Kolashin, as I have said, is primitive, but that it should be civilised at all is greatly to its credit. Thirty years ago this out-of-the-way corner was under Turkish rule and as wild as is Albania to-day, for the whole energy of the people was devoted to wresting the land back from the Turk. Three times did they take Kolashin, three times were they forced to yield it again to superior numbers. The grim persistency of the men of the Kolashin district succeeded, and since 1877 Kolashin has become the fourth in importance of Montenegrin towns. Cut off from the world by the lack of a road, snowed up for nearly four months of the year, its resources are at present unworked and unworkable, but its magnificent forests and its fine pasture should spell money in the future. Montenegro has been blamed for not opening up more speedily her newly acquired lands. It is possible that the delay is by no means an evil, for it has saved the people from being overwhelmed by a mass of Western ideas for which their minds are as yet unready; ideas which, ill assimilated and misunderstood, and forced with a rush upon Servia, have worked disastrously in that unhappy land. The men of Kolashin are huge and extremely strong, and are good hewers of stone, road-makers, and builders, when shown how to set to work. With their splendid physique, they require a good deal of labour to work off their steam and keep them out of mischief. Inter-tribal blood-feuds are not yet quite extinct, but the rule of the present Serdar is fast putting a stop to them; the place is growing under his hands, and the people look up to him as to a father.