city horrified
even the hardened soldiers of Napoleon. A Ragusan gave me her
grandfather's account of the yelling horde of savage mountaineers
who rushed into battle with the decapitated heads of their foes
dangling from their necks and belts, sparing no one, pillaging and
destroying, and enraging the Russian officers by rushing home so
soon as they had secured booty worth carrying off. In considering
the Near East of to-day it should never be forgotten that but a
century ago much of the population was as wild as the Red Indians of
the same date.

The French held the Bocche di Cattaro some years during which the
Vladika, as Russia's ally, flatly refused to come to terms with
them. And in 1813, so soon as Napoleon's defeat became known Vladika
Petar and Vuko Radonitch, the new Gubernator, summoned the
tribesmen, swooped down on Cattaro, stormed the Trinity fort and
captured Budua. A short-lived triumph. Russia, wishing peace with
Austria and having no further use for Montenegro, ordered the
Vladika to yield his newly conquered lands and they were formally
allotted to Austria by Treaty.

During these years the resurrection of Serbia was taking place. In
this Montenegro was unable to take active part, being more than
enough occupied with her own affairs. But the Vladika himself sang
Karageorge's heroism and tried to send a force to his aid.

Vladika Petar I died in 1830. He left Montenegro larger and stronger
than he found it, for he had worked hard to unite the ever-quarrelling
tribes by establishing laws to suppress blood-feuds. Inability to
cohere is ever the curse of Slav lands. Only a strong autocrat has
as yet welded them. Petar earned the fame he bears in the land.

His body is to this day deeply reverenced by the superstitious
mountaineers. Some years after burial it was found to have been
miraculously preserved from decay and he was thereupon canonized
under the name of St. Petar Cetinski.

When dying he nominated as his successor his nephew Rada, then a lad
not yet in holy orders, and made his chiefs swear to support him.

Such an irregular proceeding as appointing a youth of seventeen to
an Archbishopric could hardly have been carried out, even in the
Balkans, had it not been for the terror of a dead man's curse--a
thing still dreaded in the land. And also for the fact that Rada's
election had the support too of Vuko Radonitch the Gubernator.

Vuko hoped doubtless to obtain the upper hand over such a yo