Cetinje

“ Once at Cetinje the spell was broken, and from Cetinje to London one whirls in a few days in the lap of luxury, second class.
I left the Balkan peninsula not with "good-bye" but with "do vidjenja" (au revoir) . The story of its peoples is tragic, their future looks black, and they have few friends. It is the fashion just now to make a great deal of capital out of the fact that these Christian peoples do not love one another as, of course, all Christians should, and to say that each one is so jealous of the other that it is impossible to help them. ”

“ No one in Montenegro, it would appear, had thought such a catastrophe even possible. To the Montenegrin the birth of a daughter was a misfortune. "You feed your son for yourself. You feed your daughter for another man." Faced with this mediaeval point of view the Diplomatic circle was struck dumb. Till the British Consul said bravely: "I don't care what the etiquette is! I won't condole with him." And the tension was relieved.
No guns were fired, no candles lighted. Cetinje tried to look as though nothing at all had happened. ”

“ Cetinje is far too civilised a city to indulge in them, and to "see Montenegro" we must wander much farther afield.
CEMETERY NEAR CETINJE. CHAPTER II PODGORITZA AND RIJEKA
Travelling in Montenegro—in fine weather, be it said—is delightful from start to finish. And to Shan, my Albanian driver, whose care, fidelity, and good nature have added greatly to the success of many of my tours, I owe a passing tribute. He is short and dark, a somewhat mixed specimen of his race, and hails from near the borders, where folk are apt to be so mixed that it is hard to tell which is the true type. ”

“ There is not much for the tourist to see in Cetinje; a day is quite sufficient to do the sights, such as they are.
Unfortunately for the country, the tourist usually contents himself with a look round the little capital and returns the way he came to Cattaro, only a few prolonging the tour viâ Rijeka to Scutari. Thus a very erroneous impression is gained of Montenegro and its people. Firstly only a small part of the Katunska is seen, which is the most uninteresting district of the whole country ”

“ THE JUDGES IN THEIR GORGEOUS NATIONAL COSTUMES—TO THE RIGHT OF THE SOLDIER WILL BE SEEN THE BOMBS WHICH WERE AN IMPORTANT “EXHIBIT” IN THE TRIAL.
From a Photograph.
As a town Cetinje is not thrilling, but it lies in a lovely neighbourhood and is peopled with perhaps the most picturesque race in the world. For the Montenegrins are not only the most magnificent specimens of humanity in point of size, clad in gorgeous raiment which, I feel sure, Solomon in all his glory could not have beaten, but they have behind them a past which can scarcely be beaten by any fighting race on earth. ”

“ But his dissipations are very mild, though from the swagger he puts on you would think they were bold and bad. I have never seen him the worse for drink, and he is punctuality itself and very honest. Child of the race with about the worst reputation in Europe though he is, I would trust him under most circumstances.
Leaving Cetinje by its only road, we soon reach the top of the pass, and a sudden turn reveals the land beyond. We have come across Europe to the edge of Christianity, and stand on the rocky fortress with the enemy in sight. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We strolled to the market-place, which was full of peasants and their produce. It is not nearly such a scene of life as is met with elsewhere. The Albanian element is almost totally absent, and that alone takes fifty per cent. of the wildness off. Neither are rifles brought to Cetinje, so that it presents a far more peaceable aspect. Still it is crowded, the guslars do a literally roaring trade, and there are always a sprinkling of men from the Vasović and other outlying clans to liven up the scene. ”

“ Cetinje's other attractions are the park, the theatre, and the market, where the stranger will have plenty of opportunity of wrestling with the language.
The language is one of the amusements of Montenegro. It is not an easy one. I hunted it about London for months, and it landed me in strange places. The schools and systems that teach all the languages of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America know it not. In the course of my chase I caught a Roumanian, a Hungarian, and an Albanian, but I got no nearer to it. ”

“ At four o'clock on the following morning we made a start, and were well up the mountain by the time that the sun began to make his presence felt.
THE BOCCHE DI CATTARO
The high road to Cetinje was built by the Austrians, [37] and it is a marvel of engineering skill, particularly the ascent of the almost perpendicular wall of mountain rising abruptly from Cattaro. In series of serpentines and gradients, which often permit the horses to trot, the road winds up and up, every turn giving a still finer view of the lake below. Cattaro remains in view practically the whole ascent. ”

“ Even though they work for years in strange lands, they invariably return to their rugged native mountains and end their days in peace. And so they serve their time in patience, and go home at the expiry of the sentence "without a stain on their character."
Many months afterwards we chanced to arrive in Cetinje on the occasion of a great feast. A stranger [52] happened to be with us, a German, and we were showing him the sights. Naturally we also wended our way to the prison, hoping to be able to give him the unique spectacle of the prisoners strolling freely up and down their garden. ”

“ Cesarotti, an Italian poet, translator of the "Iliad" and "Ossian" into Italian (1730-1808) .
Cestus, a girdle worn by Greek and Roman women, specially the girdle of Aphrodité, so emblazoned with symbols of the joys of love that no susceptible soul could resist the power of it; it was borrowed by Hera to captivate Zeus.
Cetinje, the capital of Montenegro, in a valley 2000 ft. high; smallest of capital cities, with a population under 2000.
Cette (36) , a seaport, trading, and manufacturing town, on a tongue of land between the lagoon of Thau and the Mediterranean, 23 m. ”

“ Just as inland Serbia had perished between the Turkish hammer and the Hungarian anvil, so maritime Serbia was crushed between Turkey and Venice, only its insignificance and inaccessibility giving it a longer lease of independent life. Ivan Crnojević, one of the last independent rulers of Zeta, who had to fly to Italy in 1480, abandoning his capital, Žabljak, to the Turks, returned in 1481, when the death of Sultan Mohammed temporarily raised the hopes of the mountaineers, and founded Cetinje and made it his capital. ”

“ The last shot was fired at a distance of fifty yards.
"As you can imagine," concluded our informant, "the news of this affray nearly caused a pitched battle between Bajice and Cetinje, which was only prevented by the energetic action of the Prince. He called the two clans together before his palace [284] and with marvellous judgment picked out the ring-leaders and imprisoned them, and the rest were sent home with such a warning of what would come if he heard any more about it, that all interest was lost in the dispute. ”

“ Montenegro is perhaps the most interesting country in all the Balkans. Cettinje, a small, clean town of broad streets and one-storeyed, whitewashed houses, is a little city in the sky, lying as it does in a cup-shaped depression at the summit of a high, bare mountain. Its long, straight, main street reminds one very much of a small country town in England, if it were not that everyone is, by law, compelled to wear the national dress, and every man has in his belt his big, long-barrelled revolver, without which he must never go out of doors. ”

“ Here, in Cettinje, in the heart of these wild, desolate fastnesses, one seems so far removed from European influence, yet how great a part has this rocky, impregnable country, with its fierce soldier-inhabitants, played in the politics of Eastern Europe, and how great a part it is still destined to play in the near future!
The fact that everybody is armed gives the stranger an uncanny feeling. The man who brings one’s coffee wears a perfect arsenal of weapons in his sash, and one quickly acquires the habit of carrying a revolver one’s self. ”

“ While he was speaking yet, the door was again opened, and Cethegus entered with the others, dull, gloomy, and crest-fallen; but Catiline was in a state of excitement so tremendous, that he saw nothing but the men.
At one bound he reached Cethegus, and catching him by both hands—"How!" he exclaimed—"How was it?—quick, tell me, quick! Did he die hard? Did he die, conscious, in despair, in anguish?—Tell me, tell me, you tortured him in the slaying—tell me, he died a coward, howling and cursing fate, and knowing that I, I slew him, and—speak Cethegus?—speak, man! By the Gods! you are pale! ”

“ One realized how much the people owed to the land for their boasted independence. Barren rock and scrub oak, no army could live here in sufficient numbers to subdue even a semi-warlike nation. Cettinje has been burned many a time by the Moslem, but starvation eventually drove him back to the fatter plains of the Sanjak, leaving a profitless victory behind him. ”

“ Rising to his feet, Cetewayo addressed Panda.
“My father,” he said, “the land wanders and wanders in darkness, and you alone can give light for its feet. I and my brother, Umbelazi, are at variance, and the quarrel is a great one, namely, as to which of us is to sit in your place when you are ‘gone down,’ when we call and you do not answer. Some of the nation favour one of us and some favour the other, but you, O King, and you alone, have the voice of judgment. ”

“ CELTIBERIA, a term used by Greek and Roman writers to denote, sometimes the whole north-east of Spain, and sometimes the north-east part of the central plateau of the peninsula. The latter was probably the correct use. The Celtiberi, in this narrower sense, were not so much one tribe as a group of cantons—Arevaci, Pelendones, Berones and four or five others. They were the most warlike people in Spain, and for a long time offered a stubborn resistance to the Romans. ”

“ The heads of the people began the war with gloomy forebodings; the common masses with the wildest enthusiasm, which became the mere intoxication of success when they drove back Cestius from the walls of the city, on the very eve of his anticipated victory—for Cestius hastened southwards with an army of twenty thousand men, and besieged the city. The people, divided amongst themselves, were on the point of opening the gates to the Romans, when, to the surprise of everybody, Cestius suddenly broke up his camp and began to retreat. ”

“ We compared notes on this part afterwards. "Happy hunting?" we inquired like Mowgli's friends. It was good to sit by the big kitchen stove holding bits of dripping clothing to the blaze; the downfall at Cettinje the evening before having completely drenched our damp things again.
Next day outside the world was white and silent, the snow covering the little city and its intrigues with a thick whitewash.
The minister was the kindest of hosts and could not do enough for us during our stay. Cettinje had not changed much. The hotel-keeper showed an intense and violent anxiety to leave Montenegro. ”

“ People told each other that one morning a poor fisherman had found Cethegus unconscious, almost dead, on the shores of the Tiber, outside the gates of the city.
A few weeks later he again was heard of on the north-east frontier of the kingdom, in the inhospitable regions of the Danube, where a bloody war with the Gepidae, Avari, and Sclavonians was raging. There he fought the savage barbarians with death-despising courage, and followed them with a few chosen troops, paid from his private means, into their rocky fortresses, sleeping every night upon the frozen ground. ”

“ At length Cetewayo shouted for silence, spitting, as was his habit when angry.
“Make an end,” he cried, “lest I cause some of you to grow quiet for ever,” whereon the recriminations ceased. “Opener of Roads,” he went on, “many of those who are present think like Macumazahn here, that you are but an old cheat, though whether or no I be one of these I will not say. They demand a sign of you that none can dispute, and I demand it also before I speak the word of peace or war. Give us then that sign or begone to whence you came and show your face no more at Ulundi.” ”

“ Who would have thought then that we should ever be able to count upon our fingers the day when not a single Goth would be left to tread Italian soil?"
"You are right, poet," said Cethegus with a smile; "these two friends of ours suffer from 'Narses-fever,' as their hero suffers from epilepsy. To over-rate one's enemy is also a failing. The holy remains upon which those priests have sworn, are really sacred to them; they will not break such an oath." ”