We had no tents; the rendezvous for the night had been at Tupani, several miles from where we were, and the division commanders were with the men and had no communication with us.  We had eaten an early breakfast, and had brought no food; the only blankets were those of the Prince.  The perianiks gathered wood and made a fire, round which we gathered, for the night set in sharp, it being the middle of September in a high mountain country.  One of the men had taken the precaution to put two or three pieces of bread in his haversack before starting, and this was divided between us, and I made my supper on this and some wild plums I found growing there.  Later the men went out to forage and found a farmhouse, where they got straw and milk, with a little sheep’s-milk cheese.  The proprietress, aroused by the invasion, came down on us in a veritable visitation, furious at our burning her wood.  She abused the Prince and all the company in the most insulting terms, and was finally placated only by a liberal compensation for her wood.  I spread my bundle of straw under the wild plum tree, and, covered by my ulster, tempted sleep.  I dozed until the ants found me out, when, unable to lie quiet under the formication, I got up and passed hours walking up and down till I was so tired that I almost fell asleep walking; then I lay down again and slept for an hour, but the cold and the ants awoke me again, and I spent the rest of the night by the camp-fire.  Meanwhile the army collected at Tupani knew nothing of the Prince, and, with the early dawn, patrols were sent off in every direction to beat up the country in search of him.  Had the Turks been on the lookout they might have gobbled up the Prince and his diplomats without difficulty.  Beaching the general rendezvous, I decided that a more active occupation than following the tactics of the Prince would suit me better, and I turned my horse’s head towards Niksich again.  Another tedious siege like that of Niksich was not to my taste, and I decided to explore the remoter provinces, and if possible go to Wassoivich, the only corner of the great Dushanic empire into which the Turk had never penetrated even for a raid, where, under the rugged peaks of the Kutchi Kom, survived the best representatives of ancient custom and life.

CHAPTER XXXIV

MORATSHA

Niksich was full of smallpox and fever, and, as there was a great abundance of tents captured with the city, I took one, with an extra baggage-horse and his leader, and started for Moratsha.  The wide plain into which we entered after leaving the hills above Niksich was a great pasture land, mottled as I never saw land before with mushrooms.  The abundance was extraordinary, but nothing would induce a Montenegrin to eat one.  We halted for our first night on the edge of a magnificent natural meadow, where a shepherd had built his hut and was feeding his flocks, and we took advantage