We decided to give up our friends, and start on the morrow for Cettinje, the capital of Montenegro, for we had wasted some time, and were anxious to commence our march into the wild interior, and see what lay beyond that barrier of cloud-capped rock before us.
We found a Montenegrin who owned a small wiry mountain horse. He agreed for a small sum to guide us, and carry our baggage to the capital.
Before leaving Cattaro we changed some English sovereigns into swanzickers. This is an old Austrian coin, out of circulation in the Empire, of the date of Maria Theresa, and as a rule bearing her effigy. This is the coin particularly affected by the Montenegrins, they always value anything in these elsewhere obsolete swanzickers.
The Turkish modern coinage is also accepted, but under protest. The silver Medjidie seems to have a different value in every Montenegrin village. Austrian modern money or paper they will have nothing to do with, as a rule. Of course gold of any kind is readily taken.
The value of the English sovereign and French napoleon is well known all over eastern Europe. I was surprised to find that the humblest mountaineer in Albania knew the exact change for these pieces. The only difficulty in changing them lies in the possibility of a village not being able to muster a sufficiency of the small coin as an equivalent.
Bank-notes are of course useless in these wild countries; but at Cattaro and Spalato, and other Dalmatian towns, there are money-changers who will change these with pleasure.
When we were at Cattaro the pound sterling was worth eleven florins, sixty centimes, or thirty-three-and-a-half swanzickers.
CHAPTER V.
March to Cettinje—The pass across the frontier—Montenegrin warriors—Cettinje—A land of stones—The Prince's Hotel—Frontier disputes—The commission—Montenegrin method of making war—A game of billiards—A Draconic law—A popular prince.