Part 5 (1/2)
”But we have had ----” It is not well to particularise--it was a thirsty day.
”There is nothing to pay,” the woman reiterated.
The other party had guiltily slipped out of the room and climbed into their carriage, and our driver became impatient to maintain the lead.
With mixed feelings we followed him out, and in another second were off again at a gallop.
It was always like that in Montenegro. We have gone into an inn or cafe and drunk a liqueur (a polite name for the fiery but wholesome local spirit), when a fresh gla.s.s will be silently placed before us.
We have waved it away.
”Not ordered it,” we would say.
”That man has,” answers the boy, and points at a smiling Montenegrin on the other side of the room. Sometimes, and very often too, other guests follow suit, and the result is trying. We gave up visits to cafes afterwards, except when we were on pleasure bent and had an hour to spare. Hospitable, reckless, poverty-stricken Montenegrins--one can travel far before another such a race can be found.
The last two hours of the drive are uninteresting, chiefly because eight hours in a carriage is trying. Podgorica comes in sight long before it is reached, in the form of a cl.u.s.ter of trees on a gra.s.sy but dead-level plain, out of which two minarets show their graceful spires. The background is imposing, lowering Albanian mountains rise abruptly to their lofty heights from the level of the plain.
For an hour we drove along the plain, and pa.s.sed a solitary building situated on a slight eminence. It was Kruevac, one of the Prince's country palaces, or, to be more correct, Prince Mirko's palace, as ”Voivoda” or Duke of the Zeta, which ancient and historical t.i.tle is his. Then for some distance we skirted the Moraca, driving in an opposite direction to Podgorica till we came to the ”Vizier” bridge, over which we crossed and retraced our way to the town.
The River Moraca is a large mountain torrent, into which the Zeta flows only a short distance away from the town. It rushes over great boulders, forming here and there formidable rapids, between two deep banks, which, without any warning, break off suddenly from the flat and form precipitous sides fully two hundred feet deep. Two or three hundred yards away, no gap or break in the plain is observable.
Sometimes the river swells almost to the top of its banks, and then the effect must be terrible. There is a ford near Podgorica, which the peasants use to avoid the long detour by the bridge, but woe to the man who makes a false step. Three women, carrying loads of wood, lost their footing during our stay, and were drowned. In its waters we swam every evening, and even in midsummer, when the river is low, the strength of the current required an expert and powerful swimmer to breast it, and it was invariably very cold.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE VIZIER BRIDGE]
The bridge, built by an old Turkish Vizier many, many years ago, is most picturesque, and completely in keeping with the rocky banks and the foam-flecked, emerald-green waters rus.h.i.+ng beneath. From this bridge a man once sprang into the depths below, to show that he was not intoxicated. As a matter of fact he was, but he emerged dripping a hundred yards lower down, unhurt and at least in his right mind.
There used to be a deep indentation in a stone of the bridge parapet--during our stay in the country it has been plastered up--which credulous Montenegrins relate to be the cut of a Turkish horseman pursuing a fleeing Montenegrin. The story goes that the Turk severed the Montenegrin's head from his body, and so violent was the stroke that he cut into the stone wall as well.
Again, just before the town, two slabs, standing exactly thirty paces apart, mark a similar episode, and the headless man is said to have run that distance before falling. This legend--which, furthermore, has many eye-witnesses still living in the town who swear to the truth--is more capable of belief if one takes into consideration the flight of a decapitated fowl in any of our poultry yards.
The road entering Podgorica is very similar in appearance to that which leads into Cetinje, only the first impressions are considerably wilder and more uncivilised than that of the capital. Hundreds of Turks and Albanians are smoking their evening ”tchibouque” in the streets, and scowl in no friendly manner at the stranger. Some of them, namely, the merchant cla.s.s, are, however, excellent people, travelled and educated, as we found out afterwards. The Albanian and Turk are the enterprising merchants of Montenegro, and improve on acquaintance, which is sometimes necessary.
We had a lonely, solitary feeling as we drove through the crowd of loiterers, and were glad to descend at a presentable-looking hostelry.
How often first impressions are wrong we proved to the full in this instance.
Podgorica saw more of us than any other town during our stay, for we made it afterwards our headquarters. It would be difficult to forget that mountain-bounded valley and the town with its bustling streets of picturesque humanity. And then those sunsets! The peaks towering behind bathed in crimson, and the intervening hills rising one above the other to the furthermost summits like a giant staircase, rich in a mysterious purple. As we walked back from our evening swim, over the short, springing gra.s.s, that scene at sunset never abated its charms one whit. And we were always glad on entering the town that no one wore plain, ugly European clothes but ourselves. The national costumes, so full of colour, blended harmoniously with our feelings, and have left behind them an indelible picture.
CHAPTER VI
Podgorica--Its central position--Our headquarters--Easter in Montenegro--Our experience of it--We view the town--The prison and its inmates--Christian and Mahometan friction--The modern town--The market and the armed buyers--The Black Earth--Easter customs--Montenegrin methods of doing business.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL VIEW OF PODGORICA]
If it were not for the dangerous proximity of the Albanian border, Podgorica would have been made the capital of Montenegro. It is favourably situated for a trade centre, and, owing to this fact, has naturally gathered a large population (the largest in Montenegro), approaching ten thousand. Lying on a rich and fertile plain, within easy reach of the Lake of Scutari, and connected by good roads with Cetinje and Nikic, it is within market distance, so to speak, of Kolain and Andrijevica. From these districts, and from the Albanian borders, the people flock in crowds, and the Podgorican market is by far the most important in the country. But--and it is a big ”but”--in this case the Albanian frontier is only an hour's walk away, and it would never do to risk the persons of the Royal Family and the Ministers in a sudden Albanian raid, and troubles and disturbances are of everyday occurrence.
We made Podgorica our headquarters during our sojourn in the land of the Black Mountain mainly for its central position, but also for the opportunity afforded us there for studying Montenegrin life.
It would be difficult to forget our first visit to the town. It was Easter Sunday evening when we arrived at the Hotel Europa, and after seeing our luggage carried in, started out on a tour of inspection, and also to present our letter of introduction to Dr. S., the veterinary surgeon of Montenegro. We had not got more than fifty yards from the hotel when we were forced to beat a hasty and ignominious retreat. At Eastertide, which is one of the biggest feasts in the Greek Church, beggars, halt and maim, blind and tattered, pour into all the larger towns of the country. They come from Turkey, Albania, Bosnia, and Dalmatia--in fact, from everywhere within reach--and make a rich harvest, for the Montenegrin opens his heart, his hand, and his house at Easter. In our innocence we imagined this to be the normal state of affairs in Montenegro, and were greatly cast down.