Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1881-03-09
CETTINJE.
Montenegro's capita--A Quaint and Lonely City
Among the Hills.
.ScribaPT.

certainly as uUUl0 DIS CdH Do IuudSIu0u Oh
the metropolis aspect" in the appear
ance of this quiet little mountain village,
in the one street of which the snow lies
ankle-deep. Shut in by the loneliness
of the everlasting hills, whose dark sum-
mits look down upon it on every side, it
seems hardly to belong to the busy,
bustling world of the nineteenth century
at all. Like Iceland or Central Asia, or
Chinese Tartary, it is a kind of "reser-
vation'' where the barbaric usages of
the olden times can have free play, with
out offense to the feelings of the respecta-
BILE age which reads newspapers and sends
telegraphs and travels in railway cars and
does its brigandage with bubble COM
panies and suits OF law instead of knife
and gun. From the spot where I write
[ can see tall, gray tower standing up
in the bright morning sunshine, which,
till the reigning prince forbade it, was
never without plentiful adornment of
Turkish heads. To the left stands
little pink building smaller than many an
American farmhouse, which was the
actual palace of the sovereigns of Mon
tenegro till replaced by the modest stone
house with green shutters which is now
the Windsor Castle of Cettinje. This
stalwart, ruddy- checked fellow who comes
striding down the mount ain path behind
me, wears in his crimson sash two pis-
tolls and silver hilted yataghan as long
as my arm, the notched blade of which
has business-like air suggestive of long
and active service. Flashing through
the half-melted snow that carpets the
single street, comes then ational beast of
burden, .. e., woman, brown and TO-
bust as one of Tennyson's daughters of
the pillow" with an enormous basket of
fish on her back, present to Prince
Nikita from the Montenegrin consul at
Cattaro, which she has carried all the
way up from the sea-shore, six hours
march. A passing beggar Clancy beg
gars even In MontenegroD halts and
kisses my hand, with a hoarse petition
for aims in that provoking dialect which
sounds just enough like Russian to mis-
lead you into thinking that you can un-
derstand it, and to double your mortifca-
ton on finding that you cannot. Such
an apparition, however, is not so unus-
ual as it might seem in these parts,
where there is little money but what
comes from Russia Had the DuIcigno
dispute of last autumn ended in war,
Montenegro would have been literally
without means to purchase supplies for
her army, which could hardly have in
Identified itself at the expense of the
Albanians, to whom fortune has assigned
the enviable lot of being able to rob
everybody and having nothing to be rob-
bed of In return.
Twice sacked and burned by the in
vading hordes of Islam, connected with
the outer world by single road, sur
rounded by grim rocks and barren noun
tain peaks, peopled with race whose
whole history has been one long battle,
this quaint little stronghold of the past
seems to have nothing in common with
the putting steamers and fitting boats
and foreign kilograms and crowded
streets and business-like regularity of
the great European system which you
| have left but few hours march below
you. This valley became the seat of the
Slav metropolis in the year when Rich
ard of Gloucester smothered his boy
nephews in the Tower of London. That
dark, handsome, stalwart man who comes
flying over the snow in a neat sledge
drawn by two magnificent brown horses,
answering your greeting in irreproach-
! able French, bears name celebrated in
the Servian war ballads of the thirt zenith
century, and has himself seen two of the
| bloodiest and most merciless struggles
recorded in history. Yonder stately
figure In high black cap and flowing
dark robes, before whom the bold noun
tain-men bend SO reverentially as he
sweeps by toward his home in the con-
vent whose tall white tower stands out in
bold relief against the dark hillside, is
the last surviving representative of those
terrible Montenegrin bishops who
were wont to lead their focks
to battle against the Moslem,
as Moses led the armies Of Israel. But
Cettnje is by no means devoid of fea-
lures which show that the influence OF
that irrepressible coulter world y which
has sent special correspondents through
the deserts of Central Asia, and peopled
the solitudes of Lebanon with west
ern excursionists, has begun to penetrate
even here. A few houses up the street
Tzrnogortza," (The Voice of Montene-
gro,) surmounts the ,quaintest little edi-
torial Office imaginable, much more like
a white-washed cottage than newspa.
per sanctum, and frrni shed wltha Spar
tan simplicity worthy of its exterior.
Close beside it, but little retired from
the line of the thoronghfare, stands q
long, low building, (of hewed stone as a
matter of course, in this rock Astounding
region where wood is rarity, with trim
green doors and windows. This is the
government school, where a good num-
Der of Montenegrinesses, in fiat caps
and short skirts, assemble every day to
pursue their studies. Closing the per-
spective of the street, very welcome
object to the traveller, who, wet, weary,
and bemired from head to foot, struggles
In after long ride over the mountains,
is large hotel, built by the government
IN 1867, and certainly amazingly com.
Portable for such wild region.
| Maine News.
Hop Bitters, which are advertised in our col.
| umnS. are sure cure for ACME biliousness and