speak of it at all, as l have just done: we say the Principality of Monterosso. But if we were to enquire at the Foreign Office, I think they would tell us that our fashion of speaking is not strictly correct. In its own Constitution Monterosso describes itself as a Basilestvo, and its Sovereign as the Basile; and in all treaties and diplomatic correspondence, Basile and Basilestvo are recognised by those most authoritative lexicographers, the Powers, as equivalent respectively to King and Kingdom. Anyhow, call it what you will, Monterosso is geographically the smallest, though politically the eldest, of the lower Danubian States. (It is sometimes, by the bye, mentioned in the newspapers of Western Europe as one of the Balkan States, which can scarcely be accurate, since, as a glance at the map will show, the nearest spurs of the Balkan Mountains are a good hundred miles distant from its southern frontier.) Its area is under ten thousand square miles, but its reigning family, the Pavelovitches, have contrived to hold their throne, from generation to generation, through thick and thin, ever since Peter the Great set them on it, at the conclusion of his war with the Turks, in 1713.
Vescova is rarely visited by English folk, lying, as it does, something like a two days’ journey off the beaten track, which leads through Belgrade and Sofia, to Constantinople. But, should you ever chance to come here, you would be surprised to see what a fine town it is, with its population of upwards of a hundred thousand souls, its broad, well—paved streets, its substantial yellow-stone houses, its three theatres, its innumerable churches, its shops and cafés, its gardens, quays, monuments, its government offices, and its Royal Palace. I am speaking, of course, of the new town, the modern town, which has virtually sprung into existence since 1850, and which, the author of my guide-book says, "disputes with Bukharest the title of the Paris of the South-East."
