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The unfortunate Arnaut has no Prince Nikita, is robbed by the so-called government of Turkey when it is strong enough to affect him in any way, has no friends, but is surrounded by cunning enemies, hungry for his lands.

Let any disinterested person travel among Montenegrin and Arnaut, and I think he will conclude, as I did, that the latter is as brave a warrior-more industrious, more intellectual--in every way of a finer, nobler race, than his much belauded hereditary foe.

The cares of State lie not heavily on the shoulders of Prince Nikita. The little work he does do he is very proud of. Europeans that have conversed with him have come away with the impression that he is the hardest-working, most conscientious prince in Europe.

I am told that now that he has constructed a very complete network of telegraph wires throughout his realm, he considers that one thing alone remains to bring Montenegro up to his standard of civilization.

This is a National Debt. He talks seriously of negotiating a loan in some of the European capitals, and proposes to hypothecate the timber of the State forests. We saw a good deal of Montenegro in this and in a later visit; but had great difficulty in discovering where these fine forests were. We often made inquiries.

"Ah! when you reach So-and-so, you will see them on your right hand." So-and-so reached, we could perceive nothing but the eternal stones of the Karatag, made further inquiries, and were referred to some further spot where we should find huge primeval forests darkening mountain and valley, the haunts of wild beasts, where the axe of the woodman had never been heard to resound, where twenty men linked handin-hand would fail to encircle the gigantic trunks.

We pursued these phantom forests, but never found them, so we concluded that they existed only in the imaginations of the Montenegrin financiers.

At last, it is true, on the frontier, near Klementi, we did come across what might be called forests, but the timber was not large; and, growing where it did, in inaccessible haunts of the eagle, in the heart of the wild mountains, it was next to useless.

I should say that if the Principality endeavoured to raise a loan on the security of her inexhaustible stones, she would be about as successful as she will be if she seriously tries to hypothecate her forests.

A rather cynical person, a foreigner, who knows Cettinje well, gave me an amusing summary of Prince Nikita's method of passing his time. In the morning he sits in his palace; occasionally

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sends a message of little import to some village Voyade, through the medium of his new toy, the "electric telegraph." A few telegrams constitute a hard day's work for the Prince. Some relaxation is necessary. Sport is suggested; so off he rides, with his Court, to Rieka, in whose stream are trout of fabulous size. Here he enjoys a good afternoon's fishing. With rod and fly? No; but in a more wholesale and princely fashion. With dynamite! Truly a royal pastime! He is also a poet in his way, and turns out rather dismal compositions in his native tongue. He is an affectionate husband, and is wont, on fine evenings, to serenade the princess with the one-stringed guzla, or violin of Montenegro, accompanying it with his voice, which he raises in song of his own making.

A Montenegrin notable, a fine young fellow, quite six feet five inches in height, kindly offered to be our guide over a Museum of great interest, which is situated at the further extremity of the town. The Museum is merely a small, roughplastered room, but it contains what is well worthy of visit—a collection of trophies taken from the Turk in those wars which have raged fiercely and cruelly between the two races for so many hundreds of years. Here were the spoils of a thousand battles. Guns of very antique datecurious, ricketty weapons of Middle Age Europe.

Here the long Albanian gun, with silver-inlaid barrel, and small narrow stock of beautifully carved steel; old muskets with English Tower marks; Martini-Henry and Winchester rifles hung on the walls, bringing one down to more recent campaigns. Sabres, blood-stained and broken; mountain howitzers, tattered standards, some falling to pieces with age, some rent with ball and shell; the richly inlaid scimetars of some old Prince of Orient, lances, old chain-armour, and I know not what besides, lay in confusion all around us.

In one corner of the wall hung certain trophies which are calculated to sadden the English visitor. These are the decorations of the slain Turk. Among the Medjidiés were numerous Crimean medals, English and French. It was not pleasant to see these here at Cettinje, taken as they were from the breasts of many a veteran ally of ours in the olden time-heroes of Kars, may be; soldiers of Williams.

From this melancholy collection we were taken to see the Hospital. The surgeon, a Herzegovinian by birth, kindly showed us over the establishment. It was a rough place, but answered its purpose well enough. The beds were occupied chiefly by those who had been badly wounded in the late war. The patients were crowded together in a way that would have much astonished an English doctor. But these hardy, temperate people,

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have marvellous constitutions, and the air of Cettinje is pure and bracing; so no ill has resulted so far, from a system which would invite pyæmia, and kill off half the inmates of a London hospital in a week.

We stayed at Cettinje for three days. By that time we had seen enough of the metropolis, so held a council as to whither next we should bend our steps.

As Albania, and not Montenegro, was the object of this expedition, we decided to cross the frontier to Scutari, the capital of North Albania, where resided an English and other consuls, who could give us useful information.

We found the best, indeed the only, way of reaching Scutari from here was to go by land to Rieka, a Montenegrin village on the river of the same name, and then hire a boat to take us down the Rieka, and across the great lake of Scutari, to the Albanian capital, which is situated at its furthest extremity.