The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume IIStillman, William James
History
The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II
Stillman, William James
Journalists -- Biography; Stillman, William James, 1828-1901
The next movement on the part of the Turks, which was expected to be
one by Dervish Pasha, from the base of Podgoritza towards Cettinje,
called me into the field again. We took position along the heights of
Koumani, on the verge of the great table-land which intervenes between
Rieka and Danilograd, and from which we could see the Turkish camps
spread out on the plain below us; and if the Turks had but known where
we were, they might have thrown their shells from the blockhouses in
the plain into our camp. There was no attack for the moment, and the
scouts of the Montenegrins used to amuse themselves by arousing the
Turkish camps in the night or by stealing the horses and mules
from the guards set over them. A band of seven stole, during this
suspension of operations, forty horses and brought them into the
camp, and one, more cunning and light-footed than the rest, stole
the pasha's favorite horse from the tent where he was guarded by two
soldiers sleeping at the entrance, and brought him to the Prince at
Koumani. He had to take the precaution of wrapping the creature's
hoofs in rags before bringing him out of the tent. When the object was
to stir the Turks out of their rest, a half-dozen men would crawl up
to the stone wall which they invariably threw up around the camp, and
lay their rifles on it, for there was never a sentry set, and fire
rapidly into the tents as many shots as they could before rousing the
camp, and then scatter and run. The whole battalion would turn out and
continue firing in every direction over the country for half an hour,
while the artillery, as soon as the guns could be manned, followed the
example, and almost every night we were roused from our sleep by the
booming of the guns.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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