The Montenegrin flora, which includes many plants peculiar to the district, had never been completely worked before, and beyond the frontier was quite unknown to science. He was wild to plant-hunt there, but his encounter with the Kaimmakam had been so unpleasant that he had reluctantly given up all hopes of doing so for the present. The Kaimmakam, he said, and the Voyvode were friendly enough a short time back, but the political situation was just then strained, and I had been lucky to escape an interview. Everyone wanted to know how I had fared, and I was asked round to the Voyvode's house. The baker's lady took me. We went up an outside staircase into a tiny room with a hearthstone and an iron pot in it, and from this into another room, where the Voyvode's lady welcomed me cordially. Her daughter-in-law and her son came in, followed by the Voyvode and his secretary, the kapetan. It was a tiny whitewashed room with a bare wooden floor, a table, three wooden chairs, and a bench--quite devoid of all the comforts of an English labourer's cottage; and portraits of Prince Nikola and the Russian and Italian Royal Families were the only exceptions to its Spartan simplicity. Hospitality was the order of the day. Rakija was produced, a plate of cheese and another of little lumps of ham, and a fork. All clinked glasses, took it in turns to eat little bits of ham off the fork, and were very festive. I have seldom met more charming people. The Voyvode was loud in his contempt for Boshko, and vexed that I should have had to pay a second man. This sealed Boshko's fate. He was, though well-meaning, quite incompetent as a guide. I paid him off and dismissed him. Alat had to go too, and the saddle, as Boshko dared not return without them.