APRIL 89 



with their recognised duties. You may see evidence 

 in the street of any village of the status accorded to 

 women. When two male acquaintances meet, they 

 salute each other most elaborately, bowing low 

 and shaking hands; but if a man meets a woman 

 friend, he extends his hand for her to kiss. 

 Naturally, I think, the female part of the popula- 

 tion inherit as remarkable a share of good looks 

 as the men; but they marry very young, and 

 hard work soon wastes their figures and hardens 

 their features. 



Before marriage there seems to be plenty of pretty 

 love-making, all the prettier to onlookers because of 

 the graceful costumes of the young people. There 

 dwells in memory a charming group in a lonely little 

 osteria between Nigosh and Cettinje, where we stopped 

 for a cup of excellent coffee. The low-roofed stone 

 house consisted of but a single apartment containing 

 hardly any furniture except a kind of counter at one 

 end. The smoke from a wood fire in the centre of 

 the floor, before escaping through slits in the tiled 

 roof, had coloured all the ulterior with black and rich 

 brown. A couple of girls were in charge of the 

 establishment, one of whom was a charming dark-eyed 

 beauty with a bright and delicate complexion. Three 

 or four fine-looking young fellows, bristling with pistols 

 and knives, continued in lively conversation with them 

 while our repast was in preparation. The beauty, at 

 all events, was having a very good time ; a couple of 

 seasons in Paris could not have enhanced the witchery 

 of her manner, or taught her to distribute her smiles 



