Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XVI. THE BALKAN PRINCIPALITIES AND PROVINCES. "I X 7E will end these sketches of Russia and Turkey and V * the kingdoms and the States now lying between them, -- lands fought over and ravaged, outraged, contended for and still in dispute, --with some account of the obscure Turkish provinces placed by the Congress of Berlin under the protection of Austria, and of two principalities, one of which still acknowledges the quasi-suzerainty of the sultan, while the other, proud of having never been subdued, is entirely enfranchised. This tiny principality is Montenegro, a land which Mr. Gladstone says "might have risen to world-wide and immortal fame had there been a Scott to learn and tell the marvels of its history, or a Byron to spend and be spent on its behalf."1 . When at the close of the fifteenth century the Turks overran the ruins of Stephen Dushan's Servian Empire, the Montenegrin ruler, Ivan Tchemoievitch (ever since in his own land a popular hero) sought help from the Venetians. It was denied him, and with all his people he retired to the rocks and precipices of the Black Mountains, forsaking for the cause of faith and freedom the fertile plains that had been populated by their race for seven hundred years. Prince Ivan built a monastery at Cettinje, round which subsequently grew up the capital of Montenegro; "and," 1 Montenegro; a sketch by W E. Gladstone. Nineteenth Century. says Mr. Gladstone, "what is most of all remarkable in the whole transaction, he carried with him to the hills a printingpress twenty-eight years after the appearance ot the first printed book in Germany." George, the son of Ivan, had married a Venetian wife, and was persuaded by her to go back among her people; but finding soon after that his countrymen...
