Here I have made acquaintance with the Montenegrin troops, rather different from ours! They get leave to go home and see after their wives and children whenever they ask it, and lax discipline does not seem to affect their heroism. They fight like lions, but do nothing else except shoot birds and fish in the interval. Every ship that touches here is greeted with a volley, though ammunition is sometimes scarce, but the Montenegrin can better spare bread than shot. He will do nothing but fight, and ships often remain unladen here for days, because there are few Albanians in the place to do the work. My soldiers carry sacks and burdens of all kinds to and from the ships, and the Montenegrins laugh at them and say: "Is that how you fight, Brother Shumadinats?" [Shumadia is a forest in the centre of the Kingdom of Serbia.] They are amused to see our men one day unshaven; they are most particular themselves to shave each day whatever happens. The priests alone wear a beard, for they are not supposed to fight.... The Montenegrin soldiers' wives come once a week to look after their husbands, wash the linen, and help to clean up.... There is, of course, a certain amount of Serb intolerance in that letter, but it represents on the whole the truth. So much for the different nations of the Balkans. The personalities of the Peninsula might provide a happy solution for the problems which the conflict of these mutually antipathetic racial elements create: for there is no fact more clear than that the general interest of the countries could best be served by a wise policy of compromise and co-operation, bringing its different elements together as the Swiss were brought together by a geographical rather than a racial reason. But unfortunately there are no personalities alike honest in outlook and great in power. Four able and far-seeing men I have met in the Balkans: M. Nikolitch, President of the Serbian Parliament; General Demetrieff, Commander of the Third Army (which won the most notable Bulgarian victories), now commanding a Russian army; M. Venizuelos, Prime Minister of Greece; M. Take Jonescu, of the Roumanian Cabinet. All men of power, none seemingly has sufficient strength to impose his will not alone on his own country, but on the other Balkan States, and weld them into a Confederation which would be held together by a sense of common interests and common dangers.