66 BIRD-HUNTING 



help. One never knows, however, what is to befall 

 one ; and I was destined to see a good deal of Albania 

 and the Albanians before I had finished my quest. 



My first landing on Montenegrin soil was a very 

 weird experience. Owing to a strong sirocco 

 wind, the steamer was unable to put into Dulcigno 

 itself, but was obliged to use an alternative landing- 

 place behind the hills which encircle the town, called 

 Val de Noche, always used when this particular 

 wind prevails. Here I was landed, the only 

 passenger, sitting on a tub in a large boat full of 

 cargo. On arrival at the pebbly beach at the end 

 of the inlet, where one solitary building was the 

 only sign of human habitation, I was received 

 by a band of half-naked savages, to all appearance, 

 capering in and out of the surf preparing to land 

 the cargo. One of these, as black as any negro, 

 landed me on his back. On the steamer I had just 

 left nobody had thought it necessary to tell me that 

 this was not Dulcigno itself, so that I found myself 

 alone with these men unable to speak a single word 

 which they could understand or to understand any 

 word of theirs, and without the faintest notion 

 where Dulcigno was situated, how far it was, or 

 how to reach it. Above all, I did not know then, 

 as I found out later, that a stranger in Montenegro, 

 more especially an Englishman, is perfectly safe, 

 that theft and robbery or brigandage is absolutely 



