The bad roads were part of the Montenegrin system, which, as the Prince later explained to me, was not to make roads for Austrian artillery.
Cettinje was a poor village of one-story houses, with two or three exceptions of two-storied ones, of which the principal was the "palace," a residence which in another country would have been a poor gentleman's country house.

Our senatorial herald had gone ahead and announced our coming and our friendliness, and the hotel, the second largest building in the village, had rooms ready for us, and the little world of the Montenegrin capital had put on the air of nonchalance, as if such things as the arrival of a "Times" correspondent and a foreign cavalry officer were things of everyday occurrence.

No one would condescend to show curiosity; all were as impassive as Red Indians; and though we were the only strangers there, no one seemed at all curious about our business.

This was the manner of the entire population, and it was a trait which I soon realized in everybody, from highest to lowest, that they kept the habitual garb of an incurious reticence, neither asking nor giving information.
We found, as if carelessly loitering around the hotel, or playing billiards in it, several young men who spoke excellent French, and we laid cautious traps for conversation, but no one could tell us any news or give us any information about the fighting, or answer any questions other than evasively.

And it was only after a long acquaintance, and when I had become in a way naturalized, that I was able to provoke confidence in any Montenegrin.