Bearwood, December 19, 1889.

Dear Mr. Stillman,—­One appreciates true sympathy at such a time as this, and none that I have received has touched me more than yours.  It is sad indeed to go down to the office and be no more greeted with MacDonald’s cheery voice and kindly look.  His illness was unexpected and its progress rapid.  Within a few days after his return from his holiday in Mull, he was attacked by the complaint which proved fatal—­“an enlargement of the prostate gland”—­brought on, I have no doubt, by exposure day after day to continual rain, and accompanied by recurrent attacks of fever.  To myself personally his loss is irreparable, for I had been intimately associated with him for thirty years, while his connection with the paper, formed in my father’s time, was very much longer.  He was confident, to the last, of the successful issue of the great cause to which he had devoted so much time during the last three years, and I would that he had been spared to witness it.

    Yours very truly,

    J. WALTER.

Of the fourteen years of increasing and finally cordial intimacy that followed Mr. MacDonald’s acceptance of my services as casual correspondent of the “Times,” I have the unbroken record in the file of letters received from him at every post where my duty carried me.  These contain the evidence of a noble, honest, and sympathetic nature, whose loss to me was, as Mr. Walter found it, “irreparable,” for such friendships sever themselves from all relation of interest and business.

During the tenure of the joint jurisdiction over Greece and Italy, I had an amusing experience through a report of my assassination by the Albanians.  I profited by one of the visits to Athens and Crete to pass through Trieste and take Montenegro and northern Albania in the itinerary.  Disembarking at Cattaro I drove by the new road to Cettinje, a magnificent drive with unsurpassed views seaward and inland, but the abolition of the natural defense of Montenegro against the Austrian artillery.  No doubt the astute Prince understood that after the recognition of Montenegrin nationality by all Europe and the emphasis put on its importance by the Dulcigno demonstration and its results, he could afford to ignore the hostility of Austria and take his chances as the head of a civilized nation which had rights Austria must respect.  But even in this breaking down of a barrier provided by nature he showed his shrewdness and tenacity, for the Austrians, in passing the frontier, had made the trace of the road pass over an elevation from which their artillery would command the difficult gorge that was the gate to the principality, and the Prince refused to bring his portion of the road to meet it but brought it up to the frontier by a safe route, and left the terminus there until the Austrians brought their road to meet it where the junction was in favor of the Montenegrin defense.