is a vast and uncivilised wilderness.
Perhaps he is right. Nevertheless, he has found it an excellent place to
get on in. His wife--"my Albanian missus," as he called her--had, he
confessed, a very poor time. Knowing no language but Albanian, and
sighing always for the sun and the shores of the lake of Skodra, she was
near weeping when she heard that I had just come from the beloved spot.
She wore a red cap with coins round it, and a medal dangled in the
centre of her forehead. She seemed singularly out of place in a London
back-shop. "By God," said her husband casually, "I'm sorry for that pore
fem'le!" And he had a certain sympathy for her, in spite of his cheerful
tone.

"Earth hunger," the fierce desire for a particular plot of ground, a
plot which reason may point out to be barren, arid, lonesome, and in
every way unlovable, but which is the cradle of the race, is and perhaps
will always be one of the most unconquerable of human passions. The Tame
Albanian says he means to end his days in "the finest city in Europe,
Skodra."

It is not a salubrious spot. It is suffocating in summer and flooded in
winter. It suffers from heavy rains, and lies low. Its one virtue is
that it does not possess mosquitoes, but it makes up for this by being
full of tuberculosis. Nevertheless, it grips one's imagination, it
arouses the sleeping spirit of first one and then another long dead
ancestor who lived in the squalid, glittering Middle Ages and before,
and they point the way and they whisper, "Such and such we did, and this
also--_do you not remember_?" and strange things that one has not seen
before seem oddly familiar; three or four hundred years ago, they or
something very like them were part of one's daily life.

In the bazaar down by the river, with its maze of narrow crooked
streets, its crazy wooden booths and its vile pavement, life goes on
much as it did with us ages ago. Each trade has its own quarter, as in
all Eastern bazaars. And narrow ways, called Mercery Street, Butchers'
Row, Goldsmiths' Alley, in many an English town, still tell of the time
when so it was in England, in days when timber was as cheap, streets as
crooked and narrow, and pavement as bad as they are now in Skodra. And
then in England, as now in Skodra, people wore colours--red, blue,
green, yellow--and those that could afford it were brave with
embroideries. Their wants were few, luxuries there were few to be
purchased, and they showed all their worldly goods upon their persons in
a blaze of gold and finery on high days and holidays. Skodra does so
still, and so does every peasant and many a nobleman in the old-world
Balkan peninsula of to-day. Gorgeous garments solidly made they are, for
they will not go out of fashion next season, nor the season after, never
indeed until Albania is "civilised," and when will that be? So the
finery is made to last, and is worn and worn till it descends to
"Petticoat Lane" and is bought by the very poor. And when the stitchery
is all rubbed off by the friction of years, still the garment hangs
together, and is worn until it finally drops off piecemeal in squalid
rags. All these garments, however gorgeous without, are lined with
coarse materials, often pieces that do not match patched together, for
the Albanian ideas of dressmaking are old-world. The modern modiste has
invented cotton and linen costumes lined with silk or satin. Her
ancestress, however, acted on the Albanian plan, and the beautiful silk
and brocade costumes that have come down to us from Elizabeths and
Charles I.'s time are finished within with coarse and unsightly canvas.

Near the entrance of the bazaar are the workshops of the carpenters, who
make and carve great chests to hold the clothes, gaudy things painted
peagreen and picked out with scarlet and gold, degenerate descendants of
the beautifully carved and coloured chests in which all Europe kept its
clothing in Gothic and Renaissance days. The makers of the chests
fashion, too, wonderful cradles, coloured in the same gay manner, and in
them the babies are packed and slung on pack-saddles or on women's
backs. In a land of rough travelling, a strong box in which to pack the
baby is a necessity, and doubtless our ancestors used the solid oak
cradles we know so well in a like manner. Any day in the bazaar is
interesting, for the shopmen nearly all make their own goods. The
gunsmiths fill cartridges all day long, for they are an article much in
demand, repair rifles and revolvers, and fit fine old silver butts,
gorgeous with turquoise or cornelian, on to modern weapons. The
silversmith squats cross-legged on the floor with a tray of burning
charcoal, some tweezers, a roll of silver wire, and a little box full of
silver globules. He works silently, deliberately, with long, nimble
fingers picking up the tiny globules and arranging them, snipping and
twisting the little bits of wire, building up and soldering with great
dexterity the most effective designs--designs with sides that match, but
are never quite symmetrical, like Natures own work, satisfying the eye
in a way that no machine-made article ever will. However rough his
workmanship, his idea is almost always good, and he produces daring
effects with glass rubies and emeralds of the largest size. In work of
this sort the Albanian excels. When he comes to larger constructions,
his trick of working by eye and getting balance by instinct is not so
successful; his rooms are all crooked, his houses out of the square.
Perhaps this is the inevitable out-come of his odd-shaped mind. It is
rumoured that three-sided rooms may be found in Skodra, for the simple
reason that somehow the builders, owing to a nice confusion of angles,
could not squeeze in a fourth wall.

They are an honest, civil lot, these Skodra tradesmen; and though your
money will probably fly from hand to hand and disappear round the
corner, the change always comes back correctly in the end, and you pass
the interval drinking coffee with the shop owner. If your purchases are
many, he will kindly send out to buy a piece of common muslin in which
to wrap them; for Skodra does not supply paper, and when you have bought
a thing, conveying it away is your own affair. We in London are used to
having paper included lavishly with the goods, but an old lady once told
me that in her young days the fashionable drapers of London would lend
linen wrappers to those who bought largely, and the said wrappers had to
be returned next day. In this particular Skodra is not more than eighty
or ninety years behind London.

To see the bazaar in all its glory one must go on a Wednesday; that is
"bazaar day," and all the folk of the surrounding country flock
thither. "Which is bazaar day in London?" I have been asked any number
of times by Serb, Montenegrin, and Albanian. And "Every day is bazaar
day in London" is the one thing that gives them any idea of London's
size. The five million inhabitants, railway trains, electric lights, and
so forth, are all quite beyond their ken; but "bazaar every day" stuns
and dazzles them, and at once calls up a picture of vast crowds and
illimitable wealth. On "bazaar day" Skodra is thronged with strange
types--costumes bizarre, grotesque, wild and wonderful, and the road
from an early hour is crowded with flocks, pack-animals and their
owners. Flocks as strange as their drivers, for the ram of the pattering
drove of sheep is often dyed a bright crimson, and his horns instead of
curling neatly round by the sides of his head are trained to stand up
like those of an antelope with their tight twist pulled out to long
spiral His fashion is an even older one than that of his masters, for we
find the ram with the same head-dress in early Egyptian frescoes. For
some of these people it is three, even four days' tramp down to the
market from their mountain homes, and over the rough tracks the women
carry incredibly heavy burdens; not only the bundles of faggots or hides
that are for sale, but the baby in a big wooden cradle is tied on the
top. The men march in front with their rifles and look after the flocks.
Firearms have to be left outside the bazaar. It is true that a good
number of people are still privileged to carry them, but I have haunted
the bazaar quite alone so often that I have ceased to believe in the
many blood-curdling tales about its murderous possibilities with which
travellers are usually favoured. Nor, when you once know your way, do
I think any guide or kavass necessary. It is very dull with a kavass,
for no one comes to play with you. I tried it once for an hour or so,
and never again. But though you see no murders, you may see cases where
apparently vengeance has been satisfied with mutilation, and meet a man
whose nose has been cut off so lately that a bloodstained rag covers the
vacancy. And the mountain-man swaggers up to the cartridge shop and
fills the many spaces that have occurred in his belt since last he came
to market.

[ILLUSTRATION: SKODRA.]

I have no space to describe the dresses of the various tribes; the women
with stiff, straight, narrow skirts boldly striped with black that
recall forcibly the dresses upon the earliest Greek vases; the great
leathern iron-studded belts; the women with cowries in their hair; the
wild men from the mountains in huge sheepskin coats with the wool
outside; town Christian women blazing in scarlet and white, masses of
gilt coins, silver buttons and embroidery; Mohammedan ladies shapeless
in garments which may be correctly termed "bags," or to be still more
accurate, "undivided trousers," of brilliant flowered material, not only
thickly veiled but with blue and gold cloth cloaks clasped over the head
as well, shrouding the figure and allowing only a tiny peephole through
which to see; poor women, veiled down to the knees in white, looking
like ghosts in the dark entrances; Turks in turbans, long frock-coats
and coloured sashes; little girls their hair dyed a fierce red and their
eyebrows blackened. They all unite in one dazzling and confused mass
which one only disentangles by degrees, and when I plunged for the first
time into that unforgettable picture, saw the blaze of sunlight, the
dark rich shadows, the gorgeousness, the squalor, the glitter, the
filth, the colour, the new-flayed hides sizzling in the sun and
blackened with flies, the thousand and one tawdry twopenny articles for
sale on all hands, I thought with a pang of the poor Albanian "fem'le"
who was passing weary, colourless hours in a grey London suburb, and
understood the sickness of her soul.

Of all the old-world things in the town--older than the neatly cut
flints for the flintlocks that are still in use, older than the tight
mediæval leg-gear--the loose tunic bound round the waist by a sash and
the full drawers tied round the ankle, as worn by the common Mohammedan
men and boys of the town (a very ordinary dress throughout the East) is
the oldest. It is the dress of the men on the early Greek vases; of the
Dacians on Trajan's column; of the captive Gauls in the Louvre; the
dress, in short, of all the "barbarians," the "braccati" of the Romans.
The Romans and the toga and the chlamys are all gone, and here, in the
same old place, the barbarians are cutting their skirts and trousers on
the same old pattern, and are very fairly barbarous still. But they have
learned to shave their heads and to wear a white fez, and with this
modification we at once recognise them as our old friend Pierrot, whose
history points to the fact that he really did come from the Near East.
Venice held all the Dalmatian coast and part of Albania. Venice was the
home of masques and pantomimes, and among the existing prints of the
pantomime characters is one "Zanne" in the familiar "Pierrot" dress.
What more likely than that the fool of the piece should be represented
as a boor from a conquered province? To this day, in so-called civilised
towns, an unhappy foreigner is still apt to be considered a fair butt by
the lower classes. Zanne came to England, and figures among the sketches
for one of Ben Jonson's masques.

Skirts with us are purely feminine garments, but the skirt of the
barbarian has grown in Albania into a vast unwieldy kilt, and the
Mohammedan Bey swaggers about in a cumbrous fustanella which reaches
down to his ankle and sticks out like an old-fashioned ballet-girl's
skirt. He cannot work because he wears the fustanella, and it is said
that he wears the fustanella in order to be unable to work. Forty 1
metres of material go to this colossal and ridiculous garment. The
greater part of the fulness is worn in front, and sways clumsily from
side to side as the wearer walks. The Greeks adopted it in a modified
form, but it must be seen on an Albanian to realise its possibilities.
The Albanians have rarely, as yet, succeeded in doing anything in
moderation. After seeing what the men were capable of in the skirt line,
I was not surprised that the shepherd-folk out on the plains began by
asking my guide with great interest if I were a man or a woman.

But we must leave the bazaar, though many days do not exhaust its
interests; leave the butchers' quarter, a harmony in pinks and
blood-red, where the dogs lap red puddles, the butcher wipes a wet knife
across his thigh, and the people run about with little gobbets of mutton
for dinner, a fiercely picturesque place sicklied with the smell of
blood; leave the "Petticoat Lane" of Skodra, where the cast-off finery
of Albanian ladies and the trappings of beauty are displayed alongside
heaps of the most hopeless rags. Aged crones as antique as their wares
squat upon the ground. The sunlight blazes on the gold stitchery till it
sparkles with its pristine splendour; the hag in charge of it,
Atropos-like, points out its beauties with a large pair of shears, while
Lachesis spins a woollen thread alongside. I vow they are the Fates
themselves selling the garments of their victims.

By the afternoon the crowds of country-folk are already reloading the
pack-animals, decked with blue bead headstalls and amulets to keep off
the evil eye, that await them at the entrance of the bazaar, where the
gipsy smiths and tinkers work, half stripped, a-ripple with tough
muscle, under little shanties made of sticks and flattened-out petroleum
cans. How the land got on before the petroleum can was introduced it is
hard to imagine. In the hands of the gipsies it is the raw material from
which almost everything is made.

The peasants load their beasts--they are adepts at pack-saddling and you
rarely see a sore back--and trail slowly across the plains towards
their mountain homes. The bazaar is shut up, darkness comes on fast, and
belated foot passengers pick their way with lanterns.

Night in Skodra is uncanny. The half-dozen tiny oil lamps do not light
it at all. When there is no moon, the darkness is impenetrable and
absolute, save perhaps for a long streak of light from the door-chink of
the next shop and the lighted windows of the mosque opposite. The black
silhouettes of praying figures rise and fall within them, but the mosque
itself is swallowed up in the surrounding blackness. A spark appears on
the roadway, someone passes with a lantern and disappears. The street is
dead still till a sword clanks and the patrol marches past. The lights
are extinguished in the mosque. The darkness is dense and dead, and
there is no sound. It is only nine o'clock, but all Skodra seems asleep.

Skodra the town, as distinguished from the bazaar, has not a great deal
to show. It is a big town with some 40,000 inhabitants, and as all
houses of any size stand in a large yard or garden, it covers much
space. Here every man's house is his castle, and the high walls are not
only for seclusion but for defence. Skodra, from time to time, receives
a rumour that thousands of armed men are marching upon it. All the shops
are shut, the guards are doubled on the bridges, and folk shut
themselves in their houses. The phantom army does not appear, and in two
or three days things are going on as before. "But it will come some
day," said a man, when I laughed about a reported army of forty thousand
that had never turned up.

The Mohammedan quarter has the air of being far more wealthy and
high-class than the Christian. The houses that one gets a glimpse of
through the gateways are large and solid. But the streets are lonesome
and deserted. Now and then I met a couple of veiled ladies, who, if no
man were in sight, usually strove hard to make my acquaintance, and
partially unveiled for the purpose. But as I know neither Turkish nor
Albanian, we never got farther than the fact that I was "a Frank" and a
deal of smiling and nodding. Two in particular walked a long way with
me, chattering all the time, and for the benefit of the inquisitive, I
must say that they were both very pretty girls. In Skodra not only the
Mohammedan but the town Roman Catholic women go veiled, though the
country-folk do not, and until married are often kept in a seclusion
which to our ideas is little short of imprisonment--facts which throw a
strong light upon the unlovely state of society which has made them
necessary; for the etiquettes of society are usually based upon raw and
unpleasant truths. It is idle folly to ascribe Western and
twentieth-century ideas to these primitive people, but the fact remains
that the life of the average Albanian woman is an exceedingly hard one.
That of the country-folk is a ceaseless round of excessive physical
toil; that of the poorer town woman is, I am told, often spent at the
loom from morning till night--labour that only ends when the Black Fate
snips her thread.

[ILLUSTRATION: MOSQUE, SKODRA.]

Though the Mohammedans far outnumber the Christians in the town, the
mosques are all small plain buildings, only saved from ugliness by the
elegance of their tall slim minarets, nor are there many of them. With
a grotesque lack of a sense of the fitness of things, the Turkish army,
when it has a washing-day, uses the largest graveyard as a
drying-ground, and a shirt or a pair of drawers flaps on each tombstone.
It was not until I saw this sight that I had any idea that the Turkish
soldiers ever had a washing-day. A lean, unkempt, ragged lot of poor
dirty devils with scowling faces, they look more as if returning from a
disastrous campaign than as if quartered in the barracks of the capital.
And the sight of them is enough to make one have no difficulty in
believing the tale that they not unfrequently help themselves to mutton
from across the frontier when the "Government" is discreetly gazing in
another direction. Their powers of endurance in war-time are not
surprising when their life during "peace" is taken into consideration. A
fight in which you may loot all you want must be a pleasant holiday by
comparison.

The Christian quarter of Skodra looks less flourishing, and there are
crosses on some of the doors, otherwise the two quarters are much the
same. The Roman Catholic townsfolk wear a special costume. That of the
men is odd; that of the ladies perhaps the most hideous that has been
ever devised. Their gigantic trouser-petticoats of purple-black
material, in multitudinous pleats, fall in an enormous bag that sticks
out all round the ankles, and impedes the wearer to such an extent that
she often has to hold it up with both hands in front in order to get
along. With her face veiled and the upper part of her body covered with
a scarlet, gold-embroidered cloak with a square flap that serves as a
hood, she forms an unwieldy, pear-shaped lump--grotesque and gorgeous.
The streets here are apt to be flooded in wet weather, and the side
walks are high. Big blocks of stepping-stones, like those at Pompeii,
afford a way over the road, nor do carts seem to find any difficulty in
passing them.

The cathedral of the Roman Catholics is a large brick building, some
fifty years old, with a tall campanile, standing in grounds which are
surrounded by a high wall. Its great blank interior, owing to lack of
funds, has not suffered much from "decoration." At the gateway the women
loosen their veils and go into God's house with uncovered
faces--beautiful faces, with clean-cut, slightly aquiline noses, clear
ivory skins, red lips, and dark eyes with long lashes. There are benches
in the nave, but a large proportion of the congregation, especially the
country-folk who crowd in on feast days, prefer to sit on the floor;
they spread a little rug or handkerchief, kick off their shoes and squat
cross-legged on it as in a mosque; women with their breasts covered with
coins that glitter as they sway to and fro in prayer; mountain-men with
their cartridge belts upon them ready for use against a brother
Albanian. A fine barbaric blaze of colour, scarlet and scarlet and
scarlet again. The service begins; harshly dissonant voices, loud and
piercing, chant the responses; and the deep sonorous voice of the young
Italian at the altar rings out like the voice of civilisation over the
barbaric yowling of the congregation. As he mounts the scarlet and gold
pulpit there is a hush of expectation. The sermon, in Albanian, is a
long one, and the crowd hangs breathless on his words. His delivery and
his action are simple and dignified, and I watch him sway his
congregation with deep interest, though I can understand no word. He is
working up to a climax, and he reaches it suddenly in a sentence that
ends in the only non-Albanian word in the sermon, "Inferno." The word
thunders down the church on a long-rolled "rrrr," and he stands quite
silent, grasping the edge of the pulpit and staring over the heads of
the people. There is a painful hush, that seems like minutes. Then he
suddenly throws himself on his knees in the pulpit and prays. Violently
moved, his flock prostrate themselves in a passion of entreaty, and
those who sit on the ground bend double and touch the floor with their
foreheads.

The barbaric gaudy congregation, the ascetic earnest young teacher, the
raucous wailing voices that rang through the great bare church, made up
a poignantly impressive, quite inexplicable whole. I gazed upon the
praying crowd and wondered vainly what their idea of Christianity may be
and what old-world pre-Christian beliefs are entangled with it. The
Albanian clings to these through everything, and in spite of all their
efforts the Frati have as yet made little or no headway against
blood-feuds. The Albanian has never adapted himself to anything; he has
adapted the thing to himself. He practises the Christianity upon which
he prides himself, with the ferocity with which he does everything else.
He fasts with great rigour, wears a cross as a talisman, and is most
particular to make the sign of the cross after the Latin and not after
the Orthodox manner. But his views are very material. "Have you got the
Holy Ghost in your country?" I have been asked more than once. And an
affirmative answer brought the enthusiastic remark, "Then England is
just like Albania!" The life of Benvenuto Cellini is interesting reading
after a tour in Albania, for it represents with remarkable fidelity the
stage in religious evolution to which the wild Albanian of to-day has
arrived.

Difference of religion is usually given as the reason for the fact that
the Albanian has almost invariably sided with the enemies of the other
Christian peoples of the Balkans. One suspects, however, that it is
rather "the nature of the beast" than the particular form of belief that
he has chosen to profess that has cut him off, his fierce independence
rather than his religious creed, and the more one sees of him the more
probable does this appear.

There are very few Orthodox Albanians in Skodra. Such as there are wear
the same dress as the Mohammedans, but the women are not veiled.

Skodra, except in the way of customs, possesses few antiquities, save
the ruins of the old citadel which crown the hill overlooking the town.
These are said to be of Venetian origin and to have been fairly perfect
till some thirty years ago, when the local Pasha, having heard of
lightning conductors, determined to buy one for the better protection of
the tower, which was used as a powder magazine. To this end he chose a
handsome brass spike, and then found he was expected to pay extra for a
lot of wire. Being economical, he took the spike only, had it fixed to
the topmost tower, and anxiously awaited a storm. It soon came! The
handsome brass spike at once attracted the lightning. Bang went the
powder magazine, and the greater part of the citadel was shattered
before his astonished gaze. The hill now is crowned with a heap of
ruins, but as strangers are strictly forbidden to visit it, I presume
the Turks have constructed something that they consider a fortress among
them.

At the foot of this hill are the ruins of a small church. Big white
crosses are painted upon it, and it is considered a very holy spot.
Every Christian peasant stops as he passes it and crosses himself, and
though all that is left are fragments of the walls, I have been told
that a service is still occasionally held in it. The only other relic of
past days in the neighbourhood is the fine stone bridge with pointed
arches near Messi, about four and a half miles from Skodra across the
plain. This is undoubtedly Venetian work. The stream it spans is a
raging torrent in the wet season, and has wrought much damage in the
town and devastated a large tract of the plain. The rest of this is
covered with short turf and bracken fern, and grazed by flocks of sheep
and goats. The herdsmen, shaggy in sheepskins and armed with rifles, the
strings of country-people and pack-animals slowly tramping to or from
market, and the blue range of rugged mountains make up a strange, wild
scene. Nor, if you take an Albanian with you to do the talking,--for
everyone "wants to know,"--does there appear to me to be any danger in
wandering there.

Skodra is the capital, but it has no decent road to its port. It is
situated on the outlet of the lake, but though a little money and work
would make the Bojana River navigable for small steamers, and all the
shores of the lake would thus be put in direct communication with the
sea, nothing is done, and this, which should be the chief trade route
for North Albania and a large part of Montenegro, is of little use.
Skodras exports are not enough for Skodra to worry about greatly. Hides,
tobacco, some sumach root and bark for dyeing and tanning, some maize
and fruit, and a number of tortoises, which the Albanian finds
ready-made, form the bulk of the exports of the neighbourhood. Skodra is
one of the few capitals which you can leave with the certainty of
finding it exactly the same next year.




CHAPTER IX

SKODRA TO DULCIGNO


I have on one point, at any rate, a fellow-feeling with the Albanian.
Skodra fascinates me. When I am not there--only then, mind you--I am
almost prepared to swear with him that it is the finest city in the
world, and a year after my first visit I found myself again on the
steamer, hastening Skodra-wards, with the intention of riding thence to
Dulcigno. Skodra greeted me warmly as an old friend. That exalted
official the Persian beamed upon me and said that for Mademoiselle a
passport was not necessary, the customs let me straight through, and I
was soon settled comfortably in my old quarters. The Persian, because,
so he said, of our long friendship, but really because he was aching
with curiosity, called upon me at once in the crumpled and unclean white
waistcoat in which he fancies himself, and chatted affably.

He comes, so he tells me, of a most exalted family; were he only in
Tehran, instead of, unfortunately, in Skodra, he would be regarded with
universal respect and veneration. As I have no idea of the standard
required by Tehran, I condoled with him gravely, and accepted his
statement. It was a great joy to Skodra, he informed me, that I should
have come alone. No other lady had ever done so. Only une Anglaise
would; for the English alone understand Turkey--are her dear friends.
Here his enthusiasm was unbounded. Upon Turkish soil every English
person was as safe as in England. This was owing to the excellence of
the government. "There is," he said, "no government like ours." I told
him the latter statement was universally believed, and pleased him
greatly. He soared to higher flights. It was astonishing, he said, and
most annoying, that false accounts of Turkey were published by foreign
papers. He would go so far as saying that they never told the truth. It
was even said that in parts of Turkey there had been considerable
disturbances lately. Parole d'honneur, this was quite untrue. Never had
the land been in a more tranquil or flourishing condition, and as a
proof of his assertion he told me that his information was entirely
derived from official sources.

Now at this time, "according to foreign papers," Russia, aided by
Turkish troops, was vainly trying to force a Consul into Mitrovitza,
encounters between troops and desperate villagers were reported almost
daily from Macedonia, trains on the Salonika line had been more than
once "held up," and the governor of the very district we were in had
been shot at some months before. But he burbled on of the beauty of the
British Government and of the support it always afforded in the hour of
need. Everything desirable, including liberty and equality, flourished
under the Crescent, he said. At this moment a poverty-stricken little
gang of ragged men tramped past, bearing in turns upon their shoulders a
long battered old coffin, from which the paint was almost worn away.

They stopped to shift it nearly opposite us. It was lidless, and the
dead man's white face, his knees, and his great sheepskin stood above
its edge. He lay in his clothes just as he died. The Persian, with
ill-timed merriment, pointed to the corpse. "A dead sheep,
Mademoiselle!" said he contemptuously. He addressed some remark in an
unknown tongue to the mourners. The coffin-bearers passed sullenly. "A
dead Christian," I said to him sharply. "Yes, yes, a Catholic," he
admitted. I stared hard at his shifty eyes; he hastily dropped into
politics again, and I thought about equality.

Not being desirous of emulating Miss Stone, and as the Persian for
imaginativeness rivalled his fellow-countryman, Omar Khayyam, I
collected advice from various quarters. Great as were the joys of
Skodra, Dulcigno was my object; but I did not seem to get any nearer
arriving there. Everybody combined to try to frighten me off the ride.
Having played about Skodra for over a week, however, I persuaded myself
that the Albanian was a friendly and much maligned being, took all the
responsibility upon myself, and decided to carry out my plan. I fixed
the matter up with a rush. Dutsi, the man who was to guide me, turned up
early in the morning with a sturdy pony; I said farewell, and started
through the town on foot. It was no use my mounting, said Dutsi
mournfully, till we had passed the passport place; the Turks were very
bad about passports--_diavoli_, in fact. This with a gentle air of
resignation, as if it were highly possible it would not be worth while
to mount at all. We walked along the banks of the Bojana till we came to
its point of union with the Drin. Over the Drin is a big wooden bridge
with a fantastic arch of wood across it, and on the bridge stood
soldiers in the dirty rags that the Turks call a uniform. "Your
passport," said Dutsi hurriedly. I produced it; but as none of the
authorities could read anything but Turkish, it was useless. Dutsi
looked anxious. "They want your name," he said, and looking at the
passport-case, which is stamped "Mary E. Durham," he read out "Marie"
with triumph. Everyone was satisfied. I entered Skodra as "Edith of
London"; I left it as no less a person than "Mary of England." Great and
obvious are the blessings of the passport system. I gave a twopenny
bakshish, and we passed on to the bridge. Dutsi was a changed being; his
spirits rose as soon as the Turks were left behind. He told me he was
much attached to the English, and that now I might mount.

After an hour or so of enjoyment, the road got worse, and then rapidly
worse still, and fuller and fuller of water. The Bojana was in flood,
and the waters were out. My beast splashed through water almost up to
his belly, and Dutsi took circuits through peoples maize fields. Then it
got so bad that we left the track and laboured fetlock--deep through
ploughed land, and saw ox-carts bogged to the axle in the sea of mud
that was all that was left of the road. And after a little of this, the
track was lost altogether, and we wandered round through tracts of mud
and streams, forced a passage through an osier bed only to come to a
swirling sheet of water, tried back, and finally made for a hovel and
hallooed for help. The owner came out, took us over his own grounds, and
started us again on something like a path, which soon disappeared.
Dutsi, however, now knew the direction, and the pony was extraordinarily
clever at climbing greasy banks, boring his way through the willows on
top, and scrambling over the ditch the other side without even once
"pecking." We came to some low hills, and got on to dry ground at last.
Then Dutsi discovered to his distress that my umbrella, which he had
tied to the back of the saddle, was gone. This was a sad loss, but it
was evidently gone beyond recall. Dutsi in despair laid the blame
entirely on those devils the Turks, who made such devils of roads, and
were such devils to the good Christians that they were unable to improve
the country. "Oh, the devils!" said Dutsi; "they have lost your devil of
an umbrella." This relieved his feelings, and when I pointed out the
inky clouds that were rapidly rising and said we had better hurry, he
remarked piously, that though it looked like rain he believed that, in
consideration of the loss of my umbrella, God would not permit it, for
He does not like the Turks. Thus comforted, we proceeded, over low
ground again, splashing over fields that, properly drained, should be
magnificent water meadows, but were liquid slush in which great yellow
spearwort flourished. At last we came to the river's edge and the
ferryman's hut.

A great barge was dragged alongside the bank and the pony persuaded to
enter it. I sat on the edge and curled up my toes, for the bottom was
covered with water, and we were soon off. The boat was towed some
distance up stream and let loose, and the force of the current combined
with skilful steering swept it across. Dutsi was now happy; we should
have a "buona strada" all the way! He began telling me of a noble and
wealthy Englishman, one X. of the Foreign Office, to whom he had acted
as guide in the spring in a shooting expedition, one of the best and
kindest signors that existed, and we progressed slowly over the "buona
strada," which was like a dry torrent bed, for we were now back among
the limestone rocks again. Presently we arrived at a stream with a plank
across it. "The frontier, the frontier!" cried Dutsi, and, as we set
foot on the other side, he announced that we were in a free and
Christian land, Montenegro! Now, he said, we would rest and eat some
bread. So we sat down under a tree, and I discovered that the
improvident creature had brought nothing more filling with him than a
few cigarettes. As my chances of getting to Dulcigno depended entirely
on him, I supplied him with two of my three eggs and three-quarters of
my loaf, and we were just setting to work when we heard a loud
"tom-tom-tomming." Out of the bushes came a gang of seven very black
gipsies, four muzzled bears, and a loaded ass. Between them they carried
five rifles and seven revolvers, and they certainly looked the "Devils
Own." The pony snorted and stamped at the bears, and would have bolted
had he not been tied fast; we hadn't a weapon between us, and Dutsi
looked so green that I thought "all the fun of the fair" was about to
begin. "Dobar dan," said I, through a mouthful of egg, for it is always
as well to be civil. They made no answer, but scowled upon us and went
surly by, single file, the boy who was in charge of the bears beating
his tambourine rhythmically the while. As soon as the last of them had
disappeared round the corner, Dutsi announced that they were very, very
bad and all Turks (_i.e_. Moslems), and that now we must have a long
rest. He was obviously afraid of catching them up.

Meanwhile the storm clouds were rapidly catching us up. We waited some
ten minutes. I insisted upon starting then, and came upon the gipsies
almost immediately, for they were making the bears dance in the yard of
a lonely cottage on one side of the road. Dutsi caught the pony's head,
led him round silently on the grass and behind some bushes, and we
passed unseen, to his great relief. As he was very tired, I dismounted
and gave him a ride. The free and Christian road was no better than the
heathen one, but we got on very cheerfully for some way. Then the
floodgates of the heavens opened, and, in spite of the loss of my
umbrella, the rain came down in sheets. Dutsi most gallantly offered me
his, but as I had a mackintosh I begged him to keep it for himself, and
remounted and rode through the worst rain I was ever out in. Luckily we
had just arrived at a decent road, and we took shelter under the first
large tree. The whole landscape disappeared behind the grey torrent, and
out of it suddenly rushed the wildest figure I have ever seen--an old,
old woman, tall and lean, clad only in a long pair of cotton drawers
tied under her armpits. Her lank wet hair streamed from her head like
long black snakes, and she stood out in the rain and waved her arms
madly round like mill sails, as she poured out a torrent of Albanian.
"She wants us to go to her house," said Dutsi. "It is over there," as
she pointed into the rain, "half an hour away! I tell her, 'No, thank
you.'" Still the old woman gesticulated and shouted. "Falé miners"
(thank you), repeated Dutsi over and over again in a deep sing-song. She
made a last effort. "One million times in the name of God, she asks us
to come," said Dutsi, with a smile. "She says she can do no more." Nor
could she, apparently, for she disappeared again into the rain as
suddenly as she had come. "It is better to sit here in the dry," said
Dutsi. "How far is it to Dulcigno?" I asked. "Two hours at least," said
Dutsi. I wondered miserably whether the saddle-bags were water-tight,
and thought of my only change of clothes; and as there was no prospect
of food, and I had only had one egg and a little bread since early
morning, I attacked my Brand's beef lozenges and blessed the maker.

When the storm lifted, we started again, and through sun and storm
arrived in a heavy shower in sight of Dulcigno just as that most
melancholy sound, the clink of a loose shoe, caught my ear. I suggested
the best inn to Dutsi. He said dismally, "There is only one," and we
climbed the hill and entered the town,--a row of houses, a forge, a
mosque, and some shops,--and to my dismay pulled up at a tiny Albanian
drink-shop. "Ecco l'albergo," said Dutsi. I jumped off the pony and
hurried in, out of the downpour. I was streaming, Dutsi was streaming,
the pony had cast his shoe, and we had been nearly nine hours instead of
five and a half on the way. It was a case of any port in a storm. The
stripey-legged owner welcomed me effusively in broken Italian, and led
me through into an earth-floored kitchen and up a few wooden steps to a
"molto bella camera" over the shop, talking excitedly. It was a minute
apartment, quite unfurnished, except that a trouser-legged lady was
curled up fast asleep on a heap of mattresses on a sort of divan of
packing-cases. "My wife," said he, giving her a poke, whereupon she
jumped up like a jack-in-the-box, threw her arms round my neck, and
kissed me three times. Dutsi appeared with the saddle-bags. He glanced
round the room appreciatively, for it was the sort of place he felt at
home in, and said it was "dosta dobra" (pretty good), also that the
people were very good and all Christians. Then he very considerately
suggested that I had better change my clothes and would perhaps prefer
to be alone, and they left me. My "change," wrapped in a sheet of
waterproof and in saddle-bags, was quite dry, and my mind relieved on
this point was free to contemplate the possibilities of the
establishment. One window had once had glass in it, the other never.
Except the heap of bedding, there was nothing in the room but a rifle, a
cartridge belt, and a picture of St. George. The rain was falling in
sheets; seeking for other quarters would result in soaking my only dry
clothes; moreover, I was tired. I decided to stay in shelter for the
present, and descended to the "kitchen."

The floor was of earth and sloped up, for the house was built on the
hillside. In one corner Dutsi, my host, and another striped gentleman
were all squatting on their haunches round a splendid wood fire which
blazed on a big slab of stone; Madame was making coffee, and Monsieur
lemonade. A place was made for me at once, and I joined the squatting
circle. They were most anxious about my health, felt me to see if I were
really dry; and Madame, as she was unable to make me understand, kissed
my hands and face. The fire had been lighted expressly for me, said
Monsieur, and now they would all enjoy it. I appealed to Dutsi in an
undertone about the possibility of better accommodation, but he was
positive about this being the only inn. A room in a private house could
be found perhaps by the sea, but that was half an hour away; moreover,
these were most excellent people, and had lent him a coat and a pair of
shoes. Their hearty friendliness filled me with trust from the first;
the extreme primitiveness of the place attracted me. I said to myself,
"You wanted to see the Albanians, and the Lord has delivered you into
their hands. This is a unique opportunity," and I settled in and tried
to behave like one of the family. Dutsi took a tender farewell of me,
and begged me to give his love to X. of the Foreign Office, that
bravest, noblest, and most admirable signor in the whole world, and to
tell him that he (Dutsi) was praying God night and day to protect him
and bring him back to Albania. Then the rest of the company, whose
curiosity had been aroused, were told of the glories of X., and the fact
that I was his compatriot counted greatly in my favour; for in these
out-of-the-way corners the reputation of the Empire depends entirely on
the conduct of the two or three individuals who happen to have
represented it, and the responsibility upon them is heavy indeed.

Dutsi departed, and I felt a bit lonesome; but the company rejoiced over
me like children over a new kitten. They patted and stroked me, and
broke off little pieces of bread for me, and, as I could not understand
Albanian, grunted and burbled over me like friendly guinea-pigs. The
place was thick with pungent wood smoke, which escaped from a window
near the roof. The rafters overhead were black and smoky, the walls
rough stone; there was a heap of logs and brushwood in the farther
corner, and a few pots hung on pegs. Otherwise there was nothing. In
England, even in Anglo-Saxon times, my ancestors had tables and chairs.
I sat cross-legged by the blazing logs with streaming eyes, and wondered
which century I was in. And the firelight danced on the only up-to-date
thing in the room, the barrels of a rifle and revolver and the brass
tops of the cartridges in the belt of the man next me. For living, we
can go on as before with the same old things, but when it comes to
killing we really require something better. From time to time Monsieur
retired to the bar to deal out rakija to customers, and the fame of my
arrival soon spread. If the customers were of lowly standing, they were
invited in to see me; if, on the contrary, they were great men,
Montenegrin captains for instance, Monsieur asked me if I would be so
good as to step out and speak to them. These were all huge, all
courteous, all friendly, and all unable to speak anything but Servian.
Rain still poured, but as everyone who came to see me took a glass of
something, trade was good. One gentleman who spoke Italian was such a
tremendous swell that I asked him if there were any better hotel in the
place. This surprised him, and he replied that there was no other, and
the cooking here was excellent. Having interviewed some half-dozen
captains and a lot of shaven-headed up-country Albanians, I retired to
the kitchen again, and began drying my wet under-garments one by
one--an operation that interested Monsieur so deeply that he insisted
upon helping, and singed them freely. In came, in a dripping overcoat, a
strapping, cheerful, great Montenegrin, who hailed me joyfully in
Italian, sat down, and, smiling gleefully, remarked in English, "a cat,
a dog, a orse, a and, a man," and some dozen other words. Everyone
looked on in admiration. I returned in Servian, to his delight, and he
explained to me that he was kavass to the British and Foreign Bible
Society in Constantinople, and was home for a holiday. His friendliness
was unbounded; he insisted that I was to breakfast with him next
morning, and demanded to know what I was going to have for supper. He
knew all about the English, he said, and I must have roast beef.
Monsieur retired to a corner and came back with the carcase of a lamb
and a caldron. The kavass was greatly opposed to this; Monsieur was much
excited; anything I required he was willing to try! A great debate
ensued. They appealed to me, and I chose the lamb and the pot, for the
mere idea of an Albanian culinary experiment alarmed me. So Madame
fetched a hatchet, and the lamb was chopped in chunks on the hearthstone
and put into the caldron with a sheaf of onions, and I reflected that I
had at least secured mutton broth. The kavass was greatly disappointed,
as he wished to show them how to make a real English dinner. I thanked
him for his trouble, promised to breakfast with him, and he took his
leave.

As it had now ceased raining and was still light, Monsieur proposed that
we should go for a walk. The town is a large one, the shops built of
wood, many in Turkish style. We went into quite a number, not to buy
anything, but just so that the people could really have a good look at
me, and I shook hands with them all, Monsieur the while swelling with
pride. Throughout the walk he expatiated on Montenegro and the joys of
living under the government of the Prince; so good, so just. Here a man
was free. They were saved from those devils the Turks. He was himself an
Albanian of a Skodra family. "You are Catholic?" I said, for nearly all
Skodra Christians are Catholics. "Oh no," he said, "now I am a
Montenegrin, of the Church of Montenegro. Oh, what good people!" We got
under shelter just in time, and he showed me his other means of gaining
a living. He was an umbrella-mender, and also he embroidered the gold
patterns on the tops of caps. "I am always at work," he said, "and this
house is my own." Everything he possessed he admired and valued. As for
his wife, he informed me she was one of the best women in the world, and
he called upon me to admire everything she did. God had not given him a
son, and this was, it was true, a grief to him, but then "I have so much
else," he said cheerfully, "a house that is warm and dry, and a good
wife and plenty of friends, and a good daughter." The daughter had last
year delighted her father by making a most excellent marriage. She had
married a Montenegrin, and lived in Podgoritza. His shop was a chilly
open shed, his kitchen an English peasant would have considered an
inferior coal-hole, and he was so pleased with them that I was ashamed
of having doubted whether they were good enough for me.

I returned to Madame and helped stir the pot. Monsieur shut up and
barred the outer shop, some other men appeared, and we sat down to
supper. We each had a basin, a spoon and a fork, and used our own
knives. We all stood up while they crossed themselves; then Madame
uncovered the caldron, and we squatted round it and set to work. The
broth, being the stewing of a lamb, was excellent, and as my friends
greatly preferred the meat with all the goodness boiled out of it, there
was plenty for me. On my account there were extra luxuries, and all were
pleased. We dipped out of the caldron and offered one another the
tit-bits. When the lamb's head was fished up, Monsieur was grieved that
I should not have had it, and pulling out the eyes and tongue, offered
me them in his hand. In order to make me understand exactly what the
morsel was, they put out their own tongues and waggled them about. I
said I had had quite enough and thanked him, and they divided the
delicacies carefully between them, each taking a bite.

A discussion took place, and then Monsieur produced a little picture, an
ordinary, crude colour-print of the Virgin. It seemed to bother them
greatly. Monsieur evidently admired it, his friends doubted its
orthodoxy. There was something written under it that alarmed them. "Ask
the lady," said one of them in Servian. "Do you know Latin?" said
Monsieur. "Oh yes," said I, for I am always willing to oblige, if
possible. "She knows everything," they said, and the little picture was
handed to me. Under it was written "Ave Maria, etc." "What language is
that?" said the first man eagerly. "That is Latin," said I. "Latinski!"
they cried in horror. Instantly, as though it were infectious, the poor
little picture was whipped out of my hand and poked into the fire.
Monsieur shoved it down with his foot. The Roman Catholic Madonna flamed
up, and everyone breathed freely again. Monsieur made an apologetic
explanation, but his friends were obviously shocked at finding such a
thing in a respectable house. Oddly enough, in spite of my acquaintance
with the wicked language, it did not seem to occur to anyone to doubt my
orthodoxy.

Madame, however, had evidently something on her mind which she wanted to
tell me, and held an Albanian debate with the company. Unable any longer
to bear the cross-legged attitude, I had retreated, when I had eaten
enough, to the bottom step of the little ladder that led to the upper
room, and watched the strange scene. The smoke eddied in wreaths round
the room and drifted out above; the farther corners were quite dark. The
bizarre group squatted round the fire; the trouser-legged woman voluble
and eager; the sandal-shod, mediævally-clad men, their clean-cut
profiles silhouetted against the blaze, or outlined with red light,
handed round a tiny pair of tongs with which they picked out fragments
of burning wood and lighted their cigarettes. All were interested. I
wondered what it was all about. Monsieur turned and explained. His wife,
he said, liked me very much; their only daughter was married; they were
lonely. Would I stay with them for always and be a daughter to them? Now
I had seen what the house was like; they would all be very good to me,
and we should all be "molto contento." Everyone waited anxiously for my
reply. They were quite serious about it, and I replied in the same
spirit, that I had a mother and that, naturally, I must return to her.
They inquired her age and where she lived, and then agreed that it would
be impossible for her to live alone, and that I was right, though they
lamented the fact. Then they told me their ages and asked mine, and we
were all equally astounded; for they had regarded me as a very young
thing, and I had put them all down as at least twelve years older than
they were. I have no doubt that they were speaking the truth, and that
it was the roughness of their lives that had so aged them, and Monsieur
was really not more than forty, and his wife forty-two.

About nine o'clock the company from outside all left, having first stood
up and crossed themselves and wished each other good-night
ceremoniously. Monsieur lit a tiny lantern, of which the glass was
grimy, and led the way up the steps to the "molto bella camera." Here
there were three heaps of bedding in a row. "This," said he cheerfully,
"is yours, this is my wife's, and this is mine." I had been quite
Albanian for some hours. Now the West arose in me and would not be
gainsaid. I murmured something about the other room. It was my host's
turn to be scandalised now. Horrified, he exclaimed, "The gentleman in
there is not married!" and called for his wife. They talked it over, and
then he kindly said that he and his wife could sleep with the other
gentleman if I really preferred it; "but," he added, "you are not
married, you will be all alone." Then he gathered up the bedding in a
bundle, they wished me good-night, and left me with a sackful of dried
maize husks on two packing-cases, and a wadded coverlet. He returned
almost immediately to ask if I should like a key, which, he said, was
quite unnecessary. I reflected that if he meant to burgle me he would do
so, key or no key, so I thanked him and said I was sure it was not
needed. This gave him great pleasure, and he told me repeatedly that his
house and all he possessed were mine. Then he left me, and at once
through the thin partition wall I heard three flops as the three lay
down on their mattresses. I followed the Albanian plan, curled up on the
packing-cases as I was, and slept for nearly nine hours without
stirring.

When I woke, quite refreshed, the sun was streaming through the cracked
shutters. I heard my neighbours shake themselves and issue forth, so I
shook myself and issued forth too. Monsieur, Madame, and the
gentleman-who-was-not-married were all flat on the floor blowing up the
fire. They were enchanted to see me and hear I had had a good night, and
shook hands enthusiastically. Except that their hair was a little
rougher, they looked just as they had the night before, but by the
bright morning-light I saw that Madame's dirty grey jacket was really
purple silk with a silver pattern, and had once been very gorgeous.
Washing was my chief idea, and I told Monsieur I should like some water.
He replied the coffee would be ready in a minute. I said it was for my
hands, so he fetched half a tumblerful and poured it over them. As they
had not been washed for twenty-four hours, it made very little
difference. I indicated a tiny tin basin. Madame understood at once, and
filled it for me. I took it to my room, and she followed. Her delight
and astonishment when she found I had taken the precaution of bringing
soap with me were really beautiful, and the sponge was an article she
had never seen before. She immediately called to her husband, and he and
the gentleman-who-was-not-married hurried to see the sight. They danced
with glee when they saw how the water ran out of the holes, and were all
seized with a wild desire to try it. This I steadily refused to
understand in any language. Owing, indeed, to the scarcity of water and
the quantity of spectators, the wash was hardly satisfactory. They
forgot the sponge in the joys of seeing me brush my teeth. A tooth-brush
was a complete novelty. Monsieur, whose teeth were as white as a dog's,
begged to be allowed to use it only for a moment, but just then the
coffee opportunely boiled over, they rushed to the rescue, and I was
saved.

I was then reminded of the invitation to breakfast with the Montenegrin
kavass, and was hurried off to his house. In spite of his brave attire
of the night before, his top-boots, his green embroidered coat, and his
gold waistcoat, his mansion was only one degree more civilised than the
Albanian's. The ground floor was used as a shed. We ascended a
step-ladder to the floor above, where he stood beaming, and conducted me
at once to the bedroom. The outer room, or kitchen, was quite bare, with
smoke-grimed rafters, and a heap of firewood and a few pots and pans in
it. The fire blazed on the hearthstone in the corner, and his wife was
making coffee. He introduced me to her, and told her that I was English
and must have a large cup with milk in it. He swelled with pride about
his knowledge of the English, and introduced me with ceremony to the
company five men and a woman, who had, it seemed, all been invited to
meet me. The top-boots, a rifle, a cartridge belt and a revolver hung on
the wall, and of course the patron saint of the family. There were two
iron bedsteads, a table, a chair or two, and a bench. I sat on the
bench, and the Albanian on one of the beds, which he admired very much.
He then favoured the company with the details he had learned about me
the night before--my age, my brothers and sisters, etc.--all of which
appeared to interest them greatly, as did also the plan of adopting me
as a daughter, which they strongly urged me to accept. The kavass,
however, did not mean him to do all the talking, but fetched a key and
unlocked the chest in which he kept his best clothes and other
valuables. From this he extracted a good pair of laced-up boots and
handed them to me with delight. They were stamped inside with the name
of an English maker, and were nearly new. He had scarcely ever worn
them, he valued them so--had bought them in Constantinople for two
pounds "sterline." They made quite an impression on the company, and I
expressed my great joy at beholding them. His wife brought in the
coffee, black for everyone but myself. Mine was a large bowl full of
boiled milk with a little coffee in it. The kavass showed it to the
company and explained that, besides that, the English always ate a
little piece of pig with an egg on it. This so fired the Albanian's
imagination that he leaped up with the intention of scouring the
neighbourhood for fragments of pig, and I had some difficulty in
checking the pig-chase. Whatever was cooked for me I knew I should have
to eat, and boiled milk and bread were at any rate safe. They all
begged me to make a long stay at Dulcigno. I could spend the evenings at
their respective houses, and they would all be glad to see me. As,
however, it was a fine day and the weather had lately been most
unsettled, I determined to take advantage of it and ride to Antivari
while it was possible. I therefore thanked everyone, and said I should
like a horse and guide that day at eleven o'clock. Then an odd
complication ensued, for they only knew Turkish time, and by Turkish
time twelve o'clock is sunset, nor could I make them understand. They
settled the matter, however, in the simplest way by saying that they
would get the horse at once, and let it wait till I was ready. "Two
gentlemen," said the Albanian, were also going to Antivari, and as their
private affairs were not urgent, they too would wait and accompany me
when I pleased. So, everybody being satisfied, I thanked the kavass,
shook hands all round, and went off to have a look at Dulcigno by
daylight.

The bay, with the old town on the promontory and its Venetian walls, is
very beautiful. The town stretches down the valley and round the bay,
and several mosque minarets tell of the Turk. The Mohammedan women here
wear an odd and hideous great hooded cloak of coarse brown woollen stuff
bound with red. In this they slink about like bogies, and the Moslems,
both men and women, have a furtive and rather ashamed appearance, very
different from their swagger in Skodra. In the old town, pieces of
carving built into walls and well-hewn stones are all that is left of
the Venetian occupation: Dulcigno fell into Turkish hands in 1571, and
though Venice made two attempts to recapture it, Turkish it remained.
It was taken by the Montenegrins in 1877, restored to the Turks by the
Berlin Congress, and finally handed over to Montenegro by the Powers in
1880. Dulcigno has a fine bay, but as it is not yet connected with the
interior by a decent road, there is not much done in the way of traffic.

When I returned, I found a white pony and three men awaiting me. One was
the guide, the others the "two signori" who, I had been told, were going
my way; fearsome objects. Both were cartridge-belted and be-weaponed,
and looked like two half-moulted birds of prey perched each in a heap on
the edge of the doorstep. They fixed me with their grey hawk's eyes and
snorted when introduced. I went into the inn and asked for my bill.
Monsieur was coy about it. He looked me all over and considered how rich
I was. Then he said, would I think three francs too much? He was
delighted when I paid it without a murmur, and thanked me repeatedly. I
took a tender farewell. Madame embraced me three times, and matters
having gone so far, with a final effort at being Albanian, I kissed her
three times, shook hands with numerous stripey-legged gentlemen, tied my
bags to my saddle, and mounted.

The scenery was magnificent and the path bad. Rock, rock, almost all the
way, either very steep up or very steep down. The white pony climbed
like a cat; all he bargained for was to have his head loose. I hitched
the reins on the saddle peak and let him have his own way. The three
Albanians shot ahead, walking swiftly and silently with a long, swinging
stride. Neither the quality of the ground nor its steepness made any
apparent difference to them, nor did they trouble about me in the least,
and I often lost sight of them altogether, for one cannot hustle a horse
over wet rock. Nothing, however, bothered the white pony; he was used to
heavier weights than myself. When we came to a series of smooth steep
inclines, he simply spread out his legs and tobogganed in the neatest
manner, gathering his hoofs together at bottom and starting down the
next one so easily that I did not think it worth while to dismount. The
country was almost uninhabited, though fertile and wooded. Wherever
cultivated, it appears to yield well. Olives and figs flourish, and I
noticed a few fields of flax. Then below us the Adriatic and the bay of
Antivari blazed blue, we zigzagged down a very steep hillside all loose
stones, I saw the ruined town up the valley and the Prince's palace upon
the shore, and felt at home again. We reached the plain and a good road,
and a carriage dashed round the corner at a smart trot with the
Archbishop in it. He waved and hailed me at once, and roared with
laughter at my turn-out and escort, which would really have done
admirably at home on Guy Fawkes Day. The "two gentlemen" disappeared
quite suddenly by a short cut to the town, without even a farewell
snort, and I never saw them again. Why they accompanied me at all I
never fathomed. They may have conversed with my guide when they were
ahead, in my presence they scarcely spoke a word even to each other.
When we got to the cross roads, I turned the white pony Prstan-wards,
and was soon welcomed by Maria in the little cottage on the beach. I had
been told the ride was a six hours' one, and we had done it in six and
a half, which was not bad.

For the benefit of such travellers as wish to see Dulcigno and who do
not crave to understand the domestic arrangements of the Albanians, I
ought to add that it is possible to find decent rooms in private houses
in the Montenegrin part of the town.



[ILLUSTRATION: MONTENEGRIN PLOUGH.]




PART II

OF SERVIA

          "The Standing is slippery and the Regress is
          either a Downfall or at least an Eclipse; which is
          a Melancholy Thing."--BACON.




CHAPTER X

BELGRADE


Servia is only some thirty-six hours distant from London by rail, but
for England it is an almost undiscovered country. Nor do the other
nations flock thither. I gathered this on my journey on the main line
from Agram to Belgrade through the crown-lands of Hungary, over endless
plains and miles of floods. Guards and ticket-collectors alike agreed in
telling me that it was impossible for me to go to Belgrade. "You will
require a passport," they said. And when I said that I had one, they
replied sadly, "It is probably not good." "Belgrade," said an old lady
in the corner, "and you are English! Oh, then you are the new school
inspector. You have come, have you not, from an English Society to
report on Servian education? Two other ladies have been already."
"Perhaps I shall meet them," I suggested. "Oh no," said the old lady
cheerfully; "that was when I was a girl. It was about 1864 that I saw
them. Naturally I thought you came for the same purpose!" As I had no
mission from the Government, she agreed with the guards that the
expedition was impossible, and I was soon left alone in the carriage. As
Agram had refused to book me farther than Semlin, I did not feel
particularly cheery about it myself. Semlin opined I was a governess,
and made no difficulty about booking me on! The train crashed across the
iron bridge over the Save, and we arrived. It was half-past ten at night
when I alighted in Belgrade--alone, friendless, and knowing nothing of
either country or people except what I had gathered from a few books,
mostly not up to date. Guide-book there is none, and a little of the
language was all that I had to rely upon to see me through a strange
land.

The first Servians I encountered were the two soldiers who take the
passports, which have to be reclaimed next day. I grasped this fact and
passed through, with some satisfaction, as I heard behind me the
wrathful voices of several Italians and Germans who were fiercely
refusing to part with their papers, and were being shouted at in
Servian. Thinking it would wound their pride to be offered female
British assistance, I left them to fight it out, and was the first, in
consequence, to get through the "Customs." Then I rattled uphill through
the dark deserted streets, where the night sentries with greatcoats and
rifles were already on guard, and arrived at my hotel.

My only letter of introduction was a failure, as the addressee was
abroad; the British Consul, whom I had been specially told to inform of
my proceedings by the Servian Minister in London, had not yet arrived,
and the secretaries at the British Ministry were quite new. This is a
fate that pursues me. When I arrive at a place for the first time, the
Powers that arrange such things always give the Consul a holiday, or
appoint a new one who has not yet learnt the language. But having never
yet failed to find friends on my travels, I did not worry about my
possible fate up country. Several things began to happen at once.
"Where," said I to the waiter, when he brought me my coffee on the very
first morning, "where am I likely to see the King and Queen?" He looked
at me with a peculiar expression. "You want to see our King?" he said.
"You won't see him. He dare not come out of the konak. He is probably
drunk," he added contemptuously. I made no remark, for there was none
that it seemed expedient to make, and though I haunted the neighbourhood
of the konak industriously, each time that I returned to Belgrade, I
never saw either King or Queen. This was in the summer of 1902.

Belgrade (Beograd = "The White City") is most beautifully situated. For
a capital to be so placed that the enemy can shell it comfortably from
his own doorstep is of course ridiculous, but for sheer beauty of
outlook Belgrade is not easy to surpass. Perched on a hill, at the foot
of which Save joins Danube, it commands westwards a wonderful expanse of
sky and stream and willows, with a pale mauve distance of Servian
mountains, while opposite lie the rich plains of Hungary and the little
town of Semlin. Belgrade is a new town, a quite new town, and no longer
deserves the name of "The White City," its general effect from a
distance being dark; but the name is an old one, and "white" is a
favourite Servian adjective. It is a bright, clean town; the houses,
seldom more than two storeys high, look solidly built; there are plenty
of good shops, and the streets are wide and cheerful. It looks so
prosperous and the inhabitants so very much up to date, its soldiers are
so trim, its officers so gorgeous, and the new Government offices are
so imposing, that one is surprised to find that the country, owing to
mismanagement, is financially in an almost desperate condition.

There is little wheeled traffic in the streets, nor is this a wonder,
for the pavement is indescribably vile. "Ah, but you should have seen it
in Turkish times," say the Servians, and they do not worry about it; for
they have two lines of electric trams, and your Servian is not a
pedestrian. Coming as I did, straight from Cetinje, I spent the first
few days in wondering whether the very dark, short people who crowded
the trams of Belgrade, for lack of energy to walk up the street, were
really blood-relations of the long-legged giants who stride tirelessly
over the crags of Montenegro with never a sob. I never saw a Servian who
looked as if he took exercise because he liked it. Neither did I ever
see any attempt at an athletic sport. On the other hand, wherever I
went, people expressed amazement that I could find any pleasure in
travels that entailed so much exertion. I have never met folk that
walked so slowly. I used to try not to pass people in the street, and
vow it is as difficult as to win the slow bicycle race. An average Serb
seems to think two miles an hour sharp going; his ordinary pace I cannot
pretend to estimate, and when he has nothing particular to do, which is
often, he sits down and plays cards. In my whole life I do not think I
have seen so many cards as I did in Servia. In the cafés, hotels, and
restaurants the soft slither and plap-plap of the painted pasteboards
and the tap of the chalk as the players write the score goes on from
morning till night, and forms a running accompaniment to every meal.
When asked what struck me most on arriving in Servia, I often referred
to this habit, and astonished my questioners. "We are obliged to play
cards," they said; "chess is too difficult, and we cannot afford
billiard-tables." In public, very little money changes hands, it is
merely a matter of a few coppers, a way of killing the time that hangs
so heavily on their hands; for Servia, in spite of the West European
look of its capital, has not yet I learned to be in a hurry.

Card-playing has comprehensible attractions, but the Servians are
possessed of a quite original vice which is not likely to lead other
folk astray. They drink too much cold water, and they drink it till they
are pulpy. An average Serb drinks enough cold water for an English cow.
I doubt whether the language contains an equivalent for "bad training,"
for when I tried to explain the idea it created surprise. A doctor told
me he had never heard the theory before. To him it seemed a natural and
wholesome habit; moreover, he added, "there is plenty," and seemed to
think it was rather wasteful to leave any unswallowed. To me it
explained the lack of activity; the nation is water-logged. All day long
and every day the Serb calls for a glass of cold water, and when he has
drunk it he calls for another. Perhaps owing to this he has little space
left for alcohol; at any rate, I never saw a drunken man, even amongst
the peasants returning from market.

Belgrade, in fine weather, is a very agreeable town to do nothing in for
a day or two. But its historic fortress, its beautiful garden, and the
woods of Topchider are all too well known to require describing. One
mosque only, and that a dilapidated one, tells of the departed Turk. The
mass of the inhabitants (60,000) are Orthodox Serbs, and a colony of
Spanish-speaking Jews lives in the low-lying quarter called Dorchol. I
think I saw the whole colony, from the tiniest beady-eyed baby to the
stoutest grand-mamma, for they flocked to see me pass as though I were a
coronation procession. Unaware that a foreign woman travelling alone in
Servia was a unique event, I wished them "good day" cheerfully, and went
my way.

The "old konak," a rather mean-looking building painted a raw cream
colour, and standing in a small garden with sentry boxes in front of it,
has since acquired hideous fame. For in it, but a year later, did
Alexander's ill-starred reign come to its awful end. Belgrade was so
civil to me, there was such perfect order in the streets both by day and
night, all was outwardly so quiet, that even now I find it hard to
realise that that ugly yellow house has been turned into a shambles.
That the King would have to leave and at no distant date was obvious,
but I believed it would be by the usual route, and as I watched the
swirly yellow Save hurrying along below, I murmured, "There's one more
river, one more river to cross." It is a marvel that Servian rulers
continue to dwell within sight of the Save. It is the most
"men-may-come-and-men-may-go" river in all Europe. But in Servia, though
you may flee from the Save, you can never lose sight of the political
situation, which is a parlous one. Servia is too small to stand quite
alone. Without, she is surrounded by Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria. The
first is slowly squeezing her, preparatory to swallowing her whole,
should a favourable chance arise; the second yet holds the heart of the
old Servian Empire; and with the third Servias quarrel dates from the
seventh century. Internally Servia is torn by parties who differ as to
which of the Powers it is advisable to propitiate, and these parties
dance to external wirepulling.

Things being as they are, it is small wonder that the Serb suspects
everyone that crosses his frontier and believes he has come for obscure
political reasons. I entered Servia cheerfully unaware of this, and soon
learnt that the police were watching my movements. Belgrade, like
Montenegro and Dalmatia, took me for a Russian, otherwise I neither knew
nor cared whether Belgrade thought about me at all. Wishful of learning
the language and of seeing things Servian, I determined to go to the
theatre, and in the old happy days, when I was as yet guileless and
unsuspicious, I stopped and began to slowly decipher a playbill at a
street corner. I had struggled through but little of it when I was
approached by a policeman on duty, a picturesque personage in a brown
uniform with red braiding. He touched his cap to me and said most
politely in very fair French, "Our language, Mademoiselle, is very
difficult for une Anglaise. Permit that I assist you," and proceeded to
translate the bill. Surprised and pleased, I asked myself, "Which of our
own bobbies could thus assist a foreigner?" and being accustomed to be
called Russian, I asked, "How did you know that I am English?" "Oh," he
replied cheerfully, "Mademoiselle only arrived here on Monday, and I,
you see, am in the police. Naturally I know. Also the officer at the
custom-house has stated that Mademoiselle knows some of our language,
and that is most unusual in a foreigner." As a freeborn British subject,
I was considerably taken aback to find that the police were so well
informed about me. Immediately and rashly I said to myself, "When in
Rome do as the Romans. I too can ask questions." There was something
about the policeman that was oddly familiar; he was a tall fair man,
quite unlike the short dark type that I was beginning to recognise as
Belgrade-Servian. So I said to him, "Yes, I am English. Where do you
come from? You are not a Serb of Servia." "Ah no," he said, with a sigh;
"I am far from my people. I come from a quite little place of which
Mademoiselle has never heard. I come from the neighbourhood of
Kolashin." This at once enlightened me. Foolishly proud of my knowledge,
I laughed and replied, "Kolashin? Oh yes, in Montenegro, near the
Albanian frontier. You are Crnagorach!"

It was his turn to be astonished now, and he almost leapt with
amazement. He broke into his native tongue. "You know my fatherland! You
know my fatherland!" he cried in great excitement. "You have been there!
Have you seen my Prince, our gospodar Nikola? Have you seen Prince
Danilo? Prince Mirko? the Princesses Milena? Militza? Have you been to
Podgoritza? to Ostrog?" etc. "Yes, yes," said I to everything. "Bogami!
Bogami!" (Oh my God!), he cried. Then he took a long breath, pulled
himself together, and started a torrent of the most fluent French.
"Mademoiselle," he said, "I will tell you everything. I came from
Kolashin twelve years ago with a comrade. He also is a policeman; he is
now in the next street. As soon as he arrived here he married a Servian
woman, and he has been unhappy ever since. I, Mademoiselle, am
unmarried. I detest these Servian women. They are bad, Mademoiselle,
they are unfaithful! I would not take one on any account, and I cannot
afford to go back to my own country for a wife. But you, Mademoiselle,
you are half Montenegrin; you have the heart of a lion; you know my
country; you have seen my Prince; you speak my language! Unfortunately,
Mademoiselle, I must remain in this street,"--here I mentally offered
thanks to the powers that had rooted him to this spot, "but on Sunday
afternoon I shall be free. I shall come to take you out to Topchider. We
shall have something to eat; soon we shall become good friends; soon we
will be married. I am a very good man, Mademoiselle," here he smote his
chest. "The British Consul can learn all about me from my captain. _You_
can teach English in Belgrade, and _we_ shall soon be very rich. But,"
he added very seriously, "you are staying at the Grand Hotel, a most
expensive place! You must not stay there. I shall tell you of a much
cheaper one, and on Sunday we will go out together!" He paused, rather
for want of breath, I fancy, than for a reply, the favourable nature of
which he took for granted. I seized the opportunity. "Thank you very
much," I said, "but I am leaving Belgrade to-morrow, and I have no
time." "Oh, but why, Mademoiselle? You have only been here a week, and
it is a so charming town! Restes, je te prie, jusqu'à Dimanche, jusqu'à
Dimanche!" "Impossible!" I cried; "adieu, adieu!" and fled round the
nearest corner. As I left for Nish early next morning, I saw him no
more, and on my subsequent return to Belgrade dodged, with the speed of
a pickpocket, whenever I saw a tall policeman looming in the distance.




CHAPTER XI

SMEDEREVO--SHABATZ--VALJEVO--UB--OBRENOVATZ


Smederevo from the Danube is a most impressive sight. A huge brick
fortress surrounds the promontory with castellated walls and a long
perspective of towers; a grand mediæval building lying grim on the
water's edge, a monument of Servias death-struggle with the Turks. Built
in 1432 by George Brankovich, son of Vuk the traitor of Kosovo, it was
Servia's last stronghold, and its makers, in defiance of the Crescent,
built the Cross in red bricks into the wall where, now the tide of
invasion has at last ebbed, you may still see it. And all the nineteen
towers still stand.

Having landed, and reflected that I could not escape for many hours, I
walked up the main street and I prayed that the populace would prove
friendly. It was--very. I had not gone far when I was marked by the
policeman. He was much perturbed. He walked all round me at a very
respectful distance, and discussed with everyone on the way what he had
better do. Finally he came up and asked me in Servian, if I spoke it.
"Very little," said I, and volunteered that I was English, which caused
him to call up reinforcements. By this time a fair audience was
collected, for the hope of seeing some one "run in" will gather a crowd
anywhere. Having ascertained that I understood German, he called up a
man to speak to me. The man, pleased with the importance he was gaining,
poured out a long string of mysterious noises which resembled no known
tongue. Then he turned to the policeman and said, in Servian, "She
doesn't know German." The policeman was in despair, and so was the
populace. "Speak Servian slowly," I said. "Where do you come from?"
"London." "Where are your friends?" "In England." "What are you doing?"
"I have come to see Servia." This pleased him very much. "Have you any
brothers?" "Yes." "Where are they?" I supplied the information and other
family details. Finally he summed up the evidence, and imparted to the
surrounding multitude the information that I had come all alone to see
Servia and the Servians. This, he said, was "very good." He touched his
cap and smiled affably, and the assembly broke up. All this amused me,
but I lived to see the day when these interviews became a weariful
burden.

I had luckily hit on the day of a great cattle and pig fair. The open
space between town and fortress was filled with peasants and their
beasts, great grey draught oxen, sheep, horses, goats, and, above all,
the staple product of Servia, pigs. The Servian pig is a great
character. He rules indeed large tracts of country. He is cared for,
tended, and waited upon. I have seen a large sow walking with dignity
down the middle of the road, followed by a number of human retainers,
each carrying one of her piglets like a baby in arms, while she set the
pace, stopped to grubble at anything that interested her, and looked
back from time to time with her beady little eyes to see that her
infants were being properly cared for.

Here in the market the pigs were the most important personages present,
and knew it. They are great woolly beasts, some of fair complexion,
beautifully curly as to their backs. Their snouts are long and unringed.
Being of a highly practical nature, the first thing they did on arriving
at the market field was to dig themselves cubby-houses. Those that were
lucky enough to find a hole full of water sat in it, and were supremely
happy. Some quite small mud-holes were packed with pigs lying on the
black ooze and crammed together like sardines in oil. All talked
incessantly. There were hundreds of tender babes wandering about, but
the families never got mixed. The little ones are longitudinally
striped, like young wild boars, and very elegant. Their mothers found
mud-holes if possible, and the children sank in up to their eyes. All
were extremely tame. If the owner of a pig family wished to shift camp,
he strewed a few beans to start them with, and the whole lot followed,
conversing cheerfully, and rearranged themselves neatly whenever he
chose to sit down again. The mud-coated ones lay and baked in the sun,
like live pork pies, till their mud casing was hard and bricky.

While I was absorbed in pigs, a gentleman came up, took off his hat, and
launched me into the language again. He knew a very little French, and
with that and Servian extracted the same information as the policeman
had done. But he went farther. "Had I been into the fortress?" was his
next. I have a great respect for frontier fortresses in all parts of the
world, and it had not occurred to me to do more than examine it from a
distance. "It is the only thing to see here; I will take you over it,"
he said. I gratefully accepted the offer, imagining the place was now
public like the fortress of Belgrade, and we approached the gate and
were saluted by the sentry, who made no objection. Passing in, I found
to my astonishment that it was full of soldiers, and very much the
reverse of a public promenade. My friend, who seemed to be a well-known
person, asked the first private we met for the Commandant. "The
Commandant," he said, "is over there, with the artillery." Off we
started in search of him, and were soon hotly pursued by an apologetic
soldier, who explained that no foreigners were admitted. I suggested
retreating, but my escort would not hear of it, and, quite undaunted,
took me over to a party of very smart officers who were sitting at a
table under some trees. To them he introduced me with a flourish. They
leapt to their feet, made most elegant bows, and were all struck dumb
with amazement. My friend then persisted that, as I was English and had
come so far, I ought to be shown the fortress. None of them could speak
anything but Servian, and were very shy. I said all I could to them in
answer to their questions and tried to say good-bye, as it was obvious
that their orders did not allow them to take foreigners round. Moreover,
it did not seem to me that there was anything of further interest to me
to be seen. I was inside and had a good view of the huge walls and
towers, the great open space they surrounded, and the rough irregular
masonry they were built of. To send for the Commandant, as my friend
urged, seemed absurd. I got up to go. However, after a whispered debate,
the officers asked me if I would like to see the view from the walls,
and one of them volunteered to take me. He hustled me with elaborate
care quickly and guiltily past the artillerymen, who were taking a gun
to pieces, and must have been inventing horrible secrets. Poor things!
they might have explained it all to me without my being any the wiser. I
remembered Dreyfus, and could scarcely help laughing at the ridiculous
position I had managed to get into. The wall was soon ascended, and the
view over the Danube certainly very fine, but I felt sure I ought to
depart, so skipped quickly down again; but the poor officer in spurs
took a long while arriving at the bottom. We returned to the gate, and I
endeavoured to thank him; he shook hands in an elaborate manner,
saluted, and I emerged from George Brankovich's great fort, which has
been besieged by Servian, Turk, and Hungarian, but never before, I
believe, surprised by the English. My friend kept repeating, "You are
English, and they ought to have shown it you," and was very much vexed.

Smederevo has no other sights, and Shabatz on the Save was my next
experiment in towns. It can be reached by a local boat from Belgrade,
also by rail. Let no one, however, be persuaded into taking the train
unless he wishes to realise thoroughly, once and for all, the joys of
living upon a hostile frontier. The train journey was an hour and a half
shorter than that by boat, and I imagined that to book from one town to
another in the same country was a simple matter, though I was aware that
the frontier had to be crossed, so I walked cheerfully down to the
station. I asked for a ticket to Shabatz, and was, as a result,
immediately conducted to the station police bureau, where a youth in a
light blue coat was busily stamping passports and inquiring into
every-one's past and future existence. My advent upset the dull current
of everyday routine. I said I wanted to go to Shabatz, thinking to
smooth matters down, but it only created more excitement. The pale blue
youth put everything aside in order to fathom the mystery of my
movements. Servian frontier police are funny and amusing people. They
spare no pains to unravel plots; I hope they will find one some day as a
reward for their efforts. If, instead of only myself, there had been say
forty or fifty tourists in Servia, the entire land would possibly have
been disorganised, trains delayed, criminals left unarrested, and
burglaries committed, while the police officials were straining every
nerve to ascertain the number of brothers and sisters, and past,
present, and future actions of the visitors! I did my best to assist
their plans, and have in fact provided them with the materials for a
fairly accurate biography of myself, should one ever be required. Its
excessive dulness went a long way towards soothing their agitated
nerves. Pressure of business forced the pale blue youth to stamp my
passport and let me go while his appetite for details was yet
unsatisfied, and I hastened to buy a ticket for Shabatz. This was
impossible. I could only book across the river to Semlin. By this time I
was really interested in frontier existence, and began to regard the
trip as a sporting event. Feeling righteous and bold as a lion, being
armed with a stamped passport and a ticket, I walked down the platform
only to be stopped short by sentries. The pale blue youth from the
office came flying up. Having hurried up through his business, he
intended learning a little more about me while yet there was time. As he
spoke nothing but his native tongue and was fluent and excited, we did
not get on very well; but I imparted my proposed plan of seeing Servia
to him, and he stood on the step of the carriage till the train started.
Hardly were we off when another officer turned up. He took the passport
and wrote my name in a little book, but had unfortunately no time to ask
more than three or four questions.

At Semlin we were quite busy. First we went through the customs, and
then we had to go and find our passports. The stout and smiling police
official selected mine, and without venturing to pronounce my name
cried, "The English one." More conversation, this time in German. I told
him that I had made nine journeys with that passport without its ever
being looked at, and now it had been stamped twice in an hour. This
pleased him, and he pointed out that it showed how superior the
Hungarian police are to those of other nations. Then I re-booked, and
learned that I had to change trains! My fellow-passengers dazed me with
Magyar. They none of them agreed as to where I must change, but were all
convinced that I had been wrongly informed by the railway guard, and
when I arrived at last on the banks of the Save and saw the ferry-boat,
I felt as if I were returning to a well-known and civilised land. Even
Servian is better than Magyar.

Hurrying to the boat, I was checked suddenly by crossed rifles. Magyar
again. As I could not understand a word, I was conducted between the
rifles to a police bureau hard by. Here it was explained that I had
endeavoured to evade the sentries. I was regarded with extreme
suspicion, and the officer assumed a fine air of standing no nonsense.
He poured out a torrent of Magyar. As I did not understand him, but
wished to convey the idea that it is a waste of time to try to scare
British subjects, I laughed, held out my passport, and said "Good
morning" in four languages. Of course he chose the worst, Servian, and
as he had apparently never seen an English passport before, said it was
not correct. So bad did he consider it, in fact, that had I been coming
into Hungary, he would have detained me if possible; as I was only going
out of it into an enemy's country, he had not so many qualms about
letting me loose. He began to inscribe me as "Salisbury" in the
police-book, and was annoyed when corrected. Then he required my age,
which I truthfully stated. Finally I held up my fingers for him to
reckon it up on, but, for reasons best known to himself, he preferred to
put it down according to his own fancy, some years too young, and did so
defiantly, with the air of a man who will not let himself be taken in.
He tried to get my home address, but gave it up as too much for him. At
last he stamped the passport, and told me to be quick. I dashed on
board, and the boat started. The transit only takes some five minutes,
but the passengers and crew found time to interview me, and then huddled
up at the other end of the boat, presumably to show the Servian police
they were not mixed up in the affair.

Shabatz had lately had a revolution. An enterprising personage disguised
as a general had, not many weeks before, crossed the stream and had
called out the police and garrison with a view--rather a confused one, I
believe--of causing them to do something in favour of Prince Peter
Karageogevich. The imposture being discovered, he found himself at the
wrong end of a revolver, where he speedily expired; but Shabatz had not
yet got over its surprise, and as it could not read my passport, thought
it best, though I was not really disguised as a general, to be careful.
I had only hand luggage with me, but this had four books in it, which I
was told had to be examined, and "if in a foreign language, a reason
must be given for importing them." The fact that they were all
dictionaries, however, caused so much amusement that I got happily
through.

I was in Shabatz at last. Before they drown, people are said in a few
moments to live through a lifetime. It was only four and a half hours
since I had left Belgrade, but into that short time had been compressed
the experiences of a whole Continental tour. I had encountered three
languages, studied the peculiarities of two nations, been in four police
bureaus, two custom-houses, three trains and a boat, and bought two
tickets in two coinages; all very amusing for once in a way, but hardly
a good way of encouraging traffic on the line. Without these games the
journey could be done in a couple of hours. They are, however,
absolutely necessary, the Servians assured me, on account of the extreme
wickedness of the Hungarians. The Hungarians, on their part, were the
first to begin, and were, they tell me, driven to it by the depravity
of all nations except themselves. The Hungarians, according to
themselves, suffer a great deal for righteousness' sake.

Shabatz, when I had run the frontier gauntlet successfully, received me
very kindly; for the Servian, when not soured by politics, is a most
kindly creature. The town was quite accustomed to English tourists, for
it had had no less than two in the last six years, but I was told that I
was the first lady of any nationality that had ever toured round alone.
Servia had, in fact, not been aware that it was possible for a lady to
do so. I was not at all pleased to learn this, as I knew that, in the
future, wherever I went I should be an exciting event, and from the
detailed account I received of the proceedings of the two
fellow-countrymen who had visited Shabatz in recent times, I foresaw
that all that I did would be considered typically English for the next
twenty years. Shabatz, however, was very pleased with my plan, as it
showed I knew the country was safe and displayed great confidence in the
inhabitants. Mad though my proceedings were undoubtedly considered, they
gave Servia the opportunity of showing she was trustworthy, and she rose
to the occasion. Shabatz opined that I was "emancipated," but thought
that now England had a King instead of a Queen, the liberty of women
would probably be curtailed.

All Servian towns are much alike. They have wide, clean streets; solid
red-roofed little houses built of stone; a church which is unlovely, for
the modern Serb has no gift for church architecture; a school, which is
often a handsome and very well-fitted building; a town hall, or
something more or less equivalent to one; and a market-place. The
houses in the suburbs all stand in their own gardens, and there are
plenty of clipped acacias in the streets. And in every town a few
tumbledown timber shops and shanties are almost all that is left of
Turkish times. Shabatz is no exception to the general rule, and I left
early next day for Valjevo.

It was a ten and a half hours' drive in a burning sun and a cloud of
white dust, through miles of very fertile and most English-looking
country, with English hedges, English oak trees, and English post and
rail fences. My first experience of travelling inland in Servia was a
very fair sample. There were days when I sighed for the drivers of
Montenegro and their wiry ponies, but I always reflected that it was the
Servians that I had come to see and that I was seeing them. The
Montenegrin is always anxious to get to the journey's end, but the
Servian never seems to care whether he arrives or not, provided he can
get enough black coffee on the way. He slugs along, takes innumerable
rests, and is disappointed if you won't go to sleep in the middle of the
day at a way-side inn. Nothing hurries him up; he looks at his watch and
says it isn't dark yet, and lets the horses stand still while he rolls
his hundredth cigarette. The horses are like the driver, and seldom trot
unless urged to, though they are generally in fair condition. But the
average Servian does everything in a leisurely manner, and horses and
driver but follow the national fashion. I thought at first I was being
taken along slowly because I was a foreigner, but I found that when I
had native fellow-travellers we went slower still. Though my driver was
a slug, he was always a very amiable and honest one, and he more than
once offered to pay for my drinks.

Valjevo is a large town (20,000 inhabitants), very prettily situated in
well wooded country. Everyone was anxious to forward my plans. One
gentleman most kindly made me out a tour for the whole of East Servia,
drew me a map, and wrote the distances and fares upon the roads. Servia
just now has a bad reputation in England; I owe it to Servia to say that
in no other land have I met with greater kindness from complete
strangers. Valjevo is a smart place, lighted by electric light. The
crowd of fashionable ladies and swagger officers who were listening to
the military band in the Park would not have looked out of place in the
Rue de Rivoli or the Row. My new acquaintances were delighted to hear
that I had learnt Servian in London. When I said that my teacher was a
Pole, their joy was dashed, but they agreed that it was better than if I
had learned from "a dirty Schwab" (_i.e_. German). The idea that the
whole of London had to depend on one Pole for instruction did not seem
right to them. Five million people in London and only one Pole to teach
them! That Pole must be very rich! They were anxious to export native
teachers at once, but I assured them that the Pole had all the pupils.

Valjevo is a garrison town, and this brings us to the subject of the
Servian army. There is, of course, compulsory military service; this is
for two years (with six years in the reserve), and is under the
circumstances very necessary; moreover, to Servia the army means Old
Servia, and Old Servia is yet to be redeemed. But self-defence is one
thing and the military tournament another, and to the non-military
outsider it appears that much of Servia's money is spent upon outward
show, and that she is like one that walketh in silk attire and lacketh
bread. Endeavouring to make a brave show in the eyes of Europe, she is
being eaten out of house and home. She builds a noble War Office, and
has not the wherewithal to pay her officers; and while she masquerades
like the great Powers, the resources of the land, as they are at
present, are strained almost to breaking point. Though inland Servia
cries for capital and would pay good interest on it, Servia puts her
money into military display. I have seen few armies more smartly
uniformed. "Tommy" is very fine; but his officers are gorgeous. There
seems no end to them; every garrison town--and that means every frontier
town of importance and a good many inland ones--is filled with them.
Surely no land was ever so hopelessly over-officered. One wonders if
there are privates enough to go round. I was told, on good authority,
that there are more officers in training in the military schools of
Servia than in those of our own country. Not all, however, that glitters
is gold, as I learnt at a garrison town that shall be nameless.

I arrived late, tired and hungry, at the inn. The innkeeper and his wife
were most anxious to accommodate me to the best of their ability, and
called in the local money-changer to act as interpreter. The fame of my
arrival spread like lightning through the place. Scarcely had the
money-changer and the innkeeper left me alone, when a captain, in his
anxiety to have first chance, introduced himself to me in such an
impertinent manner that I had to speak to him very severely, and he
fled covered with confusion.

Next morning early came the money-changer. He said the innkeeper was
very much vexed, and feared that I had been annoyed by one of the
officers; which one was it? I did not know, as they all looked alike to
me, and a whole lot of them were having coffee at the other end of the
room; so I said, "It was a tall ugly one, very ignorant and very young;
I will say no more about it, because he knew no better." The
money-changer grinned, and I felt sure that the remark would be
repeated. Then he said, indicating the uniformed group, "It is very
unfortunate that it should have occurred, for these gentlemen wish to
speak to you, and they have asked me about you." "Why?" said I. He
grinned again. "You do not understand them," he said. "It is true they
are very ignorant, but they are perfectly honest. You need not be
afraid. Ils ne désirent pas vous dire des choses sales, _seulement_ ils
désirent vous marier! It is such a chance as has scarcely ever occurred.
And Someone-avich has an English wife! She is _very_ happy. What shall I
tell them?" "Tell them I have no money," said I. "That is no use," said
he; "what you call not rich, they call wealth. Perhaps what you spent
coming here even would be enough for a 'dot.'" "That is spent," I
remarked. "But you have some to return with." "Oh, tell them I don't
want to marry them," I said, rather vexed, for the man stuck so fast to
the point that I began to think he had been promised a percentage on the
deal. He laughed. "Oh, that is no use; ces Messieurs are so handsome
they believe that you would think differently if you would only speak
to them." I tried again. "Well, tell them my money cannot come out of
England." "Oh," he replied, "ces Messieurs don't mind where they live;
they will leave the Servian army and live in England--or America.
Perhaps Mademoiselle lives with her father and mother? They wouldn't
mind that at all." The idea of "them"--for it seemed "they" had to be
taken wholesale--arriving at my suburban residence was too much for me,
and I roared with laughter. He looked at me, saw his percentage was
hopeless, then he roared also.

"Well," he said, "now I'll explain. I'm not ignorant, like they are.
I've been in Egypt and Malta and Gibraltar. I've met hundreds of English
ladies travelling as you are, and I know how funny this must appear to
you. I'll tell you how it is for them. They have sixty or seventy pounds
a year, and not one of them has been paid for six months. They play
cards with the trades-people in hopes of winning enough to buy tobacco.
I do wish you would point out to me the one that spoke to you last
night; I think it is perhaps the one I lent ten francs to yesterday. The
innkeeper is very pleased to see you, because he knows you will pay.
When these poor boys get their pay, it will all be taken from them at
once for their debts. That is the situation. Then you come, as it were
from the heavens! They hear you are English. It is seen at once you have
no ring on your finger. It is evident, then, that you hate all
Englishmen. On the other hand, you like Servia, or why should you have
come? My God! they think, what a chance! Not twice in a hundred years!
But one of them was undoubtedly too hasty." He went on to inform me
that a very nice one could be had for about forty pounds a year.

I gazed upon the enemy's entrenchment, decided that I was hopelessly
outnumbered and that flight was the only way, mobilised my force of one
man and two horses, and retired in good order while yet there was time,
slightly humiliated by the feeling that Britain was flying from a
foreign army, but bowing graciously to such of its representatives as
were kind enough to salute as I passed.

And as I left and passed through the rich valleys and grassy uplands,
and thought of the many kind friends who had helped me on my way, I was
grieved that a land with so many possibilities and so much that is good
and beautiful in it should be brought, by bad government, to such a pass
that the officers are reduced to hawking themselves upon the streets.
But all this I was to learn later. At Valjevo I merely looked at the
officers and admired.

My journey to Obrenovatz, the next town on my route, was amusing, as I
shared a carriage with a "commercial," a Jew who among other things was
agent for a life-insurance company. He was on his return journey, and we
halted from time to time at various houses, that he might, if possible,
reap the results of the seeds he had sown on his outward march.
Everywhere he preached the benefits of life insurance. He suggested at
last that I should insure for the sake of my fiancé! When I said I
hadn't one, he saw a fresh opening for business. He had, he said,
married his own daughter extremely well. He enlarged upon the highly
successful nature of his own marriage, and told me about Someone-avich
who had married an English wife who is exceedingly happy. Finally, worn
out by his fruitless exertions, he fell asleep.

At eleven we put up at Ub, and I had plenty of time to amuse myself.
Sitting on the bench by the inn door, I made folded paper toys for the
children, and soon had a semicircle of tiny boys round me. A little
gipsy girl looked on at them with superb contempt. As soon as they had
cleared off, she sailed up and seated herself by my side with the air of
one conferring a favour. She was a slip of a thing, nine years old, but
with the self-possession of fifty. "I am ciganka" (gipsy), she said.
"Where do you come from?" I told her, but she had never heard of my
native land. She was brown as a berry, and had on nothing but a dirty
old scarlet frock which had shed its fastenings. She dangled her skinny
brown legs and fixed me with her sparkling black eyes; her hair, she
told me, was far superior to my own; in proof of her words, she took off
the yellow handkerchief in which her head was swathed and offered for
inspection a small and most filthy plait of coal-black hair in which
were fastened three or four coins, which she pointed out with glee. It
was, in fact, the savings bank in which she had just opened an account.
I at once produced a nickel 2d., which she accepted with much
satisfaction. A man on the next bench threw down a cigarette end, and
she pounced on it like a cat on a mouse. When she returned with it, she
looked cautiously round to be sure that no one else could see, and then,
sheltered by my skirts, she extracted from inside her frock a
handkerchief tied up in a bundle, and displayed with great pride a mass
of cigarette ends and other valuables. I duly admired; the new one was
added to the collection, and it was all stowed away again with great
precaution. Then she tried to look unconscious. Muttering something I
didn't understand, she peeped in at the inn door. The floor was richly
strewn with cigarette ends. She slipped in and crept round the room
swiftly and silently. The lady of the inn and most of the other people
saw her quite well; I don't think they had the least objection to her
clearing the floor of rubbish. She preferred, however, to consider it as
a dangerous raiding expedition, dashed from cover to cover quite
scientifically, collecting as she went, and sneaked out again with her
spoils, the spirit of all her horse-stealing ancestors twinkling in her
eyes. She displayed her loot to me, for she took it for granted that I
was a sympathetic soul; and as there is reason to believe that one of my
forefathers sold horses in Queen Elizabeth's reign, it is possible that
we may have had ideas in common.

By the time the carriage and my travelling companions were ready, I had
interviewed several other people, and felt quite at home in Ub. It was
hot on the road. Both the "commercial" and the driver felt it very much,
and stopped at all the wells and drank quantities of cold water, and as
a natural consequence perspired a great deal. When they had had seven or
eight drinks to my one, they began to get anxious about me, and when
they found I had been playing about the streets of Ub instead of going
to sleep as they had both done, they were still more astonished, and
foretold that by the time I reached Obrenovatz I should be exhausted. We
arrived there safely, however, at about 2.30 without my expected
collapse.

Obrenovatz was fearfully excited by my arrival, and produced a
commercial (a Hungarian) who spoke English, in order to extract a full
and particular account of me. My fame had flown before me, for he had
seen me a few days ago in Shabatz, had gleaned a few facts about me, and
Obrenovatz had already learned that there was an Engleskinja loose in
the land, though it had not hoped to see me. When I went out for a walk,
all Obrenovatz stood at the door to see. Such notoriety was
embarrassing. However, I succeeded in concealing my feelings so
effectually that in the evening the conversation turned mainly on the
cold-bloodedness of the English nation. Nothing surprised them! nothing
upset their equanimity! "Fish blood," they said, "fish blood and steel!"
And the insurance agent recounted how I had only had one drink on the
road and had remained quite cool all the day, though he and the driver
felt the heat badly; here he gave an unnecessarily realistic description
of the state of his shirt.

Obrenovatz is remarkable for nothing but its hot sulphur springs and its
well-arranged bath house, where it hopes to work up a rheumatism cure. I
returned to Belgrade by boat, nor, save the floating watermills and the
timber rafts that drift from the forests of Bosnia and Servia down the
Drina to the Save and thence to the Danube, is there much to see upon
the river.




CHAPTER XII

NISH


From Belgrade to Nish, down the valley of the Morava, the mark of the
Turk is still upon the land, and a minaret tower shoots up from more
than one little town by the rail-side. The train rushes into Stalacs,
where the two Moravas join, and we are on the track of recent
fighting--fighting that we can all remember; we are in the valley which
was the scene of poor Milan's unsuccessful attempts, when in 1876 he
resolved to take his part in that uprising against the Turks which had
already been begun by the Herzegovinians. Near Alexinatz we cross
Servia's old frontier, and enter the land that was Turkish twenty-five
years ago.

I arrived at Nish, and found myself in a new and more oriental Servia.
Nish, like other places, was surprised to see me. The hotel hoped I was
leaving to-morrow, as it feared the police, and got more and more
nervous about harbouring me as I stayed on. Nevertheless, I liked Nish.
Its position on the highways both to Bulgaria and Turkey make it
strategically and commercially important, and it is gay with soldiers
and with peasants from all the surrounding districts. The Turk has not
yet quite left; closely-veiled women shuffle furtively down the
streets, and both men and women have an apologetic and subdued
appearance, very different from the swagger of the Mohammedan on the
other side of the frontier. The new Servian town lies one side of the
river Nishava, and the old Turkish one and the big fortress upon the
other.

I saw Nish at its best, for I had the good luck to light upon a great
fair and cattle market, and spent the day wriggling between buffaloes'
horns and horses' heels, with a dense crowd of strange folk and their
wares, who trailed into the market field in a ceaseless stream from
early dawn. The buffalo is the favourite draught animal here, a
villainous-looking beast with a black indiarubber hide, a sprinkling of
long bristles, a wicked little eye, and heavy back-curved horns; but his
appearance belies him, he seems extremely tame, and grunts amiably when
scratched. Goats, sheep, pigs, horses, and cattle, all were equally
tame, having been probably all brought up with the family, which was a
good thing, as they were none of them penned, and the greater number not
even tied up. Their owners were just as friendly, and showed me
everything. A mounted patrol rode round at intervals, but did not seem
necessary; good-nature and friendliness prevailed everywhere. There was
plenty of food both for man and beast. The hot-sausage man ran about
with his goods in a tin drum. The cake man sold his from a large wooden
tray placed on a tripod. The roast-meat man brandished his knife over an
impaled lamb roasted whole, which sent up a rich odour and oily swirls
of steam in the sunshine. Under little huts, built of leafy beech
branches, cooks were grilling bunches of peacock's feathers, and tufts
of feathery grass to their bodices and white head-dresses, already
a-sparkle with coins and dingle-dangles. The peasants took to me quite
naturally, and offered me young pigs and buffaloes without any idea of
the difficulty I should have in getting them home.

[ILLUSTRATION: SERVIAN PEASANTS.]

The officer, however, in charge of the hut in the kebabs on long
skewers, over a heap of charcoal embers; there was a great run on iced
lemonade, and a crowd was always waiting its turn at the well. The women
were extraordinarily gaudy; not content with their brilliantly orange or
scarlet sashes and white dresses, they pinned great bouquets of
flowers, middle where the market tolls were paid, was much mystified.
"Mademoiselle doubtless speaks French?" he asked politely. "Yes," I
said. "Then please tell us from what land you come," he begged, "for we
cannot imagine. Mademoiselle is perhaps Russian?" he hazarded. "No,
English," said I. "Bogami! is it possible? English, and in Nish! Where
are your friends?" "In England." "You are alone in Servia? Bogami,
Mademoiselle, but you have courage!" "Oh no, I haven't," said I, "only I
am English." Then he laughed and repeated my remark to his friends, and
they all appeared to be highly amused. I went on, "Besides, Monsieur,
your country is doubtless civilised?" "Perfectly," said he, "perfectly;
there is no danger, but no one knows it. How have you learned this in
England? We are a Balkan state, and all the world believes the Balkan
states are wicked. If I can assist you in any way, pray command me." I
told him I was not needing help and thanked him for the offer. "No,"
said he gallantly, "it is we who owe thanks to you, for you pay us a
great compliment." He saluted and withdrew, and I returned to my quest
after things old-world and Servian.

A man was driving wire hooks into wooden bats, and his wife squatted
near and carded wool with them with great dexterity to show how well
they worked, and not far off a great trade was going on in big wooden
chests, rough-made boxes on legs, pegged together with wood, stained
crimson and decorated with a scratched curly pattern that showed white
on the coloured ground. And the gipsies were selling troughs and bowls
of prehistoric simplicity hacked and dug out of chunks of wood without
much attempt at symmetry, and very thick and clumsy.

The horse market was very full. There were some showy little beasts
whose outstanding plumy tails and slim legs showed their Eastern blood.
A tall snaky Albanian was riding them bare-backed, and held only by a
halter, through the thick of the crowd. He rode slowly along till he had
bored a passage of sufficient length, then turned suddenly and came back
_ventre à terre_. Every bare space of ground was used to gallop horses
across, and it was a case of a cloud of dust, a hammer of hoofs, and
everyone for himself.

At midday and past, when the sun blazed overhead, the air was thick with
dust and rich with billy-goats, and the bulls were roaring and the
stallions squealing insults at each other, the people who had finished
eating hot sausages in the sun thought it an admirable opportunity for
beginning to dance. The bagpipe man appeared, and struck up at once one
of the odd monotonous airs for the "kolo"; men and women joined in a
long line, each holding the next at arm's length by the sash, and were
soon serpentining in and out and round and round, surrounded by a
suffocating crowd of lookers-on. The Albanian was showing off a roan
stallion, a red-hot beast, which he managed beautifully almost entirely
by his knees. Its apparent docility tempted a young officer to mount. He
picked up the curb, drove in his spurs, and in another moment the
squealing, plunging animal was in mid-air, over the dancers. The
scattering was great, the roan appearing at intervals high above the
crowd. No one was hurt, the interruption was only temporary, but the
roan did not change hands that time at any rate. Nothing will stop a
Servian from dancing the kolo.

All the animals had been supplied with green forage, for the Servians
are kind and careful of their beasts, and now the draught oxen were
being taken in detachments to the river to drink. As each pair of oxen
returned from watering, it was yoked and set off on its homeward
journey, till there was a processional frieze all along the road. The
market slowly dissolved, and by four o'clock there was not much of it
left but débris on the field.

Nish is a bright and attractive town, with about 20,000 inhabitants. Two
slim minarets show that it was once Mohammedan, and a fat new church,
bloated with cupolas, proclaims its orthodoxy. The buffalo carts in the
streets, the variety of peasant costume, the wild luxuriance of crimson
roses in the Park, the pretty wooden trellis bridge over the river, the
number of houses still remaining with screened windows, the silver
filigree workers and the veiled women give it picturesqueness and a dash
of the Orient; but you must not tell it so, unless you wish to hurt its
feelings. If a long pedigree be a claim to respect, Nish deserves much;
for Nish, as Naissus or Nissa, existed before Servia, and quite early in
the Christian era was a considerable town in Upper Moesia. It claims to
be the birthplace of Constantine the Great, and the claim is very
generally admitted. Constantine's mother, the celebrated St. Helena, the
discoverer of the True Cross, was the daughter of an innkeeper at
Naissus, while his father was of "Illyrian" blood.

I looked with interest at the Albanians who cantered through Nish with a
lot of half-broken ponies, and with interest also upon the stout
daughter of the inn, but I did not feel that either were destined to
disturb the balance of Europe.

Nish was part of the kingdom of Stefan Nemanja in the twelfth century,
and Servian it remained till the Turks took it in 1375. Though not freed
till 1878, Nish made a gallant struggle for liberty in 1809, when the
general uprising was taking place--all the characteristics of which are
now being repeated in Macedonia.

The "chela kula" (tower of skulls), on the Pirot road, is a grim
monument of the times. A little Servian stronghold near this spot,
commanded by Stefan Sindjelich, resisted successfully for a short while.
Then the Turks brought up a large force and "rushed" the place. As the
Turkish soldiery were pouring in, Sindjelich seeing all was lost, fired
his pistol into the powder magazine and blew up self, friend, foe, and
the whole place in one red ruin. The Turkish losses were very heavy, and
the Pasha, enraged at losing so many men over such a hole of a place,
commemorated his costly victory in a manner most hateful to the
vanquished. He ordered the heads of the dead Serbs to be collected,
paying twenty-five piastres apiece for them, and obtained over nine
hundred. These were embedded in rows in a great tower of brick and
cement, the faces staring horribly forth, till the flesh rotted and
nothing but the bare skulls remained. From time to time these were
removed and buried by patriotic Servians, but the ruins of the tower
still stand to tell of Turkish vengeance and to keep alive the hatred
of the two races. By order of King Alexander Obrenovich, a chapel has
been built over it. Four skulls yet stare from the sockets where the
Turk placed them. An inscription in several languages tells of
Sindjelich's heroism.

A polite young officer, reeking with carbolic from the military hospital
hard by, admitted me to the chapel, and doubted which language to point
to. I need hardly say English was not one of them, for in Europe except
in the most beaten of tracks English is one of the least useful
languages. As soon as it was known in Nish that I was English I was
asked to go to someone's office to translate an English business letter.
"It is impossible to trade with England," said the man; "many of their
goods are better than those of Austria, but they will not write in a
language that we can understand. We wrote them in French, and begged
them to reply in either French or German. They have replied for the
second time in English. This is the first and last time that I do
business with England." I, of course, went to the office at once, but
was too late. The letter had just been posted to Belgrade for
translation. This I gathered was a fair sample of the proceedings of
British traders in this country. The profits that are to be made in the
poverty-stricken states of the Balkans are not great, but such as they
are they are all swept up by the ubiquitous Austrian bagman.

Nish tries hard to be Western, but, as I walked about it, I grinned to
think of the man who had written in English to it Even the hotel has so
many peculiarities that the solitary traveller from the West is well
amused observing them. Like other hotels, it provides beds and drinks
and food, but the latter also flows in freely from the streets, and the
hotel does not seem to care from whom you buy. All day long the
bread-roll man runs in and out with his basket; or two or three
bread-roll men, if there is much company. The Servians rarely seem tired
of eating rolls, and eat them all day long. Next in frequency to the
bread man is the salad man, with a tray of lettuces and a big bunch of
onions. The cake man does a good trade in the afternoon. But the oddest
of all is the hot-stew man. He appears in the evening with a large tin
drum slung round his neck, in which is an enamelled iron soup tureen.
Such a cloud of steam rolls out when he lifts the lid that I think there
must be heating apparatus in the drum, but he wears it next his stomach
and does not appear unduly warm. The pockets of his white apron are full
of not over-clean plates, and a formidable array of knives and forks
bristles about the drums edge. His customers take a plate and clean it
with their handkerchiefs, serviettes, or the tablecloth, and then select
tit-bits from the pot, and the man returns later and removes the plate,
knife and fork, when done with. If you do not care for stew, there is
the hot-sausage man, whose wares look singularly unattractive; and,
lastly, there is a man who sells very dry nuts. Except for wine and
beer, you can get your whole meal from wandering caterers; the supply
seems unfailing. Servian food and cooking, I may here note, is on the
whole very good. It is peppery and flavoursome; mint, thyme, and other
herbs, and the very popular "paprika" (a mild variety of red pepper),
are largely used, and the soups are meaty and nourishing. A fourpenny
plate of kisela chorba (soup with lemon juice in it) often includes half
a fowl, and is enough for a meal.

Having explored the town and seen all the shops, I wandered about and
waited for people to do something Servian, nor had I long to wait.

Servia is striving to be Western and striving to be up to date, and this
is the side she shows to the world from which she was for so long cut
off. In her heart she cherishes old, old customs, whose origins are lost
in dim antiquity, and one of these is the commemorative funeral feast
When we wander through the outskirts of Pompeii or visit the tombs on
the Latin Way, we look at the stone benches and recall vaguely that the
Romans here held banquets in honour of the dead; but the banqueters are
dead and buried and the feasts forgotten. It all belongs to a distant
past and is hard to realise, it seems so far away. But the Christian
Church in early days adopted many of the existing rites and ceremonies
of pagan times, and the Orthodox Church has clung tightly to its old
traditions. So much so that the Orthodox Church of to-day is said to
bear far stronger resemblance to the Church of the fourth or fifth
century than do now the Churches of either England or Rome.

And from the time of the Turkish invasion till the nineteenth century
the mass of the people of the Balkans stood still and had no
communication with the outer world. The Macedonian peasant still
sacrifices sheep on ancient altar stones, and the Servian reads the
funeral feast in the Christian graveyard.

Quite early in the morning solemn little parties of women and children
were walking down the streets carrying big baskets and trays covered
with clean white cloths; I followed, and we crossed the railway line and
turned to the cemetery on the hillside. Round the gates sat the lame,
the aged, and the blind; each with his wooden bowl, his bottle gourd and
bag. "A Bagge and a Bottle, he bar bi his seyde," sang Langland in
England in the fourteenth century; thus did the folk of Piers Plowman
gather alms. Within the gates, in the big graveyard, through the long
thick grass and by the rose-tangled headstones went each little party to
the grave it sought, and the wailing of the death-songs arose on every
side. The women brought little girls with them and taught them how to
honour the dead. They lighted little beeswax tapers stuck into the
grave, and they filled a green earthen pot with incense and lighted that
too. Then they stood round, and one began the long-drawn, melancholy
cry, "Kuka mene, kuka mene!" (Woe is me, woe is me![1]) and beat her
breast and clasped her hands, swaying to and fro, as she sang the verses
of the song; the other mourners joined in, the song became a
heart-breaking wail, she caught her breath in long sobs and she threw
herself on the grave, clasping the cross at its head and weeping
bitterly. When the lament was finished, they spread their white cloth on
the grave and arranged the meal, for it was a real meal, not merely a
symbolic mouthful; a large bowl of the favourite hash (gulyash), and
another of rice, which steamed as it was uncovered, a large loaf of
bread and perhaps cheese, and a handkerchief full of cherries.

The very poor sat on the ground. Those that were wealthy engaged a
priest to pray with them by the graveside. There were wooden or stone
benches and tables built up by some graves, and sometimes railed in. It
was a dull day; the crimson roses were shedding petals everywhere, the
tapers twinkled like glow-worms in the grass, and the thin blue smoke
curled from the censers. The air was heavy with the mingled scent of
dying roses and incense, there was a hum of prayer, and the minor notes
of the long laments rose and fell, swarms of pigeons and grey hooded
crows soared round and, settled on the grave-stones near, greedily
waited to pick up the crumbs of the feasts. It was a strangely
impressive scene. Forty days after the funeral does this feast (the
dacha) take place, then after six months, and then yearly, either upon a
Saturday, a Sunday, or a Saints day.

As each group of mourners left the graveyard, they distributed food
among the beggars at the gate. Their bowls were heaped with stew and
rice, their bags stuffed with bread, and their gourds filled by means of
a funnel with a mixture of all the various wines. The tapers were left
to twinkle out in the grass, and by the middle of the day the graveyard
was deserted.


[1] Kukavichiti = to lament, to cry like the cuckoo; for in
Servia the cuckoo is not the depraved bird that it is with us, but is a
bereaved woman who wails ceaselessly for the dead.




CHAPTER XIII

PIROT


I left Nish, in a chill wet fog, at 4.30 a.m. by the only quick train in
the day. It was full of sleeping men, and I stood in the corridor that I
might not disturb them. Scarcely anyone got in besides myself, and the
train rushed on over the plain of Nish, plunged into the mountains,
began to climb the valley of the Nishava, and entered the pass of Pirot.
The scenery is of the kind that the Germans call "wild-romantic." The
defile is extremely narrow and the rocks high and steep; there is but
room for the stream and train at the foot of them. It is like travelling
through a deep cutting, but is considered very fine. The earth is dark
red, like anchovy paste, and gives the river such an unpleasantly gory
appearance that one half expects it to steam, and the station at the top
of the pass is called Crvena Reka, "The Red Stream."

"What is the name of this station?" asked a stout man in Servian.

I replied.

"What is ..." he began again, and stuck fast. "Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" he
ended rather feebly.

We conversed for some minutes. Then "You come from Nish?" he said.

"Yes," said I.

"You speak German very well for a Servian. I did not know that the
ladies learned foreign languages."

"I am English."

"Dear God!" he cried, and came out into the corridor to have a better
view of me. "You are English and you come from a town in the middle of
Servia! Ach! how dangerous! Now I am a man. I am making a pleasure trip
to Constantinople with my friends. _We_ should never think of stopping
in a country like this. We are travelling straight through from Vienna."

"I also am making a pleasure trip, but it is possible that the same
things are not interesting to us. I am going to Pirot."

"My God, how English! Look you, Fräulein, your nation does things that
are quite fearfully silly, and it succeeds because the things are so
unexpected that no one is prepared for them. You are like your own army,
some day you will walk into an ambush."

"But it always comes home when it has done all that it meant to do," I
persisted; for I never allow the Empire to be scored off if I can help
it.

Then he told his friends of the strange wild beast he had found in the
corridor, and they looked at me cautiously and discussed the propriety,
or perhaps I should say the impropriety, of my proceedings in awful
whispers, with many Teutonic invocations of the Deity, until I had a
hail-Cæsar-we-who-are-about-to die-salute-thee feeling, which became
less and less dignified as the West Balkans themselves came into sight.
We reached Pirot, and I descended from the train in a state not unlike
"funk."

No one else got out, and I crossed the rails, with the eyes of all the
officials upon me. As the gentleman in the corridor had remarked, Pirot,
unprepared for such an event, was temporarily paralysed. I walked
straight to the exit and held out my ticket to the man in charge. He
promptly blocked the door and, though he wore a revolver, called for
help. There now being need of immediate action on my part, I began to
enjoy myself. I offered him my passport by way of soothing him, and
mentioned my nationality, but it made him more agitated. He told me to
"come," conducted me back into the station and shut the exit door. Then
he left me in a small office and told me to "wait." I waited. Nothing
happened. I remembered the ambush I was to fall into, and thought it
would be better to meet the enemy in the open, so went in search of it.
It was holding a council of war on the railway lines. I walked into the
middle and said, "Please, I want to go to the Hotel National." The shot
told, and the enemy scattered in all directions. The first who rallied
was a young officer, who spoke a very little German. He was very polite,
but said I must state how long I meant to stay. He added that there was
a train in the afternoon by which I could depart. As I had not yet seen
the place, I did not know at all what its attractions might be, so I
repeated, like a lesson, a simple and pleasing little Servian
composition I had made up the day before. "I am English. I travel that
I may see Servia. Servia is a very beautiful country. Everything is
good. I learn the language. The Servian language is very beautiful."
Seeing how perfectly innocuous I was, the officer promptly said it was
all right, but I must deposit my passport in the station and reclaim it
on leaving. I was not to leave Pirot except by train. By this wily ruse
he saved the Servian nation from the possibility of my negotiating with
Bulgaria in some lonely spot upon the frontier. I thanked them, escaped
from the station, called a cab and drove to the town.

The Hotel National, though the best in the place, was not cheering. It
was a large bare barrack, with a billiard-table in the middle, and a
pale-brown, skinny boy of about fourteen was its only apparent manager
and proprietor. I never saw another. He showed me a free bedroom
somewhere at the top of a wooden ladder. A piece of torn sacking was
nailed over one side of the window. There were two beds, neither clean,
and a man's coat and other garments lay on one of them. The youth
collected them, and considered the room ready. I thought we would not
begin to disagree at once, so I descended the ladder again and had
breakfast, for it was now eight o'clock and I had had to leave Nish on
one small cup of coffee. I then felt exceedingly brave, and reflecting
on the importance to an army of the commissariat, went out to explore
Pirot.

It was Sunday. Of all Continental nations Servia's Sunday is the most
Britannic, and there was no buying nor selling of any kind, and scarcely
any life in the place. It is a largeish town, with about 10,000
inhabitants; a street of modern houses, a maze of little tumbledown
Turkish mud hovels in gardens, and a mosque--a dilapidated, melancholy
collection as a whole. For Pirot, taken by the Servians in 1877, was
taken by the Bulgarians in 1885 and looted, and is not yet healed of her
wounds.

Pirot is very poor, miserably so, and many of the people have a starved
and wretched look. But poor though it is, Pirot is important, owing to
its situation on the way to Sofia and Constantinople. It is an old, old
town on an old, old trade route, and it remains simple and childish. I
was perfectly frank with it, and I told it I meant to see all I could,
and wished to draw and perhaps to photograph. And the virtuous
inhabitants who had questioned me were shocked; "for," they said, "we
have a fortress, and only yesterday a stranger was arrested for
attempting to photograph it. At this very moment he is in prison, and we
do not know what will happen to him." I asked the criminal's
nationality, and learnt that he was a Bulgarian. Being in Servia, I was
horrified at his iniquity, but, being English, did not wish to be turned
from my purpose. I explained that I wished only to note things
characteristically Servian, such as the costumes of the peasants, the
houses, and so forth. "In short," said a gentleman, "you are making
geo-ethnographical studies." This struck me as a remarkably luminous
idea; I should never have thought of it myself. I said I was, and
everyone was very pleased.

As it was Sunday, I went to the church, and the church gripped me at
once, for it is unpretentiously barbaric. There is an arcaded porch
frescoed with bizarre, colossal archangels, not a bit like people; I
entered, and it was all as picturesque as it ought to be, with a blue
haze of incense through which gleamed the great gold ikonostasis. All
was primitive, as befits the oldest form of the Christian faith in
Europe.

The service was just over; some women in front were kissing a holy
picture before leaving. Round the gate was a little group of the poor
and afflicted, all either blind or horribly maimed, who were waiting for
their usual dole. As the congregation began to file out of church, two
bakers with loaves and rolls hurried up and set their trays opposite the
gate. As they left, folk bought pieces of bread and distributed them in
the wooden bowls which the suppliants held out. It was pitiful to see
the anxious quivering fingers of the blind feeling the crusts before
transferring them to the bag each one wore for the purpose, and the
eager eyes of those who could see, as they watched expectant. I had no
idea of the price of bread, so I laid down the smallest coin I had, and
received such a huge loaf in exchange that I knew that I was behaving
with the vulgar parade of a Carnegie or a Vanderbilt. I dealt round the
bread rather shamefacedly, for I felt unpleasantly as though I were
feeding animals at the Zoo, and escaped hastily from a storm of
blessings, with a new idea about the power of twopence to relieve
misery.

I walked through the town. The remains of a mediæval castle at the foot
of a hill struck me as a suitable subject for a drawing, and I crossed
the road to find a point of view. As I did so I ran my eye over the
castle and became aware suddenly that there was a sentry in front of it,
and that behind it rose innocent-looking grass slopes that mean
mischief. It was the fortress, with which I had promised to have nothing
to do, and I retired hastily, filled with sympathy for the incarcerated
Bulgarian, who, after all, was perhaps only making geo-ethnographical
studies.

By the afternoon I was an accepted fact in Pirot and had several
friends. By Monday morning Pirot was ready to show me everything.

Pirot is the only town in Servia which carries on a beautiful and
original local industry, and its rugs and carpets deserve to be far more
widely known than they are. They are hand-woven, and the process is
incredibly simple. Four roughly hewn tree stems, or big branches, are
pegged together into a frame, which either leans against the wall of the
house or is supported by struts, and a sufficient number of strings is
bound across it. The woman squats on the ground in front of the frame
with her shuttles of coloured wools beside her. With the fingers of her
left hand she pulls up the requisite number of threads with great
swiftness, slips the shuttle beneath them with her right, and, with no
pattern to copy from, carries out very complicated designs with
astonishing speed and precision. When she has put in some dozen threads,
she takes up a heavy wooden mallet with a row of teeth in it and with a
few blows drives the threads very tightly together. Thus she works hour
after hour for a franc a day. The colours most largely employed are
scarlet, indigo, black and white, with sometimes touches of green and
yellow in the border; the designs are bold and effective. The weavers,
dark women with coins plaited in their hair, were cheery and friendly,
and always asked me in to have a look. An ordinary-sized rug takes
about a fortnight to make, and many of the big carpets occupy several
women for months. I was glad to hear that the Town Council, which looks
after the carpet trade, is on the look-out for good old designs for the
workers. Also that it had forbidden imported dyes, as these were in many
instances found not to be permanent, and the wools used are coloured by
local and traditional methods. Pirot is justly proud of a medal won in
the Paris Exhibition, and the trade, if carefully looked after, should
greatly increase. I made one bad mistake; I suggested that the work was
of Turkish origin. My friends would not hear of this, and declared that
it was Servian, purely Servian. I felt crushed, but am by no means sure
that they were right.

There is not entertainment for more than a day in Pirot, and the hotel
accommodation is lean. I said good-bye that evening. At the station I
met the gendarme who had originally blocked my passage. Now he regretted
my departure. He seemed a childlike and simple personage, not at all
intended by nature for a policeman. He carried my bag in for me, and
beamed with joy when he felt its weight. "May I open it?" he asked. When
he found the weight was entirely caused by three dictionaries and an old
pair of shoes, he was disappointed. "I thought it was all English gold!"
he said.

As the time for the departure of the train drew near the gendarme grew
anxious. Something weighed heavily on his mind, and that was that he had
to write the name of each departing passenger in the police-book and did
not know how to manage mine. He wrote down everyone else, and then shook
his head despairingly. He restored me my passport and explained that he
could not read the name on it, for it was printed in "Latinski." I
boldly offered to write it myself in the sacred volume. He was
incredulous of my powers. It must not be written in Latinski, he said. I
promised, took the pencil and wrote my name very large in Cyrillic; he
was delighted, and everyone came to see. "It was a great wonder," they
said, and they all wanted to know where I had learnt it.

"In London," said I.

"Of a Serb?"

"No, of a Pole."

"Of a Pole! That is impossible."

"But it is true."

Then a superior person explained to me, "It is impossible that you
should have learned these letters of a Pole, because Poles are Roman
Catholic, and these letters are Orthodox." I stuck to my statement. Then
the superior person, who even spoke a little German, had a bright idea.
"This Pole," he said, "was Catholic, but has now become converted." And
this explanation amply satisfied everyone, for it is obviously easier to
change one's religion than to learn the alphabet belonging to an
opposition one--if you are a South Slav.

My leaving Pirot was very different from my arriving. Now they said it
was a pity I was going. The stationmaster thanked me for trusting a
Balkan state, and I promised to look in next time I was in the
neighbourhood.




CHAPTER XIV

EAST SERVIA


At Nish the hotel received me on my return with much friendliness, but,
though evidently anxious to oblige, was quite unable to give me any
information as to East Servia, and prayed me to return to Belgrade by
train. This not suiting my ideas at all, I started from Nish at 5 a.m.
for Zaichar, and trusted the unravelling of the route to luck and my
driver, one Marko, a stolid and friendly being.

Servia is an amazing land. The more I saw of it the more struck was I
with its great fertility and its great capabilities, its rich and breezy
uplands and its warm well-watered valleys. Corn, vines, tobacco, green
crops, and every variety of fruit grow luxuriantly even with the present
most primitive methods of cultivation. With knowledge and a little
capital Servia should be a rich land. Unluckily both are wanting; the
lamentable political differences which tear the kingdom make both almost
impossible of attainment, and the small minority of plucky and
intelligent men are struggling against almost impossible odds.

Nish had suspected me vaguely, but the farther I got up country the more
forcibly did I realise that Servia was a raw quivering mass of politics,
and that a change of some sort was imminent. Being provided with no
letters of introduction, no one knew to which party I belonged, and I
was cross-questioned and re-questioned with a persistency that, to put
it mildly, was fatiguing. Before I had realised the extreme state of
political tension, I rashly revealed, in reply to a straight question,
that I had come direct from Cetinje, and was at once supposed to be
supporting the possible succession of Prince Mirko to the Servian
throne.

"If you say such things," said a man to me, "you must expect to be
suspected, because we have no heir to the throne."

"But what is that to me? I have no wish to occupy your throne."

"Why have you come here?"

"To see Servia."

"Why do you wish to see Servia? Have you ever spoken to Prince Mirko?"
and so on and so on, a long string of questions directed towards finding
out which of the possible successors to that rickety seat I favoured.

I replied, "I am English, and naturally I prefer the Prince of Wales,"
and laughed so much that to my no little relief everyone else did so
too, and the examination came to an end. By and by people began to
confide in me, and I got used to "I tell you this that you may know the
truth and tell it abroad. You are English, and I trust you not to say
that I told you, nor that you heard it in this town." It was pointed out
to me that had I come provided with introductions I should have been
spared much annoyance. That is true. But I should not in that case have
"seen Servia," nor--for my tormentors always ended by being
amiable--should I have learnt how kind the Servian can be to a
friendless stranger.

I drove through this beautiful and sunny land much harassed by the pity
of it all. Marko was a cheerful companion, and did his best to amuse me.
He pointed out that there were always at least three women to one man
working in the fields and that the "man" was usually a boy. Men, he
explained, did not like working in fields. Moreover, the women did it so
well that he seemed to think that it would be a pity to dissuade them.
And so long as there was enough to eat, why trouble? For a man it is
much better to be a "pandur" (policeman), especially in a large town.
Then you do nothing in the streets, and are paid for it; also you wear a
revolver and a uniform. Even this delightful career has its drawbacks,
for it means a lot of standing and walking about. Best of all is to be a
"gazda" (head of a large household or family community), then you tell
all the others what to do, and you spend your leisure elegantly in a
kafana. A coachman's lot was very hard and ill-paid. Thus Marko, and his
astonishment was intense and genuine when I walked up all the hills. I
think he ascribed this act of folly to the fact that I was a woman, for
he pointed out that the women in the fields had to tramp long distances
to work. They have a hard time of it, poor things, for they carry their
tools and their babies with them; and babies rolled in shawls and slung
up hammockwise dangle like gigantic chrysalids from the branches of the
trees round the fields where their mothers toil. "Hush-a-bye, baby, on
the tree-top; when the wind blows, the cradle will rock," is true in
Servia. Probably our own nursery rhyme dates from days when field
labour in England was in just such a primitive state.

We made no long pause save at Kniazhevatz (= "Prince's Place"), a little
town that was formerly almost on the frontier, and was burnt to the
ground no less than three times in the nineteenth century by the Turks,
the last time in 1876. It consists mainly of wooden frame houses with
mud walls and big eaves and balconies, and the streets are straggly and
irregular. This makes it quite the most picturesque town on that side of
Servia. What the Serb likes is a perfectly straight street in which all
the houses are as much alike as possible. This is, however, also the
modern Parisian's idea, and some people admire Paris, so perhaps the
Serb is right.

I was supposed to "rest" at Kniazhevatz, but did nothing of the sort. I
had not long swallowed my lunch when I was told that "a gentleman who
spoke German" wished to talk to me. He and his friends had previously
interviewed Marko. He now offered to show me the town. I accepted, and
we started. His idea of "showing the town" turned out to be to walk me
up and down the main street and let loose a perfect torrent of questions
about me and my affairs. I grasped this fact, and ran my eyes over him.
He was youngish, fair, and far too stout for his years. A Teutonic
ancestor somewhere, I thought. I replied cheerfully to his questions,
and walked at a fair pace. When we arrived at the top of the street
again, I did not turn back; I pursued bye streets and side streets, and
walked on the sunny side of the way. I reckoned on his being in very bad
condition, and he was; moreover, he had just dined solidly. The more
personal his questions became, the faster I walked. Till a week or two
ago I had been panting after tireless Montenegrins, now the situation
was reversed; the perspiration stood on his brow, and he had not yet
discovered what I was worth in pounds sterling. He asked if I did not
find the sun too hot, and I replied that I liked it. He kept up
manfully, and inquired the incomes of my father, my brothers, and my
brothers-in-law. Baffled on these points, but still persuaded that I was
a multi-millionaire, he suggested that I should remain permanently in
Servia; this with noble disinterestedness, for he was already another's;
but in the middle of the good old tale of how Someone-avich had married
an English-wife-who-was-extremely-happy, he was forced for lack of
breath to suggest that there was no need to walk fast. "No," said I, "it
is very foolish to walk fast, for then one can see nothing." As there
was rising ground before us and the "going" was very bad, I forced the
pace slightly, his questions died away, and I brought him back uphill to
the hotel a limp and dripping thing, with the great problem still
unsolved. He threw himself into a chair and called for beer. I jumped
into my carriage, which was by this time ready, and drove off without
enlightening him. "That man," said Marko, "wanted to know everything,
but I told him nothing." As Marko knew nothing at all about me, I was
not surprised.

We arrived at Zaichar late at night, after a fourteen hours' drive.
Zaichar had little to detain me. Beyond the motley crowd of Bulgarian
and Roumanian peasants--for this is very much a borderland place--there
is nothing to see. Some villages in the neighbourhood have scarce a
Serb in them. Gold is found not far off at the Maidan Pek, and I was
strongly urged to go and see the diggings. By way of an attraction, I
was told that I should find specimens of every race in Europe there
except English, and as by no means the best specimens of humanity haunt
gold diggings, I thought that a herd of them loose upon the
Servo-Bulgarian frontier might be more than I could grapple with
single-handed. So I contented myself with looking at some small nuggets
in a bottle. The mines, I was told, pay fairly well, and I enough
alluvial gold is also found in the bed of the river Timok by the
peasants to make the search worth while. The Timok forms the frontier
for a considerable distance, and as a river is a clearly marked line
that all can see, the frontier is a quiet one, and no "mistakes" occur
upon it.:

We started for Negotin as a heavy thunderstorm! cleared away and a big
rainbow overarched the sky. "When the old people see that green and red
thing," said Marko, pointing to it, "they say, 'Now we shall have good
wine and maize.' Red for wine and green for maize." It was an uneventful
drive over land that once produced Servia's best wine, and is now but
slowly recovering from the phylloxera. As we approached Negotin, Marko
became more and more uneasy. He told me repeatedly that the people of
Zaichar had asked him all about me and he had told them nothing; merely
that I was English; otherwise nothing at all! This he considered very
meritorious. As he knew nothing more about me, I did not see the extreme
virtue of his reticence. However, as he was dying for information and I
was going to part with him in the evening, so should be no more
bothered, I thought I would gratify him, and told him the number of my
brothers and sisters, etc., all of which crave him infinite
satisfaction. We arrived at Negotin the best of friends.

Negotin stands in a swamp; there are water-meadows and marshes full of
frogs and reeds all round it, but I saw no mosquitoes, and the town did
not look unhealthy. There are about 6000 inhabitants, a new and unlovely
church, and a newly-erected bronze statue to Milosh Obrenovich, but the
chief glory of Negotin is the monument to Hayduk Veljko,--Veljko, the
popular hero, the story of whose career casts a fierce light on the
condition of Servia less than a hundred years ago, and makes one wonder
not that Servia should be, as some folk say, so backward, but that in so
short a time she should have reached such a high point of civilisation.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Servia was resolved no
longer to tolerate Turkish tyranny, the land was overrun with bands of
desperate men, who sheltered in wood and mountain, lived on plunder, and
perpetually harassed the enemy by guerilla warfare. They called
themselves Hayduks (brigands), and they gloried in the name. To-day,
just one hundred years later, the same conditions exist in Macedonia,
and the causes are the same. Dreaded, beloved, and admired, these
Hayduks were the heroes of the peasants, whom they alternately protected
and oppressed; their names and deeds were sung in songs, and they cast a
halo of glory round the profession of brigandage which has only lately
faded from it. The greatest of all was Hayduk Veljko. Associated with
Karageorge at the beginning of the uprising, his extraordinary
lawlessness and ferocity made it impossible for him to work in
co-operation with any plan or person. With a gang of followers, he
carried on war in East Servia on his own account. Insatiable for
plunder, he would risk his life for a few piastres, but what he had he
would give away lavishly. He boasted that he grudged his goods to no
man, and that it was better for no man to grudge his goods in return.
When the Russians reproached him with calling himself "Hayduk," he
answered, "I should be sorry if there were any greater robber in the
world!" Drunk with blood and the lust of battle, he prayed "Give us war
in my time, O Lord!" for though he was kind enough to wish Servia peace
after his death, the joys of the insurrection quite obliterated for him
its object, and any form of government was intolerable to him. He was a
terror to the Turks, whom he was always surprising, and his reputation
was so great that it excited the jealousy of the other Servian leaders.
He and his men held all East Servia, and without further assistance kept
the foe at bay. Negotin was his stronghold. The Turks, enraged by the
heavy losses he repeatedly inflicted upon them, determined to destroy
him, and besieged him with a force of 18,000 men. Undaunted, he made
sallies at night, harassing the enemy, slaughtering many, and retiring
into his fortifications with slight losses. But his garrison gradually
became smaller. When he saw that it was impossible to hold out much
longer, he was forced to humble his pride and send for help to
Karageorge. Alas! Karageorge had no force to spare, and the other
leaders were reluctant to help. Hayduk Veljko had always wished to stand
alone, they said, and he might do so now. The Turks were reinforced by
artillery, and Veljko's fate was sealed. They battered down his towers;
the buildings within the walls were smashed: still the garrison held out
and sheltered in the cellars. Hayduk Veljko grew desperate; every scrap
of metal, spoons, lamps, even coins, were made into bullets, and no help
came. When at length it came by the Danube, in the shape of a ship full
of men and ammunition, it was too late. Veljko was dead. His prayer was
fulfilled, and he did not live to see peace. Making his morning rounds,
he was recognised on the redoubts by a Turkish artilleryman who fired at
him. He fell terribly mangled, and with his dying breath urged his men
to stand firm. They buried his body at night, and tried to conceal his
death from the enemy; but the spirit which had animated them had fled,
and the garrison, which had not before thought of retreat, held out for
a day or two only, and then escaped at night across the marshes. A panic
ensued among the Serbs of the district when they learnt the death of
Veljko, nor do the other Servian leaders seem to have realised what a
power Veljko was till it was too late. The Turkish army pursued the
fugitives, and for the losses that Veljko had inflicted upon them
exacted an awful vengeance at the first place they came to, the little
town of Kladovo, where they impaled the men alive, captured the women,
and immersed the children in boiling water, in derision of baptism.

Such is the story of Hayduk Veljko. His was a strong soul blackened by
the terrible times into which he was born, and in spite of his many
faults he played a great part in the freeing of Servia. His monument, an
obelisk with commemorative lines and the date of his death (1813) on the
four sides of its base, stands in a little flower garden. His portrait,
fierce with black moustachios and a scarlet fez, is carved and painted
on the stone. I spelt slowly through the inscriptions; the old woman,
caretaker of the spot, came out and picked me some roses. "He was a very
good man," she said; "here are some roses from his garden." Poor plucky
barbarian, whose ambition it was to be the greatest robber in the world,
he had come to this--roses and a very good man! I took the flowers and
strolled back; I looked at the older people and reflected that they had
heard these things from the living mouth, for their grand-fathers had
seen them. Yet with these traditions barely a century old the land is
now orderly and peaceful; in this short space of the world's history it
has leapt from savagery to civilisation. It has yet far to go, but it
has done much.

When I returned to the inn, I found the landlord beaming. "You have two
brothers and five sisters," he said. "It is so pleasant to know all
about one's guests!" Marko had lost no time in spreading short
biographies of me, and had done his work effectually. He parted from me
with regret, for with recollections perhaps of Veljko, he had
overcharged me liberally, as I learned when I was older and wiser;
barring this slight defect, he was a most agreeable travelling
companion, and, as he himself pointed out, "gave me Servian lessons for
nothing."

The landlord was all friendliness. He knew all about the English, and he
told me about Someone-avich-who-married-an-English-wife. "She is so
happy," he added rapturously, "and he is now just like an Englishman!"

"What does he do?" I asked.

"Do? He does not do anything. He sits in Idepark like an Englishman."

"She must be an American," I said firmly; "Englishwomen are not rich
enough for that."

Radujevatz, on the Danube, the port for Negotin and the last station
before reaching the Bulgarian frontier, is but a couple of kilometres
away. I returned to Belgrade by boat. All the world and Cook go down the
Danube, so it needs no description. My guardian angel was as kind as
usual, and gave me two most courteous Servian artists as travelling
companions. There is nothing like a "brother brush" for help in need,
and as a general rule my sketch-book is a great passport and finds me
more useful friends than does my Foreign Office one. These two gave me
lessons in the language and told me of their fatherland. That I should
have come so far to see it pleased them greatly, but they were both,
especially the elder man, very sad about it, and told me mournfully that
I could scarcely have come in a worse period of its history. "Our old
patriarchal system is dead, and we have nothing to replace it. Our
people have had thrust upon them too suddenly Western ideas which they
do not understand; we are in the most critical period of a nation's
history, the half-educated period. The nations that criticise us passed
through this period so long ago that they have forgotten it." He talked
of the Great Empire and of Kosovo and of the black years that followed.
"Look at the few old churches that the Turks have left us. In those days
we were not behind the whole of Europe. Our past was heroic; our future
looks black. I am an old man, and I shall die with all my hopes
disappointed. No one in the West knows how we have suffered. I, of
course, remember when the Turks still occupied our forts." They sang me
snatches of Servian ballads--all monotonous wails over the slaying of
someone by the Turks, ending in a cry for vengeance. I commented on
their unrelieved melancholy. "Ah, Fräulein," said the elder, "it is the
suffering of five hundred years, and it is your nation that keeps the
Turk in Europe. The Crimean War was a blow to us, and the Berlin Treaty
was only a shade less bitter. They did not consider us as peoples. They
marked out the Balkan peninsula into _spheres of influence_ awaiting the
pleasure of the great Powers, and we are in the Austrian sphere. England
has never troubled about us. Russia is our only friend; Russia could
save us, but she is too busy in the Far East. The only other land
situated as we are, with no outlet to the sea, is Switzerland. All
Europe takes care of Switzerland. We have no one to help us in the whole
world."

We reached the Iron Gates. The stream was enormously swollen, and we
steered up the middle, a huge wide swirl of water eddying and coiling
with terrible rapidity. The boat began its upward climb, shuddering and
trembling violently; it seemed to be straining every nerve, and the deck
vibrated underfoot. Beyond and above gleamed the line of smooth water,
and the panting vessel struggled into it and regained its breath. As I
stood in the bows and watched the struggle and heard the tale of
Servia's woes, Servia seemed to me like the struggling boat, with the
melancholy difference that there was no strong hand at the helm to save
her from shipwreck.

This was, however, the boat's supreme effort. We lay off Orsova all
night, were more and more behind time next day, and did not lounge up to
the quay at Belgrade till very nearly midnight. Belgrade was fast asleep
when I walked through the silent streets that were entirely deserted
save for the sentinels standing motionless at the street corners with
rifle and revolver. Belgrade, I had been told in West Europe, was a gay,
reckless, dissipated capital. In outward appearance it is about as wild
as Little Peddlington. Appearances may be deceptive. I do not know.




CHAPTER XV

THE SHUMADIA AND SOUTH-WEST SERVIA


Everyone said I must go to the Shumadia, because it is the "heart of
Servia," the centre in which arose her struggle for freedom. So to the
Shumadia I went. Having read in a German book that it was quite
impossible to explore that part of the country without a guide and
letters of introduction, I took only as much luggage as I could carry
easily in one hand and set out by train for Kragujevatz. As the
best-laid plans are apt to go wrong, I left this expedition entirely to
Fate. People like being trusted; often, in fact, serve you much the
better for it. Fate did this time. She put me into the carriage with a
gentleman who most kindly furnished me with an introduction that took me
round all the rest of Servia. That I should have been thrown on the land
quite unassisted distressed him. "You must yourself see," he said, "that
if your Consul and Minister have given you no letter, it looks very bad.
But that is the way your country behaves. If you had been German, for
example, you would have had plenty of letters." This astonished me; my
new friend, on the other hand, seemed still more astonished that I had
got so far letterless. Servia loves letters of introduction and is not
happy without them. From this time forward I made a sort of triumphal
progress, was passed from town to town, and received so much
hospitality and kindness that Servia and the friends that helped me on
my way will ever remain in a warm corner of my memory. I changed my
plans from day to day, and I went wherever the police captains and the
district engineers advised me; nor can I wish anyone better guides than
these gentlemen. They lent me maps, they planned my routes, they took me
walks, they hired my carriages, found my guides and horses, and drove my
bargains. What they were pleased to consider the mad Englishness of my
enterprise appealed forcibly to their sense of humour, and my various
adventures made them shout with laughter. I cannot repay their kindness,
but I certainly amused them.

The Shumadia takes its name from "shuma," a forest; the woods of Servia
were the last shelter of a desperate people and the rallying-point of
the nation. If it be true that "all that is most Servian is in the
Shumadia," it is here that we should look for the type of the race. The
peasant of the Shumadia is tall, fair, and blue-or grey-eyed. He is more
strongly built and more active than his brethren in other districts, and
is more like the fair type of Montenegrin than are the men of any other
part of Servia. The race question in the Balkans is so exceedingly
complicated that I cannot attempt to unravel it, and can only note
marked types where they occur.

So much for the peasant. The country now is no longer a forest, though
well supplied with woods and trees; it is a most fertile district, and
is better cultivated and far more enterprising than any other part of
Servia.

Kragujevatz, Milosh' capital, is a very go-ahead place, and next to
Belgrade is Servia's most important commercial town, busy and
flourishing, with some 14,000 inhabitants. It has a fine gymnasium and a
large girls' school, both handsome and spacious buildings very well
fitted; the girls' school built by private gift. All trace of the Turk
has been wiped out of the town, but the relics of Milosh are carefully
preserved. His konak, a medium-sized whitewashed house, now forms part
of the officers' quarters. The old church stands near, a small plain
whitewashed building with a wooden annexe for the women, who were not
then admitted to worship in the main body of the church--which shows
forcibly how deeply the Turk had set his mark upon the Servian people.
By the church stands the long low whitewashed shed that was Servia's
first parliament house. Milosh, like Karageorge, took care to assemble
his parliament very seldom and to pay little or no attention to it then.
Kragujevatz otherwise is brand-new, and here as elsewhere it is easy to
see that the Servians have done more in fifty years for the improvement
of the place and the conditions of life than the Turk did in four
centuries. Much yet remains to be done, nevertheless a journey from
Servia into Turkey is like stepping off the pavement into the sewer.

On leaving Kragujevatz I left the railway. None exists in West Servia,
which has to rely entirely on ox-carts for the transport of its produce.
Carriage travelling in Servia is, as I have said before, but slow work.
But it gives one excellent opportunities of seeing the country. The
start must be made early. The man usually suggested 4 a.m., but I made
it 5 when possible. The peasant was always on the road or already at
work; for he, like the coachman, likes to take his time about things,
and has to get up very early in order to spread a six or seven hours'
job very thinly over sixteen. This gives him ample leisure to lie under
a beech tree and play upon a wooden pipe (a double pipe it is, too, two
pipes with one mouthpiece), but in spite of the old proverb it has not
yet contributed much either to his wealth or wisdom. He is descended
from a long line of forefathers who lived oppressed by foreign rule in
troublous times, when the accumulation of property would have been
labour in vain and would have but enriched the pocket of Pasha or
Janissary. He sees no object in exerting himself; it is unjust to call
him lazy. He is undeveloped; his wants are so simple that he can satisfy
them easily without working up to his full power, and he has no ideas
beyond. He walks, thinks, and acts in leisurely fashion, and appears to
be slow to wrath and very good-natured. The spare time which remains
upon his hands unfortunately is not always harmlessly employed upon the
penny whistle, for your Servian peasant is a great politician. Slow to
grasp a new idea on this as on all other subjects, and with no
traditions of good government behind him, he is eternally dissatisfied
with the government he happens to be under. For centuries "government"
in Servia meant "the Turk" and was a thing to be resisted or at least
evaded, and the Servian peasant still ascribes every evil to it. So the
corn waited while the reaper sat in the shade and discussed the latest
scandal about Queen Draga. "If our women," said a Serb to me, "took to
politics like yours do, I do not know what would happen. All work would
be at a standstill."

Very early in the day, even before the peasant has begun politics, the
coachman is ready to rest at a "mehana" (inn), and in spite of all my
efforts I became acquainted with the interior of a vast number. The bare
whitewashed room with fly-blown portraits of Milan and Natalie, and new
and gay ones of Alexander represented as about forty, and Draga as, say,
five-and-twenty; the boarded floor; the rush of chickens in at the door
when they heard the refreshments coming; the cavern in the brick wall
where the little copper pots of black coffee are heated in glowing
charcoal; the miniature glass bottles about three inches high, in which
the slivovitz (plum brandy) is served; the white-kilted, sandal-shod men
who sat round on rough benches and consumed it; and the host and hostess
eager both to serve me and to find out all about me, made up a homely
and not unpicturesque scene. And a plateful of white curd cheese covered
with clotted cream (kaimak), a lump of rye bread, some onions, and some
thin red wine, are a breakfast a Prince would not disdain, after driving
for three hours with nothing but a thimbleful of black coffee inside
him. By midday every inn has dinner ready, and supplies food, which is
generally far better than the outside of the den leads one to expect, at
a very cheap rate. The penny wine of the country is good of its kind,
and shows that Servia only requires science to become a first-class
wine-growing country. The untravelled Serb has at present but vague
ideas as to what West Europe considers first-class wine. "Our wine,"
said a Serb to me, after I had tasted a thin red variety, "is not so
well known as it ought to be. We send a great deal of this to Marseilles
and sell it very cheap. The French probably sell it as the best
champagne, at a high price!" which showed he had much to learn as yet
about vintages.

I had long days upon the road, but was never lonely. All the country
life of Servia dawdled past; living pictures of which I never tired. The
school children, who often have to tramp a great distance, are out
early, carrying their books and inkpots. In bad winter weather they are
often unable to return, and are put up at the school for many nights. Or
there will pass a gang of Albanian horse-dealers, their tight striped
leg-gear, their scarlet sashes and shaven heads looking outlandish even
in this out-of-the-way spot. Sitting high on their saddles, they amble
smartly past, driving a herd of ponies in front of them. The Albanian
does not let the grass grow under his feet, and his movements are full
of nervous energy.

Wildest of all in appearance are the gipsies--brown untamed animals,
long, lean, sinewy, and half-clad. As a matter of convenience they adopt
the dress of the country they happen to be in; their individuality they
never change. The Servian looks down on them with contempt; they are the
lowest of the population. "Tsiganin! do this," shouts a Serb to any of
the swarthy young rascals who are hanging about the street corner, and
the boy obeys like a dog. But the gipsy is fiercely proud of his race.
"You are English, but I am a Gipsy!" said an old woman to me, with
indescribable majesty, as she drew up her head; the coins glittered in
her filthy elf-locks, and she fixed me with her eagle eyes. She took the
black pipe from her mouth and waved it round her head till she was
wreathed in blue smoke, and she smote her bare breast dramatically. "I
am a true Gipsy," she repeated. In a piece of a dirty shirt and half a
petticoat, she looked like an empress. Yet the savage who possesses a
hut, even the wild beast with a den, is a more civilised being. Without
any kind of a tent, much less a cart, will they camp; some poles propped
against a bush and covered with an armful of fern are often their only
covering from the weather, and a couple of lean unhappy bears may share
with them the bundle of filthy rags that is their bed, for your gipsy is
a great showman. I once passed a group encircling a caldron, asquat and
eager for the pot to boil; they turned as I drove by to look at me, and
I saw, with something of a shock, that one of the party was a huge
blue-nosed baboon. He wore about as much clothing as the others, and it
was not till I saw his face that he was distinguishable from his
friends. The cavemen and the prehistoric lake-dwellers cannot have lived
less luxuriously than do these strange wild folk now, in Europe in the
twentieth century. When I met them upon the road, they seemed to have
walked out of another age, another world. Untrustworthy and dishonest
are the mildest terms applied to them, and they are said to be
responsible for a large proportion of the crime of the land. More
extraordinary than their filth and their savagery, more wonderful than
their superb vitality, is their marvellous gift--a gift that amounts to
genius--for playing stringed instruments. It is in the blood to such an
extent that there are fiddlers in every gang; it seems as natural for a
gipsy to fiddle as for a fish to swim. I am not speaking of those who
wear civilised garments and perform in the large towns,--many of these
are known to fame,--but of the ragged ruffians who fiddle for their own
amusement on the road, by the camp fire, or sprawled under a tree, and
who display a command of the instrument and a technical facility that
tends to confirm the theory that music is the least civilised of the
arts. I have seen a child, of certainly not more than ten years, perched
on the top of a loaded waggon, executing the wildest runs, turns, and
flourishes upon his fiddle with an ease and certainty that the
industrious student of a conservatoire does not attain to after years of
labour, the ease and certainty of a singing skylark. But he and his
associates were such that it was disgusting to pass on the lee side of
that waggon. How these people have attained this art is an insoluble
mystery; that it belongs pre-eminently to them as a birthright is shown
by the curious fact that most of the world's fiddlers hail from
gipsy-haunted lands.

And these strange wild things, with life running fierce in their veins,
passed in their turn, and I was alone with the dead.

[ILLUSTRATION: TRAVELLING GIPSIES, RIJEKA, MONTENEGRO.]

By every roadside, even by lonely mountain tracks, stand the monuments
of the soldiers who have fallen in war--tall stones, sometimes solitary,
sometimes in groups of two or three, almost all carved in very flat
relief or incised with a rude full-length portrait of the dead man,
painted in bright colours. Some of these stones are small, others five
or six feet high. With a blue coat and black moustachios, with his arms
and fingers straight and stiff by his side and his feet turned out at
right angles, stands the soldier, staring straight in front of him with
round black eyes, and presents arms to the passer-by. Upon the older
stones, he wears a scarlet tarboosh and carries a sword; upon those put
up since the last war, he carries a gun and wears the present uniform.
An inscription tells how he met his death: "For the Glory and Freedom of
his brother Serbs." The monument is usually near his home, but sometimes
on the actual spot where he fell. To the Serbs these stones are an
everyday sight. To me it seemed sometimes that I was the only thing left
alive out of the slaughter and was passing constantly through the ranks
of a phantom army awaiting the trumpet call. Their grotesque and
childish simplicity added a strange pathos. Thus I travelled through a
land green as our own, with oaks and beeches and fern, and everywhere
the print of war was upon it, and through storm and sun and wind and
rain I passed from town to town.

[Illustration]

Chachak, on the Morava, stands on flat land down by the river. I drove
through the ford by moonlight and entered the town with a terrible
clatter, but, having come properly introduced, I met with a very
hospitable reception. I was travelling to see Servia and the Servians;
that was now a recognised fact. Should I like to see something truly
Servian? It was fortunate that I had arrived this night, for I was in
time to see four murderers shot on the spot where they had committed
their crime! I was urged to go, and offered special facilities. Taken
aback, I listened, speechless, while the plan was unfolded. I was to
rise very early and to drive for three hours up the mountains with the
condemned men and the file of soldiers who were to carry out the
sentence. The words called up before me a picture of the grisly little
procession crawling uphill in the grey of the dawning. Adding up the
pros and cons rapidly, I said to myself that it was my duty to see
everything, but searched my brains for a decent way out of it. Then I
recollected that if I went, for the next fifty years it would be said
that all Englishwomen were in the habit of seeing men shot before
breakfast. Gripping thankfully at this idea, I said I had rather not
accept the invitation; I had not come so far to see Servians killed. My
reply caused disappointment, and I was strongly urged to go. The murder
had been a peculiarly atrocious one, so that I need not mind seeing the
punishment; for the murderers, after cutting the throats of their
victims, had gouged out the eyes and otherwise barbarously mutilated the
corpses. Twenty men had been arrested, the last gang of Hayduks on that
side of Servia. Four were to die to-morrow. Moreover, my route lay that
way, and there was nothing at all to be seen in Chachak. My coachman
listened anxiously for my decision, but was doomed to disappointment. I
did not go.

Chachak is proud of being the first town taken from the Turks by
Karageorge. It is a bright and enterprising place, and dreams of
constructing an electric railway that shall connect it with the world.
It boasts a church that was church, then mosque, and is now church
again. At least so I was told, but I believe myself that it was born a
mosque and that the old bells belonging to the former Christian period,
which were found recently when digging the foundations of one of the
public buildings, belonged to an early church long since destroyed and
forgotten. I spun out the resources of Chachak as long as I could, and
my coachman hung about, buoyed up by the hope that we should yet be in
time. I even found the horses harnessed and ready, waiting for me, a
most unusual event in Servia, and he started off at a great pace for the
first and last time in that land. He had a pleasant, smiling face, and
was very civil, and as he looked at his watch every few minutes, I
marvelled that he should crave so ardently to see red blood run in the
sunshine. To have once seen it hurrying down an Italian gutter was
enough for me.

So we drove on through woods that I knew were beautiful, but they gave
me only a sickly feeling of being on the track of death, and the farther
I got, the less I liked it. In starting, I had calculated that I was
late enough, and then began to wonder if there was any limit to the
lateness that a Servian is capable of.

When we arrived at Markovich, the village nearest the top of the pass, I
saw the soldiers stopping outside the inn to cheer themselves with
rakija on their homeward march, and I knew that the deed was done. An
officer rode up, touched his cap and told me politely where I should see
the graves; he expected me to be disappointed, but I was greatly
relieved. We reached the top of the hill, a large grassy plateau, and
there were the four raw heaps of damp mould. A peasant was patting down
the last one, and a stake had been driven in at the head of each. My
coachman pulled up and said regretfully, "We are only three-quarters of
an hour too late!" "Drive on," said I, cutting short the details of how
they had stood in their graves and been shot down into them, and as the
peasant shouldered his spade and turned away too, we left them alone on
the hilltop.

At Pozhega we had to put up the horses for an hour and find food for
ourselves. The landlady--a stout woman with a good-natured face--was
considerably exhausted, having been to the top of the hill to see the
men shot. She had risen very early and had walked all the way, but there
was a great crowd, and much to her annoyance she had not got a good view
of the end. Nor could I make her understand that I had purposely avoided
the sight myself.

From Pozhega it was but a few hours' drive to Ushitza, my next
stopping-place, the prettiest little town that I know in Servia--a place
that no traveller in the country should omit to visit. It sprawls
through two wooded valleys in a mountainous country as beautiful as
anyone need wish to see. It is hospitable and cheery, and should make an
excellent centre for a sportsman, for I am told that the surrounding
mountains are well supplied with game birds, that there is no lack of
wolves and bears, and no difficulty about procuring permission to shoot.
I clattered up to the inn, and it received me with characteristic
simplicity; its landlady asked if I wanted a place as chambermaid, and
was much mystified, for it seems that she had never before seen a lady
travelling alone. Laughing over this, I gave my letter of introduction
to the master of the establishment and asked him to have it delivered at
once. It seemed a simple enough request, and I sat down to some coffee
without any anxiety, unaware that he had stowed the letter away
carefully behind the rakija bottles in the bar and had sent the potboy
to tell the gentleman that his sister had arrived! He turned up in a
great hurry, much mystified, as his only sister lived in America and had
shown no symptoms of visiting him. The innkeeper then produced the
letter and explained that, as the gentleman was a Bohemian and possessed
the only pair of blue eyes in the town and I also was a blue-eyed
foreigner, it had never occurred to him to doubt our relationship. I had
a gay time in Ushitza. The schoolmasters, the head of the police, and
other local authorities all came to call on me and devise plans for me,
and we drank beer festively by the market-place, for as I was the first
Englishwoman in Ushitza, health drinking was necessary.

Ushitza is plucky and enterprising. It not only makes plans, but it
carries them out. It is blessed with good men at the head of affairs.
For all the world over, in spite of the old saying, the voice of the
people is very seldom the voice of a god; it is far more frequently
simply a "row," and in most places we find that all good work is due to
the brains and energy of a few individuals, and not to the collective
wisdom of the mass, except in the sense that the mass has had the wit to
know a good man when they see him and to follow his lead.

Ushitza, poked away in a lonely valley in a far corner of Servia, has a
very good school, well fitted with modern apparatus, maps and diagrams
and plaster casts; is well lighted by electricity, and has started an
electric cotton and linen weaving factory, which is the pride and joy of
the town. Three years did it take in the making; every bit of the
machinery had to be imported from abroad and carried over the mountains
on ox-carts, but in spite of all difficulties it is well started and
beginning to pay its way, and Ushitza, like Chachak, is trying to find
the ways and means for an electric railway.

Ushitza was Ushitza in the glorious days of the Servian Empire, and was
the seat of its first arch-bishop, the great St. Sava. Stefan VI.
transferred the archbishopric to Ipek (Petch), that lies in Stara Srbija
waiting to be redeemed; but Ushitza worked out her own redemption in
1862, and after severe fighting evicted the Turk, and is once more the
seat of a bishop. The Djetina, a tributary of the Morava, rushes past
the town from a narrow valley, where leaps the fall that works the
150-horse-power electric engines, and high on the opposite hill tower
the ruins of the big castle that once guarded the town. Fortified by the
Turks, it was taken by the Servians and blown to pieces, and its
shattered walls hang perilously on the precipice edge. I was told it was
a Turkish building, but I scrambled all over it, and believe it to be a
Servian mediæval castle belonging probably to the palmy days of the
Empire.

Everything else in Ushitza is new, except the stone bridge over the
river, which is mediæval, and the big Roman altar stone found in the
neighbourhood that stands in the entrance of the school; but the town,
though so new, is very picturesque. I left Ushitza with regret, for it
was very good to me. I said good-bye for ever and ever, promised to send
picture postcards of London, and was soon again on the road.

Ivanitza was my destination, and my midday halt at Arilje, where I
arrived cold and damp in a heavy rainstorm. The police captain and the
priest were kindly folk and offered to take me to see the church.
According to tradition, it is the oldest church in Servia, and is said
to have been built to the memory of one Aril, a Christian priest
martyred by heathen Servians early in the ninth century. It is a
cruciform building with a central dome, a very flat apse, the usual
narthex, and is barrel-vaulted. My guides could tell me nothing at all
except that it was "very old." I suggested thirteenth century, which
astonished them. That the building itself had anything to say on the
subject was a new idea to them. After a little discussion with the
priest, the captain said that someone had said it was of the time of
King Milutin, and added naively that they did not know when that was.
Milutin (Stefan Milutin Urosh) reigned from about 1275 to 1321. This
date fits in with its appearance, but not with the tradition that it is
the oldest church in Servia. Probably it is a later building on an old
site. It is old and dim enough, at any rate, to have seen the Great
Servian Empire and the rise and the fall of the Ottoman. Frescoes stiff
and Byzantine in style cover its walls. Big saints in long straight
white robes with bizarre black patterns stand in a row along the walls,
and a king (Milutin himself) in a high crown and a long cloak decorated
with large discs of gold. The faces have been scraped out by the Turks,
and the whole of the paintings are dim and faded, but they are scarce
examples of early art, and appear to have never suffered restoration. I
am sorry that I allowed damp, cold, and general discomfort to prevent my
staying to draw them.

We pushed on through the storm along a richly wooded defile through
which tears the Morava, and arrived chill and stiff in the evening at
Ivanitza, where the mere sight of the inn made me feel much worse. As it
was not possible to get anything to eat till supper-time, and as the
bedroom offered me was uninhabitable, and as both my letters of
introduction were to gentlemen who only spoke Servian, I wondered why I
had come. It was too wet to go out, so I sat in the doorway and drew the
shops over the way, and soon forgot all the surrounding circumstances. I
was aroused by the most cheery police officers, in very smart uniforms,
who came in answer to my letters of introduction, and who were
extraordinarily amused to find me already settled down to draw. They
brought the burgomaster, called for drinks, and in the approved fashion
each stood me a glass. When the doctor, who spoke German, turned up and
tried to stand me one on his own account, I cried off. My Montenegrin
sketches here were the topic of the day; for the nearer you get to the
frontier the more beloved and admired is Montenegro. Central, Eastern,
and Northern Servia seem to dislike it. Everyone here wanted to hear
both about the place and the people, and I sat in that little
low-ceiled, dark, messy, stone-floored room filled with officers and
peasants, and explained things as best I could, the company all helping
me out with the language. The rain poured in torrents outside and
splashed in at the open door; everyone offered me tobacco, which I
declined; and there was a good deal of glass clinking. Helped out by
German and the doctor, I told tales of Skodra, which Ivanitza thought
was a place perilous. And we talked of the virtues of the Black
Mountains and the sins of the Turks. The two oil lamps made the black
corners blacker and threw odd shadows of fur-capped peasants on the
walls, and as I looked at my surroundings, saw the white kilts, the
leathern sandals and the uniforms, and heard the clank of sword and
spur, I wondered to which of my ancestors I owed the fact that I felt so
very much at home. Presently two men slunk in who were greeted by a roar
of laughter. "How are the Turks?" cried everyone. Chaff flew much too
thickly for me to see my way through it. When it cleared, I was told
that the two had strayed over the frontier, had been caught by the
Turks, and, as they had no passports upon them, were promptly put into
prison. There they had stayed some days, and they had only just been
released. Everyone treated this as a huge joke except the victims, who
looked extremely silly. There was more in the episode than met the eye,
for in the course of the arrest shots had been exchanged, and two
Servians--a shepherd and a border patrol man--killed. My officers told
me seriously that I was to keep off the edge. Never having lived on a
ruddy frontier, I was much interested. All my life I had heard of the
value of our "silver streak," but I had to go to a public-house in South
Servia before I realised it.

The fact that I had come so soon after the affair of Miss Stone charmed
everyone, as it conclusively proved that England had a high opinion of
Servia. I was, as someone naively stated, the most remarkable event
since the war. An English officer had ridden through the town three
years before, but he had had an interpreter and had carried a revolver.
Also two Frenchmen had once passed that way. That was Ivanitza's
complete visitors' list for the last twenty years. I was the first who
had tackled it alone and unarmed. When a fresh arrival turned up, he was
told "She is English; it is not a joke; she really is"; and I was shown
to some children as a unique specimen: "Look at her well; perhaps you
will never see another." Yet the country is so beautiful that it only
requires to be known to attract plenty of strangers.

Having first asked me if I were quite sure I had a room that I could
sleep in, they all wished me good-night. I said the room was good
enough, and went to find out if I had spoken the truth, through into
the stableyard. It was pitch dark and the rain was falling. I called for
a light. Something came out of the night, and I followed it up a rickety
ladder and on to a wooden gallery. It thrust a tallow candle into my
hand, and struck a match. The light revealed a lean, hairy man,
bare-legged, bare-chested, and sparsely clad in dirty cotton garments.
Clasping the candle, I followed him into a very small room. It was a
different one from the one I had been shown on arriving. There was an
iron bedstead in it, covered with a wadded coverlet, and there were
three nails in the wall. Otherwise, nothing; not even a chair. The
gentleman produced an empty bottle, stuck the candle into it, put it on
the window sill, wished me good-night, and was going. "The room is not
ready," said I firmly. He looked round in a bewildered manner and said
it was, and shouted for female assistance. A stout lady panted up the
stairs, beaming with good-nature. She apologised for the room. The best
one contained four beds and they had quite meant me to have one of them,
but unfortunately a family had arrived and taken all of them! It was
most unlucky! I assured her that I did not mind having to sleep alone.
But this room was not ready. She glanced round, appeared to realise its
deficiencies, rushed off, and returned in triumph with a brush and comb.
I thanked her, but said that what I wanted was some water to wash in.
She seemed surprised at this, but went off again, and came back this
time with a small glass decanter and a tumbler. I ended by getting a
very small tin basin and a chair to stand it on. The seriousness of my
preparations then dawned upon her, and of her own accord she brought me
two towels and a little piece of peagreen soap stamped, in English,
"Best Brown Windsor." I had met this kind before. It is, I think, made
in Austria.

The room proved to be quite clean, and I fared much better than I had
expected. They were all as kind as possible, and in return I was as
Servian as I knew how to be, except that I never patronised the well in
the stableyard, which is, I believe, the proper way of getting up in the
morning--presuming that you are dirty enough to require washing. The
stray officers who rode up without even a saddle-bag and passed the
night at the inn were, as far as I could make out, satisfied with waxing
their moustachios in the morning and having their boots polished, and
the effect was much better than one would have expected. Of course you
are washed when you arrive. This is, most likely, the survival of some
Eastern reception ceremonial. It is a little surprising at first, but
you soon get used to it. A girl or a man--the latter is usually my
fate--invades your bedroom, shortly after you have been shown to it,
with a little basin, a bottle of water, a towel, and a cake of the "Best
Brown Windsor." He holds out the basin solemnly and dribbles water over
your outstretched hands, for it is very dirty to wash in standing water.
When he thinks your hands are clean, he gives you the towel to dry them.
Then you have to hold them out again, and he pours more water on them;
this you are supposed to rub on your face. This being accomplished, he
retires, taking the apparatus with him. In the old days, it is said that
foot-washing was part of the ceremony, but I am glad to say that this
has now gone out of fashion. When asking for water, it is always
necessary to add "that I may wash," for the Servian invariably imagines
that it is for internal application and brings it in a tumbler. These
remarks apply, be it said, only to the inns in the villages; in the
larger towns the arrangements are quite civilised as a rule, and quite
clean.

Ivanitza was so kind to me, and so beautiful, that in spite of its
primitive accommodation I stayed on. As long as the food is good, one
can stand rough surroundings well enough. The long street of
picturesque, tumbledown wooden shops straggles along the valley; the
West Morava tears through a wooded deep--cut gorge, and the
cloud--capped mountains tower around. It is a lonely and lovely spot,
and one that I shall never forget.

On Sunday afternoon there was a little festival, and we sallied forth to
a meadow about a mile and a half away. An ox-cart or two brought chairs,
tables, beer, bread and cherries--all that Ivanitza required for a happy
afternoon. I myself formed no small part of the entertainment, as all
who had not yet made my acquaintance had now the chance of doing so.

The priest arrived on horseback with his vestments in his saddle-bags.
He made a little altar in the middle of the field with three sticks and
a board, spread a cloth on it, and planted a green bush by the side.
Then the men stood round close to it, and the women stood behind very
much in the background, and the service began. The incense curled thin
and pale against the dark background of mountains that ringed us round,
and the peasants, in their gayest and best, sang the responses
heartily, while the oxen chewed cud alongside. Suddenly down the narrow
valley the sky turned dark and red; everything was blotted out by a
dense storm-cloud that burst overhead almost immediately. The priest
picked up his petticoats and books, and we all fled precipitately to a
group of cowsheds a couple of hundred yards away, and crowded into them.

The one I ran into was so dark that we could hardly see one another. I
climbed out of the mud into the manger and held a sort of reception. I
answered all the usual questions, and then they tried to find out my
accomplishments by asking, "Can you do this? can you do that?" etc. I
did all my little tricks, and felt like a circus. Finally it was
suggested that I should sing--a thing I never do in public at home. The
ever-increasing darkness suggested "Abide with me," and I started
boldly. When, however, I got as far as the words "and comforts flee,"
they struck me as being so ridiculously appropriate to the circumstances
in which I found myself that I ended abruptly by laughing, which made
the audience think that the song was a comic one and beg to hear more of
it. But the storm was passing over, and though the rain was still
falling and the water standing in pools, the devoted priest hurried out
to finish the service; out rushed everybody from the sheds and plashed
back to the meadow. By the time I arrived on the scene it was all in
full swing, the incense rising and the sun struggling through a
cloud-rift. As soon as it was over, music struck up and the kolo dance
began, and, regardless of the wet, they frisked and splashed through the
deep and sopping grass. Even the doctor thought it was all right. When
he told me later that he had a great many patients, because the place
was so damp, I was not surprised.

The weather did not seem likely to improve, and the police officer told
me with a grin that whenever I said I wanted to go they hoped it would
rain; now that I knew everyone I had better stay, and he called upon his
friends to describe the horrors of my proposed route. But as I could not
stay on indefinitely, I asked him to find me a man and a pony, and
decided to risk a wetting. The start had to be made at 5 a.m., too early
to see what manner of a day it was likely to be, and it is but a chilly
hour at best. A border officer saw me off, and assured me I should find
friends wherever I went, which cheered my rather depressed feeling that
I was leaving all my friends behind me.

I had come to the end of the road, and the onward track was very much a
plunge into the unknown. The mist was thick and clammy as we struck up
the mountain path, but was beginning to clear slowly. It was not a bad
road at all. A Montenegrin pony would have laughed at it, and a
Montenegrin man have done it on foot; but my guide was a Servian and
therefore required a mount, and the beasts were fat and sluggish. My
baggage consisted of a small hand-bag and a little bundle. These I had
carefully made of equal weight, meaning them for either side of my own
saddle. Regardless of the fact that I was by far the lighter weight of
us two, the Serb insisted on putting them on his own saddle and on tying
them both on the same side. Consequently, as the girths were very loose,
his saddle kept turning round. This he strove to prevent by sitting
crooked! As he obstinately persisted in this plan in spite of all I
could do, he was perpetually re-saddling. I broke a switch from a bush,
stirred up my pony and rode ahead in hopes of hurrying him; but all in
vain, for I came to the end of the path in about half an hour, saw
before me an endless succession of wild and apparently trackless valleys
and mountains, and had to wait my guides arrival. He appeared at last,
crawling along quite happily, and at once hopped off to take another
futile pull at the girths. This time I succeeded in getting a better
arrangement of the bags, which saved the twisting; but the saddle still
slipped towards the beast's head going downhill, and towards its tail
going uphill. Moreover, both animals were weak in their hind fetlocks,
and we had to dismount pretty often. Luckily I had a pocketful of black
bread handy, and as there seemed no prospect of ever arriving at a
feeding-place, I gnawed crusts as I rode over that lonely land--land
that has an awful magnificence, for it is untouched by the hand of man.
Silently we went through huge and dripping beech woods, dim with fog
wreaths, where great trees lay and rotted where they had fallen, and
silently out over rich grassy uplands where no flocks feed. Deep valleys
lay below us, and mountain peaks rose all around. For miles and miles it
was absolutely lonely, there was no sign of a living thing and no sound
save the squelching of our horses' hoofs in the deep wet leaf-mould. In
a dip of the hills we came upon two most primitive villages, collections
of wooden wigwams with high pitched roofs of twigs and branches; through
their open doors I could see that they were mere unfurnished dens.
Wild--looking, ragged people squatted in the doorways, who stared like
startled animals as I passed. Nothing more primitive in the way of a
village could exist. It seemed the kind of place that the Romans might
have come upon when they conquered ancient Illyria, and I drew rein. My
guide, however, was so determined that I should neither stop nor
dismount that I thought he might be aware that its customs were Illyrian
also, and I yielded regretfully to his request, for the first time, to
hurry on.

At midday we reached another collection of huts, the village of Mlantza,
not quite so primitive as the last one, but all of wood. A man with a
revolver and cartridge belt, one of the gendarmerie, was resting here
and nursing his rifle. Two very tall and incredibly ragged men came out
of a hut, and at my guide's request made us some black coffee and boiled
us some eggs. We off-saddled, and our ponies were soon blowing
themselves out with grass and water, and there seemed every prospect of
the girths fitting better after lunch. My guide said we must rest an
hour, and inquired the way from the man with the rifle. I wondered that
anyone knew it, for there was no track to be seen anywhere. There are
not enough people even to wear a footpath. And folk live and die in
these lonely spots, and a grave, quite fresh made, with a gaudily
painted gravestone, stood close by. One or two men, black-eyed,
barefooted, and in clothes that were torn to ribbons, sauntered up. None
of them made an attempt to speak to me, and they scarcely exchanged a
word with my guide. They were too far removed from the outer world to
take any interest in it. They seemed part of the wild, dumb rocks and
forests, and only the cluttering of the hens that came to pick up the
crumbs I had dropped broke the heavy silence.

My guide re-saddled the ponies, and we started off again. Downhill most
of the way, often very steep, and there was a good deal of dismounting
and leading to be done. For some way the rocks were all of green
serpentine in wildly contorted strata. A very tiny church stood high on
a ledge, far up the mountain side, that looked quite inaccessible from
below; one of those built as a retreat by the early kings; a lone
wilderness in which some soul had wrestled with temptation, or more
probably striven to expiate guilt. And this and the primitive wooden
huts of the morning were the only buildings I saw on that long ten
hours' ride, until at last, in the valley below, the little white church
and the monastery of Studenitza came in sight.

Down past the back of the monastery buildings we joggled, and round to
the door of the little inn, where I dismounted thankfully, stiff and
somewhat dazed. The kindly peasants who thronged the little bare room
made a place for us, and refrained from questioning me till I had eaten
a huge meal of rye bread, red wine, onions and kaimak, which was all
that the place afforded, and I ate with an appetite that delighted
everyone.

Revived and cheered by the food, the wine, and the company, I arose when
the inevitable interview was over and strolled across to the open gate
of the monastery. Within the walls lay smooth green lawns from which
arose the little lily church, its white marble pale gold with age;
beyond were the quaint wood and plaster buildings of the monastery, with
wide wooden balconies and tall bell tower. Little acacias, clipped to
round balls, were ranged stiffly along the paths, the air was heavy with
the scent of lime blossoms, and a stillness so dead that it seemed
supernatural hung over all. I stole quietly round the church, which was
shut, and saw no living creature.

As I was returning I came face to face with an armed youth, a
picturesque figure who, but for his weapons, looked very mediæval in
closely-fitting black leg-gear of the Albanian pattern and a very short
straight jacket. His feet were shod with leathern sandals, into the
straps of which were twisted long spurs; his rifle was slung on his
back; the bright green cord to which his revolver was fastened hung
round his neck, and his cartridge belt was well filled. He stood up
straight, a lithe slim young thing, saluted with great style, and told
me that he was a "pandur" (gendarme), had been sent over from Rashka to
take care of me and to escort me thither when I was ready to go.
Meanwhile he was entirely at my service. His captain had received a
telegram about me from Ivanitza and had sent him at once. He added that
Rashka expected me and wanted to see me. I was greatly astonished. I had
intended going to Kraljevo. The pandur looked grieved. He thought
evidently that he should have failed in his duty to his captain if he
did not produce me at Rashka. Impelled largely, I confess, by a wicked
desire to have such a very good-looking fellow at my beck and call, I
was inquiring the means of arriving at Rashka, when the pandur said
suddenly, in an awestruck whisper, "Gospoditza, here is the
Archimandrite!" and there was the Archimandrite himself advancing slowly
down the path towards us.

A very beautiful old man, with a kindly, benevolent face, tall and
stately in his black robes and high velvet hat. His long grey hair
flowed over his shoulders, and he fingered a string of amber beads as he
came along. The pandur bared his head, dropped on one knee reverently
and kissed the hand extended to him, and I wondered miserably whether it
would be foolish or polite to follow his example. The Archimandrite
relieved me at once by shaking hands with me and welcoming me to
Studenitza. Anyone who had come so far, he said, must be his guest. It
would have been grossly rude to refuse such a kindly-meant invitation,
but I accepted it with fear. To the manners and customs of a Servian inn
I was now accustomed. The primitive building outside the monastery walls
suddenly seemed to me to be a homelike and wholly desirable
resting-place, and the monastery was a strange unknown world. The
pandur, on the other hand, was filled with joy. "This is very, very
good," he whispered to me; "they are very rich here"; and we followed
the Archimandrite over the lawn to the long low guest building on the
other side, up a wooden staircase and along a long blue-and-white
corridor, to a room at the end which he offered me. It was a beautiful
room, luxuriously furnished. I accepted it gratefully, and the pandur
whispered his admiration and enthusiasm. He was sent off at once to
fetch my bag from the inn, and the Archimandrite, who was greatly
overcome at learning that I had come on horseback from Ivanitza, begged
that I would rest myself. To-morrow, he said, I should see all, and was
at liberty to draw what I pleased. At what time would I have supper? He
added with a little smile, "I fear that to-day I cannot feed you well.
We are monks here, and it is one of our great fasts." (It was that of
SS. Peter and Paul.) He knew no word of any language but Servian, and
waited patiently while I looked up words in the dictionary. I told him I
would eat whatever they had. "But no," he said, and he shook his head;
"those of our own Church do not keep these fasts as they should. For us
monks it is our duty; but for you, who are a stranger, it is different."
His words I can give, but not the charm of his manner, nor his simple
dignity and his courtesy. His amber beads clicked as he went.

And when he had gone there was a great silence, and I sat at the window
and stared at the little white church and at the mountain that rose up
just behind it. The world beyond was a vague, far-off recollection; part
of a previous existence. I felt that I had passed all my life in that
lonely hollow among the hills, and then wondered whether I had any right
to be there at all. But I did not wish to ever forget the scene, and in
spite of the old man's recommendation to sleep, I coiled up on the
window-sill and began a drawing.

Time passed like a flash, and the light was rapidly dying, when I became
aware of the clink of spurs and the clicking of the amber beads, and the
Archimandrite followed by a servant and my pandur, bearing lamp and
supper, came in a little procession down the corridor. I had not
realised till then that I was to sup with the Archimandrite himself. He
was distressed that I remained standing, and spoke to the pandur, who
hurried away, and returned with a big and throne-like arm-chair.
Meanwhile Nikola the servant spread two newspapers on the table, put the
lamp in the middle and arranged the plates and dishes. Then he placed a
small cane-bottomed chair and stood attention by it. My pandur drew
himself up by the arm-chair, the Archimandrite motioned me to it
ceremoniously, murmured a blessing, and took his seat. He tucked his
large table napkin under his chin, spread the other end of it on the
table and stood his plate upon it, thus making a bridge from food to
mouth. Foolishly, I did not imitate him, but put mine on my knees. Now
the tablecloth was a product of Western civilisation, of that make
called "tapestry" in Tottenham Court Road. It was black-and-yellow, and
round the border were pyramids, palm trees, camels, Arabs and damsels--a
very secular tablecloth. It was greatly treasured by the old man, and
the centre only was protected by newspaper. He was distressed to see
that I did not know how to use a table napkin, but he was far too polite
to say so. He murmured something to Nikola, and before I had realised
the mistake I had made, Nikola returned with another newspaper, which he
put under my plate. Then the meal began. "Nikola, serve rakija," said
the Archimandrite, and Nikola filled two little glasses with slivovitz
and put them before us. "This," said the Archimandrite, "is from our own
plums," and he raised his glass and bowed gravely; I raised mine; he
clinked with it. "God give you health," he said, and drained his glass.
I drained mine, and restrained a violent desire to gasp as the spirit
went down like a red-hot poker, for it was the fieriest liqueur I had
ever met. "Nikola, serve the rakija," said the Archimandrite again, and
we repeated the ceremony. I left some at the bottom of my glass. He
pointed this out, and waited patiently. I swallowed it. "Nikola, serve
the rakija," said the Archimandrite a third time. "No, thank you," said
I timidly. "Three times is Servian," he said pleasantly. My glass was
filled. "God give you health," said I bravely; we clinked, and the
ceremony was completed.

With a burning gullet, I began dinner. There was no sign of anything
else to drink. Bread, cheese, kaimak, onions and poached eggs were
spread before me, and a dish of haricot beans and a lettuce before him.
"You had better see what I eat," he said, with a funny little smile;
"your friends in England will wish to know how an Archimandrite in
Servia lives."

I had my dictionary and struggled hard to follow his conversation and to
reply, but was sometimes entirely lost, for the strain after the long
day was almost more than I could stand. A very great many English, he
told me, had been to Studenitza. I was surprised. He counted upon his
fingers, and said that since 1865, including myself, there had been
eight. "Yes," he said gaily, "here we know the English very well, and
your Church is not unlike our own," Feeling quite unequal to discussing
theology in Servian, I did not rise to this remark. "At any rate," he
said cheerfully, "we both dislike the Pope." "How old are you?" asked
the Archimandrite. I told him. "And you are not married?" he said. I
agreed. "That, Gospoditza," and he bowed to me, "is very good--it is
the best"; and the pandur smiled a little smile under his moustache.
Nikola removed our plates, and appeared with three small trout on a
dish. Very excellent trout, fresh from the river, which the
Archimandrite shared with me with great relish. But he seemed anxious
and had little private housekeeping whispers with Nikola, and produced
large keys furtively from his flowing garments. The good man was certain
I had not had enough. I assured him I had had plenty; but Nikola
returned presently with a small mutton ham, off which he chipped pieces
which he offered me. Meanwhile my pandur had removed my knife, fork, and
plate. The Archimandrite remedied this by taking his own fork, wiping it
on the newspaper and presenting it to me ceremoniously. I accepted it in
the spirit in which it was offered and ate as many of the little pieces
of meat as I could manage, thereby pleasing my host a good deal more
than myself, and the meal was concluded.

It was a dry meal. We now began to wash it down. "Nikola, serve the
wine," said his master. Nikola appeared with a bottle of red wine and
two small tumblers. The Archimandrite uttered pious wishes for my
welfare, we clinked and drank together. I perceived very shortly that
politeness did not permit him to take more while there was any left in
my glass, and hoped that he was not very thirsty. He, on his part, tried
to encourage me by saying that it was excellent wine and not at all
strong, and the latter part of the remark fortunately was perfectly
true.

When I thought we had nearly done, Nikola again went on a mysterious
errand, and returned with two young monks to whom I was introduced. The
two younger men were more interested in the outer world than the old
one, and I had to work the dictionary hard. Then came more wine,
fortunately not much, for we all four had to clink with each other and
utter polite wishes, and this occupied time and made a little go a long
way. Obedient to the Archimandrite, we raised and emptied our glasses
simultaneously with military precision.

Each day of my life seemed stranger than the last, and I wondered how
much longer this one was to be, for I had begun it at 4 a.m. When at
9.30 they arose and wished me good-night, I was more grateful to them
than for anything they had yet done for me.

Towels, curtains, bed linen, all were pious offerings to the monastery.
Each was embroidered with the donor's name and a motto, and the cushions
were covered with beings who looked painfully like Cupids but were
doubtless Cherubim. But none of these interesting facts did I discover
till the next morning, when the monastery bell clanged loudly at four
o'clock and woke me up. I struggled with a desire to sleep for several
days, but as I had to see the church, draw it, and ride to Rashka, I got
up at five and went out into the corridor. All the land was hidden in a
dense white mist. The moisture clung clammily to tree and wall, and fell
heavily, plap, plap, to the ground, and I shivered in a thin cotton
shirt. Nikola appeared almost immediately with coffee and milk and
bread, and my pandur with my coat, and, by the time I had breakfasted,
the Archimandrite was waiting below to show me the church.

The old man unlocked the door, and he, I, and the pandur went in. We
entered a narthex, a late addition to the church which spoils its
proportions, and saw before us the original west front of the building,
all of pure white marble, and the exquisite doorway--a square-headed
door surmounted by a lunette with the figure of the Virgin between two
angels in high relief, and framed with the most delicate mouldings upon
which the fanciful monsters and arabesques of Byzantine art interlace,
and the invention and execution are alike perfect. A small detached pier
standing upon the back of a grotesque beast, as in the early churches of
the North Italian towns, stood on either side of the door and supported
the projecting upper mouldings; but they have both been sadly mutilated,
for the Turks occupied the Imperial monastery (Tsarska Lavra) and
stabled their horses in its church. To do them justice, however, they
did not treat the building more cruelly than our own countrymen treated
our own cathedrals, and much of the carving is as clean cut as when
Stefan Nemanja raised it, in 1190. The Archimandrite sighed over the
mutilations, but was pleased at my delighted appreciation of his church.
We passed into the old building, through the little old narthex, into
the body of the church. This is entirely frescoed, but the paintings are
all newly restored, except those just inside the door, where great
figures of weird Byzantine ascetics, the hermit saints--Onofrio, Marcus,
Peter Antony, and Alexis--show grimly in the original fresco, and a rude
painting of the Last Supper with fragments of some other subjects still
cling to the walls. The north and south doors have also been beautiful,
but they have suffered more severely than that of the west. Of the
windows, one only is intact; the others have been adequately restored.
The present dome, a recent and very poor attempt in plaster, is to be
shortly replaced. Again the old man bewailed the destruction wrought by
the Turks. "And it is your own country that has helped them," he said
sadly, and shook his head.

He showed me the treasures of the church, the shrine of St. Simeone
(King Stefan Nemanja) and the great silver casket, adorned with reliefs
of scenes from the saints life, presented by Alexander Karageorgevich,
in which to worthily preserve the sacred relics. He called the pandur to
assist him, and together the young soldier and the Archimandrite
unfolded with exceeding care the splendid crimson velvet covering for
it, a gift from the then reigning king (Alexander Obrenovich), destined
to cover the shrine on the saint's day. The Archimandrite looked at it
lovingly, the pandur with awe and amazement, and then they tenderly put
it away again, while I wondered over the much detested king who had
presented it, and the king who had died seven hundred years ago and had
wrought so well for his land that he is yet revered in it as a saint. In
spite of time and the Turks, the Imperial monastery still preserves many
of its old treasures, church vessels and vestments. A magnificent
crimson-and-gold one, the Archimandrite told me, undoubtedly belonged to
St. Sava, and it may have done so; but a gilt censer, also said to be
the saint's, one of the church's precious relics which he looked on with
believing eyes, betrays both by design and workmanship that it is of a
later date. There was a very old reliquary, also the property of St.
Sava, and there were three or four old manuscript books, and all he
handled with a simple pride that was pretty to see. The last cupboard
that he unlocked was perhaps the most interesting of all to me, for it
contained a mass of votive offerings, most of them personal ornaments,
splendid specimens of Turkish, Albanian, Bosnian, and Herzegovinian
work, things barbaric and beautiful, choice examples of the finest
native work, some of it undoubtedly very old. The last of the treasures
was locked up again, and we left the treasury.

[ILLUSTRATION: CHURCH, STUDENITZA, WEST DOOR.]

Then the pandur and the Archimandrite had a little discussion, and the
kind old man told me that the ride to Rashka was a long one, that I had
better stay until to-morrow, then I should have time to draw the church
and to rest. I was his guest, and he begged I would stay. The church
should be left open, and I might draw what I pleased. I accepted the
more gratefully as the sky threatened rain and it was damp and cold. He
instructed the pandur to bring a table and chair into the church, and
then I was left to my own devices. The time flew, and when I heard the
clink of spurs on the marble floor, and the pandur saluting said, "Are
you hungry?" I merely said "No," and went on. When, however, he
reappeared in about twenty minutes and repeated his inquiry with an
anxious face, I looked at my watch, realised I had been working for four
hours, and hastily followed him to the corridor, where the poor
Archimandrite was pacing up and down by the table, evidently wanting his
dinner badly, and much relieved by my appearance. The forms observed
were much the same as on the previous evening, and he talked of the sad
state of "our people" in Macedonia and Old Servia, and lamented that
the quarrels of great nations should cause the suffering of little ones.
"Between your country and Russia we can do nothing. You keep the Turk in
Europe." A portrait of Peter the Great hung on the wall. Here, as
everywhere else in Servia, I found Russia the Serbs' only hope of
salvation.

I spent the afternoon drawing the monastery buildings. It was very
still, and the plash of the tiny fountain and the clink of the pandur's
spurs as he hovered about me were the only sounds. The air was heavy
with lime blossom; now and then a long-haired, black-robed monk glided
silently by, and it was all unreal and dream-like. As evening drew on I
heard the clicking of the amber beads, and the Archimandrite appeared.
"You are always doing something," he said; "you have no rest. They say
all the English are like that"; and he instructed Nikola to bring me a
glass of slivovitz and a plateful of jam.

Nor did his kindness and courtesy ever cease, and his stately black
figure bowing farewell was the last I saw of him as I passed through the
monastery gates in the early morning and rode out into the world again
with my escort.

This time I made good progress, for the pandur was no slug. I followed
him up a torrent bed, over stock and stone, in a pretty straight line to
the top of the mountain ridge, where we struck the high road, and after
resting the horses an hour, rode easily down into and along the valley
of the I bar. The nearer we got to the frontier the more conversational
the youth became. He pointed out the ruins of two churches burnt by the
Turks, and then cried, "See, here they are!" as a cart full of turbaned
men creaked down the road. "Turks!" he said with contempt, "all Turks!"
As a turn in the road revealed a hill at the end of the valley crowned
with a building, "There is the Turkish fortress," he said, "and the
frontier." "That is all Turkish?" I asked, pointing ahead. "It is Old
Servia" (Stara Srbija), he replied firmly. I was on the edge of the
coveted land, and the cartridges in my companion's belt were meant for
those who hold it. Rashka is a tiny village on the very edge. We pulled
up at the inn door, and the pandur went off to report me to the
authorities. They arrived almost at once, the Nachelnik and the police
captain, reinforced by the doctor, who spoke a little French, and a
friendly youth who spoke some German. I was dimly aware of questions in
three languages, blinked at them helplessly, and said that I was going
to sleep. At which they all laughed, wished me good repose, and left me.
By the time I had slept off Studenitza and the ride, the pandur had
reported that I drew, also that I had been in Montenegro. Consequently,
when I reappeared, I had a festive time over my sketch-book with the
authorities. Pictures "done by hand" were quite a new idea.

Rashka, a tiny place, was founded in 1846. It is only the fact that it
is on the very edge that makes it a place at all. It feels itself very
important, and its talk is of Turks, and of Macedonia and of Old Servia.
That I must cross the line and be able to say that I had been in Old
Servia was taken for granted. It was discussed as seriously as though it
was a raid we were about to make. Having the permission of the police
and having reported our proposed expedition to the Nachelnik, who saw
no objection to it, the doctor and the gentleman-who-spoke-German
escorted me through a sentry-guarded gate to a wooden bridge guarded at
one end by a Servian and at the other by a Turkish soldier. We explained
that we had come to see Someone-Effendi, and were allowed to pass. On
this side the river there is nothing but a custom-house, a coffee-shop,
and a cottage or two. From the bridge the track winds to Novibazar,
which is but three hours distant, and, on the hills above, two
fortresses guard it. I could get there and back in a day, and imparted
the notion at once to my companions, who were horrified, and thought
that the chances of returning were extremely remote. The Servian
frontier regards the Turk as hopelessly untrustworthy. It has had, at
any rate, plenty of opportunity of judging.

We waited humbly the appearance of Someone-Effendi, quite on our p's and
q's. The enemy soon appeared, rather grubby, in a tarboosh and a scrubby
European overcoat. My presence was explained. We were all very polite to
one another. I was irresistibly reminded of the meeting of two dogs who
approach each other growling from opposite sides of the road, decide not
to bite, wag stiff tails and pretend to be glad to see one another,
while their bristles stand up on their backs. Chairs were brought, we
were asked to sit down, and the inevitable black coffee appeared. Then I
was told that as I was in Turkey I must see the coffee-shop, and we
adjourned thither.

The owner of it, a burly handsome fellow with a yellow moustache and
eyes as blue as an Anglo-Saxon's, sprawled, picturesque in
black-and-white striped costume, on the bench in the balcony. He was
friendly, and we had more coffee and some sticky sweet stuff, while he
smoked cigarettes in a holder the mouthpiece of which was a fine lump of
amber and the stem black wood and silver filigree. "He is a Turk," said
my companions. "He doesn't look like one," said I; for every Mohammedan
calls himself a "Turk," and this one was like a fair Albanian. They
repeated my remark to him, upon which he laughed and said that he did
not speak Turkish. He wore a very handsome silver chain round his neck,
and that and the cigarette-holder attracted my attention. "Those are
from Skodra," I said. He beamed. "You know Skodra!" And he vowed
gleefully that of all cities in the world Skodra was the finest, and
appealed to me to support him. My companions were incredulous, they had
never been there. The statement that I had been there twice satisfied
him, and he smiled at me frankly, for now we knew that we had the same
tastes. "You have seen the bazaar?" I nodded. "Oh, that is fine, very
fine," he said. The bazaar would indeed have been a suitable background
for him; I could imagine him cheerily filling up the gaps in his
cartridge belt, and even more cheerily fighting on the Turkish side
against all and any who should wish to force Western ideas into that and
other happy hunting grounds.

Drinks differ in all lands, but everywhere it is correct to offer and
accept too much of them; so we drank an inordinate quantity of coffee,
said farewell to the Effendi, and were soon safely off the premises and
in our own territory.

The captain took me a walk along the Servian frontier by the rivers
side, a rich and beautiful land ablaze with a wonderful variety of wild
flowers; only the two Turkish fortresses kept in mind the fact that the
green land across the narrow stream was one of the sorest spots in
Europe. The captain's tale of a boy who had been shot not long before by
the Turks was concluded as we came in sight of the last fort, and we
turned back. I think we went about three miles and took an hour over it;
but the captain was very warm, and all his friends agreed that the
English walked at an alarming pace.

By request, I made a drawing. It was of the frontier, the Turkish
custom-house, and the fort-capped hill. It was supposed that it would
annoy the Turks greatly if they knew, but they didn't. "And where," I
asked, "are your forts? I have only seen Turkish ones." "Oh," was the
cheerful answer, "forts are for defence--we are only going forward!"

Rashka was very hospitable. It gave me coffee; it gave me wine, beer,
jam, water, eggs and bacon; it entertained me to the best of its
ability. I was sorry to leave it, but time pressed. The diligence said
it would start at 5 a.m., but did not do so till 6; I hung about
waiting. It was a perfect morning; the mountains were blue on a pale
lemon sky, and the grass was hoary with dew. "What a beautiful day!" I
said to a man who was standing by the inn door. "No," he said gloomily;
"to-day is Kosovo Day. That was a bad day for us." It was June 15
(O.S.). In the churches throughout the country there were solemn
services in memory of the defeat in 1389, and there in front of us was
Stara Srbija across the river.

The diligence proved to be a springless cart with a basket-work top,
and as the horses were poor and the roads bad, we were eleven and a half
hours upon that road, instead of eight, as I had been promised. It was
dark when at last the crazy vehicle jogged painfully into Kraljevo.

Kraljevo ("The Town of the Kings") did not receive me amiably. I crawled
into the hotel stiff and sore, was awaiting soup, and had just sent off
my letter of introduction, when a severe personage in black arose from a
little table at the other end of the room and made straight for me.
Striking his hand heavily on the table to compel my attention, he said
very loudly, "You have come from Rashka?" He spoke Servian, and did not
even stop to inquire if I understood it. Having a clear conscience and
an introduction to one of the leading men of the town, I returned his
stare and said "Yes." "You will leave here to-morrow morning," he
asserted. "No," said I firmly. We paused for a moment. "Have you a
passport?" he asked. "Yes," said I. "Show it me at once." "It is a very
good passport," I remarked, spreading it on the table; "it is English."
I watched with some amusement his vain and elaborate pretence of
deciphering it. Then he said, "When are you going?" "I don't know," said
I. He chose to imagine that this meant I did not understand, so he
shouted the question at me again very aggressively. As I meant him to
know that it was no use chivying the English, I said, "Perhaps Monday,
perhaps Tuesday, I do not know." "You will leave to-morrow early," he
said. I reflected that if I did not stand to my guns the next British
subject would have a bad time; so I said firmly, "I will not. I am
English, and that passport is good." He looked at it again, reflected
that, if it were good, things might become awkward, threw it down, and
left abruptly. "Good-night," said I, but he did not respond.

Shortly afterwards the two gentlemen to whom I had been recommended came
on the scene. They were so anxious to help me in every way that I did
not betray the fact that I had already had a skirmish. But the landlord
did. Next day I learned that my aggressor was the Nachelnik
(burgomaster) himself, and that my new friends were extremely angry with
him. He was introduced to me and told by whom I was recommended. He
looked at me suspiciously, shook hands in a guarded manner, and spied
furtively at my sketch-book, which was lying open on the table. I
immediately offered it him for inspection, but it did not reassure him
at all. Greatly to my surprise, however, he volunteered to take me for a
drive in the afternoon. As I was quite used to being suspected, I only
thought the episode funny; but my two acquaintances were so much upset
about it that I was sorry they had been told.

Kraljevo still figures on most of the maps as Karanovatz, and has only
recently been re-named. Zhitza, the monastery church where the kings of
the Nemanja line were crowned, is once again Servias coronation-place.
A melancholy monument of former greatness, it stands upon rising ground
about a mile and a half from the town, and a long straight avenue, fit
background for a royal procession, leads up to it. The church itself,
built in 1210 by St. Sava, still stands. Here he crowned his eldest
brother and announced him as Prvovenchani, the "First Crowned." Of
the monastery founded some years later by the said Stefan nothing now
exists but a few rocky masses of wall. The Turks wrecked the royal
building, the richest monastery in Servia, and left the church in ruins.

The church is Byzantine in character, with a large cupola and two
smaller ones (all three restorations), and a round apse. It is
barrel-vaulted, and has two tiny chapels. The walls are still covered
with old frescoes, for fortunately the monastery is too poor to afford
re-decorating. It has been frescoed twice. The upper layer, which shows
strong Italian influence and might indeed be by an Italian hand, dates
from the sixteenth century--an interesting fact, as it shows that though
under Turkish rule, the monastery must then have still been fairly rich.
The lower layer, which is visible where the upper is broken away, I
believe to be contemporaneous with the church, but could get no
information at all about it. Half the building has been restored and
roofed. The other end is entirely in ruins; its tall tower only is well
preserved.

In the side walls of the ruins are blocked-up openings. I was told they
were doors, they looked like windows. Where the blocking stones are
loose, you can see the fresco that clings to the sides and sills--fresco
of the earlier kind, showing that the openings were blocked previous to
the re-painting of the walls. One of these openings was built up at each
coronation, I was told--a curious custom that requires explanation. All
that I could learn was that the "doorways" proved the "fact," and the
"fact" accounted for the "doorways." Six kings of the old days were
crowned here, it is said. The first was Stefan Prvovenchani; who the
others were I have failed to learn. The personages of Servian history
are apt to loom large through a fog of uncertainty and to elude all
attempts at exact information. The tradition of coronation has been
revived, and Alexander Obrenovich was here crowned king. It was just a
week before the day appointed for the coronation of Edward VII. when I
stood in the roofless ruins of the hall of Servia's kings, and I felt
glad that we were at the other end of Europe when the Turks came. In the
archway under the tower are some fairly preserved frescoes, and a
crowned figure, said to be a portrait of Stefan Prvovenchani himself,
stares from the ruins of the building raised to glorify his line. The
likeness, I take it, is a purely fancy one.

These were the last old frescoes I saw in Servia. All of them tell the
same tale, namely, that judging by the architecture, the costume,
furniture, and various articles for domestic use that appear in them,
the Servians of those days were not behind Europe in general
civilisation. My guide, a friendly young monk, knew naught of
architecture, and his ideas of history were but vague.

As we came out of the church, up came a second monk, a young man with a
dark flat face, coal-black hair, and a strange Eastern cast of
countenance that seemed oddly familiar to me. He greeted me at once, and
began a long tale of how he had met me at Ostrog, in Montenegro, the
year before. The other monk and my Servian companion cried, naturally
astounded, "This gentleman says that he knows you!" It turned out that
he was a pupil of the monk at the chapel of Our Lady among the rocks,
by Podgoritza. "You too," said he to me, "know him"; and he spoke of him
with great affection and reverence, and accounted him holy. I was deeply
interested to find that the gentle ascetic of the Albanian frontier was
revered in Central Servia. That I, a Londoner, should be the one to
bring news of him seemed to me not a little strange. But to the black
monk there was nothing strange about it. "He said that God guided your
footsteps," said he, and he added, as an explanation to the others, "She
is the friend of the Montenegrins." After this, I had to go and take jam
and water and coffee with the Archimandrite, and tell how I had been to
the little chapel that very Easter and had received the hermit's Easter
greeting. I said good-bye to the kindly, simple-minded monastery, and I
returned to the worldly suspicions of civic life.

The Nachelnik never appeared in the afternoon, and I determined not to
say anything about it. But when my friend and champion reappeared, he
asked me point-blank as to how the Nachelnik had behaved on the
afternoon's drive, and there was no help for it. He flew off in a rage
to attack the Nachelnik. He came back even more angry. The Nachelnik had
said that he had decided he would not be mixed up with the affair and
had then turned the tables on him and questioned him as to all I had
done in the morning. "What did she do? Where did she go? With whom did
she speak? What did she draw? Did she talk politics, and what did you
tell her?" "I told her," he said furiously, "that the Servians are fools
and that it is a waste of her time to come and see them. And she shall
stay if she wishes, and draw anything she likes!" He begged me not to
think that they were all so ignorant. The Nachelnik of Kraljevo was in
fact the only official in Servia who was unpleasant to me, and even he
succumbed more or less to a British passport.

I left Kraljevo pleasantly enough, for the last person I saw as I
rattled out of the town was the young black monk smiling and waving his
hand.




CHAPTER XVI

KRUSHEVATZ


Upon the eve of the day when Tsar Lazar was to go forth, says the
ballad, his wife, Militza the Empress, spoke to him, saying, "O Tsar
Lazar, thou golden crown of Servia, to-morrow thou goest to Kosovo and
with thee thy chieftains and thy followers. Not one man dost thou leave
behind thee at the castle who may carry news to thee at Kosovo and
return again to me. Thou takest with thee all my nine brethren, the nine
sons of old Yug Bogdan. O Tsar Lazar, I beseech thee, of my nine
brothers leave me one of them."

And Tsar Lazar answered, "O Militza, my lady and my empress, which one
of thy brethren dost thou wish should remain with thee in the white
castle?" And she said, "Leave me Boshko Jugovich." And he answered, "O
my lady Militza, speak thyself to Boshko Jugovich the barjaktar
(standard-bearer), and bid him, with my blessing, yield up his standard
and remain with thee."

[Illustration: TSAR LAZAR'S CASTLE.]

Now when the white dawn broke and the gates of the town were thrown
open, the lady Militza went down, and she stood before the gateway, and
behold, there came the soldiers upon their horses, rank upon rank, and
at their head was Boshko the barjaktar upon a bay steed, and he
glittered with gold, and the golden fringes of the standard hung upon
his shoulders. Then the Empress Militza turned towards him, and she
seized the bay by the bridle; she stayed her brother by the gateway, and
softly she spoke to him, saying, "O my brother Boshko Jugovich! the Tsar
has given thee to me, and he gives thee his blessing. Thou shalt not go
to the fight at Kosovo. Thou shalt yield up thy banner and remain with
me at Krushevatz." But Boshko the barjaktar replied unto her, "Go thou
to the white tower, my sister. Not for all Krushevatz would I return
with thee, nor will I give up my standard, that all men may say 'Boshko
Jugovich is afear'd; he dare not go to Kosovo to shed his blood for the
cross and to die with his fellows,'" And he spurred his horse through
the gates. Then followed old Yug Bogdan and seven sons in battle array
and all in order, and they would not look upon her. Then behold! the
youngest, Vojina Jugovich, and he led the Tsar's grey war-horse, which
was decked and trapped with gold. And he too denied her, and he urged
the steed through the gateway. And when the lady Militza heard his words
she fell down upon the cold stones, and her soul fainted within her.

And lo, there came Tsar Lazar himself, and when he saw the Empress the
tears flowed down his cheeks. He called to his faithful follower,
Goluban, saying, "Goluban, my trusty servant, alight from thy steed,
take my lady by her white hand and lead her to the tower. May God's
blessing be upon thee! Thou comest not with me to the fight at Kosovo,
for thou shalt remain with my lady here in the white castle." And when
Goluban heard these words the tears ran down his face. He alighted from
his horse, he took his lady by her white hand and he led her to the
tower. But he could not withstand the desire which burnt in his heart;
he mounted his horse and he rode to the fight at Kosovo.

When the next day dawned, there came two black ravens from the wide
field of Kosovo, and they settled upon the white tower. And one of them
croaked, and the other cried, "Is this the tower of the mighty Lazar?"
The Empress Militza heard them, and she stepped forth from the white
castle, crying, "God save you, O ye ravens! Have ye seen the meeting of
two mighty armies?" And they answered her, saying, "God save thee, O
Empress. We have flown from Kosovo field. We have seen the meeting of
the mighty armies, and the leader of either is slain. Lo, lady, here
comes thy servant Milutin, and he sways in his saddle from right to
left; for he has seventeen wounds upon him, and his blood streams upon
his steed." And the Empress called to him, "O Milutin, why hast thou
deserted thy Tsar at Kosovo?" But Milutin answered her, "Take me from my
horse, O lady; wash me with cold water; give me red wine, for I am
sorely stricken." And she did as he begged her. And when he had come to
himself a little, she prayed of him, "O Milutin, what has come to pass
upon the field of Kosovo? Where is the glorious Tsar Lazar? Where are
old Yug Bogdan and his nine sons?" Then the serving-man began to speak.
"Lady, they all lie on the field at Kosovo by the cold waters of the
Sitnitza, and where Tsar Lazar fell there are many weapons broken, and
the Serbs lie thick around him. And old Yug Bogdan and his nine sons
fell in the front of the fight: all are dead, lady, and the last that
fell was Boshko Jugovich. Milosh is dead that slew Tsar Murad, and dead
also is Banovich Strahinja that fought knee-deep in blood. All lie dead
on the field at Kosovo; all save Yuk Brankovich, whose name be for ever
accursed. He betrayed the Emperor; upon the field of battle he betrayed
all glorious Lazar!"

       *       *       *       *       *

On the hill in the midst of Krushevatz there stands one shattered lonely
fragment of the white castle up against the sky--all that is left of
Tsar Lazar's palace. But time has worked its revenges, and the Turkish
mosque that was built of its stones in the town below is now too but a
heap of ruins.

The church, which dates from the days of the Great Tsar Dushan (_circa_
1350), alone has survived the warring of the nations. Used as a powder
magazine by the Turks and all the interior decoration destroyed, the
exquisite details of its tracery still make Krushevatz worth a journey;
its delicate pierced work, round windows laced with stone, strange
monsters and wild Byzantine fancies--in a word, its barbaric
imaginativeness, struck me as more characteristic of its land and times
than anything I met with in Servia.

[ILLUSTRATION: CHURCH, KRUSHEVATZ, SIDE WINDOW OF APSE.]

Here as elsewhere the restorations are not skilful, but Servia should
always be deeply grateful to Alexander Karageorgevich, who with such
means as he could command saved her most interesting monuments from
complete ruin. Better an unsatisfactory roof than no roof at all.

For a brief time, during the first reign of Michael Obrenovich,
Krushevatz was again the capital. Now it is merely an industrious and
flourishing country town, and a most friendly one. No one suspected me,
although I came with no letter of introduction, nor was I
cross-questioned about personal and political matters.

From Krushevatz I drove to Stalacs, and at Stalacs is a railway station.
Ponies, post-waggons, carriages and mountain tracks, and the life of the
old world were all left behind, and I was soon whirled back to Belgrade,
where the pale blue youth in the police bureau welcomed me back, and
forbade the officials in search of town dues to open my bundle. And when
for the goodness--knows--how--manyeth and last time he stamped my
passport, that I might leave Belgrade altogether, he remarked
cheerfully, "And now, Gospoditza, please speak well of us. Tell all your
friends to come to Servia, and come back yourself."

       *       *       *       *       *

POSTSCRIPT

Recent political events make it necessary to add a few words to the
account of Servia written in 1902. That the King was not popular I was
aware before I went to Servia, but I was unprepared to find things at
such an acute stage. Through all the land I did not hear one good word
spoken of him. That he was more fool than knave was the best said of
him. For him there was nothing but contempt. What was said of Draga by
an exasperated people it is impossible to repeat. The hatred of her was
deep and bitter. As to the truth of the accusations, I have no means of
judging. I can only say that they were believed not only in Servia, but
in Montenegro, and by the Serbs of Old Servia. And everywhere I heard of
Peter Karageorgevich, so that there was no possible doubt as to who
would be the successor. I was even asked by partisans of his to write up
their cause in England. The only English tourist, I was told, who had
lately written about Servia, had done great harm by writing up the
Obrenovich. People were very bitter indeed about this, and begged me to
tell England the true state of things. That the King must go, and that
at no distant date, seemed certain. That his fate would be so terrible,
I had no idea. Nor would it have been so, I believe, but for his
headstrong obstinacy.

His father, in spite of his many and glaring faults, never entirely lost
the affection of the army. He was of the handsome, dashing, jovial type
that wins popularity, but the unfortunate Alexander had none of his
fathers redeeming points. His short and luckless reign, which began
with an act of treachery, was a series of hopeless blunders; he had five
_coups d'état_ and twenty-four Ministries. His fatal entanglement with
Draga Maschin was the beginning of the end. Heedless of the entreaties
of both his parents and blind towards the duty he owed his country, he
paid no attention to the prayers of friends, relatives, or statesmen,
and married her in July 1900. He never saw either his father or his
mother again, and his country never forgave him. To save a revolution, I
was told it was prepared to do so even then, in the eleventh hour, if he
would divorce Draga. The people viewed with growing dismay the elevation
of her relatives, and the rumoured scheme to make her brother heir
provoked the final outburst. The truth about what took place in the
early hours of June 11 will probably never be exactly known. Those who
took part in the tragedy were too drunk with blood and passion to give a
coherent account, and there are at least half a dozen versions. Nor does
it greatly matter. The fact remains that the mass of the Serbs desired
the removal of the King and Queen; it was effected, and many of those
who shuddered at their awful end said, "Since it is done, it is well
done." More than this, very many hailed it as a holy and righteous act,
a cleansing of the temple, a purification, a casting out of
abominations; nor could I make any of those who were of this opinion see
it from any other point of view. The King and Queen, they held, had
sinned against the laws of God and man, and were justly executed. "They
could have been tried," I said. "They could not. One or other of the
Powers would have intervened, to further its own plans." This is
probably true. "They could have been expelled," I said. "We have tried
that too often," was the grim reply; "with an expelled monarch in an
enemy's land, there is no peace. Their guilt was known. Alexander could
have abdicated any time in the last two years. He had his choice, and
preferred to remain on the throne. The Court was no better than a house
of ill-fame, and the Servians who tolerated it were a scandal to
Europe." And this they honestly believed.

In Montenegro I found the view taken of female virtue was curiously Old
Testament. It is the pride of the Montenegrin that a woman may travel by
day or night in his land alone and in perfect safety. But Draga they
considered to have overstepped all right to protection or consideration.
"All such women ought to be shot," said the elder of a large group of
men briefly. The others agreed, and I saw by their eyes that they meant
it. Things look so different from the other end of Europe that I caught
myself reflecting that, after all, two penn'orth of cartridges would
save us many most unsavoury proceedings in the Divorce Court, and settle
matters once for all about as fairly. Only those, and they are few, who
have travelled in West Europe knew how the deed would be regarded there,
and understood the terrible nature of the step. These foretold that the
reign of King Peter would be brief and troublous.

It is idle to speculate about the future. It is equally idle to pretend
that the events which have raised King Peter to the throne of his
grandfather can be regarded in the light of an unmixed blessing to the
nation. The crime of blood-guiltiness always has to be atoned for, and
the Serbs must work out their own salvation. Meanwhile it must not be
forgotten that they cannot fairly be judged by twentieth-century
standards. Servia has had nearly four centuries of Turkish rule. While
West Europe was advancing in humanity, civilisation, and the arts of
peace, the people of the Balkans rotted helpless under a ruler who,
whatever other good qualities he may possess, has never yet done
anything to improve the lot of the peoples under him. And should these
people sin, and sin heavily, those nations who have helped to keep the
Turk in Europe, and so to prolong their degradation and demoralisation,
are not innocent of all share in the causes of their crime, and have no
right to throw stones.




PART III

MONTENEGRO AND OLD SERVIA

1903


          "If a man be Gracious and Courteous to Strangers,
          it shews he is a Citizen of the World and that his
          Heart is no Island cut off from other Lands, but a
          Continent that joynes them."




CHAPTER XVII

KOLASHIN--ANDRIJEVITZA--BERANI--PECH


We are apt to speak of the Serbs of Servia as "the" Servians, and to
forget that modern Servia is a recent state mapped out arbitrarily by
the Powers, and that the truest representatives of the Great Servian
Empire are the Montenegrins, who for five centuries have fought "the foe
of their faith and freedom" and have lived for an ideal, the redemption
of the nation. It has been said that every nation gets the government
that it deserves. If so, Montenegro has deserved greatly. Instances, it
is true, have not been wanting of the Serb tendency to split into
parties, which has been so fatal to the Serb people and now threatens to
ruin modern Servia; but in the hour of need Montenegro has always found
a strong man to guide her and has had the sense to trust to his
guidance. She can point with pride to a line of Petrovich princes who,
even in the darkest and most hopeless days, have striven not only to
maintain freedom, but to train their people worthily as a nation. And
herein lies the main difference between Montenegrins and Servians. The
Montenegrins during all these years have been learning to obey, while
the Servians have learnt to oppose all forms of government. The subjects
of Prince Nikola are disciplined and self-respecting; of those of King
Peter it has been not inaptly remarked that where there are four
soldiers there are five generals.

We have seen the Montenegrin in his towns, let us follow him into his
mountains.

Kolashin (with a long "a") can be reached in one day of sixteen hours
from Podgoritza. It is better to make two easy ones of it and to enjoy
the way. With a very dark youth, one Boshko, and a chestnut pony, I left
Podgoritza at five one morning in June. Up we went through the wild,
rugged valley of the Moracha, where the green water hurries between huge
limestone crags, and on up, up, over loose stones, till by midday we
were in an aching wilderness of hot limestone on the crest of the hill
and were following the direction of the Mala Rjeka ("Little River"), a
tributary of the Moracha, which flows in the valley below. One tree with
an ink-black shadow cooled us for an hour. Boshko then began to discuss
our chances of shelter for the night. Ljeva Rjeka, the usual
halting-place, was bad, he said; moreover, he knew no one there. His own
home, on the other hand, was not far. It was not "very good," but
"pretty good." Would I sleep "kod nas"? (_chez nous_). I looked at
Boshko, reflected that "kod nas" would have interesting peculiarities,
and decided to risk it.

We started off again. I had three loaves of rye bread on my saddle, and
milk, boiled and tasting strongly of wood smoke, can be got at every
cottage, so that there was no fear of starvation. Goat, sheep, and cow
milk is the staple food of the mountain people. We fell in with several
caravans, and in company with a long string of men and beasts went down
a green and fertile valley till we came to a point where the telegraph
posts which had hitherto accompanied us and bound us to the outer world
went one way and Boshko indicated another. "Our house is yonder." "Is it
far, thy house?"--"One hour and a half." "And Ljeva Rjeka?"--"One hour."
We left the caravan, the path, and the telegraph posts, forded die
stream and struck into a trackless wilderness--that is to say, that only
a native could have found the way. It was far too bad for the horse to
carry me over. On we scrambled. After an hour of it, I asked, "How far?"
"Yet one hour and a half," said Boshko cheerfully. It grew late and
chilly; there was no sign that any human being had ever been this way
before, and we were over 3000 feet up. We trudged on almost in silence
for another hour. Then again, "How far?" and again, "Josh jedan sahat i
po," said Boshko thoughtfully, looking for landmarks in the waning
light. I bore up as best I could. To the third "How far?" he replied,
"It is now but a little way." We walked another hour, and then made a
rapid descent over loose stones into a forlorn and darksome valley
fenced in by cliffs, the pony floundering badly. A white church gave
promise of habitations. "My village," said Boshko, pointing to some
scattered hovels, "Brskut." He proposed calling on the priest, "the
handsomest popa in Montenegro." I, however, would not then have turned
from my path to see the handsomest man in the world. "Kod nas" proved to
be almost the best house in the valley.

We arrived at 7.30. I was so glad to see anything with a roof on that I
did not even shudder at the sight of it. It was a shanty of loose
stones. The family's room was reached by a wooden ladder, the cattle
shed was below it. "Mother" came out to greet us, and was at first
struck speechless by the sight of me. She reminded Boshko that they had
no beds, to which he replied airily that it was of no consequence. I
went up the ladder into pitch darkness. Someone lit a pine splinter in
the ashes of the fire and dragged up the only chair. This serves as a
sort of throne for the head of the family. It is large with widespread
arms, and has legs not more than three or four inches high, to suit the
comfort of gentlemen used to sitting cross-legged on the ground.
"Mother" most kindly took my boots off and set a huge wooden bowl of
fresh milk on my knees. People came out of dark corners, blew up the
fire, slung the caldron over it, threw on logs, and as many flocked in
to see me as the place would hold. It was a narrow slip of a room, about
twelve feet by six, with the hearthstone at one end of it, and a barrel
that served as larder. The smoke surged round the room. Father, mother,
brother, brothers-in-law, sisters, sisters-in-law, uncles, and friends
all shook hands with me and bade me welcome. They were all bare-legged,
and their clothes were dropping off them in rags. I was vaguely
conscious of a mass of faces haloed in wood smoke; several huge warriors
towered up to the roof; a very courteous and aged veteran, to whom the
chair probably belonged, was smoking his chibouk by my side, then I
nodded forward and should have been asleep in a minute, but they woke me
by laughing. Not only had they the excitement of seeing me, but we had
brought the latest news of the death of the King of Servia, and the
conversation was lively as they supped. Here as elsewhere, they said
the deed was "strashno" (horrible), but that it was a good thing he was
dead. But in most instances the extreme loyalty of the Montenegrins for
their own Prince caused them to express disgust for the officers who
betrayed their King while "still eating his bread."

Supper over, we went into the next room and went to bed. They gave me a
large wooden bench against the wall. I put my cloak under me and my
waterproof over me, and a man took off his strukka, folded it, and put
it under my head. They swept the floor, spread sheets of thick felt,
stripped the children and rolled them in pieces of blanket, took the
cartridges out of their various weapons; I heard a murmured prayer, they
lay down in rows on the floor, and the whole twelve of us were very soon
asleep. I don't think I stirred till I was wakened by the family getting
up, and found the owner of the strukka waiting to take it from under my
head. I woke to a horrified consciousness that I had not wound up my
watch. But it was still ticking, and said 3.30 a.m. I slept sweetly till
six, then washed my hands and face in the stream in Montenegrin style,
and returned to have breakfast with Boshko, who, in elegant
_déshabille_, was loading his revolver on the doorstep. His mother had
captured and washed his only shirt and was now drying it at the fire, so
that the upper part of his person was in a very airy condition. We
breakfasted amicably out of the same bowl, and "Mother" boiled me a
glassful of sugar and milk so sweet that I could hardly swallow it. But
I had to, for it was meant for a great treat. Boshko was so pleased with
his home comforts that he proposed we should stay "kod nas" for several
days, and I had some difficulty in tearing him away.

It was half-past seven before he got into his shirt and saddled the
pony. "Mother" kissed me when I left, and refused at first to take any
payment, as she said I was a friend of Boshko. Poor thing, she had done
all she could for me, and had even given me the last of their precious
sugar. When the money was really in her hand, her joy was great, and she
thanked me over and over again. We started in pouring rain. "You had
better not mount," said Boshko cheerfully, and made straight for what
looked like an inaccessible cliff. The path was the worst I have ever
tried. We crawled up an awful zigzag. It was as much as he could do to
urge the pony up it; twice it was near rolling over, for the streaming
rain made the foothold precarious. Then I slipped over the edge, and
Boshko was badly scared, but when I stuck on a bush and crawled up
again, he proposed that we should add four hours to our journey by going
to see a very beautiful lake which he vaguely said was "over there." I
refused; we scrambled up about 1000 feet, and found ourselves safely on
the top. We were soon over the pass and descending the other side into a
magnificent wooded valley through dripping grass. The pony sat down and
slid, and at the bottom we struck the proper track again. Boshko took
stock of the heavens, foretold speedy sunshine, and suggested taking
shelter meanwhile at the nearest house. He was a casual young thing,
with no idea of either time or distance, and loved exhibiting me.

We were warmly welcomed in a big wooden chalet, and passed an hour with
the most delightful people. The teacher, the captain (a beauty), the
priest, and some dozen friends sat in a ring round the heap of logs that
blazed in the centre. They made room, and insisted on boiling milk for
me and roasting an egg in the wood ashes, because I had come so far to
see them. "Where is King Peter?" was the topic of the day. His election
was not generally expected in Montenegro. Most folk I met thought the
Serbs would proclaim a republic. I never could resist laughing at the
idea of a Servian republic, and was snapped at rather fiercely for doing
so one day. "Why do you laugh? It is not a joke." "I laugh because
everyone in Servia will wish to be President. That will be a joke."
There was a solemn silence. Then someone, with a twinkle in his eye,
said, "There is no doubt she _has_ been in Servia!" But nobody liked the
remark. The Montenegrin is hurt if things Servian are criticised by an
outsider. The Servian, on the other hand, usually tries to glorify
himself at the expense of his relations, and speaks of the Montenegrins
as a savage tribe. In this he errs fatally.

A youth in an exceedingly bad temper came in, sat down and explained his
wrongs--an affair of florins--at the top of a most powerful voice. The
roof rang with his wrath. The company took it most stolidly, blew clouds
of smoke, and let him finish. An elder then argued the matter through to
him. All nodded approval. This annoyed him, and he fairly bellowed.
Someone pointed him out to me with a smile, drew one from me, and cried
out at once, "The Gospoditza is laughing at you!" which had the effect
of stopping him suddenly. Then the girl who was sitting next me gave me
a little poke, and looking up, said with a pleasant smile, "He is my
husband; he is always like that!" and she seemed as much amused as
everyone else. Nor did she display any emotion when he strode out still
bubbling.

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

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