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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



there set up that long line of the Vladikas 

 which did not end until well into the last 

 century. 



There for 500 years they have main- 

 tained freedom, which "of old has sat 

 upon the heights" ; and, with sufferings 

 indescribable, with courage illimitable, 

 won from the great English apostle of 

 Balkan freedom those words of undying 

 praise, in which he gave it as his "de- 

 liberate opinion" that "the traditions of 

 Montenegro exceed in glory those of 

 Marathon and Thermopylae and all the 

 war traditions of the world" ; and in- 

 spired in Tennyson what he regarded as 

 the finest of his sonnets, inscribed to the 



" . . . smallest among peoples ! rough rock- 

 throne 

 Of freedom ! warriors beating back the swarm 

 Of Turkish Islam for 500 years, 

 Great Cernagora ! never since thine own 

 Black ridges drew the cloud and broke the 



storm 

 Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers." 



Ascending the marvelous zigzag road 

 which leads up from Cattaro, one ap- 

 proaches the stern and gloomy defile 

 which forms the portal to this historic 

 stronghold of freedom in the Balkans. 



A wonde;rpul road 



Splendid engineering is this road. Built 

 for post and military uses, it clings to the 

 face of the sheer rock and weaves back 

 and forth in a multitude of "hairpin 

 curves" which the chauffeurs of the post 

 automobile treat with that contempt 

 which familiarity alone can breed. 



Up and ever up, one goes. Below 

 stand forth the dusky cliffs, which jut 

 into the southern fiord; nestling beneath 

 them, and hemmed in with the massive 

 battlements of those giants of an earlier 

 day who stretched out the lion of St. 

 Mark's from the Lido to the Bosporus, 

 lies Cattaro — Italian in appearance, Aus- 

 trian in allegiance, but Serb in feeling, 

 its heart ever in the Highlands. Beyond 

 smiles the Adriatic, and above tower the 

 gaunt gray rocks, against which the road 

 seems a veritable ladder laid upon a wall. 



Threading at last a narrow defile, 

 whose walls are pierced with caves 

 where lurk the fables of the moun- 

 taineers, and crossing a pass too often 

 swathed in clouds, one turns a corner 



and comes face to face with the ancient 

 realm of the Vladikas. 



The smile of the soft blue sea lies be- 

 hind, and before stretches a wild, turbu- 

 lent ocean of rock, rising and sinking in 

 angry gray waves flecked with white, 

 which seem to leap and rage and battle 

 together like a sea lashed by a storm. 

 Stones, rocks, and crags, nothing else ; 

 not a tree, not a blade of grass ; scarcely 

 even a tuft of brushwood to relieve the 

 dreary scene of desolation. 



At the creation, so runs the Monte- 

 negrin legend, an angel was sent forth 

 to pick up the superfluous stones on the 

 earth's surface. He placed them in a 

 bag, which burst as he was flying over 

 Cernagora — and certainly the landscape 

 bears out the tale. 



And yet the scene cannot be said to 

 lack charm— the charm of majesty al- 

 ways to be found among the hills. And 

 while Cernagora at first sight — gaunt, 

 gray, and drear, an arid wilderness of 

 bare rock — tells in one blow of the suf- 

 ferings of centuries, pity does not long 

 endure ; it passes almost at once to praise 

 for a people who have preferred liberty 

 in this desolation to slavery in fat lands. 



THi; CRADLE OE THE ROYAL HOUSE 



From the Austrian border to Cetinje 

 one encounters but one village, Niegush, 

 nestling in a little cleft in the hills and 

 claiming attention as the cradle of the 

 Petrovich dynasty, which for more than 

 two centuries has ruled the destinies of 

 the land. Here was born not only Da- 

 nilo I, progenitor of the line, but most 

 of his successors, including the present 

 king, whose tiny villa is the show-place 

 of the town. 



Founded more than four hundred 

 years ago by a band of refugees from 

 the Herzegovina, Niegush cherishes the 

 curious legend that one of its sons, wan- 

 dering even farther afield, found him- 

 self one day in Abyssinia, where he be- 

 came possessed of power and trans- 

 mitted to his successors the title of 

 Negus, in memory of his Montenegrin 

 birthplace. 



Here we halt for the customs exam- 

 ination — a formality which is soon over, 

 even for those who do not possess a 



