The Voivoda's invitation—Concerning an episode on our ride to Velika—The fugitive from a blood-feud and his story—We arrive at Velika—The men of Velika—The ménu—Border jurisdiction—A shooting-match—The Kom—Pleasant evenings—A young philosopher—Sunset.
One evening the Voivoda invited us to ride with him on an official visit to Velika, an offer which we eagerly accepted.
Velika is a narrow strip of Montenegrin territory lying practically in Albania, or rather Gusinje, for the men of Gusinje owe and give no allegiance. Velika is not cut off from Montenegro, but the mountain connecting it with, so to speak, the mainland is steep and almost inaccessible, besides entailing a long and weary détour of many hours. Therefore our path to-day would lead us across an intervening strip of Gusinje territory.
Next morning at an early hour saw us in our saddles, the Voivoda having first ascertained that our arms were in good order. "Not that there is any danger," he said. "But we never know if anything may happen, and it is well just to be prepared."
Besides the Voivoda, we were accompanied by his adjutant, a lieutenant in the standing army, who had studied in Italy, and an escort of about six men, armed with modern magazine rifles. Later on, this escort was materially increased.
About three hours' ride up the magnificent valley of the Lim brought us to a khan, and here we found another half-dozen men awaiting us, and another officer. These preparations seemed rather formidable for a journey of about an hour through a friendly country, but we knew already the uncertainty of the Albanian temper, and did not wonder.
As we led our horses across a rickety wooden bridge, the Voivoda called to us and said we were now about to enter Albania, and spoke of the temporary armed alliance between England and Montenegro, which remark seemed to please him greatly. A great cairn of stones marked the border, and the adjutant reined in his horse, for we were going to ride in single file, to tell us that it would be better to unsling our carbines. "It looked better," he said. Many Albanians could be seen working peacefully in their fields, and huts dotted the mountain-sides. It was a scene of agricultural peace, enhanced by magnificent scenery.
Suddenly, at some distance, two rifle-shots were distinctly heard, and the calm of the picture was as rudely and suddenly disturbed as if an earthquake had happened. The peaceful peasants stooped, throwing away the spade, and in exchange each had a Martini rifle in his hand, which he rapidly loaded from the bandolier of cartridges round his waist. Men rushed out of the slumbering cottages, and a great shouting commenced.
"It is nothing," said the adjutant. "They become excited like this very often."
But I noticed our escort closing in, and every man's face wore a look of great interest. Still we rode on, just as if nothing unusual were happening.
To our left the hill ascended to a great height, and about one-third of the way up a belt of trees commenced, stretching to the top. Towards this wood ran hundreds of Albanians, and disappeared from view. I confess that I had a most uncomfortable feeling that I was being covered by many unseen rifles. We should have stood a poor chance had they begun firing at us, for there was practically no cover near.
But our pace, that of a smart walk, neither increased nor decreased, and it ill became me to show my innermost feelings to these fearless mountaineers who so evidently considered this sudden excitement a most everyday occurrence.
The noise of the shouting, however, continued, and was answered by men in all directions. It was a regular pandemonium of yelling fiends, for the Albanians are not beautiful to look upon.
Suddenly a man appeared from some bushes close to our little party and headed straight for us, running like a deer.
He had barely reached us and seized my stirrup leather, on which he hung, panting heavily, when from the woods emerged a pursuing crowd, brandishing their rifles as they ran. Within a few minutes we were surrounded by about a hundred and fifty Albanians, whose gestures were not to be misunderstood.
They wanted to kill the man at my stirrup, who looked beseechingly up to me for protection. Why he selected me I have no idea, and I did not relish the compliment at all. Our escort formed a meagre ring around us, and we were forced to halt.
"Are they going to shoot?" I asked the adjutant, who was next to me, in excusable excitement, "because if so, I would like to dismount."
It was not a pleasant feeling, perched up on a horse within fifty yards of reputed good marksmen.
"Oh no," answered the officer, "they only want the man, not you."
"Still, you are not going to hand back the man, are you?" I asked in Italian.
"We must hear what the Voivoda says," said the adjutant, shrugging his shoulders.
I looked at the man, while an excited conversation was carried on by our party and the Albanians, and found him a pleasant-looking young man; his breath was coming in great gasps from his heaving breast, but otherwise he showed no traces of excitement.
"Save me," he said in broken Serb. "They fired at me as I was working in my field. I am blood-guilty."
All this time his pursuers were evidently debating if our lives must be sacrificed as well, for to shoot the man meant killing some of us at any rate.
At this juncture several Albanians came to us and ranged themselves on our side, and amidst still greater excitement we began again moving forward.
"It is all right," laughed the adjutant, who throughout preserved the same air of utter indifference. "They daren't shoot, the cowards, and we shall take him to Velika with us, and then decide what to do with him."
"You don't seem to mind this sort of thing much," I said, "but for a beginner like myself it appears rather nervous work."
"Oh no," he answered. "I live here, and have been in many border fights. They always make a noise like that, and they very seldom shoot at big people."
"But if they do?" I queried.
"Oh, well, we must all die once," he laughed.
In another half-hour we passed the second landmark, and were informed we were again in Montenegrin territory. Our friendly Albanians left us, and rifles were more carelessly carried.
"What hast thou done?" I asked the fugitive at my stirrup. "Tell me thy story."
"I am a doomed man; my days are numbered," he said, smiling, and rolling a cigarette. "But life is sweet, and I wish to live a little longer."
Strange, this man who was at death's door barely an hour ago, was smiling and smoking happily as he walked by my side. He had a most fascinating smile and laughing eyes, and now that the immediate danger was over he had forgotten it.
"Some months ago in my village, many hours from here, a woman fell in love with me," he said. "She was beautiful and I loved her too, but not so much as she loved me, for I feared her. She hated her husband, who beat her. One evening she came to me when her husband was away and told me that she loved me and that we would fly together. 'I love thee as I hate my husband, and see, if thou wilt not do this, I will break my spinning-wheel before thee.' And I trembled, for now I knew that my life was doomed. For should I not take her, she must kill me as sure as there is a God in heaven, and if I fled with her, her husband and his relations would surely track me down. And she was very beautiful, and we must all die. So we fled here that same night. What could I do?" he asked, smiling again.
VELIKA
"But why stay here?" I asked.
"Because," he answered, "my brothers live here and I must stay here till I die. If I am not to be found, then my brothers must die for me. It will not last long, for there are many bags of money on my head. My enemy is a rich man."
"But," he went on, "wilt thou ask the Voivoda, who is a good man, to give me a magazine rifle and some cartridges? See my rifle, it is old, and I have but five cartridges left. For thee he will do it, and so I can die fighting a good fight, and perhaps can kill two or three of my enemies first. To-day I have wounded one."
"I will ask the Voivoda," I replied, "though I doubt if I have any influence with him. Ask him thyself."
I did ask the Voivoda, but he said the thing was impossible. He had no rifles to give away. But our fugitive continued his request at intervals for the rest of the time that he was with us.
At Velika, a collection of half a dozen houses, very charmingly situated in a valley, we halted and rested for many hours while the Voivoda transacted business and received reports from a very young officer who held this dangerous command. We commented on his youth, and were told that his father, recently dead, had held the position, and that he had inherited it. "Besides," continued our informant, "he is quite up to his work."
As we dismounted, our escort unloaded their rifles, the snapping of locks and breeches bringing the excitement of the last hour or two vividly back to our memory.
The men of Velika were fierce-looking and of great stature. Rifle, handjar, and revolver were carried by all. Our escort were equally fine men, that fearless look so characteristic of the Montenegrin race, being accentuated here. Yet the faces are pleasing, honest, and good-tempered. There is to be found in the world no more splendid specimens of fighting humanity than the Montenegrin borderer. Brave, reckless to a fault, with absolutely no fear of death, inured to every hardship, and able to live and thrive on the barest fare, they are typical of the old Viking, chivalrous and courteous, with the purest blood of the Balkans flowing in their veins.
Our meal was sumptuous. Fish shot in the river by one of our escort on the way, a bowl of ground maize cooked in oil, raw ham, eggs, bread, cheese and onions, the whole washed down in draughts of fiery spirits. Not a feast, I grant you, in an epicurean sense, but highly acceptable in Montenegro. We were waited upon by two women, who were always most careful to leave the room backwards. Our meal was very jolly, and at its conclusion we took corners in the room and slept. About three p.m. we started again for home, taking the fugitive with us.
He had decided to return to his farm, but as we neared the Gusinje strip of land where he lived the extreme nervous tension of the morning returned to him. Poor devil, it would be difficult to forget the sharp sighs which burst from him, when his control over himself left him for a moment, but it was with a smile and a cigarette between his lips that he left us, bounding over the ground like a deer.
In all probability he is dead by now.
In Gusinje we made a lengthy halt, while the Voivoda settled several boundary disputes between the inhabitants, our escort taking up commanding positions all round us and keeping a very sharp look-out.
It would seem that the Voivoda has right of jurisdiction in this strip of land, though how we were unable to elicit. At any rate Albanians came and stated their cases, bringing witnesses, and amongst great noise the Voivoda gave his judgments, which seemed to be final.
On re-entering Montenegro we dismounted on the bank of the River Lim; the Voivoda pointed out a stone on the opposite side about three hundred yards distance, and taking a rifle he fired at it. In a few seconds we were all shooting at it in turn, the Voivoda acting as umpire with the aid of my field-glasses. It seemed a risky thing to do in a country so easily alarmed, but no rapid firing was allowed.
The shooting was moderately good.
As the last shot had been fired, and some of us already mounted, a corporal from Andrijevica came up at a trot, bringing a telegram for the adjutant. It contained the notification of his promotion to a captain.
This led to a salvo of revolver-shots and cheers, and we proceeded on our way.
At the first khan (Morina) we stopped for coffee, and found two or three hundred men assembled under the command of the district captain. Had anything happened to us, revenge would have come very quickly. Here our additional escort left us, and our long ride home was commenced, which ended in the dark.
It was a nasty ride, for both P. and Stephan's horses came down repeatedly, and the path was constantly about two hundred feet above the Lim. It requires care in the daytime, but in the uncertain light of evening it was distinctly dangerous. Both horses were done up, and Stephan lost his temper,and we saw him in his true colours, as he kicked and beat his unlucky animal. It was not till I took very energetic measures that he would stop, which amused the Voivoda immensely.
MORINA
THE FUGITIVE OF VELIKA
THE VASOJEYIĆKI KOM
ALBANIANS AND MONTENEGRINS AT ANDRIJEVIĆA
P.'s horse was ill—in fact, it was his last journey. A few days afterwards he died from inflammation of the lungs, contracted at Velika that day.
We went for a few days' shooting on the Vasojevićki Kom, and were handed over by the Voivoda to one called Vaso, a rich peasant of the district. He swore to be answerable for our safety, with his head and all that was his, and we lived with him for many days on the side of the mighty mountain.
The shooting was not good, however; it was not the season, but otherwise our stay was very pleasant. The grassy plateau was about five thousand feet high and bitterly cold at night; below us, on either side, stretched great beech forests, and the Kom rose abruptly before us.
Our hut was large and roomy, but draughty to an extreme. At night the icy wind whistled through its crevices, and we had to bury our heads in blankets. The whole family shared it with us, and in one corner stood an unwearied calf, too tender to brave the cold of the outside.
Those evenings which we spent round the fire are impossible to describe adequately. Tired from a long day's tramping and sliding through the forests, often wet to the skin from heavy showers, the peace and warmth of that camp fire were delightful.
The shepherds came from far and near, and asked us many questions: if we carried an apparatus for making banknotes (this is not meant as an insult, but a common belief that Europeans can fabricate their paper-money at will—a belief of which we had sadly to disillusionise them); if our glasses could show us Belgrade, and so on—questions sometimes so difficult to answer that we had to give them up. Then they would talk of themselves; the older men would tell of past deeds, of fighting and bloodshed, and the fitful glow of the fire would light up their animated faces and picturesque costumes.
Great simple children they were, unknown in the art of lying, and yet they repeat stories of bygone battles and slaughter, which they have heard and believed, as gospel truth. Like Esau, with the smell of the field upon them, they love to listen, too, to stories of unknown lands, where the houses are even larger and finer than those of Cetinje or Podgorica, which towns many even have not seen; but too much of the outside world one cannot tell them, for then they look hurt at being deemed so childish. They are curious, too, as are all children, and love to examine the clothes which we strange foreign creatures wear. There they sit on the hard earthen floor, as happy and contented as princes, nay, more so, for they have no cares to trouble them. They proffer us their tobacco tins, accepting ours in return, touching their caps as they do so; then the cigarette, deftly rolled, is lit by a glowing ember, which they rake from the fire, and the now burning cigarette is handed to us to light from. Again we all touch our caps, for it is rigid etiquette, in accepting a light, to acknowledge the courtesy by a half military salute. In the corner the calf will moan, and we, now half asleep, will stretch out our weary limbs, draw our coats and blankets over us, and to the murmur of the now subdued conversation, find forgetfulness in sweet sleep.
I remember a conversation with a boy of about fifteen, who was out shooting with me, and acting as my guide and beater.
It was nearing sunset, and we sat and rested on a ridge which overlooked both sides of the valleys.
He asked me so many questions that I asked him if he had never even been to Podgorica.
"No," he said, "I shall never go."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I am content here. If I went to that great town, I should be ashamed of my ragged clothes. I should want to buy the beautiful things which they tell me are to be bought in the shops, and not having money I should be sad. No; it is better never to have seen such magnificence."
"But," I argued, "if thou goest to Podgorica, thou wouldst find work. Even I could get thee employment."
"No," he repeated; "my home is in the mountains. In time I would have to return here, and I should be miserable with the remembrance of those happy days."
This boy had been taught at the school, and he told me the capitals of the great countries, which were nothing more than empty names to him. He knew, also, a few words of German, about two phrases, though how he picked them up was hard to make out.
He liked to ask me questions about England, Montenegro's friend in past times of trouble, and seemed surprised to hear that I had seen snow before I came to his land.
His father said that the boy was stupid and a dreamer, but I thought differently of him.
P. joined me, and together we watched the sunset. On our left towered the Kom, and running in an unbroken chain circled a mountain range, ending in the setting sun. Low down an angry bank of clouds hung over the distant peaks, and into this mass of black and grey the sun, in all its glory of yellow and gold, sank slowly. The hills between us seemed wild and mysterious. Away to our left, in gloomy confusion, the Albanian Alps reared their heads, lit here and there with a red gleam of sunlight. At our feet, shrouded in impenetrable blackness, lay two steep ravines. The sun sank, leaving a weird eerie feeling behind, and we found ourselves strangely cold.
We spent many days with Vaso, shooting with indifferent results, but revelling in the glories of nature.