APRIL 91 



to the other. Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson gives a wood- 

 cut of this tower as he saw it in 1847, with twenty 

 heads stuck on poles above the battlements, the ground 

 all around being strewn with fragments of others which 

 had fallen to pieces. 1 



Thus all the dwellings in Montenegro are devoid of 

 architectural or antiquarian interest. Cettinje is but a 

 rambling, desultory collection of humble buildings ; the 

 Prince's palace no more than a detached villa, abutt- 

 ing on the street, with a tiny park behind it, naively 

 planted with young spruce and Aleppo pines. Even 

 the country villages lack the romantic beauty of site 

 which gives such a charm to Italian scenery. The 

 Montenegrin ever scorned the security of fortified hill- 

 tops and steep approach. He builds his modest home 

 on the most convenient spot, without regard to the 

 positions occupied by his neighbours. Provision of 

 fortified places never was, nor is it now, part of the 

 scheme of national defence. Were the Turk once more 

 to cross the frontier, he would find the little highland 

 nation as faithful as ever to its habit of armed vigilance 

 and its traditional strategy. The old long-barrelled, 

 crutch-stocked firelocks and silver-mounted pistols may 

 have found their way into curiosity shops ; but, instead 

 of these, the Prince has equipped his people with 

 modern magazine rifles and heavy revolvers. He has 

 but to issue summons by bale-fire and bugle, flashing 

 and shrilling from summit to summit, and twenty 

 thousand splendid infantry would be at the fixed 

 muster-places within a couple of hours. Every house 



1 Wilkinson's Dalmatia and Montenegro, vol. i. p. 512. 



