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BOSNIAN REfugees.

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coat, black silk hat, and white kid gloves, in broad sunlight, is an uncomfortable and unpleasing object.

In the afternoon the guns from the fort above the town fired twice the signal that the Trieste steamer was in sight. This time we made certain that our friends were on board.

So confident were we, that Brown and myself tossed up as to whether Jones or Robinson should be at the charge of a bottle of maraschino to be consumed by the quartette.

We were again disappointed. We went on board; they were stowed away in no part of the vessel. The deck presented a curious appearance; it was crowded with turbaned Bosnian refugees, who with their wives and families, had deserted their native land, intolerable to them since its occupation by the Austrian giaours. They were now on their way to the new lands promised to them by the Porte. This exodus is much more extensive than is generally imagined. These poor people bore their grief with true Oriental apathy. They had laid their mats on the decks, and were squatting on them smoking silently, holding no converse with the hated giaours around them. The veiled women crouched up close under the bulwarks in a shrinking manner, while the little nude children sprawled about anywhere. I need not add that all swarmed with vermin. They

had their Penates with them, of course. Their luggage was rather scanty.

It was a curious sight to see them trooping out of the vessel, each man bearing his impedimentahis mat, pipe, and coffee-pot; this was all. One family had a European portmanteau; this was opened at the Custom-house. Its contents proved to be on one side potatoes, on the other a coffee-pot! The potatoes doubtlessly had been dug from the little enclosure round the homestead in the old country.

We decided to give up our friends, and start on the morrow for Cettinje, the capital of Montenegro, for we had wasted some time, and were anxious to commence our march into the wild interior, and see what lay beyond that barrier of cloud-capped rock before us.

We found a Montenegrin who owned a small wiry mountain horse. He agreed for a small sum to guide us, and carry our baggage to the capital.

Before leaving Cattaro we changed some English sovereigns into swanzickers. This is an old Austrian coin, out of circulation in the Empire, of the date of Maria Theresa, and as a rule bearing her effigy. This is the coin particularly affected by the Montenegrins, they always value anything in these elsewhere obsolete swanzickers.

The Turkish modern coinage is also accepted, but under protest. The silver Medjidie seems to

MONTENEGRIN CURRENCY.

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have a different value in every Montenegrin village. Austrian modern money or paper they will have nothing to do with, as a rule.

any kind is readily taken.

Of course gold of

The value of the English sovereign and French napoleon is well known all over eastern Europe. I was surprised to find that the humblest mountaineer in Albania knew the exact change for these pieces. The only difficulty in changing them lies in the possibility of a village not being able to muster a sufficiency of the small coin as an equivalent.

Bank-notes are of course useless in these wild countries; but at Cattaro and Spalato, and other Dalmatian towns, there are money-changers who will change these with pleasure.

When we were at Cattaro the pound sterling was worth eleven florins, sixty centimes, or thirtythree-and-a-half swanzickers.

CHAPTER V.

March to Cettinje-The pass across the frontier-Montenegrin warriors-Cettinje-A land of stones-The Prince's Hotel-Frontier disputes-The commission-Montenegrin method of making war-A game of billiards-A Draconic law-A popular prince.

EARLY on the morning of October the 9th, we commenced our journey in earnest. We passed through the land-side gate of the town, where our Montenegrin guide with the horse was awaiting us. Just outside this gate is the Montenegrin Bazaar, as it is called. It consists merely of two rough sheds built for the use of the Black Mountaineers, who come down to sell their produce at Cattaro. Here, too, before they enter the town, they are obliged to leave their mules and arms.

The latter was found to be a very necessary regulation, as quarrels which ended in bloodshed used often to occur between the fierce highlanders and the Cattarines. The two peoples are never on the best of terms the former being accused of many a midnight descent into the valleys, to

MARCH TO CETTINJE.

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pillage and carry off all they can lay hands on. But the present Prince of Montenegro has to a great extent reformed his savage subjects.

A small Morlak boy was deputed by the Montenegrin to lead the horse, and guide us to the capital of the land of stones.

He was the proud possessor of a lockless Turkish pistol, which he stuck jauntily in his sash, and of which he was evidently very proud, for he would stop every now and then to readjust the formidable weapon.

It is not a six hours' march from Cattaro to Cettinje.

Every few yards of progress up the zigzag path revealed some new view over the indescribably grand gulf below.

At last we were far above town and fortress.

They lay at our feet like a map. The eye could follow all the windings of the Bocche; and so high were we above it, that we could look over three successive chains of lofty mountains. The blue water stretched in three long streaks between them; while far away, over the furthest range, the blue Adriatic lay peacefully under a cloudless sky. It was a scene of unparalleled vastness and magnificence.

The summit of the pass was 4500, the fortress that tops the walls 1000 feet above the sea, by our aneroid.

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