All day we paddled along the lone shore, but no town was yet in sight. The evening brought with it one of the most magnificent sunset effects I have ever witnessed. The near mountains on our starboard hand assumed a cold dark appearance as the sun set behind them. Their deep barren defiles had a weird bleakness about them, such as one sees in lifeless Arctic landscapes.
But far away on the port hand, across the water, the rays of the setting sun fell full on the great Albanian mountains, which towered behind the broad plain that fringes the eastern shore of the lake.
Every detail of the fantastic peaks and fissures of the barren granite was sharp and distinct in this clear atmosphere.
Where the rock jutted out it was lurid crimson, as of red-hot coal—elsewhere, of lovely rose and golden tints, while the darker shadows of the hollows were of a deep purple or violet. So utterly barren were these great offshoots of the Mount Scardus, that under this strange light the scenery was of a peculiarly unearthly and weird nature. One could almost imagine oneself to be gazing at a landscape of some lifeless star—a chaos of molten matter—silent but for the occasional roar of fire and volcanic action.
But the blue shadows soon rose up from the water's edge, till the last highest peak lost its crown of fire, and the fine day was succeeded by a lovely starlit night.
The day had been hot, but now it became intensely cold; the wind, which was right in our teeth, freshened; the ripple that broke on the shingle shore became louder; and soon the surface of the lake was broken into short choppy waves capped with foam, that glistened in the starlight. The water washed occasionally over our bulwarks in ominous splashes.
There was evidently quite enough sea for our frail craft. But our men, though they made little progress against the head-wind, pulled on pluckily, encouraging themselves with a wild barbaric chant, which was caught up now by one, now by another—a monotonous yet energetic song, to which their blades kept time.
One of these boat-songs was afterwards translated to me. It runs something thus (I have preserved to a certain extent the irregularity of the original):—
Now then, my hawks, pull! pull!
Let the boat fly over the water!