There is no industry of any kind in this country. Their embroidered robes, their metal work, their saddlery, all come from Albania, or are here worked by emigrants from that province.
The Black Mountaineers have many virtues, but, pace Mr. Gladstone, industry is not one of them.
How they manage to procure their expensive get-up often puzzled me. True, all the riches of the country are on the not over-clean backs of the inhabitants.
Miserably poor the common people are. A bad season, as this one has been, equals in horror and suffering even what Ireland has just experienced. Yet a Montenegrin, be he starving, can always manage to be well armed, and often gay with gold embroidery.
We met a string of women, some by no means ill-favoured, bearing building materials—wood, bricks, and the like—on their broad shoulders. They had brought these all the way from Cattaro. As all the luxuries, and many of the necessities of life, have to be brought up that frightful path on the backs of the fair sex, Cettinje is by no means a cheap place to live in. It made my eyes open to learn the cost of a feed of hay for one's horse.
We walked up the high street, till we reached an institution of which the natives are very proud—the public library.
This was but a small room. The books were few in number, all in the Sclav tongue. I was surprised to find the chief Russian, German, French, and Italian journals lying on the table. There was a Standard and Illustrated London News of as recent a date as September the 27th.
The Prince, who of course is consulted as to what publications are to be admitted into his realm, has curiously enough selected from our daily papers the one that, above all others, takes a view of general European politics diametrically opposed to that of himself and his big ally in the North.
The next object of interest we visited was the prison. Imagine a courtyard open on the street, generally, I believe, unguarded. Here all offenders against the law squat on the ground, or stroll about as they like. They are allowed to receive their friends, who bring them little luxuries. A most happy-go-lucky sort of a prison, and very characteristic of the country. These prisoners, were they so inclined, could escape in a moment. They never attempt such a thing. They are ordered to remain there and consider themselves prisoners for so many days, and there they stay, smoking patiently till their time is up.
In so small a country as Montenegro, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that everybody knows everybody. The flight of a prisoner would be telegraphed to every village—he would soon be re-captured. For so great is the love and fear entertained by this people towards their Prince, that none would venture to shelter or assist a runaway from his prison. Again, to fly across the frontier is a plan few would care to resort to. The Montenegrin loves his country too much to desert it, and is too much disliked by his neighbours to expect to be by them received with open arms.