Montenegrin Mountains, Part 2. Another true story.
By Gersheimer gersheimer77@seznam.cz
1877: Continued excerpts from a travel diary of a 19th century botanist from his sometimes adventurous journeys through the interior of the Balkan Peninsula in unsteady times. 

..............................................................................

The next morning was finally sunny and clear, even if freezing cold, and this
fact prompted Miljan to prepare us for our next journey as soon as possible. After
breakfast we heard him thoroughly instructing his daughter how to get to 
Yenipazar in the safest way in three or four days. Then he turned to us, warning
us once again about various armed bands hiding in the forests and looting.
Then, true to local custom, he kissed each of us on both cheeks and wished us a 
good luck.

We thanked him and his family for their amazing hospitality and kindness and
started descending towards the valley led by Milica, who carried all the cargo
on her back. Still she walked gracefully, as if not carrying anything at all.
Mind you, together with the additional food supplies for us, the backpack must 
have weighed over one and a half Viennese cent (some 80 kilos). We let her walk 
first intentionally, as we couldn't take our eyes off of her, statuesque and
beautiful, almost angelic looking in her now pure white skirt. Due to extreme cold 
she had a short sheepskin cloak on all the time so that we were deprived of the 
sight of her amazing breasts, but still I cannot recall whether I ever looked at a 
female body with greater enjoyment...

On top of that, our guide possessed a sweet, bubbly personality, and she was
also youthfully talkative. Jakov and I both enjoyed conversations with her a lot.
Obviously she hadn't visited any school in her life and couldn't read nor write,
but she possessed some kind of natural intelligence and remembered everything
that the elders of her clan had ever narrated about the history of Montenegro
and about the outside world. However, her naivety in some regular areas of 
human knowledge made me often laugh under my brow. She called me "Dear 
Baron," probably considering this to be my first name. Likewise, she addressed 
Jakov "dear Jakov." Any idea of nobility was probably foreign thought to this
egalitarian mountain folk, but I gladly excused her such a lack of formal
respect as well as everything else...

Even more fun was trying to explain to the big girl my profession and my
scientific interests. She was basically aware of plants, in a way that some of
them cured various illnesses, and therefore it was useful to know their names and
appearances. She therefore asked me whether I, as a learned man, could cure
all illnesses in the world, and was very disappointed when I refuted that idea.
Still, after all my explanations, she seemed to keep the opinion that I was some 
kind of a wizard, who could find curative powers in any plant (as what other 
reason could ever lie in collecting and describing them?) and took great pleasure 
in hearing the Latin names of every plant she brought to show me, probably 
considering them magic spells...

This is the way Milica finished her narration about the recent historical
events in Montenegro, to which her father and grandfather were witnesses; and 
we mentioned the words of her brother about their common appearance in the 
battle of Vucji Do a year earlier. "That is mostly true," she said. "I was then
assigned to carry the wounded soldiers -- there were many of them -- from the 
battlefield to the sanitarian camp where other women would tend to their wounds.

"And Milovan and one other boy were told to guard that camp with their rifles.
We were situated a bit to the side from the battlefield, but as the battle raged,
the Turks saw a possibility to get behind our lines -- straight through our camp.
Therefore suddenly a group of thirty or forty Turks appeared in the camp,
fully armed, just when I was bringing two wounded soldiers over my shoulders 
into it. My brother and the other boy shot one attacker each but the enemies were 
too many. I put the soldiers down at the ground, took a rifle by its end and started
clubbing them with it as well as kicking them all around. The other boy was killed
but Milovan joined me in the fight in the same way. After a while the Turks lost
their courage and retreated back, never to return. However, twelve of them
remained dead or dying right there."

The nonchalant way she narrated those bloody events made me shiver, but she
continued: "After the battle we went with our father to Zetigne (Cetinje, then
capital of Montenegro) to meet Prince Nicola who presented us with decorations.
It was a great spectacle, but I remember it rather because that's where I met my
sweetheart Janko for the first time."

Of course I didn't miss the opportunity to ask her to tell more about her romance.
The boy in question was only a year older than her, and he also had been 
decorated for bravery in that battle where he fought as a volunteer. He was, as she
reported, the eldest son of a sea captain from Castelastua (Petrovac na Moru now,
then part of the Austrian Dalmatia).

"He told me he would inherit his father's ship once we wed and then we could
sail with it to distant foreign lands, with all those beautiful places like Venice,
where his family long since originally came from. Or to see the towns and
monasteries of Greece and maybe even the great Stambul once peace returns..." 
she went on daydreaming aloud.

"And is he as big as you are?" asked Jakov suddenly and Milica broke into
intense giggling. "Oh, no one is as big as me or my father. He is rather small
like you, dear Baron, or even smaller, but I love him the more. He always was so
nice at me and his little hands were so tender when touching me all over."

These conversations with Milica were so amusing that we didn't at first even
realize the sun had set and that we would have to find a refuge for the night.
Passing through a quiet rural village she randomly chose a house and banged on
its door. Its inhabitants recognized her straight away and looked honoured to
offer us all a protective roof. It was obvious that Miljan the chieftain enjoyed
enormous respect among his clan and Milica could ask them almost anything and 
be sure they would comply. To my surprise, she asked them for a rope and they 
brought a thumb-thick rope about ten fathoms (20 meters) long. I asked her what 
this was needed for and she said: "Tomorrow, we would first have to cross the 
Lim river. And then we will be in Turkish lands and my father told me to bypass 
all settlements as well as trodden paths, for security. So I take it in case we 
would have to climb through the rocks and mountains. Don't be scared, I am 
experienced in it."

The next day we woke up and continued quite early. We crossed a ridge and went
through a few other settlements, where Milica made greater halo than before.
Apparently the people there had heard about her but saw her for the first
time.

She was cheerfully smiling at everyone, allowing the younger boys to measure
her with their raised hands and so on, exchanging smiles and little jokes. At the
last village she again asked for direction and was again told about armed bands 
in the vicinity...

Around noon we approached the river Lim, which looked like a blue winding
ribbon among the green meadows. There was an old Orthodox church with a
bridge and a small settlement next to it visible in the distance, but we succumbed
to Milica urging us to cross elsewhere: "The bandits usually congregate near
bridges, looking for travelers to rob. Half an hour upstream, there is a good
place to ford without being noticed."

When we got there, she put down the backpack and took off her cloak. This time
she had underneath a white shirt that covered her breasts fully, but once she
entered the cold water its material became almost transparent and we could
enjoy the sight of her generous assets. But the water was deeper than she had
expected, a bit above her breasts, it was obvious that we two could not ford it. 
She checked the depth across the stream, returned back to our side and merrily asked: 
"So, who wants to go first? Hop on!" and extended both arms.

Being cradle carried in this young girl's arms across the river was an
experience that cannot be relayed through words. When she picked me up, I 
suddenly became light-headed, but what surprised me more were somehow non-
controllable reactions of other parts of my body, I am sure that I don't need to 
explain more about it...

She put me gently into the grass on the other side and returned first for
Jakov and then for the backpack. Once we were finally across, she showed us a 
minute path leading to the adjacent forest and told us to walk in advance, so that 
she could wring her wet clothes and follow us in a while. I have to admit that I 
sent Jakov first and stopped after a while at the edge of the forest, secretly 
watching our beautiful guide disrobe and stand on the banks, naked as a nymph; it 
was really an alluring sight. But after a short moment I grew scared that she might 
catch me spying on her and followed Jakov on the trail.

The ambush happened slightly after half a mile, just as I joined him. The
bandits were well covered in the shrubs and we failed to notice them. One 
moment we were walking on the almost invisible path, the next five or six rifles 
were pointing at us from all sides. We put our hands aloft; there was nothing else 
to do. Brute faces of men of various ages were laughing at us and crying in an
unintelligible tongue. The first idea that came to me was, "Oh, we now have 
nothing to be robbed of!" and the second, "Will Milica be able to see them in time 
and turn around?"

However, our guide had no intent to turn around. Suddenly all the rifles
pointed behind us... and then they were lowered. The bandits started to laugh and 
yell with multiple voices and, to our surprise, Milica was answering them in the 
same fast and raspy foreign tongue. Their discussion was very heated but 
controlled, again it was sensible that they somehow know her and do not dare to 
harm her. After some minutes of this verbal exchange the oldest of the bandits 
with a white beard then put his hands on my and Jakov's shoulders and said: 
"Oprastajte" (Excuse me). Milica exchanged a few words more with the youngest 
of the bandits, waving him goodbye, and then stepped in front of us to continue 
our journey. We followed her as fast as our legs could carry us.

When we were out of sight, we naturally asked our guide what this was all
about. "These were Climents -- Christian Arnauts, our neighbors," she explained.
"However, we Vasojevici have a long-standing truce with them and that's why
they let us go as soon as they spotted me. They don't dare to break the truce
since it was concluded almost twenty years ago, and neither do we. And in fact,
that's why I was born at the first place. The truce was at that time sealed with a
wedding of my father and my mother, who was a daughter of the highest Climent
chieftain.

When I was growing up, she taught me the Arnaut language as well, as it might
be useful at some point... like now. So when it comes to the Climents, you are
safe when traveling with me. Otherwise they rob everyone they meet, anywhere 
and at anytime... but they mostly don't kill though. But there are other bands of
different origin around now."

After taking a lunch our guide led us on through dense forest constantly
uphill but then the path suddenly ended at the foot of a rocky crag, about eight 
fathoms high. It extended far to both sides like a wall and we didn't see a way to 
bypass it.

Milica put down the backpack, untied the rope and started to climb the rock
like an expert. Once on the top, she threw us the rope and I first affixed it to my
mid-section and started to climb as well. At the height of about three fathoms I
lost my footing and fell half the way back before Milica caught the rope and 
softened my fall. "Are you fine?" she asked and after my confirmation she smiled 
at me and simply started to pull the rope with me upwards alternating hands like if 
it was weightless. I was on the top beside her before I could count to twenty. Her
amazing strength again shocked me and it took some while before I could tear
my thoughts off it... My agile servant climbed the cliff himself in the meantime,
having affixed the rope instead to the backpack that was subsequently pulled up
by our guide with the same ease.

The other side of the cliff was less steep and we didn't even have to use the
rope to descend it. Then we continued our march, simply following Milica in her
steps. At one slightly muddy place, where she had made a fresh footstep, out of
curiosity I measured it with my palms. It had to be at least sixteen Viennese 
inches long (42centimetres).

After some time we exited the forest and entered a big clearing. By that time
I had already recovered from the effects of the previous happenings and resumed
paying attention to the floral world. Among other plants, I spotted a Helleborus
that, upon close sight, might have belonged to a yet undescribed species and I
took some samples into my handbag for future examination...

This way and that, collecting herbal samples on my way, I got quite close to
another hamlet of summer cottages at the opposite side of the clearing, while
Milica and Jakov were following the edge of the clearing, remaining in the shade
of the forest. As I stepped between the cottages, a feeling that something wasn't
right came to my mind again that day. Among the smell I could attribute to a
several days' old sheep manure, a kind of a fresh smell wafted into my nostrils. 
I looked around myself, now standing in the center of the cluster of cottages.

Suddenly the door of one cottage opened and two men in Turkish clothes
appeared with rifles in their hands and pointed them at me. They did so silently, 
thus my companions didn't notice before it was too late even for them to take 
flight. Milica must have sensed something as she left the forest edge and went to 
find me, and Jakov followed her into the clearing. When they were closer, the 
doors of two more cottages opened and more bandits appeared, some of them 
armed with rifles, and soon my companions joined me in captivity.

We didn't think the worst initially, as most of the bandits had at least parts
of ordinary Ottoman uniforms on, and tried to present ourselves and explain the
purpose of our travel in every language any of us commanded, including
Hungarian and Arnaut (Albanian). One of them seemed to understand the latter
and translate to the others, but among themselves they continued to talk only
in Turkish and we didn't understand a single word. They were obviously in awe of
Milica's stature and a bit scared of her -- at least five rifles pointed at her 
followed every one of her movements. Their obvious leader, a big fat bearded man 
around 50 years of age, barked then something to another bandit, who tried to
tear the backpack from Milica's back.

She didn't resist and let is slide from her shoulders down onto the bandit who
immediately collapsed under such a weight and fell to the ground. I would die
laughing seeing this under any other circumstances, but I was too scared, and
not without reason. The bandit's comrades then came to his aid, and with 
difficulties they managed to lift it from him. More rifles pointed at us, the leader 
told his people something and they took the rope from the backpack, cut it to 
pieces and started to bind us with it, both legs together by our ankles and hands 
behind our backs.

When that was done and our limbs were bound so tight that we couldn't move at
all, they forced us to lie on the cold saturated ground on our backs close to each
other. Two bandits were left to guard us with their rifles constantly pointed at us,
while the others, thirteen of them including the leader -- as we found out only
later -- disappeared in a cottage nearby, probably to discuss what to do with us. 
But the result of the discussion was clear from the beginning anyway, as one of 
our "guards" immediately made that familiar gesture of crossing his neck with
a finger...

Milica took a last resort in trying to persuade the guard who had previously
translated her Arnaut speech, but he didn't show any compassion and shouted
at her to be quiet. Jakov and I started to accept our inevitable fate and recite
by heart long-forgotten prayers. At one moment Milica suddenly whispered to
us: "You praying? Can you also pray for some rain, please? That's what we would
need now..."

A glimmer of hope appeared in my mind even though I couldn't have imagined
what she was thinking about. Lying on my back and looking into the cloudy sky
I realized that it was probably going to rain anyway in a short time but we both
changed the topic of our prayers, asking Our Merciful Lady for precipitation.
It took about quarter-hour before our prayers were answered and first drops fell,
but then it soon turned into a thick rain. If our young female guide thought that
the guards would seek a cover, she was mistaken; they cursed but maintained their
positions on the open field few fathoms away, as well as the aim of their rifles 
on us. We were frozen from lying on the wet ground and the icy drops made it even
worse, our teeth started to rattle uncontrollably and our bodies began to shake,
Milica's immense body being no exception. Suddenly she whispered: "Can you
roll upon me, keeping your hands close to mine? If the guards notice, I will 
explain that you want to keep warm."

Indeed both guards did notice and yelled at us something, keeping their rifles
aimed. Milica's answer in Arnaut language caused one of them break into almost
hysterical laughter and after a while, as he translated his companion into Turkish,
the latter joined him, easing his attention on us as well. Milica writhed and 
suddenly I felt her strong and thick fingers on the bonds upon my wrists. For
an instant they cut into my skin even more and then I was relieved and my hands
were free. She did the same with Jakov's tethers a moment before the intense
laughter of the guards lured the leader of the band outside into the rain.

The leader came within two steps from us, facing our still bound legs. He
laughed evilly, exposing his rotten teeth and then starting to talk something
obviously nasty in Turkish and removing the belt on his Turkish-style trousers. 
We watched in disgust as he let them fall down and exposed his dirty manhood. 
His foul speech intensified and the Arnaut guard standing closely to his side 
willingly translated some parts for Milica so that she was aware of her upcoming 
fate. She writhed in disgust and the leader, with the Arnaut, took it as an invitation
and made one step closer to us. That was the last thing they both ever performed,
in fact.

What followed was too fast for me to follow with my eyes, and Jakov did no
better. Suddenly we were thrown away from Milica's body as she convulsed,
straightened her long legs and kicked simultaneously both bandits in their
groins. The kick was so strong that it lifted each of them about half a fathom in 
the air, and the destruction of their private parts must have been total as both of
them then spasmed uncontrollably for long minutes before dying. Milica 
immediately lost all interest in them and jumped at the last guard, catching the 
end of his rifle and pulling it from his arms.

Jakov and I both sat up and tried to remove the bonds on our legs when Milica
made a few unexpected moves. First, she retrieved the rifles of both guards and,
instead of trying to use them, she threw them to Jakov and I, not saying anything. 
And immediately after that, she turned around, ran towards the
cottage where the rest of the bandits had congregated, and pulled herself onto its
shingle roof. However, it collapsed almost immediately under her weight and she
disappeared inside. After a moment her head and shoulders re-appeared, sticking
out of the resulting hole.

It must have been very crowded inside but almost immediately two other bandits
flew out of the hole in the roof, crippled in the same way as the leader and the
Arnaut. We heard a lot of dull thuds and yelps of pain from the cottage, but then
we had to mind our own businesses as two bandits got out of the door, one 
holding his rifle and pointing it back into the cottage. Before he could ever aim,
Jakov used the rifle in his hands and shot him in the head from about five-fathom
distance. But our legs were still tied together and this limited our possibilities 
to help Milica in the fight.

I stood up and took the other rifle into my hands, wondering how to use it. Did I 
mention that I didn't have any military experience in my life, being found
incapable for service in my youth due to bad health? Holding my index finger on
the trigger, I was moving the weapon rather aimlessly, not able to find a target.

Suddenly, the front wall of the wooden cottage collapsed and the remaining
bandits came out. I pointed among them and cried to give up but that didn't
deter them and they themselves went for their own guns. Milica jumped out of the
remains of the house straight amidst them and started to punch and kick them all
around. Her fighting style was based mainly on kicks with her incredibly long
and strong legs and she hardly had to kick any of them twice to put them
permanently out of the fight. However two bandits, one of them armed with a 
rifle, managed to gain some distance and the situation got very serious for me as 
the rifleman raised his gun aiming at Milica while the other one, armed only with 
a knife, ran straight at me.

In that single moment I had to check the two dangers. Pointing the rifle in my
hands at the upcoming bandit didn't deter him and he continued approaching,
his knife ready at hand. But, in the corner of my eye I then saw the rifleman,
some four-fathom distance from me prepared to shoot, the end of his rifle being
less than an elbow (77 centimeters) from Milica's head. Not thinking, I turned my
own rifle in his direction and pulled the trigger.

I still can't understand fully how it was possible, but the rifle went off and
the bullet hit the rifleman squarely in the neck, despite not being intentionally
aimed, throwing his body back away. The recoil of the gun was so strong that it 
threw me back as well -- and this also saved my life, because the other bandit's 
knife at the same time cut the air where my own neck had been a tiny moment 
ago.

I fell on the ground on my back and the bandit was upon me in a blink of an eye. 
He was a head taller and a lot stronger than me and had no difficulty to catch
my neck with one hand, kneeling on top of me. His other hand raised the knife 
and my life once again flashed before my eyes. However, instead of me being
stabbed, his weight was suddenly lifted from me and I saw Milica holding him by 
his neck in the air with just one hand! And then there was a sickening crunching 
sound and she threw his dead body several fathoms away...

There were only two bandits left and at that moment they lost their courage
and started running away to the forest. If they had been smart enough to run in
different directions, at least one of them could have probably survived. But they
weren't and Milica was on top of them with her long legs after less then twenty
fathoms. She caught them, one with each hand, by their trousers and, seemingly
without effort, hoisted them in the air simultaneously before throwing each
against a tree, breaking their backbones.

This way the incredible uneven fight ended and Milica returned to us and cut
the bonds on our legs as well. She also checked the bandits lying around us and,
when not being sure if they were dead or not, she stomped their necks mercilessly.
After that, however, her transformation from an unstoppable war machine back 
into a sweet and caring young girl was almost instant.

She was bleeding from several wounds and her clothes suffered a lot in the
fight, but still she was interested in our conditions more than in hers. She checked
our wounds from the ropes, massaging them gently, and thanked us for saving her
life. It seemed that she was fully aware of everything around her every second of
the fight, like if she was born for it. But it was we who should be in fact grateful
for her saving our lives, only we couldn't thank her enough for it.

Then she reminded us: "Come on, my dear companions; I know that you are tired
and frozen to the bone. We could kindle a fire and spend a night here in one of the
cottages, but it wouldn't be too comfortable. We can still be at the closest houses
of Rozaje before midnight and enjoy a warm bed and dinner. I have never been
here but my father told me that the people of this valley should be friendly,
despite their Turkish faith. They had never participated in any of the wars against
us, and they profess the sacred hospitality as we do... And anyway, I believe that
after all the today's events, our bad luck should be behind us for the rest of our 
travels."

This time she wasn't right, as we soon discovered.

(to be concluded soon)