The family's hut was a windowless, chimneyless, wooden shanty, devoid of all furniture save a few lumps of wood and a bench, and the rafters were black and shiny with smoke. Plenty of light came in, though there was no window, for no two planks met. A Singers sewing-machine, which sat on the floor, looked a forlorn and hopeless anachronism, for all else belonged to the twelfth century at latest. Certainly the huge and shapeless meals did--the lumps of flesh, the lamb seethed whole in a pot, and the flat brown loaves of rye bread. A Montenegrin can go for a surprising time without food, can live on very little, but when food is plentiful his appetite is colossal. These worthy people used to serve me with enough food for a week. Because I could not clear it all up, Ljubitza used to run in at odd intervals with lumps of bread, bowls of milk, glasses of sliva, onions, and other delicacies, to tempt my appetite. My window gave on the balcony, so there was room for many people to look in, see me eat and urge me to further efforts. When they assembled also to see my toilet operations, about which the ladies were very curious, I had to nail up my waterproof by way of protection. Whereupon a baffled female opened the window. The establishment possessed one tin basin, which I shared with the gentlemen in the next room. I captured it over night and handed it out to them in the morning on the balcony, where they took it in turns to squat while Ljubitza poured water over their hands and heads and they scrubbed their faces. It is not the thing to wash in your room in Montenegro, and my hostess thought me very peculiar upon this point. And in spite of the "lick-and-a-promise" system, folk always looked clean.