central, and soon to be the only, prison is at Podgorica. The majority of prisoners are undergoing different sentences, with and without chains, for murders in connection with the vendetta, according to the circumstances. A man who defends his honour, who kills his slanderer, is very lightly punished.
Against only one class of offender does Prince Nicolas exercise his autocratic powers, i.e. the political offender, with whom he is relentless. Such men are thrown into prison, interred in dark cells without trial, and can languish till death sets them free. In this respect the Prince is harsh, and according to Western ideas barbaric, though local circumstances fully excuse his seeming cruelty. The smallness of the prison at Podgorica shows more forcibly than anything else the remarkable lack of crime in the land. At present (1902) dangerous lunatics are confined in the common prison, but an asylum is rapidly nearing completion.
The government is autocratic. A senate, composed of the different ministers, exists in Cetinje, but all powers are jealously held by the Prince. He appoints the ministers and all the higher officials of the land, and only recently have the people been granted the right to elect the kmets.
Montenegrin engineers now build the roads in place of Austrians and Russians, and the difficulties that they meet with and surpass at every turn are sufficient evidence of their capabilities. Foreign doctors and professors are yearly becoming more rare. In fact, Montenegro is rapidly becoming self-supporting and self-educating.
Literature, always in olden times in advance of the surrounding lands, is fostered by the Prince, himself a scholar and a poet of no mean order. Two weekly papers in Cetinje and Nikšić have a large circulation.
Under Prince Nicolas' fatherly care the country improves in a wonderful manner from year to year. Roads are planned to connect the whole land, which only lack of funds are hindering from completion, and a railway is projected to connect the towns of Nikšić, Podgorica, and Rijeka with Antivari and the sea.
When Prince Nicolas shall be called to his fathers his son, Prince Danilo, will worthily carry on the work so nobly begun by his father, for he is a man imbued with the ideas of Western improvements and civilisation.
CHAPTER III
The journey to Montenegro—Arrival in Cattaro—Beauty of the Bocche, and the drive to the frontier—First impressions of Montenegro—Njeguši—The national troubadours—Arrival in Cetinje.
The simplest way of entering the Land of the Black Mountain is viâ Cattaro in Dalmatia. The sea-trip from Trieste, which takes a little over twenty-four hours, is a revelation of beauty, for the Dalmatian coast is sadly unknown to the traveller. The journey can also be made from Fiume, whence the "Ungaro-Croata" send a good and very frequent service of steamers. But the idler should take a slow boat and coast lazily down the Dalmatian archipelago, visiting all the smaller towns and islands, which the fast line is bound to avoid. It is one of the most beautiful sea-trips in Europe, each little port possessing gems of old Roman and Venetian architecture, unrivalled, perhaps, in the world and set in a perfect framework of lovely country and dancing seascape.
It was a glorious morning in May when the Graf Wurmbrand, the Austrian-Lloyd's fast steamer, left Trieste, bearing us to Cattaro. The Gulf of Trieste is very beautiful, for the green hills, all dotted with villas, the busy harbour life, the Julian Alps rising up majestically far away on the starboard, and directly behind the town, gaunt and grey, the naked Karst, of which we were to see so much in Montenegro; all made a picture that it would be difficult to forget.
At midday we arrived at Pola. The entrance to the harbour is well covered by islands, and on each of these frowns a great fort, some of which, however, are so carefully hidden that their locality is only betrayed by a flagstaff. A narrow channel leads to the inner harbour, Austria's naval dockyard and arsenal. Here are the warships and building yards, and away to the left, as a strange and unfitting contrast, the Arena, one of the best-preserved specimens of Roman work, rises seemingly from amongst the houses. Pola is full of Roman remains. All is so green and peaceful, in spite of the countless fortifications which render the harbour well-nigh, if not quite, impregnable, that Nature and War seem for once to go hand-in-hand.
At twilight Zara looms up into view, and another short stay is made. The town turns out en masse for the coming of the Wurmbrand or the Pannonia—the fast boats from Trieste or Fiume are the events of the week. There is no railway here. Unluckily Dalmatia's finest scenery is passed in the night. Trau, with its splendid loggias and churches; Spalato, with the grandeur of Diocletian's palace, are denied to the traveller; Lesina, proudly calling itself the Nice of Austria; Curzola, whose mighty Venetian bastions stand out into the sea, and many another delightful little town and island, only show a twinkling light or two in the darkness as the steamer ploughs by. At daybreak we are nearing Gravosa, Ragusa's modern port. As we leave again, and round the peninsula of Lapad, glorious in a mass of semi-tropical vegetation, Ragusa bursts upon our view. Seen on a sunny morning it is a sight for the gods. Built well into the sea on inaccessible cliffs, surrounded by lofty walls, with a great hill as a background, it has well been called the prettiest bit of Dalmatia. It possesses a magnificent winter climate and a good hotel, so that people are forsaking the Riviera for this comparatively unknown paradise.
Far too soon Ragusa fades away, and now the approaching mountains grow higher and wilder. Those lofty peaks, towering above the others, black and forbidding, are Nature's bulwarks of the land which we are visiting. It is from a distance that the name "Black Mountain" seems so aptly given to this fierce little state, though some historians wish to explain the derivation otherwise.
The Bocche (or mouths) di Cattaro, three in number, are a consummate blending of the Norwegian fjords and the Swiss lakes, and so lofty and steep are the surrounding mountains that the sun can only reach the bottom for a few hours at midday.
Away at the end of one fjord lies the village of Risano, an idyllic spot, whence a road is in the course of construction to Nikšić. All the worthy Bocchese are absolutely Montenegrin in sympathy, and Austria has had much trouble with these equally warlike Serbs.
A curious conical hill rises out of the town, a high wall zigzags up to the fort above, showing Cattaro's strength of former days. Now, a few insignificant mounds of earth far away on the mountain-tops are all that is to be seen of the military might of modern Cattaro. Yet how powerful are those forts only the Austrian authorities know. Cattaro and the Bocche are impregnable from sea or land, though this array of strength against land attack seems almost unnecessary, as Montenegro possesses no heavy cannon at all. However, Austria is not reckoning in this case with Montenegro alone. But these are political questions.
We were fortunate in securing a carriage of the Montenegrin post, which has good drivers, and what is still better, a fixed tariff, over which there can be no dispute. The drivers of Cattaro ask, and often get, twice the legal fare from ignorant strangers.
Cattaro affords no comforts to the traveller; more is the pity, as it is one of the most magnificent spots in the world. The town itself is tiny and a perfect maze of little Venetian streets, in which it is easy to lose oneself if it were only larger. To walk upon the Riva and gaze upon those precipitous mountains which tower above the town and its militarily guarded walls is
