2 OCTOBER 1880, Page 3

The correspondent of the Times who has just visited Cettinje

relates a story which speaks volumes for the condition of the Principality of Montenegro. As he left the capital and plunged into the mountains, he met on the road a little girl of twelve with

a bag, crying lustily. She had been sent to carry the mail-bag from Cettinje to Cattaro, over the mountains, and was afraid of the high passes, and the solitudes, and the wolves, and everything, except men. Of them, neither she nor the Post Office had any fear whatever. She walked on briskly with the strangers, refusing to ride, and covered the eighteen miles with- out distress. If she had lost the bag, it would have been safe, for, says the correspondent, who by no means flatters the people, "life and property are safer in Montenegro than in almost any country in Europe, and things are left untouched by the roadside for weeks together." These are the people whom the Tories, who worship the " courage " of the Turk, denounce as hopeless brigands. Suppose the girl had been an Armenian girl, and had walked eighteen miles between two Armenian villages !