Volume VII - Modernist Magazines Project

The Queen's PleasureIBy Henry HarlandAM writing to you from a lost corner of the far south-east ofEurope. The author of my guide-book, in his preface,observes that a traveller in this part of the world, a unless he hassome acquaintance with the local idioms, is liable to find himselfa good deal bewildered about the names of places." On Thursdayof last week I booked from Charing Cross, by way of Dover,Paris, and the Oriental Express, for Vescova, the capital ofMonterosso; and yesterday afternoon—having changed on Sunday,at Belgrade, from land to water, and steamed for close upon fortyeighthours down the Danube—I was put ashore at the townof BCKOB, in the Principality of Tchermnogoria.I certainly might well have found myself a good deal bewildered; and if I did not—for I'm afraid I can't boast of muchacquaintance with the local idioms—it was no doubt because thisisn't my first visit to the country. I was here some years ago, andthen I learned that BCKOB is pronounced as nearly as may beVscov, and that Tchermnogoria is Monterosso literally translated—tchermnoe(the dictionaries certify) meaning red, and gorayor goria^ a hill, a mountain.It is our fashion in England to speak of Monterosso, if wespeak