There is one branch of the public administration which eminently requires readjustment.  This is the police force.  Ill-paid and badly organised, it follows as a matter of course that it is inefficient to perform the duties required of it.  It is divided into horse and foot, and is paid as follows per month:—­

Horse                                  Piastres
Binbashee (or Chief Officer)             1,000 per month
Uzbashee (or Captain)                      600     "
Tchonch (Corporal or Sergeant)             250     "
Nefer (Private)                            150     "

Foot                                   Piastres
Tchonch                                    100 per month
Nefer                                       75     "

The Zaptiehs have frequently duties to perform which should only be intrusted to men of honesty and sagacity, and it is consequently of great importance to render the service attractive to trustworthy men.  To effect this the pay, more especially in the lower grades, should be increased, and circumspection used in the selection of recruits.  At present this is far from being the case, many men of notoriously bad character being employed, and these are driven to peculation and theft for the means of supporting life.  The mounted portion find their own horses and forage, is very dear in many parts of the province.

[Footnote I:  Many of the villages on the Montenegrin frontier no longer exist, having been fired by the insurgents.]

[Footnote J:  These are principally on the western banks of the Narenta, outside Mostar.]

CHAPTER VII.

     Omer Pacha—­Survey of
     Montenegro—­Mostar—­Bazaars—­Mosques—­Schools—­Old Tower—­Escape of
     Prisoners—­Roman Bridge—­Capture by Venetians—­Turkish
     Officers—­Pacha’s Palace—­European
     Consulates—­Clock-Tower—­Emperor’s Day—­Warlike
     Preparations—­Christian Volunteers—­Orders to March.

During the week which intervened between my arrival and the removal of head-quarters to the seat of war, I had several interviews with Omer Pacha.  On these occasions he showed much kindness of disposition, and took great trouble to explain to me the arrangements which he made for the prosecution of the war against Montenegro in 1852, and to describe the nature of campaigning in that province.

He expressed himself much pleased with a map of Montenegro which I had presented to him, drawn by Major Cox, R.E., British Commissioner for determining the new boundary line, but detected the absence of one or two traversable paths, the existence of which I found to be correct when I subsequently accompanied the army to those districts.  The map, however, I may observe, is very superior, both in accuracy and minuteness of detail, to any other survey which has as yet appeared.