Thirty-five years after his death Miss Mackenzie and Miss Irby, in their remarkable tour, visited the country. They found still living some of those who had lived under St. Peter; and thus they give the report of him which they received:

There are still with us men who lived under St. Peter's rule, heard his words, and saw his life. For fifty years he governed us; and fought and negotiated for us; and walked before us in pureness and uprightness from day to day. He gave us good laws, and put an end to the disorderly state of the country. He enlarged our frontier, and drove away our enemies. Even on his deathbed he spoke words to our elders, which have kept peace among us since he has gone. While he yet lived, we swore by his name. We felt his smile a blessing, and his anger a

The voice of his people declared him a saint. Did the Vatican ever issue an award more likely to be ratified above?

I have already indicated resemblances between the characteristic features of Montenegro and of Homeric or Achaian Greece. One of the most remarkable among them is the growth of men truly great in small theatres of action. Not Peter the First only, but his successors, will bear some comparison with those, whom the great Greek historians of the classic period have made so famous. To Peter the First succeeded his nephew Radatomovo, aged seventeen years. He was thereupon invested with the ecclesiastical habit and the sovereignty, and in 1833, when aged only twenty, he received at St. Petersburg episcopal consecration. Sir Gardner Wilkinson informs us that he was nearly six feet eight inches in height, and thoroughly well proportioned. His skill with the rifle was such that, when one of his attendants tossed a lemon into the air, he would readily put a bullet through it. At nineteen the cloud of Turkish war broke upon him from Scutari; for he had refused to accept a berat from the Porte, which would have sealed him as a vassal. The pasha's advanced guard of several thousand men 25 was defeated by a body of 800 Montenegrins, at the head of whom the Pope Radoviti fell bravely fighting; and no more was heard of the invasion. But this Vladika, following up St. Peter's work, set his face sternly against all such lawless habits as remained in the country. In his modes of repression there are curious traits of manners. The man-slayer was shot,26 but the thief was ignominiously hanged. In the matter of shooting there was a great difficulty; for the terrible usage of the vendetta— which had by no means been extirpated from the Ionian Islands twenty years ago-bound the kin or descendants of a man to avenge his death on the person who slew him. The expedient adopted was to shoot by a large platoon, so that the killer could not be identified. I read that, before brigandage and the vendetta could be

24 Travels of Miss Mackenzie and Miss Irby, p. 628 (ed. 1867). Also see Goptchevitch, p. 21. 26 G., p. 22.

25 F. and W., p. 30. G., p. 23.

27

thoroughly put down, some hundreds of lives were taken; more, probably, than were ever lost in the bloodiest battle with the Turk. Internal reform, which partook of a martial character, was the great task of this reign. But not exclusively. Under him was performed one of the feats incredible except in Montenegro. Ten men in 1835 seized by a coup de main the old castle of Zabliak, once the capital of Zeta, held it for four days against 3,000 Turks, and then surrendered it only by order of the Vladika, who was anxious to avoid a war. Nearly all his battles were victories.

6

This giant had received at St. Petersburg a high education, and was a cultivated man. A friend of mine has seen and admired him at Venice. He goes by the title of the hero, statesman, poet Vladika;' and his verse has given him a high place in Slav literature. He is thus described: 28____

One while he was to be seen as a captain, sword in hand, giving an example of every military virtue at the head of his troops; another, as a priest and preacher, carrying the cross alone, and subduing his wild compatriots into gentleness; again, as an inexorable judge, ordering the execution of culprits in his presence, or as a prince incorruptible, and refusing all the favours by which it was sought to fetter his independence.

Down to his time, there had been a civil governor who acted under the metropolitan as sovereign; but the holder of the office was deposed for intriguing with Austria, and, when the Vladika died at thirty-nine, no successor had been appointed. This perhaps tended to accelerate the change, which was effected on the death of Peter the Poet in 1851. But a share in it was due to that subtle influence, the love of woman, which has so many times operated at great crises upon human affairs. The young Danilo, the nephew of the deceased Vladika, designated for the succession, was attached to a beautiful girl in Trieste, and the hope of union with her could only be maintained in the event of his avoiding episcopal consecration, which entailed the obligation of celibacy. The Senate almost unanimously supported him in his determination; and thus was effected a change which perhaps was required by the spirit of the times. The old system, among other points, entailed a great difficulty with respect to regulating the succession, which, among a people less simple and loyal, would have been intolerable. So, then, ended that line of the Vladikas of Montenegro, who had done a work for freedom, as well as for religion, never surpassed in any country of the globe. Of the trappings and enjoyments of power, they had known nothing. To them, it was endeared as well as sanctified only by burdens and by perils. Their dauntless deeds, their simple self-denying lives, have earned for them a place of high honour in the annals of mankind, and have laid for their people the solid groundwork on which the future, and a near future as it seems, will build.

27 G., p. 39.

28 F. and W., p. 62.

Danilo did no dishonour, during his short reign, to the traditions of his episcopal predecessors. He consummated the great work of internal order, and published in 1855 the statute-book in force until 1876. In the war with Omar Pasha (1852-3), the military fame of the country was thoroughly maintained, under admirable leaders, though as usual with inferior arms and numbers. During the Crimean struggle, he maintained the formal neutrality of his country, though it cost him a civil war, and nearly caused the severance of Berda from the ancient Montenegro.29 In May 1858, his brother Mirko revived and rivalled at Grabovo all the old military glories of Tsernagora. Having no artillery, and very inferior arms, the Montenegrins swept down from the hill upon the gunners of the Turks, and destroyed them. In this battle the Ottoman force, enclosed in a basin or corrie, without power of retreat, displayed a desperate valour, for which on most other occasions they have not been by any means so remarkable. Nor was their numerical superiority so manifold as it commonly had been. They were defeated with the loss of several thousand lives, fourteen guns, colours, baggage, and munitions. From the bodies of many dead were taken English as well as French medals, obviously granted for the Crimean war, which were seen by Miss Mackenzie and Miss Irby among the collection of trophies at Cettinjé.30 The victory of Grabovo produced a great excitement among the rayahs of Turkey. But the great Powers of Europe came to the help of the Porte and its huge empire against the Lilliputian State, that is scarcely a speck upon its map. It had to abide a diplomatic verdict. A Commission, sitting at Constantinople, accorded to it the advantage of establishing in principle the delimitation of its frontiers, and in 1859 admitted its envoy, notwithstanding the protest of Ali Pasha, to take part in its deliberations. But the Powers had in 1857 determined at Paris that, in return for some small accretion, and for access to the sea, Montenegro should definitively acknowledge the suzerainty of the Porte.31 Her refusal was positive, despite the wishes of the prince. It was to French 32 not British advocacy that she seems to have owed a declaration of May 1858,33 which acknowledged the independence of the Black Mountain.

In August 1860, Prince Danilo was shot on the quay of Cattaro. The assassin was prompted by a motive of private revenge, for which different grounds are assigned. Like his predecessors, he lived and died a hero. In what estimation he was held, let Miss Mackenzie and Miss Irby testify. On his death his body had been carried up the mountain, and deposited in a church. For many weeks afterwards, as they tell us, this church was filled, morning, noon, and all 29 F. and W., pp. 65-70. G., p. 35.

30 Mackenzie and Irby, p. 610.

1 F. and W., p. 72.

* It is fair to say that there is, as far as I know, no English account of the affair. 33 F. and W., p. 73.

night through, by his people, men, women, and children; and stalwart warriors were, as of old, dissolved in tears.

Danilo was succeeded by his nephew Nikita, the present Prince of Montenegro. He had not at his accession completed his nineteenth year. It is characteristic of the Principality that his own father Mirko, the victor of Grabovo, contentedly gave way to him. Goptchevitch, the brother of his aunt Princess Darinka, acquaints us that he set out with two fixed ideas-the first, to prosecute the civilising work among his people; the second, to liberate the sister Serbian lands still in servitude.34 This writer appears disposed, in regard to the present sovereign, rather to play the part of critic than of eulogist; but ascribes to him great merit in his political conduct and in the prosecution of social reforms. Soon after his accession, Montenegro was worsted, after a long resistance, in a war with Turkey. She had been driven to her crags, when diplomatic mediation brought about a settlement. It was then proved that an empire of 35,000,000 could gain the advantage against a tribe under 200,000. Only, however, when she could concentrate against it all or nearly all her forces; when she had a general, not a Turk, of the ability of Omar Pasha; when she had reformed her whole armament by means of European loans; and when Montenegro had but her old muskets and old ways. Since then a great change has taken place. The army has been organised in 30 battalions, 800 strong; and now for the first time we hear of an endeavour to establish a certain strength of cavalry. The fighting men are reckoned at 35,000; but the military age begins at twelve. The obligation for offensive service runs only from seventeen; but it appears that the zeal of patriotism carries the people while yet boys into the ranks. The force available for general operations, between seventeen and fifty, amounts to 24,000. The arms have been greatly improved, two-thirds having breechloaders, all (as is stated) revolvers, and most of them carrying the handschar. During the war from July to October, 1876, we heard much of the Turkish victories over a Serbian army composed principally of peasants put suddenly into the ranks, with a salting of real soldiers; but very little, in comparison, of their failures and defeats in the conflict with Montenegro. Goptchevitch has supplied 35 a detailed account of the operations. I shall refer only to the most remarkable. On the 28th of July the men of Tsernagora encountered Muktar Pasha, and for once with superior force. Four thousand Turks were killed, but only seventy men of Montenegro. Osman Pasha was taken; Selim was among the slain. At Medun, on the 14th of August, 20,000 Turks were defeated by 5,000 of these heroic warriors; and 4,700 slain. On the 6th of September five battalions of Montenegro defeated Dervisch Pasha in his movement upon Piperi, and slew 3,000 of his men. On the 7th of October Muktar Pasha, with 18,000 men,

drove three Montenegrin battalions back upon Mirotinsko Dolove. Here they were raised, by a junction with Vukotitch, to a strength of 6,000 men. Thus reinforced, they swept down upon Muktar, and, after an action of sixteen hours, drove him back to Kloluk, leaving 1,500 dead behind him. On the 10th of October Dervisch Pasha effected an advance from the south, until he found himself attacked simultaneously at various points, and had to retreat with a loss of 2,000 men. On the 20th of October Medun was taken, and the Ottoman general fled to Scutari, leaving garrisons in Spuz and Podgoritza. The armistice arrested this course of disasters, when the southern army (Dervisch) had been reduced from 45,000 to 22,000, and the northern (Muktar) from 35,000 to 18,000.

So much for that 'indomitable pluck' of the Turks, which has since moved the enthusiastic admiration of a British Minister.

Goptchevitch reckons the slain on the Turkish side at 26,000; on the side of Montenegro, at 1,000. And there is no wonder if we find the Montenegrins now aspire to breechloaders and to cavalry: they captured from their enemies (with much besides) 12,000 breechloaders and 1,500 horses.

Montenegro brought into action, in all, 25,000 men; 17,000 of her own, 2,000 allies, and 6,000 insurgents from the Turkish provinces: a fact, this last, highly indigestible for those who contend that rebellions in Turkey are not sustained by natives, but by foreigners. The entire Turkish force directed against Tsernagora is stated at the enormous total of 130,000. It was, of course, chiefly Asiatic.

It will be observed that the whole of these figures are taken from a work on the Slavonic side. The author has had the best means of information; and the statements are written not for our information, but for that of the sober and studious Germans. They are such as might at first sight well provoke a smile of incredulity. Yet, strange to say, they are in pretty close conformity with the general, the nearly unbroken, tenor of a series of wars reaching over four centuries. This is the race which, when asked for tribute, offered stones; whose privations were such, that on one occasion, having taken some hundreds of Turkish prisoners, they gladly accepted in exchange the same number of pigs; who clothe the coward in the garb of woman, but whose women freely grasp the rifle in the hour of need; yet whose men of war weep like women for the dead prince they love; and whose fathers in 1484 carried the printing-press with them to the mountains.

What became of that printing-press? Probably, when, not long after the removal to the hills, a vast army of Ottomans penetrated to Cettinjé and burned the monastery, it perished in the flames. The act of carrying it there demonstrated the habits, and implied the hopes, of a true civilisation. But those habits and those hopes could not survive the cruel, inexorable incidents of the position. Barbarous himself in origin, and rendered far more barbarous by the habitual

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