Steaming onward toward Cattaro we pass two small islets, each of which seems barely large enough to keep the little churches and gardens which they hold on their surfaces from sliding into the bay. Upon one of them stands the monastery of San Giorgio, strikingly diminutive and quaint, but complete from bell-tower to cloister; on the other island is the chapel of Santa Maria della Scarpello, containing a portrait of the Madonna said to have been painted by none other than St. Luke. As we enter the bay of Cattaro, after turning abruptly around the foot of a cliff, the view is one of beauty beyond adequate description. Ahead, at the farther end of the bay, the town of Cattaro clings like a vegetable parasite to the steep base of the majestic mountain. Above it the famous “Ladder,” the trail used by the Montenegrins for five hundred years to descend from their mountain homes to Cattaro on market-days, scales the face of Mount Lovčen (pronounced Lovtchen); higher up, and a little to the right, may be seen the white zig-zags of the wonderful wagon road to Cettinje, the smallest and most inaccessible capital in Europe. But distance lends enchantment to Cattaro, and the most favourable impressions of the town may be had from the deck of the steamer. Once having set foot on the stone quay the place seems to have lost its individuality, and reminds one of any other town which has huddled itself together under the dominating influences of the Venetians. You might think that the houses had been thrown upon each other in a heap, and when someone wished to move about the town he dug a path between them as he needed it. The streets, if such they may be called, are little more than passageways between the walls of the houses. The hotels are dirty and offer the poorest excuses for accommodations to be found in the Balkans. On Saturdays the Montenegrins from the mountains climb down the “Ladder” to the market in Cattaro, first being compelled to leave their weapons in the custody of an Austrian official outside the city gates. In the evening they climb wearily back to their homes, with nothing to look forward to but the market on the following Saturday. Notwithstanding the unattractiveness of the town, there are two very patent reasons for visiting Cattaro. One is, that the delightfulness of the boat trip through the Bocche, with its magnificent scenery, far excels anything of the sort to be had south of Norway or north of the Straits of Magellan, and the other, that the drive over the Black Mountains to Cettinje unveils to the traveller some of the most wonderful views to be had in Europe. Indeed, it is said that the panorama of the Bocche and the Adriatic from the cloud-encircled summit of the mountain cannot be surpassed in the whole world. [Illustration: THE FAMOUS “LADDER” ACROSS THE FACE OF MOUNT LOVČEN.] CHAPTER XV MONTENEGRO