CHAPTER IX
SCUTARI
After a wash we went into the streets. It was the Orient, just as Eastern as Colombo or Port Said. The little fruit and jewellers' shops with square lanterns, the tailors sitting cross-legged in their windows, the strange medley of costumes—even the long lean dogs looked as if they had been kicked from the doors of a thousand mosques.
We left the shops for further explorations. Scutari has always been described as such a beautiful town. The adjective does not seem picturesque: yes, quaint, strange decidedly. One's second impression after the shops is this:—
Miles and miles of walls with great doors. The main streets branch out into thousands of impasses each ending in a locked door. There are hardly any connecting streets, for somebody's walled garden is between. The Mahommedans hide in seclusion on one side of the town, while their hated enemies the Christians live on the other. Each house, Turk or Christian, has the same air of defiant privacy, the only difference being that the Turk's windows are blocked with painted lattice. The Mahommedan women's faces are covered with several thicknesses of chiffon, generally black, while the Christian peasant women walk about with an eye and a half peering from the shrouding folds of a cotton head shawl which they hold tightly under their noses.
With difficulty we found the English consul's house, as the Albanians speak no Serb and Montenegrins were not to be found at every street corner. At last we found it appropriately enough in the Rue du Consulat d'Angleterre. A gorgeous old butler resembling a wolf ushered us from the blank walled street into a beautiful square garden filled with flowering shrubs and creepers. Not to be outdone by the colours of the flowers, the butler was clad in a red waistcoat, embroidered with gold, a green cloth coat, blue baggy trousers, and a red fez with a tassel nearly a yard long, while a connoisseur's mouth would have watered at the sight of his antique silver watch-chain with its exquisitely worked hanging blobs.
The interior of the house gave an impression of vast roominess. Wide stairs, a huge upper landing like a reception-room, a panelled drawing-room large enough to lose one's self in, ornamented by primitive frescoes on the walls above the panels.
The English consul was an old Albanian gentleman with delightful manners. For a long time he had been suffering from an illness which had started from a wound in the head, received during the siege of Scutari. After the inevitable coffee and cigarettes his son wandered out with us and showed us the interesting parts of the town. Out of a big doorway came two women in gorgeous clothes. They had been paying a morning call, and bade farewell to their hostess. Doubtless they were mother and daughter.
One was faded and beautiful; the younger was of the plump cream and roses variety with modestly downcast eyes. Both wore enormous white lace Mary Queen of Scots' veils, great baggy trousers made of stiff shiny black stuff, which was gathered into hard gold embroidered pipes which encased the ankles and upwards. These pipes were so stiff that they had to walk with straight knees and feet far apart. Their full cavalier coats were thickly covered with many kilometres of black braid sewn on in curly patterns, and the girl wore at least a hundred golden coins hung in semicircles on her chest.
They left the third woman at the door and walked back a few steps down the road, then turned, and laying hand on breast, bowed ceremoniously, first the mother, then the daughter, who never lifted her eyes; another twenty steps and again the same performance; still once more, after which they slowly waddled round the corner. Suma told us they wore the costume of the haute bourgeoisie, and probably the girl had been taken to see her future mother-in-law.
The next vision that met our eyes was the doctor in his best clothes, frock-coat, white spats, gloves, and a minute pork-pie cap perched on the top of his spherical countenance.
"In Scutari it is necessary that I should be en tenue," was his explanation.
Suma parted with us, promising to take us to the bazaar the next day, and we spent the afternoon sketching and avoiding a dumb idiot who tried to amuse us by standing on his head in front of whatever object we chose to sketch, and at intervals thrust into our hands a letter which he thought was a money producing talisman. It said in English, "Kick this chap if he bothers you."
There are other traces of the English soldiery here. Little children with outstretched hands flock round, saying in coaxing tones "Garn," or "Git away you," under the impression that they are saying "please."
At a street corner we saw a professional beggar, a shattered man of drooping misery, his rags vieing with the colour of the road. Jo began to sketch, but he promptly sat up, twirled his long moustaches, and from a worm became a lion. One may be a beggar in Albania, but as long as one has moustaches one is at least a man.
The bazaar next day filled our wildest dreams. Queerly clad peasants of all tribes came down from the mountains bearing rugs, rubbish, white cloths, cheese, honey, poultry, pigs, and they sat on the ground behind their wares in the blazing heat, while all the rest of Northern Albania came to purchase. The little shops set out their pottery, silver-ware and brightly striped veils. Jo lifted up a woman's leather belt covered with silver, thinking how nice it would look on a modern skirt; but she dropped it with a crash, for the leather was a quarter of an inch thick, and the silver equally weighty.
Veiled women bargained and chaffered with the rest, some dressed in white with black chiffon covering their faces, and others still more bizarre, wore flowered chiffon, one large flower perhaps covering the area of one cheek and nose.
More fanatic in religion than their men, they objected to being sketched, crouching to the ground and covering themselves completely with draperies, so we had to desist.
There can be no arguments about beauty in these lands. It goes by "volume."
Put the ladies on the scales, and in case of a tie, measure them round the hips.
Vendors pressed gold-embroidered zouaves, antique arms and filigree silver-ware upon us; but we ever looked elsewhere, and Jo suddenly pounced on a handkerchief, or rather a conglomeration of bits sewn together, each being a remnant of brilliant coloured patterned stuff.
"But that has no value," said Suma, smiling.
"Never mind, I shall wear it as a hat," said Jo; and Suma, somewhat perplexed, lowered his dignity and bargained for it.
We next saw a brilliantly striped rug hanging on the wall behind an old woman, red, green, yellow, black and white, just what we wanted. She consented to take thirteen silver cronen for it, but no Montenegrin paper. She explained she was poor. She had brought up the sheep, spun and dyed the wool, and had woven the beautiful thing, and now she wanted silver because outside Scutari, in which the Montenegrins forced acceptance of their notes by corporal punishment, paper was worth nothing. To get the silver we went into a general store and sold a sovereign.
While we were waiting for the money-changer, two Miridite women came in. They had short hair dyed black, white coarse linen chemises with large sleeves, embroidered zouaves, white skirts with front and back aprons lavishly embroidered, striped trousers, and stockings knitted on great diagonal patterns.
One of them told Suma that their village was in possession of Essad Pacha, that all their husbands had fled, and were still fighting in the hills.
Suma, for a joke, asked her what she thought of Jo. Passing her eyes over Jo's uninflated frame, she hesitated, but was urged to speak the truth.
"I think she is forty," she remarked; and then somehow Jo was not quite pleased.
The midday heat being overwhelming we took a cab and drove back along two kilometres of dusty road. A veiled woman stopped the coachman, asking him to give her tired little girl a lift. Jehu refused, through awe of us; but we insisted on taking her, and begged the woman to come in too. Jo held out her hands, but the woman shrank back horrified, though obviously worn out with the heat.
"That is a pity," laughed Suma. "I hoped she would do it. It would have been a new experience for me."
Jo confided to him her burning desire to enter a harem, but as he had no Mahommedan friends he thought the possibility remote.
Two more bourgeois women passed. Jan photographed them, but not before they hid their faces with umbrellas. Even the Christian men are intensely jealous, and their women have some Turkish ideals. We spent the afternoon sketching outside a barber's shop, coffee being brought to us on a hanging tray with a little fire on it to keep the coffee warm. Opposite was a shop which combined the trades of blacksmith and fishmonger. It seemed the strangest mixture.
We dined with the Frenchman. He was a queer fellow, seeming only interested in economies, his digestion and his old age; and he discussed the possible places where an old man might live in comfort. Egypt, he dismissed: too hot, and an old man does not want to travel. The Greek islands had earthquakes. Corfu, he had heard, was depressing; while in the Canaries there was sometimes a wind and one might catch cold. We suggested "heaven," and he looked hurt. He had been in Scutari in December. He told us that after dark it was impossible to walk down the great main street, which divides Christian from Turk, without carrying a lighted lantern to signal that you were not on nefarious intent, or you might be shot.
Mr. Suma came along the next day in good time and gave Jan a letter for the Count de Salis. We bade him a most cordial farewell, assuring him prophetically that we should revisit Scutari—little did we dream in what circumstances,—and he said we would then see the "Maison Pigit," a show castle which he had, in vain, urged us to visit. Paget was an Englishman who seems to have spent ten or twelve years dreaming away life in Scutari, and collecting ancient weapons. With the outbreak of the South African war he disappeared. He was then heard of fighting for the Turk against the Italian, and later for the Turk against the Balkan alliance. He has never returned.
With Dr. Ob we drove to the quay, on the road passing an old woman staggering along beneath the weight of a complete iron and brass bedstead.
As we got out of our carriage we noticed a rabble of Turks hurrying towards us. In its midst was a brougham with windows tight shut and veiled, from which we guessed that some light of the harem was to be a fellow passenger. The carriage halted, and whatever was within was hustled from the farthest door and in the midst of the dense mob of men hurried down the quay. The side of the steamer was crowded with craft, so we passed beneath the stern to embark on the far side, to find that the Turkish lady and her escort had passed beneath the bows for a similar purpose. We caused a flutter, the beauty was hastily lifted on board like a bale of goods, and we caught a glimpse of magnificent pink brocaded trousers and jewelled shoes beneath her red orange covering. Two women—one a Christian—followed, and when she was seated, bent over her as a sort of screen to hide even her clothes from the gaze of the naughty infidel.
Governor Petrovitch came down to the quay to bid us good-bye. With him came his daughter, who was returning with us. She had nothing interesting to say about Scutari. The Frenchman had brought with him a cook whom he had engaged to look after his digestion.
We found comfortable seats on a long box with a bale as a back rest, and the governor sent two chairs for the ladies. As we steamed away we pondered on the problem of Scutari.
There are in all, say, 300,000 Serbs, a high estimate, in all Montenegro. The population of the Sanjak and its cities, Plevlie, Ipek, Berane, and Jakovitza, are of course largely Mussulman or Albanian, and already the balance of people in the little mountain kingdom is wavering. If Montenegro adds to herself Scutari, a town in which the Serb population is practically "nil," the scales swing over heavily against the ruling classes, and either one will see Montenegro absorb Scutari, to be in turn absorbed by Scutari itself; or we shall see the crimes of Austro-Hungary repeated upon a smaller scale, and Montenegro will be some day condemned before a tribunal of Europe for continued injustice to the people entrusted to her. The Albanians loathe the Serb even more than they hate the Turk, and at present, in spite of the fact that they are on their best manners, the Montenegrin police and soldiery have the appearance of a debt collector in the house of one who has backed a friend's bill.
An Albanian noble said to Jan, "We are quiet now: the Powers have no time to waste upon us, and we are not going to revolt and let ourselves be murdered without redress. But, if after the war things are not righted, monsieur, there will be a revolution every day."
We saw a pelican, and of course some one had to try and kill it; but luckily the criminal was an average shot only. The pelican flew off flapping its broad white wings. The Frenchman told us that the Turkish lady round the corner is a gipsy bride to be. A light dawned upon us. The bed, these boxes we were sitting upon: she was taking her furniture with her. Jan peered round at her. She was sitting on a low stool, and the two screens were standing at duty. They had chosen the most secluded spot in the boat, which was next to the boilers. The day itself was very hot, and the atmosphere within the poor bride's thick coverings must have been awful, though when nobody was looking she was allowed to raise for a second the many thicknesses of black chiffon which shrouded her face, and to gasp a few chestfulls of fresh air.
Dr. Ob suddenly produced a large sheep's head which he dissected with medical knowledge. He gouged out an eye which he offered to Jo; upon her refusing the succulent morsel he gave a sigh of relief and wolfed it himself. One of the men on board had a fiddle, and played us across the lake. Some one said, "Give us the Merry Widow."
He shook his head.
"Come on," said his tempter, "there's no one here. Give it us." At last, looking at Miss Petrovitch and us, the musician timidly started the music, for the "Merry Widow" is "straffed" in Montenegro as one of the characters is a caricature of Prince Danilo, hence everybody plays it with gusto in private.
We came again to Plavnitza. A huge crowd of Turks were waiting for us; one wild befezzed ruffian had a concertina and was capering to his own strains.
We were suddenly disturbed, the box was wrested away, the bundles also, the bed was carried off, also a tin dish too small for a bath, too big for a basin, and a tin watering pot—the bride's trousseau. The bride was seized by two men, her brothers we were told, and carried up the stairs to a waiting brougham, the trousseau was piled upon a bullock cart, and shouting and singing and dancing the cortège moved out of sight.
At Virbazar the steamer could not come to the quay, so the authorities ran a five-inch rounded tree trunk from the boat to the mud. Many dared the perilous crossing, and one nearly fell into the water. Dr. Ob was furious, and at last a plank was substituted. Then we found that the only way off the mud was by clambering round a corner of wall on some shaky stepping stones. Dr. Ob fumed, his little round face grew rounder, his moustache went up and down, he threatened everybody with instant execution, like the Red Queen in "Alice." Then he found that no motor was awaiting us. He rushed to the telephone while we had a belated lunch. No motors; one was out taking the Serbian officers for a joy-ride; Prince Peter had taken the other to Antivari. Montenegro seemed to have no more. We soothed ourselves with "American" grapes. This grape tastes not unlike strawberries and cream, but not having the same sentimental associations, does not come off quite as well. We heard a motor coming. Dr. Ob ran out to intercept it. It was crammed. Then the telephone boy brought a message that Prince Peter's motor would not return till to-morrow.
Miss Petrovitch wrung her hands.
"We cannot stay here the night," she said.
"Are the bugs awful?" we asked.
"It's not the bugs, it's those dreadful women," she answered. "We shall all be murdered in our beds."
Now the women appeared to us most inoffensive.
Dr. Ob was purple with rage. He stamped his foot.
"But I am a minister," he kept repeating crescendo, till he shouted to the villagers, "But I am a minister."
It is impossible to take Montenegro seriously. Situations occur at every corner which remind one irresistibly of "the Rose and the Ring," and we wondered what would happen next. There were other belated passengers who had hoped for conveyance, and the Frenchman's carriage had not turned up. Dr. Ob at last decided to commandeer a cocked hat boat rowed by four women with which to navigate the river to Rieka, and thence by carriage to Cettinje if carriages came. It was six p.m., we might reach Rieka by ten.
We rowed out through the half-sunken trees. At the end of a spit of land was a man gnawing a piece of raw beef. We shouted to him to ask what he was doing; and he answered that he was curing his malaria. The two women in the bow were very pretty, one was a mere child.
There were wisps of sunset cloud in the sky, and soon night came quite down.
As it grew dark all sense of motion disappeared. The boat shrugged uneasily with the movement of the oars, the rowlocks made of loops of twisted osier creaked, but one could not perceive that one was going forwards. The hills lost their solidity, becoming mere holes in the grey blue of the sky, a bright planet made a light smudge on the ruffled water in which the stars could not reflect. As we crept forwards into the river and the mountains closed in, the water became more calm, and the stars came out one by one beneath us, while in the ripple of our wake the image of the planet ran up continuously in strings of little golden balls like a juggling trick.
The Frenchman turned his head and made a noise like the rowlocks. "Il faut chanter quand même," he explained, "pour encourager les autres." Jo then started "Frère Jacques." Jan and Dr. Ob took it up till the Frenchman burst in with an entirely different time and key. Then one of the oar girls began a queer little melody on four notes only, and all the four women joined, one end of the boat answering the other. They sang through their noses, and high up in the falsetto. By shutting one's eyes one could imagine a great ox waggon drawn uphill by four bullocks and one of the wheels ungreased. Yet it was not unpleasing, this queer shrill, recurrent rhythm, the monotonous creak and splash of the oars, the mystery of feeling one's way in the blue gloom, through reed and water-lily beds, up this cliff-bound river, and far away the faint twitter—also recurrent and monotonous—of some nightjar....
The night grew bitterly cold on the water. One of our passengers, a little Russian dressmaker, had malaria and shivered with ague. Jo gave her her cloak. The Frenchman's cook was unsuitably dressed, for she had on but a thin chiffon blouse. We ourselves had summer clothes, and we were all mightily glad to see the glare of Rieka in the sky.
Our luck be praised, there were two old carriages with older horses, and another for the Frenchman. We supped moderately at a restaurant kept by an Austrian, and still shivering scrambled into the carriages. We had no lights, but the road was visible by the stars.
We went up and up, up the same road down which we had come three days before. Below one could see strange planes of different darknesses, but not any shape, and soon one was too aware of physical discomfort to notice the night. Besides, one had had enough of night. Miss Petrovitch told the boy to hurry up the horses; he beat them; she then rebuked him for beating them. After a while the boy grew tired of her contradictory orders, and lying down on the box fell fast asleep. The poor old horses plodded along. To right and left were immense precipices, but nobody seemed to care.
We reached Cettinje about two a.m., found the hotel open, and a room ready for us, and in spite of our frozen limbs were soon asleep.
CHAPTER X
THE HIGHWAY OF MONTENEGRO
We went next day to see the doctor, who was late, so we strolled out to the market. They were selling grapes and figs, fresh walnuts, and lots of little dried fish, strung on to rings of willow, from the lake of Scutari. The scene, with the men in their costumes of red and blue, the women all respectably dressed in long embroidered coats of pale blue or white, and the village idiot, a man prancing about dressed in nothing but a woman's overall, was very gay. We caught the doctor later. He was talking with a Mrs. G——, an Englishwoman, from the hospital at Podgoritza: she was trying to hustle him as one hustles the butcher who has belated the meat. The doctor had let up his efforts since his orgy of respectability in Scutari, and his beard and whiskers were enjoying a half-inch holiday from the razor. With him was a Slav-Hungarian, who recommended us to go home by Gussigne, Plav and Ipek, the best scenery in all Montenegro he said; he himself had just returned from Scutari, whence he had advanced with a Montenegrin army halfway across Albania. At each village the natives had fled, burying their corn and driving off their cattle, leaving the villages deserted, and the army, starving, had at last been forced to retire. Dr. Ob promised us a motor by four, but added that they had no oil and very little benzine. Then growing more confidential, he took us by the buttonholes and asked us to use our best influence with the Count de Salis, and request him to tell the Admiralty to allow petrol to be brought up from Salonika, where the British had laid an embargo upon it. He promised pathetically that all the petrol would be brought up overland.
Intensely amused by the doctor's idea of our importance, we solemnly delivered his message to the Count.
We went to the Serbian Minister, a charming man with a freebooter's face, for our passports, and then back to Dr. Ob. The motor was going off at 6.30 he said. We cheered internally, for we were getting tired of Cettinje, which reminded us of a watchmaker's wife with her best silk dress on. On our way downstairs we called in to thank the Minister of War for our jolly trip; and he wished us "Bon voyage."
We got en route almost up to time, with us was Mrs. G——, who was also going back as far as Podgoritza. She was storekeeper and accountant for the Wounded Allies, and ever had a hard and troublesome task between what she needed and what she could get from the Sanitary Department. She took the front seat with Jo, and inside Jan found a French sailor of the wireless telegraphy, who had had typhoid fever, but was now going back to work. As we rattled down the curves and along the edge of the darkening chasms of the mountain side, he summed up with the brevity of a "rapin."
"Dans la journée ici, vous savez, il y'a de quoi faire des clichés."
We stopped at Rieka for water, and then on once more. In the glare of our headlights, little clumps of soldiers, with donkeys loaded with the new uniforms, loomed suddenly out of the darkness. Once a donkey took fright and bolted back, and the soldier in charge yelled and pointed his rifle at us. If we had moved he would have shot without compunction. Later the men had bivouacked, and all along the rest of the road we passed little fires of fresh brushwood, the sparks pouring up like fountains into the night, round which the soldiers and drivers were sitting and singing their weird songs.
At Podgoritza we found Dr. Lilias Hamilton at supper with her staff. She has had rather a hard time. The hospital was intended for Ipek, but for some reason, although there were wounded in the town, the Montenegrins decided to move it to Podgoritza, where there were none. After a difficult journey across the mountains they settled down, but could never get sufficient transport from the Government to bring their stores over, except in small quantities. They started to work, but as there were few soldiers to treat, Dr. Lilias, being a lady, interested herself in the Turkish female population, a thing which the Montenegrins thought a criminal waste of time, and tried to stop.
We got a bedroom in the hotel, and tired out, tried to sleep; but the occupants of the café began a set of howling songs, very unmusical, and kept us awake till past twelve. We have never heard this kind of singing anywhere else.
Next day we crossed the river and explored the quaint and beautiful streets of the Turkish quarter. The people are equally offensive on both sides of the town; however, Podgoritza seems to be the White-chapel of Montenegro—and we finally had to take refuge in the sheds of the French wireless telegraphy. The commandant at the motor depôt again treated us rudely, but the Prefect was nice, this time. He promised us a carriage on the morrow if no motor were forthcoming.
After supper the people began the awful howling songs; also there was a wild orchestra which had one clarinet for melody and about ten deep bass trumpets for accompaniment.
Next morning no carriage came, so off to the Prefect. He promised one "odmah," which being translated is "at once," but means really within "eight or nine hours." We waited. Nine a.m. passed. Ten a.m. went by. A small boy sneaked up and tried to sell some contraband tobacco; but Jan had just bought "State." An angry Turkish gentleman came and said that his horses had been requisitioned to take us to Andrievitza, and that we weren't going to get them till one o'clock, because he was using them. We returned to the Prefect, not to complain—oh no—but to ask him to telegraph to Andrievitza that we were coming. He was naturally surprised to see us again, and explanations followed. A very humbled and much better tempered Turk came to the café to say that the horses would be with us "odmah."
A drizzle had been falling all the morning; at last the carriage came. Our driver was a wretched half-starved, high-cheeked Moslem in rags, whose trousers were only made draught proof by his sitting on the holes. He tried to squeeze another passenger upon us; but we were wiser, and were just not able to understand what he was saying. Our Turk's method of driving was to tie the reins to the carriage rail, flourishing a whip and shouting with vigour; every ten minutes he glanced uneasily backwards to see that nothing had broken loose or come away.
The valley we entered had been very deep, but at some period had been half filled by a deposit of sand and pebble which had hardened into a crumbling rock. We were driving over the gravelly shelf, above our head rose walls of limestone, and deep below was the river which had eaten the softer agglomerate into a hundred fantastic caverns. All along the road we passed groups of tramping volunteers fresh from America with store clothes and suitcases; the sensible were also festooned with boots. It was pretty cold sitting in the carriage, and it grew colder as we mounted.
At last we halted to rest the horses at a café. The influence of "Pod" was heavy still. A group of grumpy people were sitting around a fire built in the middle of the floor; they did not greet us—which is unusual in Montenegro—but continued the favourite Serb recreation of spitting. In the centre of them was an old man on a chair, also expectorating, and by his side one older and scraggier, his waistcoat covered with snuff and medals, palpitated in a state of senile decay, holding in a withered hand a palmfull of snuff which he had forgotten to inhale. There were a lot of women saying nothing and spitting. A sour, hard-faced woman admitted that there was coffee.
Jo, trying to cheer things up a bit, said brightly—
"Is it far to Andrievitza?"
A woman mumbled, "Far, bogami."
Jo again: "It is cold on the road."
A long silence, broken with the sound of spitting, followed. At last a woman in the darkest corner murmured—
"Cold, bogami."
It was like the opening of a Maeterlinckian play, but we gave it up, sipped our coffee, and when we had finished, fled outside into the cold which, after all, was warmer than these people's welcome. Outside we met a young man who spoke German, and as he wanted to show off, he stopped to converse. We were joined by an older man who claimed to be his father. The father was really a jolly old boy. He said his son was a puny weakling, but as for himself he never had had a doctor in his life. So Jan tried his mettle with a cigar. An officer, a filthy old peasant in the remains of a battered uniform, joined the group, but he was not charming; however, Jan offered him a cigarette. The old yokel rushed on his fate. He said—
"Cigarettes are all very well; but I would rather have one of those you gave to the other fellow."
The road wound on and up in the usual way, rain came down at intervals, and it grew colder and colder. At last we extracted all our spare clothes from the knapsack and put them on. We reached the top of the pass and began to rattle down the descent on the further side, and we kept our spirits up, in the growing gloom, by singing choruses: "The old Swanee river" and "Uncle Ned."
We pulled up at dusk at a dismal hovel, on piles, with rickety wooden stairs leading to a dimly lighted balcony over which fell deep wooden eaves.
"Is this Jabooka?" we asked, for we had been told to alight at Jabooka.
"No," said the driver; "we cannot reach Jabooka to-night. But here are fine beds, fine, fine, fine!"
We climbed in. The rooms were whitewashed and looked all right, but there was a funny smell. We shall know what it means a second time. There was a crowd of American Montenegrin volunteers in the kitchen. One gay fellow was in a bright green dressing-gown like overcoat: he said that his wife—a hard-featured woman who looked as if nobody loved her—had brought his saddle horse. We got some hard-boiled eggs and maize bread. Maize bread is always a little gritty, for it has in its substance no binding material, but when it is well cooked and has plenty of crust is quite eatable. French cooking is far away, however, and the bread is usually a sort of soggy, half-baked flabby paste, most unpalatable and most indigestible. Here was the worst bread we yet had found.
They took us down a dark passage, in which huge lumps of raw meat hanging from the walls struck one's hand with a chill, flabby caress as one passed. In our room, four benches were arranged into a pair of widish couches; mattresses were given us and coarse hand-woven rugs. We were then left. But we could not sleep; somehow lice were in one's mind, and at last Jan awoke and lit the tiny oil lamp. He immediately slew a bug; then another; then a whopper; then one escaped; then Jo got one. In desperation we got up, smeared ourselves with paraffin, and lay down again in a dismal distressed doze till morning.
Our driver was a dilatory dog: we had said that we would leave at five a.m., and at six he was washing his teeth in the little stream which acted as the village sewer. As we were waiting our green-coated friend got away on his saddle horse, with his wife walking at its tail; the other Americans climbed into a great three-horse waggon, dragged their suit-cases after them, and off they went. We left nearer seven than six. The air was chilly, and though there were bits of blue in the sky, the hills were floating in mist, and there was a sharp shower. There were more groups of Americans trudging along, and also a fair number of peasants, the women, as usual, dignified and beautiful. Very hungry we at last came to Jabooka. A jolly woman—we were getting away from "Pod"—welcomed us and dragged us into the kitchen. She asked Jo many questions, one being, "What relation is he to you, that man with whom you travel?" The fire on the floor was nearly out, but she rained sticks on to it, blew up the great central log, which is the backbone, into a blaze, and soon the smoke was pouring into our eyes and filtering up amongst the hams in the roof. We were drinking a splendid café au lait when an old woman peered in at the door.
"Very beautiful Jabooka," she said.
We agreed heartily.
"Not dear either," she said.
We expressed surprise.
"You can buy cheap," she went on.
We regretted that we did not wish to.
"But you must eat to live," she protested.
We intimated that this was of the nature of a truism, but failed to see the connection.
"But look at them," she expostulated, holding out a large basket of apples; and we suddenly remembered that "Jabooka" means also apples, and realized that she was not a land agent.
Then on once more. In the deep valleys were large modern sawmills, but the houses were ever poor, and the windows grew smaller and smaller and were without glass. At the junction of the Kolashin road, from the north, we picked up a jolly Montenegrin with a big dog. He was a driver by profession, and he hurried our lethargic progress a little. Then the front spring broke. It was mended with wire and a piece of tree; when we started again the reins snapped.
We halted once more at a café filled with Americans; some had only left their native land six months agone, yet to the peasant they were all "Americans." Some of them seemed very dissatisfied with the reception which they had received, and we don't wonder. "In Ipek I coulden get my room," said one, "tho' I 'ad wired for 't, 'cause one o' them 'airy popes [Greek priests] 'ad come wid 'is fambly. I 'ad to sleep like a 'og, you fellers, jess like a 'og." We had been under the impression that burning patriotism had called all these men back to their country, but one sturdy fellow disabused us.
"No, you fellers," he said, "there weren't no work for us in 'Murrica. Mos' o' the places 'ad closed down ter a shift or two at the mos' per wik. And fer fellers wats used to livin' purty well there weren't enough ter pay board alone. We gotter come or we'd a starved." Of course this was not true of many.
On again, rain and sun alternating, but still we were cold, feet especially.
These mountains, these continual groups of slouching, slouch-hatted "Americans," these little weathered log cabins, falling streams, and pine trees reminded one of some tale of Bret Harte, and one found one's self expecting the sudden appearance of Broncho Billy or Jack Hamlin mounted upon a fiery mustang. But we cleared the top of the pass without meeting either, and started on our last long downhill to Andrievitza. Cheered by the rapidity of our motion the two ruffians on the box started a howling Podgoritzian kind of melody, exceedingly discordant. The driver, careless that one of our springs was but wired tree, and that wheels in Montenegro are easily decomposed, flogged his horses unmercifully, rattling along the extreme edge of one hundred foot precipices. We stopped at a café for the driver to get coffee; rattled on again, stopped to inquire the price of hay; more rattle; stopped for the driver to say, "How de doo" to a pal; more rattle; stopped to ask a man if his dog has had puppies yet.... But we protested.
Andrievitza was the prettiest village we had yet seen in Montenegro, and was full of more "Americans." In the street a small boy urged us to go to "Radoikovitches," but we went to the hotel. The hotel was full, because a Pasha from Scutari had arrived with his three wives, and all their families. So we permitted the little yellow-haired urchin to lead us to "Radoikovitches." A woman received us, without gusto, till she learned that Jo was Jan's wife, when she cheered up. A charming old officer stood rakia all round in our honour. The mayor came in to greet us, and we felt that at last Pod had been pushed behind for ever.
The mayor was a pleasant fellow, speaking French, and he confided in us that he was suffering from a "maladie d'estomac." When we thought we had sympathized enough, we asked him how far it was, and could we have horses to go to Petch. He answered that it was two days, or rather one and a half, and that the horses would await us at twelve on the following day. We went to bed early to make up for last night, but Jan, having felt rather tickly all day, hunted the corners of his shirt and found—dare we mention it—a louse, souvenir de Liéva Riéka.
As we were breakfasting next day our driver, who had been most unpleasant the whole time, sidled up and asked Jan to sign a paper. While Jan was doing so the driver burst into a volley of explanations. We thought that he was asking for a tip, but made out that he had lost (or gambled) the ten kronen which his employer had given to him for expenses. We had intended to give him no tip, for on the yesterday he had refused to carry our bags, but this made us waver. We asked Mr. Rad, etc., what we should do.
"Sign his paper," he answered gruffly, "and kick him out; he's only a dirty Turk anyhow."
The mayor sent our horses round early; but we stuck to our decision to start in the afternoon, and ordered lunch at twelve. There was a huge crowd gathered in front of the inn, and we saw that the Pasha and his harem were off. One wife wore a blue furniture cover over her, one a green, and one a brown, so that he might know them apart from the outside, for they all had heavy black veils before their faces. The Pasha himself seemed rather a decent fellow, and had much of the air of a curate conducting a school feast. Four children were thrust into two baskets which were slung on each side of one small horse, and various furniture, including a small bath (or large basin), was strapped on to others, and the Pasha followed by his wives set off walking, the Pasha occasionally throwing a graceful remark behind him.
The mayor lunched with us, and for a man who has, as he says, anæmia of the stomach, chronic dysentery, and inflammation of the intestines, he ate most freely, and if such is his daily habit, he deserved all he had got.
Our guide was the most picturesque we have yet had. He was an Albanian with a shaven poll save for a tuft by which the angels will one day lift him to heaven, small white cap like a saucer, over which was wound a twisted dirty white scarf, short white coat heavily embroidered with black braid, tight trousers, also heavily embroidered, but the waistband only pulled up to where the buttock begins to slide away—we wondered continuously why they never fell off—and the long space between coat and trousers filled with tightly wound red and orange belt. He called himself Ramases, or some such name. Our saddles were pretty good, the stirrups like shovels, the horses the best (barring at the Front) we had had since Prepolji.
We rode over a creaky bridge, Jan's horse refusing, so he went through the river, and out into the new road which is being made to Ipek. Men and women, almost all in Albanian costumes, were scraping, digging, drilling and blasting; some of the women wore a costume we had not yet seen, very short cotton skirt above the knees, and long, embroidered leggings. We passed this high-road "in posse" and, the little horses stepping along, presently caught up a trail of donkeys, the proprietor of which, a friend of Ramases, had a face like a post-impressionist sculpture.
We passed the donkeys and came to the usual sort of café, rough log hut, fire on floor—but one of the women therein gave Jo her only apple—decidedly we were away from Pod.
On again along river valleys. Jan's saddle had a knob in the seat that began to insinuate. On every hill were cut maize patches, the red stubble in the sunset looking like fields of blood.
In the dusk we came to Velika, a wooden witchlike village, where we were to stay the night, and where, as we had expected, the Pasha, ten minutes ahead of us, had commandeered all the accommodation. The captain, however, was very good, and gave us a policeman to find lodgings for us. By this time it was dark. He led us into a pitch black lane where the mud came over our boots, then we clambered up a loose earth cliff and stood looking into a room whose only light was from a small fire, as usual on the floor. Over the fire was a large pot, and a meagre-faced woman was stirring the brew. Behind her a small baby in a red and white striped blanket was pushed up to its armpits through a hole on four legs, where it hung. In a dark corner a small boy was worrying a black cat.
"Can you give these English a bed?" demanded the policeman.
The woman shook her head sadly. "Mozhe," she said, which means "It is possible."
After supper, Bovril and cheese omelette, we went out to seek the café. We trudged back through the mud and stumbled into a house full of lattice work, like a Chinese store. Startled we tried another. This time we came into a stable, but there was a ladder leading upwards, and at the top a lighted room, so we decided to explore. We climbed up and came into a large loft in which six long legged, heavily bearded Albanians were squatting about a fire; a gipsy woman with wild tousled hair and hanging breasts was in the corner of the hearth, and was telling some long monotonous tale. An Albanian, who spoke Serb, told us to come in and have coffee. It was like the illustration of some tale from the Arabian Nights. After a while we climbed out again into the night, and went home. Ramases hung about shyly, and the woman explained that he had nowhere to sleep; so we arranged that she should house him also.
Even as we poked our noses out of the door there was a promise of a fine day. Below us we could see the Pasha up and superintending the packing of his family and furniture. We celebrated by opening our last tin of jam, which we had carried carefully all the way, waiting for an occasion. We left the remains of the jam for the small family, and as we were mounting we saw their faces smeared and streaked with "First Quality Damson." We started the climb almost at once. The early morning smoke filtering through the slats made an outer cone, of faint blue, above the black roof of every hut and cottage; here and there were traces of roadmaking, groups of Albanian workmen on stretches of levelled earth which our trail crossed at irregular intervals. Presently we entered the clouds, and were wrapped about with a thin mist faintly smelling of smoke. After a while we climbed above them, and looking down could see the clouds mottling all the landscape, and through holes little patches of sunlit field or wood peering through like the eyes of a Turkish woman through her yashmak.
Our horses panted and sweated up the long and arduous slope for two mortal hours, up and ever up; but all things come to an end, and at last we reached the top. We sat down to rest our weary animals and, lo! by us passed long strings of mules and ponies bearing the very benzine about which so much fuss had been made in Cettinje. Alas for our reputations as miracle workers! Had this blessed stuff only come a week later we should even have passed in Montenegro as first cousins of the king at least; but this was a little too prompt.
There was landscape enough here for any budding Turners, but we two had still eight hours to go and not money enough to loiter. On the higher peaks of the mountains there was already a fresh powdering of snow; in the valleys the clouds had almost cleared away, leaving a thin film of moisture which made shadows of pure ultramarine beneath the trees. Your modern commercial grinder cannot sell you this colour, it needs some of that pure jewel powder which old Swan kept in a bottle for use on his masterpiece, but found never a subject noble enough. Some of that stuff prepared from the receipt of old Cennino Cennini which ends "this is a work, fine and delicate, suitable for the hands of young maidens, but beware of old women." Pure Lapis Lazuli.