[Illustration:  DISEMBARKATION OF A TURKISH BRIDE.]

[Illustration:  GOVERNOR PETROVITCH AND HIS DAUGHTER IN THEIR STATE BARGE.]

An Albanian noble said to Jan, “We are quiet now:  the Powers have no time to waste upon us, and we are not going to revolt and let ourselves be murdered without redress.  But, if after the war things are not righted, monsieur, there will be a revolution every day.”

We saw a pelican, and of course some one had to try and kill it; but luckily the criminal was an average shot only.  The pelican flew off flapping its broad white wings.  The Frenchman told us that the Turkish lady round the corner is a gipsy bride to be.  A light dawned upon us.  The bed, these boxes we were sitting upon:  she was taking her furniture with her.  Jan peered round at her.  She was sitting on a low stool, and the two screens were standing at duty.  They had chosen the most secluded spot in the boat, which was next to the boilers.  The day itself was very hot, and the atmosphere within the poor bride’s thick coverings must have been awful, though when nobody was looking she was allowed to raise for a second the many thicknesses of black chiffon which shrouded her face, and to gasp a few chestfulls of fresh air.

Dr. Ob suddenly produced a large sheep’s head which he dissected with medical knowledge.  He gouged out an eye which he offered to Jo; upon her refusing the succulent morsel he gave a sigh of relief and wolfed it himself.  One of the men on board had a fiddle, and played us across the lake.  Some one said, “Give us the Merry Widow.”

He shook his head.

“Come on,” said his tempter, “there’s no one here.  Give it us.”  At last, looking at Miss Petrovitch and us, the musician timidly started the music, for the “Merry Widow” is “straffed” in Montenegro as one of the characters is a caricature of Prince Danilo, hence everybody plays it with gusto in private.

We came again to Plavnitza.  A huge crowd of Turks were waiting for us; one wild befezzed ruffian had a concertina and was capering to his own strains.

We were suddenly disturbed, the box was wrested away, the bundles also, the bed was carried off, also a tin dish too small for a bath, too big for a basin, and a tin watering pot—­the bride’s trousseau.  The bride was seized by two men, her brothers we were told, and carried up the stairs to a waiting brougham, the trousseau was piled upon a bullock cart, and shouting and singing and dancing the cortege moved out of sight.

At Virbazar the steamer could not come to the quay, so the authorities ran a five-inch rounded tree trunk from the boat to the mud.  Many dared the perilous crossing, and one nearly fell into the water.  Dr. Ob was furious, and at last a plank was substituted.  Then we found that the only way off the mud was by clambering round a corner of wall on some shaky stepping stones.  Dr. Ob fumed, his little round face grew