Next morning we entered the post-chaise, in which we had wisely booked all the four seats, and made a start on our six hours’ drive.  What would have happened had other travellers arrived is hard to imagine.  A wait of forty-eight hours till the next post went would have probably caused annoyance, and this carriage was literally the only means of conveyance on this side of Montenegro.  It goes one day and returns the next.  Fortunately, passengers are extremely rare.  The drive was of great interest, winding up in a series of sweeping curves between magnificent hills.  The ridge on our left was the site of a great battle in the last war, when a small Montenegrin force dislodged a large Turkish army and captured Antivari and the long-coveted sea.  The danger and recklessness of the feat was apparent from the road, and it was evidently not expected by the Turks, for a false step on those rocky heights meant certain death.

[Illustration:  ANTIVARI ON BAR]

The top of the Sutormann Pass (2,700 feet) was reached in about four hours, and now the deep blue Adria was spread out before us, and our tortuous descent commenced.  Commanding the pass still stands a mighty but much-battered fortress, taken by the gallant Montenegrins in that memorable battle.  But nowhere could the historical old town and fortress of Bar, or Antivari, be seen.  In fact, not till we were within a few hundred yards of the town, was a single house in view.  It is hidden from sight in a hollow, surrounded by a forest of olive trees.

All of a sudden the carriage drew up at a recently built stone house, ornamented with the trophies of war.  Piles of cannon-balls, old cannon, splinters of shells are tastefully arranged on the walls.  Immediately in front of us stood the once famous fortress of Bar, now a shot-riddled and ruined mass of stone, a mere shell of its former strength.

Even then the town is hardly apparent, but in a few seconds one enters it down a steep and slippery path of well-worn stones.  On either side are Turkish bazaars, out of which Turkish faces peer at the infidel dogs.  There is very little of the Montenegrin element apparent.  We only walked through the town once, as our destination was Prstan, the actual seaport of Antivari.

We were somewhat rudely disillusioned.  After an hour’s drive along a flat and ugly road, we espied a collection of some half a dozen houses.  Two or three of them are large and modern in appearance but that was all.  Was this, then, Antivari, Montenegro’s important seaport and the bone of contention with Austria?

Right well has Austria maintained its control of this little port.  One large house is that of the Austrian Vice-Consul, who lives in solitary state, watching everyone who passes through the port.  Opposite, on the further horn of the bay, lies Spizza, an Austrian military station.  Antivari is, indeed, but Montenegrin in name.