SIMEON POPOVIĆ AND HIS CHAPEL
The hermit, a priest of most refined manners and appearance, named Simeon Popović, was most delighted at our visit. He spoke Russian and French fluently; his story is quite a little romance.
Before he took Orders he had been a soldier, and was a rich man. It was while he was absent on a campaign that his wife eloped and his relations robbed him of all his money. He returned home to find himself wifeless, dishonoured, and a beggar. Then he became a priest, and a vision appeared to him, showing him Daibabe, where he now lives, commanding him to go and build a church. He refused the offer of a rich priorship and came to this place, possessed of no means whatever wherewith to commence his life's work. Unable to buy building materials, he began to hollow out a church from the rock, without help or money of any kind, beyond that given him by the pious but direly poor peasants of the neighbourhood. The labour must have been immense, but there it stands a monument to man's perseverance and faith.
Simeon is reckoned as a saint by the peasants; they come to him from all parts of the country, bringing their sick, and many cures are said to have been effected there. He is a vegetarian, and subsists solely on the products of his little garden.
Spuž lies on the River Zeta, and must be reached by a bridge. It is always safer to dismount when crossing a Montenegrin bridge, off the main roads. This was no exception, but the scenery was delightful. Rising immediately at the back of the village is a steep hill crowned by a mighty fortress. It was held formerly by the Turks, and the peasants say that it was built by them; but the architecture is distinctly Venetian and an exact counterpart of many fortresses in Dalmatia.
It is strange, however, for there are no records that the Venetians ever came further inland than Scutari.
The inn at Spuž, where we dined, was as other country inns (or krćma, or han, as they are locally termed from the Turkish): earthen floor, a bench, a few primitive stools and beds in the only reception-room. The table is invariably rickety, so are the stools; but a tablecloth, knives and forks are always mysteriously produced for guests even in the most out-of-the-way places.