and he dodged with
dignity and skill the attempts of American snapshotters to corner
him and say: "How do, Prince!"

A vivid picture remains in my mind of the Royal Family as it filed
out of church on the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin. The
Prince, heavy-built, imposing, gorgeous; his hair iron grey,
ruddy-faced, hook-nosed, keen-eyed. Danilo, his heir, crimped, oiled
and self-conscious, in no respect a chip of the old block, who had
married the previous year, Jutta, daughter of the Grand Duke of
Mecklenburg Strelitz, who, on her reception into the Orthodox
Church, took the name of Militza. Montenegro was still excited about
the wedding. She looked dazzlingly fair among her dark "in-laws." Old
Princess Milena came, stately and handsome, her hair, still black,
crowning her head with a huge plait. Prince Mirko, the second son,
was still a slim and good looking youth. Petar, the youngest, a mere
child, mounted a little white pony and galloped past in the full
dress of an officer, reining up and saluting with a tiny sword as he
passed his father. The crowd roared applause. It was all more like a
fairy tale than real life. But the black coated Ministers
Plenipotentiary were all quite real.

From Cetinje we went to Podgoritza where for the first time I saw
Albanians. Podgoritza was full of them, all in national dress, for
Montenegro had as yet done little towards suppressing this. Nor in
this first visit did I go further inland.

But I had found "the land where I could have a complete change"; had
learnt, too, of the Great Serbian Idea; had had the meaning of the
Montenegrin cap explained to me; and been told how the reconstruction
of the Great Serb Empire of the Middle Ages was what Montenegro
lived for. Also that the first step in that direction must be the
taking of the Sanjak of Novibazar, which had been formed as a
barrier between the two branches of the Serb race by the Powers at
the Berlin Congress. To me it sounded then fantastic--operatic. I
had yet to learn that the opera bouffe of the Balkans is written in
blood and that those who are dead when the curtain falls, never come
to life again.

So much for Montenegro. We returned after a run to Trebinje,
Serajevo and Mostar, to the Dalmatian coast and Trieste.

First impressions are vivid. There is a certain interest in the fact
that I recorded Spalato in my diary as the first Slav town on our
way south from Trieste and that my letter thence was dated Splj