I AWOKE early the next morning, having slept most luxuriously on a spring mattress and totally unmolested by fleas, thanks to the ample supply of flea-powder thoughtfully strewn by my attendant, between the mattress and the undersheet.

The insect powder of Montenegro is celebrated, you must know, in Eastern and Southern Europe, and I can vouch for its excellence. It consists simply in the small dried flower of some species of Pyrethrum, which when wanted for use is ground in a coffee-mill and strewed about the bed. The plant is found abundantly all over Montenegro, and owes its greater virtue to the fact of being grown in very arid soil, untempered by the slightest moisture, and exposed to scorching suns—everything about it therefore is in the most concentrated form, and hence its efficacy; it is a very considerable article of commerce, and is largely exported to Russia and the Levant.

It was not therefore due to insect attacks that I was so early disturbed from my slumbers on the following morning; still I was disturbed, and that by the momentarily increasing hum of many voices and general bustle of the thousands who were flocking to Cettigne for the festival which was to take place on the morrow; but the great day of the feast throughout the south of Europe is invariably the day before the feast, "la vigilia del Santo," as the wording goes. The day of the feast itself one confesses, goes to mass, and does the proper; all the fun and the rollicking is generally the day before. So I got up, and pushing open the outside green shutters which secured my windows, I looked into the courtyard of the Palace, and over the walls beyond into the little plain, which was gradually filling with numberless men, women, and children, some on horseback, more on foot, but all gorgeously attired.

The sun was now getting high on the horizon, and the scene before me was becoming more and more animated and interesting. In the open space under my window, within the high enclosure of the Palace wall, men were busy picketing a dozen horses, evidently from the costliness of their trappings belonging to Chiefs and Woyvodes. While under a group of carob trees, in one corner of the enclosure, were spread several rugs on which were sitting cross-legged some of the owners of those quadrupeds, with their clumsy high-backed saddles behind them, passively smoking their chibouks while their attendants busied themselves preparing coffee.

Close on my right and just beyond the old Palace was the monastery, which, owing to the lateness of the hour the evening before, I had been unable to examine. Like the old Palace it is a sort of semi-fortified building, constructed more for safety than for comfort. On the right hand, as the observer looks at it in front, is the church, and next to it a tall, square, and very modern tower erected to the memory of the Vladika Peter, who is buried on the top of a somewhat difficult peak to the south-west of Cettigne and about six miles distant. The body of the monastery comes next, conspicuous by two rows of arched openings placed one over the other, and to the left of them again are the apartments of the Metropolitan. The whole is surrounded by a high wall, enclosing a primitive garden in which are located a large number of beehives, (upwards of a hundred). This wall is pierced by one large gateway, roofed over and secured by a massive door, in front of which is the circular-paved thrashing floor, so characteristic of the East. Every thing about the monastery is of the simplest and rudest construction, and the church is utterly unadorned, not from choice, I am assured, but from necessity.

In the monastery itself are many shady corners that would well repay a few hours spent in transferring them to one's portfolio, and just at the entrance inside the building, is a most extraordinary chasm in the rock, through which a piercing cold wind is constantly blowing, coldest when the weather is hottest; and so intense is the cold in that opening that it is used in Summer as an ice-house for the cooling of wine and the preserving of food. This phenomenon has never been satisfactorily explained, because it is not only that the cavity is cold, but a strong sharp cutting wind rushes out of it. I shall not attempt to account for it, but will leave it as a problem for sharper wits than mine to solve.

As the day waxed older the number of arrivals increased on the plain of Cettigne, till by eight o'clock in the morning it was dotted all over with picketed horses and temporary encampments of all sorts. Having had my simple breakfast of coffee, milk, and toast without butter—which is quite unknown there though cream is plentiful—but accompanied by a good plate of Albanian figs, I went out with Pero Pejovich, who came to fetch me to visit the fair. For this festival of St. Peter offers a double stimulus to the inhabitants of the surrounding country for a visit to Cettigne—a religious ceremony and a considerable fair. And it may be right for me to observe that this St. Peter, Patron of Montenegro, in whose honour this great gathering annually takes place, is a saint sui generis—indeed I was on the point of saying, when I detected and checked myself, that he was a saint extra palum ecclesiÆ; for he is neither St. Peter the Apostle, nor St. Peter the Martyr, nor St. Peter the Hermit, nor even St. Peter Igneus, who in a fit of zeal for the maintenance of the laws relating to the temporalities of the church, walked through the flames at Settimo in the eleventh century, to establish a case of simony against another Peter, one Peter of Pavia, then Bishop of Florence; nor any other canonical St. Peter I ever heard of, but simply St. Peter of Montenegro, the old Vladika Peter I., Prince-Bishop of Montenegro, not yet canonized by any ecclesiastical authority or other licensing body, as I was assured, but simply a saint in virtue of the will of the people, the Plebiscite of Montenegro, who insisted autoritate nostra on having him for their patron saint. He probably deserved to be canonized just as well, and perhaps better than many another saint, and if history tells truth, certainly better than his namesake, the so-called Peter the Martyr, for he wisely, mildly, and virtuously ruled in Montenegro for fifty-three years, viz., from 1777 to 1830, and the mountaineers are fully justified in reverencing his memory.

Passing my arm through that of Pero Pejovich, who seemed to know and be known of everyone, I began my expedition through a crowd of men, women and children, that every moment grew denser and denser. It was the most picturesque scene that could be imagined; all the neighbouring and surrounding countries had sent their contributions to the fair—Bosnians, Servians, Herzegovinians, Morlacks, Dalmatians, Albanians, Roumelians, Turks, Greeks, Croats, Italians, &c.; but conspicuous among them all for height of stature and nobility of countenance were the Montenegrins themselves. I think that, even independent of their costume, I could have always singled them out by their ruddy though sunburnt complexions, grey or blue eyes, and open honest countenances.

We went to a booth where arms were sold, and I was astounded at the number, variety, and richness of the weapons that were not only displayed, but were actually sold. They seemed to me dear. I should have much liked to purchase a handsome yataghan with silver hilt and in a sheath of repoussÉ silver. It was a very handsome weapon, and was made by a celebrated artificer of Skodra, but the price was sixteen Napoleons, which was more than I liked to give, and I suspect I could get one just like it in Tichborne Street for half the money.

From the armourer we went to a tailor's booth, where piles of costumes of different nationalities were exposed for sale; Morlack suits, Albanian suits, and Montenegrin suits, some of cloth and some of velvet, but all more or less embroidered in gold, and some literally overladen with plates of silver gilt. From thence we went to a Bosnian cafÉ of the most primitive kind; a couple of large blankets stretched over a few poles made a pretence of shelter, and on the ground were a few Turkish rugs on which we squatted, while a very ugly and dirty gipsy-looking woman was boiling coffee outside over a small fire of sticks contrived between two stones; nothing could be more primitive. So we sat and smoked, and in due time drank our coffee, which was simply abominable. I remember it was, though I was not minding it much, being occupied at the time with listening to a man performing on the national instrument, the guzla (pronounced goozla), whilst a girl was singing a low, monotonous, plaintive air.

The guzla is not an instrument which offers much scope to the performer; it is simply a very primitive fiddle, with only one string, played upon with an equally primitive bow; still it was surprising the amount of harmony the man contrived to scrape out of it. The song, as Pero Pejovich told me, was all about the old story, love and war, while the music, as is almost always the case among barbarous nations, was in a minor key.

Having paid for our coffee and thrown a few parÀs to the minstrels, we sallied forth again.

"And now, friend Pero," I said, "I should like to see some of your Montenegrin beauties. I have seen lots of fine men this morning; but as to the women, friend Pero, they are a caution. I never saw so many ugly ones congregated together."

My conductor smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and looked me in the face; he did not know exactly whether he ought not to be angry. However, his habitual good-humour prevailed, and with a loud laugh, he said:

"Avete ragione, son brutte come il Demonio. But wait, only wait till you see the Princess; she is a pure Montenegrina, and beautiful enough for the whole nation." And he spoke truth!

We now wandered away again towards a sort of native inn or khan, where he said we should get some good Vienna beer to wash away the taste of that abominable coffee. As we were passing some booths, where a variety of cheap Manchester goods were being displayed with some English Delft ware of the very commonest description, I was hailed with a "How d'ye do, stranger?" from a dapper, wide-awake-looking little man, who came out and spoke such excellent English that I took him to be a Briton or an American; but he was neither; he was a Dalmatian from Sebenico, who had been a great deal in England and America, and spoke English as fluently as his native Illyrian. I had a long chat with him, and asked him how trade was, and if he was doing well.

"No," he replied; "they don't know what trade is in these countries, they have too many restrictions; and yet," said he, "you won't go into the poorest cabin that you won't find one of these," handing me a wretched sample of English pottery with a vile brown pattern on it; "such is their preference for everything of English make."

Here Pero reminded me of the beer we had to drink, and that the time was drawing near when I was to present myself at the Palace for my audience. So we went off to the khan, where, having refreshed ourselves with some of Vienna's best, with a lump of virgin snow in it, I bid my guide good morning, and returned to the old Palace; when, having dressed myself, I crossed over to the new one to pay my respects to the Prince according to the orders received the day before.

Having penetrated through the outer gate, where the guards, I thought, looked rather scowlingly on my strange attire—viz., a dark blue frock coat, light grey trousers, and patent leather boots, the whole topped with my Indian quilted helmet—I ascended to the hall door by half a dozen steps, where I was met by the Prince's own henchman, a brother of the Commandant of the Grahovo. He was yet taller than his brother, and must have been at least six feet eight inches. I do not say this quite by guess-work, though I did not actually measure him; but on a subsequent occasion I did measure an immense Montenegrin, and found him six feet seven inches without heels, and the henchman was decidedly taller than he.

Well, pour revenir À nos moutons, I followed my Goliath into the hall, which is small and low, terminating in a double staircase, that bending round from each side joins again in the middle to form but one flight, at the top of which I found myself in a vestibule with two more guards on duty, and from that I was ushered into a fine large and well proportioned room, handsomely furnished in Viennese style, and hung all round with good portraits of the Prince's father, the celebrated Mirko, the Emperor and Empress of Russia, the Emperor and Empress of Austria, and many others.

Rooms open right and left off this. I was conducted into a smaller room to the right, where, after waiting for only a few seconds, the Prince came in. He addressed me in French, congratulating me on my courage for having ventured so far into his country, not on account of the difficulty of the road, "for all English are good mountaineers," but from the bad name the country has in Europe.

"Don't you know," said he, laughing, "que nous sommes des ogres, et que nous mangeons les enfans; however, you shall try how we cook them if you will dine here to-night at eight."

I thanked His Highness for his kindness, adding that I had never heard of their cannibal propensities, but in any case I should be happy to eat anything His Highness also would eat, and making my bow backed out of the saloon.

I then left my card for the Russian Consul, who was staying at the Palace, and afterwards went to pay the same compliment to Mr. Nico Matanovich, aide-de-camp to the Prince; after which I returned to my quarters, to convert into a luncheon the repast which otherwise would have served for a dinner, but for the hospitality of His Highness.