The sun was becoming extremely hot, and I should have found it considerably difficult to keep my place, but for the occasional assistance afforded me by the powerful hand and arm of my Prince of Mountaineers, Pero Pejovich, who whenever I came to some rugged impediment which seemed to tax my energies more than usual, would quickly, with one hand passed under my arms close below my shoulder, lift me bodily over it, with his broad good-humoured face beaming with smiles; and when I tell you, gentle reader, that I sometimes weigh more but never less than fourteen stone, I leave you to calculate the strength of my amiable giant.
We had now topped the worst of our ascent, and remounting our horses commenced a short descent to a little plain surrounded by steep, rugged, barren rocks seemingly the bed of some ancient dried up lake. At the further extremity of this little plain could be seen half-a-dozen scattered houses forming the village of Niegosch, the birth-place of the Prince of Montenegro, as well as the cradle of his race, from which they take their patronimic of Petrovich Niegosch.
We rode up straight to the principal house where we were expected and received by a young Petrovich, a cousin of the Prince, a very handsome young fellow, with whom unfortunately I could only have conversation by the help of Pero Pejovich, who speaking Italian as well as Montenegrin, always proved himself a most valuable interpreter.
We made a very short stay here, as we wanted to reach Cettigne before the middle of the day; so having partaken of some excellent coffee, served up with toast and such clotted cream as I never before tasted out of Devonshire, and having admired the gorgeous arms which hung round young Petrovich's room, each of which had some story attached to it, all being trophies taken in battle from the Turks, we mounted our horses, and again plunging into a ravine recommenced the difficult ascent.
After a short but arduous climb, we at length reached the top of the pass and the highest point between Cattaro and Cettigne. Here a wonderful panorama spread itself out before us—not beautiful, perhaps, but grand in its way. Right, left, and front, nothing could be seen but barren, grey mountain tops—except right in front of us, where at a short distance lay the valley of Cettigne, also apparently the bed of an ancient Alpine lake. Beyond that plain the bleak and rocky mountains closed in again; and beyond them, far in the hazy distance, shining in the noon-day sun, could be seen the glittering lake of Scutari, or more properly of Skodra, in Northern Albania.
A scene like this could scarcely be conceived, such a wilderness of rocks, such a picture of sterility, had never met my eyes. Peak after peak, desolate and barren, rose in every direction, as far as the sight could reach; and as the point on which we stood must have been more than four thousand feet above the sea, the distance we could see in that bright clear atmosphere may be imagined.
The rocks of which those mountains are formed looked ashy grey in the bright sunlight, except here and there in some of the ravines where a scanty, scrubby vegetation, struggling for existence, offered a precarious subsistence to considerable flocks of small wild goats, herded by still wilder-looking children. These grey rocky masses, when it rains, become of a dark slate colour, nearly black, and hence arose the name of the country, Tchernagora.
To account for the presence of such immense quantities of stones in their country, the Montenegrins have a legend which says that after the Creator had made this earth, the Devil was permitted to go and scatter stones all over it. He carried the stones in a bag over his shoulder, but as he passed in his flight over their country, the bag suddenly burst, and thus a greater share of stones fell to their lot than they were fairly entitled to.
I don't know which was the most fatiguing, the climb up to the top of the pass, or the scramble down; I think the latter, and if I did reach the bottom without a fall or a sprained ankle, I owe it all to my excellent fellow-traveller, Pero Pejovich, who kept a sturdy hold of me all through, and saved me, I am sure, from many an ugly tumble.
At last we found ourselves in the little plain of Cettigne, and putting spurs to our small horses cantered over the turf till we reached the first houses of the straggling street which constitutes the capital of one of the most interesting countries in Europe.