[Footnote 7:  Since writing the above another tribal disturbance has taken place between the Zatrijebac and the Hotti.  This time it was the Hotti who drove their flocks, also from time immemorial, to a certain spot in Zatrijebac, and as the latter tribe have since cultivated the intervening ground, they felt justly irritated.  As the only real argument is the rifle, they met and argued the point in this fashion in February, 1902, and many fell on both sides.  A notable incident which is worth recording is, that a man of Hotti fought on the side of the Zatrijebac against his brethren and was killed.  His body was afterwards handed back and his clan demanded to know if he had fought as a man.  “In the front rank,” was the answer.  Then they took the body and gave it an honourable burial and agreed to let the dispute drop.  In this action our friend the monk had his habit riddled with bullets whilst attending the wounded.]

Round the fire another evening an argument as to the wrongs of Fatalism, i.e. God’s Will, led to a characteristic story by the monk in defence of his views.  Dr. S., like many men who lead such lives as he does, was a rigid fatalist.

An Albanian found his enemy in vendetta, working in a field.  Hiding himself, he prayed to God and S. Nicholas to direct the bullet.

“Lord,” he prayed, “should I hit this man in the breast, then I shall know that I do this deed by Thy Will.”

He laid his rifle on a stone, took careful aim, and the other fell dead shot through the breast.

“By God’s Will I killed him,” he answered, when the priest endeavoured to impress upon him his crime.

The lighter side of nature was given us by another story.

Shortly after the priest’s arrival at Zatrijebac a half-naked man came to him.  The worthy friar took pity on him and gave him a clean white shirt of his own.

On the following Sunday during the Mass, as he turned to his congregation to give the Benediction, to his horror he saw the man with the shirt drawn over all his ragged clothes, in a front row.  It was with the greatest difficulty, he concluded, that he could restrain a smile.

We were afforded a novel and striking scene before we left Zatrijebac in the form of an open-air Mass on Sunday.

The church being in the course of rebuilding, a rough altar had been hastily constructed, or rather knocked up—­for it was of most crude workmanship—­of wood planks on a small grass plot.

From nine a.m. onwards the people began to assemble, coming from all parts of the large and straggling district, and sat about in groups gravely talking.  Towards eleven o’clock a large number of peasants had arrived, and the altar was covered with not a fair white cloth as usual, but with something suspiciously resembling a long and not overclean towel.  A tiny crucifix was placed upon it, and the young priest robed himself there in sight of the whole congregation.