At about seven in the morning we reached Scutari. First we had to row through a curious fishing village, which is at the junction of the lake and the broad river that here flows into it. A large number of thatched huts, built on piles, form regular streets in the centre of the stream.
Then the town lay before us, with its old Venetian fortress perched on a lofty rock in the back ground.
We were not much struck by the general appearance of the capital of North Albania—a dingy, dilapidated bankrupt sort of a place it seemed to be.
Scutari is built on the flat promontory formed by the river Bojana, which takes off the waters of the lake to the Adriatic, and another river, which flows into the lake after having crossed the spacious plain which lies between Scutari, and the distant mountains of Biskassi.
On landing, no custom-house or custom-house officers were anywhere visible. We paid off our ship, selected a ragged-looking ruffian to carry our luggage, shouldered our rifles, and marched off to the hotel Toshli, at the other end of the straggling town, which had been recommended to us by the gendarme whose acquaintance we had made on the Austrian Lloyd steamer.
Our first impressions of the city were not favourable. It had an appearance of melancholy decay, still trying to keep up an appearance. The mosques, and some of the better Turkish houses, were rather gaudily ornamented with wooden carvings and bright paint; but now the carvings were broken, and the paint half rubbed off. There was a tea-garden-in-liquidation look about the place.
I remember once seeing Cremorne by daylight. It was some time after outraged respectability had closed the gardens; the occasion being a patriotic meeting which was held there, during the Russo-Turkish war. It was a sad sight to one who had known the place in other days. The plaster statues were broken; the pagodas and the other gimcrack edifices were mouldy, tumbling to pieces, and destitute of paint. This melancholy city of Scutari reminded me irresistibly of Cremorne that day. Everything had been allowed to fall into decay. Any repairing of public or private buildings had long been given up by government and people. One rickety mosque was very funny; its steeple was tiled, if I may use the expression, with the sides of paraffin boxes and Huntley and Palmer's biscuit tins.
The rough paintings on its walls were chipped and dim. The very mollah, in his turban and dirty blue robe, who stood at the door, had a dissipated and unkempt appearance, which harmonized with his surroundings.
Our first impressions of the inhabitants were no less unpleasing. There was a haggard, anxious, half-starved expression in the faces of all we met—a savage fierceness in their eyes, which we had not observed in Montenegro. No one besides ourselves was in European costume, but we attracted no attention; all stalked by us with the utmost indifference. Every man we met—kilted Mussulman, or white-clad Arnaut—was armed to the teeth.
It was some way to Toshli's. We passed through many narrow streets, paved in a fashion well calculated to dislocate the ankles, and traversed numerous grave-yards, neglected and filthy in the extreme.