arets of the town,
on jagged rocks and precipices, on slopes of oak forest and slopes of
olive woods, on blue hills dropping away beyond blue hills to the coast.
And behind them when they turned they saw great mountains, sullenly
magnificent, cleft into vast irregular masses, dense with woods below
and grim and desolate above....

These were unforgettable scenes, and so too was the wild lonely valley
through which they rode to Ochrida amidst walnut and chestnut trees and
scattered rocks, and the first vision of that place itself, with its
fertile levels dotted with sheep and cattle, its castle and clustering
mosques, its spacious blue lake and the great mountains rising up
towards Olympus under the sun. And there was the first view of the
blue Lake of Presba seen between silvery beech stems, and that too had
Olympus in the far background, plain now and clear and unexpectedly
snowy. And there were midday moments when they sat and ate under vines
and heard voices singing very pleasantly, and there were forest glades
and forest tracks in a great variety of beauty with mountains appearing
through their parted branches, there were ilex woods, chestnut woods,
beech woods, and there were strings of heavily-laden mules staggering up
torrent-worn tracks, and strings of blue-swathed mysterious-eyed women
with burthens on their heads passing silently, and white remote houses
and ruins and deep gorges and precipices and ancient half-ruinous
bridges over unruly streams. And if there was rain there was also
the ending of rain, rainbows, and the piercing of clouds by the sun's
incandescence, and sunsets and the moon, first full, then new and then
growing full again as the holiday wore on.

They found tolerable accommodation at Cattaro and at Cettinje and at a
place halfway between them. It was only when they had secured a guide
and horses, and pushed on into the south-east of Montenegro that they
began to realize the real difficulties of their journey. They aimed for
a place called Podgoritza, which had a partially justifiable reputation
for an inn, they missed the road and spent the night in the open beside
a fire, rolled in the blankets they had very fortunately bought in
Cettinje. They supped on biscuits and Benham's brandy flask. It
chanced to be a fine night, and, drawn like moths by the fire, four
heavily-armed mountaineers came out of nowhere, sat down beside Benham
and Amanda, rolled cigarettes, achieved conversation in bad I