struck by-the far higher standard of cleanliness to be found
here than in Cetinje.

The idea that the Montenegrin could teach civilization to the
Albanian was patently absurd.

Scutari was hotly excited over the bomb affair of Cetinje. The trial
of the prisoners, who had been in close confinement for nearly a
year, came on in May. Scutari, as a whole, expressed disgust for the
Montenegrins: "Nikita," folk said, "is our enemy. But he has done
well for Montenegro. If God had given us a Prince like him we should
have known how to value him." Petar Plamenatz left Scutari to defend
the prisoners, and his consular colleagues--including Lobatcheff
--foretold that all would receive heavy sentences, for they had no
great opinion of Petar's powers.

The trial proved highly sensational. The fact that a good deal of
evidence was given by a Bosnian journalist--one Nastitch--who was
proved later in the Frledjung trial to be a discreditable witness,
has led to the erroneous opinion in some quarters that the plot was
a bogus affair. But the plot was a very genuine one, as I learnt
beyond all doubt from my own observations, from details given me by
relatives of some of the men implicated, and other Montenegrin
sources. It was, in fact, the first round in the death-or-victory
struggle for supremacy between the Karageorgevitches and the
Petrovitches, the prize for which was to be the headship of Great
Serbia.

I had learnt already in 1905 the growing ill-feeling against Prince
Nikola, and had remarked that his most bitter critics had lived in
Russia or Serbia.

There was also talk of a widespread secret society, known as the
Club. A club in the Near East means something revolutionary. The
people of Andrijevitza, who told me later on in hushed whispers
about the "Clubashi," were amazed to hear that in London the police
permitted clubs to exist in the best thoroughfares. The Clubashi
went round the country spreading Great Serbian propaganda. Its
headquarters were in Belgrade, where it worked by inciting the
numerous Montenegrin students to revolution. The brother of one of
these students, and the son of one of the arrested men, both gave me
details. The students met in an eating-house at Belgrade, since
notorious, "At the sign of the Green Garland" (Zelenom Vjencu).
Great Serbia could not have two heads. The Petrovitches were
therefore to be rendered impotent. All the powder and ammunition
magazines of Montenegro were to be simultan