Through the lands of the Serb,

276 THROUGH THE LANDS OF THE SERB which I shared with the gentlemen in the next room. I captured it over night and handed it out to them in the morning on the balcony, where they took it in turns to squat while Ljubitza poured water over their hands and heads and they scrubbed their faces. It is not the thing to wash in your room in Montenegro, and my hostess thought me very peculiar upon this point. And in spite of the "lick- and- a- promise" system, folk always looked clean. On market day the inn was crammed. Supper in the big room went on till ten o'clock. Ljubitza hung around the door of my room and suggested that there were two beds in it, did I still prefer sleeping alone? I said very firmly that I did, whereupon her mother came and threw out sketchy suggestions of a similar nature. For in these parts no one ever thinks of undressing to go to bed, and it never occurs to anyone that you could wish to do so. The "guestroom" is made to contain as many as it will; mattresses are spread on the floor and coverlets supplied; nor did the regular boarders seem to have the least objection to sharing their room with ten or twelve strangers. But there are no "strangers" in Montenegro. You ask a man all his private affairs to begin with, address him as "my brother," and call him by his Christian name. Nor in spite of the overcrowding are the rooms ever stuffy, for all the windows, and possibly the door too, are left open. Not even the tiny cottages are close. At Cetinje one day I met two excited Frenchmen who had just been over the barracks, and their astonishment was so great that they imparted it to me. "Figure to yourself," they said, "two hundred men slept in there

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Title: Through the lands of the Serb,
Author: Durham, Mary E.
Canvas: Page 276
Publication: London,: E. Arnold,; 1904.
Subject terms: Montenegro -- Description and travel; Serbia -- Description and travel.

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Collection: Travels in Southeastern Europe
Link to this Item: https://name.umdl.umich.edu/afg3925.0001.001
Link to this scan: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/bosnia/afg3925.0001.001/322

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Full citation: "Through the lands of the Serb,." In the digital collection Travels in Southeastern Europe. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/afg3925.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 28, 2025.

Through the lands of the Serb,

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