The latter is a handsome young fellow, a cousin of the Prince, and with him has been educated at the Lycée St. Louis le Grand, at Paris. All the grandees were in full Montenegrin dress, bristling with pistols and yataghans; for in Montenegro the men do not put by their weapons when in a friendly house, as is the case in Albania.
The conversation turned on politics. Mr. Gladstone, of course, was their hero. They were all well acquainted with his pamphlet, which has been translated into their tongue. The hatred they expressed for Lord Beaconsfield was intense. They were by no means reserved in the terms of their abuse.
There was one thing that excited their astonishment to a great degree. "You Englishmen," said one, "Christians--civilized--a great people! How comes it that you allow a Jew to govern you?"
Seeing that we were not quite of one mind with them, and were not such great admirers of Holy Russia as were they, they politely turned the conversation.
We then got on the subject of the perpetual wars on the Turkish frontier, which in ferocity and romantic incident excel the old feuds of our Northern border-land.
A man happened to enter the room while we dined. Our landlord introduced him to us as a very brave fellow, who had cut off twenty-three heads in one battle of the late war, and who, in consideration of his prowess, had received a medal from the hands of the White Czar.
From cut-off heads and noses we got on the subject of Prince Nikita. His praises were loudly sung. This autocrat is greatly beloved by his people. He is a handsome man, tall and powerfully built; married to a very lovely Montenegrin. That the Prince has done much for his country is certain. He has succeeded in abolishing many of the more barbarous customs of his subjects.
Quarter is now given in war by the Montenegrins; and though the mutilation of captured and dead foemen is practised as of old, yet the Turkish heads are no longer bought by the bishop prince at so much a head, to be exhibited on the tower which overlooks the capital.
In the good old times, if you paid a friendly call on the late Metropolitan, a genial kind old gentleman, it was quite a common thing to have your conversation and coffee interrupted by the unceremonious entrance of some wild fellow staggering under the weight of a heavy sack. "Ah! good, good, my son!" the old prelate would say, with sparkling eyes. "How many of them?"