The principal Greek merchants trade under foreign protection, as it affords them greater security and freedom from the intrigues of the ill disposed.
To sum up. The subject Greek of Turkey has his vices: he is over-ambitious, conceited, too diplomatic and wily; and, in common with most merchants, European or Eastern, in Turkey, he does his best to cheat the Turks—and occasionally extends the practice further, not without excellent precedent. But these are the vices of a race long kept in servitude and now awaking to the sense of a great ancestry: the servitude has produced the servile fault of double-dealing and dishonesty; and the pride of a noble past has engendered the conceit of the present. Such vices are but passing deformities: they are the sharp angles and bony length of the girl-form that will in time be perfected in beauty. These faults will disappear with the spread of education and the restoring of freedom long withheld. The quick intellect and fine mettle of the Greek, like his lithe body, descended from a nation of heroes, are destined to great things. The name alone of Hellenes carries with it the prescriptive right of speaking and doing nobly; and the modern Hellenes will not disown their birthright.
CHAPTER III.
THE ALBANIANS.
Albania little known to Travellers—Character of the Country—Isolation and Neglect—Products—The Landholders—Ali Bey’s Revolution—Albanian Towns—The Albanian’s House his Castle In a Literal Sense—Blood Feuds—Villages—Unapproachable Position—The Defence of Souli—Joannina—Beautiful Site—Ali Pasha’s Improvements—Greek Enterprise—The Albanians—Separate Tribes—The Ghegs—The Tosks—Character of the Latter—Superiority of the Ghegs—Respect for Women—An Adventure with a Brigand Chief—Gheg Gratitude—A Point of Honor with an Albanian Servant—Religion among the Albanians—Education among the Tosks—Warlike Character of the Albanians—Use of the Gun—The Vendetta—Women to the Rescue—Albanian Women in General—Female Adornment—Emigration—Mutual Assistance Abroad—The Albanian Character—Recklessness—Love of Display—Improvidence—Pride—Hatred of the Turks reciprocated to the Full.
The Albanians, like most of the races of minor importance inhabiting European Turkey, are little known to the civilized world. Albania, with its impassable mountains, broken by deep and precipitous ravines, the footways of torrents, has been visited only by those few travellers who have had enough courage and adventurous spirit to penetrate into its fastnesses. This country, occupying the place of the ancient Illyria and Epirus, was in the middle ages called Arvanasi, and later on Arnaoutlik by the Turks and Arvanitia by the Greeks; but in the native tongue it is called Skiperi, or “land of rocks.” It is divided into Upper and Lower Albania, and forms two vilayets, that of Scutari (comprising the provinces of Berat, El Bassan, Ochrida, Upper and Lower Dibra, Tirana, Candia, Duratzo, Cruia, Tessi, Scutari, Dulcigno, and Podgoritza), and that of Joannina, in Epirus (comprising Joannina, Konitza, Paleopogoyani, Argyrokastro, Delvino, Parakalanio, Paramythia, Margariti, Leapourie or Arbar, and Avlona).
Owing to the mountainous character of the country, and the turbulent and warlike disposition of its inhabitants, it is still unexplored in many parts, poorly cultivated in others, and everywhere much neglected in its rich and fertile valleys. Unfortunately agriculture, still in a very primitive and neglected condition throughout Turkey, is especially so in Albania. This neglect, however prejudicial to the well-being of the inhabitants, rather heightens the wild beauty of the scenery, the changing grandeur and loveliness of which alternately awes and delights the traveller.
Shut out from the civilized world by the want of roads and means of communication, all the natural advantages the country possesses have remained stationary, and its beauty and fertility turned to little account by the wild and semi-savage population that inhabits it.
The principal productions of Illyrian Albania are horses, sheep, and oxen, reared in the valleys of the Mousakia; grain is extensively grown at Tirana; and rye and Indian corn are grown in El Bassan; and in some parts of Dibra a coarse kind of silk is manufactured into home-spun tissues, and used for the elaborate embroidery of the picturesque national costume. A stout felt used for the capa, or cloak, is made of wool. A kind of red leather, and other articles of minor importance, are also manufactured in these parts.
Epirus, or Lower Albania, owing to its more favorable situation and the mildness of its climate, is by far the more fertile and better cultivated of the two vilayets. In addition to the above-mentioned products, it grows rice, cotton, olives, tobacco, oranges, citrons, grapes, and cochineal. Though agriculture is carried on in the same primitive manner, richer harvests are produced, and, as shown by the yearly returns, there is a steady increase of the export trade.
Albania abounds in minerals, but the mines are little known, still less worked. Hot springs, possessing valuable medicinal qualities, are also to be found in many places, but the country people are totally ignorant of their properties, and take the waters indiscriminately for any ailments they may happen to have, and, in obedience to the old superstitious reverence for the spirits of the fountains, even drink from several different sources in the hope of gaining favor with their respective nymphs.