CHAPTER VI
NORTHERN MONTENEGRO
We were accosted by a clean-limbed, joyous youth, who bore on his cap the outstretched winged badge of the police. He said—
"Mister Sirdar, he tell me take you alon' o' Nickshitch."
Sure enough the next morning there he was, with three horses, which if not the identical animals of our Chainitza trip were sisters or brothers to them. It was a wretched day, gusty, and the rain sweeping round the corners of the old streets. Early as was the hour, the wretched prisoners were peering through the lattice windows of their prison, which evidently once had been the harem of some wealthy Turk; where beauties had once lain on voluptuous couches, wretched criminals now crouched half-starved, racked with disease, and as we passed held out skinny arms. All Montenegrin saddles are bound on with string, even those of the highest in the land; indeed, one cannot imagine how the people did before string was invented, and ours began to slip before we were well clear of the town. Necessary adjustments were made, and on once more.
Our guide was well armed—he carried two murderous-looking pistols, and a long rifle slung over his back. He was in high spirits and showed us that the proper way to ride Montenegrin horses was to drop the reins on to the animal's neck, kick it in the stomach with both feet, elevating your arms and uttering the most unearthly yells. Thus terrified, the unfortunate wreck would canter a few yards, and our cicerone would turn in his saddle and grin back at us, who were humanely contented with the solemn jog-trot of our aged steeds along the well-worn horse-track—for there was no road.
We crawled along, wretched in the downpour, the scenery completely hidden by the clouds; but towards midday, as we climbed ever higher and higher, we plunged into pine forests where the rain began to thin to mist, veiling the trees with layers of drifting fog. Out of the forests we came—the rain having ceased—into a strange-looking landscape, whose japanesiness is equalled possibly only by Japan itself. There were the queer rounded hills, the gnarled and twisted little pines and dim fir-clad slopes cutting the sky with sharp grey silhouettes.
Here we stopped to eat. We opened a tin of meat and made rough sandwiches with the coarse brown or black bread which is the staple food of Serbian nations. When we were satisfied there was meat left in the tin. Two wretched, ragged children came on the road singing some half-Eastern chant, and we hailed them. They refused the food with dignity, and marched on offended.
We came to the Grand Canyon of Colorado—we beg its pardon—of Montenegro, The Tara. Great cliffs towered high on either side, great grey, rugged cliffs topped with pine and scrub oak. Down, down, down to the river, an hour, and we crossed the bridge out of Novi Bazar into Montenegro—thirty years free from the Turk. We halted at a little coffee stall made of boughs. Jan wanted to get a photo, but the women were so shy that Jo had to push them out into the open.
On the way up the other cliff our guide became communicative. He had been in America, in the mining camps, and spoke fair American.
"In ole days, dese was de borders," he said; "'ere de Serb, 'n dere de Turk. Natchurally dey 'ate each oder. Dey waz two fellers 'ad fair cold feet, one 'ere, one over dere, Turk 'n our chapy. Every day dey come down to de ribber 'n dey plug't de odder chap wid dere ole pistols what filled at de nose. But dey neber hit nuttin. One day de Serb 'e got mad and avade in de ribber, but 'e did'n 'it de Turk. Nex' day dey hot' avade in 'arf way across. Dey miss again. De tird day dey avades in rite ter de middle, 'n each shoots up de odder dead. Yessir, 'n dere bodies float down ter 'ere."
He looked up and pointed.
"Dey was a gooman up dere," he said.
"A gooman?"
"Yes, a man wat 'ad a gooman all to 'isself."
"!!!!"
"Dey was an ole town all made o' stones," our guide explained, "where dis man made 'is gooman. You know wat a gooman is?—kill all de fellers what pass 'n do wat you likes."
We understood suddenly that "Government" was indicated.
"Dat's wat I say," he answered, "gooman—'e was killed by a Montenegrin chap wat throwed 'im orf de cliffs, 'n a Turk gets all 'is land. Dat's 'ow dey was done dose days. Dere ain't much 'o de ole town lef now."
"We 'ad to chase de Turk outer 'ere," he went on; "lots 'o fighting, but we 'ad luck. You see, dey 'ad two lines, 'an we got de first line before 'e was ready, 'n wiped 'im out, so de secon' line did'n know if it was 'im retreatin' or us advancin', and we was into 'em before dey 'ad made up dere minds. Yessir."
The ascent was terribly laborious. Our animals were sweating, though they were carrying nothing but the knapsacks.
"Ye see dat flat stone?" said the guide. "Dat's were de gooman feller 'ide 'is gold. Dey was tree Italians chaps 'ere 'n dey turn ober dat stone ter roll it downill. 'N underneat was all dat feller's gold. Dat madum larf, I tell yer."
We climbed higher and yet higher; we thought we would never reach the crest. The sweat poured from us, and we were drenched.
On the top there were but few stones of the old castle, and we rode over the ruins. We passed into a queer pallid country, pale grey houses, pale yellow or pale green fields, grey sky and stones, a violently rolling plain where our guide lost his way, and we became increasingly aware of the discomfort of our saddles, and prayed for the journey to end.
We refound the route, and asked a peasant, "How far to Jabliak?"
"Bogami, quarter of an hour."
We cheered.
At the end of twenty minutes we asked once more.
"Bogami, quarter of an hour."
At the end of twenty minutes more we asked again, our spirits were falling.
"Bogami, quarter of an hour."
"* * *!"
We then asked a peasant and his wife. The woman considered for a moment.
"About an hour," she said.
Her husband turned and swore at her.
"Bogami, don't believe her, gentlemen," he cried, "it's only a quarter of an hour."
We left them quarrelling.
It grew dark, and we grew miserable. Jabliak seemed like a dream, and we like poor wandering Jews, cursed ever to roam on detestable saddles in this queer pallid country.
At last a peasant said it was five minutes off, and then it really was a quarter of an hour distant.
We came down from the hills to find the whole aristocracy—one captain—not to say all their populace, out on the green to do us honour. They had been informed by telegraph of our august decision to sleep in their wooden village. When we got off our horses our knees were so cramped that we could scarcely stand, and we hobbled after the captain into a bitterly cold room without furniture. Various Montenegrins came and looked at us, and an old veterinary surgeon, also en route, but in the opposite direction, conversed in bad German. The old vet. was a Roumanian, and the only animal doctor in all Montenegro.
To their great surprise we demanded something to eat.
"Supper is at nine," they said severely.
"But we have had nothing since ten this morning," we protested.
"But supper will be ready at nine," they said again.
After a lot of trouble we got some scrambled eggs, but nothing would persuade our guide, whose name, by the way, was "Mike," to have anything. It almost seemed improper to eat at the wrong hours, even if one was hungry.
After supper we sat growing colder and colder. At last, in desperation, we asked if there were no place in the village which had a fire.
"Oh yes, there is a fire in the other café," and thither we were conducted.
We were in a jolly wooden room, with a blazing stove and a most welcome fugginess. The hostess brought us rakia, coffee and walnuts, and did her utmost to make us comfortable. Montenegrins crowded in, and discussed the probable end of the war. There was little enthusiasm shown, most of the talk was of the hardships, and a little grumbling that the farms were going to pieces because of the lack of men.
Before leaving Plevlie, Dr. Clemow had presented Jan with a box of Red Cross cigars, and he handed one to the captain. The official received it gratefully.
"Ah!" he said. "Cigars, eh! One does not often see those nowadays."
The cigar was a Trichinopoli. Jan said nothing, but watched. The captain lit the cigar manfully, and for some minutes puffed, looking the apotheosis of aristocracy. Presently his puffing ceased, he looked thoughtful, and then saying that he had forgotten an important paper which he had not signed, he fled. We found the cigars most useful afterwards, as a sort of spiritual disinfector, infallible against bores.
Into the cracks of the ceiling were stuck white and yellow flowers, thyme and other plants, till the roof looked like an inverted flower-bed. We had noticed this custom before, and asked Mike if it had any significance.
"Oh yes," he answered, "all dose tings, dey stuck up dere 'gainst de fleas 'n bugs."
This was translated into Serbian, and the woman boxed his ears.
We supped on meat—three courses—meat, meat, meat, and so tough that our teeth bounced off, and we were compelled to bolt the morsels whole. One course tired us out, weary as we already were with our journey, but Mike, making up for his former abstinence, wolfed all his own share and what remained over from ours.
The night was so cold that we went to bed in our clothes, and even then could not sleep for hours.
We woke with difficulty to a glorious day, and found that what we had thought yesterday to be a plain was in truth a great plateau surrounded by towering grey mountains on which were gulfs and gullies filled with eternal snow. Jabliak is a queer village, fifty or sixty weathered wooden houses—with the high-peaked roof of Northern Serbia—flung down into this wilderness, where the grass and crops fight for existence with the pushing stones, and where the summer is so short that the captain's plum tree—the only one—will not ripen save in exceptional years. Never a wheel comes to Jabliak, and so it is a village without streets. Everything which passes here is horse-or woman-borne, and for hay they use long narrow sledges which slide over the stones and slippery grass as though it were snow.
"Urrgh," said a man, "you should see this in winter. Snow ten and twelve feet deep, and only just the roofs and the tops of the telegraph-poles emerging."
The village escorted us to see the famous Black Lake below the peaks of Dormitor.
The lake is beautiful enough, but too big for mystery, too small to be impressive. One had imagined it twinkling like the wicked pupil of a witch's eye, with cornea of white stones and eye-lashes of pine trees, and we desecrated even its stillness by shooting at wild duck with a rifle.
Jan had been describing to the villagers how well Jo rode; they now think he is a liar. Her horse took an unexpected jump at a small obstacle; the huge hump at the back of the saddle rose suddenly, threw her forward, and before she had realized anything, she was hanging almost upside down about the horse's neck, helpless because of the enormous steeple in front. This horse, as though quite used to similar occurrences, stood quietly contemplative, till Mike had restored her to a perpendicular.
Then on again. At times the tracks grew very muddy, and the horses side-slipped a good deal. At the top of a pass we halted to get coffee from a leafy hut. Before us were the mountains of Voynik, a blue ridge with shadowy, strange crevasses and cliffs; behind us Dormitor was still visible, a faint stain on the sky, as though that great canopy had been dragging edges in the dew.
Four women clambered up towards us. When they had reached the top they flung down their enormous knapsacks and sat down. They were a cheery, pretty set, and we asked them where they were going.
"To the front," they said.
"What for?"
"Those are for our husbands and brothers," answered they, patting the huge coloured knapsacks.
"How far have you to walk?" we asked.
"Four more days."
"And how far have you walked?"
"Four days."
No complaining, no repining, just a statement of fact, these women were cheerfully tramping eight days with bundles weighing from 45 to 50 pounds upon their backs, to take a few luxuries, or necessities, to their fighting kin.
We bade them a jolly farewell, wished them luck, and started downhill.
The track became so steep that we had to descend from our horses and walk, and so we came to Shavnik.
Shavnik is not of wood; it is stone, and as we came into its little square—with the white river-bed on one side—we realized that no welcome attended us. To our indignant dismay the inn was full, and no telegram from the "State" had arrived.
We learned that in Montenegro are two kinds of travellers—royalties and nobodies. Royalties are done for, nobodies do the best they can. We found a not overclean room over a shop—there was nothing better—we had already experienced worse: so we ordered supper, and went off to the telegraph station, to make sure that we arrived as "Royalty" at the next stop.
A man suddenly burst into the office, crying, "Sirdar! Sirdar!"
Jo and Jan made their way through the darkness to the inn, squeezed between sweating horses to the door. We were admitted.
The Sirdar received us kindly, but was dreadfully tired, and looked years older than he had two days before. He had ridden some 150 kilometres in sixteen hours, had left Chainitza at two o'clock in the morning, and had been in the saddle ever since. He is a famous horseman, but is no longer young. Almost all his escort had succumbed to the speed, and he was full of the story of his orderly's horse which had done 300 kilometres in four days, and was the only animal which had come through with him, he having changed mounts at Plevlie. We left him and went straight to bed.
Just as we were comfortably dozing off, a man burst into the room and demanded "Mike," and said something about a horse. Jan dressed hurriedly and clattered downstairs. It was pitch dark. He ran to the stable, felt his way in, and struck a match. There were two horses, one was lying on its side, evidently foundered and dying but Jan felt that they would not have disturbed him for that. By matchlight again he found that his own horses had been turned out by the Sirdar's orderly, and that one was missing. Mike was not to be found, but the missing horse was discovered by a small boy in the dry river-bed apparently in search of water. Jan retired to his bedroom to find that in his absence two more strangers had burst in, to Jo's indignation. He pushed them out and locked the door.
When we awoke the Sirdar had already retaken his whirlwind course—evidently grave news called him to Cettinje—leaving the orderly's gallant horse dead behind him.
"He kills many horses," said a peasant, shaking his head; "he rides fast—always."
We crossed the dry bed of the river and prepared for the hill in front of us. Suddenly Mike's horse plunged into a bog. The poor beast sprawled in the treacherous green up to its stomach, and, thinking its last hour had come, groaned loudly. Mike threw himself from the saddle, and with great effort at last extracted his horse, which emerged trembling and dripping with slime. Mike grinned ruefully.
"I orter remembered," he admitted. "Sirdar, 'e get in dere one day 'imself."
This day's riding was the worst we had yet experienced. Our horses were fagged, the road abominable, great stones everywhere on the degenerated Turkish roads.
The Turkish road is a narrowish path of flat paving-stones laid directly upon mother earth: but that is the first stage. In the second stage the paving-stones have begun to turn and lie like slates on a roof; in the third they have turned completely on edge, like a row of dominoes, and the horses, stepping delicately between the obstacles, pound the exposed earth to deep trenches of semi-liquid mud. In the fourth stage the stones have entirely disappeared, leaving only the trenches which the horses have formed, so that the path is like a sheet of violently corrugated iron. Most of the tracks are now between the third and fourth stages of degeneration. One never knows how far the horse will plunge his legs into the trenches, for sometimes they are very shallow, and sometimes the leg is engulfed to the shoulder.
Jan's horse slipped over one domino, went up to the shoulder into a trench, and off came the rider. Luckily he fell upon a heap of stones, and not into the mud, but he decided for all that to walk for a bit.
Every now and then one came across traces of the construction of a great road—white new stone embankments that started out of nothing, and went to nowhere, and Mike confessed that he had lost the path once more—
"When I come out of dat confounded mod!"
After a hustle across country we found the road, and wished that we had not, for it was a Turkish track in its most belligerent form.
At last we reached the top and rested awhile. Mike showed us his revolver.
"He good revolver," he said. "De las' man I shoot he killin' a vooman. I come. He run away. I tell 'im to stop, but he no stop, so I shoot 'im leg. 'E try to 'it me wi' a gon."
The man got fourteen years.
We pushed on again, and on the road picked up an overcoat, which later we were able to restore to its owner, a Turk, who was going to Nickshitch to buy sugar and salt for Plevlie.
Bits of the big white road appeared and reappeared with insistence. We asked who was responsible for its inception.
"Sirdar," said Mike; "he good boy. Much work."
The country was now like brown velvet spread over heaps of gigantic potatoes.
Our horses grew slower and slower, and the inn which we were seeking seemed ever further and further away. We passed many peasants, and had evidently entered the land of Venus, for each one was more beautiful than the neighbour. Since Jabliak we had not seen an ugly man or woman, and the dignity of their carriage was exceeded only by the nobleness of their features. Ugly women must be valuable in these parts, and probably marry early; humans ever prize the rare above the beautiful.
Mike spoke to many of the girls, asking them their names and of their homes. One had his own name—which we forget—and he said that she must be his cousin, and that if she would wait where she was he would come back later and give her a lift.
At last we came to the wooden inn.
The better-class inns have dining-room and kitchen separate, the second-class both are one, but in each case the fire is made on a heap of earth piled in the centre of the floor; there is no chimney, and the smoke fills the room with a blue haze, smarting in the eyes; it drifts up to the roof, where hams are hung, and finds its way out through the cracks in the wooden roofing slats. This inn was second-class, and along one wall was a deep trough, in which were four huge lumps of a white substance which puzzled us. First we thought it was snow, but that seemed impossible; then we thought it was salt—but why?
It was snow, there being no water fit to drink, so the snow was stored in the winter in huge underground cellars.
We got coffee and kaimak—a sort of cross between sour milk and cream cheese—and as a great honour the lady of the house, a villainously dirty-looking woman, brought us two eggs. Jan's was bad, but he put it aside, saying nothing, for it is impossible to explain to these people what is a "bad" egg—all are alike to them.
We took an affectionate leave of Mike, for here we degenerated to a carriage, which was waiting us, and he rode off, dragging our tired horses behind him.
As we were getting into the carriage the dirty woman ran up and, before Jo could ward it off, planted a loving kiss on either cheek.
We flung our weary limbs upon the rusty cushions. Our driver was a cheery fellow, who only answered "quite" to everything we said. We drove through miles of country so stony that all the world had turned grey as though it had remembered how old it was. The road twisted and curled about the mountains like the flourish of Corporal Trim's stick: below one could see the road, only half a mile off as the crow flies, but a good five miles by the curves. We were blocked by a great hay-cart. Our driver shouted and cursed without effect, so he climbed down from the box, and, running round the hay, slashed the driver of it with his whip. We expected a free fight, but nothing occurred. When the hay had modestly drawn aside, we found "only a girl." Poor thing! she looked rueful enough.
The road was the best we had seen in all the Balkans, white and well-surfaced like an English country highway, and at last we clattered into Nickshitch, the most important town of Northern Montenegro. It was like a fair-sized Cornish village, with little stone houses and stone-walled gardens filled with sunflowers.
A charming old major came to the inn to do us the honour we had telegraphed for, and together we strolled about the streets. There is a pretty Greek church at one end on a formal mound, and behind the town runs a sheer fin of rock topped by an old castle where once had lived another man who "was a gooman all to hisself;" now it is a monastery, and one of the most picturesque in Montenegro.
We dined upon beautiful trout fresh from the river, and large green figs. Undressing, Jan found a louse in his shirt—that came from the dirty bedroom at Shavnik evidently. He went to bed, but his troubles were not yet over; there was another foreign presence, a presence which raised large and itching lumps. He hunted without success for some time, but at last caught and exterminated an enormous bug. After which there was peace.
CHAPTER VII
TO CETTINJE
The rain poured all night. At five o'clock they called us, telling us not to wake up as the motor would come later. At six they knocked again, saying—
"Get up quickly; the carriage is at the door."
No explanations.
We hurried so much that we left our best soap and our mascot, a beautiful little wooden chicken, behind for ever. The major was waiting in the bar room.
We were sorry to say good-bye, he was lonely, and we liked him; but we lost no time, as we were seven hours from Podgoritza and goodness knows how far from Cettinje.
The carriage and coachman were the same as yesterday's, but his expression was so lugubrious in the downpouring rain that he looked another man.
Just outside the village he picked up a friend and put her in the carriage. She was a velvet-coated old lady with a flat white face and two bright birdlike brown eyes which she never took off us. Conversation was impossible, as she had only one tooth, round which her speech whistled unintelligibly, and she hiccuped loudly once in every half-hour. We were most uncomfortable. The hood was up, and a piece of tarpaulin was stretched from it across to the coachman's seat, blocking out the view except for the little we could see through a tiny triangle.
What with three humans, our bags, the old lady's bundle, and an enormous sponge cake, we were very cramped, and whenever we tried to move a stiffened knee her bright eye was on it, and she made some suitable remark to which we always had to answer with "Ne rasumem," "I don't understand," the while beaming at her to show we appreciated her efforts to put us at our ease.
The mist and rain entirely obscured the view. Now and then a tree showed as a thumb-mark on the grey. We little knew that we were passing through some of the most marvellous scenery in Europe.
The carriage settled down with a bump. Something wrong with the harness; string was produced, and it was made usable for the next half-hour. Carriages in Montenegro must have been designed in the days when builders thought more of voluptuous curves than of breaking strains, for we have never been in one of them without many halts, during which the coachman endeavoured to tie the carriage together with string or wire to prevent it from coming in two.
We stopped at wayside inns and politely treated the old lady to coffee at a penny a cup to make up for our inappreciation of her conversational powers.
Women passed carrying the usual enormous bundles. Sometimes they were accompanied by husbands or brothers, who strolled along entirely unladen.
Jo busily sketched everybody she saw.
Passers-by demanded, "What is she doing?" and the onlookers answered—
"She is writing us;" for everything that is done with pencil on paper is to them writing.
One pretty young woman shook her fist, laughing—
"If I could write, I would write you," she said.
We were no longer in the Sanjak. Turkish influence had vanished, and we longed to see the famous Black Mountains of old Montenegro.
At Danilograd we marvelled at the enormous expensive bridge which seemed to lead to nothing but a couple of tiny villages. We missed the picturesque Turkish houses, built indeed only for to-day like their roads, but full of unexpected corners and mysterious balconies. The Montenegrin houses were small and simple, four walls and a roof, like the drawing of a three-year-old child. The only thing lacking was the curly smoke coming from the chimney. Broad streets lined with these houses were unexhilarating in effect, and would have been more depressing except for the bright colours with which they were painted.
When the horses were replete after their midday meal we loaded up, adding to our numbers a taciturn man who sat on the box. We rolled on to Podgoritza, arriving at two o'clock in a steady downpour.
Podgoritza seemed unaware of our arrival. The streets were empty, and the Prefect's offices were tenanted only by the porter, a Turk, who remarked that the Prefect was taking his siesta, and seemed to think that was the end of it.
This was awful, after being Highnesses for a week, to be treated just like ordinary people, and perhaps to lose all chance of reaching Cettinje that night.
"Produce the Prefect," said Jo, stamping her foot, but the Turk only smiled and suggested a visit to the adjutant's office. Back to the carriage we went and drove to a place like a luggage depôt. No adjutant, nothing but giggling boys. Our coachman became restive and said his horses were tired of the rain, so we deposited the old lady, substituted a man in American clothes who seemed sympathetic, and drove back to the Prefect's office with him. There we found a sleepy lieutenant who ordered coffee, while our American-speaking friend explained to him that we were very Great People, and that something ought immediately to be done for us. So the officer promised to get the Prefect as soon as possible, and we went to the hotel to drink more coffee with our baggy-trousered friend, who told us that he was one of a huge contingent of Montenegrins who had travelled from America to fight for the little country. "Say, who are your pals?" said a nasal voice, and the owner, a pleasant-looking man in a broad-shouldered mackintosh, took a seat at our table. He was also a Montenegrin, and had been mining in America for some years. More coffees were ordered. We confided to the new American Montenegrin that we did not like Podgoritza, and he tried to find excuses—the hour, the bad weather. The hotel-keeper came up and intimated in awestruck tones that the Prefect had just looked in with some friends.
Our appearance did not seem to impress the Prefect in the least, and small wonder. He owned to having received a telegram about us, but there was no motor-car available for that day, and he departed.
"The Prefect is only more unpleasant than Podgoritza," said Jo to the American in the mackintosh; but he deduced dyspepsia.
The Prefect, having been to his office and having seen the lieutenant, came back in five minutes, rather more suave in manner, and announced impressively that he was going to give us his own carriage.
But the rain, the giggling boys, the smiling Turk, and the sudden drop from royalty to insignificance had been rankling in Jo's mind. She sat back haughtily and remarked—
"But the Sirdar promised us a motor-car."
"I will go and see if it is possible," said the Prefect, and he dashed out into the rain. He returned full of apologies. All the motors were out, but he would send his carriage round immediately. "A delightful carriage," he added.
It arrived—a landau such as one would find at Waddingsgate-super-Mare, so free from scars that every Montenegrin turned to look at it.
The hotel-keepers, our American friends, and the Prefect and his captain stood pointing out its beauties, and we left them standing in the rain.
"I shall always put on side in this country," said Jo as she bit a large mouthful of cheese.
We pounded along, and the day slowly grew darker. We passed an encampment, where the firelight thrown up on to the trees made a weird and jolly sight.
The hours passed by slowly. Suddenly (our coachman was probably dozing) we ran into something. It was a carriage, a square grey thing. Our coachman howled to it, and it started slowly forward up the steep hill. A bright light streamed from the windows and cut a radiant path in the foggy rains. Some one threw away a cigar-end. The wet road shining in the glare of our pink candles, and the lightning flashing intermittently so that the mountain-tops sprang out to disappear again in the darkness; we felt as if we were living in the introduction of a mystery story from the Strand Magazine.
At last in the misty rain we saw the aura of the lights of Cettinje. At last we wound slowly into wet streets, passed our mysterious companion without being able to see who was in it, and so to the hotel. Since the morning we had driven fourteen hours, and we were glad beyond measure to stretch and to find really comfortable beds.
The next day we got up early. There was much to do. We were to see the War Minister about Scutari, to present a letter of introduction to the English minister, and to inspect the town.
Nature has half filled a big crater with silt, and the Montenegrins have half covered it with Cettinje.
It is a polychromatic village of little square houses, cheerfully dreary, and one does not see its uses except to be out of the way. The only building with any architectural beauty is the monastery where the old bishops reigned, and which must have many a queer tale to tell.
Asking for the Count de Salis, the English minister, we were directed to the diplomatic street, a collection of tiny houses grouped respectfully in front of the Palace, which itself was no larger than a Park Lane house laid edgeways, and with the paint peeling from its walls.
Over the front door of each little house a sort of barber's pole stuck outwards, striped with the national colours of the minister living within.
We noticed with pride and relief that the Count de Salis' pole was painted a reticent white. The sympathetic old lady who opened the door directed us to the Legation. There we found him inspecting the damages wreaked by the storm of overnight. The Legation was big and cold, and as the handsome fireplaces sent out by the British Board of Works were for anthracite only (and Montenegro produces only wood), the English minister preferred his warm cottage to the unheated Palace.
He wished us luck in our quest for Scutari, and asked us to tea. We then hurried to an awful building where the governing of Montenegro was done—a concrete erection, presented to Montenegro by the British Government, and an exact imitation of one of our workhouses. Here we found the Minister of War, a gorgeously dressed little man with a pleasant grandfatherly gleam in his eye. He only spoke Serbian, but with him was an unshaven young man whose chest was covered with gold danglers, who immediately began to air his quite passable French. We explained what we had been doing and what we wanted to do. The War Minister had not heard of US from the Sirdar, who had been resting after his terrific ride, but said that they were to see each other that day. The little man beamed upon us, and said they always wished to do anything for the English, but he must first see the Sirdar.
"By the bye," he said, "I forgot to introduce you. This is Prince Peter, commander of the forces on the Adriatic coast." The young man arose and clicked his heels. We too got up. He shook hands with us solemnly, and Jo, unused to addressing Royalty, said, "Dobra Dan" (Good day).
Then we all sat down again, a further rendezvous was arranged for the evening, and we left, carrying away the impression that the War Minister and we had bowed thirty times to each other before we got out of the door.
Out in the streets, as we were sketching, we saw a large smile under a Staff officer's cap bearing down upon us. It was the Sirdar, quite rested and looking twenty years younger. He was going to the War Minister's, and promised to arrange at once for our visit to Scutari. He looked at our cryptic drawings of road scavengers, threw up his hands and ejaculating "Kako"—strode out of our lives.
Tea in the little house with the discreet white pole was a great pleasure. Such tea we had not drunk since leaving England—butter, jam made by the old housekeeper, who pointed this out to us when she brought in a relay of hot water.
She was the daughter of a man who had been exiled from his village because he had taken a prominent part in a blood feud, and the old Gospodar had told him he would be healthier elsewhere. So they had emigrated as far as Serbia, where she had learnt to read and write.
A lady of good family but bad character suddenly decided to leave Montenegro, and fled to the shores of Cattaro, carrying with her a large number of State secrets. The Court was aghast. What was to be done?
A villain was needed. The father was decided upon, and with the help of the lady's brothers she was kidnapped, carried back to Montenegro, and disappeared for ever. For which noble work he was permitted to return to his village.
The old lady had a supreme contempt for the Montenegrins who had not "travelled," but she looked upon the growing pomp of the Court with suspicion.
"Ah," she said, "those were fine days when the king was only the Gospodar, and there were none of these gold embroidered uniforms about, and the Queen and I used to slide down the Palace banisters together."
In those days the Royal family inhabited the top story only, while the ground floor was filled with wood for the winter. Just round the corner was the old pink palace, now used as a riding school. It had been the first place in Montenegro to possess a billiard-table. So, billiard-tables being rarer and more curious than kings—the palace had been called the Billiado.
The Queen, whatever agility she may have possessed once when navigating banisters, is now a sedate and domestic person, and doesn't hold with bluestockings, notwithstanding the "Higher Education" of some of her daughters.
The story goes that once when the King was away she inaugurated one of those thorough-paced spring cleanings dear to most women's hearts; ordered the dining-room furniture into the street, and superintended the beating of it. Women hold a poor position in Montenegro, but one of character can carry all before her. A well-known English nurse was managing a hospital in Cettinje during the first Balkan War. One of her patients, though well connected as peasants often are in Montenegro, was a drunken old reprobate, and she told the authorities he must go. They demurred—his relations must not be offended. She insisted. They did nothing. One morning they found him, bed and all, in the middle of the street opposite the King's palace.
The authorities swallowed their lesson.
In the evening we walked over the stony hills with our host, and first had a glimpse of the real character of the country which had for so long kept the Turks at bay. One realized how much the people owed to the land for their boasted independence. Barren rock and scrub oak, no army could live here in sufficient numbers to subdue even a semi-warlike nation. Cettinje has been burned many a time by the Moslem, but starvation eventually drove him back to the fatter plains of the Sanjak, leaving a profitless victory behind him. Napoleon and Moscow over again.
More miners from America passed with their showy machine-woven clothes, accompanied by their wives, who had evidently stayed behind in the old country. Otherwise they would have picked up new-fangled ideas about the rights of women, and would certainly have refused to shoulder the enormous American suit cases while their men ambled carelessly in front.
The next day we had a further interview with the War Minister, who introduced to us a man in corduroys, the only really round-faced person we had met in Montenegro. Part of his name was "Ob," so as we forgot the rest of it we called him Dr. Ob. He was the minister of drains, and such things. As nothing had been previously explained to him about us, he covered his mystification by hailing us jovially, after which he misconstrued everything we said.
He became very excited when we said we had brought 14,000 kilos of stores into Montenegro.
"But we have not got it yet," he ejaculated. We explained that it was for the English hospital, and he subsided, very disappointed.
Scutari was talked over again, and Dr. Ob promised to come and tell us that evening if Cettinje could supply a motor for the next morning.
More bows and smiles, and we left wondering. Montenegrins always promise even when they have no intention of performance—something like the stage Irishman,—and we were surprised when Dr. Ob met us in the evening and said that the motor was arranged for next morning at eight.
We tea'd with the count once more. In the next house lived a gorgeous old gentleman, and we heard that he had been War Minister for forty odd years. After thirty years or so of office it was considered that he could better uphold the dignity of his position were he able to sign his name. So he had to learn.
CHAPTER VIII
THE LAKE OF SCUTARI
Dr. Ob, dressed in thick corduroys and an enormous pith helmet, arrived punctually with the motor, a Montenegrin Government motor. He had two companions, a girl simply dressed with coat and skirt which did not match, and cotton gloves whose burst finger ends were not darned, a Miss Petrovitch, and an officer. The coachwork—if one may dignify it by such a phrase—which was made from packing cases, had a thousand creaks and one abominable squeak, which made conversation impossible. The scenery was all grey rock and little scrubby trees; the road was magnificent and wound and twisted about the mountain side like a whip lash. Driving down these curves was no amateur's game, and we saw immediately that our chauffeur knew his job. We came over a ridge, and in the far distance, gleaming like the sun itself, a corner of the Lake of Scutari showed between two hill crests.
We ran into a fertile valley, passed through Rieka—where was the first Slavonic printing-press—and up into the barren mountains once more. The peasants seem very industrious, every little pocket of earth is here carefully cultivated and banked almost in Arab fashion. The houses, too, were better, and rather Italian with painted balconies, but are built of porous stone and are damp in winter. The Rieka river ran along the road for some way, very green and covered with water-lily pods.
We passed a standing carriage, in which was a large man in Montenegrin clothes, and a little further on passed a man in a grey suit walking. Dr. Ob gesticulated wildly, and pulled up the motor to gather in a Frenchman—somebody in the French legation who was going to Scutari for a week end. He turned suddenly to Jan.
"Ce n'est pas une vie, monsieur," were the first words he uttered. He admired Miss Petrovitch very much, and told us in an undertone that she was a daughter of the governor of Scutari, niece of the King of Montenegro, and one of "les familles le plus chic."
We descended steeply to the Port, ten variously coloured houses and twenty-five variously clothed people. Miss Petrovitch, to our amazement, embraced a rather dirty old peasant, the doctor disappeared to find us luncheon, the Frenchman to wash, and we strolled about.
A voice hailed us, and turning round, we found our mackintoshed American of Pod. We took him to the inn and stood him a drink. Dr. Ob came in and we introduced; but Dr. Ob was snifty and the American shy. His home was near by and he wished us to visit him, but there was no time.
We lunched in a bedroom plastered with pictures. Montenegrins seem to be ashamed of walls, and they adore royalty. In every room one finds portraits of the King of Montenegro, the queen, the princes, the King of Italy, his queen, the Tzar of Russia, the grand dukes and duchesses, the King of Serbia and his princes, and to cap all a sort of comprehensive tableau of all the male crowned heads of Europe—including Turkey—balanced by another commemorating all the queens of Europe—excluding Turkey—the spaces left between these august people are filled with family portraits, framed samplers, picture postcards or a German print showing the seven ages of man over a sort of step-ladder.
After lunch, loaded with grapes which Miss Petrovitch's peasant friend brought us, we trooped down to the steamer, which had been an old Turkish gun monitor and had been captured when the Montenegrins took Scutari.
The boat was crowded, and the Frenchman took refuge in the captain's cabin, which was crammed with red pepper pods, and went to sleep. Jo began sketching at once. There were two full-blooded niggers aboard with us: they were descendants of the Ethiopian slaves of the harems; but the race is dying out, for the climate does not suit them. We steamed out into the lake, down the "kingly" canal, a shallow ditch in the mud. Magnificent mountains rush down on every side to the water, in which stunted willow trees with myriad roots—like mangroves—find an amphibious existence. We passed through their groves, hooting as though we were leaving Liverpool, and out into the eau-de-nil waters of the open lake.
In three hours we reached Plavnitza, a quay on the mud, where more passengers were waiting for our already crowded craft. There were officers, peasants, Turks, and soldiers clad in French firemen's uniforms. These uniforms, by the way, caused a lot of ill-feeling in Montenegro. The French sent them out in a spirit of pure economical charity, and had the Frenchmen not been, on the average, small, and the Montenegrin, contrariwise, large, perhaps the gift would have been received with a better grace; but the sight of these enormous men bursting in all places from their all too tight regimentals, was ludicrous, and the soldiers felt it keenly.
Two women came aboard, attached to officers, and wearing long light blue coats, the ceremonious dress of all classes; one carried a wooden cradle strapped on her back, the woman with no cradle had in her arms a baby of some ten or eleven months, which she fed alternately on grapes and pomegranate seeds. With each was a large family including a beastly little boy who spat all over the decks, and one of the fathers, a stern gold-laced officer, carried a dogwhip with which to rule his offspring.
After a while we caught sight of Tarabosch, the famous mountain, and then the silhouette of the old Venetian fortress. From the water projected the funnels of yet another Turkish ship which had been sunk in the Balkan war, and we steamed into the amphibious trees on the mudflats of Scutari.
A boat with chairs in it came for us and we disembarked. The boat was rather like one of those that children make from paper, called cocked hats, only rather elongated, and the rowers pushed at the oars which hung from twisted osier loops. Governor Petrovitch met us on the quay. He was a fine-featured old man dressed in all the barbaric splendour of a full national costume, pale green long-skirted coat, red gold embroidered waistcoat, and baggy dark blue knee breeches with a huge amount of waste material in the seat. He kissed his daughter and greeted us genially. We clambered into the usual dilapidated cab with the usual dilapidated horses, and off to the hotel.
The women on the roadside were clad in picturesque ever-varying costumes. There were narrow carts with high Indian-like wheels studded with large nails; there were Albanians in costumes of black and white, everything we had hoped or expected.