On that day we saw epitomised, the barbarous beauty of the land of Montenegro. Our route lay in narrow valleys between steep mountains of grey rock; bare of vegetation, bare of life, bare of everything but inhospitable jagged peaks which dared you to come near them. The rocks were grey, the sky was grey, and yet, suddenly, at a sharp turn of the grey road, a grey precipice pointed grimly all the way down, three thousand feet, to a tiny ribbon of the most brilliant green water that ever flowed in fairyland. In such drab surroundings, where did it get that colour? Prosaic people would say "melted snow water," but Hans Andersen would have known better than that. And so did I. But as it (the river) was quite inaccessible, it was, like everything else in the country, a forbidding sight. But there was that day another moment of stolen joy, when, before beginning the descent towards the plain in which lay Podgoritza, the grey prison walls slid open, and revealed vast stretches of open country, distant mountains, valleys, and, in the middle of a grey mist of mountain ranges, glinting in the midday sun, a line of gold--could it be--yes, it was the Lake of Scutari. Ah! that was beautiful indeed! We had never seen anything so refreshing as that. Old gaolbird and Sandford and Merton went on to try and get rooms, and bread and hay, in the village of Vilatz. After winding round and round the mountain side, on a narrow road, we arrived, and found Sandford and Merton sitting calmly on a rock this side of the village, "nema nishta" written in capitals all over their faces. So Vooitch and I went on into the village, and the first man to whom we spoke said, "Oh, yes," he could give us hay, and bread, and a house in which to spend the night. It was too good to be true, but we told him to wait while we went on to see the officer at the military station, to ask for bread for the men. But the officer said "nema nishta" to bread and to everything, so we went out to see what our first friend could do for us. We found the local Prefect standing outside; a tall, fine-looking man, dressed in dark blue uniform, with a revolver hanging conspicuously from his waist-belt. To our surprise, he accosted us aggressively, and said we must not buy hay or bread from the man who had offered it. The man remonstrated, and said it was his hay and his bread, and he could do what he liked with it. I was inclined to agree with him, but the Prefect then stormed and shouted, and brought out his revolver, and threatened to shoot the man if we went with him. He did not realise who we were, and that, though I was in woman's dress, I had majorly authority. We mentioned this. Then I took his name and told him that I should tell the English newspapers how a Montenegrin Prefect treated his English allies. That was a great success. At once it appeared that we had misunderstood him. He had only spoken for our good, fearing that we might be disappointed of the promised hay and