It was a bright sunny morning when we bid a final adieu to our numerous friends at Scutari, and started for the coast. We had sent the coffin and our other baggage on in advance, on the backs of the mules of the British consulate postman. There is no post-office or postal service of any kind in North Albania, so letters are sent to the coast in this way, to be taken up by the passing steamers.
The office of letter-carrier is of some importance in this country, for it is in the gift of the government, the carriers having the monopoly of the transport of all goods from town to town. As there are no roads, and hence no carts in North Albania, everything has to be carried on the backs of horses or mules; this of course accounts for the very high prices of all imported goods.
Each carrier owns some twenty horses, and his calling would be an exceedingly lucrative one were it not for the heavy black-mail levied on him by the brigands.
The carrier to Dulcigno to whom we had entrusted our baggage, had, we were told, been stopped on his road three times within the last few months.
The whole business is managed very quietly. On some lonely portion of the way, a picturesque gentleman, armed to the teeth, suddenly appears, and in few words persuades the drivers to deliver up their charge. These in a philosophically resigned manner accept their ill-luck; discussion they know would be useless, as the muzzles of several long Albanian guns peep ominously from the rocks above.
We paid Toshli's bill, which was quite a curiosity in its way.
Our landlord had been to some conventual school in his youth, and had acquired the rudiments of the classic tongues. He now utilized his knowledge, by setting down the many items of his account in what he imagined was Latin.
Occasionally, where his memory of that language failed him, he would put down the name of some comestible in Greek.
He must have taken great trouble in the composition of this document; he came up with it smiling, evidently very proud of it, and remarked that as we did not understand Albanian, he had done his best to make it intelligible for us.
The total looked enormous, calculated as it was in piastres, more like a national debt than an hotel bill. We shuddered as we contemplated the four figures of the total. However, a little calculation showed us that we were not about to be burdened with an impossible debt, which might keep us here in pawn for the rest of our days.