country, which are built in the English method; but the mass of houses are mere huts composed of thatch or loose uncemented stones; they sometimes contain two rooms and a loft above, but more frequently consist of only one room, which serves for a whole family to cook, receive visitors, and sleep in. Beds are scarcely known: for most the bare floor or the mountain side is sufficient sleeping accommodation. The better class of houses, however—the residences of those whom wealth and luxury have enervated—often have benches or shelves on which are placed mattresses and blankets. Smoky chimneys are nuisances unknown in Montenegro: the fire is kindled on a paved portion of the floor, and the smoke escapes by the door, or settles gracefully on the walls and roof. Two or three wooden and home-made chairs and tables, with a few portions of the trunks of trees for stools, exhaust the catalogue of their furniture.
Their diet is equally simple. We have a description, written by one who was present, of a banquet given a few years back to Prince Daniel on the occasion of his return from St. Petersburg with the ratification of his authority. The host was one of the leading men of the state, and the character of the guest and nature of the occasion indicate a far more costly and finished entertainment than usual. In a large room the visitors were first served with cold water, coffee without milk, and raki (a kind of spirit). After this a low table, extemporised with rough planks, extending the whole length of the room, was laid with a cloth and surrounded by low benches. Prince Daniel was seated at the head, and those who sat nearest him were honoured with the usual appurtenances of an European dinner-table. The guests at the other end, however, had to go shares in a few wooden plates, goblets, and spoons. Every one used his own pocket-knife, and as for forks wherein are they better than an honest man’s fingers? The first dish was lamb, stewed up with rice; the second course consisted of boiled mutton; this was followed by roast lamb and mutton, and the repast was finished with cheese. The guests then retired from the table, and discharged their muskets, saying:—“We must thank our host, or it would look as if we were not pleased with the cheer, or did not feel grateful.” Who shall say that this simple act did not express a hundredfold more genuine pleasure than the graces and toasts which attend our civic and official banquets?
It is unusual for this war-loving race to attain the natural limit of their lives; in fact, one of the greatest insults to a man is to say, “All your ancestors died in their beds.” But when they meet with no violent end, their simple mode of life promotes longevity. Colonel Vialla de Sommières says that he met with a family which comprised seven generations. There was an old man, one hundred and seventy years old; his son a hundred; his grandson eighty-two; his great-grandson sixty; his great-great-grandson forty-three; his great-great-great-grandson twenty-one; and his great-great-great-great-grandson, who had seen two years.
The Montenegrins are tall and handsome; and their natural beauty is set off by a very becoming style of dress;—full blue trousers, reaching to the knees; a red vest, and a red or green jacket, open in the front, richly embroidered, and without sleeves, with a scarlet cloak thrown over one shoulder. The women wear a sort of frock, of white cloth, reaching as far as the knees, and confined at the waist by a cornelian-studded girdle.
The males look upon war and pillage as their chief business. When not at open war, they repeatedly make little incursions on the Turkish provinces, the people of which retaliate in the same way. They spend their few intervals of peace in fishing and tillage. Most of the hard work is left to the women. It is the wife always who loads her back with the sheaves of maize, and carries them to the distant village for sale, or who trudges homeward on foot with the newly bought goods, while the better half rides easily on his mule; who collects bundles of wood, and gathers all that is needed for the house and granary, or goes forth at her lord’s bidding to get tobacco for his pipe, or powder for his rifle. It is considered unpolite for a man to speak to a visitor of his wife without apologising for introducing so vulgar a subject: and when she enters the room she has meekly to kiss his hand and that of his guest.
But, notwithstanding this mode of treatment, she is in a far better position than her sisters of the surrounding countries. She is still a Christian wife and a loved helpmate; not the toy of a harem, or the slave of a cruel master’s passions. Her honour is guarded with admirable efficiency. She is the surest protection to a band of travellers through lawless regions; and if she throws her body as a shield between any man and his antagonist, it would be the foulest crime to harm her. Any personal abuse of a man is a thousand times less an insult, than to speak evil of his mother: this is an injury which only death can repair.
Towards travellers who are not Turks the Montenegrins are always friendly. They rejoice to show kindness to strangers. When Sir Gardner Wilkinson was journeying in the interior, the poor ran out to meet him as he passed, bearing little presents of fruit, or whatever else they possessed, and always refusing remuneration. On one occasion, when he offered money, he was met by the rebuke, “This is to welcome you: we are at home; you are a stranger. If we had known you would offer to pay us, we would not have brought it.” They have, however, two modes of welcoming which did not quite please the traveller. They show their pleasure by firing volleys of powder and shot toward the visitor, as he approaches; and when expostulated with, as being likely to cause his death, they answer that life and death are in God’s hands, and that no act of theirs can bring about a man’s end a moment sooner or later than is decreed. The second objectionable feature is, that when the guest enters the house, he has to kiss every man on the mouth, while the welcomer lips of the fair sex are only applied to his hands. Who will not sympathise with Sir Gardner when he laments this barbarous inversion of the proprieties? Once he was indiscreet enough to give a piece of barley-sugar to a little child. Instantly the walls
