he temporal power,
and latterly left matters ecclesiastic to his nephew Sava.

The outstanding feature of his rule was his suppression of
Mahommedanism. At this time conversions to Islam were increasing.
Danilo, when on a visit to the plain of Podgoritza, to consecrate a
small church by permission of the Pasha of Scutari, was taken
prisoner by the local Moslems, though he had been promised safe
conduct, and put up to ransom. He was bought off only by the
sacrifice of the church plate of the monastery, and returned home
hot with anger.

To avenge the insult and clear the land of Islam he organized the
wholesale massacre of the Moslems of Montenegro. On Christmas Eve
1703 an armed band, led by the Martinovitches, rushed from house to
house slaughtering all who refused baptism. Next morning the
murderers came to the church, says the song: "Their arms were bloody
to the shoulders." Danilo, flushed with joy, cried: "Dear God we
thank Thee for all things!" A thanksgiving was held and a feast
followed. Danilo thus gained extraordinary popularity. Such is the
fame of his Christmas Eve that it was enthusiastically quoted to me
in the Balkan War of 1912-13 as an example to be followed, and
baptisms were enforced with hideous cruelty. The Balkan Christian of
to-day is no whit less cruel than the Turk and is more fanatical.

Danilo's prestige after this massacre was so great that the tribes
of the Brda formed a defensive alliance with him against the Turks.
And his fame flew further, for Russia, now for the first time,
appeared in Montenegro. Peter the Great sent his Envoy Miloradovitch
to Cetinje in 1711--a date of very great importance, for from it
begins modern Balkan policy and the power of the Petrovitches. Peter
claimed the Montenegrins as of one blood and one faith with Russia
and called on them to fight the Turk and meet him at Constantinople
where they would together "glorify the Slav name; destroy the brood
of the Agas and build up temples to the true faith."

The Montenegrins rushed to the fray with wild enthusiasm and on the
high ground between Rijeka and Podgoritza won the battle called "The
Field of the Sultan's Felling," such was the number of Turks who,
entangled in the thorn bushes, were slaughtered wholesale, as the
Montenegrin driver recounts to this day when he passes the spot.

A great victory--but Russia and Montenegro have not yet met at
Constantinople. The Turks sent a strong punitive force and, not fo