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high-street, or rather the solitary street, of the smallest capital in Europe.

Cettinje is but a village of sordid huts, above which rises, imposing in contrast to the other buildings, the palace of Prince Nikita.

My sketch represents the view from the hotelfor Cettinje now possesses this luxury.

The winged house in the centre is the palace. On the right is the Bishop's residence and cathedral, if this term can be applied in this case. In the background is the well-known tower on which the heads of slain Turks were wont to be stuck on spikes, exposed to the jeers of the populace. The present Prince has put an end to this practice and has constructed a wooden belfry on its summit, in which is a large bell, only rung in cases of great emergency, when the hillsmen are to be suddenly called in order to repel some more perilous foray than usual from beyond the border. Cettinje is built in a broad plain, not over fertile, surrounded by lofty hills. This is not the richest plain in Montenegro; but considering what a desert of stones this country for the most part is, it appears a very well favoured spot indeed to the mountaineers.

The legend says that the Almighty, when he distributed stones over the earth, accidentally upset the bag which contained them over Montenegro. It truly looks like it-a more desolate

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and barren region it is difficult to find: a desert of broken masses of limestone piled one on the other in fantastic heaps. Its character is expressed in the names given it by its neighbours. Montenegro in Italian, Karaag in Turkish, Tchernagora in Sclav, all have the same meaningThe Black Mountain.

As a Montenegrin told me, "This is a poor, rocky country of ours: we produce but two things -fighting men and flea-powder."

This insecticide of Montenegro, made of a certain rock-plant, is renowned all over the East, and is largely exported. It is very efficacious, and well bears out the dogma so impressed upon us in our youth, that bountiful Providence ever finds the antidote where she gives the evil. "The nettle and the dock grow side by side."

The hotel is the finest building in the capital after the palace. It belongs to the Prince, who, observing that inquisitive tourists were beginning to visit his realm, bethought him of this good speculation. He has placed a sergeant of his army in it as manager.

On entering it we were ushered into a comfortable room, not by a smiling chamber-maid, but by a gigantic barbarian bristling with arms.

We sat down and rested for an hour, discussing our plans.

Here we were at last, in the capital of the war

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like little State of which the world has heard so much of late-a State which has been belauded far and wide; a State whose fierce sons Mr. Gladstone speaks of in such warm terms, as very far the bravest, noblest warriors of modern Europe; a State which has for so many hundreds of years successfully withstood the Turk in many a heroic battle; but which now, spoiled by too much praise, petted by the rest of Europe, swollen with pride, dreams of aggrandizement at the expense of Turkey, and nurses vast and ambitious projects, in which the central idea is-Cettinje the capital, Prince Nikita the king, of a vast confederacy of the Southern Sclavs.

The Austrian occupation of Herzegovina and Bosnia was naturally very displeasing to the Montenegrins, crushing several of their grand hopes. That Montenegro for years carried on intrigues in the Herzegovina, incited the Christian population to revolt, and encouraged them to look forward to the day when they should be subjects of Prince Nikita, is notorious. The Principality was ever a place of refuge for Herzegovinian fugitives; and, as my readers know, lent valuable assistance in that last insurrection which ended in a great European war.

In the late war Montenegro was very successful, as we all know. Her troops on several occasions defeated the Turks with great slaughter.

It is true that her foemen were not of the first line, but starving, shoeless, demoralized Redifs. However that may be, the representatives of the Powers, at the Congress of Berlin, considering that the prowess and success of her armies merited some recompense, handed over to her a large slip of Turkish territory, giving her what she had so long coveted, a seaport-Antivari.

Her new territory has proved rather troublesome to her, a not unalloyed good. The inhabitants of it do not approve of being thus unceremoniously handed over to the hated Karatags, and offered-and are, I shall have to show by and by, still offering a formidable resistance to the Prince's troops. As I am on the subject, I may state that the wise men at Berlin made a very serious mistake when they drew a line across the map, to represent the new frontier.

In the first place, whereas it would have been easy to have handed over lands to Montenegro which are inhabited by co-religionists of hers, who would have welcomed their new masters, it was thought fit to give her districts and villages inhabited by the most fiercely fanatical Mohammedans of Albania. That bloodshed and future troubles would result, any one who knew the country could have foreseen. I shall have a good deal more to say on this subject when I get to

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Albania. The fact of the matter is, there is no reliable map of this country, so the representatives at Berlin worked in the dark, confused between the utterly contradictory description of the region given by Turkish and Montenegrin envoys.

A good story is told, illustrative of the geographical knowledge of some members of the congress. A noble English representative was conversing with one of the Turkish representatives. He had recently been studying the map of this

coast.

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'Now," said he, "look here. This little Montenegrin difficulty must be settled. They want a sea-port; give them one: let them have Cattaro."

"We have no objection to that," replied the Turk with a smile, for he knew that the port in question belonged to Austria.

He went

"Ah, the

"All

The Englishman was delighted. straight to his Austrian colleague. Montenegrin difficulty is settled,” he said. is smooth now; the Turks have given in." "I am glad of that. What, then, is proposed ?"

The amusement of the Austrian can be imagined when he heard that the Turks had no objection to giving up an Austrian fortress to Prince Nikita.

A frontier commission was sent over last spring to mark out definitely the new boundaryline. It was composed of course of representatives

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