Very characteristic of this country was it to see the men fall into their places. A gun was fired—the signal that the duke and his party had been sighted in the pass. Then all down the high-street you might see tobacconist, leather merchant, and baker, leap from his counter or leave his work, seize his rifle—always at hand, and always loaded—and run down to the palace gate, where he would take up his position with his fellows in the line. The discipline seemed rather slack, but the strict discipline of a European army would be useless for these men, trained to fighting from their childhood as they are, and who never or rarely descend to the plain to join battle with regular troops, but fight behind the rocks and stones they know so well.
Montenegro has no regular paid army. Every man is a soldier in time of war. Prince Nikita telegraphs his orders to the various Voyades or chieftains, and each of these calls out the fighting men of his district. It requires but little time to mobilize these wild forces.
There is no commissariat to be organized, no heavy transport train.
Each man buckles on his belt of cartridges, throws his plaid over his shoulders, seizes his rifle, and stalks out of his door, ready for the campaign. The women take the place of the commissariat. Each man's wife, or mother, or sister, as the case may be, is his commissariat. The women come and go between home and camp, bearing provisions and ammunition. For the particular nature of the service required of the Montenegrins this system is perfect; for they never carry war beyond their frontiers, and the distance between home and the front is never very great. No less hardy than the men, the women here are surprisingly active and strong, and walk nimbly across these fearful mountains with incredibly heavy burdens on their backs.
We dined at the table-d'hôte of the Prince's hotel to-day, in very aristocratic company.
The highest officers of the little State are regular habitués of the hotel dinner.
We sat down with the court painter—a young Ragusan who had travelled in America and France, and spoke a curious English, with a half foreign, half American accent, freely larded with Yankee idioms; our landlord; the Secretary of State, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Prince's adjutant.
The latter is a handsome young fellow, a cousin of the Prince, and with him has been educated at the Lycée St. Louis le Grand, at Paris. All the grandees were in full Montenegrin dress, bristling with pistols and yataghans; for in Montenegro the men do not put by their weapons when in a friendly house, as is the case in Albania.
The conversation turned on politics. Mr. Gladstone, of course, was their hero. They were all well acquainted with his pamphlet, which has been translated into their tongue. The hatred they expressed for Lord Beaconsfield was intense. They were by no means reserved in the terms of their abuse.
There was one thing that excited their astonishment to a great degree. "You Englishmen," said one, "Christians—civilized—a great people! How comes it that you allow a Jew to govern you?"