erfully, "this
would be the richest land in Europe." The population, in truth, was
probably better off in Turkish times, when it lived by sheep-stealing
and raiding caravans. Montenegro has never been self-supporting, and
since frontier raids were stopped the chief trade of the people had
been smuggling tobacco and coffee into Austria. Krsto and his
relative were keen smugglers, and knew every nook in the Bocche di
Cattaro. Now, in return for various works that she was to do, Italy
had been given the tobacco monopoly and a duty was imposed.
Montenegro was furious. The vigilance of the Austrian police had
made it hard enough to earn a living before. This made this worse.
Death to the Italians! God slay Austria! And Russia actually looking
on and doing nothing.

We arrived one evening at Crkvitza, near the Austrian frontier. A
dree hole; a han filthy beyond all words; no horse fodder, the
Kapetan absent and his secretary drunk; a lonely schoolhouse to
which some fifty children descended daily from the surrounding
mountains. To spare me the horrors of the han, the schoolmaster
kindly offered to put me up. But even his house swarmed with bugs
and ticks. I rose very early next morning, saddled and packed, and
was about to flee from the place, when the secretary came
triumphantly waving a telegram and told me I was under arrest. The
drink-fuddled creature, thinking to "cut a dash" during his chief's
absence, had wired to the police at Nikshitch, "A man dressed as a
woman has come from across the Austrian frontier." The reply said,
"Detain him till further orders." The telegraph station was eight
hours' march distant, but he had sent some one in haste on
horseback. There was a terrible row. The populace was on my side. My
British passport was, of course, useless. Krsto thought his honour
impugned, and I feared he would shoot. Might I return under armed
escort to the village of the telegraph office where they knew me?
No. All I was allowed to do was to send a man on foot with a
telegram for the Minister for Foreign Affairs and await the reply.
So I was interned for nearly twenty-four hours in the han and spent
the night in a filthy hole with a man, a boy, a woman, a quantity of
pigeons, and swarms of lice and bugs. When the reply came from
Voyvoda Gavro saying I was free to go where I pleased, the secretary
was flabbergasted. It sobered him, and he was afraid of what he had
done. I went on to Vuchidol as I had promised, thoug