Through the Land of the Serb Part 12

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 ma.s.s 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 _deshabille_, was loading his revolver on the doorstep. His mother had captured and washed his only s.h.i.+rt 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 gla.s.sful 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 s.h.i.+rt 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 pa.s.s and descending the other side into a magnificent wooded valley through dripping gra.s.s. The pony sat down and slid, and at the bottom we struck the proper track again. Boshko took stock of the heavens, foretold speedy suns.h.i.+ne, 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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.body 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 Kolas.h.i.+n early in the evening. Kolas.h.i.+n is tiny, primitive, and most kindly. Rich gra.s.s 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 s.h.i.+ngles 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.

Kolas.h.i.+n, 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 Kolas.h.i.+n, three times were they forced to yield it again to superior numbers. The grim persistency of the men of the Kolas.h.i.+n district succeeded, and since 1877 Kolas.h.i.+n 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 ma.s.s of Western ideas for which their minds are as yet unready; ideas which, ill a.s.similated and misunderstood, and forced with a rush upon Servia, have worked disastrously in that unhappy land. The men of Kolas.h.i.+n 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 h.o.a.ry 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 Kolas.h.i.+n 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 Kolas.h.i.+n; 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 Kolas.h.i.+n 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 Kolas.h.i.+n; 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 s.h.i.+ny 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 appet.i.te 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, gla.s.ses of sliva, onions, and other delicacies, to tempt my appet.i.te. 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 a.s.sembled 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 astonis.h.i.+ng! 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 Kolas.h.i.+n 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 const.i.tutions.

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 G.o.d. How fortunate!" was most enlightening.

Kolas.h.i.+n 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 a.s.sured 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 wors.h.i.+p, 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 gla.s.s 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 G.o.d slay me!" was his cheerful answer; "I thought that thou knewest!" "By the one G.o.d, not I." "This way or that, as there is a G.o.d above me, I know not." And so on and so on. The Turchin, a reckless, f.e.c.kless 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; G.o.d grant it does not lead to the frontier," plunged into a wood on the left. "G.o.d 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 "G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+vered 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 gra.s.sy 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 bas.e.m.e.nt 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, Kolas.h.i.+n 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 gla.s.ses of rakija.

Poor old lady, she was really no more addicted to raw spirits than I am, and gasped between each gla.s.s; but in spite of my efforts the proper forms had to be observed, and we duly swallowed the three gla.s.ses 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 Niks.h.i.+tje, 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 cla.s.ses" 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 subst.i.tuting 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 s.h.i.+ne 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 pa.s.sport," 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 pa.s.sport?" 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 astonis.h.i.+ng, 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 ma.s.s 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 G.o.d! 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."