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They had, however, no right to talk of drink, for the pilgrimage was an orgy of rakia, beer and wine. From Plevlje I rode to Prijepolje, the furthest military outpost of Austria. There were but one hundred Christian houses in it. Nevertheless there was a schoolmaster industriously teaching "Great Serbia" and "patriotism."
At last, in desperation, we asked if there were no place in the village which had a fire. "Oh yes, there is a fire in the other café," and thither we were conducted. We were in a jolly wooden room, with a blazing stove and a most welcome fugginess. The hostess brought us rakia, coffee and walnuts, and did her utmost to make us comfortable.
"Ah, English and sport," he said. Crowds were congregated round a man who was carrying over his shoulder a whole sheep on a spit and chopping bits off for buyers. On a hillside a woman was handing out rakia. We thought she was selling it, but were told that it was a funeral and she was giving rakia to all who wanted it. Starving Austrian prisoners rushed for a glass and were not refused.
We arrived, but the Sirdar evidently had been considering us, he did not appear for the half an hour, so we sat with his staff sipping rakia by the roadside. The lunch was excellent, but the Sirdar's carriage, like every other carriage in Montenegro, was a weird, ancient, rusty arabesquish affair, tied together with wire.
"No, no," said he; "I spent two nights under a ceiling which rained bugs upon me, and I know a good bed when I've got it." Coffee and cigarettes came in, of the best, and the rakia was a thing apart from the acrid stuff we were accustomed to. He admitted its superiority. The plums came from his own estate, and were distilled by the monks.
He had been sent by the governor to apologise for the "trouble" Jan had had that morning with the drunken soldier. "'E in jail now, 'e verry sorry and say if you forgive 'im, mister, 'e never touch rakia, never no more. 'E good chap reely. Got too much rakia this mornin', 'E think about Turks an' get kinder mad some'ow. 'E don't know what 'e done; first thing 'e knows 'e finds 'imself in river."
At about the end of the second week from the date of Parker leaving the survey camp, a shepherd of Grey's, happening to descend into the Rakia river bed in search of some wandering sheep, came upon a roll of red blankets lying at the foot of a landslip. Going up, he found it to contain the body of a man half decomposed, and being eaten by rats.
A charming old officer stood rakia all round in our honour. The mayor came in to greet us, and we felt that at last Pod had been pushed behind for ever. The mayor was a pleasant fellow, speaking French, and he confided in us that he was suffering from a "maladie d'estomac." When we thought we had sympathized enough, we asked him how far it was, and could we have horses to go to Petch.
During our absence a sad occurrence took place, which I will record here. A Mr. Parks, a Government surveyor, and well-to-do sheep farmer on the Ashburton, had been engaged during the previous year in making surveys on the Rakia and Ashburton, and on his staff was a young man named Parker.
The survey party had proceeded up the gorge of the Rakia, and were absent about a fortnight, when Mr. Parks, requiring to send back to his station for some instrument he had forgotten, and Parker being the least useful hand on the survey, he decided to send him. The distance was twenty miles, and the route was across the open plain leading for a part of the way along the river.
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