To quote an instance which happened to myself once in Cetinje. While waiting outside the monastery for the appearance of the Prince, who was attending divine service within, I entered into conversation with a gendarme. We spoke of many things, and to my surprise, for he was but an ignorant peasant, he inquired as to the progress of the war. He asked the nature of the country, on which subject I was luckily able to enlighten him. Parts of it are not at all unlike Montenegro. At this he pricked up his ears.
"Thou hast been to the Transvaal?" he asked with increased interest. "Are the people brave like we are?"
"They are brave," I said, "but not as ye are. They only shoot at long distances, and object very strongly to hand-to-hand fighting."
The stalwart Montenegrin looked puzzled.
"Shooting is good," he answered; and after a pause he added, "at first, but that is not fighting. It is an empty glory to shoot one's enemy, if one cannot prove it afterwards." I knew he was alluding to the decapitating process. "And then the wild charge, the cutting with the handjar when rifles are thrown away—that is fighting."
I explained that our soldiers loved the bayonet as much as the Montenegrin loved the handjar.
"But what can you do when the other side won't wait for it?" I asked.
"Then they are cowards," he answered judicially. "Are thy countrymen all as big as thou art?" he continued thoughtfully, feeling my biceps and scrutinising me closely.
"Some of them are bigger," I said.
"Then the Boers will have no chance," he said emphatically, and at this moment the Prince emerged from the church. This personal allusion to my size I took as a great compliment, for in a land where physical strength is an all-important factor candid appreciation of this kind is not meted out to one and all alike.