What our friend understood by "perfectly safe" was not exactly what a timid tourist would understand by the term. On being questioned as to the police system, he replied: "Well, it is not in an exceedingly happy condition just now, for having received no pay or rations for fourteen months, the gendarmes have struck work."
"And how do you get on without them?"
"Oh, just as well as with them; we Albanians do not require police; we understand what is just, and can take the law into our own hands; the police always were useless. In a wild country like ours, a criminal—a murderer, for instance—can always escape them; he takes refuge in the mountains, and the gendarmerie know better than to follow him there. If we trusted to them, there would be no security for life or property; but this is how we manage. If, for instance, a man murdered me and fled, my family are bound to revenge my death; if they cannot find the murderer himself, they kill one of his family."
"Does not this system lead to a good many lives being sacrificed over one quarrel?"
"It acts well as a rule. But, as you say, it does lead to some bloodshed. Just before I left Scutari a man shot another's pig, which had strayed into his field; the owner of the pig immediately walked over to the other man's house and blew his brains out, which he was bound to do as a man of honour; then a relation of the slain man shot a relation of the other behind his back as he strolled into the bazaar, totally unaware of the existence of any quarrel between the families."
"Was that looked upon as fair play?"
"Everything is fair in our blood feuds. This very man was himself shot a few days afterwards as he was coming out of a mosque, by the brother of the man he had killed, who was waiting for him behind a wall. Several others on both sides were killed in this pig dispute, till at last the two families met and settled the matter amicably, and without dishonour to either party, for it was shown that an equal amount of damage had been inflicted on both families—ten men of one having been slain; nine men, one woman, and a pig of the other."
Our friend told us that he himself had a blood feud on hand, and had to keep a very sharp look out.
I noticed that his hand was bandaged, and inquired how he had hurt it.
"Oh," he said, "I scratched it with my sabre, and so poisoned it. I have enemies at Scutari, and some months ago expected to be murdered any day; but, determining to kill some of them first, when the time came poisoned my sabre with a strong animal poison. I accidentally scratched myself with it one day. Luckily the poison was nearly rubbed off by that time, but as it was it very nearly took me out of this world."