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«n THE ADVENTURER
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~^ RTHUR p ' SMITH
• ■-• ■j I
WJiAyoc snaij /rsamuzi f I \3« .Tv*^)
tE HAS always seemed to me the prince of
all adventurers: a man whose nostrils
sniffed the breath qtf battle as eagerly as
most of us sniff a flower; a man whose
virile person delighted in the zest of dan
ger, who was invariably willing to stake
his all on the right; a man hardy, deter-
mined, daring, resemroefui, bold, yet never
reckless; withal a man who knew when
* '' ,k to let well enough alone and steer the
middle path of caution.
He happened to be born with royal blood in his
*, veins; but that is of small account. Every inch of
territory, every subject he owns, he has fought for,
and it is to his credit that the domains handed to
him by his predecessor, fifty-two years ago, have
been rather more than doubled in extent and popu
lation through the might of his sword and the agility
of his brain.
Nicholas Petrovich Niegoch, czar of Montenegro,
prince of the Zeta, voivode of llrda, sund gospodar
of Tchernagora. Europe’s last feudul ruler, was born
at Niegoch, the ancestral home of hi* house, on
September 25, 1841, He came of the wonderful
line which has given rulers to Montenegro for more
than two hundred years und which was oi*e of the
foremost families of the ancient principality for
centuries before that. The Petrovich dynasty lias
reigned in Montenegro since 1096, when the rule of
the hereditary vladikas, or prince-bishops, was In
augurated. Hut for hundreds of years before that
date, even before the time of the first Hlack Prince,
Stephen Chrnoievich, the Petrovich were an hon
ored family, who boasted She rank of voivode or
lord.
Ail of the men of this Pipe have been men of great
personal prowess, exceptional military ability,
statesmanship and political ginning, and possesed
of marked personal magnetisnf- Living, for the
most part, lives of strictest celibacy, quaint mix
tures of the warrior and the rnonTc, they presided
over the destinies of their tiny nation’ jvith a sense
of responsibility that you will not find equaled py
the standard of any ruling dynasty In Europe.
At the beginning of its existence, Montenegro was
ruled by successive dynasties of princes, of which
t! > last was the Chrnoievich. In 1510, however,
the system of government was changed, and what
were known as elective vladikas were installed.
One ruler of the Petrovich was succeeded by his
bKu'Nir's son. Strangely enough, there was
iTO mty' l( >ußy among the nephews who woro
passed over.
i *mce, the father of Czar Nicholas,
Mirko, known as the ‘‘Sword of Montenegro”—
the most famous warrior the little land can boast
and a stalwart bulwark against the invasions of
the Turks which threatened Montenegro until
1878, when Russia put a stop once and for all to
Moslem aggression In Europe—was twice passed
over for the throne, the second time in favor of
JUs own son. Yet lie fought cherefully both for
his brother and his son and never showed a trace
of ill-feeling, although, us has been said, he has
«ways been regarded ns best leader the
acls Mountain men ever had.
To tell the story of Czar Nicholas, the flrg£
the Montenegrin rulers to wear a kingly crown,
means the telling oT the story of his country
throughout liis reign.
It is not a sßjis Vhich can be lightly told,
eiui@s, tot involves description of several of
the tuoiU ktirrlßE combats havo taken place
elhce the days of the Crusades.
In the first place, It Is necessary to give a
brief sketch of the land of Montenegro, or Tcher
nagora—"the Black Mountain,” to call it by the
name its inhabitants love best. Montenegro was
colonized in the last decade of the fourteenth cen
tury by noble families from Macedonia, Servia
and Bulgaria, the pick of the old Slav aristocracy,
who fled from their upland castles In the Rho
dope hills after the battle of Kossovo In 1389,
when the Turks completely crushed the Christian
power in the Balkan peninsula, and the great
Bulgar-Serl) empire, which had been numbered
among the mightiest In Europe, went down to
everlasting defeat.
From that time on. the story of Montenegro Is
the story of endless battles, wars, sieges, raids,
forays and encounters with the Turks, varied
occasionally by combats with the Venetians, who
made several abortive attempts to scale the im
pregnable road known as the ‘‘Montenegrin Lad
der,' which runs from the Bocca dl Cattora up
to Cettinje, and, later, combats with the French
and Austrians.
Time and again the Turkish Sultans and their
viceroys, the Pashas of Albania, Bosnia and the
Herzegovina, endeavored to conquer the tiny
land. For four huudred and fifty years, army
after army, led by the Janissaries and best gen
erals Turkey could produce, attempted to conquer
Montenegro 'and failed. During the first half of
the last century the warfare between the little
principality and its great enemy was almost un
ceasing. In the reign of Dantlo 11., uncle of
Nicholas, a number of tremendous battles were
fought.
Five years before the time came for Nicholas
to ascend the throne, his destiny had been de
termined upon, and as Ids uncle was a man of
considerable foresight and no small intellectual
attainments, it was determined that the heir
apparent should be given a first-class western
education in preparation for his assuming the
responsibilities of leader of his people.
Accordingly, after a preparatory' course in the
home of his aunt in Trieste —where he imbibed
principally hatred of the Austrians, who were
becoming almost as dangerous enemies of Monte
negro as the Turks —he was shipped off to Parts,
where he studied at the Academy of Louts-le-
Grand, and obtained some proficiency in French,
Italian and German, besides Serb history and
other more usual branches of knowledge.
Even if Nicholas had not been a king he would
have deserved commendation and a distinctive
place in the history of his country through his
literary endeavors. Besides a volume of poetry,
~*t" <r- ! *•' • *
17£& MPOTYtf OJT£az,z>&&d
lie has written several poetic dramas, including
"The Empress Sf .the Balkans' 1 and "Prince Ar
■hiimie jil.l 4f.'allc£ «.'Uli £yib history, and do
cUredto unusual merit.
He tras not quite nineteen when lie was called
to take his uncle's place. Two months later lie
married Milena Voukovich, daughter of one of
the principal voivodes, who had been a brother
in-arms of his father, Mirko. The Czarina Mil
ena is still one of the handsomest women m Evj*
rope. She stood shoulder to shoulder with her
husband throughout all
of his eveutfij] reign, at t ini ft when Tin fc!Ts
driven from pillar to post by the Moslem hordes
that were poured through the defiles of the
Lovchcn range in wave after wave, so that even
the brave Black Mountain men quailed under the
atSicPßmi .sought safety on the impassable moun
tain heights.
!m<l peace of a kind for a year, and then
ft® out with redoubled violence. The in
surrection of the rayahs, or Christian peasants of
the Herzegovina, aroused the sympathies of the
Montenegrins, and young Prince Nicholas found
his hands full trying to obey the injunctions of
the great powers to refrain from hostilities and
keep his fiery subjects in check.
For some months he held out against the
wishes of the nation, with somewhat dubious suc
cess. He honestly did his best to remain neu
tral; he even consented to allow 'the Turks to
send their convoys across Montenegrin territory.
A series of "frontier incidents”—“frontier inci
dent" is the designation for any fracas along the
Montenegrin border which results In fatalities —
followed close upon one another's hels. The
Turks grasped eagerly- at the chance they had
been looking for. Omar Pasha, viceroy of the
western provinces, one of the bitterest foes of
Montenegro, threw a huge army across the fron
tier, undeterred by his previous defeats at the
hands of Mirko. It was reasoned In Constanti
nople that young Nicholas had earned the dis
like of his subjects by his peace policy, and that
now, while there was turmoil in the Christian
camp. Turkey might find it easy to crack the nut
which had resisted so many efforts for so many
hundreds of years.
But things did not turn out exactly as Turkey
had anticipated. A great part of the principality
was overrun, most of the villages were destroyed
and ruin stared every one in the face. Omar's
army had entered the country in three divisions,
aiming to comb it from side to side, and making
their principal effort against the valley of the
Zeta. which might be called the highroad of
Montenegro, the main artery of its life. But, led
by the giant fighter, Mirko. and their boy prince—
in whom they trusted implicitly, once he had
sanctioned war—the Montenegrins took up un
flinchingly the struggle of their fathers. The
Turks were assailed from every height, from the
sides of every pass.
True, the valley of the Zeta fell into the In
vaders' hands, but on little else could they Jceep
their grip for long. The war was fought with a
fierce, unrelenting fanaticism which is all but in
comprehensible to the western mind. After sixty
battles. the Montenegrins were glad to meet their
foes half-way.
They conceded some unimportant points and
won a breathing/spell.
Cholera followed in the wake of famine, and
despite the assistance of France, which sent
shiploads of corn to arrest the ravages of hun
ger, many who had survived the bullet and steel
of the Turkish armies were carried off by the
scourge of disease, among them Mirko, “the
Sword.”
The loss of his father was a great blow to
THE COCHRAN JOURNAL, COCHRAN, GEORGIA.
sadly crippled—and instituted a systematic plan
of military organiaztion, on the model of the
greater European nations.
Thy result was that Turkey feared to wring
from ufontenegn? 5H the privileges the sultan
hid really gained under the last treaty.
During the next fourteen years there were
many covert outbreaks along the frontier. In
fact, such affairs have always been regular top-
of gossip in Montenegro up to the present
time.
T* Same in 187?, when Servia declared war all
by herself against Turkey, and Montenegro threw
lit the whole force and weight of her 190,000 in
habitants with Servia’s 2,000,000. There had
been some rumor of a Russian declaration of war
against the sultan. But Montenegro did not wait
for this. That was not the Montenegrin way.
"Fight for your brothers against any odds," that
is the Montenegrin creed, and Prince Nicholas
acted upon it. The blood of Tchernagora ran as
Ijotly as of, old. gut there was more than hot
blood and desperate courage to throw into the
balance for the principality this time. There was
the result of all the scientific preparations Nich
olas had been making for fourteen years.
His increased standard of efficiency told right
at the start, when he was able to rally 20,000 men
to his standard—the largest army Montenegro
had ever put in the field. Instead of waiting for
*the Turks to attack, he pressed the war into the
enemy's country.
By means of a series of combats that he after
ward loved to style “Homeric” in his moments of
reminiscence, the prince compelled Nlksic to capit
ulate, an achievement which, in his people’s opin
ion, overshadowed all the others of the war, for
Niksic had stood for centuries a threatening out
post of the Moslem power at their very gates.
Then, unwearied by the months of steady fight
ing, the prince countermarched his army to the
south, pressed on to the sea coast, and for the
first time in the centuries of Montenegro's ex
istence, the Montenegrin eagles bathed in the
brine of the Adriatic. Antivari and Dulcigno
both fell, and Skutari—the “bloody Skutari” of
the Montenegrin ballads—was besieged, when
news of peace came.
Well might Nicholas sit back content. In a
succession of campaigns that had met with un
broken victory, he had pushed forward his fron
tiers in every direction. He had reduced every
Turkish fortress within striking distance of his
frontiers, save Skutari.
So passed more than thirty years—eventful
they would have been called in any other part of
Europe, but somewhat dreary for Montenegro.
So long ago as 1868, of his own free-will and
without any pressure—indeed, in the face of the
opposition of many of his advisers —he voluntar
ily granted the country a constitution and abro
gated his despotic powers, in form at least —for as
a matter of fact so long as Nicholas lives the
government of Montenegro will be a benevolent
despotism, by and with the glad consent of the
people.
Since then he has granted other reforms and
has done everything possible to promote the in
dividuality and talent for self-government of his
subjects.
It is as fierce, ruthlessly fanatical crusaders
that I like best to think of Nicholas and his peo
ple; such crusaders as followed Richard the
Lion-Heart to within sight of the walls of Jeru
salem; of the same caliber as the Franks of the
Fourth Crusade, who, undei Dandolo, Count Bald
won and Montserrat stormed Constantinople and
set up on the shores of the Bosphorus a Latin
empire that might have checked the Moslem tidal
wave had Europe backed them up.
young Nicholas, who had
often relied upon his
judgment and advice. But
no man, however young,
could have gone through
the experiences which had
been the prince's lot dur
ing the few years of his
reign without learning
much thereby.
Nicholas realized that
it was as certain as such
things could be that soon
er or later he would have
another war with Turkey
on his hands. He set out
to prepare for it almost
before hostilities had been
concluded. He secured
large quantities of mod
ern rifles and artillery—
an arm in which the
Montenegrins had been
IRffflf
STARTING IN POULTRY
Secure Foundation Is Certain to
Be Successful.
Agricultural Colleges Have Done
Much to Teach New Aspirants
Right Paths—Practical Expe
rience Is Good.
A poultry farm built upon a secure
j foundation is sure to be successful if
| afterwards properly managed. It is
| not only necessary to make the right
I kind of Btart, but the work must be
regularly and faithfully performed,
; day In and day out.
As a rule, beginners start with
; great enthusiasm, and not a few build
! air castles—but to very many of them
| the sameness of the work, the close
s application, the constant watching’,
soon becomes monotonous, and then
j there is a shirking of duty, neglect,
| carelessness —and the enterprise be
| comes a failure. The point is to be
| gin small—measure the size of the In
! itial step with the amount of capital
j and experience at hand,
j It is the case that men with
more or less available capital practi
cally put all their money In houses
and stocks. This Is a mistake, says
l Connecticut Farmer, and more so in
the case of those who have had no
personal experience In the work.
In the parlance of today: "A man
must be onto his job." He must know
what to do, and how best to do it.
Dual Purpose Type.
He must bo aware that inexperience !
may cause leaks and leaks will soon |
sink the enterprise.
It is noteworthy fact that the most
successful poultry farms of today are
those that have started from a small
hpgiuning and gradually expanded as
business and gxmyience
J-Wrtvno ?buld not get into the Try
goods business for the reason that
"they knew nothing about it," will
build poultry houses and stock them,
and expect the hens the rest.
HenS, like cows, yield a profit ac
cording to the treatment given them.
They will not stand neglect. They are
hard workers when properly reward
ed, but can be most Idle and indiffer
ent producers when made to shift for
themselves.
Our agricultural colleges have done
much to teach the new aspirants how
to tread in poultry paths, and men
and women who endeavor to Improve
by these excellently arranged courses
of instruction, will have won half the
battle—the other half naturally be
longs to practical experience.
A man with SI,OOO had better in
vest one-half of it in buildings, stock
and fitures, and reserve the other half I
for feed and running expenses, than j
invest the whole amount in the equip
ment and have to go in debt for the !
feed.
Eggs and poultry are staple crops, '
and the demand is far greater than
the supply. This country needs more
poultry farms, and they will be suc
cessful when properly built and man
aged. But the beginning must be
small and the growth gradual, so that
every part of the work is properly
noted and correctly performed.
DRESS POULTRY FOR MARKET
Difficult Task to induce Small Ship
pers to Prepare Fowls for Market
in Attractive Manner.
A prominent New' York commission
; house says: “Don’t you know that it
i is much harder to get the smaller
! shippers to follow instructions as re
gards the packing and dressing than
the larger shippers? Every receiver
is willing to furnish instructions as
regards killing, dressing, packing and
shipping, but it is hard to get shippers
to follow them. It would make a con
siderable difference to many shippers
if they paid more attention to making
their poultry show up an attractive
appearance, as we would get more
money for it if it pleases the eyes of
the buyer more. The larger shippers
seem to follow our instructions more
and reap the benefit, but It is pretty
bard work to teach some of the smaller
shippers.”
Give the Birds Sunshine.
When you build the new coop do not
fail to remember that the birds like
sunshine and that sunshine in the
coop for a part of the day will have
a great deal to do with destroying the
germs.
I
“■ ::'i' ..., v ---- --"
•• /
I.
The little people gossip in the grass;
The lender nestlings bravely try their
wings;
The world Is getting rich with growing
things.
The breezes murmur sweetly where they
pass;
The bride tries on her wreath before her
glass;
Again the lark at heaven's entrancai
sings. |
The daring tads are tumbling out of
swings.
The plain gtrl takes the honors of her
class.
The lambs begin to gambol on the lea,
The billy goat with gleeful ardor bucks;;
The pup Impatiently snaps at the flea,
The speckled hen leads forth her brood!
and clucks.
Too proud of her achievement yet to see
That she has hatched a family of
ducks
TI.
The aviators tumble from the sky.
The thrush’s sweetest notes are being
trilled:
On country barns the circuses are
billed,
The babe Is wakened by the huckster's
cry;
From roller coasters, rickety and high,
Low-browed young men and merry
maids are spilled;
An auto-racer, here and there, is killed.
And pretty bathers keep their stockings
dry.
The fool who hears the warning word in l
vain
Proceeds again to swim too far fromi
shore;
The (lowers are all abloom upon the
plain,
Th? tn£h who rocks the boat rocks as
of yore;
On many a thumb there Is a Jamlike stain
Where presently there will be stains no
more.
Jumping at a Conclusion.
do you think it will be,
necessary for me to undergo an oper-;
ation?”
“I do, decidedly.”
“How much will It cost?"
“How much do you think you ought
to pay?”
"Very little. I'd be worth more to
my family if I were dead."
"Well, who said this operation was
going to keep you from dying?"
Domestic Repartee.
"The trouble with you is that you
keep constantly forgetting that you.
ever were a boy.”
It was his v wife who said it, and he,
of course, came right back with the
witty reply:
“Well, you never forget that you
were once a girl, although everybody
else forgot it years and years ago.”
ELATED.
market has been
1 soing your way.”
Jr" “No, I never
speculate."
j /sfTy.yyi A “What is it,
/ (l/- jg/ I \ then? ' You seem
/ ( V/' ff |\j to be particularly
oheerfui."
“My wife has just consented to burn
| the letters I wrote her before we were
I married.”
On Finding.
The man who is content to take
i things as he finds them at length be
gins to want other people- to go out
I and find them for him.
Changed Frequently.
“Was that your husband? He
seems to have changed a great deal
in the past five years.”
“Yes, three times.”
Just a Hint.
“I try to cultivate an even temper.”
“I see that you do; but don’t you
think you are trying to cultivate it in
too high a key?”
Another Trouble.
The trouble with most men is that
they want to be at bat all the time
and are never willing to do any field
ing.
Economical.
The man who successfully keeps his
own counsel is not likely to have to
pay heavy fees to lawyers.