Through the Land of the SerbDurham, M. E. (Mary Edith)
History
Through the Land of the Serb
Durham, M. E. (Mary Edith)
Montenegro -- Description and travel; Serbia -- Description and travel
Wherever possible, little patches of ground are cultivated, carefully
banked up with stones to save the precious soil from being washed away,
and up on the mountain sides scrubby oaks dwarfed and twisted by the
wind find a foothold among the crags. Most of the men carry revolvers,
and the eye soon becomes so much accustomed to weapons that on a return
to unarmed lands everyone appears, for a few days, to be rather
undressed. The road winds, the red roofs of Njegushi come in sight, and
we make our first halt in a Montenegrin town, and rest our weary horses.
We enter the little inn, and our coachman claims his revolver, which is
hanging with several others behind the bar, for none are allowed to
enter Austria; they are deposited in some house near the frontier and
picked up on the way back. George Stanisich, the big landlord, hurries
up his womenkind to make ready a meal, looks after the drinks, and
converses cheerfully on the topics of the day--preferably on the war, if
there happens to be one. "Junastvo" (that is, heroism--"deeds of
derring-do") is a subject that occupies a large space in the Montenegrin
mind, and no wonder, and every man's ambition is to be considered a
"dobar junak" (valiant warrior) and worthy of his forefathers.
Njegushi cannot fail to make a most vivid impression on the mind, for it
is the entrance to a world that is new and strange. The little
stone-paved room of the inn, hung with portraits of the Prince and the
Tsar and Tsaritsa of Russia; the row of loaded revolvers in the bar; the
blind minstrel who squats by the door and sings his long monotonous
chant while he scrapes upon his one-stringed gusle; and the tall,
dignified men in their picturesque garb, all belong to an unknown
existence, and the world we have always known is left far below at the
foot of the mountain. In Njegushi one feels that one has come a long way
from England. It is, in fact, easy to travel much farther without being
so far off. Yet the Montenegrin love of liberty and fair play and the
Montenegrin sense of honour have made me feel more at home in this far
corner of Europe than in any other foreign land.
Njegushi is the Prince's birthplace. His ancestors were some of a number
of Herzegovinians who, intolerant of the Turk, emigrated in the
fifteenth century. The village they left was called Njegushi, and they
gave the same name to their new home. In connection with this I give
here a curious tale which I have met with more than once. I repeat it as
told; my informants, Servians, believed it firmly, but I can find no
confirmation of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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