The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (7.1895)

The Queen’s Pleasure
By Henry Harland

1AM writing to you from a lost corner of the far south-east of
Europe. The author of my guide-book, in his preface,
observes that a traveller in this part of the world, “ unless he has
some acquaintance with the local idioms, is liable to find himself
a good deal bewildered about the names of places.” On Thursday
of last week I booked from Charing Cross, by way of Dover,
Paris, and the Oriental Express, for Vescova, the capital of
Monterosso; and yesterday afternoon—having changed on Sunday,
at Belgrade, from land to water, and steamed for close upon forty-
eight hours down the Danube—I was put ashore at the town
of Bckob, in the Principality of Tchermnogoria.
I certainly might well have found myself a good deal be-
wildered ; and if I did not—for I’m afraid I can’t boast of much
acquaintance with the local idioms—it was no doubt because this
isn’t my first visit to the country. I was here some years ago, and
then I learned that Bckob is pronounced as nearly as may be
Vscov, and that Tchermnogoria is Monterosso literally trans-
lated—tchermnoe (the dictionaries certify) meaning red, and gora,
or goria, a hill, a mountain.
It is our fashion in England to speak of Monterosso, if we
speak