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Updated: May 13, 2025
He had provided as garrison a small body of Greek volunteers and 150 Cretan combatants, including the priests. Besides these there were about 1000 women and children, whom Coroneos had tried to induce to return to their homes, succeeding, however, owing to the opposition of the hegumenos to the departure of his own relatives, with only about 400, the rest being shut in by the sudden investment.
The rest of the Albanians continued their flight to Kolashin, the panic involving the regulars, who insisted on returning, and, in spite of all remonstrances of the officers, went back. The hegumenos, Mitrofan Banovich, whose name deserves record as well as any I heard of in this land of heroes, introduced to me the captain of the Moratsha battalion, who had taken part in the fight.
The hegumenos, a Dalmatian by birth, but a patriot of the first quality, and a very militant Christian, made me most welcome. I had some money from the English and Russian committees to distribute amongst the needy wounded and the families of the killed, and the gratitude of the naïve hearts was touching to a degree I never saw in richer countries.
The saint lay in state in a magnificent coffin, as if embalmed, and in his hand was an old and time-yellowed embroidered handkerchief which looked as if it might have been there a century or two. Remembering a dear friend in the Orthodox church to whom the relics of its saints were precious, I asked the hegumenos to sell me this handkerchief.
The hegumenos strongly opposed my attempt to penetrate to Niksich, assuring me that the plain was so infested by bands of Turks that it was to the last degree unsafe to travel on the road, the truth being that the city was beleaguered by Montenegrin bands, a fact which he desired to conceal.
The hegumenos I found to be more a man of war than one of ritual, and really the commander of an outpost of observation on the frontier towards Niksich. He delighted more in arms than in the mass, and I made a firm friend of him by the gift of a small Colt's revolver. I was permitted to see the body of St.
We reached the convent too late to get to Danilograd that night, considering the condition of the roads, and I asked for shelter for the night. Here, for the first time in my experience with Orthodox convents, lodgings were refused me by the old hegumenos, and I instantly ordered the horses to be loaded again, without attempting to soften his surliness.
In a lull of actual downpour we made an excursion to Kolashin, four hours away, passing through the scene of the defeat of Mehemet Ali Pasha. The hegumenos, who commanded the half battalion of the monastery, showed me the line of the fighting, and described the battle, and certainly it was one of the most extraordinary battles even in the history of this fighting people.
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