In a moment we had all dismounted and sought cover, and for fully ten minutes returned their fire vigorously, while the officer of the escort kept up a volley of imprecations on the heads of my late hosts, who were, of course, in ignorance that they were firing upon “the Englishman.” We were too far off each other to do much harm, therefore we simply blazed away. I was crouched behind a rock with the muzzle of my rifle poked through a convenient crack, and fired towards the spot where the flashes showed. A good deal of powder and bad language were expended, until at last our friends on the other side of the valley, apparently thinking we were too far away, ceased firing, and we of course did the same. It was a mutual truce. For ten minutes longer we waited in order to see what would happen. Then, leading our horses, we crept carefully along on our way northward, out of the range of our friends’ guns. Those moments were exciting, however, while they lasted, yet they were not without their grim humour. BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA CHAPTER I SOME REVELATIONS Through Dalmatia to Herzegovina—Over the Balkan watershed—Bosnia and Sarayevo—A half-Turkish, half-Servian town—Austrian persecution of the Christians—Some astounding facts—A land of spies and scandals—The police as murderers—A disgrace to European civilisation. In the darkest hour before daylight I bade farewell to my friend Mr. Charles des Graz, the British Chargé d’Affaires in Cettinje, and mounting into the pair-horse carriage, left the Montenegrin capital to descend that most wonderfully engineered road over the face of the bare mountains to Cattaro, on my way to Herzegovina and Bosnia. Though still dark, Cettinje was already stirring, and as I drove through the long main street, armed men who were my friends saluted me, and shouted “_S’bogom!_” My driver and myself were armed too, in case of “accident,” yet the Montenegrin roads are quite safe nowadays, thanks to the pacific and beneficent rule of His Royal Highness Prince Nicholas. Our eight-hour journey through the mountains was full of interest. Over those bare, tumbled limestone rocks, devoid of herbage and wild to the extremity of desolation, came the first rosy flush of dawn, and as we watched, the sun gradually dispelled the greys into yellows and golds in all the glory of the bursting of an autumn day. First, over the great plateau on which Cettinje is situated; then up the bare face of the mountain in a series of zigzags with acute angles; up, higher and higher, where the wind cut one’s face like a knife; and higher still, where we got out to walk, and so lighten the horses and warm ourselves. I gave my driver a pull at my flask, for the temperature was below zero, and we were both cramped and cold. Even through my leather-lined motor-coat the wind cut like a knife, chilling me to the bone.