bedstead had in the way of bedding.  When we left in the morning I was asked for no compensation, nor did it seem to be expected; but, as my silver had been expended, I gave the woman of the house (the husband being at the war) a gold ten-franc piece.  She took it shamefacedly, turned it over and over, looked at it curiously, and then asked my guide, “What is this?” It was the first time in her life that she had seen a gold coin, and the guide had to explain to her that it could be changed into many of the zwanzigers or beshliks which were the only coins she knew.  And with all this poverty they seemed most happy when they could extend their poor hospitality to a stranger, and always reluctant to receive any compensation, though the Prince was obliged to furnish to the general population about half the breadstuffs they used in the year.

Seven senators were always on duty near the Prince; they received about $250 a year each when on duty, at other times nothing.  The entire civil list of the Prince amounted to about $250,000 a year, from which all the expenses of the government, civil, military, and diplomatic, had to be paid.  But for the subsidies of Russia and Austria-Hungary the entire people must have migrated long ago, and I have several times heard Montenegrins say, when asked why they did not build more substantial houses, that “they were not going to stay there long, but meant to get a better country.”  And yet, like most mountaineers, they were so attached to this rugged and infertile country of theirs that there was no punishment so hard as exile.

During the greater part of the time I spent in the principality the entire male adult population was on the frontier, or fighting just beyond it, and, when a messenger was wanted, the official took a man out of the prison and sent him off, with no apprehensions of his not returning.  One such messenger I remember to have been sent to Cattaro, in Austrian territory, with a sum of three thousand florins to be paid to the banker there, and he came back before night and reported at the prison.  Jonine told me that one day, being in Cattaro, he was accosted by a Montenegrin, who begged for his intercession with the Prince to let him out of prison.  “But,” said the Russian official, “you are no more in prison than I am; what do you mean?” “Oh,” said the man, “I have only come down for a load of skins for Voivode So-and-so, but I must go into prison again when I get back to Cettinje.”  The prison was a ramshackle building, in the walls of which a vigorous push of several strong men would have made a breach, and I have often seen all the prisoners out in the sun with a single guard, on absolutely equal terms; and if, as sometimes happened, the guard was called away, any of the prisoners was ready to take his rifle and duties for the moment.