An Observer in the Near East

by William Le Queux

NORTHERN ALBANIA

CHAPTER I
INTO A SAVAGE REGION

Wildest Albania—Warnings not to attempt to travel there—I decide to go, and take Palok—Prince Nicholas of Montenegro bids us farewell—On the Lake of Scutari—Arrival at Skodra—Passports, rabble, and backsheesh—Photographing the fortress in secret—Treading dangerous ground—Albania the Unknown.

Before leaving London various insurance companies had flatly declined to accept the risk of “accident,” because it was known that I intended visiting Albania.

Indeed, no company in the City would insure me, and at Lloyd’s the premium quoted was exorbitant. This was the reverse of reassuring. Northern Albania I knew to be the wildest and most savage country in the East, and the Accursed Mountains, which I wanted to visit, were held by brigandish tribes, who shot the traveller at sight or held him to ransom. So little is known about them that they had always held a peculiar fascination for me.

I searched through the journals of the Royal Geographical Society for many years past, but found little mention of Northern Albania, while of books of actual travel in that region there were none. These facts had decided me to accept the risks, whatever these might be, and go into those wild, inaccessible mountains which bear the name of Accursed.

Everybody warned me of danger. Friends in England constantly urged me to “take care of myself,” as though that were possible when in the midst of a hostile tribe; and in fact there seemed to be a conspiracy on the part of friends, strangers, and officials to prevent me penetrating the Land of Mystery.

When I mentioned my intention in Cettinje, everyone, as I have already said, held up their hands and raised their eyes. It was sheer madness, they declared. Nobody’s life was worth a moment’s purchase outside the town of Skodra—or Scutari, as it appears on our maps. Outside—beyond Turkish control—well, I should not be allowed to travel a couple of miles before I had a bullet through me from behind a rock at the roadside.

Everybody had some weird or horrible story to tell about the savagery of the Hoti, the Kastrati, the Skreli, and other savage tribes inhabiting those high, misty mountains beyond the Montenegro border. The one or two Albanians—tall, muscular fellows in white felt skullcap, tight white woollen trousers heavily braided with black, and a kind of black bolero with long fringe—whom I had seen in Montenegro were certainly a sinister-looking, forbidding lot. But I had come to the Balkans to investigate and to learn the truth; therefore the more I was urged not to attempt to go into the mountains, the firmer was my determination to do so.

His Royal Highness, Prince Nicholas himself, had at one of the audiences he granted me seriously queried the advisability of undertaking the journey. Almost daily on the Albanian frontier were raids into Montenegrin territory, and the whole border was constantly terrorised by the Albanian bands, who shot the Montenegrins wherever found. Indeed, the market at Podgoritza, where men squatted with loaded rifles over four or five fowls or a basket of apples, was sufficient to tell me the truth; while the daily talk of that town was of fighting with the wild race who live across the border. The Montenegrin hates the Albanian, and has surely good cause to do so. Many a comely Montenegrin maiden—and some of them are exceedingly beautiful—has been captured in those night raids and carried across into Turkish territory, to be heard of no more. And many, too, are the reprisals by the Montenegrins; mostly, however, with serious losses to themselves.

Ryeka, Montenegro.125

Zabliak, Montenegro.

Palok, whom I had engaged as my guide, had, he said, been born in Skodra, or, as we call it, Scutari, which causes it to be confounded with the city on the Bosphorus. He also declared that he was well known there, and the fact that he also spoke Italian caused me to accept his services.

When I asked Fevzi Pasha, the Turkish Minister in Cettinje, for a passport for Skodra, or “Scutari d’Albanie,” as it appears on the visa, he granted it, but not without words of caution. “In Scutari you will have nothing to fear,” he said. “I will give you a note to the Governor of the town. But do not go into the country. If you do, you’ll be shot like a dog.”

I thanked him, but had no intention of taking his well-meant advice.

At half-past three one dark morning I took Palok, and we drove out on the road that wound high up across the great lonely mountains to the little town of Ryeka, whence a small steamer plies down the Lake of Scutari to Skodra. The drive was cold and weary, through a barren waste of rocks, but the bright autumn sun was up ere we reached Ryeka, and just as I boarded the big canoe with long, upturned, pointed prow, which takes passengers and baggage down the sluggish stream to the boat at the entrance to the lake, I saw, on the road above, a fine military figure in pale blue, riding a splendid white charger and followed by an officer.

In a moment every head was bared. It was Prince Nicholas, who was staying at his palace at Ryeka, taking his morning ride.

He espied me, pulled up, and shouted down in Italian—

“Hulloa! Good-morning! Then you are off to Albania after all, eh?”

“Yes, Monseigneur,” I responded.

“Did you get my message last night?” he inquired, referring to a confidential matter.

“Thank you, Monseigneur, yes.”

“Very well. Only be careful of yourself, you know, and when you get back, come and tell me all about it.” And, laughing, His Royal Highness waved his hand with a merry “Bon voyage!” and cantered away, while my half a dozen fellow-travellers in gold-braided costumes regarded me in wonder that their Prince should stop and converse with me—a perfect stranger.

Down the silent river, between steep green hills we glided. Choked by the tangle and rot of weeds, it was the haunt of thousands of waterfowl, and, as we passed, the herons rose with a lazy flapping of wings,—a stream that might well be haunted by the fairies, for the water was unruffled and the silence deep and complete.

Boarding the little steamer, the Nettuno, lying at the mouth of the river, we were soon out in the great green lake, with the high mountains looming grey in the far distance. As we steamed due south, the barren mountains of Montenegro were soon left behind. At Virpasar and Plavnitza we picked up passengers, a fat Turkish peasant woman carrying two baskets of fowls, and three young Montenegrins, fully armed with rifles and revolvers. Because she was not yet in Turkey, the woman wore no veil; yet in the evening, as soon as Skodra came in sight, she produced her veil, and carefully adjusted it, laughing with me the whole time, and wound it until only her bright dark eyes were visible.

From Virpasar an Italian company is now building a railway to the Montenegrin port of Antivari, so that in a couple of years the lake will be connected with the Adriatic, and form the much-needed trade route for Montenegro. The Servians, indeed, are hoping also to use Antivari as their Adriatic port, and thus be free of the excessive Customs dues and other oppression placed upon them by Austria-Hungary. When in Belgrade, M. Stoyanovitch, the Servian Minister of Commerce, explained to me the several schemes for the construction of a railroad from Krushevatz, in Servia, by way of Novi-Bazar, Ipek, Podgoritza, and Ryeka, to join the Italian line at Virpasar, and so to the Adriatic or to San Giovanni di Medua. Servia must secure a port, and this line, whenever made, will be a most paying concern, for by its extension from Stalacs—on the main Belgrade-Sofia line—to Orsova, it would receive most of the exports of Southern Russia to Western Europe.

Palok, my companion through the Skreli country.

The mere handful of lake-side dwellings which now constitutes Virpasar will, ere many years have passed, grow into an important trade centre, and upon the great silent lake, surrounded by those high sheer mountains where the eagle and the pelican are now the only signs of life, big passenger and freight steamers will soon ply. The railway, which must be built ere long, will quickly bring a civilising influence upon Northern Albania; therefore, if one wishes to see it in all its wildness, it must be seen to-day. In another decade the Albanian brigand—the real thing out of the story-book—will be only a matter of history.

The calm, bright day was perfect. The surface of the great lake was like a mirror, and the fringe of giant mountain constantly changed in colour—grey, blue, purple, and rose—as the hours wore on, and the sun sank westward in all the crimson glory of the death of the autumn day.

Now and then, with our rifles, we took pot-shots at the pelicans, but with little result. A young Montenegrin killed one, and the huge bird came down with a great splash into the water. At last, in the falling twilight, we cast anchor at the head of the Boyana River, which empties itself into the lake, and then, boarding another high-prowed canoe, where a Turkish soldier sat over us with a loaded rifle, we were rowed slowly up to the low line of ramshackle buildings, which was our first sight of Skodra.

With our farewell to the Nettuno we had said good-bye to civilisation, as represented by sturdy Montenegro. We were in Albania, the wildest and most turbulent country in the East.

We landed upon some slimy steps amid a perfect babel of shouts. Hundreds of unwashed Turks and Albanians were awaiting us, all shouting in a language of which I understood not one word. Every man, armed and of ferocious aspect, seemed ready to make short work of both Palok and myself. Indeed, so unpleasant is the landing at Skodra, that Palok himself had already sent a message to a friend of his—a typical brigand of the first water—to give the Customs officer a tip, and so make pleasant our path through that dark, evil-smelling hole where the Turks collect their dues. Palok’s friend, whom I only saw on that one occasion, and whose name I could not ascertain, had managed to secure from somewhere a mustard-coloured ramshackle fly, the upholstering of which was in ribbons. The driver, in his white fez, with dirty white baggy trousers and yellow tunic, came forward and saluted me with deep obeisance, while I was explaining to the passport officer—a ragged, consumptive youth—that my name was not “We, Sir Edward Grey.”

The chief of the Customs was a long, very thin, white-fezzed Turk with large silver-mounted pistols in his belt, very tight white trousers, a gold-embroidered jacket, and pointed slippers that turned up at the toes in the most approved style. He was a real live Bey, so Palok told me, but he was not averse to receiving tenpence as a tip. Later, when I left Scutari (or Skodra) again, I gave him ten Austrian crowns, for I had in my bag a couple of thousand cigarettes, which, by Turkish law, are prohibited from leaving the country. His charge for winking at the contravention is five crowns a thousand!

Turkish Custom Houses are weird places, and it is no wonder that the British Ambassador at Constantinople is just now pressing for some reform. Your belongings are not only thoroughly examined and heavily assessed for Customs—if you won’t tip—when you enter Turkish territory, but the same happens when you leave. Woe-betide those who dispense with the services of a discreet dragoman and do not tip. All that you may have bought in Turkey will be found liable to duty. Gold embroideries will be weighed, and anything that has the Sultan’s monogram upon it—as so many embroideries have—will be at once confiscated.

The man in the fez is grave and inexorable. His attitude is as though he would scorn the offer of a bribe and throw you into prison for daring to insult an official of His Imperial Majesty. Yet outside the Custom House he keeps a crafty ragamuffin who is ready to accept a four-franc piece on his behalf, and for that he will pass a thousand pounds’ worth of goods with only a pretence of search! The Custom House at Galata on the Bosphorus is a case in point. There are five officials there who share the spoils from the traveller.

Yes, the land of the Crescent is indeed a quaint country. The corruption of Turkish Customs officials is no doubt due to the frequent non-payment of their stipends. They must live, and do so by accepting bribes. I afterwards spoke to certain high government officials at Constantinople about it, and they admitted that they knew bribery existed extensively, but at present were utterly unable to suppress it.

Over the ramshackle Custom House, a dark hole without a window, frowns a shattered fortress containing one or two antiquated guns, a photograph of which I afterwards obtained surreptitiously, and which appears in these pages. Had I been discovered, I might have spent an unpleasant year or so in a Turkish prison. But even that offence, so heinous in Germany, France, or Austria, I suppose I could easily have expiated with a few piastres of backsheesh. In Turkey you can do anything—if you are prepared to pay.

Upon that filthy crowd around the Custom House at Skodra, upon those crumbling buildings, upon that old white fortress, upon the tower of Skodra itself, a mile away, the centuries of progress have made no impression. Here is the country of a mediæval people, the life of an age long ago past and forgotten.

While our fellow-travellers were squabbling, arguing, shouting, and cursing the wild, dirty mob who now filled the Custom House, we, with our baggage—canvas bags, specially made to sling on mules for mountain travelling—ascended into the mustard-coloured conveyance and were driven along a country lane, very English in its appearance, with bramble hedgerows and ditches; yet the high, thin minaret of a mosque before us, and the carefully latticed windows of a house, preventing the women-folk from being seen from the roadway, and giving the place an air of mystery, showed us to be in the land of His Majesty the Sultan—in Albania the Unknown.

CHAPTER II
WHERE LIFE IS CHEAP

Fired at in the street of Skodra—My comfortless inn—Panorama of life—Armed bands of wild mountaineers in the streets—The Sign of the Cross—Scutarine people—The fascination of Skodra—In the den of my friend Salko—Making purchases—Short shrift with swindlers—Some genuine antiques—Ragged and shoeless soldiers of the Sultan—Men shot in the blood-feud—“It is nothing!”

I had not been in Skodra half an hour before a man fired at me with his revolver.

It was my welcome to Albania, and I confess that I drew my own weapon from my belt, prepared to defend myself.

I had arrived at the han, or inn, a poor place dignified by the name of Hôtel de l’Europe, washed, and descended to the street, when, on emerging from the doorway, somebody fired his pistol right in my face. The flash startled me, and in an instant I was on my guard with my back to the wall. In that brief second all that I had heard of the insecurity of Albania flashed back.

My assailant—a tall, ragged-looking, middle-aged Turk in a scarlet fez—laughed in my face and uttered some words that I did not understand. He saw my weapon shining in the dim light, and pushed it away with a laugh. His manner struck me as friendly, so I dropped my arm; whereupon another man, in passing, also fired, then another and another, until, ten seconds later, everybody in the street was firing indiscriminately, and bullets were flying in all directions.

In Skodra.

I held my breath. Had the place actually revolted against the Turk just at the moment of my arrival? If so, I was in luck’s way. I knew that the Albanian hated the Turk, for Palok had told me that the revolution was only a question of time, and that one day his people would drive them out of Skodra. The place was once Servian, and captured by the Turks in 1479. Yet the Albanian still looks upon the Turk as a miserable intruder, and intends one day, ere long, to drive him out.

Around me, on every hand, pistols were being fired, the flashes showing red in the night, and I stood breathless, wondering what was happening. The man who had fired in my face was grinning at my alarm, when Palok dashed out to me.

“Signore! Signore!” he cried, in Italian. “It is nothing! Don’t be alarmed. It is only the vigil of the fast of Ramadan. It is our way of celebrating it!”

By that time every man in the whole town was firing off his revolver. The din was deafening.

“Very well,” I laughed. “Then I’ll celebrate it too,” and, raising my arm, I also emptied my weapon in the air.

The grinning Turk who had first fired and alarmed me saluted me by touching chin and forehead, and then we laughed together. It was certainly fortunate for him and for myself that I had not let fly, but he did not seem to heed at all the danger of firing suddenly upon a foreigner ignorant of what was about to happen.

The han, with the dignified name of “hotel,” was certainly an uncomfortable place. Cold roast pork, a trifle “high,” was all I could get to eat, and this was washed down by a light red vinegar, which was probably at one time wine. For five days running I had that very same pork served twice a day, until I sent Palok into the bazaar to buy me other supplies. A narrow camp bed, an iron washstand with tin fittings, a pail and a deal table, comprised my furniture, the best accommodation that Skodra could afford.

Yet the town is perhaps one of the most interesting in all the Balkans, and its people the most strangely mixed and wearing a greater variety of Eastern costume than even in Constantinople itself.

The bazaar, down by the river, is full of quaint types and most interesting. Its uneven pavement is quite as unclean and slippery with the dirt of ages as are the streets of Constantinople, but its dark little sheds are filled by workers, silver and copper smiths, embroiderers, armourers, weavers, jewellers—in fact, one sees every trade being carried on in the same primitive way and with the same tools as in the Middle Ages.

Skodra is not a town of progress, for there telephone or electric light is forbidden; machinery of every kind is against the law, and neither newspapers nor books are allowed to enter Albania. Therefore in those crooked streets of the bazaar the traveller is back in mediæval days, and the town of to-day is just as Florence was in the days of Boccaccio or Dante. Like the mediæval Florentines, many of the men from the mountains shave their heads, leaving a tuft of bushy hair at the back, which is cut square at the neck. With their tight-fitting black-and-white striped trousers, black woollen boleros, their belts filled with cartridges, and a rifle over their shoulders, they are a fine, manly race, with swaggering gait, clean-cut features—mostly Catholics, who spit openly at the lean, ragged, ill-fed soldiers of the Sultan.

They come down from the mountains in armed bands, and walk through the town, a dozen or so together, in complete defiance of the Turk. With men upon whose heads a price has been set—known brigands or murderers, indeed—I have chatted and drunk coffee in the bazaar, all wild fellows who know no law except their own, and who do not acknowledge the Turk as their ruler. When I inquired of Palok the reason of their immunity from arrest, he replied—

“Why, signore, if the Turks captured one of these, the whole of Northern Albania would rise as one man. The tribes would sweep down from the mountains and sack and burn Skodra within twenty-four hours. Life in this town is very uncertain, I can tell you. One never knows when the rising will take place. All is ripe for it, and when it comes, then woe-betide the Turk and all the Moslems. Have you not noticed the Sign of the Cross over the doors of the Christians? Is that not significant?”

The Albanian tribesmen are mostly Catholics, together with some Orthodox; yet they combine religion strangely with war. They go to the Catholic Cathedral in Skodra with loaded rifles, which they place before them as they kneel and pray, and before murdering their enemy they will go and ask Providence to assist them.

The town Christian of Skodra is, for the most part, a very excellent fellow. Palok, whom I found was well known, introduced me to many of them, and in that wild land I received very many charming kindnesses from perfect strangers.

The costume of the Scutarine men is distinctly quaint and curious. A short dark red jacket, the front and sleeves of which are so completely braided with narrow black braid as to almost hide the foundation, and edged with dozens of oblong brass buttons; a pair of wide, dark blue baggy breeches reaching to the knee; a round flat fez with a huge blue silk tassel that falls about the shoulders; a bright, striped silk sash; their legs in white cotton stockings and feet in patent leather dress-shoes. Such is the dress of the average Christian one meets in Skodra.

The attire of the women is even more extraordinary. They veil, just as do the Mohammedan women, and only uncover their faces when they go to church. For the most part they are beautiful when young, with clear, delicate complexions, handsome features, and dancing black eyes; but after seventeen appear to soon lose their beauty and become prematurely wrinkled and old. The outdoor dress is generally made of the same dark red cloth as the men’s jackets, so completely embroidered as to appear black. Indeed no Scutarine, either man or woman, goes out in a dress unless it is covered with embroidery. In every street you will see a dozen men squatting cross-legged in a little dark shop, busily plying the needle upon the narrow black braid, and applying tiny pieces of green cloth among the braid as additional ornament. Often the braiding is a marvel of needlework and design, and some of the outdoor costumes of the women, though exceedingly ugly, are ornamented in such a manner as to amaze the Western eye.

Female outdoor attire is, of course, of the divided skirt order, trousers of thick braided cloth so clumsy that the wearer can only walk with difficulty, a long cape, richly embroidered on the shoulders and reaching to the hips, with a square kind of sailor collar that is raised and pinned to the crown of the head. From the bridge of the nose to the knee falls the white veil, like the Moslem women, while from the sash are pinned gaily coloured silk handkerchiefs, which, appearing below the cape, lend additional colour to the most unwieldy and ugly of all the dresses of the East. The wearer cannot walk, but can only waddle with difficulty.

The streets of Skodra are, however, a perfect panorama of costume. In the dark entries the shuffling Mohammedan women, white-clothed from head to foot and veiled, look ghostly and mysterious; the Mohammedan unmarried girls with the striped red-and-white veil wrapped about them; Albanians from the south in short, stiff cotton skirts like exaggerated kilts; Turks in greasy frock-coats and discoloured fezes, strolling slowly, fingering their beads to pass the time through Ramadan; fierce tribesmen from the mountains in all sorts of different costumes, fully armed and ready to shoot in an instant at discovering an enemy even there in the crowded bazaar; unveiled country women in short, coarse, black homespun skirts, wearing great iron-studded belts and savage ornaments in brass, copper, and gold; giggling girls from the mountains four or five days distant, dressed in their gorgeous gala dresses, laughing as they bargain with the voluble keepers of the tiny shops in the bazaar.

Skodra fascinates one. There is no European influence here: not a soul is in European dress. It is the unchanging East—the same life that has existed here for centuries. The Turks are, however, fanatics, and Palok will not allow me to smoke a cigarette in the street in the daytime, for in the fast of Ramadan the Mohammedans abstain from all food, drink, and tobacco from four in the morning till the gun fires on the fortress at sunset.

Upon Palok’s advice I even wore a fez, so as not to be too conspicuous.

When I asked the reason, he simply grinned, shrugged his shoulders, and said—

“The signore believes Skodra to be a safe place. But it is not always so. Why run unnecessary risk? And a fez is very comfortable.”

So after buying a fez, I took it to the ironer, a white-bearded old Turk, who pressed it and shrunk it and combed out its tassel with great ceremony, and then I assumed the distinctive mark of the Sultan’s subjects, evidently to the great relief of the faithful Palok.

On our first visit to the bazaar Palok discovered a friend. He was a very tall, thin-legged Albanian, in a white fez, a white woollen bolero, and the usual black-and-white woollen trousers and turned-up shoes of raw-hide and interlaced string. In one of the narrow, tortuous ways of the bazaar, on a kind of platform before a small ramshackle booth, where rope and twine were displayed, he was squatting cross-legged, staring into space and awaiting customers.

Suddenly espying Palok, he seized his slippers, which stood near him, and sprang out upon the filthy pavement. Next second the pair were clasped in embrace, and after many mutual words of warm welcome in Albanian, I was introduced.

The seller of string looked me up and down critically until his eye caught my revolver in my belt, and then, apparently satisfied with my appearance, he touched his chin and brow in salutation.

We ascended to the little platform, and a box was brought for me to sit upon. A shout into the narrow alley brought me a cup of Turkish coffee.

“This is my friend, Salko,” Palok explained, in Italian, after the pair had been apparently discussing me. “Mio buon amico. One of the best men in the bazaar. For eight years we have been parted, and how pleased I am to see him again.”

Salko interrupted, whereupon Palok said—

“My friend apologises, signore, that he cannot take coffee with you, or offer you a cigarette. It is Ramadan, you know.”

I offered Salko my case, and, taking a cigarette, he placed it aside until after sunset, touching his chin and brow and laughing merrily.

I wanted to buy several things in the bazaar—a piece or two of old silver, if I could find it—and some antique embroideries which Palok had told me I could find. He told Salko this, whereupon he shouted outside to a passer-by, and in a moment the news was all over the bazaar, and all sorts and conditions of men appeared with various things for sale: beautiful silver-mounted and gem-studded pistols and swords, old silver ornaments, embroideries of the sixteenth century, genuine antiques of all sorts, old jewellery—in fact, in a quarter of an hour Salko’s little shed-like shop presented the appearance of that of an antique dealer.

Two gorgeous Turkish ladies’ costumes attracted me. The trousers were of silk, and interwoven with real gold and silver thread; the boleros of rich crimson velvet, wonderfully embroidered with gold; the sashes gay; and the little fezes, with golden sequins, smart and coquettish. They were the real thing, and could be worn at a fancy-dress ball in England with certain success.

I liked them, for they were the genuine thing. Dresses such as they were are not made nowadays. Turkish ladies of to-day prefer the lighter stuffs of the Franks, silks from Paris, and figured gauzes from Germany. Those dresses had once graced the harem of some great Pasha—perhaps, indeed, that of the Sultan himself. So I allowed Salko to bargain for them.

I watched, and was amused.

The man who had them to sell apparently asked a price that was exorbitant, whereupon my friend, with a wave of his hand, ordered him to pack them back in the bundle.

High words followed, and I expected every moment the pair would come to blows. The vendor was a round, fat-faced eunuch, with an ugly scar across his brown cheek. And while the controversy was in progress, the others who had wares to offer squatted about and advised each side as to how much the costumes were really worth. Then at last both sides got at loggerheads, hard words were used and insulting gestures; fists were shaken, and angry scowls exchanged, until I momentarily expected that there would be a free fight and bloodshed.

My friend Salko outside his house in Skodra.

Pietro’s sister-in-law unveiled before the Camera.

One man I noticed who had not spoken was fingering the hilt of his knife, as though itching to join in the fray.

“I’m going out of this,” I told Palok, whereupon he only laughed.

“There’s really nothing to fear, signore. It is always so. They ask double, and Salko is teaching the fellow manners. You are a foreigner, and you don’t understand.”

I admitted that I did not.

The argument continued, and in the end the fat-faced eunuch was bundled out by Salko into the dirty alley and his goods thrown after him.

Nobody smiled. Such treatment seemed usual, and on the following day I bought the dresses.

The next was a little old Turk with a long white beard, who had an old silver ornament for sale, one of those triangular boxes which women wear round their necks containing scraps of the Koran, supposed to protect them from the influence of the Evil Eye.

Though he came meek and humble, Salko glared at him. No. The Englishman was his guest, and he would see that only what was just was paid. He took the ornament from me, and weighing it in his hand, judged its worth. Two other men agreed, and the old man, without being consulted, was handed the money and told to be gone.

Assuredly business methods are quaint in the town we Europeans call Scutari.

Another after another—shopkeepers, all of them in the same category as Salko himself—was interviewed. Those who offered rubbish were promptly ordered out. And so, before me, seated upon my box, was unfolded the treasures of the bazaar.

And assuredly some of the curios offered were fit to grace any museum. Seldom does a foreigner visit Skodra, therefore it still contains many real antiques; and there being no sale for them, prices are not exorbitant. It is, indeed, one of the few places left where one can obtain anything worth having.

A long, lean Christian, in his flat round fez and enormous tassel, offered me nine early Greek gold coins that had only a week before been discovered in a tomb. I doubted the tomb part of the story, but I was afterwards shown it half a mile away, and could also have bought the actual vase in which they had been found. I am not a collector of coins, so I declined them. One day, however, those coins will, no doubt, find their way into one of our European national collections, for they were so perfect that they looked as though just fresh from the matrix.

I was turning over in my hand a number of antique gem rings, when of a sudden, just outside, not a dozen yards from where I sat, there was a loud shout, followed by a pistol-shot. Then more shouting, and a little crowd gathered. In alarm I sprang to my feet, and I saw outside a mountaineer, in white felt skullcap, lying in a pool of blood with part of his face blown away.

A man in black-and-white trousers stalked past, flourishing his big pistol and threatening to shoot anybody who dared to stop him. He was the assassin.

“It is nothing, signore,” Palok declared, reseating himself. “Only the blood-feud. The men were in sangue, and have met. In such cases one must always die. The man who shoots first gets the best of it,” and he grinned.

For fully five minutes the man lay in the filthy gutter without a hand being placed upon him to see if life were extinct. Then it occurred to somebody to see. He was pronounced dead, and a couple of men carried away the corpse. No police or guard put in an appearance, and the life of the bazaar went on as though nothing unusual had happened.

But nothing unusual had happened. Such assassinations occur every day, and nobody takes any heed of them. The blood-feud is part of the Albanian creed, both Mohammedan and Christian.

It is not, however, pleasant to have a man shot dead before one’s eyes, nor does it tend to inspire confidence in one’s own personal safety.

This was my first experience of the murderous instinct of the wild Albanian, but ere three days I had still other opportunities of reflecting upon Palok’s remark that Skodra was not so safe a place as it looked.

Indeed, the town itself is, at intervals, threatened with massacre. Every now and then rumours fly round that the mountain tribes are about to descend upon the place and drive out the Turks. Then everybody retires to their houses—each residence has high walls, and is more or less a fortress—the bazaar is closed, the shops are barricaded, and the ragged soldiers of the Sultan assemble under their greasy-tunicked officers—and wait.

The blow for liberty has not yet been struck by the Albanians, but it will assuredly come ere long.

I wanted to investigate, and get at the truth. That is the reason why those high, blue, misty mountains that I could see afar from the narrow, crooked streets of Skodra held me in such fascination; that is why I disregarded all advice to the contrary, and determined to visit the Albanian at home in his rocky fastness.

That same night, after Salko had bargained for me, I was eating my evening meal—of pork—when another shot sounded out in the dark, unlit street.

It was nothing, I was told by Palok five minutes later. A man had been found dead in the darkness. That was all.

The average number of assassinations in Scutari is about three per day. Nobody cares, for justice is nobody’s business except that of the dead man’s brother, or his next-of-kin.

True, there is an Imperial Court of Justice, a lath-built shed with gaping holes in the roof. Its steps are moss-grown, and its windows mostly broken or devoid of glass.

Outside the place, after midday, the brave defenders of the Ottoman Empire, those shoeless men with their ragged uniforms dropping off them, sell their ration of bread to the passer-by in order to get money to buy cigarettes. They remain unpaid, and their bread is their only source of income. And upon the protection of these Skodra has to rely.

Is it any wonder that when sinister rumour runs through the bazaar, everybody shoulders his rifle and sits on his wall, prepared to defend his own home?

CHAPTER III
THE LAWLESS LAND

My friend Pietro—Visit to his house—His wife and sister-in-law unveil and are photographed—Scutarine hospitality—Forbidden newspapers—I get one in secret—The Turkish post office—I want to visit the Accursed Mountains—Difficulties and fears—The Feast of the Madonna—Christians and Mohammedans—My first meeting with the dreaded Skreli—Shots in the night.

Those bright, sunny autumn days in Skodra will live for a long time within my memory.

Though a stranger in that half-savage place, where law and order are unknown, I received perhaps more genuine hospitality from perfect strangers than in any other place in the Balkan Peninsula.

Through Palok’s introduction I quickly found myself among friends, who exerted their utmost in order to entertain me, and went out of their way, even in face of their own national customs and beliefs, to oblige me. The Albanian idea of hospitality is old-world and charming. A case in point was one of my friends, a wealthy Scutarine merchant named Pietro Lekha, whose portrait is here reproduced. He was a Christian, and spoke a little Italian. At first, when I was introduced to him in the bazaar, he was silent and taciturn, apparently regarding me with some suspicion; but very soon this wore off, and we became the best of friends. We took coffee together constantly, and he gave me exquisite cigarettes. In Albania there is no régie, as in other parts of Turkey, therefore one can choose from the peasant-women the very best light tobacco in leaf, have it cut, and afterwards employ professional cigarette-makers to manufacture you cigarettes. I did this, and sent a quantity of cigarettes of the very first quality to England, far milder and sweeter than any to be purchased in Constantinople—or anywhere else in the world, for the matter of that.

Rok, tribesman of the Skreli.

Pietro Lekha.

Finding that I was taking photographs, Pietro became interested. He accompanied me on my expeditions, and we had spent some days together before I dared to inquire about his wife, the veiled lady whom I had once had pointed out to me in the bazaar.

Palok had told me that Pietro’s brother had, three months ago, married the most beautiful girl in Skodra, and that he and his young wife lived at Pietro’s house. A bold thing then occurred to me—to beg permission to photograph them.

I knew well that these people were averse to having their photographs taken; nevertheless I very discreetly broached the subject one day when sipping coffee with Pietro.

He gave me no decided answer. Indeed, he declared himself ready in any way to serve me, but as to photographing his women-kind—well, it was against all custom. What would his friends say if they knew?

I dropped the subject, rather crestfallen. I wanted to be invited to his house and to meet his wife and sister-in-law, both of whom were declared to be very beautiful. Yet he seemed in no way inclined to so far extend his hospitality. I spoke to Palok and urged him to use his power of persuasion, with the result that two days later I received an invitation from Pietro to call upon him at his house at three o’clock to take coffee, and further, he added—

“If you really wish to bring your camera, you may. I have spoken to my brother, and he will let you take a picture of his wife, providing you give your undertaking not to make any copies for sale, or to show it here to people in Skodra.”

I willingly gave the undertaking, and at the appointed hour, accompanied by Palok, we rang at the big gate in a high white, prison-like wall that enclosed my friend’s dwelling, and were admitted into the garden, in the centre of which stood a great square house.

Pietro came forward to greet me, a picturesque figure in his Scutarine dress, the flat fez with big tassel, the embroidered coat, baggy trousers, and white stockings. The ground floor was devoted to stables, but above we found ourselves in a large square apartment with divans. Upon the floor were beautiful Eastern rugs. On one side was the big, gaudily painted dowry-chest, and here and there small low tables. The room, with its heavy hangings, was very cosy, and over everything was the sweet odour of otto-of-rose. In one corner was a great brass brazier, and upon a chiffonier were a few European knick-knacks, evidently household treasures. The only picture on the wall was a small oleograph of the Madonna.

A rush-bottomed chair was produced for me, while Pietro and Palok squatted cross-legged upon the divans. Then the servant was sent to inform the ladies of our arrival.

Presently both wife and sister-in-law entered, gorgeous in silk and gold, the most striking costumes I have ever seen off the stage. White gauze veils were wrapped about their heads and corsage, leaving only their eyes visible; and thus attired they saluted me and, with Pietro acting as interpreter, welcomed me.

Afterwards they retired, and at Pietro’s order reappeared without their veils. The younger woman was indeed lovely, with a fair white skin, beautiful soft lines of beauty, magnificent black eyes, and lips that puckered into a sweet, modest smile when I involuntarily expressed my surprise at her marvellous good looks. I had heard that Albanian ladies were beautiful, but I certainly never expected to be presented to such a type of feminine loveliness.

Over her bare chest hung strings of great gold coins, while across her brow were rows of sequins. Her richly embroidered dress, the jewels in her ears, the bangles upon her arms, all enhanced her great personal beauty, while she stood before me, her face downcast in modesty—for except her husband and his brother no man had ever beheld her unveiled.

At that moment her husband entered, and I congratulated him upon the possession of such a beautiful wife. Then we all laughed together, and descended to the garden, where I was allowed to take photographs of her, veiled and unveiled, as well as of Pietro’s wife, who was, of course, much her senior, and who, although she had lost her youthful beauty, was still very charming.

Returning again to the upstairs salon, we all sat round, while the newly-married beauty brought us first lemonade, then delicious Turkish coffee in tiny round cups upon a great gilt tray, followed by rakhi, that spirit so dear to the Turkish palate, and afterwards real rahat-lakoum, or Turkish delight.

Then, after an interval, veiled again once more, the beautiful young woman brought me a cigarette and lit it for me, afterwards wishing me adieu and modestly retiring.

All was done with such perfect grace and modesty as to create a most charming experience. It was, to say the least, novel, to sit there with those squatting Albanians and be waited upon by the prettiest girl in Skodra.

Pietro told me that newspapers and books being forbidden, anyone found in possession of them was at once arrested. He, however, gave me surreptitiously a copy of the Rome Tribuna, which had been smuggled in a day or two before; and it was welcome, being the first newspaper I had had for several weeks.

Truly Skodra is a strange place. I had occasion to go to the Turkish post office one day. It was, I found, a wooden shed. Inside was a low, filthy truckle bed, a small table—at which sat a consumptive youth in a fez—a broken chair and a large iron safe, the door being secured by a piece of string being tied about it!

Of drainage there is none. Sewage runs down the centre of most of the streets, especially in the bazaar, and its odour is the reverse of pleasant on a sunny day. In the neighbourhood of butchers and slaughterers the gutters run with blood, which the dogs lap and enjoy, and near the stalls of fruiterers and vegetable-sellers the piles of refuse rot in the sun and decay.

Yet everywhere, both in the streets of the Mohammedan quarter and in those of the Christians, are interesting sights at every turn. When night falls the place is dark and mysterious, for there are no lights save that issuing from the chinks of a door or from the windows of a barber or a coffee-seller. Through the windows of a mosque, perhaps, can be seen the swaying figures of Turks at prayer, faint in the dim oil lights, while in the blackness of the street the patrol passes, a dozen Turkish soldiers with loaded rifles, headed by one man carrying a lantern. The place is insecure after nightfall, even to the Scutarines themselves, therefore nobody ventures out, and by nine o’clock every house is bolted and barred.

At that hour, it being Ramadan, the Turk was feasting and taking his ease, while opposite the han where I lived a Turkish soldier would come nightly and sing weird prayers under the window of the Governor of the vilayet, that perfectly useless official, whose authority extends only to the confines of the town itself, and who fears to exercise it lest he should rouse the slumbering ire of those fierce tribes who live in the Accursed Mountains above.

Many strange sights I witnessed and many strange things I heard in Skodra.

Men, fierce mountaineers who, in some cases, bore across their countenances marks of sword or gun-shot wounds, told me their stories—exciting narratives of love, war, and the blood-feud. All were Albanians, and believed Skodra to be the finest capital in the world. England, because it carried on no political intrigue among them, like Austria and Italy, they did not regard as a Power. Mine was a country far away, I was told, and therefore perfectly harmless. Hardly anybody had heard of London. Those who had, declared that it could not be so large or so beautiful as Skodra.

The days I spent there were with the one object of obtaining, by some means, permission from one or other of the mountain chieftains to allow me to travel in the country.

Palok had promised to endeavour to arrange it for me, and so had Pietro, but by their manner I saw that they considered any such attempt a piece of sheer folly, and far too hazardous. They were too polite to tell me so, but I read in their faces that they did not intend me to go, if it were possible to prevent me.

Therefore surreptitiously I had recourse to my faithful friend of the bazaar, Salko, himself a member of the fierce tribe of the Skreli, who had more than once terrorised the town. When, through an interpreter, I one evening explained my desire, he rubbed his chin doubtfully and wagged his head. He would do his best, but it was dangerous—very dangerous, he declared.

And yet, he went on, the thing might perhaps be managed. An Albanian of the mountains, though he might be a brigand and annoyed the Turks, and though he might shoot Turkish soldiers like dogs wherever met, was nevertheless a man of his word. If I was promised safe escort, then I might go into the mountains without even my revolver, for no harm would come to me.

Yes; he would promise to see what he could do. But it was difficult, and it would take time. In the mountains they had no great love of foreigners.

To the coming Feast of the Madonna many men from the mountains would arrive, and there would be opportunity to speak with them. No; he would say nothing to Palok—if I so wished. Therefore I waited, and hoped.

Now the celebrated Madonna of Loretto was, before the Turkish occupation of Skodra, at the little ruined church near the Boyana River, and even now down to the annual festà come representatives of all the various tribes, men and women, from sometimes a week’s journey distant, filling the streets with a perfect panorama of colour and costume.

The Feast of the Madonna is indeed the day to see Skodra at her best.

You may travel the whole of Europe, from the Channel to the Urals, or from the White Sea to the Bosphorus, and you will never see such a variety of types and of costume as during the two days of that feast.

That clear sunny morning the whole town was agog. The Christians had it to themselves, for while they feasted the Mohammedans fasted. The two peoples keep distinctly apart during religious festivals, and Turkish soldiers, their blue uniforms green with age, greasy at the collar, and often shoeless, patrol the town, ready to fire on the people at the least provocation. At least, so they say. If, however, they did fire, then woe-betide them! Every man goes armed in Skodra, and the garrison would certainly be wiped out were the alarm once given to those wild fellows up in the mountains.

All is orderly, however—all brilliant. The streets are full of Christians from the country, the men tall, thin-legged fellows, with black-and-white striped trousers and black furry bolero, carrying loaded rifles upon their shoulders; and the women in the various gay costumes of the tribes, each wearing profusions of gold coins strung across their breasts, heavy gold earrings, and the younger married ones with dozens of gaudy silk handkerchiefs suspended round their heavy brass or iron studded girdles, presents to them on their recent marriage. Most of the katunnare (peasant-women from the plains) are dressed in a short black homespun skirt and bodice combined, reaching to the knees and embroidered with red. Around the waist is a heavy hide belt about five inches broad, studded with iron, and with two big polished cornelians to form the buckle. Some are of antique silver of beautiful workmanship, and others, more modern, are gilt. These women wear nothing on their heads, but the gaily-dressed malzore (women of the mountains) wear a bright silk handkerchief arranged very much in the same manner as the women around Naples. The malzore are extremely good-looking, and all carry a small embroidered sack over their shoulder, for in Skodra on the night prior to the Festà of the Madonna every Christian house is open to receive visitors and give them food and shelter, whoever they may be. So these little sacks contain humble presents to the hosts.

Pietro met me in the street as I was going to the Cathedral, and told me that on the previous night he had given food and beds to twenty-eight mountaineers of both sexes. Albanian hospitality is certainly unbounded.

The Madonna of Skodra.

The Procession with an Armed Guard.

As I strolled through the narrow lanes of the Christian quarter towards the Cathedral, and the gaily-dressed chattering women in groups hurried forward to get a place within, I was struck with their neat and clean appearance. Their finery was in no way dingy or dusty, and yet many of them had been a whole week on a journey through perhaps the roughest region in the whole East.

How different was the festà to that I had known in the Italian towns!

About the Cathedral there is nothing unusually attractive—a big bare edifice with high square campanile in modern Italian style. It stands in the centre of an open space, surrounded by great high, fortress-like walls, entered by a strong gate with huge iron bars—significant that one day ere long it will be held against the Turks. No Mohammedan ever passes those gates. Even the military patrol lounge outside, leaning on their rifles.

Within the enclosure I found a great crowd of peasant women; females of the town, veiled with gauze so fine that one could almost see their faces; Scutarine men in their best jackets and baggy trousers; and the swaggering, white-capped warriors from the mountains, men of the Miriditi,—so dreaded by the Turks that they are allowed to carry their rifles with them,—of the fierce Skreli, the Hoti, and the Kastrati.

The Skreli, with the Miriditi, are allowed to carry their rifles because the Turks hold them in fear. The authorities know full well that to arouse their ire would be to bring destruction upon the whole vilayet, for they hold the communications, and if the tribes revolted, as they no doubt would, then the army of the Sultan would have a very hard task to suppress the rebellion.

So while the Kastrati and the Hoti—also dwellers in the Mountains of the Accursed—the Klementi, the Shiala of the foot-hills, and the others are compelled to leave their rifles at the entrance to the town, the Skreli and the Miriditi stalk along in armed bands of twenty or thirty through the streets to the church, grinning defiance at the Turks, who are supposed by Europe to be their masters.

Under the trees around the Cathedral the wild, fierce men, who would hold the traveller to ransom or shoot him with less compunction than they would kill a shepherd-dog, were squatting in rings with their rifles before them, gossiping. Every man wore a belt full of cartridges and a bandolier across his shoulders—sometimes even two. War and religion are strangely mixed in Skodra.

Into the dimly-lit Cathedral I managed to squeeze, and there, kneeling on the stones and filling the whole place right out into the grass enclosure, were men of all grades, from the peaceful Scutarine merchant to the wild tribesman, and women with their faces uncovered bowed towards the brilliantly lit altar, where the thin-faced Italian priest mumbled the prayers.

The sight was strangely impressive; the silence unbroken save for the low voice of the priest and now and then the clank of arms.

For two days in the year, to celebrate the Christian festival, the brigand tribes from the mountains come down, notwithstanding that upon the heads of many of those sinister-looking men before me the Turks had long ago set a price. I stood gazing at that kneeling throng, to whom, though devout and humble in God’s house, murder was deemed no wrong.

The service ended, a great procession was formed, and headed by four fine stalwart men of the Skreli with loaded rifles, made a slow tour from the altar outside and round the enclosure, while an orchestra in a band-stand opposite played selections. The sight was curious—those armed men ready to protect their priests in case of sudden onslaught by the Turks.

During the whole morning I took many photographs, and in the afternoon, when I returned, I found the orchestra playing operatic music, which was being listened to by the tribesmen with marked attention. They are, I afterwards found, devoted to music. The programme ranged from selections from La Bohème and Carmen to the “Segovia” valse and our old melodious friend, “The Honeysuckle and the Bee.” The latter air quickly became popular among the tribesmen, who picked it up and began at once to whistle it.

The Mirediti: An Alarm!

The Mirediti at Prayer.

Slowly fell the mystic twilight of the East. The glorious afterglow had deepened into grey, and night was creeping on quickly when fire balloons were sent up, and then gradually the whole Cathedral became outlined in fairy lamps against the steely sky, even to the utmost point of the high square tower. Men and women gazed upward, and crossed themselves.

Later, while walking back with Palok, we encountered a group of armed tribesmen talking excitedly, shaking their fists, and apparently quarrelling. Palok joined the crowd, and inquired what had happened. Then, turning to me, he said—

“Oh, it is nothing, signore. The town of Kroia has revolted. The Turks sent soldiers yesterday, but they were Albanians, and would not fire on the people. To-day some artillery arrived, and thirty people have been killed—mostly women. A man has just ridden in with the news. It is nothing. We are always fighting the Turks at Kroia. There will probably be a massacre to-night.” And he deftly rolled a cigarette as he spat in defiance of the hated Mussulman.

Later that night I was awakened from sleep by a shot below, and, taking my revolver, went to the window. The night was black, and I could discern nothing.

I heard men’s voices raised in the street below, and suddenly saw the red flash of firearms and heard a second report.

Then all was quiet, except receding footsteps.

The shots disturbed nobody, or if they did, nobody opened door or window. The town was asleep, and by the distant sound of a tom-tom I knew that the hour was half-past three; for the music was calling upon the Faithful to eat, preparatory to the day’s fast.

What had happened? All was silent, therefore I closed my window and slept again.

In the morning I was told that it was “nothing.” Two men of the Shiala had been found dead outside.

Was it the blood-feud? I asked.

Palok only raised his shoulders and exhibited his palms.

“It was nothing, signore—really nothing.”

CHAPTER IV
IN THE ACCURSED MOUNTAINS

Vatt Marashi, chief of the Skreli tribe, invites me to become his guest—Our start for the Accursed Mountains—Rok, our guide—Independence of the Skreli—Brigandage and the bessa—A night under a rock—My meeting with Vatt Marashi and his band—The Skreli welcome—How they treat the Turks—Vatt’s admissions—I become the guest of brigands—A chat in the moonlight.

While seated on the box in Salko’s dark little stall in the bazaar he introduced his friend Rok to me.

A middle-aged tribesman in the regulation costume of tight white woollen trousers heavily striped with black, black bolero with deep woollen fringe, and a felt skullcap, once white, but now not overclean, he squatted opposite me and touched chin and brow in salute. His loaded rifle lay before him on the ground.

He eyed me critically up and down, my pigskin gaiters apparently receiving his admiration.

“Rok, here, is of the Skreli, a fearless fighter of the Turks and one of my best friends,” Salko went on to explain. “I have told him of your earnest desire to go and see our country; that you are neither Austrian nor Italian, but English and not a spy. Our friend is returning to-day, and has promised to speak to Vatt Marashi, our chief, on your behalf.”

“Tell the honourable Englishman that if he comes to us he must be prepared for a rough life. We live in the mountains,” Rok said through the interpreter, laughing pleasantly as he lit the cigarette he took from my case.

Coffee was brought, and we sealed our compact of friendliness.

If Vatt Marashi, the renowned chieftain who so often held travellers to ransom, and whose influence was so dreaded by the Turks, consented to allow me to visit him, then Rok would return, he promised, and be my guide.

For half an hour we chatted and smoked. Then the burly mountaineer rose, slung his rifle over his shoulder, touched chin and brow again, grasped my hand warmly, and stalked out on his three days’ tramp to the wild region in the mountain mists that was his home.

I waited on in Skodra, and, to my great delight, he one morning reappeared with a message from his chief that, providing I took only Palok, and had no escort, he would be pleased to welcome me and show me all the hospitality in his power. I need fear nothing, it was added. I was to be guest of Vatt Marashi, chief of the Skreli. He had issued the order to the tribe. Any who dared to insult or injure me should pay for it with their life. Therefore I should be given safe-conduct, and need not have a moment’s anxiety.

By this, Palok, who had been entirely opposed to the attempt, became reassured, and soon after noon, with a mule packed with my lightest baggage, we set our faces out across the great rolling plain that lies between the town and the high wall of blue distant mountains—the wildest corner of all Europe. They are a series of fastnesses, in which any small army would at once be massacred and where a large one would starve.

We were a merry trio as we marched forward in the bright autumn sunlight, but about a kilometre beyond the town the road ended in a ford, where we crossed a wide shallow river, and then straight across the plain and past several tumuli to where a defile showed in the mountains. The ancient Bridge of Messi, built under the Venetian dominion, was crossed, and then we had our first experience of the road in Albania—a rough, narrow way gradually ascending, almost too bad even for mules.

Nobody who has not visited Northern Albania can have any idea of the wildness of those bare grey rocks, of the roughness of the tracks, or the savagery of life there. Northern Albania is to-day just as it was under the Roman Empire. The might of Rome has waned, the Servian has come and gone, the Venetian has been swept away, and the Turk is now nominally master. But the country has never, through all the centuries, been annexed, and those wild tribes, descendants of the savage people who inhabited those fastnesses before the days of Greek dominion, have never been tamed. The Northern Albanian is the last survivor of mediæval days. He has no written language—indeed, his alphabet, with its many soft and hard “ssh” sounds, has never yet been determined—therefore he has no literature and no newspaper. Thin, wiry, and muscular, he wears raw-hide slippers, in which he moves with cat-like, stealthy tread—a habit survived from prehistoric days—while his very dress is protective, rendering him at a short distance difficult to discern, so like is he in colour to the rocky background. He looks as though he had just stepped down from a mediæval Florentine fresco, with his head half-shaven, hair long at the back and cut square across the shoulders.

He is entirely unchanged ever since the Turk found him, except that of late he has adopted the breech-loading rifle and a particularly heavy pattern of revolver. The black furry bolero which he wears, without exception, is the sign of mourning for his great prince, Skender Beg, who died in 1467, after being at war with the Turks for over twenty years; therefore with him fashions do not easily change, and “latest novelties” in dress are unknown. Great are the changes that have come over the world during the past thousand years or so, but Northern Albania has remained unaffected by them, and is still in a measure in the lowest depths of barbarism. The Turk does not rule. The wild, inaccessible country is under the various independent tribes, ruled by a chieftain according to unwritten laws which have been handed down orally from remote ages, and one of the fiercest and most independent of these chiefs was Vatt Marashi, the man whose guest I now was to be.

My road in Northern Albania.

The way to the Skreli.

Compared with the tribesmen, the Albanian Christian of Skodra is a puny person. The mountaineers are a barbaric, lawless people, without any education save the schools established by Italian and Austrian monks as part of the political propaganda; for, truth to tell, both countries have recently conceived the idea of turning Northern Albania to account for their own purposes on the day of the downfall of the Turk. Therefore both Powers are frantically exerting every effort to curry favour with the people, a fact which is glaringly apparent even to the rough, uneducated tribesmen themselves.

The Northern Albanian may be entirely uneducated and a barbarian, but he is at heart a brigand, and is certainly no fool.

My friend Rok was particularly intelligent, and as we toiled along over those rough, rock-strewn paths he gave me much information about his country, and declared that both Austria and Italy were equally their enemy.

After sundown we rested at a point high up above a dark gloomy defile, where a stream wound away towards the plain, and there ate some slices of cold mutton and black bread with a glass of rakhi, our three rifles lying at hand in case of sudden emergency.

I had noticed the queer, sinuous, almost uncanny way in which Rok walked. His movements, at even pace whatever might be the state of the path, were stealthy. Indeed, he almost crept along, for his feet fell in silence, and with his rifle ever ready, his keen black eyes were searching on every side for the enemy which he appeared to expect to meet at every turn.

Sometimes as he walked in front he would halt, and closely scan a mass of tumbled rocks, as though he had suspicion of a lurking enemy, then thoroughly satisfying himself, he would go forward again without glancing back. He was certain that no enemy was in his rear.

From his movements and natural caution I could plainly see that we were traversing a country not altogether friendly, and when, as we sat over our evening meal, I asked Palok, his reply was—

“The Shiala are not on very friendly terms with the Skreli just now. But it is nothing, signore—nothing.”

We went forward until darkness closed in, and then lay down to sleep under an overhanging rock almost on the face of a sheer precipice, a place in which Rok told us he often stayed on his way down to Skodra. He humorously called it his han, or hotel.

To light a fire would be to attract hostile attention, and the cold up there was intense. I tried to sleep, but was unable, therefore I rose and sat outside in the bright, glorious moonlight and kept watch, while Rok curled himself up like a dog and snored soundly in chorus with Palok.

There, in the East, the full moon seems to shine with greater brilliance than in Europe, and beneath its white rays those bare, rugged mountains looked like a veritable fairyland. Only the cry of a night-bird and the low music of the stream far below broke the stillness of the Oriental night, and as I sat there I reflected that I was the first Englishman who had ever been the guest of the redoubtable chieftain, Vatt Marashi, the man whom the Turks so hate—the man of whom blood-curdling tales had been told me both in Montenegro and in Skodra, and whose fame as a leader of a wild band had not long before been proclaimed by the London newspapers.

For hours I sat thinking, sometimes of my good fortune, at others of my perilous position alone in the hands of such a people. But I had heard that, notwithstanding their barbaric customs, an Albanian’s word was his bond. Therefore I reassured myself that I should not be the victim of treachery, and reported to Constantinople as “missing.”

Slowly at last the moon paled, and I grew sleepy. That terrible road had worn me out. Therefore I woke Palok to mount guard, and flung myself down in his place and slept till the sun, shining in my face, awakened me.

Through the whole day we went forward again, over a path so bad that I often had to scramble with difficulty. I tried to ride the mule, but it was out of the question, so I walked and stumbled and was helped over the rough boulders by my companions. The Skreli country was surely an unapproachable region.

That night we slept again in the open, but in a spot less sheltered. Then forward again with the first grey of dawn until, just before noon, Rok halted in the narrow track which wound round the face of the bare grey mountain, and, drawing his revolver, fired three times in the air.

The shots reverberated in a series of echoes. It was a signal, and almost ere they had died away came three answering shots from no great distance, and I was told that we were now in the Skreli region, and there was nothing more to fear.

In Podgoritza, in Cettinje, in Skodra, and in Djakova I had heard terrible stories of this fighting race, and of Vatt’s fierce hatred of the Turks. Yet everyone had told me that, the chief having invited me, I need have not a moment’s apprehension of my personal safety.

So I went forward, reassured, to meet my host.

Half an hour later I came face to face with real brigands—brigands who looked like an illustration out of a boy’s story-book—the men who had so often held up travellers and compelled the Turkish Government to pay heavy ransoms.

They were about twenty, certainly the fiercest and most bloodthirsty gang I have ever set my eyes upon. Dressed in the usual skin-tight white woollen trousers with broad black bands running down the legs, a short white jacket, also black-braided, the sleeveless woolly bolero of mourning, hide shoes with uppers consisting of a network of string, and small white skullcaps, each man carried in his belt a great silver-mounted pistol of antique type and a silver-sheathed curved knife, while around both shoulders were well-filled bandoliers, and in the hand of each a rifle. Like Rok, the heads of all were shaved, leaving a long tuft at the back in the mediæval Florentine style.

With one accord they all raised their rifles aloft and shouted me welcome, whereupon one man stepped forward—a big, muscular fellow with handsome face and proud gait—the great chief Vatt Marashi himself.

Attired very much as his followers, his dress was richer, the jacket being ornamented with gold braid. The silver hilt of his pistol was studded with coral and green stones, probably emeralds, but he carried no rifle. Jauntily, and laughing merrily, he approached me and bent until his forehead touched mine—the Skreli sign of welcome.

And all this in Europe in the twentieth century!

Was I dreaming? Was it real? I was the guest of actual brigands, those men about whom I had read in story-books ever since those long-ago days when the weekly Boys of England formed my chief literature.

Vatt Marashi, holding my hand the while, addressed me. What he said was interpreted into Italian by Palok as—

“You are welcome here to my country—very welcome. And you are an Englishman, and have travelled so far to see us! It is wonderful—wonderful! You live so far away—farther than Constantinople, they say. Well, I cannot give you much here or make you very comfortable—not so comfortable as you have been down in Skodra. But I will do my best. Come—let us eat.”

I returned his greeting, whereupon the whole crowd of us walked along to a spot where a cauldron was standing upon a wood fire, and out of it my host, myself, and Palok had pieces of boiled chicken and rice, which had specially been prepared for my coming.

The object of this meal, I afterwards learnt, was to cement our friendship. The Albanian code of honour is astounding, even to our Western ideas. A word once given by those savage tribes is never broken, and if the stranger eats the food of the Skreli, even though he may be an enemy, his person is sacred for twenty-four hours afterwards. While the food remains undigested he may not be injured or captured.

And so while I ate with this wild chieftain, his band squatted round, apparently discussing me.

It was probably the first time they had seen an Englishman, Palok explained, and they were at first inclined to regard me as a secret agent of the Government, until later that afternoon their chief assured them to the contrary.

Then that wild horde became, to a man, my devoted servants.

Vatt Marashi, Chief of the Skreli tribe.

Vatt, the Baryaktar (from the Turkish bairakdar, or standard-bearer), unlike most Albanians, is fair-haired, above the average height, extremely muscular, with a constant smile of hearty good-fellowship. His eyes are fierce and barbaric; nevertheless he is pleasant of countenance, and I certainly found him, from first to last, a staunch and excellent friend.

Lord of those wild, rugged mountains, his word was obeyed with a precision that amazed me. A striking figure he presented as, with me, he marched at head of his bodyguard, his chest thrown out proudly, his head up, his keen eyes ever searching forward like every Albanian of the hills, one of the wildest rulers of wildest Europe.

On every side, as we went forward to the tiny cluster of little houses that formed the village where I was to be quartered, were bare grey limestone rocks without a single blade of grass, a desolate mountain region into which no foreigner had penetrated save when captured and held to ransom. Through centuries have that same tribe ruled that barren land, and no conqueror of Albania has ever succeeded in ousting them.

“You have, no doubt, heard down in Skodra terrible things about me,” he said, laughing, as, later on, we walked together. He had rolled me a cigarette and given it to me unstuck. “I expect you feared to come and see me—eh?”

I admitted that I had heard things of him not altogether satisfactory.

“Ah!” he laughed, “that is because the Turks do not like us. Whenever a Turkish soldier puts his foot a kilometre outside Skodra, we either take away his Mauser and send him back, or else—well, we shoot him first.”

“But they say that your men capture travellers.”

“And why not?” he asked. “We are Christians. Is it not permissible for us to do everything to annoy those devils of Turks? But,” he added, “if they say that I treat my prisoners badly, they lie. Why, they get plenty of food and are well treated. I give them some shooting if they like—and they generally enjoy themselves. But I know. I too have been told that the Turks say I once cut off a man’s ears. Bah! all Turks are liars.”

“Then it is only to annoy the Turks that your men commit acts of brigandage?”

“Of course. The ransom is useful to us, I admit, but we live by our flocks, and our wants are few. We are not like the people down in Skodra. We are better, I hope.”

“And do you always watch the roads on the other side of the mountains yonder?”

“Always. Our men are there now, all along the route between Ipek and Prisrend. Who knows who may not pass along—a rich Pasha perhaps.” And his face relaxed into a humorous smile at thought of such a prize.

And then I marched along, my rifle over my shoulder—a brigand for the nonce like my host.

Surely it was one of the quaintest experiences of a varied and adventurous life.

The tiny house in which I was given quarters had an earthen floor and consisted of two rooms, the ceilings and walls of which were blackened by the smoke of years. The owner was an old man with his wife and daughter, the latter being a pretty young woman of about nineteen, dressed in the gorgeous gala costume with golden sequins, the same that I had seen down at Skodra during the festà. She had on her best in my honour, I suppose, and her husband, a good-looking young fellow five years her senior, seemed justly proud of her. His name was Lûk. I named him Lucky, but he did not appreciate the wit. He was, I found, one of the chief’s bodyguard who had come to greet me at the confines of the Skreli territory, and proved a most sociable fellow, ever ready to render me a service.

“These good people will look after you and make you as comfortable as they can,” my host said, when he had introduced me to them. “I have to go along the ravine, but will return in time to eat with you this evening. You like good cigarettes? I will send you some.” And he shook my hands, and turning, went out, stalking again at the head of his ferocious-looking band.

The Skreli at Home.

An Albanian Village.

The bedroom, occupied in common by the family, was given over to me. My bed on the floor was a big sack filled with dried maize-leaves. It was not inviting, but Palok, having examined it critically, declared it to be “cosi cosi,” and having slept out a couple of nights, I was compelled to accept his verdict.

The girl in the sequins boiled us coffee over the fire, and with her father and husband I sat outside the house in the golden sunset, smoking and chatting. Both were full of curiosity. England was to them a mere legendary land, and they had never heard of London. When I mentioned it they declared that it could not possibly be so large as Skodra.

I told them of Cettinje and other towns in Montenegro I had visited, but they held all Montenegro in contempt, for were they not always raiding over the frontier? Lûk declared that he had walked in Podgoritza openly, and in the marketplace shot a man with whom he was in gyak, or blood-feud.

“I walked out again, and no one dared to stop me,” he added, with pride. “It would have been worse for them if they had.”

“But the Montenegrins are no cowards,” I ventured to remark.

“Certainly not. They are very brave, but they dare not follow us here. They always get lost in the mountains, and once they lose their way they lose their lives,” he added, with a grin. “Our men killed four over yonder mountain a few days ago.”

“The blood-feud?”

“Of course. It arose out of that.”

From the half-dozen other poor mountain homes came forth men, women, and children, who grouped around us, watching in curiosity. According to Palok, rumour had at first gone round that I was a prisoner, therefore they had refrained from coming forth to see me. Now, however, they knew the truth, they welcomed me as their guest.

Just before it grew dark the Baryaktar returned, followed by the bodyguard, without whom he never seemed to move. They did his bidding, executed his orders, and were ever at his beck and call—the picked men of the tribe.

While Vatt squatted on the floor I sat upon my suit-case, and together we ate a kind of mutton stew, rather rich, but not unpalatable. There was an absence of table cutlery, therefore we ate with the aid of our pocket-knives and fingers. Now and then the old woman would pick a tit-bit out of the pot and hand it to me with her fingers. I was compelled to accept the well-meant hospitality, even though her hands were not particularly clean.

The hot dish was tasty, but I could not manage the sour black bread, for it was mouldy, and gritty into the bargain.

It was a weird picture, the interior of that lowly hut, lit by the dim oil lamp of almost the same type as used by the early Greeks. The uncertain firelight glinted upon the gold of the dresses of the chieftain and of Lûk’s pretty wife, and threw, now and then, into relief those strangely unfamiliar faces, the barbarians of an age bygone and forgotten. The very language they were speaking was, as an unwritten one, utterly incomprehensible and unintelligible to any but the born Albanian.

I rubbed my eyes—on account of the smoke—wondering if it were really only a very few weeks ago that I had driven a motor from London down to Windsor, that I had seen The Catch of the Season, and trod the red carpet of the Savoy afterwards.

And to-night I was actually having supper with real live brigands of the mountains!

Lûk produced a bottle of rakhi, and Vatt Marashi lifted his tin mug to me. I took a little of the potent spirit in the bottom of my own drinking-cup, and tossed it off. It was not half as bad as I expected.

Then the chief took me outside the house, and in the clear moonlight we sat down with Palok upon a big rock to chat.

He rolled me a cigarette of most excellent Turkish tobacco—of his own growing, he told me—lit one himself, and we sipped the coffee brought to us by Lûk’s wife.

The scene spread before us was superb—a magnificent panorama of mountains, some tipped with snow, white and brilliant under the moonbeams. Below us, the valley was a great chasm of unfathomable blackness.

With my strange host I chatted upon many subjects, and found him far more intelligent than I had believed. Keen-witted, quick of perception, just in his judgment, and yet filled with an intense hatred of both Turk and Montenegrin alike, he explained to me many things of great interest.

He told me of the glorious traditions of his sturdy race and of the prince of the Skender Beg family, who, they hoped, would one day come back to rule them.

“We, the chieftains, hold authority from him,” he declared. “Oh yes, he will come some day. Of that we are quite certain.”

“Englishmen have never dared to come here, have they?” I asked, with some curiosity.

“Only once—a year or two ago. I discovered three of your compatriots poking about in the rocks and chipping little pieces off. I had them captured, and brought to me. At first I thought I would hold them to ransom and make the Turks pay. But they were evidently poor fellows, for their clothes were worn almost to rags, and they had very little money. So I gave them their money back and sent them with an escort down to the plain, forbidding them to enter our country again. I wonder why they came, and why they were chipping the rocks?”

I told him that they were evidently mining prospectors; that Englishmen travelled all over the world to discover minerals; and that a mine in his country would be a source of great wealth. But my explanation did not appeal to him. He could not see why they were chipping off those pieces of rock. It was not flint, otherwise they might have wanted them for gun-locks. No, the trio were distinctly suspicious characters, and he was glad that he had expelled them.

“Have you ever held Englishmen to ransom?” I inquired.

“One. Five years ago. He came here shooting—after bears, I think. He was evidently a great gentleman, for his guns were beautiful. The Turks paid promptly.”

“Because he was an Englishman—eh?”

“Most probably,” he laughed. “Are they afraid of you English as they are afraid of us?”

And soon afterwards he bade me good-night, and left me to throw myself down upon my mattress of leaves and listen to the snoring of Palok and the assembled family in the adjoining room.

I had thought Skodra barbaric, but here I was in an utterly unknown corner of the earth, in an absolutely savage land—a land that knows no law and acknowledges no master; a land that is the same to-day as it was in the days of Diocletian and of Constantine the Great—Albania the Unchanging.

Among the Skreli: Lûk (first on the right) and his friends.

CHAPTER V
LIFE WITH A BRIGAND BAND

The Skreli a lawless tribe—No man’s life safe unless the chief gives his word—Vatt prophesies a rising against the Turks—Our walks and talks—Our meeting with our neighbours the Kastrati, and with Dêd Presci their chief—A woman who avenged her husband’s death—The significant story of Kol—Manners and customs of the wild tribes—Farewell to my good friend Dêd—An incident a fortnight later.

The bright sunny days I remained with the Skreli were full of interest.

On every hand, from Vatt himself down to the humblest of his tribe, I received only the greatest kindness and hospitality. If I went out in Vatt’s absence, a dozen armed banditti followed me, mounting guard over me; for, as they told me, one never knew what little “accident” might happen. With the tribes of the Shiala and the Pulati they were not just then on particularly friendly terms, and there had been a series of sharp encounters a week ago. Having given their word to be responsible for my safety, it behoved them to take precautions.

I walked with Vatt Marashi every day, making long excursions through the mountains by the secret paths known only to the tribe.

Would I care for some sport? If I cared to come next year and bring a friend, or even two, he would let me shoot. My friends would always be welcome, and I could assure them of their safety. There was plenty of game, and lots of bears, lynx, and wolves. I should tell my friends in England, and come back for a month or two. I promised that I would, for in our walks I saw quantities of game. My friend shot several eagles, but I was not successful in bagging one.

As he was stalking at my side one afternoon, his argus eyes everywhere and a cigarette in his mouth, I returned to the subject of the Turks and their “occupation” of Albania.

“Bah!” he exclaimed, with a sneering curl of the lip. “They dare not come here. We, with the Kastrati, the Hoti, the Klementi, the Pulati, and the Shiala, are masters here. We have held the land always, and shall hold it still. We acknowledge no law except our own, and pay no taxes to anybody. The Turks, when they conquered Northern Albania, thought they could crush us. They tried to, but soon discovered their mistake. So ever since that they have left us severely alone, and retired into Skodra. They know full well that when we unite with our brothers, the Miriditi, in the south, then Skodra will be at our mercy.”

“And if the Sultan sends his soldiers here?”

“Well, and what then?” he asked, with a flash in his eyes. “Do you think we fear them? Many of them are Albanians, and would not fight us. Again, you have experienced the road here. What would an army do here? We should pick them off as fast as they came up. There are forty thousand of us Skreli alone, remember, without all the other tribes. If a Turkish army came in here, depend upon it, it would never get out again.”

“And is there likely to be a rising against the Turks?” I inquired, much interested.

“Why, of course. The revolt will come one day ere long—when we are ready. We can, however, afford to wait at present. Turkey will soon have her hands full with Bulgaria and Macedonia, and then—well, we shall help Bulgaria, and in a week there won’t be a Turk in Skodra.”

“You mean there will be a massacre?”

For answer he shrugged his shoulders.

“And after the revolution?”

“After we have driven out the Turk we hope to obtain our independence under either France or some other far-off country—England, for instance. Austria and Italy are, through their priests, conducting a strenuous propaganda all through Northern Albania—so strenuous as to be ridiculous. They foolishly think that we are like children, and that we do not discern their ulterior motives. Oh, it is very amusing, I can tell you! We accept their schools and their money, and put our fingers in our cheeks, for we don’t intend to have anything to do with either Power when the rising comes. We will help Servia or Bulgaria, or even Montenegro, to drive the Turk from Albania, but we will not lift a finger for either Italy or Austria. The secret agents of both Powers are always endeavouring to penetrate here among us and carry on their propaganda. But we do not want them, and will not have them. More than one has of late—disappeared.”

“Shot?”

He smiled in the affirmative.

“It is true,” he said, “that we kill—and kill often—for the vendetta—for espionage—and in the frontier disputes with Montenegro. Alas! we have here but little of the bessa (truce). But you must remember we are not like you English. The people have no government, except myself. I make the law, and they obey. We are Christians. We believe in God and in the Virgin, and soon we will drive the Mohammedan fanatics from our land.”

He spoke with an air of conviction, and, judging from my observations while I was guest of his tribe, I believe that when war between Turkey and Bulgaria comes—as it must come one day before long—these wild people will sweep down upon the Turks and play frightful havoc with them.

Skodra is often alarmed, and the people retire into their houses and bar their doors because the tribes are believed to be coming. One day they will come, and when they do those open drains in the streets will run with blood. The sign of the cross upon the Christian houses is in preparation for the day of vengeance.

My walks with Vatt Marashi, though often very fatiguing, were full of interest. He was never tired of making inquiries regarding England and England’s power. Did the Sultan recognise England as an independent state, and did we send an Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, like Austria and Germany? He knew that England once had a Vice-Consul in Skodra—but he committed suicide, it was said, poor fellow.

Nothing very extraordinary, I remarked inwardly. Doomed to live in such an out-of-the-world place as Skodra would be sufficient to drive any European to take his life. Of brigandage, Vatt Marashi told me that they held up but few travellers nowadays, and only, indeed, when there was necessity. Yet a year or two ago they held the worst reputation of any of the tribes.

One day while we were climbing the rocks—for Vatt and his bodyguard thought that they might get a shot at a bear—there was a sudden alarm. The hawk’s eyes of my companions espied strangers, and a sudden halt was called. In a moment we were all under cover of the rocks. Every man unslung his rifle, and Vatt himself, with knit brows, drew his big pistol with silver butt, while I crouched behind a rock with my rifle ready, expecting something to happen.

Nothing, however, did happen, for a few moments later there were shouts from the opposite side of the defile, answered by my companions, who came forth and waved their rifles over their heads as sign of greeting.

Vatt, replacing his pistol in his belt, spoke in a loud, sharp voice, and received an answer. Those mountaineers can throw their voices long distances, and be heard distinctly, a fact I often noticed.

Then Palok told me that the strangers were of the neighbouring tribe, the Kastrati, and that their chief, Dêd Presci, had come to pay Vatt a visit.

For me this was fortunate, for it gave me an opportunity of meeting the other ruler of Northern Albania; for next to the Skreli the Kastrati are most powerful in the Accursed Mountains.

Mrika, the woman who carried on the blood-feud.

Half an hour later we met our visitors. Dressed very similarly to my companions, they wore white tassel-less fezes instead of the little white skullcap, and the black stripes down their trousers were somewhat different. The two chieftains touched foreheads, and I was afterwards introduced. Dêd Presci, a round-faced, pleasant man, rather stout and burly, his hair cut in mediæval style, gripped me warmly by the hand, saying—

“I heard that you were in Skodra during the festà. Some of my men told me there was an Englishman. But I never expected to meet you. Perhaps you are coming across to see me—eh? If so, you are quite welcome.”

“I may come next year to shoot, with a couple of English friends. May I visit you then?”

“Most certainly. You have only to warn me of your coming through one of our men down in Skodra, and I will give you safe escort,” was his reply. “If you are fond of sport, you will find plenty with us. Only bring a tent, and perhaps some provisions; for our food is not what you foreigners are used to.”

“Then I shall return one day before long,” I promised.

“Do. You need fear nothing, you know. We never betray a friend.”

“Or forgive an enemy,” added Vatt, laughing.

“Especially if he be a Turk,” I remarked; whereat both chiefs laughed in chorus.

That evening I ate with the pair in a small lonely house on the mountainside, and the moon had long risen before Palok and I returned to Lûk’s.

My photographic camera was, from the first, regarded with a good deal of suspicion, and it was with very great difficulty I persuaded anybody to have his picture taken. Many surreptitious snap-shots I took with a small “Brownie” camera, for unfortunately I had run out of films for my own larger Kodak. But I was able to secure some photographs, which now appear in this volume.

Early one morning, soon after sunrise, I was walking with Lûk and Palok when a young woman passed us.

“That is Mrika Kol Marashut,” Lûk remarked.

“And who is she?” I asked.

“Mrika—the woman who carried on the blood-feud,” was his answer. “Two years ago she was the most beautiful girl of our tribe, and had a dozen men ready to marry her. She married Lez, a smart young man from the Pulati side, and one of the Baryaktar’s bodyguard, like myself. A month after their marriage Lez was treacherously killed by his brother, who lived down by the White Drin, and was violently in love with her. When she received the news she became half demented by grief. But, by slow degrees, she formed her plans for the blood-feud, and having no male relatives, resolved to take it on herself. She therefore left us and was absent nearly a year, during which time she persistently followed her brother-in-law first to Ochrida, in Macedonia, then to Skopia, Prisrend, and many other places, always awaiting her opportunity to strike the blow. This came one afternoon when her husband’s assassin was walking in the main street in Skodra, and she took Lez’s pistol from her belt and blew his face away. It was valiant of a woman—was it not? But not only that,” he went on. “Having killed the murderer, she went straight to his parents’ house, three days’ journey, and shot them both dead. Since then she has been back with us, for poor Lez’s death has been avenged. I was sorry he died,” he added regretfully, “for he was one of my dearest friends.”

Murder is hardly a crime in Albania, for life is cheap—very cheap. An enemy or a stranger is shot like a dog, and left at the roadside.

Palok told me of an incident which truly illustrates the utter disregard the Albanian has for other people’s lives. He was once with a man of the Hoti—on the Montenegrin frontier—who had just obtained a new rifle, probably from a murdered Turkish soldier. While he was inspecting it a man passed close by, a stranger, whereupon the man with the new gun raised it to his shoulder, took aim, and fired. The stranger fell dead. Palok remonstrated, but his companion merely said that he was testing his gun’s accuracy. Was it not better, he asked, to test it that way, instead of waiting till face to face with an enemy?

The assassin is never punished, except by those who take up the blood-feud. If the murder takes place in a town the guilty one escapes to the mountains, or gets away into Macedonia, or into Servia, where he earns his living by sawing firewood. Every few years the Sultan issues an irade “for the pacification of the blood,” as it is put, and the murderer then returns. He pays a small tax to the Turkish Government, after which he cannot be arrested; and if he pays about three hundred crowns to the relatives of his victim, the blood-feud is at an end.

This, of course, does not apply to the mountain tribes. They care not a jot for the Sultan or for his irades. There is no law—save that of the blood-feud, the vendetta falling upon the murderer and upon his next male relative. Many were the curious facts regarding the blood-feud and the Albanian laws of hospitality told to me.

A case in point was that of a young man named Kol, a friend of Lûk’s, a tall, wiry youth, of somewhat sinister expression—a typical bandit out of a book-illustration.

I was talking to Lûk about the hospitality extended by the various tribes to each other when Kol passed, and he beckoned him, saying—

“He has just had a curious experience in the Klementi country. Let him relate it to you.”

So at Palok’s invitation the young fellow accepted one of my cigarettes, placed his rifle against the wall, and flung himself down upon a small boulder near us.

He blew a cloud of smoke from his lips, stroked his knees with his hands, and looked at me with considerable curiosity, wondering why I should want to know his story.

“The stranger is interested in your adventures with the Klementi. Tell him all about them.”

“Bah!” he said, with a slight shrug of the shoulders. “It was nothing—mere chance—luck, if you like to call it so. There is nothing to tell.”

“But what there is interests the Englishman. He is the Baryaktar’s guest, remember,” Lûk remarked.

“Well,” said the young man reluctantly, “I was in blood-feud with a man of the Klementi, and went over there to kill him. I laid in wait one evening, and as he drove home his sheep I shot him from behind a rock. He had killed my father, therefore I had a just right to avenge his blood. My shot, however, aroused the whole valley, and I knew that I, the only stranger, would be suspected and killed. Therefore I sped away down the valley in the darkness till I reached a poor little house. An old woman was there, and I craved food and shelter for the night. She gave me food at once—for, like ourselves, the Klementi never send a stranger empty away. I was hungry, for I had crossed into the Klementi region in secret, and dared not seek food lest my presence became known to the man I intended to kill.

“Scarcely had I eaten the meat the old woman had given me when there came the sound of voices outside, and to my horror I saw four men carrying the body of my victim.

“‘See!’ they cried to the woman who was befriending me. ‘One of the Skreli has killed your son!’

“Then I knew that it was the murdered man’s mother who had given me shelter. A moment later the men, among whom was the elder brother of the victim, discovered me.

“‘See!’ they cried. ‘There is your son’s murderer. We will kill him!’

“I stood with my back to the wall, knowing well that my last moment had come. The dead man’s brother raised his rifle while I drew my pistol, prepared at least to fire once more before I died. I was caught like a rat in a trap!

“The old woman, however, seeing my position and my helplessness, cried—

“‘No. Though he has killed your brother, you may not touch him. He is beneath our roof; he has eaten our bread, and our protection must remain over him till to-morrow’s sunset. Remember, my son. It is our law.’

“The man dropped his rifle, and his friends drew back at the old woman’s reproof.

“‘Go!’ she said to me, after glancing at her son’s body. ‘You have eaten our bread, and therefore you cannot be harmed.’

“‘Yes, go,’ added my victim’s brother. ‘Till to-morrow’s sundown I will not follow. But after that, I shall track you down, and, before Heaven, I will kill you.’

“Need I say that I took up my rifle, and leaving the house travelled quickly all night and all next day, until I returned here? But,” added Kol, with a slight sigh, “we shall meet one day—and he will most certainly kill me.”

Is there any other country in the world where such a code of honour exists? I am inclined to think not.

Had I been in the midst of a highly civilised people—a foreigner wandering in the wilds of Yorkshire, for example—I certainly should never have received the many charming kindnesses that I did at the hands of those rough, uncivilised tribes. Climbing like cats up the mountainsides as they did, I was often compelled to lag behind, being unused to such walking. But, laughing merrily, those armed banditti would take me by the arms and help me up the steeper places; they would roll cigarettes for me, carry my rifle when I grew fagged, and fetch and carry for me like children.

My neat Smith-Wesson hammerless revolver was constantly admired, as being a much more handy and serviceable weapon than their own big pistols—Austrian-made revolvers fitted to antique silver butts that had once done service to flintlocks. My Browning repeating revolver, with its magazine holding eight cartridges, was declared a marvel of ingenuity, and on many occasions Vatt and his men amused themselves by firing with it at targets.

Once he remarked, with a grim smile, that it would be a handy weapon against the Turks. Where could he get one? Was it costly?

And when I promised to send him one through our mutual friend in the bazaar down in Skodra, as souvenir of my visit, his joy knew no bounds.

A month later I fulfilled my promise, sending it across from Sofia, and have since received an acknowledgment of its safe receipt.

I wonder whether he has yet used it against the hated Turk? Whether or not, he no doubt struts about with it in his belt, a greater chief than all the others, because he possesses the very latest and deadliest of weapons.

When one evening I told my host that I had still a long way to go—through Bosnia, Herzegovina, Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania, and Macedonia—and that I must bid him farewell, his face fell. He seemed to genuinely regret.

“But you will return soon,” he urged. “You will redeem your promise, and bring your friends to shoot. Bring that friend you told me about who shoots tigers in India. I want to see what sort of shot he is. And the friend who shoots partridges and pheasants.”

I promised that I would go back to him before long.

“Remember, there will be no danger—none. Tell your friends that Vatt invites them, and that they are free to go anywhere—anywhere,” he said, waving his hand over the wild panorama of mountain and valley that is his indisputable domain.

Next day I rose, packed my small belongings, and with a little present to Lûk and to his pretty wife prepared to leave, when, judge my amazement to find Vatt and his bodyguard outside, and to hear that the chief had decided to accompany me right down to Skodra!

This indeed he did, and when we arrived in the town held by the Turks he strutted down the main street with me, apparently proud of his guest, and in open defiance of the scowling ragged soldiers in dirty red fezes.

Though a deadly enemy of the Turks, he openly defied them. As we walked along the streets there came close behind us twenty of his faithful followers, armed to the teeth and carrying their rifles ready loaded in case of trouble.

But there was no trouble. The Turks of Skodra are wise enough to let the Skreli severely alone.

Trouble will, however, come one day before long, and then alas for the subjects of the Sultan. The Albanians will avenge the blood of the Christians now spilt daily in Macedonia, and the Turk will be driven back southward—or at least what is left of him.

My Body-guard in Northern Albania.

I parted from Vatt at the door of my so-called albergo. He took a glass of rakhi with me, and afterwards, with a hearty hand-grip, he told me not to forget my promise to return. Then he left me, stalking at the head of his armed band, who one and all wished me bon voyage, and he went down the street on his return to his mountain home.

But the irony of Fate followed. A fortnight later I found myself riding with a strong military escort on the other side of the mountains, where I had been so hospitably entertained—along the frontier of the Skreli country.

It was growing dusk, and we were passing through a deep ravine, our horses stumbling at every step, when of a sudden the crack of a rifle startled us.

Next instant a dozen rifles flashed fire in the deep shadows to our left. The Skreli outposts were sniping at us!

In a moment we had all dismounted and sought cover, and for fully ten minutes returned their fire vigorously, while the officer of the escort kept up a volley of imprecations on the heads of my late hosts, who were, of course, in ignorance that they were firing upon “the Englishman.” We were too far off each other to do much harm, therefore we simply blazed away. I was crouched behind a rock with the muzzle of my rifle poked through a convenient crack, and fired towards the spot where the flashes showed.

A good deal of powder and bad language were expended, until at last our friends on the other side of the valley, apparently thinking we were too far away, ceased firing, and we of course did the same.

It was a mutual truce. For ten minutes longer we waited in order to see what would happen. Then, leading our horses, we crept carefully along on our way northward, out of the range of our friends’ guns.

Those moments were exciting, however, while they lasted, yet they were not without their grim humour.