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A glimpse of a green valley below can just be caught, there lies Podgorica, our destination. At our feet a long, low-lying plateau ends abruptly in a wall of rock, through which the road vanishes, and which can be traced white and threadlike on the overhanging hillside. Beyond is the valley and town of Rijeka.
As an instance, the whole of the country lying beyond Rijeka towards the sea, containing two important towns, and in size about an eighth of Montenegro, possesses one short road from Virpazar to Antivari and one carriage. Our path lay for the first three hours through a richly vegetated country, and the scenery at times was quite English, owing to the amount of oak trees which overhang the path.
But no road connects it with the mainland, and travellers from Cetinje or Podgorica must take the steamer from either Rijeka or Plavnica to Virpazar, and from thence a good road leads over the Sutormann Pass to Antivari. A road which is being built between Virpazar and Rijeka will supply a long-felt want.
Rijeka is a very busy little place, being the half-way village between the capital and Podgorica, and is still more important as the starting-point of the little steamer which plies twice weekly down the lake to Scutari. The river runs between lovely green hills rising straight from its banks, wooded and luxuriant, reminding one not a little of the Thames at Cookham.
Roads are planned to connect the whole land, which only lack of funds are hindering from completion, and a railway is projected to connect the towns of Nikšić, Podgorica, and Rijeka with Antivari and the sea.
A striking contrast to the Montenegrin houses, it was spick and span and even pretty, for the Albanian has artistic instincts, whereas the Montenegrin has none. Left to himself, his taste is deplorable. Further signs of change in the land soon showed themselves. Rijeka had already grumbled.
In 1768 they were forced to pay tribute by the Vezir of Bosnia. The Montenegrins on the plains, in fact, pay tribute. The Katunska and Rijeka nahias alone have paid no tribute since 1768. These facts show Montenegro belongs to the Porte.
In Obod, which is close to Rijeka, he erected a printing press, some twenty years after Caxton had set up his in Westminster, and though it was afterwards burnt by the Turks, still the remembrance of it remains right glorious in Montenegrin memory. The last Crnoiević relinquished his home for Venice.
A young man, whom we will call Andreas to prevent confusion, had been for some time in Austria, and not finding work he returned to his village, named Ljubotin, half-way between Rijeka and Cetinje, or, to be more correct, just below the Bella Vista in the hollow.
This view of the Rijeka was decidedly one of the prettiest in the country, combining, as it does every now and then, glimpses of the lake and the majestic Albanian Alps. Always followed by our rival party, we halted at a wayside inn to refresh both man and beast. These inns are quaint little places. There is seldom any other floor than that already provided by Nature, which has been beaten flat.
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