It is all so simple and quick that it is hard to realise the importance of this commendable institution. In the olden days the Prince dispensed justice and favours, seated under the shade of an enormous tree, which has now, however, been destroyed. But in the height of summer, a shady spot in the open air is still found.
We listened to one case, that of a woman who had amassed a large sum of money—for Montenegro—by fetching water from a distance at so much a gallon. Cetinje is almost waterless in summer, and water-carriers can earn small fortunes, particularly if equipped with a donkey or two, as was this woman. Having saved a few hundred guldens, she proceeded to lend it to needy friends—people are foolish in this respect, even in Montenegro. It would have been all right if she had not neglected the simple precaution of insisting on an I.O.U. for each loan. Her money gone, she not unnaturally asked that some of it should be returned, for she had fallen on evil days. But all knowledge of such loans was denied by the ungrateful borrowers.
It was a knotty point to decide. Should the judges believe the woman's word, or the emphatic denials of the debtors that they had ever received a kreutzer? The seven looked hopelessly at each other, and then wisely retired to the seclusion of a private room, awaiting divine inspiration.
As of yore, the little prison, or rather house of detention, had a great attraction for us. Many afternoons we wended our way thither to while away an hour in the genial company of the prisoners and their warders. The handsome young director of prisons usually accompanied us, ostensibly but to bear us company, though doubtless he was acting on higher orders, and had instructions to see that our eccentricities did not go too far.
We organised sports on some occasions, chiefly consisting of putting the weight, i.e. a large stone, but they would swindle and invariably overstepped the limit line, declaring that they hadn't afterwards.
But it was their stories that we loved to listen to. They were mostly harmless quarrellers, for we shunned the debased thieving criminal; a man who could steal was vigorously excluded from our circle. There was one exception, however, and he was a Hungarian, a deserter from his regiment. That in itself is not a punishable crime, but he had eased the regimental cash-box of a thousand kronen at the time of his departure, and was awaiting the result of investigations. He maintained that the money was his, and was quite indignant when it was hinted that he must have stolen it; but unluckily he destroyed any belief in his honesty by invariably contradicting himself as to how he came by it. But he was such a good-natured, pleasant-spoken man that we let him sit by our side and prevaricate, till we bade him cease from further blackening his soul.
We gleaned a lot more information from the young director of the prison, and amongst it the method of recapturing escaped prisoners. In the central prison at Podgorica, if a prisoner escapes, the rest of the criminals are sent out to catch him. Very often they find him, and never has a prisoner abused this privilege, all punctually returning by a given date.
We stayed at Reinwein's inn, an unpretentious building, both as regards the exterior and interior, but as Reinwein himself is a Viennese, and has been for twelve years in the service of the Prince, acting often as cook, it is quite safe to say that at his house the best cooking in the whole of Montenegro is to be found. Coming into the country this would not be so noticeable, but after months in other Montenegrin towns the cooking is most appreciable. We spent very happy evenings in his bare little dining-room, with a decidedly cosmopolitan gathering. The most noticeable feature was the number of languages in use. Even Dalmatia, Bosnia, and the Hercegovina, where a three-languaged man is the rule, paled into insignificance. There was a Turkish official staying at Reinwein's, transacting business for his Government, and every evening men came to see him; that man was to be heard—he was a Neapolitan by birth—conversing fluently in Turkish, Albanian, Serb, Greek, Italian, and French, alternately. One evening I was trying to follow the conversation, which began in Italian, then he wandered off into other tongues, explaining, evidently, a letter written in Turkish. I got interested and went over to his table, and, afterwards, he told me which languages he had been using. Besides this little list, Reinwein spoke Russian with another man, German largely with us, and P. and I passed remarks to each other in English, which was the only unknown language. One evening two Hungarian tourists arrived, and then we fled from that Babel, fearing for our reason.
An affable old Turk, seedy in appearance, but extremely entertaining, owned to six languages, not counting others of which he had only a smattering. Serb he didn't count as he said he could only talk on easy subjects in that tongue. It is very humiliating, that sort of thing, it is liable to lower the opinion of one's own intelligence. We kept late hours, too, at Reinwein's, we couldn't help it.
But all good things must come to an end, and at last the day of our departure arrived. Cetinje itself was quite a different place to us than when we knew it formerly. Representative of the land in a certain sense it rightly is, but then a fairly full knowledge of the country must be acquired first to understand in what respects it represents the life and customs of the people beyond. To the stranger who extends his visit for only a week, it is sure to give manifold false impressions, for though Montenegro is quiet and peaceable enough, the appearance of Cetinje is rather too assuring. For here there is little trace of vendetta and quarrelling, which, however, under the powerful hand of the present Prince Nicolas, are surely dying out through all the land. When the fact is taken into consideration that the Montenegro of forty years ago was a rough and dangerous country, inhabited by a people who knew nothing of the outside world, and lived simply for themselves in their own land, it will be seen what miraculous progress has been made in the path of civilisation during the present reign. Peace and order have been established to a wonderful degree, and the State reorganised and set on a surer basis. With a powerful hand and not too much external help the Prince has carried through his reforms, and, like David in his final exhortation to Solomon, leaves the way ready for still greater progress to be made in the future. And the comparison holds good in more respects than one.