In the morning I sent to the
shepherd for a lamb for breakfast for the men, and he sent us what I
took for a full-grown sheep, so large and fat was it, and I sent it
back, asking for a lamb. He replied that it was a spring lamb, and
the smallest he had. The price of it was about two shillings, and for
another he offered to dress it for us.
From there we sent back the tent, and the following night we slept
at Velje Duboko, at the bottom of one of the ravines which make the
surprises of traveling in that country so great. You proceed along a
rolling plain with no suspicion of the ca?on before you, and suddenly
find yourself on the verge of a cliff, looking down into a valley
hundreds of feet deep. Duboko lay by the river's margin fifteen
hundred feet below us, to be reached only by a winding journey of an
hour, though the shepherds carried on conversation from cliff to cliff
above. Here a momentary surprise by the Turkish bands has now and
then been possible, but never an occupation of the country. The
picturesqueness of the valley of the Duboko above the village can be
rarely surpassed by wild landscape, and the whole section, the centre
of which is the stronghold of Moratsha, is of a most interesting
character, utterly unlike the Czernagora proper.
At the convent of Moratsha I found civilization and comfort. The
hegumenos, a Dalmatian by birth, but a patriot of the first quality,
and a very militant Christian, made me most welcome.
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