ent of a new captain had led to the relations of the
disappointed candidate shooting the brother of the new captain. Two
boys, aged fifteen and sixteen respectively, had ambushed their
victim, and put no less than seven bullets into him at a distance of
four hundred yards, which is pretty good shooting. The boys got away
across the border, but wholesale arrests took place, and it is not
well to visit districts thus excited. The young Franciscan repeated
to us the story that evening round the kitchen fire, where we spent
very many happy hours. He spoke of it sadly.

"The vendetta is a terrible thing," he said. "It respects neither the
laws of God nor man."

Our host would not rest till he had shown me the famous view, and Dr.
S. accompanied us. As one stands outside the church, a magnificent
panorama is spread out, seemingly without a break. But should one wish
to ascend the mountains opposite so temptingly near, a great ravine
must be first descended. Ten minutes' walk brings one to the edge of a
precipice 2,400 feet deep, so appalling and so sudden that one's
breath is momentarily taken away. It is a spot to sit and meditate on
the grandeur of the work of the Master of all architects. The majesty
of that mighty ravine is, indeed, awe-inspiring.

At the bottom, a mere tiny thread, flows the Zem, a river which has
often run blood, and whose source is hardly known as it rises in the
unknown Procletia, "the Accursed Mountains" of history. A wall of
mountains rises beyond. Steep and precipitous as is the descent on the
Zatrijebac side, still a path trodden daily by mountaineers winds and
zigzags down to the bottom. Then as we seated ourselves on a carefully
selected and safe ledge and gazed on this unique picture, the monk
told us of a bloody battle fought not so very many years ago by the
men of Zatrijebac and the clan of Hotti who inhabit the opposite
mountains. It was a quaint illustration how questions of boundary
lines are settled without the aid of expensive Courts of Arbitration.

When the new frontier was laid down at the conclusion of the late war,
the River Zem was Montenegro's limit. On the hill beyond lies a
grazing-ground which has been used as a summer pasturage by the
Zatrijebac from times immemorial. Though technically now belonging to
Albania, and in particular to the clan of Hotti, the Zatrijebac still
continued to drive their flocks across the ravine. The Hotti
remonstrated, and finding this of no ava