And yet so poor and so contented were they that the life of the
primitive man could not have been much simpler. I have seen, in the
cold end of September, in the high mountain districts, a whole
family of little children, whose united rags would not have made a
comfortable garment for one of them, playing with glee in the fields.
On one occasion, when I had been caught by the heavy autumn rains in
remote Moratcha, roads washed away and riding a mile impossible, I had
to take with me two or three men, beside my guide and horse boy, to
make a road where I had to travel, and we were obliged to halt for the
night at one of the poorest villages I ever saw in Montenegro. The
best house in it was offered me, with such fare as they had, to
supplement bread which I had brought from the convent. The house had
but one room, with a large bedstead built in it of small trees in the
rough, and the beaten ground for floor. The bed was given up to me,
and the family lay on the ground with a layer of straw, which was
all that the bedstead had in the way of bedding. When we left in
the morning I was asked for no compensation, nor did it seem to be
expected; but, as my silver had been expended, I gave the woman of the
house (the husband being at the war) a gold ten-franc piece. She took
it shamefacedly, turned it over and over, looked at it curiously, and
then asked my guide, "What is this?" It was the first time in her life
that she had seen a gold coin, and the guide had to explain to her
that it could be changed into many of the zwanzigers or beshliks which
were the only coins she knew.
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