80 MONTENEGRO 



grins, encouraged by Peter the Great, made a counter- 

 inroad upon Turkish territory. Sixty thousand Turks 

 again swarmed across the frontier, but the moun- 

 taineers, numbering only eight thousand fighting men, 

 sent them home with the loss of eighty-six standards. 

 And so history kept on repeating itself all throughout 

 the eighteenth century. Time after time the Turks 

 returned in force that should have been overwhelming 

 (their army numbered 120,000 in 1714); they occupied 

 the capital and destroyed the villages, but invariably 

 they paid dearly for a triumph which produced so 

 little spoil, and, in retiring, they generally left half 

 their number behind. 



Peter n., of the family of Petrovich, who succeeded 

 to the sovereignty in 1830, was the last Vladika or 

 Archbishop the last, that is, to rule the country in 

 virtue of his ecclesiastical office. An enlightened 

 reformer, he perceived that internal harmony was the 

 only chance for his country, and exerted himself with 

 singular success to put an end to the blood-feuds, and 

 the almost inveterate system of private vendetta, which 

 had been its curse for centuries. 



No easy matter this, but the Vladika Peter was no 

 ordinary man. Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, who visited 

 him in 1847, described him as the very ideal of a 

 warlike chief, six feet eight inches in height, an adept 

 in war, and the spiritual father of his people. ' Though 

 it may appear,' says he, 'a singular accomplishment 

 for a bishop to hit with a rifle a lemon thrown into 

 the air by one of his attendants, this feat of the 

 Vladika adds to the confidence he enjoys among his 



