We bid adieu to our friends the officers, with a little difficulty persuaded Rosso and Effendi to embark, and were soon gliding swiftly across the smooth lake. In about an hour we had reached the opposite side. Here were three or four houses, occupied by Turkish officers, while the men were camped out on the edge of the lake in tents, so ragged and torn that they must have been next to useless. In the background, a few miles from the lake, there was a steep mountain, on whose summit was a large fortress. This place we found is called Helm. We landed, and at once resumed our march, which lay under the mountain, and across a broad and lengthy plain which lies between Podgoritza and the lake. There was no sign of cultivation anywhere. The plain was a pebbly desert, scanty grass and a sort of prickly thorn being the sole vegetation.
The heavy rain had once more set in, and before we had marched very far, the waters, rushing down from the distant mountains, converted the plain into a lake, across which we waded, the muddy compound rising above our top-boots. Darkness at length came on, so as we should certainly have lost ourselves had we gone much further, we entered a khan, which turned up before us just in time. It was a rougher and less civilized khan than that of the previous evening. There was but one room in it; the floor was of clay; the walls, as usual, black with the smoke of ages; and the ventilation almost too perfect.
They had some goat's flesh here, so we were enabled to make an excellent meal. Being tired after our long march, we then retired to our beds.
Just by the bar, as we chose to call the corner of the room where the raki and wine were stored, there was a broad wooden slab against the wall, supported on logs, and sloping down outward at a slight angle.
This was to serve as our bed for the night. We lay side by side rolled up in our blankets. The neighbourhood was soon made aware of our arrival; the khan was filled with armed Arnauts, who came and stared at us inquisitively, while they whispered to each other in a mysterious manner.
There was something very comic in the situation. There we lay, stretched out in a row on that deal board, for all the world like the corpses lying side by side, in similar fashion, on the marble slab of the Paris morgue.
However, enveloped as we were in our voluminous blankets, nothing could be seen of us but four projecting nasal organs. But this was quite enough for our friends. Throughout the night they came and went through the open door: there were never less than a dozen admiring us at a time.
Towards the morning the bard of the district came in, tuned up his guzla, and favoured us with a dismal selection from his repertoire.
His voice was high and cracked, but he sang fiercely and energetically, while all the natives listened, spellbound and silent. I presume he was singing our praises—he was evidently chanting the doings of some great warriors.
Jones at last sneezed so violently in the middle of his song that the minstrel was quite disconcerted, and sadly laying down his instrument, stretched himself on the floor and slept. Being now at peace, we followed his example.