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
mere idea of an Albanian culinary experiment alarmed me. So Madame
fetched a hatchet, and the lamb was chopped in chunks on the hearthstone
and put into the caldron with a sheaf of onions, and I reflected that I
had at least secured mutton broth. The kavass was greatly disappointed,
as he wished to show them how to make a real English dinner. I thanked
him for his trouble, promised to breakfast with him, and he took his
leave.
As it had now ceased raining and was still light, Monsieur proposed that
we should go for a walk. The town is a large one, the shops built of
wood, many in Turkish style. We went into quite a number, not to buy
anything, but just so that the people could really have a good look at
me, and I shook hands with them all, Monsieur the while swelling with
pride. Throughout the walk he expatiated on Montenegro and the joys of
living under the government of the Prince; so good, so just. Here a man
was free. They were saved from those devils the Turks. He was himself an
Albanian of a Skodra family. "You are Catholic?" I said, for nearly all
Skodra Christians are Catholics. "Oh no," he said, "now I am a
Montenegrin, of the Church of Montenegro. Oh, what good people!" We got
under shelter just in time, and he showed me his other means of gaining
a living. He was an umbrella-mender, and also he embroidered the gold
patterns on the tops of caps. "I am always at work," he said, "and this
house is my own." Everything he possessed he admired and valued. As for
his wife, he informed me she was one of the best women in the world, and
he called upon me to admire everything she did. God had not given him a
son, and this was, it was true, a grief to him, but then "I have so much
else," he said cheerfully, "a house that is warm and dry, and a good
wife and plenty of friends, and a good daughter." The daughter had last
year delighted her father by making a most excellent marriage. She had
married a Montenegrin, and lived in Podgoritza. His shop was a chilly
open shed, his kitchen an English peasant would have considered an
inferior coal-hole, and he was so pleased with them that I was ashamed
of having doubted whether they were good enough for me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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