Throughout European Turkey, and nowhere more than in Montenegro, has her influence waned since the Eastern war; yet so long as she shall possess, and so freely use, the golden key, she must and will have very great weight.

Of the three causes which, as I have said, tend to complicate the Herzegovinian-Montenegrin question, private machinations have recently been the most successful, and consequently the most injurious to order and the general weal.  The energy of some of the foreign employes has been truly astounding, while their glib tongues and manoeuvring minds have worked metamorphoses worthy of Robin or the Wizard of the North.  This distortion of facts was somewhat naively described by a French colleague of M. Hecquard.[P]

‘Montenegro,’ said the former gentleman, ’c’est une invention de Monsieur Hecquard.’  Instances of such duplicity have been frequently brought to light.  These, while they reflect little credit on the individual, speak badly for the good faith of the government represented, as discovery is rarely followed by punishment—­frequently quite the reverse.

The high-handed policy which the Porte is now pursuing is the most likely to be attended with beneficial results; for, as experience has shown us, the system of concession is entirely useless, each addition to their territory only making the Montenegrins the more grasping and more avaricious.  That a solution of the difficulty must in some way be arrived at is clear.  Should Turkey fail in effecting this by the means she is now adopting, Europe will be called on to interfere; for while things exist as at present, the developement of those countries in agriculture or commerce is as impossible as in civilisation and Christianity.

The disorganised condition of the Herzegovina, with its attendant incubus of half a million of debt, renders it certain that one of two results must inevitably ensue:  either Turkey will be compelled to surrender that province, and possibly Bosnia also, or she will sustain a still severer blow to her already shattered finances.  Of the two evils, the latter is the least in the opinion of the Ottoman government, and it was this consideration which induced it to determine on the prosecution of hostilities in 1861.  Several causes combined to retard the commencement of military operations until late in the year.  The principal reasons were, the almost unprecedented drought which prevailed during that year, and the deference shown by Omer Pacha to the wishes of the European Commission, then sitting at Mostar, whose members did all in their power to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion without having recourse to arms.  In the meantime troops were being massed, and stores, provisions, and magazines provided at Gasko, Bieliki, and Trebigne.  The country infested by the insurgents extended from Bosnia round the frontier as far as Suttorina, in the vicinity of which Luca Vukalovitch had established his quarters.  This man, who has acquired a certain notoriety, was a blacksmith by trade, but, preferring a life of lawless indolence to honest labour, betook himself to his present calling.  He appears to be quite devoid of that chivalrous courage which has distinguished many of his class, and consequently deserves neither sympathy when free nor mercy from his captors when taken.