I delighted the heart of the bimbashi by a baksheesh of half a napoleon, which so astonished him that he hardly knew how to express himself, after all his bitter words and unkind intentions.

I was later convinced that if the Turkish authorities had known who I was,--their old enemy in Crete,--we should not have come out alive from Podgoritza.

In fact, when Danish Effendi at Ragusa heard that I had been put in prison in Albania he exclaimed, "If I had been there it is not only a night in prison he would have had, but a file of soldiers at daylight." Our steamer had come, however, not to carry me to Scutari, but, and perhaps fortunately, to take me back to Rieka, whence I had to go to Cettinje to get a refit, for I was ragged, bootless as my errand to Scutari, and draggled with mud from head to foot; notwithstanding which, as soon as the Prince had learned of my arrival, though in the midst of a diplomatic dinner, he sent for me to come to the palace, and made me sit down with the company as I was and tell my story.

I had to wait a few days for the voyage to Scutari, profiting by the occasion of the return of some engineers and the French consul at that place.

We found the town flooded, a fisherman by the side of one of the streets showing us a fine string of fish which he had caught in the roadside ditch.