GREECE AND .MOXTEXEGRO 



28: 



vice in gold, while the men proclaim their 

 fealty to Nicholas I by ornamenting their 

 caps with his cipher in Cyrillic characters 

 surrounded by five semicircular rows of 

 gold braid to typify the five centuries of 

 Montenegrin independence. 1 can fore- 

 see, in 1984. unless the fashions in the 

 Black Mountain have meantime changed, 

 that a hatter's monopoly in Montenegro 

 will be well worth having. 



Montenegrins are nearly all giants and 

 they stride as though each wore seven- 

 league boots. Indeed, when a Monte- 

 negrin wants to go anywhere in a hurry 

 he walks, not using the splendid roads 

 with which his mountains are threaded, 

 but taking the old short cuts among the 

 hills. 



A HUMAN TELEGRAM 



Last spring, when Danilo the Crown 

 Prince was hurriedly despatched to Paris 

 to seek the aid of his brother-in-law, the 

 Grand Duke Nicholas, for the conflict 

 which has since ensued, an important 

 document was found to have been left 

 behind, and no automobile was at hand 

 to send with it to Cattaro. 



It was suggested to the King that one 

 Michel, a runner of repute, was about the 

 palace, and that perhaps he could over- 

 take the Prince before his steamer had 

 sailed. So the paper was given to Michel, 

 and the King, who was giving a state 

 luncheon that day, went to the dining- 

 room. Passing through the corridor to 

 his study after the meal, the King saw 

 Michel sitting there and upbraided him 

 for not having gone to Cattaro. "I have 

 just come back, Gospodar," answered 

 Michel. "Ah. then !" exclaimed the King, 

 "you are Michel the Telegram." And 

 Michel the Telegram he now is in ^lonte- 

 negrin speech. 



These Montenegrins are a race of war- 

 riors, and for years they have sat about 

 in the coffee-houses bemoaning their lot. 

 "What a life for a man !" they have said. 

 "Thirty years without a war ; nothing for 

 a man to do." 



But there seems to be always plenty 

 for the women to do, and the women of 

 Montenegro, so alert and graceful in their 

 youth, soon lose their good looks and be- 

 come bent and bowed and ugly ; for — but 



I will give it in the language of General 

 Martinovitch, jtresident of the council of 

 ministers, minister for foreign aftairs, 

 and minister of war, and commander of 

 the southern column of the .Montenegrin 

 army which has been operating against 

 v'^cutari. Martinovitch was not always 

 the Poo Bah that he now is, but at the 

 time of which I speak he was minister of 

 war and had arranged a review of troops 

 in honor of the King of Italy, who was 

 visiting his father-in-law. 



WOMEN THE PRODUCERS 



I dined at the palace that night and 

 took occasion to compliment the minister 

 on the appearance of the soldiers. I asked 

 how many were his effective strength and 

 he said that he could put 50,000 men in 

 the field. I expressed incredulity and 

 said that that number would be one-fifth 

 of all the people in the kingdom — more, 

 I added, than could be spared from the 

 productive pursuits. "Productive pur- 

 suits, indeed !" cried Martinovitch. "Don't 

 you know that the women do all the work 

 up here anyway?" 



And yet the Montenegrin is a man of 

 capacity and when taken from his belli- 

 cose environment of his mountain home 

 becomes one of the best of workers. 



In our own Xorthwest there have been 

 many of them in the mines where they 

 toil industriously as against that day 

 when, with the 10.000 crowns which will 

 make them rich, they may return to their 

 beloved Black Mountain. 



His 500 years of freedom have given 

 the ^Montenegrin a fine sense of order, 

 and it is a current saying along the Dal- 

 matian coast that when a Montenegrin 

 applying for a job is asked what he can 

 do he invariably answers, "Superintend." 



The externals of Montenegrin life are 

 simple. In Cetinje there are but two 

 buildings of three stories, and neither of 

 them is the ])alace ; they are the legations 

 of Austria and Russia, whose rivalry in 

 the X^ear East extends, it would seem, 

 even to the housing of their representa- 

 tives. 



The palace is an unpretentious struc- 

 ture, built some 60 years ago. and, though 

 the famous ])lane tree before its door 

 beneath which King Nicholas for so many 



