" We started the climb almost at once. The early morning
smoke filtering through the slats made an outer cone, of faint blue,
above the black roof of every hut and cottage; here and there were
traces of roadmaking, groups of Albanian workmen on stretches of
levelled earth which our trail crossed at irregular intervals. Presently
we entered the clouds, and were wrapped about with a thin mist faintly
smelling of smoke. After a while we climbed above them, and looking down
could see the clouds mottling all the landscape, and through holes
little patches of sunlit field or wood peering through like the eyes of
a Turkish woman through her yashmak.
Our horses panted and sweated up the long and arduous slope for two
mortal hours, up and ever up; but all things come to an end, and at last
we reached the top. We sat down to rest our weary animals and, lo! by us
passed long strings of mules and ponies bearing the very benzine about
which so much fuss had been made in Cettinje. Alas for our reputations
as miracle workers! Had this blessed stuff only come a week later we
should even have passed in Montenegro as first cousins of the king at
least; but this was a little too prompt.
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