AT the earliest peep of day on the morning of the 9th of July, I arose from the deck of the steamer on which I had slept for so many pleasant nights, notwithstanding its hardness. Thanks to the kind attention of Giovanni, the steward, a cup of hot and tolerably good coffee was not wanting to fortify me against the effects of the morning air. He wanted me to add a small glass of maraschino unsweetened "per scacciar l'aria cattiva," as he said in his Venetian dialect, but not being addicted to pegs, I contented myself with the coffee and a few biscuits.

The faintest tinge of rose showing in the East over the rocks which hang over Cattaro, seeming ever to threaten it with instant ruin, barely enabled me at first to distinguish objects on the mole alongside of which our steamer was moored; but as the light increased I could make out, under the shadow of the trees which form the boulevard and public promenade of the Bocchesi, the stalwart figures of a dozen Montenegrins who had come down from Cettigne to accompany the Russian Consul on his way to the festival of St. Peter, and the court of the illustrious Prince who now so wisely rules those splendid mountain tribes.

Modestly drawn up on one side of them I could see my own portion of the caravan, consisting of only two horses, one to carry myself, the other to carry my luggage, all under the direction of the excellent guide provided for me the day before by the kindness of Signor Jackschich.

Everything was now ready and myself in the saddle, when the Russian Consul made his appearance, and we finally started just as the dawn was quickening into day.

Skirting by the bastions which defend Cattaro on the sea side, we crossed the bridge that spans the little mountain torrent which here empties itself into the sea, and turning sharply to the right we passed through the open market-place where the Montenegrins come down to sell their farm-produce to the Bocchesi; but who, owing to the somewhat evil name they have unfairly acquired, are never allowed to penetrate into the city unless they first deliver up their arms at the military post outside, just as we do at Aden with the Arabs of the surrounding districts.

Having crossed the market-place, we reached in a few minutes the base of the rocks, and at once commenced ascending that wonderful road zig-zagged across the face of the mountain, and known by the name of "Le scale di Cattaro." Here we joined an additional party, also journeying to Cettigne for the festival of St. Peter, and among them was conspicuous the handsome Montenegrin Chieftain, Pero Pejovich, commandant of the Grahovo, whose pleasant acquaintance we had made the evening before under the mulberry trees of Cattaro.

There was also in the same group a monk, a most picturesque looking individual, but certainly most unclerical-looking. He was dressed in a costume very much resembling the Montenegrin fashion, only of sombre colours, and had his jerkin trimmed with furs instead of embroideries. He wore on his head a sort of black fez, from under which his sable curls fell hanging on his neck, while his full beard, innocent of trimming, flowed amply on his chest. His face was handsome and swarthy, and had a not unkind expression. In figure he was slight, and of medium height. He came from a monastery in the Herzegovina, a province of Turkey in Europe lying co-terminous to Montenegro on its Northern border, and which, strange enough, comes down at one point to the very sea at the opening of the Fjord of Cattaro, thus thrusting itself into and dividing the Austrian sea-board of Dalmatia into two.

What was he coming to Montenegro for? Simply to be inducted abbot of his own monastery, which ceremony by right should have been performed by the Greek Patriarch at Constantinople; but although Herzegovina is subject to the Sultan, yet all the Christian mountaineers of that region, though not Montenegrins by blood, are Montenegrins at heart, and all look to the Metropolitan at Cettigne as their spiritual head, while to the Prince they look up as the only sovereign to whom they owe absolute allegiance.

The abbot elect rode a beautiful, small grey entero, wonderfully quick and sure-footed, caparisoned with gorgeous trappings, consisting of a large blue saddle-cloth embroidered with gold, over which lay an immense saddle of crimson velvet studded with large gilt-headed nails. The bridle was of the same Oriental style, while the bit was something to be looked at, both as regards size, ornament and power.

The Abbot sat his entero, as if riding at the head of a party of Baschi-Bazouks would be quite as much, if not more to his liking, than leading the chaunts at matins and vespers in his own monastery. There was nothing fierce about his countenance, but there was a sort of "stand and deliver" look about his whole get up, that would have made one feel somewhat anxious had one chanced to meet him a quattr'occhi in some lonely pass.

Our caravan consisted in all of about twenty-five persons, as we had been joined by several parties all bent on the same excursion, to partake of the rejoicings at Cettigne. First marched four Montenegrins of the Prince's body-guard, splendid specimens of their race, the shortest over six feet high, with rich ruddy complexions, deeply bronzed by exposure in all weathers, with dark grey or blue eyes, dark brown, almost black hair, cut short, close shaved beard and large moustachios, and fine, open, manly countenances. They wore the national costume of the country, namely, loose baggy blue trousers, made very full and confined under the knee by a strap, below that, their legs were encased in tight-fitting white woollen gaiters, fastened by a row of close-set small metallic buttons all along the back, from the heel to below the knee, while on their feet they wore a peculiar pointed shoe of undressed leather, the upper of which is contrived of numberless small thongs plaited up the middle over the instep, which afford wonderful pliancy and power of grasping to the feet, and are quite characteristic of this region; a sleeveless crimson jacket, and over all the well-known long surtout of fine white cloth, without a collar, fastened round the waist by an enormous silken scarf as much as eighteen feet long, and which supported in front a perfect armoury of weapons. First a yataghan three feet long with richly ornamented sheath and handle, then two highly ornamented Turkish pistols nearly as long, then a poniard, and lastly a special pair of tongs for lifting fire into their smoking pipes, which, excepting when on duty, were never out of their mouths. But as if such an armoury were insufficient, they carried at their sides a formidable-looking, highly curved Turkish sabre, and over their shoulder a long, rakish, Albanian-looking, breech-loading gun. This last they were ever shifting in position, although the favourite mode of carrying it seemed to be across the shoulders, something like the way young ladies at properly conducted schools are made to shoulder their backboards, with their hands hanging over the stock and barrel.

We all followed pell-mell, sometimes in single file, sometimes by twos, according as the inequality of the path or its width, either prevented or admitted of it, while the remainder of the guard brought up the rear. So up we climbed, zigzag after zigzag, some of us above and some of us below until we reach the top of the scala where Austrian territory ceases and Montenegro begins.

The sun was now well up above the Eastern horizon, when the sudden cessation of the road gave us notice of our change of territory, and looking round towards the Adriatic to which we mostly had been turning our backs during the ascent, we saw a view that I don't know which would be most difficult, whether to sketch or to describe.

I think we must have been at least three thousand feet above the sea. At any rate, owing to the steepness of the rocks on which we stood, together with the clearness of the atmosphere, the city of Cattaro seemed perpendicularly beneath us, while the coast of Dalmatia, the entire canal of Cattaro with all its windings and the many towns scattered on its coast, the forts at its mouth, and the blue Adriatic beyond, seemed laid out like a map at our feet.

The path, up which we had been toiling ever since we left the town, lay in zigzags before us like a white ribbon stretched out upon the face of the precipice. It reminded me somewhat of the pass of the Gemmi in Switzerland, but was far more beautiful, while the bird's-eye view of the town, with its fortress and its fortifications, was most novel and astonishing. Perched as we were almost perpendicularly over Cattaro, and thus looking right down over their heads, we could see its inhabitants only like black specks moving about its miniature squares and streets, while the old fortress with its crenelated walls and its antiquated bastions, rising out of the bluish haze which hung over the chasm that yawns between the rock on which it is built and the one on which we were standing, made such a picture as Turner would have loved to study.

It was one of the most beautiful and extraordinary sights I ever saw, and only lacked the presence of foliage to make it perfect. But total absence of timber is the characteristic of the entire coast of Dalmatia, a fact much to be regretted not only for the loss it is to the country from a picturesque point of view, but principally from the economical aspect of the question—as well-managed forests would be of immense value both from the timber they would yield, and the increased humidity they would afford to that arid region, where a sufficient rainfall would increase the fertility, and consequently the revenue more than a hundredfold.

If some of the millions which are yearly wasted by the Austrian Government, as well as by others too, in building ironclads and exploding torpedoes, and in many other equally unreproductive undertakings, were spent on the coast of Dalmatia in planting olive trees on the side of those mountains as far up as they could flourish, then walnut trees, then chestnut trees, and finally oaks and firs, I think I can safely assert that in thirty years the full cost of the first outlay would be repaid, while the benefit to the country at large would be incalculable.

It is not in a book like this that the best modes for bringing about the cultivation of the Dalmatian shores of the Adriatic are to be discussed, but that it could be done and should be done, is undoubted; and not in Dalmatia alone, but also to the east of that country, in the lands beyond the Vellebitch, through Servia, and all that vast tract of country subject now to the impoverishing influence of Turkish mal-administration.

It always makes me sad when I think of those rich countries lying fallow for want of hands to cultivate them, and a good government to encourage industry, and when I see shipload after shipload of hard-working industrious Germans leaving Hamburg, Bremen, and other German ports, risking the perils, the inconveniences, and the expenses of their voluntary exile, traversing thousands of miles of ocean route to reach at last an unknown country, from which it is doubtful if they will ever have a chance of returning to their Fatherland; when those fertile lands of Servia lie at the very threshold of their country, with no sea to intervene, and only a few days of rail and river to go over. But the present state of things cannot continue for ever; and even now promising signs of amendment are not wanting. The monstrous anomaly of some of the richest lands of Christian Europe being still in this nineteenth century under the misrule of barbarous Asiatic hordes, whilst millions of wretched Christian inhabitants are kept in the most abject servitude, must ere long be done away with; and all those countries, Servia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Roumelia, and all lying between the Danube and the Adriatic must before very long be amalgamated under some one chief. Who the man may be upon whom the noble responsibility may fall of governing this future empire, it is impossible now to conjecture, for the several countries which would go to form this new dominion are still scattered and disorganized; but the great bond of a common language will soon unite them again, when the time comes, and probably that is not distant, for now we do in weeks what our forefathers did in centuries. When that moment shall come, I venture to hope, in the interest of this new country, that one totally unconnected with the present contending clans may assume the direction of affairs.

I know the man but I shall not name him. Handsome in person, brave, courteous, highly educated, and unsullied by any of those Eastern vices which so frequently shock our Western susceptibilities—equally unconnected with either the Kara Georgevich or the Obrenovich parties—his elevation to the throne of Servia would put a stop to that system of hereditary vendetta which seems for the present too deeply rooted in both those clans to permit us to hope in its extinction at least for a time, while it would extend to those countries the benefits of that wise administration which he has already so ably initiated in his own country. But I must pull up my hobby-horse sharp; he is already in full gallop, and if he once gets the bit between his teeth, he will never check his mad career till he stops at the gates of Stamboul.