him again, "Your glass saved us the battle," which was virtually the preservation of the independence of the tribe, and possibly the decision of the campaign on that side. The fortress was obliged, a little later, to surrender, and in the subsequent siege of Niksich the artillery taken at Medun served a very good purpose, being heavier than anything the Montenegrins had. I had secured for correspondent with the Prince the services of his Swiss secretary, an excellent fellow by the name of Duby; and, as all the interest of the war for the moment lay in the campaign of the Prince against Mostar and its consequences, I arranged to have my news at Ragusa by telegraph, and there I went for the time being. On the 28th of July I received at 11 P.M. the news of the battle of Vucidol, in which the army of Mukhtar Pasha was routed and nearly destroyed, Mukhtar himself barely escaping by the speed of his horse, entering the gate of Bilek only a hundred yards in advance of his foremost pursuer, his wounded horse falling in the gateway. Of his two brigadiers, one, Selim Pasha, a most competent and prudent general, was killed, and the other, Osman Pasha, the Circassian, taken prisoner. He lost all his artillery, and thirteen out of twenty-five battalions of regulars, two hundred prisoners being taken; but while these were _en route_ to Cettinje they became alarmed and showed a disposition to be refractory, and were put to death at once by the escort. The ways of warfare in those parts were, in spite of all the orders of the Prince, utterly uncivilized, the Montenegrin wounded being always put to death if they fell into the hands of the enemy, and no quarter being given in battle by the Montenegrins, though Turks who surrendered in a siege were kept as prisoners during the war. I had seen Mukhtar at Ragusa during the conference at the time of the armistice, and he bore out in his personal appearance the description which Osman Pasha gave of him,--dreamy, fanatical, ascetic, who gave his confidence to no one, and who said, when Selim proposed a council of war before Vucidol, "If my fez knew what was in my head I would burn it," and refused to listen to the cautionary measures Selim advised preliminary to the attack. The ascetic and the fanatic was written in his face. Returning to Cettinje, I found Osman there a prisoner on parole, and at my intercession he was permitted to accompany me to Ragusa, where I returned after a few days, life in Montenegro being intolerably dull except during the fighting.