f the track we rode
upon, telling me the old Montenegrin legend "that at the Creation, the
bag which held the stones to be distributed over the earth, burst, and
let them all fall on the Black Mountain."

The road certainly was as bad as possible; but my mule advanced
sturdily, by jumps and jerks, till we reached the top of the pass.
There we were, I am afraid to pay how many hundred feet above the sea,
but overhanging it so completely that a pebble dropped from one's hand
fell into the waves. The Ragusan steamer looked like a nutshell from
our eminence.

The ascent had occupied two hours and a half; it took us three more to
reach our halting-place, Cetigna, Spira's home. A gentle descent led to
the village, and in the distance shimmered a white shroud-like mist,
which Spira told me covered the lake of Scutari. Somewhere in that
direction Laurie must be lying, I knew; and the certainty doubled my
impatience to get to him. Old Giuro now raised his voice to the
shrillest key imaginable, and, in a way peculiar to these mountaineers,
who talk to each other from hill tops half a mile asunder, announced
that "our lady" was approaching. Whereupon a great hubbub arose; dogs
barked, and feminine voices responded eagerly. Two or three muskets
were presently discharged, and the twang of the balls as they passed
near gave my nerves rather an unpleasant shock. I did not then know
that the Black Mountaineers always receive their friends thus; in this
instance female hands had loaded and fired, the men being almost all
away fighting. A band of brightly-clad women, not less than forty in
number, now came to meet me, their children frolicking round them, and
some boys playing, not very discordantly, the one-stringed fiddle of the
country. At their head walked a grey-haired matron, whom Spira pointed
out as her grandmother, and who carried on her shoulder Nilo, looking
lovely in a "strucca" striped olive-green and mulberry-red. The dear
little fellow knew me at once, and almost sprang to my arms, whereupon
the good housewives of Cetigna uttered a screech of delight, closed
round me and kissed my cloak, hands, and even lips with a fervour I
could have dispensed with.

Mr Popham, much amused with these greetings, pushed forward to the
little inn of the place to order supper. I meanwhile yielded to Spira's
urgent wish, and turned into her cottage to be introduced to the
remaining members of her family. You will smile, childre