in the
Kuchi and Triepshl tribes, and the Catholic Albanians of Podgoritza
were not allowed to make a floor to their church and had to kneel on
the bare gravel.

At Podgoritza I soon saw that the Montenegrins wanted war. King
Nikola hoped thus to mend his damaged prestige. Mobilization began.
On July 11th Yanko told me all was ready, and he could take Scutari
in ten days. He offered to take me there on a gun carriage. The
artillery tracks to the mountains were completed, and the big guns
were going up. Ox-carts creaked past at night, taking up the
ammunition. The Turks, it was said with glee, dared not withdraw
troops from the Bulgar frontier, and were hampered with revolts
elsewhere. Soon, however, large Turkish forces arrived. It was clear
the untrained Maltsors could not stand against the overpowering
numbers. Too late they saw they had been tricked by the
Montenegrins, and cried to the Powers. At their request I helped
draw up a letter to Sir Edward Grey, explaining their situation and
their wishes, and we sent it. King Nikola, who was posing to the
Powers as the victim of the Albanian insurrection, was very angry
when he heard of this, and suspected me of instigating it. But I did
not. The Maltsors, too, were tricked by General Garibaldi, who had
promised to aid them and did not do so. They had expected the South
of Albania to rise also. Had it done so, I believe the Powers would
have been obliged to recognize the Albanian question, and much
future war might have been spared. But, unfortunately, the South
believed in Ismail Kemal, and he worked on which ever side paid him.
He was then in league with a Corfiote Greek, one Androutzos, who
boasted to me in a letter that he and Ismail had advised the South
against rising, and had "saved Albania." A few risings took place,
but not enough to make a mark in Europe.

Meanwhile Montenegro still expected war, and to every protest I made
that Montenegro could not fight the Turks single-handed I was always
told that Bulgarian help was certain. The army was anxious to begin,
for it was mobilized, and the revolt had cost more than had been
expected. But for the fund I raised the wretched refugees would have
suffered yet more bitterly. Montenegro cared nothing for them. All
she wanted was territory. Great Serbia was discussed with singular
cold-bloodedness, one of the schoolmasters saying at the
dinner-table that it would never be "made till the Petrovitches and
the Karageorg