2I0XTENEGR0. 



99 



his Venetian wife to go back into the habitable 

 world ; not of Islam, however, but at Venice. 

 Worse than this, his younger brother Stephen 

 had gone with a band of companions to Constan- 

 tinople, and proposed to Bajazet II. the betrayal 

 of his country. He, and those whom he took 

 with him, were required to turn Mohammedans, 

 and they did it. None could be so fit, as traitors, 

 to be renegades. They then set out with an Ot- 

 toman force for the work of conquest. They 

 were met by George, and utterly defeated. But 

 these victors, the men of the printing-press as 

 well as of the sword, were no savages by nature, 

 only afterward when the Turks in time made them 

 so. They took back their renegade fellow-coun- 

 trymen into Montenegro, and allowed them the 

 free exercise of their religion. 1 On the retirement 

 of George, which seems only to have become final 

 in 1516, 2 the departing prince made over the sov- 

 ereign power to the metropolitan. And now be- 

 gan, and lasted for three hundred and thirty-six 

 years, an ecclesiastical government in miniature 

 over laymen, far more noble than that of the 

 popes in its origin and purer in its exercise, as 

 well as in some respects not less remarkable. 



The epithet I have last used may raise a 

 smile. But the greatness of human action, and 

 that of human character, do not principally depend 

 on the dimensions of the stage where they are 

 exhibited. In the fifth century, and before the 

 temporal power arose, there was a Leo as truly 

 great as any of the famous mediaeval pontiffs. 

 The traveler may stand upon the rock of Corinth, 

 and look, across and along the gulf, to the Acrop- 

 olis of Athens, and may remember, with advan- 

 tage no less than with wonder, that these little 

 states, of parochial extension, were they that 

 shook the world of their own day, and that have 

 instructed all posterity. But the Basilcvs, whom 

 Greece had to keep at arm's-length, had his seat 

 afar ; and, even for those within his habitual 

 reach, was no grinding tyrant. Montenegro 

 fought with a valor that rivaled, if it did not 

 surpass, that of Thermopylae and Marathon ; with 

 numbers and resources far inferior, against a foe 

 braver and far more terrible. A long series of 

 about twenty prelates, like Moses, or Joshua, or 

 Barak, or the son of Jesse, taught in the sanct- 

 uary, presided in the council, and fought in the 

 front of the battle. There were among them 

 many who were admirable statesmen. These were 

 especially of the Nicgush family, which came in 

 the year 1687 to the permanent possession of 

 power : a power so little begirt with the conve- 



1 F. and W., p. 19. ■■> Goptchevitch, p 6. 



niences of life, and so well weighted with respon- 

 sibility and care, that in the free air of these moun- 

 tains it was never coveted, and never abused. 



Under the fourteen Vladikas, who had ruled 

 for one hundred and seventy years before this 

 epoch, the people of Montenegro not only lived 

 sword in hand, for this they have since done and 

 still do, but nourished in their bosom an enemy 

 more deadly, say the historians, 1 than the pashas 

 and their armies. Not only were they ever liable 

 to the defection of such as had not the redun- 

 dant manhood required in order to bear the 

 strain of their hard and ever-threatened exist- 

 ence, but the renegades on the banks of the 

 Rieka, whom they had generouslv taken back, 

 maintained disloyally relations with the Porte, 

 and were ever ready to bring its war-galleys by 

 the river into the interior of the country. At 

 last the measure of patience was exhausted. 

 Danilo, the first Vladika of the Xiegush dynasty, 

 had been invited, under an oath of safe-conduct 

 from the Pasha of Scutari, to descend into the 

 plain of Zeta, among the homes of his ancestors, 

 for the purpose of consecrating a church. While 

 engaged on this work, he was seized, imprisoned, 

 and cruelly tortured. 2 At last he was released 

 on a ransom of 3,000 ducats, a sum which the 

 hillsmen were only enabled to make up by bor- 

 rowing in Herzegovina. It was felt that the 

 time had arrived for a decisive issue ; and we 

 come now to a deed of blood which shows that 

 for those human beings with whom the Turk 

 forced himself into contact, and who refused to 

 betray their faith, there were no alternatives but 

 two : if not savages they must be slaves, if not 

 slaves they must come near to being savages. 



It was determined to slay by night every one 

 of the renegades, except such as were willing to 

 return to the faith of their fathers. The year 

 was 1702, and the night chosen was that which 

 divided Christmas-eve from Christmas day. The 

 scale was not large, but the operation was terri- 

 ble ; and the narrative, contained in an old Folks- 

 lied, shows that it was done under that high re- 

 ligious exaltation which recalls the fiery gloom 

 of the " Agamemnon," and the sanguinary epi- 

 sodes of the Old Testament : 



" The hallowed eve draws onward. The broth- 

 ers Martinovitch kindle their consecrated torches. 

 They pray fervently to the new-born God. Each 

 drains a cup of wine, and seizing the sacred torches, 

 they rush forth into the darkness. Wherever 

 there was a Turk, there came the five avengers. 

 They that would not be baptized were hewed down 

 » i\ and W., p. 21. 2 F. and W., p. 22. G., p. 8. 



