his foot was bargaining for a gun to go back to the war with. He showed me laughingly the pieces of bone he had taken from his foot, and which he kept carefully wrapped in paper, as if something talismanic were in them. We went to two or three houses, all alike, except that some of the patients had beds. I learnt at Risano with great pleasure that an Austrian surgeon was going up to Grahovo to attend to the wounded, and that the Government intended sending food for the refugees. We reached Risano late in the evening, taking the steamer thence for Castel Nuovo the next morning.

At Castel Nuovo was the depôt and direction of the insurrection, arsenals, and storehouses, and seat of the distributing committee. The little strip of territory belonging to Turkey, which here comes down to the sea, afforded the most important facilities to the insurgents, and to reach it from Castel Nuovo was only a half-hour's walk. Here volunteers, rifles, ammunition, provisions, &c. were landed ad libitum, as I had the evidence of my own eyes to prove, and the insurgents had the freedom of the frontier, coming and going in absolute freedom. No concealment was practised whatever in conducting any kind of military operations which circumstances permitted.

I found that sharp fighting had been going on in the neighbourhood of Zubci, and that my hope of visiting the insurgent camp via Trebinje, or vice versa, was vain, for no communication that way was practicable, as I had got no escort, and I was assured that the country was most unsafe, even with the best escort I could have obtained. Besides, the insurgents were in motion, nobody knew where, and I was again compelled to make a flank movement to find them. I had, however, an opportunity of examining the fortress and barrack of Sutorina, destroyed by the insurgents, and

the destruction of which called down on the authors of it a great deal of denunciation. It seemed to me, however, a measure admissible in a military point of view, if it had been complete, as the building was really a strong fortress, unassailable by any means in the hands of the insurgents, if once occupied by a Turkish force. Besides, the Christians were in entire uncertainty whether the Austrian Government might not at any day have allowed troops to land at Sutorina, as they had at Klek, in which case their most available and natural source of supplies would be cut off. I was able also to visit the place near Sutorina where the cartridges were manufactured, and got here an indication of the disorder and want of common sense in the conduct of their affairs, which told its story even more clearly than the fact that the insurgents could not be depended on to obey orders when their fancy led them in another direction. These cartridges were made for the whole insurrectionary force; and as the men were armed in part with rifles and part with tufeks, &c., and the ammunition distributed indiscriminately, it was clear that one-half must be badly served in any event; but as the ball in the cartridge was made small enough to suit the smallest calibre, and round, or as near round as bad casting brings it, the consequence was that the much-valued rifles were used with round balls, half filling the bore, the extreme range of which would certainly not be above 200 yards, doing small damage at that. In fact, the members of the committees in general seemed to think that to keep up an insurrection, it is only necessary to get as many men together as possible, and send in bread, rifles, and ammunition, anyhow and anywhere, trusting to the chapter of accidents to keep things all right. The committees were badly organized; and though they contained

D

men of unquestionable ability and devotion to the cause, there was not one man, so far as I saw, who had any conception of what insurrectionary organization ought to be. In fact, what I saw at Castel Nuovo alone would have been sufficient to assure me that there had been no preparation for insurrection, or definite purpose in direction.

There

This was the greatest weakness of the movement. was no want of men-there were more than could be armed; nor is the want of military organization and discipline of great importance in a war where no regular operations are possible, and where, from the difficulty of the country, no great danger of surprises by the troops is to be apprehended. Even the question of provisions is one of less importance than in regular operations; and these men were accustomed to go two or three days without bread, and sometimes thirtysix hours without water; they rarely drink coffee, or even raki, in their movements, and are gay under privation which would paralyze any regular troops. But men who have not ammunition fit for their use, and are obliged to expose themselves to the fire of the Turkish breechloaders for a certain time before they can get near enough to do any harm in return, must have more than ordinary military courage to effect anything beyond closing difficult passes, and keeping the troops on the qui vive. To inflict any material damage on the regulars, they needed not only rifles, but ammunition for rifles, and this the committees had not had experience enough to understand the meaning of.

To see anything of the Turkish side of the question, it was necessary to get back to Ragusa, and to Ragusa I went by steamer again.

CHAPTER III.

URING my absence in Cettinje the bands of the upper Herzegovina had come down and taken

possession of the road to Trebinje, and had captured a provision train and carried it off to their camp at Glavski-dol. Hussein Pasha had sent out a battalion, with a strong squad of Mussulmans of Trebinje, to attack the camp, and they had been drawn by Peko Pawlovics into an ambush and utterly defeated, leaving eighty dead bodies behind them, amongst whom were several leading Beys of Trebinje, the main force escaping to the shelter of the blockhouses in uncontrolled panic. The Pasha organized another expedition, which, however, after a slight skirmish on the main road, retreated to Trebinje again, and the insurgents held undisturbed possession of the road.

When I proposed to go to the beleaguered city there had been for several days no news, the foot postman being interdicted. But a Ragusa fiacre and an undaunted coachman were found equal to the occasion, and in company with correspondents of an American, a French, and an Italian journal, furnished with the Turkish visa, and with the insurgents well warned that we were not enemies, I started. For three or four miles the road is either in Austrian territory or close to it, and protected by two blockhouses, Czarina

and Drien. This position is very wild, but, Drien once passed, we had before us a drive of three hours, through a country not nearly so difficult as any part of Montenegro which I have seen, and found the whole country, with the exception of the hills just about Drien on the frontier, and three or four miles near Trebinje, entirely abandoned to the insurgents. The guard over a store of flour, &c. on the Austrian frontier, assured us that for five days not even the post had passed over the space so given up. The outposts were sufficiently on the qui vive to justify one in thinking that the enemy had been sighted. Three Austrian peasants from Brieno, waiting a chance to go to Trebinje, begged the protection of our shadow, in abject fear of finding themselves alone face to face with the terrible "Montenegrins."

Not a long rifle-shot from the outposts the driver pointed out the locality of the beginning of the "great fight" where the convoy was taken. The ground was still red with blood in spots along the road, and the Brienesi assured us that half an hour further on we should find the "Greeks." The country gives capital cover, though not precipitous. It seems from the hills at Drien to be a plain, but when we get down into it we find it cut up by numerous shallow ravines, and studded with crags and spurs of limestone from three to ten feet high, between which, in the interstices, were rooted scrubby oaks and other bushes. A thousand men might lie within a hundred feet of the road and not show a cap. The whole region was deserted by every living creature, so far as we could see. Watching carefully, I saw finally, a short rifleshot from the road, a human head above a rock, but in a moment it had disappeared. Half-way through this dreary waste, which I can only compare to a vast glacier turned into stone, where a wretched vegetation had found a myste