There must be many such huts; for the postmaster told me that $30,000 came into this little rocky nest in one year; more money than passed through the hands of that postmaster in twenty preceding years. In a country so impoverished, this money cannot help being a blessing. It is true, that after a brief glimpse of Montenegro I left it with feelings decidedly mixed as to the benefits it has derived from emigration. The Prince is less a patriarch than he was and not so accessible to his subjects; for he has felt the force of a revolution, small but significant. The grand opera setting of the villages and towns is being destroyed; men no more strut about like stage heroes, waiting for their cues. The picturesque is going, is almost gone, and will go entirely; poverty, extreme poverty, pinching, grinding poverty is going too, and will soon disappear. Men drink more fiery _raki_ and gamble more; women are beginning to lift up their heads and walk _beside_ the men, not _behind_ them. I am convinced that the relative of the Minister to the Exterior would not now black my boots; for which I rejoice, although the old braves complain and say: "America is a woman's country." Montenegro, hemmed in on three sides by Austria and on the other side by Turkey, and all around by poverty, has found an outlet and relief by way of the sea. Progress has come slowly and from far away and she must pay the price; yet when all is considered, she ought to be glad to pay it. In talking to the postmaster of Cetinje, I referred to my driver's story, about the angel's dropping the stones upon Montenegro, and said: "It must have been a poor sort of angel; for he didn't pick them up again." "Ah, well! He is trying to make up for it. Look here;" and he showed me advices from New York for 1,500 kronen. "If that angel keeps up the good work, we will have a krone for every stone that he dropped on our soil. Don't you say anything against our angel!" XII "THE HOLE FROM WHICH YE WERE DIGGED" It was some sort of saint's day, one of the many; this day, just before the harvest time, served at least one useful purpose. It brought together the _latifondisti_, the landowners, and the _contadini_, the labourers, who, after mass, bargained with one another for the harvest wage. There was a time when the _padrone_ had a dozen men at his heels begging to procure them work; but now the tables are turned, and smartly dressed men court these rough toilers of the Abruzzi, and are happy, when, over a bottle of wine and a hand-grasp, the bargain is sealed.