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THE BUEDEN OF THE BALKANS 



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THE BURDEN OF THE ^•^- 
BALKANS 



M.^'^EDITH DURHAM 

AUTHOR OF 'THROUGH THE LANDS OF THE SERB 













' 1 will act the Egyptians i^ili&i tbe Ecyp^i^ilis : and they shall fight everyone 
against his brother, and everyone againtt his neighbour ; city against city, and 
Idngdom against kingdom. 

* And the Egyptians will I give over into the hands of a cruel lord ; and a 
fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts.' 

ISA. xix. 3, 4. 



LONDON 
EDWARD ARNOLD 

41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, BOND STREET, W. 
1905 

{All rithU reserved] 



THE NEW YORK 
rUBLIC LIBRARY 

AlTOKi LENOX AHt 

ItLOEH ^CXJNDATIOMt. 

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D^JCATED 
- • * «. * • i 
. • • -' ^ '.' 

WITH GRATEFpL\?Jfi&5iis ANP*Vt™9^^ PERMISSION 

-r-:- ^ • TO » .;- \ 

WHOSE i-lNJJLY HELP HAS NEVE)l, FAILED ME. 

.. . -. • . M. E. D. 






•• • ,•, • • • 



• • : .V* • 



'\\: 






PEEFACE 

The diplomat, the geographer, the archaeologist, I do 
not pretend to be able to teach. My aim is a far 
humbler one. I wish to give the general reader a 
somewhat truer idea of the position of affairs in the 
Balkan Peninsula than he usually possesses. 

If he be interested in the affairs of Turkey-in- 
Europe at all, he almost always believes in a spot 
inhabited by Turks (all Moslems and bad) and 
'Macedonians' (all Christians and virtuous). He 
believes that the horrors of which he hears are caused 
by the rising of these same Christians against the 
tyranny of their Moslem rulers, and, thus believing, he 
hastens to offer them his sympathy and help, and to 
beg the British Government to intervene on their 
behalf. 

I hope in the following pages to show him that 
these troubles are largely of racial, not' religious, 
origin. The Christians who have revolted did not 
rise, as he fondly believes, on behalf of Christianity. 
Nor do they represent by any means the Christian 
population of the country. The revolt was purely 
political, and part of a long and complicated scheme 
to obtain a large additional territory for Bulgaria. 

vii 



viii PREFACE 

The truth of this is proved by the fact that the 
revolutionary party directs its attacks not only upon 
Moslems, but murders Christians of all the other 
Balkan races when opportunity occurs. 

I have been begged by persons of these other races 
to tell all that I have seen and heard, to remind the 
British public that there are other peoples besides 
Bulgars whose interests should be considered, and to 
point out that the money given by well-meaning 
people, as they think, to support Christianity is likely 
to cause the Bulgar party to believe that it has 
England's support, and to encourage it to commit 
firesh outrages upon other Christians. 

I have been begged by others not to tell all that I 
have seen and heard. 

It is impossible to please everyone. Want of space 
naturally prevents my giving the details of this, my 
sixth, tour in the Balkan Peninsula, but I have tried 
to tell a plain tale of the main facts. Such success 
as I met with I owe entirely to the kindness of those 
who helped me on my way. The mistakes are all 
my own. 

M. E. DURHAM. 



CONTENTS 

PART I 
THE STOBY OF THE PEOPLE 

PADS 

L THK STORY OF THK PBOPLB - ... 1 

n. „ „ - ... 30 

ra. „ „ .... 47 

IV. „ „ - - - - 67 

PABT n 

IN THE DEBATEABLE LANDS 

V. EASTWARD HO 1 - - - - 85 

VI. ROUND ABOUT RBSNA - - 90 

Vn. ON THE 8H0RXS OF LAKE PRB8BA - - 108 

YUh OCHRIDA - - - - - 132 

PART III 

IN THE LAND OF THE EAGLE 

IX. OF THE ALBANIAN - - 191 

X. MONASTQt TO TEPELEN . - - . . 210 

XL TEPELEN TO ELBASAN < . - . . 245 

Xn. ELBASAN TO 8K0DRA ..... 278 

Xin. MIEDITA ..-..- 315 



IX 



LIST OF ILLUSTRA.TIONS 



POBTRAir OF THB AUTHOR, BY SEYMOUR LUCAS, R.A. FronUspiece 

PADS 

FRESOOBS IN THE CHURCH AT DECHANI - - 19 

IMPREGNABLE MONTENEGRO - - To fate page 36 

THB CITADEL OF KRUJA - - 46 

ixrOKA vuTCHoncH OF GUSiNJE - To face page 54 

THE CLOCK-TOWEB, RBSNA - - 95 

IN THE HEADMAN'S HOUSE, NiviTZA - To face page 126 

A STREET IN OCHRIDA ..... 133 

CHURCH OF ST. SOFIA, OCHRIDA - 141 

CHRISTIAN QUARTER OF OCHRIDA To fou page 156 
TYPICAL ALBANDLN HEAD - -191 

TOSK COSTUME, SOUTHERN ALBANIA .... 193 

A CORNER OF DULCI6N0 - - To face page 206 

MALBSIN - - . „ 220 

BEKTASHITB DERVISH ...... 228 

RUINS OF AU PASHA'S KONAK AT TEPELEN - To face page 242 

THE KASTRA, BERAT ...... 273 

COSTUME, ELBA8AN ...... 279 

MOSLEM CEMBTBRY, BLBASAN .... 283 

COFFEE-SELLER ...... 288 

PEASANT, VRCHA DISTRICT, SHPATA .... 290 

WOMBN, CHERMBNIK, SHPATA, NEAR ELBASAN • . 296 

MOSLEM WOMAN - - - 302 

xi 



xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAOB 



THE CASTLE, KRUJA ------ 305 

ROMAN CATHOLIC LADY, SKODRA - - - 308 

MOSQUE AT SKODRA - - - - To foce page 310 

PEASANT, ENVIRONS OF SKODRA - - - 316 

PEASANT WOMAN, ENVIRONS OF SKODRA - 321 

CHURCH AT OROSHI - - - - - - 323 



MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE AUTHOR'S TOUR IN THE VILAYETS 

OF SKODRA, MONASTIR, AND JANINA - - - at end 




SKENDERBEG'S HELMET. 
( Vienma Muaewn,) 



^fKS- 



PART I 
THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 

* For thrones and peoples are but waifs that swing 
And float or fall in endless ebb and flow/ 



PROPERTY OF THE 
CITY OF NEW YORK- 



CHAPTEE I 

•You like our country. Will you do something for 
vibV said a Balkan man to me the first time I met 
him. 

I inquired cautiously what this odd job might be. 

' Explain us/ he said, ' to the new Consul. He does 
not understand us ;' ai]id-he made this request as if the 
'explaining' of a nation were an ordinary everyday 
afi&ir. Its comprehensiveness staggered me. 

* But I do not understand you myself/ I said. 

* Our language not well perhaps yet, but us — the 
spirit of the people — ^yes. Everyone says so. Now, if 
you would explain it to the Consul. We do not like 
him/ he added. 

* Why don't you like him V said I. 

* Because he does not like us,' was the prompt reply ; 
* and he does not imderstand.' 

* When he has been here longer and knows you,' I 
said, * he will doubtless like you. You have very little 
to do with him. Why trouble about him ? It is 
surely not necessary to like all the foreign Consuls.' 

Then he gazed at me with surprise. 'One must 
either like or hate,' he said simply ; and he wanted me 
to ' understand ' and ' explain ' him. 

And he is but one example of many, for thus it is 
with the Balkan man, be he Greek, Serb, Bulgar, or 
Albanian, Christian or Moslem. 

* K Europe only understood,' he says (and it should 

3 1—2 



4 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

be remarked that he rarely, if ever, classes himself as 
European) — *if Europe only understood' the golden 
dreams of his nation would be realized, and, as in the 
fairy-tales, there would be happiness ever afterwards. 
He is often pathetically like a child, who tells you what 
fine things he is going to do when he is grown up. 
That Europe cares no jot for his hopes, fears, sorrows, 
and aspirations so long as they are not likely to jolt 
that tittupy concern * the Balance of Power ' never 
seems to occiu* to him. 

Now, to * understand' him it would be necessary 
not merely to view things from his window, but to see 
them with his eyes (for what is seen in the landscape 
depends largely on the spectator), and this is impossible. 
It is doubtful, indeed, whether one race ever will under- 
stand another. It has certainly never done so yet. 
But the story of the past that has set him at that par- 
ticular window and coloured his view is more easily 
arrived at, and explains many things. 

Without some knowledge of it, travel in the Near 
East is but dull work, for the folk of the Balkans live 
in their past to an extent which it is hard for us in the 
West to realize. It is a land strewn with the wreck- 
age of dead empires ; peoples follow one another, inter- 
tangle, rise and fall, through dim barbaric ages blood- 
stained and glittering with old-world splendour, 
striving, each for itself, in a wild struggle for existence, 
until the all-conquering Ottoman sweeps down upon 
them, and for four centuries they are blotted out from 
the world's history. 

When after that long night they awoke — the Bip 
Van Winkles of Europe, animated only with the desire 
of going on firom the point at which they had left off — 
they found the face of the world had changed and new 
Powers had arisen. Internally, there were the problems 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 6 

of the fourteenth century still unsolved. Externally, 
they were faced Mrith those of the twentieth century, 
Western and insistent. 

It is the fashion just now to attempt to simplify the 
problem of the Balkan Peninsula by limiting it to the 
' Macedonian Question,' and representing the miseries 
of the land as the result of a struggle between Moslem 
and Christian. But in truth it is nothing so simple. 
It is the question of the slow waning of Ottoman might 
and the consequent resurrection of, and struggle for 
supremacy between, the subject peoples which began 
at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and has 
yet to be fought to its close. And the problem is not 
limited to any one spot ; it extends not only over the 
whole of that part of the Balkan Peninsula which is 
still under the Sultan, but also over lands ruled by 
other nations. 

When we first know it, the peninsula was inhabited 
by Thracians, Macedonians, and Illyrians — wild folk, 
not Greek : a mass of savage tribes each led by its 
chieftain. They appear to have been closely allied in 
race. Their form of speech is unknown. * If the 
Thracians,' says Herodotus, ' were either under the 
government of an individual or united among them- 
selves, their strength would, in my opinion, render 
them invincible ; but this is a thing impossible.' And 
his estimate of these people was a just one. Philip of 
Macedon welded the wild tribes into a power, and 
Thracians, Macedonians, and Illyrians formed the 
foundation of Alexander the Great's all-conquering 
armies. 

The Balkan Peninsula is a land of ' one-man empires.' 
Alexander's did not long survive him. He died in the 
year 303 B.O., but he is still the talk of the town in his 
native land. There is a surprising amount of excite- 



6 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

ment about him ; for the blood of the oldest inhabitants 
of the land is still with us. That the modem Albanian 
is the more or less direct descendant of the primitive 
savage people of the Balkans is a fact which, I believe, 
no one now disputes. Alexander the Great was a 
Macedonian, and Olympias, his mother, a Princess of 
Epirus (South Albania) ; therefore Alexander was 
clearly an Albanian. So far so good; but on his 
fether's side, according to tradition, he was of Greek 
origin — remote, it is true, but the Greeks admitted 
it. To-day Greek and Albanian alike claim him 
enthusiastically, and along with him, of course, his 
Macedonian lands. 

Nor are they the sole claimants. There is no theory 
too wild to flourish in the Balkans, but this, perhaps, 
is the maddest of all. The Bulgarians, too, claim to 
be Alexander's sons. Alexander, I have been told 
quite seriously, commanded his men, * according to a 
well-known classical author' (name not given), 'in 
a tongue that was not Greek, and was therefore 
undoubtedly Bulgarian !' A song was sung during 
the late Macedonian insurrection, in which an eagle, 
who is soaring over the land, asks what is the cause 
of so much excitement, and is told that the sons of 
Alexander are arising. This annoyed the Greeks and 
the Albanians extremely, for the insurrection was being 
worked solely for Bulgarian ends. 

• Georgie,' we asked one of our hospital patients, 
* do you know about Alexander the Great V 

Georgie cheered up ; Alexander was clearly an ' old 
pal.' Georgie believed himself to be a Bulgar and a 
son of Alexander beyond any doubt. 

* We all are,' he said. 

Poor Georgie! he spoke a Slav dialect, and was 
possibly a mixture of all the races that have ever 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 7 

ruled the peninsula, and all he had gained was a 
Manser ball through his right hand in the name of 
Alexander the Great. 

Alexander died, but the aborigines had one other 
burst of glory. 

Pyrrhus (Burri = the Valiant, Alb.), King of Epirus, 
is all their own ; no other nations claim him. Gen- 
darmes in South Albania to-day will tell you of Pyrrhus, 
*the great King who beat the dirty Greeks and 
everybody else.' 

History in the Balkan Peninsula repeats itself with 
surprising regularity. Its peoples have never yet 
fought their differences to an end, but have always 
been overpowered by a common foe. 

Kome swept down on the struggling mass of 
Thracians, lUyrians, Greeks, and Macedonians. They 
parcelled out the peninsula into Boman provinces, 
and its fierce peoples, whose delight was in war, soon 
formed the flower of the Roman army. Later — for 
they possessed not only physical, but mental, energy — 
they rose even to the purple. Diocletian and Con- 
stantine the Great, to mention only the most celebrated, 
were of niyrian blood. 

There is nothing new under the sun. In our own 
time niyrian blood has again swayed the fortunes 
of Bome; Crispi, Prime Minister of Italy, was of 
Albanian origin, and Italy once more looks covetously 
at the niyrian coast. 

Tacitus gives us a vivid snapshot of the 'savage 
genius * of the Thracians of his day, who * lived wildly 
upon the mountains, whence they acted with the 
greater outrage and contimiacy,' and * were not even 
accustomed to obey their native Kings further than 
their own humour.' 

The Boman has gone, and has left scant trace 



8 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

behind him save the bastard Latin dialect of the 
Ylahs. The ' savage genius ' of the aborigines is still 
unquenched. 

Into this land of fierce tribesmen, dotted with Boman 
colonies and joined by Boman roads, came other wild 
peoples, who poured in from the strange dark lands 
beyond the Danube. It was the day of the shifting 
of the nations, and they moved in resistless thou- 
sands. Of the many who came and killed and 
plundered, but claim no territories to-day, we have 
no space to tell ; but the coming of the Slavs is an 
all-important fact in the history of the Balkans. These 
early days are dim, and dates are uncertain ; all that 
it is safe to say is that Slav tribes were drifting over 
the Danube probably as early as the third century A.D., 
and settling in the fat lands that form modem Servia 
and Bulgaria. By the end of the sixth century this 
dribbling immigration became an invasion. Slavs 
poured in in irresistible nimibers ; they disputed the 
lands with the original inhabitants, driving them 
before them to the mountains, as the Saxons did the 
Britons, and settled as village communities on the 
undulating, well-watered plains. 

These Slavs are described as an agricultural, herd- 
tending people. Like the people they displaced, they 
were divided into clans, which were ruled by inde- 
pendent chie& (Zhupans), who quarrelled freely among 
themselves, but met and discussed matters of common 
interest, and were loosely held together by a headman 
elected by themselves, who recognised the suzerainty 
of the Byzantine Emperor. This tribal state, which 
is common to the childhood of most races, would not 
be noteworthy in this brief sketch were it not for the 
strange fact that neither Slav nor Albanian has yet 
quite outgrown it, and it has proved a source of w^k- 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 9 

ness which has largely influenced the fate of each. By 
the end of the seventh century Slavs were settled as 
far south even as modem Greece, They seem to have 
formed the rural population of the plains, while the 
Greeks inhabited the towns and the sea-coast. 

From these Slav tribes are descended all the Servian- 
speaking people of the peninsula — the Servians, the 
Montenegrins, the Bosnians and Herzegovinians, and, 
as we shall see later, in a large degree the modem 
Bulgars too. 

Thus at this very early date began the burning 
question of the present day — the enmity that rages 
between Slav and Albanian in the districts both claim. 

' Servian T said an Albanian to me but a month or 
two ago. ' Servian ! Yes, I have heard so much that 
I understand it, but I will not soil my mouth by 
repeating their dirty words !' 

' Why do you hate them so V I asked. 

* Because,' he replied calmly, * we are born like that. 
It is in our blood.' 

' Like cats and dogs/ said I. 

'Exactly so, mademoiselle. It is like cats and 
dogs.' 

Things look so different through other windows. 
When the Albanian loots or biu-ns a Slav village, his 
act, in the eyes of Europe, is *an atrocity.' Seen 
through Albanian glasses it is quite another colour. 
The Albanian has fought for his laud with all its 
invaders in turn, and is doing so still. He is at once 
the oldest and the youngest thing in the Balkan 
Peninsula. He and his rights and wrongs are at 
the bottom of most of its problems, and any scheme 
for the settlement of them which does not give him 
space to develope on his own lines is foredoomed to 
fidlure. 



10 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

This is the first of the great Balkan hatreds. The 
second is not far to seek. In the reign of Constan- 
tine IV., about 679 A.D., the Bulgars, who for some 
time had been harrying the frontiers and making raids 
into the peninsula so destructive that they threatened 
the safety of Byzantium itself, crossed the Danube in 
a body, and established themselves in the land still 
called Bulgaria. Who they were, and what tongue 
they spoke, is unknown. They came from the wild 
lands north of the Black Sea, and are believed to have 
been allied to the Huns and Fins. It is a noteworthy 
fact that the Albanian still calls the Bulgar ' Shkyar 
koke etrash6 ' — i.e., thick-headed Scythian. A ferocious 
race, not divided into tribes, but led by a Khan, 
whose rule is said to have been despotic, they burst 
into the land and poured over it, dealing death and 
destruction. They sacrificed their prisoners to their 
gods, and were noted even in those very unsqueamish 
days for their cruelty. Displacing such local chieftains, 
both Slav and Thracian, as they found in power, they 
rapidly mastered a large part of the lands already 
settled by the Slavs. The Timok River, then as now, 
was their western frontier. The separate histories of 
Servia and Bulgaria began, and it should be noted that 
by this time the Roman Empire of the East, in which 
the Greek element had been coming more and more 
to the firont, was now become definitely Greek in 
character. 

The Bulgars spread south at first, and aimed at 
Byzantium. Such was the terror they inspired that 
the weakly Emperors at first bought peace, but a peace 
of short duration. A long and bloody period of 
fighting began. The Bulgars seized Sofia, and out- 
witted the Byzantine army, and, having captured the 
Emperor Nicephorus, they beheaded him, and made a 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 11 

drinking-cup of his skull, a grim form of jest not 
unpopular in those days. They then took Adrianople, 
and forced their way even to the gates of Byzantium, 
were bought off at a heavy price, and only re- 
turned northwards after wasting all the neighbouring 
lands. 

Such was the coming of the Bulgar, a foe alike to 
Greek, Serb, and the aboriginal tribes, and thus, as 
early as the seventh and eighth centuries, were sown 
the seeds of a plentiful crop of hatreds, from which 
the Balkan peoples reap an annual and a bitter harvest. 
The Bulgar to-day is hated even worse than the Turk ; 
the grudge against him is an older one, and his present 
action impedes the settling of Balkan affairs. 

The Bulgars, being the dominant race, poured south- 
ward and conquered both Greek and Slav. The 
detached Slavonic tribes fell an easy prey to the 
Bulgar Prince and his united army, and the Byzantine 
Emperors could do little more than protect their own 
capital. Then a notable thing happened. The Bulgar 
conquered the Slav, but the Slav absorbed him. He 
adopted Slav customs and the Slav tongue. Of his 
own language nothing is now known to exist, unless a 
few untranslateable words in an early list of Kings 
belong to it. But broad, flat faces, high cheek-bones, 
dark, straight hair, narrow eyes, and thick lips still 
show a large admixture of non-Slavonic blood in the 
folk of many districts. 

Christianity had already made some way among the 
Slavs who were in contact with the Greeks. The 
Bulgars were a pagan people. The final conversion of 
both Serb and Bulgar was brought about towards the 
dose of the ninth century by Greek priests, of whom 
there are said to have been seven, under the leadership 
of the celebrated missionary brothers, Cyril and 



12 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Methodius of Salonika. They preached and conducted 
the services in the Slav language, into which Cyril 
translated the Scriptures, using for this purpose an 
alphabet said to be of his own construction, which is 
the origin of the alphabets still used by all the 
orthodox Slav peoples of to-day. 

As there is at this time no mention made of another 
tongue, it is safe to assume that the original Bulgarian 
one had dropped out of use, and that Slavonic was 
not yet differentiated into Servian and Bulgarian. This 
Slavonic tongue, into which the Bible was translated, 
is sometimes termed * Old Bulgarian '; it is more correct 
to call it • Old Servian.' 

Boris, Prince of the Bulgars, was baptized in 866 
with the Byzantine Emperor as sponsor. He hastened 
the conversion of his people by beheading the unwilling ; 
and being desirous of more freedom in ecclesiastical 
matters than the Greeks were disposed to allow 
him, he sent an envoy to Pope Nicholas with 105 
questions on Christianity and a request to be 
allowed a Bulgarian Archbishop. The Pope gave no 
definite answer anent the Archbishop, but solved the 
other difficulties. When I was at Ochrida two re- 
curred to me very forcibly. 

' When a thief was arrested and lied, it was our 
custom to hit him on the head with a stick, and poke 
him in the side with an iron spike till he spoke the 
truth. What must we do now V 

*You must not do this. His evidence must be 
voluntaiy.' 

* Before we were Christians we used to find a certain 
stone, parts of which we used to give to sick folk. 
Some were cured and some were not. What must we 
do with the stone now V 

* Throw it away.' 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 18 

Customs die hard in the Balkan Peninsula. Turkish 
officers still extract evidence by methods condemned in 
the ninth century, and local medicine has not advanced 
in any marked degree. 

Boris obtained his Archbishop later from the Greeks, 
and in spite of waverings not a few, and many efforts 
on the part of many Popes, both Serb and Bulgar, have 
to this day remained faithful to the Orthodox Church 
— ^a fact which has had a strong influence on the fate 
of the Balkans. 

Boris established Bulgaria. His son and successor, 
Simeon, led it to glory, and the Bulgarian patriot of 
to-day looks back fondly on those great days, and sighs 
for the time when the Bulgar shall *have his own 
again.' Simeon was victorious everywhere. He im- 
posed his rule on Serb and Greek, fought his way 
through the wild tribes of Albania, and won to the 
Adriatic coast. Servia was his so far as the Drin ; 
Byzantium paid him tribute and retained but a small 
slip of territory, and he held half Greece. He pro- 
claimed himself ' Tsar ' of Bulgaria, and is said to be 
the first to use that mighty title. Nor did he confine 
himself to the arts of war. His capital on the Balkan 
slopes was, we are told, of surpassing magnificence ; 
his nobles were trained in the schools of Byzantium ; 
he encouraged literature, and books were translated 
from the Greek by means of the new Slavonic alphabet. 
Byzantine learning, customs, and ceremonial spread 
through the land. 

It should never be forgotten that all the civilization 
of the Balkan Peninsula is Byzan-tine in origin, 
and that that civilization, worked on other lines from 
that of the West, had other aims and other ideals. 
The West has since evolved a civilization that it 
considers so perfect that it is in a hurry to impose it 



U THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

on all the world, and goes on striving, like the Old 
Man in * Alice/ to 

^ Madly squeeze a right-hand foot 
Into a left-hand shoe/ 

Most of the troubles of the small Balkan States of 
to-day arise from the fact that they have had Western 
ideas, which in no way fit them, forced upon them in a 
hurry. 

Simeon built and embellished his empire. But 
throughout Balkan history the empires which to-day 
are looked on with such passionate enthusiasm, and 
give each people in turn a claim (which each thinks 
incontrovertible) to the greater part of the peninsula, 
are * one-man empires.' Simeon's was no exception. 
He died in 927 ; it split almost at once into two 
states, and Servia fought free. Of the two Bulgarias, 
the Eastern was the first to fall before Byzantine 
arms ; the Western survived another fifty years, ruled 
first by Sisman, a Bulgarian noble, and then by his 
son Samuel, whose capital was latterly at Ochrida. 

Bulgarian atrocities are no recent invention. Few 
things are in the Balkan Peninsula. Basil II., 
Emperor of Byzantium, nicknamed the Bulgar-Slayer 
and notorious even in those very liberal-minded days 
for his unparalleled brutality, made it his life's work 
to restore the lost glories of Byzantiinn. Oddly 
enough, he was of Macedonian descent, so that his 
hatred of the Bulgar was modem and characteristic. 
In a forty years' campaign, pursued with extraordinary 
doggedness, he annihilated all that was left of the great 
Bulgarian Empire. In 1017 his troops marched into 
Ochrida and sacked the imperial palace, whose ruins 
yet crown the hill— sacked it of 10,000 pounds' weight 
of gold and the imperial crown — and Ochrida has 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 16 

never again attained to the glory of the eleventh 
century. The Bulgarian Archbishop was allowed to 
remain, but under the rule of the Greek Patriarch. 
Basil continued his conquering march, and subdued 
the whole peninsula. Serb, Bulgar, and Albanian 
alike lay under Greek rule. Byzantium avenged 
her past humiliation by trampling hard on her former 
conqueror. 

But * every dog has his day,' and from the struggling 
mass of opposing peoples it was the Serb that now 
emerged. It is in 1040 that we hear again of Servia. 
Freeing themselves from Greek rule, the Serbs rose 
very steadily, and grew in power as Byzantium rotted. 
About 1150 appears the first of the line of Nemanja 
Princes, who made Great Servia. 

Early Servian history is a long war against Greek, 
Bulgar, and Hungarian, a dim, blood-stained, one- 
goes-up-when-t'other-goes-down story, too long to tell 
here. 

In 1203 Byzantium staggered under the shock of 
the fourth Crusade — a shock from which it never 
recovered — ^and Serb and Bulgar at once grew in 
power. With the weakening of the Greek Empire 
came a resurrection of the Bulgars, under the leader- 
ship of the Asens, some 160 years after the ruin of 
their first empire. There seems little doubt that 
these Asens were not Bulgars, but Vlahs. 

Of the Vlahs we have as yet made little mention. 
They are to this day rather a mysterious people, and 
their origin is not certain. They are scattered all 
through the Balkan Peninsula in isolated groups, and 
speak a bastard Latin dialect which resembles, but 
is not the same as, Eoumanian. Some consider them 
as descendants of the Soman colonists, others as the 
remains of native Thracian tribes who had adopted 



/ 



16 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

the Latin tongue. This latter theory seems very 
probable. Be this as it may, all contemporary writers 
refer to Kalojan (John Asen), one of the most dis- 
tinguished of the line, as a Vlah. A priest, we are 
told, who was taken prisoner besought Asen in Vlah, 

* which was also his tongue ' ; Pope Innocent III., with 
whom he corresponded — for he declared himself for the 
Roman Church, and was crowned by a Cardinal sent 
by the Pope — addressed him as a Vlah or Koman ; 
and Villehardouin, in his vivid account of the fourth 
Crusade and the establishment of the short-lived 
empire of the Latins at Byzantium, says * Johannis 
^tait un Blaque.* He called himself Tsar of the 
Bulgars and Vlahs. His son, also a John A^en, 
almost succeeded in restoring Bulgaria's lost glory. 
He re-established the Orthodox Bulgarian Patriarchy, 
this time at Trnovo, his capital ; he reconquered all 
Macedonia, a large part of Albania, and part of Servia, 
and threatened Byzantium. But he died in 1241, and 
by this time the Serbs had to be reckoned with. 

The big Bulgaro-Vlah Empire did not live fifty 
years. Servia now rose rapidly, established an inde- 
pendent Church, and became the dominant Power. 
Mediseval Servia was not, geographically, the Servia 
of to-day. Its heart was the land which is now called 

* Old Servia,' and is still part of the Sultan's empire. 
Its line of Nemanja Princes who made the Servian 
Empire are said to have sprung from Docle (in modem 
Montenegro). Rascia (near Novibazar), Prishtina, and 
then Prisren, were in turn their capital. Their 
dominion spread over the peninsula, and the Slav 
people were at last ruled, not by Bulgar nor by Greek, 
btit by Slav rulers. AU that remained of the Bulgarian 
Empire fell before the Serbs about 1330, and no attempt 
was made to restore it till the Bussians drew up the 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 17 

Treaty of S. Stefano, after the Russo-Turkish War 
of 1877. 

We now come to a fateful chapter in Balkan history. 
While Serb, Greek, and Bulgar were struggling for 
supremacy, rising and falling, each in turn victor and 
vanquished, the Ottoman Turk, the foe that was to 
overpower them all, was approaching Europe, checked, 
it is true, by the Crusades, but ever steadily advanc- 
ing. And here we must pause to consider another 
great Balkan hatred— one which, as do all the others, 
rages to the present day. This is the great Christian 
hatred. 

The long drawn-out and bitter doctrinal contro- 
versies which were in the end to sever Rome from 
Byzantium began at a very early date. Ostensibly 
they had to do with matters of belief and ceremonial; 
at the root of them lay the fact that ' East is East and 
West is West ' ; and though the actual blow of final 
separation between the Churches did not take place 
till 1054, they were already practically divided when 
the Serbs and Bulgars were converted to Christianity 
by the Greek missionaries from Salonika. 

Nor was the split between East and West the only 
religious diflTerence which weakened the Balkan 
Christians. Each race then, as now, strove to extend 
its power by means of an independent Church, and 
internally they were torn by the Bogomil heresy. The 
Bogomils (lit., 'dear to God') diftered on vital points 
from both the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox 
Churches, and were persecuted by each with great 
cruelty ; notwithstanding which they increased in 
number and obtained much power, especially in 
Bosnia, where their rude monuments, carved with 
grotesque figures of men and beasts, still stand on 
many a lone hillside. Having suffered much at 

2 



18 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Chrifltian hands, they were prepared to hail the Turk 
as a deliverer rather than a foe, and a large proportion 
of the very numerous converts to Islam that were 
made in Bosnia are believed to have been originally 
Bogomils. But it is said that Bogomil rites were 
practised in parts of Bosnia down to fifty or sixty 
years ago. 

When the Turk arrived in the Balkan Peninsula he 
found it divided by four race hatreds, three Churches, 
and a powerful heresy, and separated from Western 
help by a religious hatred that . was perhaps the 
bitterest of all. But it must not be forgotten that 
this state of things was not peculiar to the Balkan 
Peninsula. All mediaeval Europe was suffering from 
* growing pains,' and religious toleration is an invention 
of to-day. Nor is the hatred of the Balkan people 
for all things Soman to be wondered at, for the 
Crusaders, though they came nominally in the name 
of Christianity, and temporarily checked the Turk in 
Asia, came as enemies to the Eastern Churches, and 
by their barbarous conduct during the fourth Crusade 
undoubtedly aided largely in finally opening the gates 
of Europe to him. The unlearned Orthodox peasant 
of to-day looks shyly even on the Soman alphabet as 
possibly connected with the Pope and dangerous ; and 
an Archimandrite who wished to be very friendly 
began by saying to me, ' We both dislike the Pope.* 

It was in the palmy days of the Servian Empire 
that the Turk drew near. The coming danger was 
once actually realized by the Balkan people, and, for 
the first and last time, Greek and Serb united and 
routed the coming foe in Asia Minor. But this union 
was only temporary. We again find Serb, Greek, and 
Bulgar, blind to their coming doom, locked in a life 
and death struggle, and the Greek actually striving to 




KinjUroSi 



20 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

enlist the Turk on his side. But the Serb star was 
in the ascendant, Servian arms were everywhere 
victorious, and under the leadership of the mighty 
warrior Stefan Dushan (1337-1356) Servia touched 
her highest point of glory. Servia, Bosnia, Albania, 
Macedonia, all owned his sway. Bulgaria and Thessaly 
were his vassals. He is celebrated alike as warrior 
and lawgiver, and the elaborate code which he drew 
up for the regulation of his Empire is still extant. 
Prisren was his capital, and there he held his Court 
with great state and magnificence. You may see him 
now, stiff and gorgeous, frescoed upon the waUs of his 
father's church at Dechani, bearded, moustachioed, 
clad in a long, straight Byzantine robe, heavily 
bordered with gold, and crowned with the imperial 
diadem, from either side of which hangs a string of 
gems. Tsar of almost the whole peninsula, he planned 
to add Greece and Byzantium to his Empire, and to 
keep the Turk from Europe. Dushan started with a 
fabulously vast army. Had his enterprise succeeded, 
and he lived long enough to consolidate his Empire, 
the fate of East Europe might have been very 
different, for he was undoubtedly one of the strongest 
men the peninsula has produced. But in the midst of 
his power and glory, on the very eve of his great 
undertaking, he died suddenly (treacherously poisoned, 
it is said) within a few miles of Byzantium. 

Dushan is still a popular hero, and prances on a 
fiery steed in grotesquely primitive prints on many a 
cottage wall both in Servia and Montenegro, and in 
the name of Dushan many a Serb of to-day claims 
broad lands as his birthright. I remember the sudden 
joy of a gendarme who was laboriously deciphering 
my name, printed in Boman type on my passport case. 
* It is Dushan,* he cried, * the name of our great Tsar 1' 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 

Alas for the briefness of Balkan glories ! Dushan's 
Great Servia but added to the fatal list of ' one-man ' 
empires. His one son, Stefan Urosh, was very young, 
and the large and rapidly -formed State, having no 
strong hand to hold it together, split almost at once 
into separate groups under local leaders. Stefan Urosh 
was murdered, and with him ends the conquering 
dynasty of Nemanja Princes who had ruled Servia 
with ever-increasing success for over two hundred 
years. 

The razzle-dazzle of empires that rise like rockets 
and £eJ1 like sticks is blinding and bewildering until 
we remember the stuff from which they were con- 
structed. The bulk of the population that was 
continually changing hands was all divided into tribes 
with local chieftains. They all had petty quarrels 
with their next-door neighbours to attend to, and were 
easily conquered one after another by any bold leader 
with military skill and an army. When subdued they 
paid tribute to the conqueror of the day, and went on 
living as before, with their manners and customs 
unchanged. To the folk in the heart of the mountains 
it can have made little difference if an Asen or a 
Nemanja claimed them. Greek, Serb, and Bulgar 
each owned a little pied-d-tei^re ; the populations 
between fell to whichever race evolved a Prince who 
was capable of driving a mixed team. The burning 
question of to-day is, * Who shall drive them now V 

Between whiles — that is, while one empire was falling 
I to pieces and the maker of the next had not yet arisen — 
any local leader or foreign invader who was strong 
enough built up a little State. Thus, towards the end 
of the eleventh century the Normans occupied South 
Albania, and penetrated as far north as Ochrida and 
Skoplje, and also to Kastoria in the south. But their 



THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

rule was fleeting, and was shortened by the hostility of 
Venice, who at an early date began to extend her trade 
along the shores of the Adriatic. 

A lasting and noteworthy rule was that of the 
Despots of Epirus. When Byzantium was attacked by 
the Latins, Michael Angelo Comnenus, vaguely related 
to the imperial family, put himself at the head of the 
people of South Albania at the beginning of the thir- 
teenth century, and founded a large State called the 
Despoty of Epirus, which ultimately included Epirus, 
Thessaly, the Ochrida districts and part of North 
Albania. At this time most of this land, together 
with Corfu and the Ionian Islands, was allotted to 
Venice as her share of the loot of the fourth Crusade ; 
but when the Venetians came to take possession, they 
found Michael Angelo already established, and not in- 
clined to go. Coast-land and ports were all that 
Venice really desired, and to turn out Michael Angelo 
would have been a useless labour. They contented 
themselves with the islands, Durazzo, and a strip of 
coast-land, and left him to rule inland, he paying a 
small tribute and promising to curb the wilder moun- 
tain tribes and prevent their harrying the coast towns. 
Durazzo was Venetian and the seat of a Roman 
Catholic Archbishop, but not for long. 

Michael Angelo was murdered in 1214, and his 
brother and successor, Theodore, evicted the Venetians 
altogether. His rule was then interrupted by the in- 
vasion of John Asen, who was hard at work building 
the second Bulgarian Empire. Asen fought Theodore 
and took him prisoner (about 1230), but, as seems to 
have been often the case with these large mushroom 
empires, local rule was not greatly disturbed. 

Theodore's brother Manuel succeeded to the Despoty, 
and married Asen's daughter, and Asen himself made 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 28 

quite a family party of it by himself marrying Theo- 
dore's daughter. The Despots of Epirus outlived 
Asen's Bulgarian Empire, and in due time fell into the 
hands of the Serbs. Meantime, another curious com- 
plication had ensued : Manfred, King of the two 
Sicilies, had married the daughter of a Despot of 
Epirus, and several important Albanian towns were in- 
cluded in her dowry. Charles of Anjou overthrew 
Manfred and claimed all his realms, the Albanian coast 
towns along with the rest, and set out to take them. 
He seized Durazzo, and even reached Berat, in the 
interior. The Despot of Epirus then thought well to 
swear fealty to him ; but swearing fealty in those days 
does not seem to have amounted to much more than 
saying, * Look here, I don't want to play just now ;' 
and the Despot, fealty forgotten, succeeded shortly in 
retaking all but Durazzo, which remained Angevin 
through the reign of the Serb Tsar, Stefan Dushan, and 
was one of the few places he did not subdue. The rest 
of the Despoty owned Dushan's sway as it had done 
Asen's, but the Comnenus line survived him, too, and 
the Despoty of Epirus was finally absorbed by George 
Balsha, a Serb noble, and by various Albanian chief- 
tains, of whom more anon. 

With this slight sketch to illustrate the slender 
nature of the threads that bound the big Balkan 
Empires together, we must pass on to the state of the 
Peninsula after Dushan's death. 

Within a few years it was a mass of separate prin- 
cipalities. Bulgaria and Bosnia both broke loose ; the 
latter, indeed, showed signs of becoming a power under 
a King of its own, but they were not fulfilled. The 
district known as the Zeta (which includes modern 
Montenegro and a large part of North Albania) was 
ruled by George Balsha, whose capital was Skodra. 



84 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Notably this is the beginning of the history of modern 
Albania. We hear of powerful Albanian chieftains ; of 
the Topias, lords of Durazzo and Kruja ; of Musaki, 
whose rule reached as far as and included Kastoria, and 
who still gives his name to the land near Berat ; and 
of Gropa, Lord of the Ochrida district. The power of 
Byzantium was dead, and the Albanians spread rapidly 
over the land from which they had been formerly 
driven by the Slavs. Servia — a much diminished 
Servia — was ruled by the usurper Vukashin, one of 
Dushan s Generals, who murdered young Stefan Urosh 
and seized his throne. Last and direst fact of all, the 
Turks had entered Europe, and had come to stay. 

Neither Greek nor Bulgar appear at first to have 
greatly dreaded them, but to have each looked on them 
rather as a possible ally against the other. No 
organized opposition was made; the Turks took 
Adrianople in 1361 and Philippopolis the year after. 
Bulgaria soon became a vassal State, and furnished 
soldiers to the Turkish army. 

The Serbs perceived the coming danger, and Vuka- 
shin, with a large force, tried to check Turkish 
advance, but was completely routed, and was mur- 
dered, it is said, by a Serb noble, who thus avenged 
the death of young Urosh. 

Meanwhile George Balsha, Prince of the Zeta, was 
extending his rule. Part of his State lives to-day as 
Montenegro, the one unconquered survivor of Dushan's 
Great Servia. Many of the Albanian chieftains were 
Balsha's allies, and the Balsha family was connected 
with several by marriage. There was undoubtedly 
much Illyrian blood in the Serbs of this district, and 
at this point it is not easy to understand the hatred 
which subsequently sprang up between Albania and 
Montenegro. But while Balsha was building up a 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 26 

Serbo- Albanian State the Turks were steadily advanc- 
ing. No great leader opposed them, and they marched 
onward with little diflSculty. By 1385 they had pressed 
into Macedonia, and in 1386 reached and took Nish. 
When face to face with the enemy, the Serbs sought 
a King who should join their scattered forces, and 
chose Lazar Grebljanovich, the luckless hero of the 
great ballad cycle which tells of the downfall of Servia. 
It was in 1389 — a fateful year for all the Balkan 
peoples — that the Serbs made their last stand as a 
imited people. 

Lazar summoned his chieftains, and they flocked to 
his standard from Bosnia, from Albania, the Zeta, and 
Syrmia, from every fastness and stronghold, with all 
the heroes of the land — a list of doughty warriors well 
known to every Serb child of to-day. 

Sultan Murad and his Turks were encamped on the 
broad plain of Kosovo, in the heart of Old Servia. 
He swore to slaughter the giaours and to mark out 
the frontiers with their heads. His tents spread all 
over the plain ; the lances of His warriors were like 
a black forest, and their banners like clouds in the 
sky. So vast was his army that, had God sent rain, 
it would have fallen, not on green grass, but on horse- 
men and horses, spears and banners. A desperate 
fight ensued ; Murad was stabbed in his tent on the 
mom of the fight by a Serb chieftain, Milosh Obilich, 
who had sworn to kill him, but the Turks were led 
by his son Bajazet. Lazar and his men fought fiercely 
against heavy odds ; the waters of the Sitnitza ran red, 
and the horses splashed knee- deep in blood. The 
Turks wavered before the wild onslaught, and were 
falling back, when the divided state of the Serb people 
was their own undoing. Lazar was betrayed. His 
son-in-law, Vuk Brankovich, coveted for himself the 



«6 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

crown of the Nemanjas ; he deserted to the enemy 
with 12,000 followers, and the ground on which they 
stood has been barren evermore. Then fell Lazar and 
his heroes thick around him ; and the Turks, though 
they suffered very heavily, remained victors in one 
of the decisive battles of the world — a battle from 
which the Balkan peoples still suffer, and whose 
consequences still threaten the peace of Europe. 

Murad 8 body was buried with great pomp at Broussa, 
and the precious relics of Lazar rest at Yrdnik, in 
Syrmia ; but the bones of Milosh Obilich, the best- 
beloved hero of that bloody drama, lie buried on the 
battlefield. * Come with me to Kosovo and I will 
show you the grave of the hero Milosh Obilich that 
kiUed Sultan Murad!' cried a gendarme to me. He 
was a Moslem, and in the Sultan s service ; but he was 
a Bosniak, and, in spite of the apostasy of his for- 
bears, the traditions of his race still loomed large in 
his imagination. 

As for Vuk Brankovich, the accursed, he was buried 
at Krushevatz, the capital of Tsar Lazar, by the Turks, 
who are said to have piously burnt lamps upon his 
grave till the Servian uprising at the beginning of 
the nineteenth century, when the Serbs dug up the 
traitor's bones and scattered their ashes to the four 
winds. 

Kosovo is still in the enemy's hands, and the defeat 
still rankles. Yearly, on June 15, the fatal day, a 
solemn service is held in the churches throughout 
Servian lands, and the crimson and black cap worn 
by the Montenegrins represents blood and mourning. 

Kosovo was the last attempt at a combined defence. 
But the Turks did not follow up their hard-won victory 
at once. In most districts the local Prince continued 
as nominal ruler imder Turkish suzerainty, but had to 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 27 

pay the Sultan a heavy tax, hoth in money and men, 
and a tribute of children, to be brought up as Moslems 
and trained for the celebrated army of the Jannisaries. 
The cruellest foe of the subject people was thus shaped 
from their own flesh and blood ; and at the same time 
the withdrawal of their finest boys for this purpose 
very much weakened their own power of resistance. 

As yet, however, they were unaware of the fate 
in store for them, and in the outlying parts petty 
princelings continued to war on one another, for still 
the idea of each was to form a ' one-man empire ' at 
the expense of everyone else. Of these suzerain 
chie&, the most celebrated is Marko Kraljevich (Mark, 
the King's son), son of the usurper Vukashin. He 
ruled a large part of Old Servia and Macedonia, and 
had his capital at Prilep. He was one of the chiefs 
who fought for Servia at Kosovo, and after the defeat 
ruled as a Turkish vassal. The popular hero of a 
mass of Servian baUad poetry, his exploits, as there 
chronicled, belong often to the realm rather of mytho- 
logy than history. He is blood-brother (* pobratim ') to 
a fairy (Vila), rides upon a magic horse, Sharatz, and 
serves in countless fights under the Sultan. His 
doughty deeds did not actually affect the fate of his 
nation, but, handed down in popular song, they have 
undoubtedly helped largely to keep alive the tradition 
of Servian nationality through the dark centuries of 
Turkish rule, and the memory of him is still firesh 
in the lands that he swayed. After his death these 
for the most part fell again to the Albanians. 

The suzerain Princes soon sealed their own fates, 
and Turkish Pashas took their places. The last of the 
Bulgarian princelings was overthrown about 1398; 
Servia, with the help of Himgary, survived till 1459, 
but the distrust of the Orthodox Serbs for the Catholic 



28 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Magyars killed all chance of the alliance being a lasting 
one. Such was their horror of Catholicism, that when 
Helena, the widow of the last of the local Princes, 
wished to save Servia by putting it under the protec- 
tion of the Pope, they made little or no resistance to 
Turkish invasion, and Servia was wiped out from 
among the nations. 

Bosnia fell a few years later for similar reasons. 
The Turk was hailed not only by the Orthodox as a 
protection against the Pope, but also welcomed by the 
very many followers of the Bogomil heresy as a 
protection against both Orthodox and Catholic. 

Of all the Balkan Peninsula, two districts alone 
maintained any independence — Albania and Balsha's 
principality of the Zeta. Here the Turks met with 
far more resistance. Nevertheless they penetrated the 
land, and George Balsha II., after hard fighting, was 
reduced to selling Skodra to the Venetians, who 
already held Alessio and Durazzo, and falling back 
upon the mountains of Montenegro. The Turks seized 
the plains, but the natural fortifications of the moun- 
tains were too much for them. Balsha was followed 
by Stefan Crnoievich, and the mountains of Montenegro 
have never owned Turkish rule. 

Meanwhile the whole of the mountain tribes of 
Albania defended themselves. Lek Dukagin and his 
brother Paul remained independent in the highlands 
between the Drin and the sea, where their tribe and 
that of the Mirdites still dwell untamed, and ruled 
by the unwritten ' law of the mountains,' which bears 
Lek's name to this day, but is rumoured to have come 
down from a remote antiquity, and to be the oldest 
existing law in Europe. And so it may be, for it 
would be hard to find a cruder code. It contains no 
provision for the trial or punishment of murder. The 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 29 

relatives of the murdered man are left to avenge him 
when and how they please. The Topias defended the 
neighbourhood of Tirana. We hear, too, of the 
Shpatas, the Musakis, and the Dushmans in the 
districts where their names are still known, and Venice 
held most of the coast towns. 



CHAPTEK II 

We have now seen the pageant of the passing of the 
nations ; have seen each in turn decked in brief glory, 
and all in the end overwhelmed by a foreign conqueror. 
It is time to consider how far they had reached in the 
history of a nation's development ; for peoples, like 
individuals, must aU pass through certain phases of 
growth. All Europe, it should be remembered, was 
at this time busy growing up. As in the Balkan 
Peninsula, so everywhere else was the struggle carried 
on by Prince against Prince, Duke against Duke ; 
one-man empires rose and fell, peoples worked out 
their salvation or destruction, and the modern Powers 
of Europe gradually came into being by a long and 
uninterrupted process of evolution. 

With the Balkan peoples it was otherwise. While 
still in an early stage of national development their 
growth was arrested — arrested with extraordinary 
completeness. Till the period of the arrival of the 
Turks they had been growing. Trade routes had been 
opened by Greek, Bulgar, and Serb, and considerable 
traffic took place with Venice and Bagusa. The arts 
were cultivated ; national literatures were beginning. 
Judging by the buildings that remain and the frescoes 
that adorn them, the people of the great Servian 
Empire were very little behind the average of the rest 
of Europe, were full of vitality and growing. 

The Turks when they came to Europe were a great 
people — a great military people. In manners and 

30 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 31 

customs they were probably not more cruel or barbarous 
than the peoples they conquered ; in the Middle Ages 
everywhere folk were cruel beyond belief. In point 
of power of organization and military skill, however, 
they were very greatly superior, and they were led by 
Sultans who, in many cases, had a genius for general- 
ship. But beyond conquest they had no ideas. They 
camped on vanquished territory, and forced the people 
to feed them ; and they have pursued this policy up to 
the present day. I have travelled from village to 
village, and town to town, through the lands which 
they held and those that they yet hold, and nowhere 
have I ever seen one moniunent of Turkish greatness. 
They have in all these centuries done nothing for the 
lands which they devastated, and they remain to this 
day encamped. Public safety is no better where the 
Tiffks rule than it was in the Middle Ages, possibly not 
so good, for Dushan made strict laws on the subject. 
Now those who travel without an armed escort do so 
at their own peril, and in case of attack the Govern- 
ment takes no responsibility. It is a wild medisBval 
land. As the Turks found it, so will they leave it. 

In many ways there is little doubt that the subject 
peoples indeed retrograded. Their primitive customs 
they clung to instinctively as a means of self-protection. 
Their acquired knowledge and progress in the arts of 
peace and war they lost, for they had no chance for 
the exercise of either. The wholesome exercise of 
fighting their quarrels out to the end was denied them, 
and the Turkish policy of making means of communi- 
cation as difficult as possible to this day prevents the 
growth of any trade or manufacture. Heavy and 
irr^ular taxation, then as now, made the gathering 
of any capital hopeless. The subject people lay help- 
less, and suffered bitterly. All travellers who visited 



32 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

these lands draw painful pictures of the state of the 
wretched inhabitants. Dr. Brown, writing in 1673, 
says : ' I could not but pity the poor Christians, seeing 
under what fear they lived in those parts, when I 
observed them to make away as soon as they perceived 
us coming towards them. In Macedonia the men and 
women would betake themselves into the woods to 
avoid us.' And Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, travelling 
across Servia in 1717, writes : * The oppression of the 
peasants is so great that they are forced to abandon 
their tillage, all that they have being a prey to the 
Janissaries whenever they chose to seize on it.' The 
mass of the people were no better than slaves. Dis- 
armed and systematically robbed by their conquerors, 
they were powerless to resist. Only in the moun- 
tainous districts were the fiercer spirits able to defend 
themselves. These fortified their strongholds, and 
waged a ceaseless guerilla warfare on the Turks, whom 
they waylaid and plundered at every opportunity. The 
Herzegovina sheltered many of these Heyduks, whose 
deeds of daring form the subject of a mass of ballad 
poetry, which is grim reading enough, and has cast a 
halo of glory round brigandage which has but lately 
faded away. A large number of Serbs fled over the 
Save, and sought refuge in Hungary, where their 
descendants still live, and others sheltered in the 
fastnesses of Montenegro. 

Nor did the conquered Slavs suffer only from Turkish 
oppression. The Turks had promised to tolerate the 
Christian religion, and not to interfere in ecclesiastical 
matters, and they gave the contrnl of the Christian 
Church into the hands of the Greek Patriarch at 
Constantinople, who had also power to deal with 
many of the civil affairs of the Christians. The 
enormous power attached to the office of Patriarch 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 33 

made it of extreme value, and at an early date we 
find it being sold by the Sultan to the highest bidder. 
Huge sums were paid, and these were exacted by the 
ecdesiasts fix)m their imhappy flocks, who dreaded the 
Church tax-gatherer as much as they did the Turkish 
one. Gradually the whole of the power was absorbed 
by the Greeks, and the two autocephalous Slav 
Churches, Ochrida and Ipek, whose power had gradu- 
aDy shrivelled, were disestablished, and fell into Greek 
hands in the latter half of the eighteenth century. 
No Slavonic clergy were allowed high posts under 
Greek rule; and so eager were the Greeks to get 
rid of all traces of the previously existing Slavonic 
Churches that they destroyed a great part of the 
Slavonic Church books and documents in the monas- 
tery libraries. The hatred between Greek and Slav 
was not only kept alive, but waxed fiercer. Monte- 
negro alone kept a free and independent Slav Church, 
which i^iu-vives to this day. 

Having briefly sketched the fate of the fallen 
pec^les, we must now foUow the fortunes of Albania. 
The case of Albania is a strange one. At the time 
of Kosovo we may say of them, as Herodotus said 
of the Thracians, to whom they are probably allied, 
' Were they either under the government of an indi- 
vidual or united among themselves, their strength 
would, in my opinion, render them invincible.' They 
allied themselves with the Serb Prince, George Balsha, 
and, attacking the neighbouring Serb Prince, Marko 
Kraljevich, they took from him Ochrida, Ipek, and 
white Prisren, the home of mighty Dushan ; for 
Mark now owned Turkish suzerainty, and, it appears, 
was treated as an enemy by Balsha. Albanian blood 
was reasserting itself, and Albanian chiefs ruled as 
fisur as Kastoria ; but there was still no great leader 

3 



84 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

who could gather the tribes and mould them into a 
whole, and when the Turks broke into the land many 
of the Albanian chiefs accepted Turkish suzerainty. 

But not for long. 

In 1403 was bom Albania's great man, George 
Kastriot, called Skenderbeg. Into the vexed ques- 
tion of his ancestry we have no space here to enter. 
His father has been variously described as Lord of 
Kastoria, of a village near Dibra, and of Kruja. The 
latter tale is the most popular. Portents, of course, 
foretold George's greatness, and his mother dreamed 
she had been delivered of a dragon. George's career 
began dramatically : his father, so the story runs, fell 
into Turkish hands, and had to yield all his four sons 
as tribute children to be reared as Moslems and trained 
for the Turkish army. George alone survived. He 
showed great ability, rose in rank, and was given the 
name and title of Iskender Bey and the command 
of the Albanian soldiery, tribute children like himself 
He covered himself with glory fighting for the Turks, 
not only in Asia, but also against the Serb Prince, 
Greorge Brankovich, the first, but by no means the last, 
of his race to joyfully aid Turk against Slav. The 
victories won against the Turks by the Hungarian 
champion, John Hunyades, first seem to have inspired 
George with the idea of fighting for his own nation. 
Entering into a pact with Hunyades, he secured his 
ends by a trick. Giving the Turks no sign that he 
meant to betray them, he appeared suddenly before 
the Sultan's secretary and demanded that the post 
of Lord of Kruja be given him in the Sultan's nama 
He was backed by his Albanian soldiery; the secretary 
must either write the order or die, and he wrote it. 
Off rode George to Dibra — ^you can fancy him and 
his men singing as they went in true Albanian &shion. 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 36 

At Dibra he was hailed joyfully by the chieftain, Moig 
Golem, who strengthened his forces. Arrived at Knija 
with his troops, George presented his official letter to 
the Turkish Grovemor, who at once yielded up his post. 
That night he and every Turk in the town was slain, 
and Greorge proclaimed himself the champion of 
Christendom and of free Albania. This was in the 
year 1443. 

As Skenderbeg, Prince of all Albania, George's 
success was phenomenal. The Albanians had foimd 
their strong man and were invincible. Topias, Musakis, 
Dushmans, Dukagins, all flocked to his standard. 
Ste&n Cmoievich, of Montenegro, with whom he was 
connected by marriage, was his ally; so, too, were 
the Venetians, who held some of the coast-towns, and 
the Turks were beaten everywhere. Vainly they 
hurled armies on him ; they were either cut to pieces 
on the plains of Dibra or trapped and massacred in 
the moimtain passes. Skenderbeg took few prisoners. 
Europe rang with his name, and he was called on by 
the Pope to aid John Hunyades and Vladislav, King 
of Poland, who were marching on the Turks from the 
north. Had he succeeded in bringing up his troops 
in time, the history of the peninsula might have read 
very differently ; but religious differences and the old 
hatred that lay between Slav and Albanian then, as 
now, kept the Turk in Europe. Skenderbeg, on his 
way to help the Catholic troops of Poland and 
Himgary, was opposed near Belgrade by his old 
enemy the Serb and Orthodox Prince, George Bran- 
kovich. He arrived too late : the field of Varna 
had been already fought and the Catholic army 
completely routed. 

But Skenderbeg remained invincible in his own 
lands. Two Turkish Sultans in turn swore to destroy 

3—2 



86 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

the Albanian rebel; but though they forced a way 
into his lands more than once with huge armies and 
artillery, and besieged Kruja itself for many months, 
they always had in the end to retreat with very heavy 
losses. So long as Skenderbeg lived, Albania was un- 
subdued. He died of fever in 1467, after twenty-four 
years of victory, and with him died united Albania. 
He was buried in the cathedral at Alessio, but it has 
been wrecked by the Turks, and his grave is unknown. 
They are said to have worn fragments of his body as 
amulets to make them invincible. 'Such a lion will 
never again appear on earth ' was the verdict of his old 
enemy. Sultan Mahomed II. His people still wear 
mourning for him, and his deeds form the topic of 
popular songs, where the heathen recoil from the 
light that flashes from his eyes and fall dead in heaps 
beneath the sword that he alone could swing. 

The champion of Christendom was dead ; there was — +-^ 
none to take his place and hold the tribes together, 
and the Turks now advanced rapidly. They tore the 
coast-towns one after another from the Venetians, and 
took Skodra after two severe sieges. Montenegro, * the 
castle God built for us,' as its people say, remained 
impregnable and ruled by its Crnoievich Princes. The 
Albanians made terms with the Turks. Fiercely 
independent by nature, they were as yet in too early 
a stage of a nation's development to form a body 
politic. Roman, Byzantine, Bulgar, and Serb alike 
had each in turn called them vassals, and run off 
them like the proverbial water from a duck's back. 
The strong individuality of the people had never been 
modified. They had acknowledged a nominal master, 
and had followed the devices of their own hearts. 
They now continued to do so. 

'We Albanians,' said an Albanian kaimma.kam to 




s 

o 
u 

u 

O 



O 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 37 

me recently, ' have quite peculiar ideas. We must 
have freedom ; we will profess any form of religion 
which leaves us free to carry a gun. Therefore the 
majority of us are Moslems/ 

The object of each chieftain was to keep his position 
and widen his lands. Some few in the more remote 
districts remained Christian, but the majority pro- 
fei^ed Islamism, and within a short time of the Turkish 
* conquest' Albanian power spread. Fighting has 
always been the Albanians' joy. They now fought for 
the Turk whenever called upon, and were well paid, 
for their services were very valuable, and they retained 
the right to manage their own internal afeirs. The 
heads of noble families were made Pashas or Beys, 
and given the governorships of the larger towns : 
Skodra, Ipek, Skoplje, Janina, Prisren — all were ruled 
by hereditary Albanian Pashas ; and the Albanian, as 
the ally of the Turk, once more spread his rule over 
lands wrested from him by Greek and Slav. The 
history of Montenegro is one long fight against Turko- 
Albanian forces. Albanians penetrated Greece, and 
settled there in large numbers, and spread up into 
Bosnia and Servia, As their power increased, they 
resolutely opposed the Slav on all occasions, and 
never to this day have they ceased to look on him as 
a recent foreign invader. 

The Turka were all this time spreading into Europe. 
They even crossed over into Italy, and swore they 
would banquet in the Vatican. In Italy they were 
baffled ; in Hungary their advance was steady. 
Finally they reached even to Vienna, where the 
Crescent was placed above the Cross on the spire of the 
cathedral to protect it from attack. But they won no 
farther. In 1683 they were completely routed outside 
its waUs, and this is a turning-point in Balkan history. 



38 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

They were never again a terror to Europe; their power 
was waning, and they began that slow retreat from 
the conquered lands which even yet is not accomplished. 

From this time onward the history of the Balkan 
Peninsula is that of the decay of Turkish might, and 
the consequent resurrection of the subject peoples. 

The Turks weakened slowly but steadily. Austria 
lost little time in turning the tables upon them, and 
from being the attacked, became the attacker. We 
now arrive at modern history, and both Russia and 
Austria appear upon the/scenes as players in the 
Balkan drama. Austria began to aspire to be a Balkan 
State. The Emperor Leopold marched into Turkish 
territory, and made a bold attempt to annex Servia. 
He forced his way even to the historic field of Kosovo, 
opposed both h^ Turk and Albanian, but was unable 
to hold the large tract of land he had taken, and had 
to withdraw again across the Save. Nor has Austria 
yet succeeded in annexing those lands, though she 
desires them greatly, and is still striving. Every 
quarrel in a Servian market becomes a revolution in 
the hands of the Vienna journalists ; Austria mobilized 
troops near the frontier, and was ready to march over, 
when King Alexander was murdered ; she indus- 
triously circulated reports of possible riots at King 
Peter's coronation, but, much to her disappointment, 
she has so far failed to construct an occasion on which, 
for the sake of the peace of Europe, she would be 
obliged to occupy Servia. I believe it is no exaggera- 
tion to say that every piece of Balkan news that comes 
vi4 Vienna is * cooked * to suit Austrian plans. 

Austria has plotted, and is plotting with as much 
industry as is Russia, to secure territory in the Balkan 
Peninsula, and so far with much greater success. Her 
methods are more finished. 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 89 

Leopold could not hold Servia, but he did not wish 
it to become an independent country. The large 
Servian colony already settled in S3rrmia had proved 
of great use to him, and he now invited the inhabitants 
of Old Servia to join them. In 1689 Arsen Cmoievich, 
Archbishop of Ipek, migrated to Hungary with a 
following of 37,000 families — ^family groups, that is, in 
the Servian sense of the word ; uncles, brothers, 
cousins — a vast mass of people ; and the Serb claim 
to Old Servia has never recovered from that loss. It 
is doubtAil if it ever will in our time, for the wholesale 
emigration of the Serb left the greater part of the 
land to the Albanian, and in the event of a new 
delimitation of frontiers it will probably be found 
impossible to give the whole of it to Servia. The 
Turks still further weakened the Serb position in 1737 
by putting the Church of Ipek under Greek instead of 
Serb rule. Another Serb migration then took place, 
but the Turks, who wished to prevent the Serbs from 
massing in the north and forming a power, checked it 
by killing a number of the would-be emigrants and 
selling many as slaves abroad. The land was thus 
still further depopulated. 

But the Austrian invasion had shaken Turkish power 
badly. It had shown the subject peoples that the 
Turk was not invincible. Moreover, the Turkish 
Sultans were no longer the militant heroes of the old 
days. They had become weak, luxurious, and corrupt. 
The Turkish nation was on the down grade. The 
weaker and more corrupt the Government became, the 
worse was the state of the subject peoples. The local 
Pashas were free to work their will upon them, and 
the Janissaries, quite unrestrained, ravaged the lands 
like wild beasts. Austria made another attempt at 
the taking of Turkey, this time under the leadership 



40 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

of the brilliant Prince Eugene, and the Turk reeled 
from the shock, not conquered but permanently 
weakened. The subject people arose and attacked 
him, and the first to do so were the Serbs, under the 
leadership of Karageorge, Whatever weakness the 
Serbs may have since displayed, it must always be 
remembered that theirs is the glory of being the first 
to struggle for and obtain freedom from the Turkish 
yoke. Their example was followed very shortly by 
th^Greeks, who, aided by the South Albanians, beloved 
of Lord Byron, fought free not long afterwards. 

Meanwhile Albania, too, had struck out for inde- 
pendence. Had the whole country risen, liberty would 
then have doubtless been obtained ; but the tribal 
divisions were too strong. There were rival powers 
within. The north was ruled by the Bushatlis, Pashas 
of Skodra. There was the powerful Christian tribe of 
the Mirdites, under Bib Doda ; Kurd Pasha ruled in 
Central Albania, and in the south was the redoubtable 
Ali Pasha, one of the most remarkable men, after 
Skenderbeg, that Albania has produced. Ambitious, 
indomitable, unscrupulous, and possessed of military 
genius, he overthrew all the local chieftains of the 
South, and set himself to obtain supreme power. 
Victorious wherever he went, in a short time he was 
lord of the whole of South Albania, and quite inde- 
pendent. He held his Court with great splendour at 
Janina, and tried hard to enlist the friendship and 
support of England. His lands included Ochrida, 
Berat, Permeti, Avlona, Arta, and Suli. He planned 
to attack Bushatli, Pasha of Skodra, and seize North 
Albania. By way of weakening Turkish power he 
aided the rising of the Greeks, and Greeks and 
Albanians made common cause. 

Ali's rule, however, was brutal. He was deserted 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 41 

by many of his oflScers ; many of his Christian subjects 
fled from his persecutions ; Bushatli turned against 
him, and he was attacked by the Turks in great force. 
But the grim old man kept them at bay. Finally 
besieged in his castle at Janina, fighting to the last, 
he fell into the enemy's hands in 1822, in the eighty- 
first year of his age. They promised to spare his life, 
but dew him as soon as captured. His head was sen# 
to the Sultan at Constantinople, and exposed on one 
of the gates. His cruelty was such that his followers 
showed little ardour in the end in defending him. 
By his wild and reckless career he freed South Albania 
and ruined it, for he aimed only at personal power, 
and thought nothing of the future. He had destroyed 
the old feudal system by sweeping the local chiefs 
from his path. He had torn land from the Christians 
to give it to his own family. On his death the land 
was leaderless. The Turks massacred his sons, seized 
their territories, and South Albania fell again largely 
under Turkish rule. 

The independence of Greece was recognised in 1829. 
It had been obtained largely by Albanian aid, and the 
Albanians have since been enraged to find that, far 
from recognising that aid, the Greeks have lost no 
opportunity to extend their power at the expense of 
Albania. Lands which the Albanian regards as his 
birthright the Greeks plan to absorb, by working a 
ceaseless propaganda which aims at the suppressing of 
the Albanian tongue and the substitution for it of 
Greek. Consequently, when the Greeks declared war 
in 1897, the Albanians flew to arms. They do not 
admit that it was a Greco-Turkish war at all. It was, 
they say, an attack by the Greeks, whom they had 
formerly helped, on Albanian liberty. They drove the 
Greeks before them like sheep, and the present enmity 



42 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

between the two peoples is a source of weakness to 
each. 

With the recognition of the freedom of Servia and 
of Greece we enter into the chapter that is not yet 
finished — the tale of tottering Sultans supported f]x>m 
without. And we must look back a little, that we may 
understand the part played by Bussia in the still 
unfinished struggle for their lands. 

Russian hordes, it is true, had appeared and given 
trouble in the Balkan Peninsula in the days of the 
first Bulgarian Empire, but it was not till the days of 
Peter the Great that Bussia constituted herself the 
champion of the Slav against the Turk, and planned to 
extend her power to Constantinople. In 1711 Peter 
made the still existing alliance between Bussia and 
Montenegro. The local contemporary ballad gives us 
the key to Bussia s great power over the Slav peasants 
of the Balkans. 

* Lo 1' says Peter, * I send you my envoy ! I trust 
myself to Almighty God, and to the strength of the 
Servian nation, most of all to the brave Montenegrins, 
to help me to free the Christian peoples and to glorify 
the Slav name ; to break the yoke of the Agas, and to 
raise up temples to the true faith. Together will we 
wash out the shame that has been brought by the 
Turks, the foes of all who will not lick the dust under 
their feet. Ye are of one blood with the Bussians, of 
one faith, of one tongue ! Arise like heroes, oh ye 
Christians I cry out like falcons I Lift up your 
weapons and rush upon the Turk 1 Together let us 
go to Stamboul 1' 

Since that day experience and a wider outlook have 
taught many leaders of the Balkan Slavs that Bussia's 
labours on their behalf are not entirely disinterested, 
and some have worked hard to thwart her plans. 



\ 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 4S 

Diplomatists who know will tell you how fatal it would 
be to fall under Russian rule, but so far as my own 
experience goes, the heart of the people b everjrwhere 
with Holy Russia as opposed to Austria. Politicians 
may plan and argue ; ' one &ith and one blood ' has 
nKX^ power than all the reasoning in the world. That 
the saying is not strictly true is of no moment, for the 
peasant believes it. But the shadow of Austria rests 
on Servia, and Russian propaganda have been far more 
actively worked in Bulgaria and Macedonia. 

Peter the Greats attempt in 1711 failed, but the 
Russians did not cease their efforts, and in 1768 
beat the Turks and assumed the right of protecting 
Wallachia and Moldavia, t.e., Roumania. Austrian v 
jealousy was then aroused, and Russia had to with- 
draw ; but she had obtained a footing in the Balkan 
Peninsula. These lands were, it is true, beyond the 
Danube, but on their behalf Russia, in 1774, obtained 
permission to erect a church in Constantinople, and 
the following engagement was made : 

* The Porte promises to protect the Christian religion 
and its churches, and it also allows the Court of Russia 
to make upon all occasions representations as well in 
favour of the new chiut^h as on behalf of its ministers, 
promising to take such representations into considera- 
tion.' 

Thus arose Russia's claim to the right of protection 
over all the Christian subjects of the Sultan, though 
the right of intervention was originally only accorded 
for the affairs of one church and its ministers. The 
Protectorate over Wallachia and Moldavia lasted but V 
a year or two ; Russian influence in the affairs of the 
Churches under the Sultan's rule is paramount. It 
was directed from the beginning, as it is now, to 
obtaining power over the Slavonic Christians by free- 



44 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

ing them from the tyranny of the Greek griesthood 
which had been placed over them by the Turks, and 
re-establishing the Slavonic Churches. It has now 
reached such a pitch that the Bulgarian Bishops plot 
revolution, and the Sultan is powerless to remove 
them. 

Austria, as we have seen, made violent eflforts to 
enter and become possessed of Balkan lands by way 
of Servia. Russia struggled similarly by way of 
E/Oumania, and each strove to outwit the other. But 
the cry of * one blood and one faith ' is a potent one to 
conjure with, and when the Serbs needed help in their 
fight for freedom, it was on Bussia, not Austria, that 
they called. Nor did they call in vain. Bussian 
influence grew stronger, and we come to the year 
1829, the year when the freedom of Greece was 
recognised, and one that was near proving fatal to 
Turkish rule in Europe. 

Servia had fought free, but her Prince, Milosh Obre- 
novich, was not yet recognised by the Sultan. Milosh 
demanded recognition, and his demand was backed by 
Bussia. 

Mustafa Bushatli, Pasha of Skodra, the chief ruler 
in North Albania, then thought, as other people were 
obtaining recognition of freedom, it was a good oppor- 
tunity for him, too, to strike. Albanian power at this 
moment was very great. Mehemet Ali, an Albanian, 
had made himself master of Egypt, and threatened 
daily to yet further curtail the Sultan's power. It 
is said that he not only encouraged Bushatli to rise, 
but supplied him with funds. 

Bushatli waited till Bussia had commenced the 
attack. When the Bussian troops had reached 
Adrianople, and were ready to march on Constanti- 
nople, he hurried up with a large army and captured 



\ 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 45 

Nish. The Sultan was in a parlous position ; he was 
saved from destruction by the intervention of France 
and England. Russia had to make terms and with- 
draw, and Bushatli withdrew as well — a fact that has 
been much deplored by his compatriots — but a fatal 
blow had been dealt at the Sultan's throne. 

From that day to this Turkish Sultans have ruled 
in Europe only because the various parties that covet 
their lands have not yet decided who is to have them. 
But no external aid has succeeded in doing more than 
propping a decaying Power. Not all the wits of all 
the diplomatists have availed to remedy matters. 
Slowly and steadily the fabric has crumbled and is 
crumbling. It has now reached a point when no 
repair is possible, for there is not one inch that is 
sound in the whole rotten mediaeval structure. On 
paper Turkish laws seem fair enough, but, so far as 
I can learn, not one of them is honestly administered. 
As for the treaties, conventions, and promises to reform 
that have been drawn up and ratified, they have only 
been made to be broken. No lesson has taught the 
Turk. He has continued working on the old lines, and 
has never retrieved a single one of his losses. 

Had the Albanians at this period produced a second 
Skenderbeg, their independence would have been 
assured. Both the North and the South rose in revolt, 
but their want of unity brought disaster. They 
did not rise together, and Eeshid Pasha, with a 
large army, gained a victory over the South before 
the North was ready. He then offered to make terms, 
and invited the heads of the noble Tosk families to a 
banquet of reconciliation at Monastir. They came, 
and during the feast were surrounded by Turkish 
troops and slaughtered almost to a man. The South 
was now hopelessly crippled ; Turkish Governors were 



46 



THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 



appointed in the chief towns, and the South loet all its 
independence. 

The Northern revolt was nearer success. Albanian 
troops occupied Sofia and the heights round Monastir, 
but Mustafa Bushatli proved an incompetent leader. 
He fled back to Skodra, was pursued thither by the 
Turks ; a four months' siege ensued, Skodra fell, and 
Bushatli was only saved from the fate of Ali Pasha by 
the intervention of Austria, who was already beginning 
to spread nets for the final capture of Albania. Inter- 
tribal quarrels prevented the North from coming to his 
assistance en masse^ he was taken prisoner, and Turkish 
governors have since ruled nominally in Skodra. It is 
true that they may have been shot, besieged, hunted 
away, and have had no power at all over the surround- 
ing mountain tribes ; but in spite of the hatred which 
Albania bears any interference with her liberty, there 
is still a Turkish Yali at Skodra. Events so fell out 
that the Albanians thought fit to play again on the 
Turkish side. 




THE CITADEL OF KRUJA. 



X 



CHAPTER III 

The Slav, the blood-enemy of more than a thousand 
years, was gaining power — ^Russia's great struggle for 
the peninsula had begun. Albania supplied troops 
for the Crimean War and the Mirdites, the most 
independent of all the mountain tribes, led by their 
Prince, Bib Doda, fought side by side with the Turks 
against the hated foe. 

The tale of the Crimean War needs no retelling. 
Russia's advance was checked, but in appearance only. 
Up till this time the Bulgarians alone of all the 
subject peoples had scarcely shown a sign of life. 
They had produced no leader, and they aided neither 
the Servian nor the Greek rising. Russia conceived 
the plan of constructing a Russo-Bulgarian State which 
should lead to Constantinople, and set to work with 
admirable skilL Bulgarian students were welcomed 
at the University of Odessa, and a national movement 
was started. 

Not to be outdone, Austria began a similar game on 
the other side of the peninsula, and planted Jesuits in 
Skodra. 

Everything is interesting in the Balkan Peninsula, 
the great game played by Austria versits Russia with 
human chessmen not the least so. I do not wish 
either of them to succeed. I should like each of the 
Balkan peoples to be left to work out its own salvation 
in its own national way, with fair play and no favour. 

47 



^ 

^ 



48 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Each has an individuality which is worth developing, 
and may in time evolve a civilization more suitable to 
itself than that which any outsider can thrust upon it. 
Nevertheless, when travelling in Balkan lands the 
subtlety, the skill, the endless patience and per- 
severance, the extraordinary attention to detail with 
which Austria and Russia play that game, force my 
admiration. It is a marvellously fine game to watch. 
In all the land there are few villages too insignificant 
for one or the other to manipulate. No less beautiful 
is the calmness with which each looks forward to 
ultimately attaining its object. 

The British Consul is a solitary thing, who bravely 
wrestles single-handed with circumstances. Tethered 
to his lonely consulate, he has little or no chance of 
even exploring the neighbourhood. The Austrian 
lives in a palace and has a whole staff of lively 
youths, whose principal business in life appears to be 
taking holidays for shooting expeditions, and whose 
knowledge of the land is minute and exhaustive. 
When not thus pleasantly occupied they swagger 
about the town to which they are attach^, and try 
to look as if it belongs to them. They wiU even 
take you out for a walk and tell you the improve- 
ments which their Government means to introduce in 
a few years time. * We are going to do it very much 
on the same plan as Bosnia,' they say affably. 

I remember one who was great on le sport. By 
asking him about the birds and beasts obtainable in 
various parts, I soon learned that he knew most of the 
lands that lie within Austria's * sphere of influence.' 
He rattled off the names of towns and districts, and 
said he had amused himself very well. 

' Have you been to X V I asked. 

No, he had not. 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 49 

* I have been there/ said !• 

' You have ! Mademoiselle, what are you makmg 
in this country V 

• Like you, monsieur, I amuse myself very well.' 
The Austrian man is ubiquitous in his own ' sphere/ 

and his assumption of authority is a sight to see. In 
one place he appeared suddenly upon the scene, and 
told the Turkish Commissary of PoUce, who was about 
to inspect my passport, that Mademoiselle's passport 
did not require inspecting. As a matter of fact, his 
was not the consulate that protected Great Britain's 
interest in this particular district. He, however, gave 
his orders with a fine air, and told me in German, 
a tongue unknown to the PoUce Commissary, that a 
word from ' us * had more effect on these animals than 
anything. The PoUce Commissary obeyed like a dog. 
According to my interpreter, he said he had not come 
to see my passport at all, but only to say good-morn- 
ing, and hope I was quite well. Everyone was sweetly 
affable and poUte ; but when young Austria was safe 
in his office at the consulate that Police Commissary 
returned. He was brave and commanding ; he saw 
my passport, stamped it, charged the usual fee, and 
asked all the usual questions about my sisters, and 
cousins, and aunts. 

' Is that only a consulate you are building ? It 
looks large enough for a Governors palace,' I once 
remarked. 

' Then it will be very useful to us in a few years' 
time,' said a cheerful Austrian ' sportsman.' 

Russian representatives, too, are very pleasant to 
meet — ^very cultured, very polite, but they usually ask 
questions and do not answer them. When one whose 
discretion I had admired told me suddenly that the 
British reUef work in Macedonia was a great pleasure 

4 



60 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

to ' us/ for it showed that there was a party in England 
on * our ' side, I felt grieved that he had so far forgotten 
his diplomatic self. When in the 'Russian sphere/ 
however, he is apt to forget himself, and think the 
place is really his. There was one I was told of who 
thought he was in Russia. You may do almost any- 
thing you like in the Sultan s territories (provided, of 
course, that you are a foreigner), but there is one thing 
you had better not : you should not strike an Albanian 
if you wish to preserve a whole skin. As a Consul of 
another nationality once said to me, * Absolument il ne 
faut pas cravacher ces gens-lk !' The Russian Consul 
struck an Albanian, and the Albanian shot him 
dead. 

One beautiful trait in the operations of both Russia 
and Austria is their desire to save people's souls. It 
is purely on this errand that Austrian *frati' congregate 
in Albania and Russian monks are planted in * Old 
Servia.' 

Churches are the most powerful political engines in 
the Balkan Peninsula, and the raw primsBval passions 
of the Balkans find their bitterest expression under the 
cloak of religion. When Russia started the Pan- 
Slavonic propaganda the Servians were free, and had 
already re-established an independent Church, but it 
had power only over free Servia. The Bulgarians were 
still ecclesiastically under Greek rule. Their first sign 
of reviving national existence was shown in their wish 
to re-establish the Bulgarian Church. They appealed 
for clergy of their own. This caused great wrath in 
the Greek Church. But it has always been the policy 
of the Turkish Government to foster differences between 
the subject peoples, and by so doing to lessen alJ 
chances of their rising in a body. The Greeks were 
now a political power, the Bulgars an unknown 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 51 

quantity. A split in the Christian camp would he 
useful, and the Porte raised but little objection to the 
scheme. The Bulgarian Church was re-established in 
1870. Its head, called the Exarch, still resides in 
Constantinople. The Greek Patriarch almost at once 
pronounced the new Bulgarian Church schismatic, and 
a war to the death started between the two Churches, 
which is at present raging, and the Moslems look on at 
the edifying spectacle of the two Christian parties, 
who, by slaying one another in the name of the dear 
God, help to keep the Sultan on the throne. 

Russia, though she failed in her immediate object ir 
the Crimean War, continued to follow up her plans 
with the tireless persistence of a wolf of the steppes. 
Bulgarian patriots were trained in Russia, and the 
building of Bulgarian schools and churches in Turkey 
aided by Russian money. The Servian Church had 
jurisdiction only over free Servia, and free Servia was 
not so easily tampered with. All Servian rights and 
claims were therefore ignored, and every Slavonic 
district under Turkish rule was therefore pronounced 
Bulgarian, and no expense was spared to make 
it so. 

Servia had welcomed Bulgars into her schools, and 
had supported the creation of the Exarchy, only to 
find it used as a weapon against herself. 

Then came the fateful years of the Herzegovinian 
insurrection, which began in 1874 and was followed 
shortly by a declaration of war by Servia and Monte- 
negro. Russian-trained patriots, including Stambulov, 
then quite young, tried hard to rouse the peasants of 
Bulgaria, but in vain. Bulgaria alone of the subject 
peoples was to owe her ultimate freedom entirely to 
foreign aid. As in the recent Macedonian insurrection, 
no well-organized and simultaneous rising took place. 

4—2 



52 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Scattered villages alone answered to the call and 
attacked their Turkish neighbours. Turkish methods 
are mediaeval and Oriental. The Turk knows no other 
way of quieting a district but that of massacring all 
its inhabitants. The villages in question were anni- 
hilated. Nothing was left to tell the tale but corpses 
and blackened ruins. Even the Turkish Commissioner 
sent to report on the affair perceived that the results 
of the punishment would probably be more fatal to 
Turkish rule than any insurrection, and is said to 
have remarked bitterly to the responsible Bey, * What 
did the Eussians pay you for this day's work V 

The ' Bulgarian atrocities' became a by- word through 
Europe, and Bulgaria learnt that the most effective 
way of advertising her rights and wrongs was upon 
bloody posters. The state of things in the Balkan 
Peninsula was very shortly afterwards taken by 
Eussia 8LS a reason for declaring war and constructing 
her Russo-Bulgarian province. 

The Turk was now attacked by all the Slav peoples 
at once. Had Greece and Albania risen, too, there 
would possibly have been an end of Turkey in Europe. 
But neither race wished to do anything to aid the Slav 
cause. The Greeks did nothing ; the Albanians sup- 
ported the Turks with enthusiasm. In all the world 
there is nothing an Albanian hates so much as a 
Russian. The Russian conquered, and, drunk with 
blood, crowned his victories by atrocities which rivalled 
those of the Turks at Batak ; and, with the Turk at 
his feet, cast all diplomacy to the winds and set to 
work to construct a huge Bulgaria, which was to be 
under Russian control. To attain this end, Vlah, 
Bulgar, Serb, Greek, and Albanian, were to have been 
swept willy-nilly into a Bulgaria almost as large as 
the fleeting mediaeval one — a Bulgaria which was to 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 63 

have included the great lakes of Ochrida and Presba, 
spread away beyond them into South Albania, and in 
the South-East to have extended as far as the iEgean 
Sea, with a large frontage thereon ; a Bulgaria which 
was, moreover, to be occupied by 50,000 Russian 
troops. It was an extraordinarily bold scheme, but 
it was too bold. The Russian Treaty of San Stefano 
was overthrown by the Powers of Europe in council 
at Berlin, new frontiers were delimited, and Russia's 
Great Bulgaria reduced considerably. 

Before travelling in the district most immediately 
concerned I held the rather popular theory that the 
overthrowing of the San Stefano Treaty was a mistake. 
When living in the heart of the disputed territory, 
I learnt that to have supported it would have been 
a most grievous injustice ; the Bulgars, and the Bulgars 
alone, lament the death of that scheme. Whatever 
may be the faults of the Berlin Treaty, it does not 
fevour one race at the expense of all the others, 
though the races dealt with were not entirely con- 
tent with their new borders; for it is very difficult 
for any set of diplomatists to map out peoples of which 
they have little or no personal knowledge, in a land 
which they have never explored. And, moreover, 
they had themselves, as well as the races more 
immediately concerned, to consider. 

Like other human inventions, it was not perfect. 
Its immediate result was an Albanian rising. Up 
till now the Albanians had been willing and ready 
to help the Turks against a common foe; they now 
suddenly woke to the rude fact that Europe classed 
them in with the Turks, and did not recognise their 
existence as a people. Worse than this, as someone 
picturesquely put it, 'the Turks not only remained 
landlord of the house, but Austria put her foot on the 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 55 

that other arrangements must be made, and Dulcigno 
was substituted for Gusinje and Plava. 

The population of Dulcigno, also, was almost entirely 
Albanian, and flew to arms and was aided by bands 
formed by the Albanian League. The natural and 
proper port for Montenegro was Spitza, with its Slav 
population, identical in blood with the Montenegrins ; 
but this the Powers had given to Austria along with 
a strip of coast. They now insisted on the cession of 
Dulcigno and its Albajiians to Montenegro, and called 
upon the Porte to see it done. 

The Turkish Government, which had at first sup- 
ported the Albanian League, discovered that Turkish 
safety depended on its speedy suppression. To enforce 
the cession of Dulcigno and stop the rising at Gusinje, 
a large Turkish army was sent to Albania. Some 
heavy fighting took place, and the Albanians, with 
Europe and the Turks against them, wer^ forced to 
cede Dulcigno in June, 1880, but the point is still a 
very sore one. Spitza and Montenegro still wish to be 
united, and the Albanians still wish to regain their 
lost town. 

The Greek frontier was not arranged till the follow- 
ing year, and here, too, the Albanians lost land, though 
they did not yield all that was asked of them. 

It is not to be wondered at that, as the game stood, 
no Albanian rights were recognised by the Berlin 
Congress ; but it was a pity. The Albanians have 
great capabilities, and in mother-wit are second to 
none in the Peninsula. Had they been given such 
chances as was Bulgaria of developing on their own 
lines imder European protection, their advance would 
certainly have been rapid. Nor, as it is, have they 
stood still. The Albanian League was suppressed, but 
the national spirit, which then found voice, has been 



56 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

growing steadily stronger in spite of Turkish efforts. 
The printing of the Albanian language is forbidden by 
the Government, but papers published abroad in it 
find their way to every town. The teaching of it in 
the schools is prohibited, but the people learn to read 
and write it ; perhaps it is better not to explain how. 
The knowledge of reading spreads, and with it Albanian 
propaganda. Ever since the Treaty of Berlin Albanian 
patriots have been hard at work, and Moslem and 
Christian alike are working for Albanian autonomy. 

One result, and a good one, of the Berlin Treaty was 
that, so soon as the various firontiers were drawn, a 
shifting of population began to take place. Anything 
that causes the mixture of peoples to sort itself out 
a little works towards the solution of the Balkan 
problems. A mass of Albanians left South Servia and 
Montenegro, and conversely a quantity of Serbs flowed 
into the newly-acquired Serb territory. A great 
exodus of Moslems took place firom Bosnia and Bulgaria ; 
a certain amount of Christian Herzegovinians left their 
homes and settled in Servia and Montenegro in order 
to escape Austrian rule. Had Albania been given a 
definite territory, a still further sorting-out would have 
taken place. The present tendency to recognise only 
a strip of mountain-land along the coast as truly 
Albanian can but lead to disaster ; a people so indi- 
vidual and so full of vitality must have suflScient fat 
plain-land to make a living on. If they are not given 
it they will take it. This is one of the things that lie 
at the root of the present diflSculties. As long as 
Albania remains vague and frontierless under so-called 
Turkish government, so long will it be in a state 
which is practically anarchy, and improvement in the 
Balkan situation will be almost impossible. 

At present the Albanians regard, and with justice, 



THE STOKY OF THE PEOPLE 57 

the Slav peasant as a tool in the hands of an external 
power which is working for the destruction of Albanian 
rights. Were these rights defined and recognised, 
much of this enmity would disappear with the necessity 
of struggling for them. * The Slavs/ says an Albanian 
paper, * are a brave people ; they may have all sorts 
of other good qualities too. That is not the question. 
Our hatred does not extend to individuals, nor even to 
national groups, but to that spirit of aggression, of 
religious fanaticism and low political swindling, known 
under the name of Pan-Slavism/ 

That there is much truth in this statement I believe 
to be a fact, for I have on several occasions seen gangs 
of Slav workmen in the heart of Albania — men who 
had voluntarily come on building jobs from districts 
much fiirther East, and who were working hard and 
cheerfully among Albanian fellow- workmen. 

It is in the no man's land that the acts of aggression 
take place. As things at present stand we have a 
free Servia, a free Bulgaria, a free Greece, a but half 
ruled and wholly disaffected Albania with no Eastern 
frontier, and a no man's land of mixed population, 
which each race hopes ultimately to possess, and over 
which the Porte has yearly less and less control. The 
Turk's death is now considered so imminent that the 
chief concern of each race is how to keep him alive 
until it has made its own claim clear to Europe. 

* My grandfather,' said a man to me, ' did not have 
my father taught Turkish. He said that by the time 
he was grown up Turkish rule would be a thing of the 
past ; but the sick man is really dying now.' 

' He has been a long time about it,' I said. 

' Ah ! but it is phthisis that he suffers from. Some- 
times they live a surprising time. Every now and 
then, as with this sick man, there is a great hsemor- 



68 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

rhage, even very great. Then all say he is dying, but 
he recovers. But one thing you must always remember 
with such cases : the disease may be arrested a little 
while, but they never recover ; each time they are a 
little weaker. So it is with the sick man. We live 
and hope.' 

Russia's plan for a Kusso-Bulgarian State was baffled, 
but Russia continued to work in the same direction 
with the perseverance that wrings admiration even 
from her enemies. She found, however, unexpected 
difficulties. Bulgaria, having been set free, recognised 
by Europe, and provided with a German Prince, 
wished to be independent. National salvation was 
worked for by Stambulov, the most remarkable man 
Bulgaria has produced. He toiled not only to thwart 
Russian influence, but to construct the great Bulgaria 
as sketched by the Treaty of San Stefano. To this end 
he spent much time in Macedonia. * Macedonia,' be 
it observed, is a conveniently elastic term, which is 
made to include all the territory anyone wishes to 
annex. It is a loose, and therefore misleading term. 
I have even met people who believe there is a special 
race which they call * Macedonian,' whose * cause ' 
they wish to aid. The truth is, that in a district 
which has no official frontiers, and never has had any 
stable ones, there are people of six races, who, as we 
have seen, all have causes to be considered. 

I shall not attempt to give statistics here or else- 
where ; they and the ethnographical maps are all 
compiled for party politics. I have examined a number. 
None correspond. I do not believe in any of them. 
Even could a census be taken by that impossible being, 
a quite impartial outsider, who possessed an intimate 
knowledge of all the dialects and customs of the 
different races, a certain proportion of the people 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 59 

would ' belong to other nations ' before he could get 
it printed. The best example of this Balkan peculiarity 
which I have met was a man who told me that he was 
a Greek, but he was bom in Bulgaria, his father was 
a Servian, and his children Montenegrins. 

Local types differ much, and the remarks that apply 
to one district do not fit another. I shall speak only 
of the parts I have stayed in — ^the districts of Lakes 
Ochrida and Presba. Here there are Greeks, Slavs, 
Albanians, and Ylahs. Of Turks, except officials and 
such of the army as may be quartered on the spot, 
there are few. The Albanians, I believe, are all 
Moslem. Should there be any Christians they would 
be officially classed as Greeks. A large part of the 
land near Lake Presba is owned by Moslem Albanians 
as * chiftliks ' (farms). These are worked by peasants, 
and the profits are supposed to be halved between the 
owners and the workers. It is hardly necessary to 
say that this is not enforced by law. I was often 
told that all the taxes came out of the peasants' half. 
Nevertheless, so long as the landlord stayed away, they 
said they got along pretty well. The 'chiftlik' peasants 
did not suffer during the insurrection in the same way 
as did the peasant proprietors, for their houses, being 
the property of the landlord, were not burnt. One 
third of the villages I visited were mixed Christian 
and Moslem. Some of the Moslems, I was told, are 
Slavs, but this I had no time to investigate. The 
Christian peasantry is mainly Slavonic, but presents 
very different types in different villages, caused by the 
greater or less admixture of Greek, Bulgar, or Albanian 
blood. 

The bulk of these peasants speak a Slav dialect, 
which is not the Servian of Belgrade or Montenegro. 
Neither is it, I am told by the people themselves, the 



60 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Bulgarian of Sofia. It contains, as is only natural, a 
large number of Turkish, Greek, and Albanian words, 
and has some granmoiatical peculiarities. The third 
person singular of the present indicative ends always 
in a * t ' {e.g., * kazat ' — ' he says '), a form which does 
not belong to either literary Servian or Bulgarian, 
but is used by illiterate Serbs in Servia ; and the 
definite article placed after the noun — a characteristic 
of Bulgarian, and also of Bioumanian and Albanian — 
is by no means generally employed. The noun is often 
inflected as in Servian, but, on the other hand, the 
adjective is compared not by inflection, as in Servian, 
but by prefixing * more ' and * very,* as in Bulgarian 
and Albanian. Many genuine Serb words are used 
with distorted meanings, and the endings of proper 
names are often clipped off* {e.g.y * Danil,* not * Danilo '). 

Some words are forms used in Bulgaria and not 
Servia. 

The truth is that the dialect of the Macedonian 
Slav is neither Servian nor Bulgarian, but * betwixt 
and between,* as he is himself, but I doubt if the 
dialect of Ochrida differs more from literary Servian 
than does broad ' Zummerzet ' from literary English. 
Much that was incomprehensible at first I found later 
to be not so much a difference of word as of accent 
and pronunciation. 

Writing of his travels in 1673, Dr. Brown says, 
' Schlavonian is spoken in Servia, Bulgaria, and a 
great part of Macedonia,' which seems to point to the 
fact that, until they were crystallized into literary 
foriii later, Servian and Bulgarian were not markedly 
differentiated into two tongues. 

Standard Bulgarian has, in fact, only been evolved 
in the last twenty-five years. Previous to that time 
the language seems to have been as inchoate as 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 61 

is now Albanian. The author of *The Peoples of 
Turkey,' writing in 1878, says: *The difference 
between the written and spoken language is so great 
that the former can scarcely be understood by the 
bulk of the population. No less than seven grammars 
are in existence, but they agree neither in general 
principles nor in details. Some impose the rules of 
modem Servian or Russian on the language. Others 
attempt to reduce to rule the vernacular, which is 
variable, vague, and imperfect.' 

So much for the language. These Slav-speaking 
peasants in the districts I visited are the lowest and 
least intelligent of all the folk I know in the Balkan 
Peninsula or elsewhere. They are truly pitiable 
examples of the human race. Less capable than the 
other peoples, they have fallen undermost of all in 
the struggle for existence, though in many districts 
they are numerically superior. Some attribute their 
degraded condition entirely to oppression. This I 
believe to be only partially true. They have probably 
suffered the most because they are the unfittest. 
Were it not for the fat lands that they inhabit, it is 
doubt&l whether the other nations would hasten to 
claim kindred with them. The honest, intelligent, 
and capable with whom I had to do in that no man's 
land were all either Greek, Albanian, or Vlah. Of 
the Albanians and Greeks who worked for us I must 
speak very highly. 

It is this mass of ignorant, low-typed population 
that politicians struggle to manipulate, and from them 
that the Russo-Bulgarian State was to have been 
largely wrought. An enormous amount of money 
has been spent on making them into Bulgarians. A 
similar sum otherwise applied could have just as easily 
made them into Servians. To begin with, they had 



62 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

no * patria/ and the propagandists failed to move them. 
Even Stambulov, with his fiery patriotism and genius 
for organization, was baflBled. *He grew to dislike 
the Macedonians/ Beaman tells us in his life of 
Stambulov, ' on account of their treachery and want 
of any real sense of patriotism and honour, never 
feeling sure when he lay down at night whether he 
would rise again next morning, and being aware that 
almost any Macedonian, if he found the chance, would 
murder him to secure the reward on his head. This 
life could not last long, and though in after-years 
Stambulov worked hard for Macedonia, he always 
retained a strong antipathy and contempt for the 
people of whom he had had so unpleasant an experi- 
ence.' His estimate of them proved but too just. His 
strenuous and ceaseless efforts to set Bulgaria free 
from Russian influence led to his brutal murder in 
the streets of Sofia, and the hired assassins were 
Macedonians. One of them, a Besna man, has been 
lately executed. The others are still at large, I 
believe, and are said to have been employed also in 
the murders of Stambulov s friends, Beltchev and 
Vulkovich. 

After Stambulov s death Bussia regained some of 
her lost influence. Prince Ferdinand had his son and 
heir baptized into the Orthodox Church ; Bussia 
smiled once again upon the land ; and on the twenty- 
fifth anniversary of the taking of the Shipka Pass 
Bussia and Bulgaria, who for some time had not been 
on visiting terms, celebrated a sort of family party. 
To-day Bussian influence is at work in Macedonia, and 
Bussia, it would appear, still looks to the peasantry 
there to help extend her power. The newly-made 
Bulgars there will do anything for money, and Bussia 
gives it with no mean hand. They are, as Stambulov 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 63 

found them, very untrustworthy, and in this respect 
compare most unfavourably with my previous experi- 
ence of Serbs and Montenegrins. The depressing 
part of them is that the so-called ' intelligence/ the 
more or less educated, are the worst of all. If in 
trade, their only idea was to make money out of the 
results of the insurrection. Far from showing any 
desire to help the wretched refugees, the provision 
dealer and pharmacy man not only presented us with 
most extortionate bills which had to be beaten down 
weekly, but the former strove, by sending bad stuff 
and ^ort measure, to cheat the wretched sick and 
wounded of his own race. None ever gave me any use- 
ftd suggestions when I consulted them about the work, 
but many were anxious to hire out saddles and such- 
like. I thought that out of all the lot we had hit on 
one honest man, and then learnt he was stopping 
our flour ration from some wretched burnt-out peasants 
who owed him money. The ' Bulgar ' of this district 
is, I fear, the sow's ear from which no silk purses are 
made. 

I trust that Bulgaria will not succeed in making 
him a reason for obtaining the land he inhabits. 

As an act of treachery the capture, a couple of 
years ago, of Miss Stone, the American missionary, a 
lady who had spent a large part of her life and her 
money helping the Bulgarian cause, cannot easily be 
surpassed. It was a political job, engineered, not by 
peasants, but by men of education, for the purpose of 
nosing money with which to buy rifles for the insur- 
rection; and the terrors and hardships to which the 
unfortunate woman, who had trusted them, was sub- 
jected I found regarded by them only as a great joke. 
* What do we want with her Protestantism ? Now, 
she has really been of use to us, and she ought to be 



64 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

pleased !' Moreover, those who had had the brilliant 
idea of capturing her were envied by the others, who 
pursued the victorious band in hopes of retaking her 
and securing the coveted ransom themselves. One of 
her captors is by profession a barber at Ochrida, a 
heavy, stolid - looking man, who cut my hair very 
crooked. His tale was that he had had orders to go 
with some others and take a European lady to a 
house. They meant to keep her there and give her 
nice things to eat, but they were hunted by the others, 
and were afraid of the gendarmes, and so had to rush 
her about. He came down to a village one day to 
buy bread, for they were hard up for food, and was 
caught by the Turkish police and imprisoned. He 
thought himself very badly used, for all the others 
had got off scot-free. 

Ostensibly, the engineers of little affairs of this 
sort are working to free the people from Turkish rule ; 
actually, they are the chief obstacles to the improve- 
ment of the state of things. They direct the attacks 
of their bands not only against the Greeks, but 
against the Serbs, and by exciting new quarrels 
and fostering old ones among the Christians, they 
strengthen the hand of the Turk. They claim every- 
thing, and do not recognise that any other race has 
rights. As for their system of provoking massacres 
for the purpose of persuading Europe that the land 
should all be Bulgarian, it cannot be too strongly 
condemned. The fact that Greek, Serb and Vlah 
stood aloof and gave no support to the last revolution 
is in itself sufficient to prove that they were well 
aware of its true character. 

Fortunately there is a brighter side even to the 
blackest things. The great difficulty in dealing with 
the problems in the disputed lands is the fact that 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 66 

I the various races are so entwined and entangled. 
I Anything that tends to sort them out will help in the 
' end. The late rising, disastrous as it has been in 
many ways, appears to be working in this direction. 
There is room enough and to spare for everyone in the 
Balkan Peninsula. It could carry double the popula- 
tion. The trouble is that everyone wants the whole ; 
and so long as there is land with a mixed population 
it will be struggled for. Unless the Peninsula is going 
to be divided by Austria and Russia (which may 
Heaven forefend !), the territories for each race will 
have to be delimited at no very distant date. Every 
time a frontier has been drawn a large emigration and 
immigration has taken place, and there will have to be 
yet more before the present diflSculties are settled. 
Bulgaria has lost much population by emigration of 
Moslems. It is earnestly to be hoped that a large 
number of the refiigees who fled into Bulgaria will not 
return, but will remain and aid the slow process of 
sorting out that seems to be gradually taking place. 
It will cost no more to settle them there than to trans- 
port them back and rebuild their houses, and it will 
tend in the long-run towards peace. The re-settling 
of Slav peasants in markedly Albanian districts is, for 
example, strongly to be deprecated. The Albanians 
as well as the Bulgars must have land to live on 
There is, I am aware, a pohtical paxty in Bulgaria 
which wishes to resettle every peasant in the spot 
from whence he came, but this is more from a desire 
to establish a claim on the land than for the sake of 
the villagers. And in spite of this it seems to me 
that there is a tendency for these people to migrate. 

For instance, up to the year 1870 travellers com- 
ment on the flourishing condition of the Christian 
quarter of Ochrida, which they contrast with the 



66 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Moslem one, greatly to the latter's disadvantage. 
Ochrida then carried on a large trade in furs and 
hides with Leipzig, Vienna, and Trieste. In thirty 
years it almost doubled its population. Its trade 
route was mainly by way of Durazzo and the Adri- 
atic. With the appointment of the Bulgarian Exarch 
in 1870 came the Bulgarian propaganda throughout 
this district. The Christian population, which till 
then had been united, and called itself Greek, was 
torn in twain and thereby weakened. The money 
and energy of the people was used up on party 
quarrels and political plots. Now the trade is prac- 
tically dead the Christian quarter is full of empty and 
ruined houses, is squalid and poorer than the Moslem 
Albanian one. The Christian population has largely 
emigrated, and, from what I heard when there, I 
gathered that only the inability to sell their houses 
tied many to the spot. 

In Turkey you cannot travel without permission, 
and this is not given to a householder unless a resident 
in the town will guarantee all the taxes due on a house 
during the owner s absence. But a good deal of ' flit- 
ting by night' takes place nevertheless. I assisted 
one poor wretch to get away. I thought at first 
f taking him along with me through Albania, and 
shipping him off on the Adriatic, but was afraid he 
would be turned back by the police, as he had been 
refused a permit. We decided that Servia was the 
better route. He got successfiilly across the frontier, 
and wrote me a pathetically grateful letter from 
Belgrade. He had never before known, he said, what 
it was to be, in a free and civilized land. There 
are people in England who believe that Servia is a 
wild and dangerous place. They are those who do not 
understand what it is to be a subject of the Sultan. 



CHAPTER IV 

It is a terrible thing to live in a land which is in 
a state of anarchy, for * anarchy ' means that the 
wicked rule — a land where officials buy their posi- 
tions and make what they can on them ; where the 
salaries of minor employes exist mainly on paper, 
and they pay themselves by extorting money from 
those beneath them ; a land where there is no law, 
order, or justice. Law, like salaries, exists mainly on 
paper. Whether it is enforced depends entirely upon 
who has broken it. Every man, if he is strong enough, 
can be his own policeman. 

I once had a curious example of this. Native 
Christians are, with very few exceptions, forbidden 
to carry arms, but the Turkish ' Government * kindly 
permits — nay, encourages — foreign Christians to hire 
armed Moslems to protect them from the possible 
consequences of its own inability to govern, and there 
is no difficulty in finding a stalwart Moslem who is 
happy to do nothing, in a cartridge-belt, at your door. 
They are always ornamental, but I am glad to say 
I have never had occasion to test their powers. I had 
such a man in my employ, when my interpreter came 
in one morning with an anxious face. Being a 
Christian subject of the Sultan, he had naturally 
inherited a tendency always to expect the worst. 

* I think I had better tell you,' he said, * that some- 
thing a little unpleasant has happened last night.' 

67 5—2 



68 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

As I was on Turkish territory this did not surprise 
me, but, though I 'had been there before,* I was 
unprepared for the sequel. 

' Djaffir,* he went on, ' has been having a trouble 
with a Turkish soldier. It was like this : Djaffir went 
home to see his wife last night just after sunset, and 
he found her in a very bad fright. She said that a 
soldier had come in to rob the house, but she had 
screamed very loud, and he ran away ; but still, she 
was afraid, for she thought he was hiding somewhere 
near, and he would come back soon and steal things. 
Then Djaffir was very angry, for it is a great crime 
to go into a Moslem house when there is only a woman 
in it. He went to search, and there he found the 
soldier hiding in the stable.' 

I expressed surprise that the soldier should have 
been so foolish as to enter a Moslem house when there 
were plenty of Christian ones which he could have 
doubtless burgled with impunity. 

* Ah, but you see, that soldier, he was drunk ! Of 
course he must have meant to go to a Christian house, 
but most likely he was too drunk to know where he 
had gone. So Djaffir seized him, for he was too drunk 
to defend himself, and beat him and beat him till he 
was quite tired. Then he just threw him out in the 
street in the dark and came back here. This morning 
he told me.' 

This was a pretty beginning. Djaffir was a stolid, 
tough-looking individual, with a singularly inexpres- 
sive countenance. He was usually a very unemotional 
being, but this morning he was the picture of self- 
satisfaction. 

' Would it not have been possible to have handed 
the soldier over to justice V 

Quite possible, but he preferred infficting the punish- 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 69 

meat himself. We suggested that the punishment had 
been excessive ; and he admitted that when he had 
once begun he forgot everything, and went on hitting 
the man till he could not hit him any more. Then he 
had thrown him into the street, so covered with blood 
'that no one would have known him/ He did not 
stay to see if he were alive, but just came home and 
went to sleep, for it had made him very tired. Thus 
Djaffir, cheerfully. 

The night patrol picked up the poor wretch and 
took him to the military hospital. I had visions of 
arrests and trials, law-courts and other unpleasant- 
nesses, complicated by unknown tongues and inter- 
preters, and did not feel particularly happy. Djaffir, 
however, explained that we need be under no fear, 
* for I hit him very hard on the head, and he cannot 
speak.' This circumstance gave general satisfaction, 
and we returned to our usual occupations. 

Two days afterwards my interpreter appeared with 
a long face. 

* You know that soldier ? Well, to-day it is very 
bad. He has come f o his senses, and he has given 
Djaffir's name. Now, Djaffir has been sent for and 
questioned, and he has sworn : " How can I have 
beaten a soldier when I was with the English * madama ' 
aU the time ?" This is very bad. Now we shall be 
asked if it is true. I do not wish to tell a lie if I am 
asked, but if I tell the truth Djaffir will, perhaps, be 
punished, and then afterwards he will be revenged on 
me, and perhaps also on my people. What shall 
we do V 

The situation was indeed an awkward one for him. 

* We have not been asked yet,' said I. * We will 
wait and see.' 

So we waited, Djaffir, who was well aware that he 



70 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

held all the trump cards, remained calm, and another 
day passed. Then both men became quite cheerful. 

* You know about DjaflEir's soldier ? Well, it is all 
right now. He is dead !' 

* All right r said I, amazed, for it seemed to me to 
be rapidly getting worse. * Surely now some sort of 
an inquiry will be made V 

' Oh no. You see, it is like this : this soldier, he was 
not a man from these parts. If he had been one of 
the Albanian regiment it would be diflferent ; but he 
came from a long way — from Asia or somewhere. 
Here he has no friends to ask questions or avenge 
him. His people will, never hear when or how he 
died. But DjaflBr has many friends ; they would not 
like anything to be done to him. Besides, a great 
many Turkish soldiers die every year ; one more or less 
makes no difference. The man is dead. What use to 
make a fuss V 

There was much force in his argument. After all, 
most things in this world are ruled by expediency. 
Life is as cheap to-day in the Near East as it was 
anywhere else in the Middle Ages. 

Europe, it is true, was somewhat agitated about 
Christians, but cared very little what Moslem did to 
Moslem. 

So the unknown soldier went to his unknown grave. 
Had he been a Christian, his death would have been an 
* atrocity ' with which to swell consular reports ; but he 
was a mere Moslem, and * what use to make a fuss V 

Neither was Dja£&r the savage that you imagine. 
He was a very honest man, and could be trusted with 
large sums of money. The assault, brutal as it was, 
was in defence of his wife's honour. He was very fond 
of his child, and was much distressed when it met with 
a slight accident. He tried to be friendly according 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 71 

to his lights, and gave me unpleasantly sticky little 
cakes upon Moslem feast-days. Had he been brought 
up in a land where the Government can be trusted to 
attend to the police department, I do not suppose he 
would have been more murderous than other people. 
As it was, his training made him set a high value on 
the power to take life. I fired at a pigeon one day when 
with him, and, to my disgust, missed it ; but the shot 
raised dust from the ledge where it had been perched. 

* Quite near enough,' said DjaflBr. ' If it had been a 
man you had shot at, he would be dead.' 

The Turkish * Government s ' extraordinary inability 
to maintain law and order in the districts which are 
painted Turkish on the maps is the thing that has 
struck me the most forcibly in my wanderings ; nor is 
there anything odder than the calmness with which it 
admits the fact. The Government does not hold itself 
in any way responsible for outrages on travellers who 
are without a Government escort. To this day it has 
never punished the gang that took Miss Stone. I have 
met with plenty of instances of this. The following, 
which I will call the story of Marko, is the more 
striking, because it has nothing to do with revolutionary 
schemes or politics. It is merely an episode of ordinary 
village life. 

It was a village in the South of Albania. In the 
town but a few miles away was a Turkish Governor 
and the usual staff of oflBcials, who write for dear life 
all day and stow the papers in bags. It was a well- 
to-do Christian village, very clean and tidy. The 
inhabitants are industrious, intelligent, and physically 
a very fine-looking set. I stayed several days, and 
was treated with great hospitality and courtesy at a 
number of houses, all of which were well built and 
comfortably fitted. 



72 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

'What did you think of Marko?' I was asked by 
my host as we were riding away. I had some diflSculty 
in disentangling Marko from the many to whom I had 
been introduced. Nor did I ever, to my regret, succeed 
in calling up a mental picture of his wife when I had 
heard the tale of her courage and devotion. She had 
been married to Marko some ten years ago. They 
were very fond of one another. He had land, they 
were comfortably off, and all went well. Soon, to their 
great joy, a child was bom to them. Then the Devil 
came into Paradise in the shape of Mrs. Marko's cousin. 
He was a very bad man — a drinker, a gambler, and a 
doer of the things he should have left undone. He 
was also clever and amusing. In a short time he gained 
a very strong influence over Marko, and led him quite 
astray. Marko left his land unworked, and dissipated 
his savings. In one year he spent no less than £50 (a 
huge sum in such a place) on his pleasures. His wife 
became anxious and deeply distressed, and could not 
separate him from her cousin, who was a demoralizing 
influence to all the village. Then the child fell very 
ill. Marko's wife prayed him to fetch a doctor, but 
the nearest one lived in a distant town, and Marko 
told her angrily that he would not waste his money 
upon it. The child died. This was more than Marko's 
wife could bear. She saw that she must save her 
husband from her cousin. There was only one way to 
save him : she killed her cousin. 

I think I reined up my horse with astonishment. 

*Yes, she killed him. Naturally, she did not kill 
him herself : she paid a Moslem to do it. It is very easy.' 

* And how much does one have to pay for such a 
thing V I asked. 

'For about forty piastres (six-and-eightpence !) it 
can be done.' 



THE STORY/OF THE PEOPLE 78 

* But what happened ?j 

* Nothing. What should happen ? He was dead.' 

* But did the village know how he died V 

* But certainly. They were glad. He was a very 
bad man. He taught wicked things to the boys. 
He was a very dangerous person.' 

' You said Nikola was very fond of him. Does he 
know what his wife has done V 

* Of course. How should he not know ? It is true 
that he was rather angry with \her at first, but he 
soon saw it was all for the best,^and now they are 
very fond of each other again, and quite happy, as 
you have seen. You see, she saved him from a great 
danger, and it was the only way. But God has never 
given them another child.' 

I explained to my companion that in England there 
would have been no difficulty probably in getting Marko 
punished for gambling in public, for being drunk and 
disorderly, or, from the details he gave, for obtaining 
money under false pretences. 

* Ah, if we had a government like that T he said. 
* But here, even if there were such laws, what would 
be the use to go to a Turkish law-court ? The cousin 
had money ! He could have paid someone, and have 
escaped.' 

To those who have never lived in Turkey this tale 
may seem incredible. My own experience leads me. 
to believe that it is not only true, but not at all 
exceptional. 

This is a tale from the Christain point of view, but 
from the Sultan's own men I have heard singular 
reflections on the state of the country, not merely 
frt>m gendarmes or common peasants, but from men 
in official positions, who all professed Mohammedanism. 
One discoursed to me a long while before he came to 



74 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

the point. I wondered what he was staying for. 
Finally he got up to say good-bye. 

' You have travelled much/ he said. * I believe you 
have come as a firiend to the people. You have seen 
the state of the country under this Government. You 
will understand that in my position it is impossible 
for me to speak more plainly. What I came to say 
is this : If you will report truly all you have seen 
and heard to the English people, you may do a great 
service to a most unhappy land.' 

And he retired in a hurry. The belief in the power 
of a casual stranger to remedy the state of aflFairs is 
extraordinary and rather pathetic. 

Another man — and he, too, was a Moslem official 
— spoke out to an extent that astonished me. 

* This unhappy land,' he said, * is given over to the 
DeviL You see his work everywhere. The Moslems 
are breaking the commandments of the Prophet, and 
the wrath of God is upon them. They are drunken ; 
they kill one another as well as Christians. In your 
Empire there are more Moslem subjects than there are 
under the rule of the Sultan, but with you they are 
good subjects, and practise their religion properly, and 
live in peace with others. Here there is no law, no 
peace. You cannot imagine how ignorant our Moslem 
peasants are. They are taught nothing. It happens 
that they attack a Christian. I speak to them like 
this: 

* '* If a man struck your fez off in the street, what 
would you do ?" 

* " I would shoot him dead." 

* «< Why did you strike this man ? He did nothing 
to you." 

' " I struck him because he is a * kaur ' " (unbeliever).' 

* " Why do you strike a ' kaur ' ?" 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 75 

' " Because I wish to kill all ' kaurs \" 

• ** Do you wish the land to be all Moslem V 
'•^^Ofcourseldo." 

* Then I say to him : " Do you not imderstand that 
what you do is contrary to the will of God ? Do you 
think you are more powerful than He ? If every 
Christian were kiUed the land would be almost with- 
out people. Who are you, that you think you 
can arrange the world?" Then I give him a large 
handful of clay and say : " Take that and make 
it into a Moslem — make it into a Moslem, I say, at 
once !" He is astonished, and says he cannot do it. 
And I say to him : " The Lord created all the peoples 
of the world thus with clay by a miracle, and you, you 
cannot make of it even one Moslem, yet you would 
destroy the Lord's work I" Then he is ashamed. It 
is thus that one must speak to such men. The clay 
and the words — that they understand. This land is 
full of bad men and evil. In Egypt there is peace. 
It is my belief that one day this land, too, will be under 
Christian rule, and it' will be better so.' 

On another occasion I was told : * I have been among 
the Arabs and the black people in Africa, but I tell to 
you that here in Europe, in this country, there are 
people more wild, more ignorant, less cared for than 
any in Africa. The Government has not done well by 
this miserable land.' 

So much for law and order. The gendarmerie, 
whose business it is to maintain it, have recently leapt 
from obscurity to frequent notice in the ' Latest In- 
telligence' column. A few notes about them as I 
found them before the advent of foreign officers may 
be of interest. 

There are two classes — the mounted police (suvarris) 
and the ordinary police (zaptiehs). Until lately, 



76 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

except in certain Albanian districts, only Moslems 
have been eligible as gendarmes. Now Christians are 
enlisted in all districts. Both classes are armed with 
Peabody-Martini rifles of American pattern, which they 
call ' Martinas ' and cherish dearly, and usually carry 
a sheath-knife and a revolver as well. The zaptieh 
is supposed to receive ten shillings a month, which is 
always in arrears, his rifle, ammunition, and uniform. 
The suvarri has to provide his own horse, but is sup- 
plied with arms and uniform. His pay is £30 a year, 
and out of this he has to keep his horse. This is con- 
sidered the best paid of all the lower services, and 
imtil lately was fairly regularly paid, and rarely more 
than two months in arrears. But owing to the ex- 
penses of the Bulgarian insurrection, which have fallen 
very heavily on the other peoples, none of the Moslems 
who served me had been paid for five or seven months. 
They used to give their names and that of their oflficer 
and regiment, and pray me to ask the British Consul 
to help them. 

The newly-enlisted Christians were in better case, 
as they had received a month's pay and their uniforms 
were new. In barracks these men are fed, but when, 
as is constantly happening, they are sent to patrol 
outlying districts, or on messages, they have to cater 
for themselves. Penniless, heavily armed and quite 
irresponsible, the fact that they do not loot the whole 
country is greatly to their credit. That they take the 
food they require if not given to them is not surprising. 
Our own police, if thus let loose, would not be immacu- 
late. One youth admitted to me quite frankly that 
he had appropriated the white woollen gaiters he was 
wearing, but his uniform was long overdue, and his 
trousers were all in rags. He was, in fact, barely 
decent. Another man I had, was reduced to wearing 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 77 

his great-coat in order to be presentable. The very 
evident poverty of many of them was fair proof that 
their levying of forced contributions on the villages 
was usually limited to the bare necessities of life. 
During the insurrection those in the insurgent districts 
had, of course, looted, and no wonder. 

Out of the very many I had to do with I met with 
but one surly one. He, a Moslem Albanian, strongly 
disapproved of me, and said so with engaging frank- 
ness. He hated all the English, and knew all about 
them, for he had lived ten years in Egypt. Had it 
not been for the English interference Mehemet Ali 
would have ruled all the Turkish Empire, and all would 
now be Albanian. He feared now that England would 
rob them of Macedonia. I was surprised at his know- 
ledge of history. He was very bitter. Everything 
was spoilt in Egypt, he said ; disgusting English cus- 
toms introduced. But even there it was better than 
where he was now in Macedonia, which was a beastly 
place. According to my interpreter, he used naughty 
language. The situation was a humorous one, for we 
were in a wild and lonesome spot near Lake Presba, 
and he, who hated my nation, was my only oflScial 
protector. He refused all my overtures of friendship 
the first day — was a Moslem, didn't eat with Christ- 
ians, sulked and drank cold water. The second day, 
however, he unbent, accepted my invitation to dinner, 
was festive, and consumed 'rakija' freely. On my 
wondering what the time was, he dragged from his 
tunic a handsome gold watch. His sharp eyes caught 
my glance at it at once. He dangled it carelessly, and 
announced with great efl&t)ntery that a wealthy 
Englishman had given it him as backshish ! He had, I 
fancy, done very well for himself in Macedonia. 

Nor is it only the villager who loses because the 



78 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

gendarme is unpaid : the Government also loses. One 
handsome young dare-devil, who served me very well 
and rode a very beautiful little horse which he loved 
dearly, explained that he did not depend on his pay 
for a living — that merely served to fatten his horse. 
He ran contraband tobacco and did very well. Before 
he had the brilliant idea of enlisting, he had led 
an exciting and very adventurous life, as he had to 
dodge the gendarmerie as well as the local brigands. 
As we filed through a thick wood he was much excited. 
Here, a few years back, he had fought hard for his life. 
With eight friends and a kirijee he was escort- 
ing two pack -mules, loaded with tobacco, to the 
coast, where, under cover of night, he meant to ship 
it on a fishing-boat. Some other fellows got wind 
of the enterprise : * As we came round the comer here, 
piff-paff a bullet fi:om behind that tree. The kirijee 
was hit ; he ran all along the path and dropped just 
over there. We got the mules under cover. We 
fought for two hours. My God, I did not think we 
should get through ! I wasn't hit, but one of my 
friends was, badly. We hit a lot of the others; I 
don't know how many. We dodged about behind 
the trees on either side the path, firing at each 
other. At last they gave up and let us through.' 
He burst into a merry laugh. * It makes me sweat 
to ride along here now. I didn't think then I should 
be here again. We picked up the kirijee. He was 
quite dead, so we buried him. There is his grave.' 
He pointed to a long heap of stones by the path-side. 
* We sold the tobacco very well, but he did not get 
much good out of it.' 

This little aifair was rather more than he cared 
about, so he enlisted, and, under cover of his uniform, 
found smuggling lucrative and comparatively safe. 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 79 

The gendarmerie may be reformed before this is 
printed, and when next I meet it may be as dull and 
respectable as our own police ; but that reckless young 
swashbuckler, courteous and dashing, with a rose stuck 
over one ear, upon whom crime sat so lightly, who 
enjoyed his life, bubbled with mirth, sang songs, and 
lavished caresses on his little chestnut horse, showed 
me the live Middle Ages. 

With one exception, all my men were Albanians. 
Of their patience, kindness, and endurance, I cannot 
speak too highly. They are not all the brutes some have 
represented them ; they are the stuff of which fine 
armies are made, and only require to be properly 
officered and led. Their faults are those of their 
training and surroundings. Their virtues are all 
their own. 

The moral of everything is that it is not the Christ- 
ians alone that would be the better for a change of 
Government. I have wandered many miles in these 
lands, I have come in contact with all the various 
races, and I have failed to see or hear of any benefit 
which Turkish rule has conferred upon any one of 
them. It has, on the contrary, often emphasized and 
brought out their worst qualities. Its promises of 
reform have never been carried out. In the nature of 
things it is unable to carry them out, for it has never 
been a living, growing organism. It was a machine 
constructed in the Dark Ages, and is now a worn-out 
mediaeval affair — a museum specimen that cannot be 
adapted to the needs of to-day. If left to itself it 
wiU, in the natural order of events, fall to pieces. 
Nothing can be hoped for from it ; nor can anything 
much be expected of the reform scheme. It set at 
liberty most of the imprisoned revolutionaries, and has 
failed to grapple with the results, and the Macedonian 



80 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Committee has been very inadequately muzzled. The 
plan for the reorganization of the gendarmerie, if 
honestly worked, is the most reasonable scheme yet 
propounded ; but the Sultan whittled most of it away 
to begin with, and, if only half of rumour be true, the 
Powers most interested are using what is left of it 
to work their own propaganda. Bulgarian Bishops, 
under Russian protection, are still able to plan brigand 
bands to raid Serb and Greek villages, imder the noses 
of the reform oflBcers, and Greek and Serb organize 
rival bands to defend themselves. And while Austria 
subsidizes Albanian Beys in Kosovo Vilayet, Russian 
oflScers ride round Greek villages and swear they shall 
have no help unless they say they are Bulgar. So 
runs the tale. 

Theoretically, the plan to maintain order with a 
well-organized police force is admirable. I fear it has 
been started twenty-five years too late. 

As for the alternative plan, which is favoured by 
some, and greatly disliked by others of the Christian 
peoples whose interests are concerned — that of appoint- 
ing a Christian European Governor to a State to be 
arbitrarily mapped out and called Macedonia — it might 
stave off for a time the partition of the territories that 
must ultimately take place, but as it would rest on no 
historical, geographical, or racial basis, it would do 
little more. For the crux of the whole matter is not 
Turk versus Christian any longer. The question now 
is, how much of the Turk s land shall be occupied* by 
Serb, Bulgar, Greek and Albanian respectively. I met 
no one on the spot who was in favour of this plan, 
except inasmuch as it would give him the chance of 
working out his own propaganda without risk of 
interference from the Sultan, and of * nobbling ' that 
Christian Governor, and making him understand the 



THE STORY OF THE PEOPLE 81 

' real truth/ And the little propaganda of the little 
Powers will continue to be worked by the big propa- 
ganda of the big Powers. 

The problems of Turkey in Europe are not confined 
to one spot, and to ' cultivate a cabbage-garden * in 
the middle of it with quite artificial boundaries is 
likely to create as many new difficulties as it cures old 
ones, and to still further subdivide the already much- 
divided peoples. 

Nationalities, like individuals, must save their own 
souls. It is little short of impertinence on the part of 
others to pose as Salvation Army to them. None of 
the Balkan people are so black as they have often been 
painted. They all possess many fine qualities which 
only require opportunity to develop, and their faults 
in most cases are but those of extreme youth. The 
atrocities which they will all commit upon occasion are 
a mere survival of mediaeval customs once common to 
aU Europe. 'Humanity' was not invented even in 
England till the beginning of the nineteenth century ; 
up till then punishments of the most brutal descrip- 
tion were inflicted for comparatively trivial offences. 
In dealing with the Balkan Peninsula, far too much 
*copy' has been made out of * atrocities* for party 
purposes, and the supply of them has been thereby 
stimulated Nor are they presented in proper per- 
spective. 

When a Moslem kills a Moslem it does not count ; 
when a Christian kills a Moslem it is a righteous act ; 
when a Christian kills a Christian it is an error of 
judgment better not talked about ; it is only when a 
Moslem kills a Christian that we arrive at a full-blown 
* atrocity.' 

When the circumstances under which the Balkan 
peoples have lived are considered, the wonder is not 

6 



82 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

that they are so behindhand, but that they are so 
advanced. 

Their friends hope for them liberty to develope each 
on their own natural lines. Those who blame the 
lands already freed, because in a few years they have 
not reached a pitch of civilization which it has taken 
the West five centuries to evolve, are unjust to them. 
And some of their worst enemies are the friends who 
wish to hurry them up. Their civilization, if it is to 
be firm and lasting, and suited to their own peculiar 
needs, must be a solid structure slowly built, and not 
a mere jerry-built affair hastily run up and smeared 
over with cheap Western varnish. 

To grow up, the Balkan people must pass through 
certain stages of development and do it for themselves. 
It is of no use to hurry on events. You cannot 
change a tadpole into a frog by snipping off its tail. 

The present difficulties are no mere struggle of 
Ottoman against Christian. They are the continua- 
tion of the struggles of pre-Turkish days for supremacy 
in the Balkans. When the Balkan people as a whole 
wish the Turk to go, go he will, and must. He 
survives only so long as he is useful to any one of 
them by preventing the others from expanding, and 
he knows it. 



PART II 

IN THE DEBATEABLE LANDS 

' Upon the Breaking and Shivering of a great State and Empire, 
you may be sure to have Warres. For great Empires, while they 
stand, doe enervate and destroy the Forces of the Natives which 
they have subdued . . . and when they faile also, all goes to 
Ruine and they become a Prey.** — Bacon. 



S3 6—2 



CHAPTER V 

EASTWARD HO ! 

From Vienna to Semlin I suffocated in a cruelly over- 
heated caniaga My companions, all yoimg Magyars, 
played cards and quarrelled at the top of their voices, 
and the corridor was crammed with sheepskin-clad 
peasants who had overflowed from the already packed 
third-class. They were said to he refugees from Turkish 
territories who had fled from the wrath to come, and 
were to he dumped in the Slav-speaking districts. 

One of the Magyars spoke to me in his native 
tongue, and was surprised that I did not know it. 
Another tried Grerman upon me, and translated for the 
benefit of the company. ' The Fraulein,' he asked, * is 
learning English V I had an English book in my hand. 
' I can read it very easily,' said I. They were astonished, 
for they had been told it was a very difficult language, 
and were still more so when I explained my nationality, 
which none of them had suspected. This has happened 
to me often before, but never without giving me a 
curious sense of having lost my identity, and I am 
always taken for something Slavonic. Now I was 
supposed to be a Croat : ' Naturally, for you look quite 
Croatian.' The Croat hates the Magyar, and the Ma- 
gyar despises the Croat, so this statement amused me 
vastly. 

They left shortly afterwards. The train rushed on 

85 



86 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

through the dark. There was a blast of cold air from 
the corridor, a loud yell and a scramble. One of the 
peasants, unused to railway travelling, tried to get out 
of the train, and was collared only just in time by a 
gentleman in the next compartment. 

Passports were inspected on the Hungarian frontier, 
and restored on leaving Semlin. I was already in the 
lands where everyone is ' suspect.' The train thun- 
dered over the iron bridge that joins the banks of the 
Save, and drew up in Belgrade. The soft Servian 
accent rang familiarly in my ears, West Europe faded 
away like a dream, and I plunged into the Near East 
and the whirlpool of international politics. 

It was the night of December 23, 1903. A great 
black funeral car was drawn up in the lamplit station ; 
black-robed ecclesiasts moved on the platforms; a 
mourning crowd hung about and candles twinkled. 
Firmilian, Bishop of Skoplje (Uskub) was dead, and 
his mortal remains were to be borne back for burial to 
the seat of that bishopric which Servia had regained 
after long years of struggle. Now, after less than two 
years' triumph, he was dead, and Servia lamented — 
not because he was beloved as an individual, but 
because he had represented a national principle and a 
political victory. So, as we whirled across Servia in 
his funeral train, my comrades spoke much of the 
dead, and used him as a text on which to preach Great 
Servia. They were all Serbs, young and aflame with 
patriotism. I found that my acquaintance with the 
clan Yassoievich was a passport, and the name of its 
leader one to conjure with. Talk all ran on unre- 
deemed Servia and King Peter, who is to realize the 
national ideal 'Now we have a King who is as 
good as yours,' they said, ' and Servia will have her 
own again.' And on the whole long track folk turned 



EASTWARD HO! 87 

out in crowds with priests, candles, and banners, and 
wailed faneral chants. This began at Nish, in the 
black before the dawn with never a star overhead. 
It went on all day at station after station ; we never 
forgot that Firmilian was dead, and that Old Servia 
had yet to be redeemed. This was rubbed into us 
hard on the firontier — at the best of times there is 
something uncanny about the Turkish frontier now — 
where we stayed for an hour and three quarters, and 
were searched for dynamite. There was no time even 
to offer backshish ; the whole of everybody's possessions 
were tipped out on to the dirty ground, and we waded 
knee-deep in one another's worldly goods, in which the 
officials sought for contraband with the minute industry 
of monkeys after fleas. Then followed pocket-searching, 
punching, poking, pommelling, astrict personal examina- 
tion from which I alone was exempt, and our passports 
were taken. 

We started again, more than an hom* late, in the 
land of the Turk — a land that was all agrin like a dog 
before a fight. Pickets of lean, ragged Nizams guarded 
all the line, and were thick by the bridges ; officers 
and men bristled in the stations and crowded the train. 
My companions lauded the skill which had twice 
enabled Boris Sarafov to run the gauntlet of military, 
passport officials, and gendarmes, and escape under the 
enemy's eyes ; and this is noteworthy, for it was the 
only word I ever heard in favour of Boris in the land 
where I had expected to find him a hero. 

And from every soldier-guarded station rose the 
harsh, penetrating Servian wail ; a black-robed crowd 
lamented Firmilian, and burned candles for his soul's 
salvation among the enemy's guns. With the highly- 
strung and imaginative Serbs, patriotism is almost a 
nervous disease, and the air was full of * electricity.' 



88 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

A gunshot rang out suddenly from beyond the railway 
bank, there was a rush of officers down the corridor, 
who tumbled over our legs in their hurry to get to a 
window. Everyone started visibly, and said, * It has 
begun !' But it had not. 

We reached Skoplje hours late, and as the authorities 
dared not run trains after dark, had to stay the night 
there. The funeral procession formed up, and, with 
a brave show of banners and candles and golden 
consular kavasses, the Serbs of Skoplje received their 
dead Bishop with the bitter knowledge that unless 
Bussia supported their claim this hard-won outpost 
might be lost to them. And they buried Firmilian 
on Christmas Day in the morning. 

The hotel was filled to overflowing, but I found 
quarters with a firiendly Austrian railway-man, and 
my kindly host and hostess were grieved for me alone 
in a strange land on Christmas Eve, and took me with 
them to a Christmas-tree party. It was a glorious 
tree, all glitter and twinkle, with a pink Christkind on 
the top. The children played at railway-trains on the 
floor, and their elders talked of the expected outbreak. 
They, as did my friends in the train, timed it for the 
end of March for certain. We thought neither of 
peace nor goodwill. A man who often drove the train 
to Mitrovitza vowed he would not do so much longer, 
and we drank to each other's long life in little glasses 
of cognac as if we really meant it. I had never been 
in a land in a state of war before, and felt as if I were 
acting charades. No one as yet, here or elsewhere, 
reckoned Japan as an all-important influence in the 
affairs of the Near East. 

* Things are quiet just now,' they said ; • you can take 
off your breeches when you go to bed. But some 
months ago, oh my God ! we were ready to fly to the 



EASTWARD HO! 89 

first consulate at a moment s notice. When the rising 
begins any where the Turks will massacre every Christ- 
ian they find, and make sure they never rise again in 
this world. And they will begin here/ 

Thus the foreign Christians, and they foretold I 
should return home by sea. 

At five next morning I slopped through mud ankle- 
deep, with a man and a lantern which only made the 
darkness blacker, tumbled up against a sleepy sentry, 
and scrambled up a slippery bank to the station, where 
a stout and good-natured Jew insisted on standing me 
a cup of salep. It is a treacly drink made of a species 
of orchis-root, and was, I believe, a popular drink in 
£ngland before the days of tea and coffee. Beyond 
being' wet and warm it had no attractions. 

Christmas Day dawned marvellously in a blaze of 
gold over purple mountains, but quickly faded into 
gray dulness. I spent it wedged between Turkish 
officers, for the ladies' coup^ said it was full, which was 
a lie, and hurt my feelings. So along a picketed line 
all down the Vardar River, with no friendly and 
amusing Gavros and Bogdans to talk to, and over the 
duU, dull plain till we reached Salonika uneventfully. 

* To-day,' remarked the hotel porter with the air of 
someone imparting information — * to-day is a feast-day 
of the Catholics !' 

Greece put in a claim but a few days later for the 
bishopric, Bulgaria eyed the spot enviously, but the 
precedent instituted was followed, and Skoplje's new 
Bishop is Serb. 



y 



CHAPTER VI 

ROUND ABOUT RESNA 

Travelling in the Neax East has been said by many 
to be difficult, dangerous, and, which is even more 
alarming to the Cook-reared tourist— uncomfortable. 
It may be so. I am not capable of judging. When I 
am there, the only difficulty is to tear myself loose 
from its enchantments and return Westwards. As for 
dangers or discomforts, they are all forgotten in the 
all-absorbing interest of its problems. Its raw, primi- 
tive ideas, which date from the world's well-springs, its 
passionate strivings, its disastrous failures, grip the 
mind ; its blaze of colour, its wildly magnificent 
scenery hold the eye. Crowded together on one small 
stage, five races, each with its own wild aspirations, 
its insistent individuality, its rightful claims and its 
lawless lusts, are locked together in a life and death 
struggle — a struggle that never ceases, though it is 
only now and then that it reaches such a bloody climax 
that it fills the front columns of the 'Latest Intelligence' 
sheet. No Boman Emperor ever planned a spectacle 
on half such a scale. 

Salonika lay blotted and smudgy in a gray drizzle, 
far too much accustomed to alarming rumours to worry 
about them till obliged. And I hastened up-country 
to the scene of the latest developments of the inter- 
national drama. 

90 



ROUND ABOUT RESNA 91 

In many ways the Macedonia of Philip has not 
progressed in any remarkable degree since bis time, 
but — for the Balkan Peninsula is a land of bizarre in- 
congruities and anachronisms — it is traversed by a 
railway, and I travelled in the 'dames seules' with 
two veiled Mohammedan women, who ignored my 
presence entirely, moved my bag to make room for 
eight bundles, a cupboard, a chiming clock, and some 
toys, and considered that my unveiledness put me so 
completely beyond the pale that, to my amusement, 
they invited a male relative to travel with thenL The 
train crawled slowly up among great snow-capped 
mountains and desolate stretches of bare rock with 
scrub, oak, and juniper. Philip's old capital, Edessa, 
stood somewhere near Yodena, which lies on the left 
of the line. Now, far from being the home of a con- 
quering people, the land lay drear and abject, every 
station crammed with troops, and the whole line 
picketed by wretched Tommies, standing forlornly by 
their sodden tents in a condition little less pitiable 
than that of the reftigees from the burnt villages, save 
that they were at liberty to loot food if any were 
handy. We skirted the beautiful lake of Ostrovo, and 
steamed into Monastir as night was falling. 

Monastir, called by the Slavs Bitolia, lies snugly 
against the hills on a big plain some thousand feet 
above sea-level. It bristles with slim, white minarets, 
and is boiling over with rival churches. Greek, Bulgar, 
Serb and Ylah build schools that are surprisingly fine 
and large, and the place reels with propaganda. For 
in a school in Turkish territory you do not merely 
learn the usual subjects : you are taught to which 
nationality you really belong, and each school is indeed 
a factory of * kanonen futter,' which may some day 
enable the government which supports it to obtain 



92 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

territory. That which is able to invest most money 
in the business will, in all probability, come out as 
winner in the end. To fiirther complicate the already 
tangled knot of religions, there is a Roman Catholic 
mission and a Protestant one, each ready to receive all 
comers. Most of the Powers have consulates here. 
The Russian and the Austrian, as representing the 
two parties most interested in future developments, 
naturally attract much attention. Russia, * the only 
Christian nation,' the beloved of the Slavs and the 
protector of the Bulgarian Church, is very heartily 
hated of the Albanian. Austria, by being aifable and 
obliging to everybody, doubtless hopes to include the 
lot in Austrian territory later, and is meanwhile a 
popular character with all except the Slavs. But I 
never met anybody who believed that either had the 
smallest desire the 'reform' scheme should succeed, 
except for their own private ends. 

The movements of all the Consuls, both great and 
small, are carefully watched ; all the town knows when 
they call on one another, and ponders the political 
import of their walks abroad, and each and all spend 
weary hours in a vain endeavour to get questions 
answered by Turkish officials, a labour as endless as 
that of the Danaides, especially in the case of the 
luckless representatives of countries that have no 
navy nor army worth mentioning. 

Monastir was perfectly quiet outwardly — that is to 
say, the surface of the lava was cool for the time 
being — and I walked about alone without any trouble. 
All trade was said to be at a standstill, and some folk 
were afraid to go outside the town to cultivate their 
fields, lest they should fall into the hands of Bulgarian 
bands. The streets were full of soldiers. Officers 
pervaded the billiard-rooms, baggage- waggons clattered 



ROUND ABOUT KESNA 98 

down the streets. Meanwhile the agents of the 
British Relief Fund had been busy for some time 
organizing depots from which to feed the starving 
peasantry, and on this work I went up-country so 
soon as the necessary preliminaries were arranged. 

Into the details of this work it is not necessary to 
enter. They have already become known to the 
public through the medium of the daily papers. I 
was attracted to it by the unrivalled opportunities it 
ofiered for exploring little-known districts, watching 
the working of Balkan events from within, and coming 
into close contact with the people themselves. 

Eesna was my first post, and my duty was to visit 
aU the villages in the neighbourhood. As the local 
tongue sounded to me like Servian aU gone wrong, I 
engaged an interpreter, a reftigee from one of the 
burnt villages, who could speak sufficient French. 
The poor wretch jumped at the idea of earning a little 
money, and, though picked up by chance, served me 
very well His only drawback was his wish to give 
relief on a far larger scale than funds allowed. He 
could neither read nor write, and had never tried to 
learn. His politics consisted of terror and hatred of 
the Turkish Government, and a belief that all 
' Macedonia ' should belong to Bulgaria. He told me 
his story thus : 

*My father died when I was young. I have a 
younger brother and sister. We had a house, and 
some goats and cows. When I was old enough I 
went to Constantinople to find work. I was servant 
at first to some Roman Catholic Sisters. I do not 
mind what religion people are if they will pay me. 
I earned money for my sister's dower, and we married 
her very well as soon as she was old enough. One 
day, when my brother was eighteen, he was gathering 



94 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

firewood on the mountain with two other lads, and 
there came a Mohammedan Bey from Dibra with a 
large hunting-party. They carried off the three boys 
to Dibra and shut them in a cellar, and threatened 
to kill them aU unless their friends paid £T.100 for 
each of them within six months. My mother was in 
despair. I came home. We sold aU our beasts, but 
with that and all my savings we had only £60. 
When the time was nearly gone I managed to borrow 

£40 from X ; he is very rich, and says he is a 

patriot, but he made me pay 20 per cent, for it. We 
bought my brother back. He was nearly dead and 
covered with sores. He had been in the dark all the 
time. My mother washed his shirt four times, and 
still little beasts came out of it. He swore he would 
be revenged some day. When the bands were made 
he joined. The Turks in Constantinople were very 
frightened about the bands. All Macedonians were 
ordered to leave at once. I had to go. My master 
said it was nonsense, and that all would be over in 
a few weeks, and he would take me back. Now it 
is four months, and still we may not return ! It is 
my wife's fault. She is a stupid woman of my village. 
She has no intelligence. Many times I have begged 
her to live with me in Constantinople. They are 
stupid, like animals, these women. She and my 
mother were afraid to leave the village. If they had 
come I should not now be a Macedonian. We should 
be in Constantinople, and I should be having good 
pay. Also I should have more sons. I came home 
one evening. In the village was a band, and my 
brother was already a * chetnik.' They permit one man 
in a family to take care of the women. I remained. 
Next day the fight began. The band was beaten. 
They escaped to the mountains. Then the Turks 







THE CLOCK-TOWER, RESNA. 



96 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

came and burnt the village to the ground. All my 
goats and beasts were stolen. I lost everything, 
even twelve new shirts I had never worn. House 
and all I have lost to the value of £200. We escaped 
to the mountains. My poor old mother suffered very 
much. When it grew cold we came down and found 
a room in another village. One night my brother 
comes. He says his life is not safe, and he must fly 
to Bulgaria. He weeps and kisses me. ^' Danil," he 
says, " I leave my wife and children to your care." 
Now he is safe in Sofia. He writes it is a very nice 
place. And here am I with three women to take care 
of and five children. And my sister s husband is shot, 
and she has three small children. But for the English 
flour we should all be dead. It would be better to 
die. How can one live in such a land? Even in 
peace they rob us ! Last time my field was sown with 
maize the tax-gatherers reckoned two kilos as twelve. 
They took toll of us at that rate, and we had scarcely 
any com left.' 

A doleful tale that is typical of this wretched land. 

Resna is a dirty little place of recent date. About 
half the inhabitants are Moslem, most Albanian, some 
Slav. The Christians, as usual, are split into parties. 
My landlady was a Vlah, a bright and rather nice- 
looking woman, and her husband a polyglot mongrel 
who, when he went to church at all, preferred the 
Greek variety. Madam's sympathies were emphati- 
cally Greek. Of the two churches, the Greek was the 
smaller and by far the older; the Bulgarian large, 
brand-new, and, for such a hole of a place, surprisingly 
gorgeous. Cakes and sweet-stuff were on sale near 
the door of each on feast-days. 

With a desire to be strictly impartial, I attended 
each upon Christmas Day of the Orthodox, lighted a 



ROUND ABOUT RESNA 97 

twopenny candle in each, and bestowed a similar sum 
upon the priest who begged for contributions at the 
door. Each treated me with kind consideration, and 
classed me as a male— that is, I was conducted to a 
spot near the front. The women in this land are 
usually either left outside .in a sort of covered passage 
that frequently surrounds the church, whence they 
can only see and hear what is taking place through 
the windows, or they are shut behind a fine lattice 
screen at the further end of the building. There they 
while away the time by chattering loudly ; the babies 
squall, and the place is thick with candle-smoka 
From my exalted masculine position I observed that 
chattering and the sucking of sweets was the rule in 
our department also. And all the time the priest's 
long, yowling intonation rose above the general talk, 
the congregation crossed itself, we bowed our heads, 
were censed and splattered wjth holy water, and 
nobody showed the smallest reverence or devotional 
feeling. Nor was there anything to distinguish the 
* Greek ' congregation fi-om the ' Bulgarian.' 

The attendance at one or the other is merely a case 
of party politics. I stared at the chattering, careless 
crowd and the slovenly priest as he helter-skeltered 
the service, and remembered, with a start at the con- 
trast, the last Orthodox service I had attended but 
six months before, upon St. Peter's Day, in the heart 
of the Montenegrin mountains, the rapt attention of 
the mountaineers, their almost painfully intense de- 
votion, the lordly figure of the Archimandrite, and 
the reverence with which he read the words. My 
two -Bulgarian comrades got a good deal more of 
the service than they had at all bargained for. I 
was too much interested to come away before the end ; 
but as it was in the Bulgarian church that 






98 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

most of my time, they were quite satisfied. My land- 
lady, meanwhile, was herded with the other women in 
the back part of the Greek church. 

A Balkan man is very well aware of his superior 
position. When he wishes to pay me a compliment 
he generally says I am as good as a man; when he 
has added that it is a pity I am not a gendarme or a 
soldier his imagination is exhausted. Some have even 
told me, ingeniously, that the views held by the 
American missionary ladies about Woman were very 
dangerous, and have expected me to sympathize. 

Life up at Besna was rough but wholly fascinating. 
I lived a very * native ' life, sharing two rooms with an 
Albanian and his wife, our assistants in the work, and 
using mine, the larger one of the two, as an office by 
day. It opened into a wide balcony, which was the 
correct place to wash in ; the wind whistled through 
the door at night, and the pitcher in my room was 
a-clink with ice in the morning. Boiled in a native 
blanket on the floor, the cold did not trouble me, but 
I was bitterly aware what it meant for the destitute 
refugees. These often began to bang at my door and 
try to force an entrance as early as seven in the morn- 
ing, when the chill gray dawn was breaking — ^unhappy 
wretches, clad only in rags, part of whose object in 
coming was to squat by my stove as soon as it was lit. 
From dawn to dark I was never alone ; case followed 
case. Now a headman and a priest to beg help for 
their village, now a woman with a sick child ; some- 
times a wretched old woman, blue with cold, who cried 
and prayed for a little bit of blanket, and occasionally 
a well-fed youth, who demanded a gift because he had 
fought in the insurrection and was dismissed with 
difficulty. They all spoke at once. My interpreter 
and the Albanian translated simultaneously into French 



ROUND ABOUT RESNA 99 

and Servian of a sort. Those who were refiised would 
never take ' No ' as an answer, but sat down and pre- 
pared to spend the day. 

The local doctor — a little man of the Greek per- 
suasion, who was rumoured to possess a kind of diploma 
—discovered the hour when I was likely to be chewing 
my hungry way through a lump of boiled mutton, and 
used the opportunity to bring in patients and strip 
them, that I might see for myself that suppuration 
had diminished, and I had one day the pleasure of 
seeing him dress a small sore with saliva and cigarette- 
paper. Resna had possessed a properly qualified man, 
but he was shot in the last rising, and the Greek dared 
not visit patients outside the town without an armed 
escort. 

Serious cases we sent up to Ochrida, and we mitigated 
the lot of incurables by the gift of bedding and food 
in their own homes. There was«in this district little 
illness as the results of the rising, but a number of 
chronic cases of many years' standing. If ever a gap 
of a few minutes occurred in the stream of villagers, 
my landlady hastened up with her mother and the 
baby to console my solitude, for she was a kindly soul 
and had a horror of being alone. She meant it so well 
that I rarely had the heart to object, but I confess that, 
when I returned one night after a hard day's ride to 
find ten people and five young children waiting to cheer 
me up, I was not so pleased as they expected. 

It may appear to the reader that the obvious way 
to secure quiet was to lock the door. I thought so 
myself at first. But the only result was a sort of 
bombardment, in which everyone took part. The life 
of the peasant has deadened his intellect, blunted his 
feelings, blackened his morals, but he has saved himself 
from extinction by developing a peculiar mulish, per- 

7—2 



100 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

sistent, boring obstinacy. It is a blind instinct, which 
can scarcely be dignified by the name of perseverance, 
for he applies it irrationally to every circumstance. It 
leads not infrequently to his undoing, but, properly 
directed, will doubtless play a large part in his ultimate 
liberation. It invariably caused me to open the door 
after a short resistance, but by no means always secured 
him the gifts he demanded. 

Such was a day in the town — a drama in which 
most of the human passions turned up, good, bad, and 
indifferent, And all in the rough, with never a smear 
of Western varnish. 

Then the villages had to be visited, and the truth 
of the tales sought for. There was a great charm 
about these expeditions. I swallowed a bowl of hot 
milk, having first put salt and pepper in it to hide the 
taste of buffaloes, and was in the saddle about eight. 
A chill white fog hid all the land ; the roads — mere 
tracks pounded into deep pits — were frozen hard as 
iron, and need was to ride warily. I let my horse 
down twice before I had learnt this, but he recovered, 
luckily, without throwing me. We plunged across 
country, over hoary grass, cut off from all the world ; 
the gendarme loomed ahead through the fog, sitting 
loose in his saddle, his rifle across his knees, the collar 
of his great-coat turned up. My man joggled behind, 
unhappily, for he was no horseman. We passed a 
heap of blackened ruins — * that was a " ka&na " '; 
another by the stream, hung thick with great spears 
of ice — * that was the mill.' We rode under bare and 
dripping trees at the entrance of a valley, and a village 
showed dim in the mist. Then came a fierce onslaught 
of great shaggy dogs, with bared white teeth, followed 
by the stoning of them and their retreat, vowing 
vengeance in thunderous undertones. We dismounted ; 



HOUND ABOUT RESNA 101 

the gendarme, in whom I always took a great interest, 
for he was as yet innocent of European officers and 
reform, and generally an excellent fellow, sat in a shed 
with the horses and smoked. Then followed the house- 
to-honse visit in company with my man, the headman 
of the village, and often the priest. We squished and 
slopped through mud or slipped on ice, according to 
whether it froze or thawed, climbed rickety wooden 
ladders to the upper floors, ducked our heads under 
low doorways. I choked in the pungent wood-smoke, 
questioned, listened, tried in a tangle of contradictory 
statements to strike an average of truth ; shuddered, 
was wrung with pity ; wondered and was disgusted in 
turn as adversity cast a fierce searchlight on human 
nature, and exposed its best and its worst with pitiless 
impartiality. Now and then we had a joke, and I 
caught women taking off and hiding their silver waist- 
clasps and ornaments, in order to look as poor as 
possible. Then came the writing of the list, on which 
everyone clamoured to be placed. We remounted and 
left) the village, with its sins and sorrows, for there 
was yet another to visit before we turned our horses 
homewards, and cantered back in the dusk over ground 
now sofl, that would freeze again ere morn. 

It is ill riding in the dark on such tracks, and we 
clattered into Eesna soon afler the Turkish clock on 
the tower struck twelve, and told that the sun had 
set. My landlady flew to put wood in the stove, 
sprawled on her stomach before it, and blew violently 
into the hot ashes. There was a rush of folk who 
were waiting to see me, and, having dropped my man 
at his village, I wrestled with them single-handed. My 
meal was either cold or frizzled, for my landlady 
cooked it casually at any hour that occurred to her, 
and it either waited by the stove or did not, as Fate 



108 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

ordained. But I was so hungry that a lump of solid 
food was all I required. I became a mainly carnivorous 
animal, and after seeing the dirt of the neighbourhood 
never tasted water. 

Asquat on the floor, I wrote lists for the morrow's 
flour-distribution regardless of the talk carried on all 
round by people who were pajring a visit either to one 
of my assistants, my host, or myself, and their oft- 
expressed belief that so much writing would make my 
head ache. My landlady, in answer to numerous in- 
quiries, explained that I intended washing later in the 
water that was warming on the stove. This was a 
topic of never-failing interest. Then good-night, and, 
with the exception of a dog-fight or two under the 
window, peace and quiet. 

But not always. One dree night I was waked, 
about one o'clock, by a portentous battering at the 
outer gate. Trusting it was in honour of some saint 
or other — for they had ushered in Christmas Day with 
similar cheeriness — I turned to go to sleep again ! No 
such luck. I heard scrambling below. Someone went 
to the door ; there was a parley. Worse and worse ; 
they were coming upstairs ! I vowed that I would 
not receive a visitor at that hour, even if it were the 
Vali himself. They knocked. I took no notice. They 
hammered ; I still lay low. They banged, thumped, 
thundered and shouted. It occurred to me suddenly 
that to feign sleep under the circumstances was 
absurd, and laughing, in spite of myself, I cried : 

' What is it V 

* Open the door,' they cried. 

In these lands everyone sleeps fully clad in all his 
day garments, therefore it did not occiu* to them that I 
was not in a completely presentable condition. My 
neglect to open the door instantly produced efforts 



ROUND ABOUT RESNA 108 

which threatened to force it. I scrambled iato an 
overcoat and let in an icy blast, my host, my hostess, 
her mother, and a man with a lantern. There was a 
^ telegramma ' for me, they all said at once. 

* To-morrow,' said I, in my limited vocabulary, for I 
gaessed it would be in Turkish and unreadable. 

* No, no,' said everyone. 

It appeared that I must sign the receipt. Barefoot 
and frozen, I i^mibled in the dark for a pencil, only to 
learn that it must be signed in ink. This I accom- 
plished. Then the man proposed to translate the 
message, and the whole party squatted on the floor 
round the lantern. 

After a long pause I was told that all he could 
understand was that it was for ^ Hamham,' and had 
come from * Brer.' I got rid of the whole party. 

Fortunately few nights were so lively, for next 
morning meant boot and saddle again, and more tales 
of misery — hopeless, blank misery. In the burnt 
villages a few people were still living in the ruins 
under temporary ^ lean-tos ' of wattle and thatch. In 
some cases they had rebuilt their houses. And where 
the stone ground-floor was only partly ruined this was 
not a difficult task, as the larger part of the houses in 
this district are built of mud and wattle on timber 
frumes, and all the necessary material was plentifiil. 
Ten pounds, I was told, built a good house, five, a 
small one ; a habitable shanty was even less. But 
few started rebuilding, though the Government had 
given money for the purpose ; and they seemed unwilling 
to help one another. Some said they would only be 
biunt out again, others that simmier and fine weather 
would soon be coming. Some left the neighbourhood ; 
the majority crowded into villages that had escaped. 

K they had money — and some had — ^the house-owner 



104 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

charged them rent. If they had none, he not infre- 
quently demanded flour of us as compensation. For 
one another's troubles they had, as a rule, very little 
sympathy. Four large families were often crowded 
into one cowshed, with their few goods, saved from the 
burning, piled around, the cattle, stabled at one end, 
providing a grateftil warmth. I have seen a party of 
women warming themselves by sitting in a manure 
heap with their legs buried up to the knee, but people 
did not seem to think this an out-of-the-way thing to do. 

When first travelling in the Balkan Peninsula, I was 
struck with the fact that the natives all seemed to feel 
both heat and cold far more than I do. When, how- 
ever, I became acquainted with the mysteries of their 
costume, there was no room for astonishment. I smiled 
when I read a pathetic tale in the papers about refugee 
women who had run away * in their nightgowns.' I 
knew those ' nightgowns.' Saving a shirt of coarse, 
handwoven linen, the Christian women of these parts 
wear nothing at all to cover their legs but a short pair 
of socks. On their arms and shoulders, however, they 
crowd as many wadded garments as they can obtain, 
and they protect the lower part of the body from the chill 
to which it would otherwise be dangerously exposed, 
by girding themselves with 20 metres of goat's-hair 
cord, knotting it all the way up the front so that it 
projects hideously and forms a sort of shelf upon which 
the lady rests her arms. 

Half the amount of clothing, evenly distributed, 
would keep them warm, but they pile on garments 
above and shiver below. I have often stood out of 
doors bareheaded, and with nothing on my arms but 
the sleeves of a flannel shirt, interviewing women 
clad each in a wadded waistcoat and two wadded 
coats and head-wraps, but I was the only one that 



HOUND ABOUT RESNA 106 

was warm. When hot weather arrives, however, they 
gasp and perspire, for it rarely occurs to them to shed 
a garment, and anyone who possesses a fur-lined coat 
continues to wear it. To give them their due, I am 
bound to confess that, in the matter of suffering 
heroically for the sake of the fashion, they are quite 
up to the highest civilized standards. 

In the winter they explain me by saying that I 
come from a far land where it is always cold. In the 
summer the highly educated talk of the well-known 
cold blood of the English. 

Those who possessed sound garments felt the cold ; 
those who had been burnt out in the summer, and 
whose clothes were now reduced to a mass of rags, 
suffered most bitterly, and there could be no possible 
doubt of their dire distress. I remember the wild 
gratitude of a woman, with two little children, who 
was absolutely destitute, as she sobbed, clung to me, 
and cried, * You have saved us 1' 

In general, the horrors they had seen appeared to 
have had but slight effect upon them. The three or 
four intervening months had cured all nervous shock, 
if 'shock' there had been, for they are people of very 
low nervous organization. Nor, with their past history, 
is this to be wondered at. Once only did I find a case 
of * terror * in the Resna villages. 

A wretched woman sitting at a cottage door, when 
she saw my gendarme, threw herself at my feet with a 
blood-curdling shriek, clung to my knees, and prayed 
to be saved, and then fell on the ground, stiff and only 
partially conscious. She had seen her husband's brains 
battered out, and the sight of a man in uniform always 
brought on an attack, I was told. But as the fit 
appeared to be of an epileptic nature, she was prob- 
ably subject to such before. The gendarme, whose 



106 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

presence caused it, seemed much overpowered. He 
possibly knew better than any of us what manner of 
sights she had seen. 

One has to be careful about ascribing such cases to 
the effects of the insurrection, however. 

I heard harrowing tales, which were published in 
some of the papers, about women who had been driven 
mad, and went about barking like dogs. The only 
one of these I had the chance of examining proved 
not to be insane at all, but suffering from a peculiar 
form of hysteria which I have met with before in 
other parts of the Peninsula. It is not at all un- 
conoimon among the Balkan Slavs, and also, I am told, 
in Russia, and the so-called 'barking' is a sort of 
hiccough, caused by rapid and spasmodic contractions 
of the diaphragm. The local remedy, often efficacious, 
is to direct the patient to go to church on some special 
saint's day, to pray for relief and to abstain from 
making the noise while the service is going on. If 
she succeeds in doing so she is generally cured. This 
is an interesting example of cure by suggestion. 

In most cases the result of the insmrection had 
filled them with a dull astonishment. They said they 
had been told that in the late Greco-Turkish War the 
Turkish soldiers had behaved very well, and that they 
had not expected any outrages or deeds of violence. 
They seemed to think they might kill without exciting 
reprisals. With their experience of long years and 
the tradition of centuries this sounds incredible, but 
they told me so repeatedly. Of the fiitmre they 
seemed to take no heed, and the past was already 
dulled. They lived from day to day with a sort of 
bovine stolidity, heavy, apathetic, interested chiefly in 
petty quarrels, and seeing that they got as much 
* relief as the people next door. 



HOUND ABOUT RESNA 107 

In the villages that were half Mohammedan, there 
had, as a rule, been no fighting, and therefore little 
looting, and these were crowded with refiigees. When 
visiting them, I was able to see what the um*obbed 
houses were like. They, of course, contain nothing at 
all that West Europe considers necessary for comfort, 
but are very much better than the mass of the huts in 
which the peasants of Montenegro and North Albania 
live. I never, even in a burnt village, had to rough it 
in Macedonia as I have had to do in normal circinn- 
stanoes in the two other lands. Here the ground is so 
fertile that even with the rudest cultivation it yields 
abundantly, and but for the heavy and irregular taxa- 
tion to which the poor wretches are liable they would, 
as peasants go, be well off. Even as it is they make 
a good living, for one of the leading Bulgarians de- 
clared to me that before the outbreak there was not 
a beggar near Besna. The Macedonian Committee 
has much to answer for. Judged by Balkan standards, 
the housing and living was a very great deal better 
than I had expected after reading the published 
accoimts. And the poor physique and bad health of 
the people appeared to be brought about largely by 
their ignorance and their habits than by want. 



CHAPTER VII 

ON THE SHORES OF LAKE PRESBA 

Meanwhile dolefiil tidings poured in from the 
villages round Lake Presba — appeals for help from 
those yet unvisited, and rumours of small-pox. When 
you have once made up your mind to be Balkan you 
are always ready to start anywhere, at any minute. 
I rolled a native blanket in a waterproof sheet, put a 
spoon, a tin cup, a few medicines, etc., in a little bag, 
trusted entirely to luck that I should find food and 
not get wet through, and was ready for a week's 
travel. Every extra pound is a bother on horseback. 

The Mudir decided that I must have two gendarmes, 
and as he had hitherto let me do just as I liked, I 
asked for Christians — chiefly because the Bulgars I 
was working with declared he would never allow it, 
also in order to ' sample ' the new Christian gendarmes. 
However, he made no difficulty, and the only Christian 
in the local force was allotted to me. 
• The start took some time. Almost every man in 
this land, not excepting troopers and gendarmes, rides 
upon a fat and squashy pillow, which he straps on his 
saddle. In default of this he piles up rugs or blanket- 
ing, and no one could understand my taste for the 
bare leather. Regularly every day the pony came 
round with a * pemitza ' upon it, and regularly every 
day I had it removed and said it was not to come to- 

108 



ON THE SHORES OF LAKE PRESBA 109 

morrow. But it always did, and they argued the 
point. A Montenegrin or Albanian horse-boy rarely 
requires telling a thing of this sort twice. It requires 
a week's hard labour to drive the glimmer of a new 
idea into a * Macedonian.' On the sixth day the pony 
arrived pillowless, and I thought they had learned. 
But now, after three days' interval, here it was again. 
This time the populace was firm. A large crowd had 
come to see me off, and there was quite an excitement 
about it. I was not made of leather, they said, and 
the pillow was to stay where it was. They even 
brought a larger and fatter one. I began unbuckling 
the girth, and someone buckled it up again. A dozen 
people talked at once. According to Danil, they re- 
counted the shocking state of their own persons when 
fate had deprived them of a pillow. 

I learnt the great lesson that the native can be 
circumvented, but never reasoned with, climbed on 
top of the * pernitza,' and, perched squashily, high 
above my beast, rode from the town. Safely outside, 
I got rid of the pillow, and the toughness of English 
hide formed a pleasing topic of conversation for 
many days. Danil and the gendarmes had to take 
care of that pillow, and long before the end of the 
tour said they were sorry they had insisted on its 
coming. 

We left even the semblance of civilization that 
Resna possesses behind us, and made straight across 
coimtry at a canter for the shores of the lake ; for the 
gendarmes were in a sportive fr'ame of mind, and poor 
Danil was left far behind. It was a casual sort of an 
expedition. Neither of my men knew the way after 
the first village or two. There are, of course, no roads, 
often no tracks. We followed trails of misery, picked 
up guides from place to place, and did not usually 



110 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

know in the morning where we should spend the 
night. 

The Christian gendarme, a large and jovial Ylah, 
was a great invention. He had been a tradesman at 
Besna, had enlisted because all trade was at a stand- 
still, and had friends and clients in almost every 
village. He wanted me to help everybody, and to 
rebuild all the churches. He was greeted with great 
enthusiasm, and was wildly and aggressively Christian. 
He kissed the priest's hand, got himself blessed and 
sprinkled with holy water, when there was any about, 
and crossed himself industriously. 

His excessive Christianity and his numerous friends 
led to his overshooting the mark badly on ^ mastic/ the 
local drink, the second night, and a wild and drunken 
sing-song raged till past midnight. Next morning, 
overcome with shame, he came to me and said he had 
behaved like a pig ; that he was sorry, and while he 
was with me he would drink no more mastic, because 
when he once began he could never leave off. To my 
surprise, he kept this promise faithfully, in spite of 
very great temptation, and Danil explained that the 
joy of the villagers on seeing for the first time a 
Christian who was allowed to carry a gun was the 
cause of the outburst 1 

The gentleman himself was obviously quite un- 
accustomed to carrying a weapon. He alternately 
spent much energy cleaning it and forgot all about 
it. On one occasion he left it behind him, to the 
vast amusement of his comrade, and we had to send 
back for it. He was a liberal-minded man, was 
bringing up one son as a Serb in Belgrade and the 
other as a Bulgarian, and his daughter was married to 
some other nationality, I forget which. His comrade, 
a Mohanunedan Albanian — a long lean man deeply 



ON THE SHORES OF LAKE PRESBA 111 

pitted with small-pox, which gave him an unpleasantly 
moth-eaten appearance — was rather * out of it ' in this 
Christian company. The two kept up an endless 
argument about the rights and wrongs of the insurrec- 
tion. They never agreed, but they never lost their 
tempers. The Christian pointed out the awful devasta- 
tion, and the Moslem earnestly defended it. 

* Tell the lady,' he would say, ' that we were obliged 
to. They began it ; they attacked us. They would kill 
every Turk ' (i.e., Moslem) * in the land if they could. 
It is our land. We must defend ourselves.' 
To which Danil added : 

' He does not understand. The land is really ours. 
Naturally it is we that must kill them.' 

And no one knew when the killing must begin 
again. The land was raw with recent fighting — it 
was, so to speak, an aching wound, and either party 
lived in terror of the other. 

We started often before it was quite light in the 
morning, whether it were rain, snow, or storm, and we 
rode till sundown. In all, we visited nineteen villages 
and two monasteries. I went into more than a 
thousand houses, and interviewed deputations from 
four other villages. At night we arrived, if possible, 
at an unbumt village, and slept and supped at the 
headman's house. The horses were stabled below. 
We climbed up a ladder into the family dwelling. A 
crowd of women, who called me their * golden sister,' 
kissed me on both cheeks, unless I resisted violently. 
They spread rush mats on the mud floor. We took off 
our boots and squatted round the hearth, and the 
master of the house threw on brushwood till the fire 
blazed high, and I could see to write out the necessary 
lista In the better houses there was a big hooded 
hearth of mediaeval pattern ; in the poorer the rafters 



112 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

overhead glittered black with smoke, and were 
festooned with dried fish, and, in houses that had 
escaped looting, with onions and salt meat cut into 
dice and threaded on string; often with bunches of 
plaits of hair, hung on a nail — ends to prolong ladies' 
pigtails on bazar days. 

Then the priest in his high black cap and shaggy 
locks and all the chief men of the village flocked in 
and settled down to hard drinking and tales of the 
rising. Even in burnt villages where it was hard to 
find a meal there was always mastic Everyone 
drinks from the same bottle — a quaint pewter one 
decorated with red glass beads. It flew &om mouth 
to mouth, pausing every few minutes for refilling, and 
the company sucked the bottle and chewed leaves 
from a bowl of raw salt cabbage, hard and woody, 
pickled in strong brine, or ate * paprika,' the local pepper 
pod, and raised a colossal, incredible thirst. Weak 
mastic has little alcohol in it, but the strong variety 
is potent and fiery, and they tipped it down like 
water. 

Many people came to see me, for they said, in most 
places, I was the only European who had stayed there 
except the Russian Consul. He had worked the land 
pretty thoroughly, and had left a tradition of fabulous 
wealth. The talk ran mostly on ' bands ' and * com- 
mittees.' Of their poor little victories they were 
very proud. When they had surprised a small body of 
soldiers they killed the lot, and poured petroleum on 
the bodies and burnt them. Then no one would ever 
know where they had fallen, and they could not be 
avenged. 

* I hope they were all dead when you biunt them,' 
I said. 

' Who knows V they replied oracularly. 



ON THE SHORES OF LAKE PRESBA 113 

About the committees they were usually very bitter. 

* They took all our money, and are safe in Sofia. 
We have lost alL' 

Sarafov was very unpopular. The local leader, 
Arsov, many of them still believed in. But as a whole 
ihey dreaded the committee almost as much as they 
did the Turks. 

I heard the same tale day after day — a hideous, 
squalid tale of wrong. Each village had been visited 
by secret agents, and the people lured by promises or 
forced by threats to join the movement. Each family 
had to pay heavy toll in cash or kind. The guns 
were mostly smuggled in by women, who carried them 
hidden in firewood or other goods. Then the rising 
took place — futile, disastrous, and foredoomed to failure. 
The wretched peasants, most of whom had rarely 
handled a gun, were led often by the schoolmaster, 
who, save that he could read and write, was but little 
better trained than themselves. They burned a 
Moslem house or two, made a plot to blow up the 
moeques which failed, allowed themselves to be 
trapped in a narrow valley ; the survivors fled after 
a desperate struggle for life, and the troops fell on 
the village. Chiefly women, children, and old men 
remained in it and a few insurgents in hiding. There 
was a wild sauve qui pent when the soldiers came; a 
volley was fired into the thick. Some were killed, 
others suffered outrages at the hands of the enraged 
soldiery ; the majority got away into the mountains, 
and stayed there till the cold drove them down. The 
women went into the villages at night to make bread 
from the pretty numerous stores of com which, hidden 
in holes, had escaped looting. In some cases where 
the band had given much trouble the village was burnt 
to the groimd, and the wrecking was so complete that 

8 



114 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

all the pots and pans were piled in heaps and smashed. 
The church was usually plundered and desecrated. 
Sometimes its floor was torn up in search of hidden 
treasure. And the whole rising fizzled out like wet 
powder. It seemed, in truth, when one was on the 
spot, to have been planned solely with a view to bring- 
ing about a wide-spread slaughter of these unhappy 
peasants. Had there been anything like a general 
conflagration planned for a particular day it might 
have stood a chance of at any rate temporary success. 
But it was a long drawn out series of petty bonfires. 
The troops extinguished one and rode on to the next. 

The Macedonian Committee's action appeared to me 
marvellously ill-devised. Had the Moslems chosen 
they could easily have annihilated every village that 
rose. Perhaps this was what the Committee hoped. 

Bound Presba, too, it seemed that the people had 
believed there would be no reprisals. Their total 
inability to learn from experience staggered me. This 
time all was to have been dijBTerent. ' And what was 
to have been the end of it V They were to have had 
no taxes to pay, and would be allowed to carry guns 
and shoot Turks. This was their only idea of liberty. 
Even Danil and the gendarmes were surprised to hear 
we paid taxes in England. Lastly, they were to be 
repaid the money that the * Committee ' had * borrowed' 
fi-om them. In the whole long tour through the Presba 
villages, to my astonishment, I did not meet one single 
patriot (in truth, poor wretches ! they had no * patria '), 
and I found no trace of knowledge of the Great 
Bulgarian Empire. Out on the great lake in full 
view of the villages lies the tiny wooded island called 
Grad, and here Samuel, the last Tsar of the Bulgarian 
Empire, built his palace. I asked, by way of picking 
up local tradition, whether anyone lived on it. 



ON THE SHORES OF LAKE PBESBA 116 

No, but there must have been a monastery once, 
for there were ruins of a church. That was all they 
knew, and the ubiquitous Russian Consul had been 
there. Nor in Eiesna, among the better informed, did I 
find any more knowledge. Samuel and his empire were 
dead and forgotten, and I did not revive their story. 

Danil, who was a town-made patriot of recent 
construction, was vexed with the villagers' apathy ; 
but his efforts at rousing them had little effect. He 
tried hard to persuade them they were hardly used, 
because their Church service was in most cases con- 
ducted in Greek. But they bolted raw cabbage and 
washed it down with mastic, and only said it did 
not matter ; many of them spoke Greek. The priest 
took a suck at the bottle, and was of the same opinion. 
He spoke the local Slav dialect himself for ordinary 
purposes, but he had learned all the services in Greek. 
It was a good service, and what did it matter ? Danil 
was annoyed, and told me that they were very 
ignorant ; really they were all Bulgarians, and ought 
to have Bulgarian priests, but they did not know. 
Nor, as far as I could see, did they care here. Once 
or twice when a man told me that he was a Serb 
Danil was put out, and told him he was not. A few 
said they were Greeks, but they all appeared * much 
of a muchness.' In type they differed from the people 
of the Ochrida district. They were, as a whole, better 
looking the farther south one got. The aquiline nose 
and well-cut jaw that is common in Albania began to 
replace the broad fiat face, the long upper lip, and the 
high cheek-bones of the folk farther north ; and in the 
villages at the lower end of the lake the shirt worn 
outside became fuller and fuller in the skirt and deve- 
loped into the * fustanella ' worn alike by Greek and 
Albanian. They confided largely in the Christian 

8—2 



116 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

gendarme, and the local fight was fought again for his 
benefit. 

He and the Moslem generally came in with supper. 
The * sofira/ a round piece of wood on legs 3 or 4 inches 
high, was brought in by the women of the house, 
and while we washed our hands the meal was laid upon 
it. A bowl of broth, the fowls it was made of scarlet 
with paprika, often a fish from the lake, a large flat loaf 
of steaming hot bread, and, if the house were at all 
well-to-do, a ' komad.' We ate with our fingers and a 
wooden ladle as tools, and I was the only one who 
made a mess and slopped things about. ' Komad,' the 
local idea of a delicacy, is calculated to upset the 
digestion of a hippopotamus. A huge mass of pastry 
is whacked and thumped till all possibility of rising is 
knocked out of it. Then it is rolled between the hands 
into a long, long rope, and this is coiled round and 
round in a large flat dish tUl the dish is full. It is 
covered with an iron plate, shoved in the ashes, and 
set to bake. When it is half cooked a quantity of 
sugar and water is poured over it, and the baking is 
finished. It comes to table a sodden mass, sticky, slab, 
leathery, and of incredible weight. 

The peasants have suflered from many misfortunes, 
and * komad ' is one of them. Their diet table is, indeed, 
an odd one. Meat they seem to prefer heavily salted 
and dried into chips ; some said it was the only way 
they ate it. Eggs they boiled stone-hard as a rule. 
Milk they do not care about, unless sour. Of bread, 
hot and heavy, they eat enough for an elephant, and 
of salt cabbages and onions cooked in pepper they 
never tire. I never saw people eat so enormously and 
get so little good from it. In peace times, and even 
after the insurrection, in the villages that had not 
suffered, the people have a far better food-supply, and 



ON THE SHORES OF LAKE PRESBA 117 

are better housed than the mass of Montenegrin 
peasants, even than some of the Yoyvodes. 

Barring the effects of the rising indeed, I saw 
nowhere the dire poverty that I met in Montenegro and 
the vilayet of Kosovo. But the Montenegrin is fit and 
strong on milk and maize porridge, while the better- 
supplied ^ Macedonian ' is a chronic dyspeptic, and the 
hardest drinker I know. Often too much accustomed 
to drink to get honestly drunk, he is soaked and 
soddened with alcohol so that he cannot do without it. 
Nor is this surprising, for mothers give mastic to 
sucking infants, and tiny children drink a heavy dose 
with no apparent effect. 

When I asked how they had lived on the mountains, 
people ahnost always said they could not get enough 
mastic, and had undoubtedly felt the deprivation 
keenly. 

After supper, mastic drinking as before, they dis- 
cussed politics. No one wanted war, not even the 
Moslem. 

* Everyone would be killed next time,' he said. 

•The only thing,' said the Vlah, * would be for a 
foreign country to save them. Greece had been freed 
by a miracle. Why not they V 

I knew nothing about the miracle, and they were 
astonished. The Turks, they said, outraged a little 
girl, and threw her body into the sea. Then Gkni 
made the wind to blow, and the sea carried the corpse, 
uncorrupted, and threw it up on the shores of England. 
The people of England came down to the shore and 
found the dead child. Filled with horror, they went 
and told their King, and he sent his warships, and 
Greece was freed. Everyone knew the story, even the 
Moslem, and believed it firmly, nor could I shake them. 
I trust it is not equally well known on the coast, for, 



118 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

driven by superstition, I believe there are many who 
would not shrink from an attempt to summon the 
British navy in the same way. 

They all gave me messages for the various CousuIb 
— one about his son in prison, another about his stolen 
pigs, and Danil told about the twelve new shirts he 
had never worn. The gendarmes begged that the 
British Consul would apply for their pay. 

The Christian, being only newly-enlisted, was but 
two months in arrears, and the joy of carrying a gun 
made up somewhat for the deficiency, but the Moslem, 
wanted seven months' pay, and was very unhappy 
about it. They all discussed what would be the best 
thing for the Christian gendarmes to do at the next 
rising, and decided that they would all take their 
rifles and be off, which the Moslem considered a good 
joke. One night we talked of the Sultan. He, said 
the company, had murdered Abdul Aziz, and locked 
up his brother Murad. Murad was not mad, but was 
locked up because he wished to be just to the 
Christians. I remarked that Abdul Aziz was said to 
have killed himself. Moslem and all, they scouted the 
idea. It was well known that he had been heard 
shrieking for help, but the palace guards had kept the 
doors, and no one had been allowed to enter till there 
was silence. Danil vowed that his grandfather had 
been in Constantinople at the time, and had heard it 
from one of the men employed to sweep up in the palace. 
Another proof was that the Sultan would kill anyone ; 
* but naturally !' said Danil. ' So why not Abdul 
Aziz?' 

When I had had enough of the conversation I rolled 
up in my blanket and went to sleep. Sometimes 
almost the whole party slept in the room, sometimes 
they didn't. It depended how many rooms there 



ON THE SHORES OF LAKE PRESBA 119 

were. I believe I was generally f&voured with the 
ocxnpany of the more exalted. 

To detail the tramp from house to house, the inspec- 
tion of flour-bins and blankets, and the search for 
disease, the dull monotony of misery in every village, 
would weary the reader. I will mention only the more 
striking events of the tour. 

Four villages had small-pox. In this almost un- 
vaccinated land you have small-pox before you are 
five, and either die or are afterwards inmiune. No 
doctor visits these outlying parts. No precautions of 
any kind are taken to prevent the disease spreading, 
and the family shares the blanket of the patient. T 
bad oonscientious scruples about carrying infection 
myself at first, but came to the conclusion that in the 
general mix-up one more or less could make no differ- 
ence. I foimd few adult cases ; those were of a virulent 
type, semi-conscious, and with confluent pocks. The 
^idemic was passing over, and the surviving children 
were beginning to run about scarred, but recover- 
ing. 

The doctor, indeed, who was sent up, on my report, 
to vaccinate around the infected area, said it could 
hardly be called an epidemic ; there had not been more 
than thirty deaths in any place. I thought of thd 
people at home, who are afraid to ride in a St. John's 
Wood omnibus if they hear of a case at Willesden, and 
smiled. 

The small-pox chase, in &ct, was not without a 
certain grim humour. At one village, when I was 
leaving, I was asked to give a little backshish to the 
priest's wife. 

^ Poor woman !' they said ; * two of her little children 
are ill of the small-pox, one has died, she has had it 
herself and is not yet well, but she cooked your 



120 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

supper in her own house and brought it here for you !' 
Another time a woman rushed out of a house, seized 
me in her arms, and kissed me upon either cheek until 
I struggled free. Her three children were down with 
small-pox, and this warm greeting was an appeal to me 
to give help. 

That a certain percentage of children must always 
die of this disease was an accepted fact, as it was in 
prevaccination days in Emgland, and the people took 
it stolidly. At one village there were even signs of a 
festivity. Hardly were we settled round the fire when 
a lad, very gay and smart in a red sash and a clean 
white fustanella, came in with a troop of friends. 
Shyly he offered me a glass of hot mastic. 

^ Take it,' said Danil ; * he is a bridegroom. You 
must drink his health.' 

He looked about fifteen. As a matter of fact, he 
was just seventeen and the bride fifteen. 

*They are very young,' said I, as the company 
chaffed him. 

'It is true they are young,' said Danil philosophi- 
cally. * But it is better so, they say. Twenty children 
have just died of the small-pox. Maintenant on fera 
des autres, mais natiu*ellement.' 

And the bridegroom withdrew in a storm of jokes 
which Danil discreetly left untranslated. 

A bride is far from holding the exalted position that 
she does in the West. In one house was a yoimg 
woman in gaudy costume. A silver waistclasp and 
strings of obsolete Austrian kreutzers, roughly silvered, 
gave her an air of importance. But the poor thing 
had to wait on everybody, women included. She 
kissed our hands with painful humility, and, as far as 
I could see, was not even allowed to sit down without 
permission. 



ON THE SHORES OF LAKE PRESBA 121 

' But naturally/ said Danil, ^ she is the son's wife. 
They have only been married a few months !' 

Sometimes I found traces of the old Slavonic family 
oommunities. Once a man, with . the popular Servian 
name Milosh, gave sixty-three as the number of his 
&mily» and I found they formed the greatest part of 
the village. But I only found five other instances 
(fiunilies of fix)m twenty to twenty-nine) in this district. 

Many villages had a tale of horror. It is hard to 
arrive at the truth on this subject, for my experience 
is that these people are hopelessly inaccurate in report- 
ing everyday affairs even when they have nothing to 
gain by it and do not mean to be untruthful It is 
not so much a wish to deceive as a very low intelli- 
gence, which does not know what accuracy is. For 
instance, ^ five ' means a few ; ' a hundred/ a great 
many — quite loosely. Also you may hear of the 
same murder in several villages from various friends 
of the deceased, and reckon it as four, if not carefiil. 

I avoided leading questions as likely to suggest 
answers, and noted the information which dribbled out 
in the course of conversation. I do not guarantee 
numbers, but that the usual atrocities of a wild 
soldiery had been committed was beyond doubt. 
Podmacheni headed the list with forty-five killed, 
including twenty women outraged and disembowelled ; 
the village partly burnt and wholly plundered, and the 
church wrecked. Krani came next with ten women 
stripped and outraged. There were four nllages burnt 
out, and for dree misery Nakolech was the worst. 
Save some Moslem houses nothing was left of it, and 
its wretched inhabitants, squatting in mud-and- wattle 
huts, were living on the English flour and the fish they 
caught in the lake. To add to their misfortunes a 
number of soldiers had been camped alongside the 



122 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

village since the summer^ and stabled their horses in 
the church. 

The state of the church was such that people 
doubted if I should be allowed to see it. An employ^ 
of the relief agency had already been refused. 

Some soldiers were washing clothes at the entrance. 
The gendarmes said I had come to see the church. 
I added, ' Tell them to be quick/ and after a short 
delay it was opened for me. It was not only littered 
with stable manure, but had also been recently and 
filthily defiled in every way, and was entirely wrecked. 
The wreckers had even been at the trouble of scratch- 
ing out the eyes of all the saints they could reach. 

The Ylah took off his cap and crossed himself boldly 
before a group of soldiers who crowded round the door 
and looked black at u& The state of the church was 
so disgraceful that it was beyond all words. 

I think the Moslem gendarme spoke first. 

*Tell the lady,' he said very eagerly, 'they were 
obliged to, else we should all have been killed. We 
must do these things to frighten them. They would 
kill us all and take our laud.' 

There was a certain feeling of thunder in the air. I 
withdrew as soon as I had looked well round. Outside 
were the commanding officer and another, who did not 
look pleased, but said nothing, and turned away 
abruptly. The gendarmes went to water the horseB, 
and I went into the priest's hut. 

Several men were waiting here to speak to me. 
They were terrified of the soldiers, and prayed me 
to have them moved. They accused them of no 
violence, but said they stole the washing put out 
to dry, and so the few poor garments saved from the 
burning were lost. (Here Danil told about his twelve 
shirts.) What they dreaded was that some day they 



ON THE SHORES OF LAKE PRESBA 123 

would all be maasacred. The state of the church was 
bad enough to report, but no one could tell me the 
name of either officer or regiment. However, I learnt 
it later, and the Bussian consulate took up the affiiir. 
I believe the officer was transferred. 

The churches had suffered heavily, and it appeared 
that the Moslem gendarme's idea about the moral 
effiset of church-wrecking was correct. The people 
were deeply affected by it- Until the churches were 
repaired and consecrated all religion was at a stand- 
still. It was impossible to pray. 

I asked if they could not hold a service in a room. 

The priest was astonished. 

It was perfectly impossible, he said. Without the 
proper apparatus nothing could be done. 

Christianity here consisted entirely, apparently, in 
the ceremonial performed by the priest and a hatred 
of Mohammedanism. 

I do not think I ever saw the picture of a saint in 
any of these houses. The ikon and lamp so con- 
spicuous in the houses of the Serbs, the Montenegrins, 
and the Orthodox Albanians, was wanting. Nor did 
the people invoke Christ or the saints, or cross them- 
selves at meal-times or before going to rest for the 
night They seemed to possess none of the religious 
fervour that usually is so marked a characteristic of 
Orthodox peasants. They had more faith, appar- 
ently, in the amulets they wore than in anything 
else. Some of these were very odd. One was a 
green glass heart, two pink beads, and an English 
sixpence. 

At German, named after St. German, one of the 
first missionary priests to the Slavs, we came across 
the one cheery episode of that nine days' tour. The 
village is a ' chiftlik ' belonging to the Sultan's mother. 



124 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

It had been but partially looted, and the church had 
not suffered. A festival was in full swing in honour, 
Danil said, * of St. John, who did things with water/ 
Gay in their best clothes, the people came in procession 
from church, the women carrying sheaves of straw 
prettily plaited, and we followed up the valley. The 
Moslem thought he would not come, but the Vlah 
made him. 

It was freezing hard, and a white fog spoilt the 
quaint scene- The priest, robed all in blue and gold, 
blessed the little stream which ran black between its 
frosted banks. He threw in a crucifix ; there was a 
great scramble of men and boys to be first at the 
stream ; the women dipped in their sheaves, and 
everyone crossed themselves three times with the 
holy water. The Vlah made all the responses in a 
loud voice, rushed wildly for the water, and came 
back very wet with his fez full of it for me. I made 
the proper signs, to the delight of the company, and 
he threw the rest over his Moslem comrade, who took 
it calmly. 

Shortly after my return to Besna I read an English 
newspaper article, in which an impassioned young 
journalist described the crushed condition of the 
Christian gendarmes, who, he said, were made to 
black the boots of their Moslem confreres. I don't 
think I ever saw any gendarmerie boots that had been 
blacked by anybody, and the Christian gendarmes I 
had were all very cheerftil ; but things look so different 
when seen from newspaper o£Bces. 

The priest filled a caldron, and we processed back 
to the village. Here, 1 was told, he would like to 
bless me. I said I should be very pleased, but nothing 
happened. Then, it appeared, he could not bless me 
till he knew my name and that of my father. I supplied 



ON THE SHORES OF LAKE PRESBA 126 

them; he murmured a few words; he dabbed holy 
water on my face with a bunch of dried, sweet basil 
(the holy * vasilikon '), signed me with the cross, gave 
me the crucifix to kiss, I dropped a coin in the water- 
pot, and the ceremony was complete. When we rode 
away the Ylah carried a bunch of the holy basil stuck 
triumphantly in the muzzle of his gun. 

At Bambi the usual state of affairs was reversed. 
It was a mixed village, and the Moslem half, with the 
exception of the mosque, had been looted and burnt 
by the Christians. The Moslems had retorted later 
by looting the Christians pretty completely, but I was 
told of no outrages. The place appeared to have been 
a very well-to-do one. It was once the local seat of 
€k>vemment. The headman's house was a really 
good one, and he valued his losses at £T 1,000. They 
included two gold-coin necklaces. In this house was a 
mysterious Albanian in a cartridge-belt, who was very 
polite to me and made me coffee. I asked about him 
in private. 

' He is a good Turk,' I was told. * The owner of 
the house pays him to live here, and gives him all 
his food. He protects the house bom being burnt. 
But all his friends come to feed here, too ; and now 
the master has hardly any money left, and does not 
know what to do. If he tells the good Turk to go, 
the house may be burnt down next day.' 

When I left, three friends — smart young fellows, 
with guns and sporting dogs — were occupying the 
best room. We met many such on our journey. Then 
the Christians said : * To-day we dare not gather fire- 
wood ; the Turks are out on a hunting-party. They 
would shoot us, and say it was an accident.' But I 
heard of no such thing taking place. 

On the shores of the lake I was promised a wonderful 



126 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Sight ; It was the one great sight of the neighbourhood 
— the hoof-prints of Marko's horse ! Did I know about 
Marko ? He was once a great King, and he rode upon 
a winged horse. Marko Kraljevich, the brave and 
greatly-admired hero of the Servian ballads, wljo was 
the last Serb ruler of this district (fourteenth century), 
was not forgotten. Christian and Moslem alike knew 
of his exploits. It was a fine wild scene — ^fit back- 
ground for a mediaeval warrior on a winged steed — 
and the fact that the marks bore no resemblance to 
hoof-prints was of no moment, for Sharatz was a magic 
horse. 

We scrambled by a stony mountain-track to Nivitza, 
a wretched little fishing village on the other side of 
the lake. The people here had fled to the island of 
Grad during the insurrection, so had escaped; but 
the village had been robbed, their fishing-tackle de- 
stroyed, they had an outbreak of small-pox, and were 
in great distress. It was a miserable hole of a place, 
but possessed a large new church that was surprisingly 
fine. This had been robbed of its silver candles and 
altar-plate, but was otherwise intact. One day, said 
the people enthusiastically, that great and good man 
the Russian Consul had come here with some friends 
to shoot birds. He had stayed a week, paid them 
lavishly, and had asked if they would like to have 
a church of their own. Here was the church. He 
must undoubtedly have been immensely rich. 

They begged me to visit the island and see the 
ruined churches on it. The priest promised to go 
with me next morning, and I arranged to cross the 
lake and send the horses round. Unluckily it blew 
hard when the time came, and the lake was fringed 
with breakers. It did not look very terrible, but the 
caiks were cranky affairs, and no one, even for a bribe, 




4 

> 

2 



O 



< 

Q 
Ed 

U 

X 



ON THE SHORES OF LAKE PRESBA 127 

dared put to sea. I was very much disappointed, and 
had, reluctantly, to return the way I came, meaning, 
when I had finished my list of villages, to return at 
ODoe from Besna to explore the island. But the gods 
thought otherwise. 

Children in the villages told curious tales. They 
played at insurrections, and, oddly enough, the parents 
found it amusing. At one place a tiny boy of four 
came straight up to the gendarmes and asked for a 
' fisik ' (cartridge). This he solemnly wedged into the 
handle of the tongs, and, at the word of command, 
went down on one knee and brought his weapon 
smartly to his shoulder. 

* Oganj bit' !' (' Fire !') cried his grandfather, and the 
child dropped flat behind a cushion and aimed at us 
over the top. 

Arsov, the local leader, had taught him this trick, 
and he repeated it over and over again to the admira- 
tion of the company. Even after we had ceased talk- 
ing to him he wandered round the room uncannily, 
and continued to cover us with his weapon fix)m 
different points of vantage till the gendarme restored 
the * fisik ' to his belt. 

Poor little ' oganj bit' '! his father had been shot, his 
mother was quite destitute. I almost volunteered to 
take him home with ma But in the next village was 
a little girl who called me ^ auntie ' straight off and 
went to sleep in my lap, and I nearly took her too. 
Danil was delighted with her, and translated all her 
chatter. 

The Turks, she said, were very naughty people, 
and had stolen her new red stockings and the little 
shirt her mother had made her. Now she had to wear 
odd stockings, and was very cross about it. If the 
Turks came again she should hit them very hard. 



128 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

They had burned down her house, and her father had 
gone to build it up again, but she would stay where 
she was, lest the Turks should steal her new earrings, 
of which she was very proud. 

I was asked to adopt any number of children. I 
might teach them any religion I pleased if I would 
only take them to a land where there were no Turks, 
and give them enough to eat. Some of these un- 
fortunate little things, I am glad to say, have found a 
home and excellent training in the orphanage started 
for the purpose at Salonika by the Rev. K Haskell. 

The whole tour was pretty gruesome, and Pretor, 
the last place on my list, was one of the most miserable. 
It was a little hole of a place, and all plimdered. Even 
the best house had no glass windows, holes in the 
floor and a huge hole in the roof for chinmey. The 
master of the house, a broken old man, pointed to a 
spot near the door. This was where his wife was shot; 
the blood ran down there by the steps; she died almost 
at once. Then they had to fly for their lives, and had 
no time to bury her. When, after three months, they 
returned, he collected her bones and buried them, but 
someone, he regretftdly added, had broken them. He 
made no complaint ; he simply related the occurrence, 
and asked that I should be told. Here everyone was 
in great terror. Tax-collecting had begun. The burnt 
villages were exempt from taxation, but to make up 
for the expenses caused by the rising, the taxes were 
raised everywhere else — the cow tax to 10 piastres 
per cow per annum, and the pig tax to 12^ (two 
shillings and sixpence), for only the Christians keep, 
pigs. 'Ici,' as poor Danil said, though it was not 
quite what he meant — ' ici, seulement les cochons sont 
Chretiens.' There is a certain grim hmnour, too, about 
taking two shillings and tenpence per head road tax 



ON THE SHORES OF LAKE PRESBA 129 

in villages which have no road anywhere near them. 
Plundered of nearly all their belongings, the poor 
wretches had been unable to pay the rates they were 
assessed at, and were in terror lest the gendarmes 
should return for it. One woman, who came in sobbing, 
said she had offered her children to the tax-gatherers, 
for they were all she possessed. Another, old and 
blind, said the soldiers had taken all her oats in the 
autumn for their horses, and now she was to pay tax 
for them. 

When night came I found that no one in the village 
dared sleep with my two guardian angels, so there was 
nothing for it but to have them myself. This had 
happened once before. They were very civil, and came 
and wrapped my feet up tenderly when they thought 
I was asleep. But the Vlah snored like a thunder- 
storm, and the Moslem got up and made coffee when 
ever it occurred to him. So it was about as peaceable 
as sleeping in a kennel of hounds. When at last I 
slept, I was wakened by a gentle patting, and there 
was the Moslem with a cup of coffee he had made for 
me. It was 3.30 a.m. ! I growled and went to sleep 
again, but the kind creature made me another at five. 
They were both wide awake, so it was useless to try 
to sleep. We piled on fuel, and they smoked by the 
fire. It was freezing hard, and we could see the stars 
brilliant through the big chimney-hole. They said 
they feared I had slept badly, but that one soon got 
used to this sort of thing, and with a month in barracks 
and a Martini, I should make an excellent gendarme. 
Then by the firelight, Danil interpreting, the Moslem 
said he had something to tell me. 

He had a great friend, a Mohammedan Albanian, 
who came fi*om his own town (a place, by the way, that 
has a wild, bad reputation for brigandage). This 

9 



180 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS . 

Mend had lived for years near Besna. When the 
rising took place he said he had always been friends 
with the Christians, and would not desert them. He 
joined Arsov's band, fought gallantly, and did much 
message-carrying, and, being a Moslem, was not sus- 
pected by the authorities. Finally, he escaped over 
the borders with the band. The Government learnt of 
his doings, captured his three small children, and 
threatened to cut their throats if he did not appear by 
a given date. He thereupon returned and gave him- 
self up. He was sent into Asia as an exUe, and all 
his property was confiscated. Now, his wife and 
children were in hiding near Besna, were entirely 
dependent on charity, and in dire want. Would I 
help them ? It was true they were Moslems, but they 
had acted like Christians, said the gendarme naively. 
He was very eager. We talked it all round till the 
clammy gray dawn crept through the holes in the 
walls, and having break&sted on bread and raw mastic, 
we rode back to Resna through a bitter, icy wind 
without my having made any promises. I was pretty 
dirty when I got there, as I had not had my clothes 
off for eight days, but I learned I was wanted almost 
at once at Ochrida, and there was such a lot to do 
that I had to leave such details till the evening. 

Besna entirely corroborated the gendarme's tale, and 
wished help to be given. I asked to see the woman 
and children, but was told it was impossible ; my visit 
would arouse suspicion. The gendarme came next day, 
bringing a ragged little boy with him as a specimen. 
I asked for the woman's name. He told me, but 
prayed me not to put it in our list, because, as he in- 
genuously said, the police might find her out. None 
of our Christian employes had the least fear that the 
goods would go astray, so the conveying of them was 



ON THE SHORES OF LAKE PRESBA 181 

finally left to the Moslem gendarme, who fetched them 
in the evening, in order that the Government, of which 
he was a fanatical supporter, might not find out. 

I wajs asked by the Christians to help this case. 
Just afterwards I had a very different appeaL Would 
I knock two names off the list ? They had been put 
on before I came, and had drawn rations once, but 
they were spies, and must not have any more. They 
had been in Arsov's band, and had gone with him to 
bury the guns before leaving for Bulgaria. They left 
with the band at night, but doubled back in the 
dark, and were seen next day leaving the town with 
the Mudir and some troopers. A hundred and fifteen 
rifles was the result of the ride. Arsov sent a message 
that they had deserted, and he suspected them, but 
the deed was already done. 

' I wonder,' said the man who had come to take my 
place — * I wonder that they are alive !' 

* Monsieur,' said Danil earnestly, * there is no one 
here now that can do it. But later, I swear to you, it 
will be done. Mais natureUementJ' 

I had been over a month in the district, and was 
sorry to leave B>esna and all the people I was interested 
in, and especially sorry to ^ve up the visit to the 
island of Grad, but I was needed m-gently, and left 
for Ochrida next day. 



9—2 



CHAPTER VIII 

OCHBIDA 

^ ^is all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days 
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays : 
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays.^ 

OoHBiDA hangs on a hillside, and trails along the 
shores of a lake that half Europe would flock to see 
were it not in this distressful country — a lake of sur- 
passing beauty, second to none for wild splendour. 
The purple-andngilver glory of its snow-capped moun- 
tains fades into a mauve haze beyond the dazzle of its 
crystal waters. Its awful magnificence grips .the 
imagination, and, in mad moments, awakes a thrill of 
sympathy for the unknown men who painfully hewed 
out tiny chapels in its flanking cliffs, and lived and 
died alone above its magic waters. There were times 
when I should not have been surprised to hear the 
white yUa of the ballads shriek from the mountains ; 
and the tale of the two brothers, as told by the boat- 
man, explained the structure of the rocks better than 
geology. 

Upon that mountain-side there lived a man many 
years ago — who knows how long ? He was very rich. 
He had many hundreds of sheep ; some say thousands. 
When he died he left them to be divided between his 
two sons. But the elder was a very wicked man. He 
took all the finest sheep, and gave only a few that were 

132 







A STREET IN OCHRmA. 



1S4 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

weakly to the younger. Then God was angry with 
the elder brother, and struck his flock with barrenness ; 
but the ewes of the younger all bore twins. Soon the 
flock of the elder was the smaller of the two. In great 
wrath he sent for his brother, and demanded to 
exchange flocks, and the younger refused. Then they 
fought on the point of that great rock which you see 
above you. They fought all day imtil they were both 
killed, and their blood ran down the cliff into the lake, 
and the rocks are red to this day, as any man can see. 

* If there were only another Government here, how 
beautiM this lake might be!' sighed my comrade. 
' We might have a steamboat with coloured lights 
and a band V 

One should even give the Devil his due ; there is 
one point, and one only, for which I am grateful to 
the Sultan : so long as he reigns there will never 
be a road by which a trip tourist can get up-country, 
nor a hotel in which he can stay and play 'Arry. 

Ochrida, the town, is mean and squalid. The 
houses, though modem, have a strangely medisaval 
appearance, for they are built of timber and plaster 
with widely-projecting upper storeys, and in the 
narrower streets folk can almost shake hands with 
their neighbours over the way. But they are for the 
most part nineteenth-century buildings hastily run 
up. The lath and plaster work is of the most gim- 
crack sort, and tumbles fast to pieces ; the place is 
poor; few repairs are undertaken, and modem ruins 
moulder on all sides. As for the streets, they are 
steep, narrow, and crooked on the hillside in the 
Christian quarter, and rugged with the usual Turkish 
pavement of oddnshaped stones jammed haphazard 
together. When it rains it pours. Then garbage of 
every kind is hastily shovelled into the street, and 



OCHRIDA 1S5 

races down to the lake in stinking torrents. After 
rain the people drink water that is turbid and yellow — 
' la soupe dysent^rique/ as the doctor pleasantly called 
it. It is not surprising that Ochrida's death-rate is 
about four times that of London. There are awful 
central gutters, and black, unspeakable intervals 
haunted by the unlaid ghosts of the stench of all 
the centuries ; for it is an old, old site, and is claimed 
by all the peoples of the Balkans with such jealous 
ardour that I doubt, for example, if the Bulgars would 
allow a single one even of its foul odours to date from 
anything but the Great Bulgarian Empire. 

It is a town in which you can scarcely look out of 
a window without being suspected of doing it for 
political purposes ; a town in which each party strives 
to prevent your views from becoming * prejudiced ' by 
telling you the * truth ' (that is, horrible tales) about 
everybody else. I do not know a spot where * earth 
hunger ' can be better studied and observed. At BiOsna 
I was only on the edge. At Ochrida I had a most 
exhilarating feeling of being in the thick of the fray. 

All the land around was a hell of misery ! We 
lived on a thin crust of quiet, beneath which surged 
a lava-bed of raw primseval passions and red-hot race 
hatreds into which no Power dare thrust its fingers for 
fear of having them burnt off. It was a position of 
such absorbing interest that, with apologies to my 
friends, I must confess I never wanted either European 
comrades or books. Someone lent me a George 
Meredith and a Maeterlinck, but, compared with the 
human documents around, they were masses of dilute 
drivel, and unreadable. The study of the forces that 
underlay the mass of surrounding suffering seemed the 
only thing worth living for ; its temporary relief but 
couift-plaster on a cancer. 



186 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

War between Russia and Japan, not yet declared, 
was expected daily. I had wandered about the Balkan 
Peninsula for four summers, and I had struck recent 
Russian trails. I believed that the immediate history 
of the Near East hung on the issue of the inevitable 
Far Eastern struggle, and I waited to see which would 
draw first blood with almost savage interest. 

Ochrida is gloriously in the thick of things. It has 
belonged in turn to everyone that has ruled in the 
Peninsula. First to Philip of Macedon and Alexander 
the Great ; then to Rome, when it was an important 
station on the Via Egnatia. Rome, it is true, does 
not claim it now, but it lies within Austria's possible 
line of march to Salonika, and Italy watches her own 
and Albanian interests with a jealous eye. She has 
recently, with great skill, planted her own gendarmerie 
officers in this district, and by thus checking for the 
time being the designs of both Austria and Russia 
upon it, has caused them both to explain loudly to 
Europe that they do not like having an Italian General 
at the head of the reform scheme. 

Ochrida next was included in the Byzantine Empire. 
Then it was part of Simeon's Big Bulgaria. It was 
even the capital of Samuel's Western Bulgaria for 
seventeen years, and the residence of the Bulgarian 
Patriarch. Therefore, say the Bulgars, it is clearly 
Bulgarian. 

*But we took it then,* say the Greeks. 'We 
smashed your big Bulgaria, and destroyed your 
Patriarchy. It was never re - established here. 
Ochrida is clearly Greek.' 

The Normans even held Ochrida for a little while, 
and they make themselves quite peculiar by being the 
only ones of its former possessors who do not hanker 
for it now. I am sure, if they only knew it, they 



OCHRIDA 137 

would like it, for the smaller towns of Normandy are the 
only ones I know that at all approach it in filth. 

Ochrida next belonged to the Despots of Epinis, 
whose principality, together with North Albania, 
corresponds fairly well with modem Albanian aspira- 
tions, for there is nothing new under the Balkan sun. 
John Asen came along, and swept the whole territory, 
Despot and all, into his Bulgar-Vlah Empire. And 
then it became Servian along with almost all the rest 
of the Peninsula. Even after the fall of the Servian 
Empire it formed part of the reahn of the beloved 
Marko Ejtdjevich, and, to come to quite modem days, 
Ochrida supplied a chieftain who fought under Kara- 
george for the freeing of Servia. Moreover, the Slavs 
were there before ever the Bulgar arrived. Ochrida 
is, therefore, clearly Servian. But if it comes to a 
prior claim, the Illyrians were there before anyone. 
Therefore Ochrida belongs to their descendants, the 
Albanians. Moreover, it was held and fortified by the 
great Ali Pasha. As we have seen, when Slav power 
waned the Albanians spread back over the lands from 
which they had been driven, and regained power, 
Ochrida has been more or less Albanian ever since, 
and, until quite lately, both Ochrida and Presba were 
rightly described by travellers as the Albanian lakes. 

Everyone's claim to Ochrida is perfectly clear, but 
no one else will admit it. Meanwhile, Ochrida is the 
Sultan's — till the others agree about it. Bather more 
than half the inhabitants are Moslem, itiostly Albanian, 
and possession is nine points of the law. 

The situation would be farcical were it not so 
bloody. I vow the place is dizzy with propaganda. 
Even the Vlahs, not to be out of the fashion, have a 
church (a Greek one, that is) of their own here. The 
dear little Vlahs I They claim no lands, but they 



138 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

keep planting little schools wherever they go, and no 
one knows on which side they mean to play ulti- 
mately. Meantime, they are as interesting and as 
valuable to all parties as is the Irish vote at home, 
and everybody says fervently, 'For Heaven's sake, 
don't let us quarrel with the Vlahs !' Even the 
Sultan, aware that he exists on the differences of 
his Christian subjects, has smiled upon them recently, 
and rather encourages their propaganda. As there is 
money in it, we may confidently expect the number of 
Vlahs to increase. I heard, for instance, of a priest 
who had been a Bulgarian for years, but who has now 
discovered that he is really a Vlah. As the Vlahs 
pay their priests at a higher rate, the discovery was a 
very fortunate one for him.* 

The Vlahs are waiting to see * which way the cat 
hops,' and meanwhile do odd jobs all round. They 
did a certain amount of letter-carrying for the Bulgars 
in the insurrection, but they live on very good terms 
with the Albanians and Turks, and, I fancy, are likely 
to throw in their lot with Albania ultimately. 

Nor is this hurly-burly of history and politics peculiar 
to Ochrida. It is common, with variations, to every 
town of any importance in no man's land. While 
this state of things continues it is useless for anyone 
to put labour or money into any commercial enter- 
prise. The population lives, like Mr. Micawber, in a 
constant state of * waiting for something to turn up/ and, 
not unnaturally , becomes more and more demoralized. 

Ochrida boasts of several antiquities all jealously 

* On Febniaiy 1, 1905, the Turkish Government granted 
permission to the Vlahs to have a church in which their own 
language is used. This puts them politically on a level with the 
Greeks and Bulgars, and is likely to have a marked effect in 
Balkan politics. 



OCHRroA 189 

daiined by everyone. On the top of the hill stands 
the fine old Byzantme red-brick church of St. Elima 
(Clement), whose body is enshrined within. He was 
one of the seven wandering priests from Thessalonica 
who bore Christianity into this wild land, and con- 
verted the Slav peoples. His brethren are not far off. 
St* Namn sleeps at the other end of the lake ; the 
rained church of St. Zaum on the lakeside and the rock- 
hewn chapel of St. Spaso (or Erasmo) commemorate 
others, and bear witness to the fact that it was to Greece 
primarily that the Slav peoples owed their civilization. 

I was amazed to hear a tale that the church was a 
Bulgarian building of the seventh century. The 
church itself said it was quite middle-aged, and could 
not be earlier than the twelfth or thirteenth century, 
but I had not the knowledge requisite for reading the 
inscriptions. Germans, however, know everything, 
and from a heavy archasological work I have since 
unearthed a translation : ' This church was built 
(rebuilt ?) in the time of Andronikos Paleologos and 
Irene and Makarios, Archbishop of Justiniana Prima 
and all Bulgaria, in 1331.* It was probably rebuilt, 
and the fragments of marble in the walls and some of 
the piers of the porch, which have ' Ravenna cushions,' 
belonged to the earlier structure. 

Justiniana Prima was the birthplace of Justinian, 
who was of Slavonic blood. It was the seat of an 
Archbishop and of a Prefect. Its exact situation is 
uncertain. Some have identified it with Ochrida 
itself or with Struga ; other authorities place it at 
Kostendil, near Sofia. The occurrence of the name in 
this inscription, and the &ct that it comes before 
Bulgaria in the Bishop's title, is of very great interest. 
The church is said to possess a valuable old library, 
notably a church codex extending over very many 



140 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

years, an examination of which led Von Hahn to 
doubt whether the Bulgarian tongue had ever again 
overpowered the Greek in the church at Ochrida. 

I was especially anxious to see the old Slavonic 
books, but though I applied for permission the first 
week of my arrival, and both the Bishop and his 
secretary said there would be no difficulty about it, I 
was put ofi* every week with most childish excuses, 
and in the end told I might see only the catalogue. 
Such was the chattering and mystery about it that I 
wondered at last whether the library, or the Slavonic 
part of it, had secretly flitted to St. Petersburg, as so 
many others have done, and should like to hear of 
someone who has seen it recently. 

Down below, nearer the lake, defaced by a minaret, 
and much mutilated, stands all that is left of Ochrida's 
old cathedral, St. Sofia. How much truth there is in 
the tale that it is one of the many built by Justinian, 
and contemporary with St. Sofia at Constantinople, I 
cannot ascertain, but the body of the church, now used 
as a mosque, is undoubtedly very old, and the eagles 
of Byzantium appear on the pavement. 

The Hodja who admitted me told me of a miraculous 
oil that flows from a certain stone, and also of a part 
of the roof which no one dare enter for fear of a great 
evil befalling. It appears to be haunted by a Christian 
ghost, who defends a little stronghold up aloft. Both 
miracles, maybe, are connected with its former use as a 
church. The few fi:agments of fresco that remain are 
too faded to tell anything. The Hodja fiirther volun- 
teered that he would have visited me, but feared, for 
in the present state of things it was not safe for a 
Moslem to be friends with a Christian. The trouble 
was all the fault of the Turks, who had treated the 
Christians very badly. Whether this sentiment was 







CHURCH OF ST. SOFIA, OCHRIDA. 



142 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

intended to increase his backshish or was genuine I do 
not know. 

Joined to the main body of the church at the west 
end is a large building, which seems to be a later addi- 
tion. A long Greek inscription in big brick letters 
forms a frieze, and has been deciphered as : ' Erecting 
this tent, he taught in all ways the divinely revealed 
law to the people of Mysia.' Moesia being the Boman 
name of Bulgaria and Servia, this building must have 
been one of the early missionary schools for the Slav 
people. It is used for military stores, and I could not 
go inside it. On the hill to the west of the town is a 
ruined mosque, obviously the remains of a very early 
church, and on the promontory is a picturesque red- 
brick church, which is mediaeval. None of these 
buildings, to my mind, belong to Dushan's days. 

The last and most disputed of all Ochrida's monu- 
ments are the great walls and castle which in old days 
guarded it from land attack. Massive and majestic, 
they are built of large irregular gray stones, with 
round towers, heavy square buttresses, and barrel- 
vaulted gateways. And nowhere is there any inscrip- 
tion to fix the date. I took a daily tramp, to blow 
away the hospital iodoform with which I reeked, and 
climbed, scrambled, nosed, and prodded all over the 
ruins, except the eastern part, which was occupied 
by the garrison, and forbidden ground. 

The height of the hill, its position at the lakeside, 
and its very steep slopes make it a place which the 
first man who came along would choose as a strong- 
hold; and it has been fortified since Boman days. 
Bou^, indeed, in the forties found two Boman statues 
And a Latin inscription in the eastern castle. The 
mass of the present buildings are probably mediaeval, 
And founded at the beginning of the eleventh century, 



OCHRIDA 143 

when Ochrida was for some years the capital of 
Western Bulgaria. But such an important site would 
have been strengthened by each conqueror in turn, 
and the present remains are doubtless partly Servian, 
Turkish, and Albanian. 

Much of the rough, irregular masonry is like that 
of the castle at Uzhitza, in Servia, and Tsar Lazar's 
tower at Krushevatz. The Bulgarian yarn that it, as 
well as St. Klima, is Bulgarian work of the seventh 
centuiy, can be put forward only by a people who 
have still very much to learn about architecture and 
other things. 

I called on the Bulgarian Bishop once, when his 
table was adorned with a large white sugar church, a 
hideous caricature of Gothic style. It was, he said, 
a correct model of the church of the Exarchate at Con- 
stantinople. So childishly delighted was he with his 
new toy that, when he said the church was made 
entirely of iron, and there was nothing like it in 
all England, I agreed, and did not add, ' God forbid !' 
He then grew eloquent, and declared that to Bulgaria 
alone of all the other nations had there come the great 
idea of building chiu:ches of iron 1 He defied me to 
mention another example. 

I told him of the ordinary corrugated iron affairs, 
and explained that they were not similarly magni- 
ficent, for I was far firom wishing to hurt his feelings. 
But at the mention of any other iron structure he 
lost his temper. 

' His Grace,' said his secretary, who spoke English, 
* says that what you say is quite untrue. In no other 
land has another iron church ever been seen.' 

It was a firontal attack, but I did not want to fight; 
I looked at the bastard Gothic edifice, bred of Bulgars 
and ca8t*iron, and saw it was an allegory of ^ progress/ 



144 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Alas for Western ideas planted untimely upon Eastern 
soil ! Perhaps the greatest foes of the Balkan peoples 
are those well-meaning people who wish to hurry 
them on. 

It was very obvious, within a week of my arrival at 
Ochrida, that all parties except the Bulgar were not a 
little anxious lest the British relief work meant that 
Great Britain would ultimately support Bulgarian 
claims. Greek and Serb lost no time in assuring me 
that, sooner than be handed over to Bulgarian rule, 
they would remain Turk. Then, at any rate, there 
would be some hope of getting their rights in the end. 
The Greeks, if they could not have the land themselves, 
would prefer it to be Servian, and the Serbs similarly 
made no objection to the Greeks. The Serbs received 
me with enthusiasm. They said I ' understood ' them, 
and at the feast of St. Sava they photographed me 
with the school-children in the middle of a Servian 
group, a copy of which, inscribed to ' Her Excellency,' I 
still possess. I was the only person at this 'slava' 
who had been to the shrine of St. Sava's father, 
St. Simeon, and this was rather a feather in my cap. 

A Greek told me that the Greeks were very pleased 
about this photograph, and it was soon clear that the 
Bulgars were not. They used to ask to see it when 
they called on me, and it made them snort. The 
virulence of the Bulgar party against the Serbs, with 
whom for all reasons they should be allied, disgusted 
me extremely. 

* I teach the children to be Servian patriots,' said 
the active little Servian schoolmaster to me; * their 
parents are Serb, and they wish their children also to 
be Serb, but unluckily this is only an elementary 
schooL Those who cannot afford to go elsewhere to 
finish their education must finish in the Bulgarian 



OCHRIDA 146 

school, and there they will be taught they are Bulgars. 
It is very sad.' 

* How many children did they tell you were Servian 
in that school V asked Petrov, a Bulgarian patriot, and 
he laughed derisively. 

* All but the schoolmaster s children are Bulgar,' he 
said. 

* Petrov says he is a Bulgar !' cried Achilles, who is 
wildly, madly Greek. * He is not. He is a Greek ; 
but he is a very wicked man. We are almost certain 
he was concerned in the murder of some Greeks. 
Since then he has said he is a Bulgar.' 

Of Achilles I am told, ' Oh no 1 He is not really a 
Greek, but, you see, he was educated at Athens. Now, 
of course, he is very Greek. I should be had I not 
been to an American College. I am really Albanian ; 
but because I belong to the Orthodox Church I am 
described as Greek on my passports.' So, in truth, are 
all Orthodox Albanians described. A large proportion 
of the so-called ' Greeks ' are Albanian. 

As for old Petrov, mentioned above, he amused me 
vastly. I wish I could make you realize him. He is 
like a person in a &rce. 

Enter old P., fat, flabby, effusive, given to tipjding, 
and a great patriot. He is devoted to the cause and 
ready to do anything for it, but he pestered me daily 
towards the end of our stay about an old bridle which 
he said one of the relief agents had lost, and for 
which he desired to be paid fiiU value. Old P.'s father 
was a wealthy man who made money in the palmy 
days of Ochrida fifty years ago, and had property, too, 
in Sofia. Old P. dissipated his father's fortune, and is 
reduced to dwelling in Ochrida, where living is very 
cheap. Old P.'s son followed in his father's footsteps, 
and is something of a ne er-do-well. He started life 

10 



146 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

as a photographer, and then went through Servia as a 
strolling player. One day he wrote and demanded 
more cash. He had already got through a good deal, 
and old P. refused to supply any more. The son 
thereupon returned to Ochrida minus a ^teskereh' 
(permit to travel). There is, of course, a penalty 
attached to this. Great excitement. Old P. refuses 
to pay. 

Enter gendarmes, who arrest son. Son halts in 
street, vows vengeance, and swears to bum down the 
paternal establishment. Son removed swearing. Then 
old P., seriously alarmed, hastens to the Kaimmakam 
(the representative of the Grovernment, against which 
he and his party have been industriously conspiring), 
and prays him on no account to release his son at 
Ochrida, but, when his term of imprisonment has ex- 
pired, to let him loose in some distant spot where he 
cannot slay his father. And the Kaimmakam kindly 
consents. In Turkey prisoners fare but leanly. It is 
customary for their families to supply them with 
clothes and extra food. Old P. cheerfully declines to 
do anything of the sort, and when I meet him a few 
days later is in a remarkably fine state of preservation, 
and as jovial as ever. In spite of his patriotism, he 
has no kind of shame about exposing his family 
squabbles to the enemy. Under the Kaimmakam's 
protection, he goes on cheerfully humming the popular 
patriotic street-song of the day. This, in fact, was 
the only way in which he and others displayed their 
* patriotism,' and the authorities listened calmly with 
a fine air of ' It amuses them, and it does not hurt us.* 

I was unlucky everywhere in the types of 'Bul- 
garian patriots ' I met. They quite decided me that 
if Ochrida were mine to give away they would be the 
very last people upon whom I would bestow it. And 



OCHRIDA 147 

the cultivated and courteous Albanian Kaimmakam 
sat in the * konak * and ruled this menagerie with con- 
siderable tact. He deprecated all European interven- 
tion, but afforded us every facility for relief work, 
though I gathered from some remarks he let fall that 
he did not entirely approve of it. Nor was it likely 
he should, for every Albanian hopes that Ochrida will 
be his in the end as it was in the beginning, and no 
support of the loudly-advertised Bulgarian claim is 
likely to meet with Albanian approval. If the peasants 
had any complaints to make, he said they should come 
straight to him, and not to relief agents. Like ' le bon 
Dieu,' he was accessible to everyone all day long, and 
an intermediary priest was no more necessary than he 
was in every sensible man's religion. 

Bishops in Turkey are very much fishers of men, 
and to place Bishops is the chief aim of each party. 
Bulgaria planted one in Ochrida about twelve years 
ago ; therefore of all the Christian factions the Bulgarian 
is now the largest. My work entirely concerned this, 
and brought me into contact with both its leaders and 
its rank and file. The latter crowded our premises 
daily for relief, and I was also in charge of them at the 
hospital. 

The care of the hospital, started for the wounded by 
Mrs. Brailsford, and the visiting of all the sick refiigees 
in the town, took up the greater part of my time. 
Surgery can be as interesting as politics, and the 
wrestle with disease as exciting as circumventing the 
Turks. Suppurating gunshot wounds, which were what 
we chiefly had in the hospital, were a quite new experi- 
ence to me, and I found them most fascinating. Never- 
theless, as they do not appeal to the general public, 
the hospital work, except inasmuch as it throws light 
on the manners and customs of the people, is better 

10—2 



148 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

omitted here. But I owe a passing tribute to the skill 
and perseverance of our young Greek doctor, an 
Athens-trained man, to whose untiring care the patients 
were very much more indebted than they had any 
idea of. 

Here, as well as round Bicsna, chronic dyspepsia was 
rife among the Christian peasants. Hot bread, red 
pepper, raw cabbage, and the passion for sour food is 
quite enough to account for it without taking into 
consideration the enormous amount of alcohol con- 
sumed. So great, I was told, is the love of sour food 
that dilute oxalic acid, when obtainable, is used as a 
flavouring. Every day, and especially bazar -day, 
brought out-patients to see the * hakimo,' and * My 
belly aches ' was their usual complaint. ' How long 
has your belly ached V brought an answer that varied 
from ^Always ' or ' Fifteen years ' to * Four or five years.' 
They all gave similar accounts of their diet, and were 
angry if advised to change it. 

Scrofulous and tuberculous subjects were very com- 
mon; enlarged and broken glands in neck and arm- 
pits, white tumours in knee and other joints, and very 
many cases of diseased bone, especially in the hands 
and feet. These for the most part were too advanced 
for anything but amputation, and that no one would 
hear of. I believe the cutting off of heads is the only 
form that is common in Turkey, and can be performed 
without fear of scandal. Overcrowding — for sixteen 
or twenty people think nothing of sleeping in one room 
if they can crowd into it, and this fi:om choice, not 
necessity — filth, and the intermarriage of disease^l 
subjects is working far more havoc among the Christian 
peasants than are the Turks. 

People would insist on keeping limbs that were mere 
black and offensive lumps of suffering. But though 



OCHRIDA 149 

they could only sit in a comer and die of slow poison- 
ing, nothing would induce them to part with a limb, 
or a portion of one. At the suggestion of amputation 
all the relatives set up loud shrieks. When told death 
was the alternative, they cried, * Let him die if it is 
his Kismet!' and the patient echoed the sentiment. 
The poor wretch had usually come a long day s ride on 
a pack-animal, and the only thing we could do was to 
pay his fare back. He invariably preferred death to 
mutilation. It was a dree scene enough : the man, long, 
lean, and pallid, with black, sad, sunken orbits, who 
clung with both hands to his discoloured and sup- 
purating limb, crying, ' Leh 1 leh ! leh ! let me die ! 
let me die !' as he sat in a heap on the floor of a 
dirty hovel, and his friends chorused round him. I 
remember several such. 

One day a hump-backed woman appeared. She was 
terribly distressed when told we could do nothing for 
her, and burst into tears. I was surprised, for it was 
a case of spinal disease that probably dated from child- 
hood. 

She explained that, if we could not cure her, her 
husband would divorce her. I asked how this was 
possible, and was told that a divorce could be bought 
for a small fee from the Bishop. None of the women 
attendants seemed to think it at all out of the way, 
and the episode produced a crop of anecdotes about 
Bishops of a most unholy nature. 

One odd superstition, for which I cannot account, is 
that it is fatal for the wounded to taste fish. The 
wound will never heal. The lake supplied magnificent 
trout, but not one of our wounded dared touch it. 
Two refused fowl for the same reason. Most wore 
amulets. One boy wore an old silver Slavonic coin 
which I wanted to buy. He consulted his family, for 



160 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

he was afraid to sell it. They decided that it was on 
no account to be parted with. As a matter of curiosity, 
I asked them to name a price, and, to my surprise, was 
told that they would not sell on any terms, as it had 
cured many people. 

There are also some peculiar customs about the 
wearing of finger-rings. Village women who have 
brothers wear their ring on the first finger ; those 
who have not wear it on the middle finger. They 
regarded this as important, but there seemed to be no 
particular custom as to where a wedding-ring should 
be worn. 

Marriage is apt to be a vague and floating sort of 
affair. Many women had not heard of their husbands 
for years, the gentlemen in question having gone to 
Eoumania or Bulgaria in search of work. It was 
taken for granted that they had all married again, 
and would never come back. Their wives, however, 
were unable to follow their example, as divorces are 
not sold to women. The women employed as servants 
in the hospital were all in this unpleasant predicament, 
and, on the strength of it, asked me almost every day 
to make them presents with the frankness and per- 
tinacity of young children. Their very rudimentary 
minds were an odd compound of childish simplicity 
and animal craftiness, but a craftiness that was apt to 
fail because there was no intelligence behind it. The 
study of it amused me exceedingly. If I dropped in 
at an unexpected hour, I almost always had to ' tell 
them they must not.' Then they said, first, that they 
had not been doing it ; secondly, that it was what they 
always did ; thirdly, that the doctor had told them to ; 
fourthly, that they did not know what had been 
ordered ; and, lastly, that they had been just about to 
carry out the orders when I had arrived. Then we all 



OCHRIDA 151 

laughed, for they did not in the least mind being found 
out, and the original order was fulfilled in the end. 
Their inability to learn was noteworthy. The doctor 
used an ordinary douche that had an indiarubber tube 
with a tap at the end. It was used every day for 
five months, but they never succeeded in learning how 
to turn the tap off, let alone in perceiving whether it 
were * on ' or * off.' They persistently filled it when 
turned on unless the sharpest eye was kept on them, 
and then shrieked and squirted dilute carbolic about, 
crying ' Stop it ! stop it T 

They seemed to have the intelligence of tortoises, 
and I began to believe that if their brains were 
extracted they would go on boiling onions by reflex 
action. 

It would have been no use getting rid of them, for 
they were fair average specimens. The native can be 
obstinate, but so also can the Briton, and by persistent 
efforts I got the rooms cleaned, the bandages boiled, 
the muck removed, and the odours mitigated with 
chloride of lime, and a pleasing atmosphere of iodoform. 
But it was a matter of daily hammering. 

One day, ten days after I arrived, we had quite an 
excitement. A whole ward went out on strike, and said 
it would not be cleaned again. Neither would it have 
the window open. Even Vasilika, the head attendant, 
was on the side of the patients. ^ They did not like 
having the room cleaned,' she said ; ' it was a thing 
they were not accustomed to, and they had quite 
decided that in future a gentle sweeping was all that 
the room should have.' I pointed out that even this 
detail had been omitted. There was a grand chatter- 
ing. The patients threatened to leave. I said they 
might, and started the cleaning operations at once. 
Of course, none of them did leave. They squatted 



162 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

happily round the fire in Vasilika's room ; we got rid 
of the rich monkey-house odour which they treasured, 
and they never struck again. 

Patients safely inside the hospital could be tackled. 
Out-patients in the town were a far harder task ; if 
they were very bad I had to go more than once a day, 
for, like animals, these people, when they feel ill, will 
make no eflfort at all to take food, and their firiends 
make no attempt to give them any, but let them die 
of exhaustion. They did not even lift the patient's 
head by way of helping him. In order to prove to 
me that he really required no food, they poured some- 
thing into his mouth, and triumphed when he choked, 
and both patient and friends assured me he was about 
to die. I had to go round resuscitating people with 
raw eggs, milk, broth, etc. It is a simple matter to 
beat up an egg in England and give it to an invalid. 
Here, however, no one possesses either a vessel in 
which to beat it nor anything to beat it with. The 
whole family drinks from a great earthen jar with a 
spout, and eats out of a large bowl, and has neither 
cup, glass, nor small basin. Fingers and a clasp-knife 
and huge wooden ladles are the only table imple- 
ments, and I had to take round the necessary 
* plant.' 

The comic element in the midst of all this was 
supplied by the ' doctoress,' a stout and very voluble 
lady whose handsome fur-lined coat and general air of 
well-being spoke of a remunerative practice. She was, 
of course, the bSte noire both of our doctor and of the 
municipal doctor, for she claimed aU the cures and 
credited them with an appalling death-rate, and a cease- 
less war raged between them. She had an infallible 
ointment for everything, especially cancer. We kept 
her out of the hospital, but she got at the out-patients 



OCHRIDA 158 

and killed a case of typhoid by filling it with parboiled 
hoi'se-beans. Women of this sort practise in most of 
the villages. They had ' first go ' at most of the 
wounds, which only came on to us when they were 
nice and septic, and we were then asked to pay the 
doctoress s bill, which was often heavy. 

The municipal doctor had a rusty set of instruments 
in a dirty case, a truly alarming sight, but I think 
they were more for show than use. His position was 
an unenviable one. He was supposed to repeive £T6 
a month to attend the poor of the district, but he only 
got £T4, and that at irregular intervals, and after he 
had signed a receipt for £T6. 

Turkish Government appointments are unsatisfactory 
things to hold, except for the pickings, and there are 
not many to be gathered by a medical man in a poor 
district. However, he did his best. When the 
English reported smaD-pox, and intimated it was a 
complaint that required fussing about, the Turkish 
officials, who had previously ignored it, announced 
suddenly that they were about to start small-pox 
hospitals. They collected a few cases and put them in 
a house in the town, but, of course, made no pretence 
at isolation or anything European of that sort. The 
poor * municipal ' had to attend them all, included in 
his £T4. This did not suit him at all. So, when the 
first batch was worked oflF, he made an inspection in 
the neighbourhood, and found no more. 

Now, the * municipal ' was also public vaccinator. 
There are public vaccinators in most towns, I believe ; 
their chief drawback is that they have no vaccine ; so, 
though the people are willing, and even anxious, to be 
vaccinated, few are. The municipal really could not 
be expected to throw in vaccine along with medical 
attendance for £T4. The people therefore brought 



154 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

their children to us, saying that their next-door 
neighbours had small-pox, and revealed the true state 
of affairs. But there was nothing to be gained by 
causing more cases to be stored in the town in a 
Turkish, haphazard manner, so our doctor did a large 
quantity of vaccinations, and we left the municipal 
to make up his £T6 by attending people in their own 
houses. 

His methods formed a half-way house between those 
of the doctoress and the properly-qualified Greek, an 
odd mixture of the various mysterious ointments 
beloved of the people and recent inventions. He had 
a perfect passion for antitoxin, even when it was three 
years old and thick* There was a good deal of diph- 
theria about, so we sorted out all the swaddled-up 
throats at once from the crowd of out-patients. The 
fame of the injection had already spread, and people 
used to ask to *be given the needle.' Their necks 
were generally stained with purple ink. The priest 
writes a text on two pieces of paper, which are applied, 
ink downwards, on each side of the throat and ban- 
daged on. They infellibly cure an ordinary *8ore 
throat ' in a fortnight or so. ' Neck ' and * throat ' are 
the same in the local dialect. Sometimes ' My neck 
hurts ' meant inflamed glands. One woman was told 
to come next day to have them opened. She met the 
* municipal,' the rival practitioner, outside. 

' Neck hurts ? Diphtheria,' said the municipal, and 
without further investigation he took her off and made 
an injection, and we saw her no more. 

Filled with pride for his superior powers of diagnosis, 
he came and told us. He and our man had words on 
the subject. A day or two afterwards the municipal 
announced that, as the glands had broken of them- 
selves, and an operation had been avoided, his treat- 



OCHRIDA 156 

ment was undoubtedly correct, and that antitoxin 
was wonderful stuff. 

Medicine under the Turkish Government is very 
odd, but then, so are most things. 

Wherever I went I tried to interview the doctors. 
At one place I met a man who had been trained in 
Berlin. He was in great despair. All his things, in- 
cluding a good microscope and an electrical apparatus, 
had been confiscated on the frontier. His most im- 
portant medical books he had recovered by paying full 
value for themu His electrical apparatus was refused, 
because such a thing had never been used before, so 
why now ? The microscope he was to have when the 
authorities had satisfied themselves it was not danger- 
ous. This was three years ago, and after repeatedly 
applying for it, he had given up all hope. 

* Alles ist verloren !* he cried — ' alles, alles ! All 
my bacteriology study — everything 1 It is a lost land. 
What can I do here ? Give quinine to a fever the 
nature of which I am not permitted to investigate T 

I was not surprised when he told me he was leaving 
shortly, and hoped never to return. If the Government 
had spent only half the energy in encouraging know- 
ledge that it has in suppressing it, I really think Turkey 
might be one of the best-informed nations in Europe. 

The Turk will set his back to the wall and die hard, 
but he will never learn. * Alles ist verloren.' The 
only thing that can develope freely is evil. 

Among the refugees in the town was an unhappy 
little boy dangerously ill of typhoid fever. His village 
was burnt, his father had been shot, and he had no 
relatives but a devoted little sister of about sixteen. 
She, poor child ! against all orders, gave him the coveted 
delicacy, * komad,' to eat. He had a violent relapse ; 
all our efforts to save him were in vain, and a few 



166 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

nights later the long-drawn wails of his sister and the 
old women of the neighbourhood shrilled weirdly in the 
dark. He was dead. The little sister was bitterly- 
distressed, and had no friends to help her. I paid for 
the dish of boiled wheat which she believed a necessary 
aid to his soul's salvation, and, learning it was the 
proper thing to do, I advised the Bishop at once, that 
a priest might be sent. The old women and the little 
sister waited by the corpse, and no priest came. I sent 
again. Finally, after fruitless waiting, to his sister's 
distress he was buried priestless. I had been anxious 
not to add to the troubles of these poor people by 
trampling on their religious prejudices, and had mis- 
managed the affair hopelessly. The explanation was 
volunteered at once. 

* When you sent for a priest you forgot to tell the 
Bishop you would pay for him.' Alas ! it was true. 
On a third and revised message a priest was forth- 
coming, who read the correct prayers. He was drunk, 
but that was a matter of detail. 

Every Saturday there was a little crowd up at the 
church, in front of which is a stone table, where folk 
commemorated their dead by eating boiled wheat, 
handfuls of which they offered to the passers-by, for 
here the funeral feast does not, as in Servia, take place 
on the grave. But the people, for the most part, took 
little apparent interest in church-going. I suggested 
to such of our patients as could walk that they might 
go to church, but they never did, nor did any priest 
visit them. It was not till Lent that the power of the 
Church appeared. Sunday, February 21, was the last 
day of Carnival. This is usually celebrated by a good 
deal of gaiety and dressing-up, but this year, naturally, 
there were no rejoicings. 

The two correct things to do were to wash your 




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OCHRIDA 157 

head and to eat ' komad.' My landlady appeared in 
the morning without her sham pigtails and with her 
locks dripping. She was rather upset to find me dry- 
headed, and seemed to think I had lost the only chance 
of a wash for the year. The hospital patients had a 
head-wash, and I found them all agog for dinner-time 
and ' komad.' The doctor had gone round with me 
the day before, and had sorted out those who might 
eat this delectable delicacy from those who might not. 
It was impossible to forbid 'komad' altogether, for 
' komad ' eating was the one religious observance that 
interested everyone. Vasilika was given strict orders. 
You might, however, as well give orders to a cat. 
They all had* komad.' 

Next day our convalescent typhoid, whose tempera- 
ture had been normal for three days, was in high fever, 
and so it was with three other patients. They were 
much surprised when accused of 'komad,' and wondered 
how the doctor had found out. 

We 'went for' Vasilika. She was very pleased 
with herself, and said they had had their ' komad ' in 
spite of us. Nor, unless I had stayed in the hospital 
all day and all night, could I have prevented this. 
Even then they would no doubt have eaten ' komad ' 
in one room while I was in another. But I am afraid 
it cost the typhoid man his life. 

That was the end of CamivaL We began a forty- 
eight days £ei8t. On the first day nothing at all is 
eaten till evening ; after that there is complete absti- 
nence from all animal food. Even olive oil is only 
allowed twice a week, and not at all in the first week. 
Diet was limited to bread, onions, and dried beans. 
Beans should be very nourishing, but it is the custom 
here to only partially boil them. After a heavy feed 
on ' komad,' a day's abstinence, and (literally) a 



158 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

* blow-out ' of parboiled beans, * belly-ache ' became 
epidemic among the out-patients. As to the hospital 
patients, 1 was on the edge of despair, for they all 
appeared to be about to commit suicide under my eyes. 
The low diet told upon them almost at once ; wounds 
ceased healing, and suppuration that had almost 
ceased began again merrily. Even the arguments 
of the doctor, who belonged to the Greek Church, 
were of no avail. One or two consented to take 
broth, chiefly because they did not consider it food, 
and we gave a few doses of cod-liver oil under the 
name of physic, but milk and eggs were totally 
barred. Some sat up and prayed, with tears in their 
eyes, not to be made to break the fast, saying the food 
would go bad in their insides, and such was their 
nervous terror that it probably would have done so. 
To add to the difficulty, Vasilika and all the atten- 
dants were on the fasting side, and set their energies 
resolutely to thwart the doctor. 

There was an unhappy little boy of four whose foot 
had been shattiored with a Martini ball. A fortnight 
before I had with difficulty kept him alive by pouring 
milk down his throat, for he was too weak to move, 
and refused all food. When the fast started he had 
just begun to eat with appetite, but liked only soup 
and meat. His mother then said that I had saved him 
once, and might give him what I pleased, soup, milk, 
and all. But I had to ask every day if he had had it. 

No, he had had nothing at all since yesterday. 

* Why not r 

' Vasilika says there is none to-day.' 
Then to the kitchen. Vasilika all smiles. 
' Why has not Jonche had his soup V 

* Because there is none, lady ; it is not required. 
There are plenty of beans.' 



OCHRIDA 159 

' You have been told to make soup every day.' 

' It is impossible. There is no meat in the Christian 
shops.' 

I sent Leonidas out to buy some in the Turkish 
bazar, and returned in an hour to see if the soup was 
being made. 

•No.' 

Then the same story : 

* There is no meat, but plenty of beans. Also we 
have asked Jonche, and he says he is not hungry.' 

I sent for a Moslem fowl, and Jonche got his soup 
at last. 

To add to my difficulties, the result of low diet was 
that everyone craved for and obtained raw spirits. 

I was on friendly terms with the Bulgarian Bishop, 
and went to petition him. I explained that I was not 
a missionary, and did not wish to go against anyone's 
religion. What was his rule about food under these 
circumstances, and would he relax it for a few cases 
that the doctor considered urgent ? 

The Bishop folded his hands upon his stomach, gazed 
at the ceiling, and delivered his episcopal opinion with 
an unctuous piety that was a dramatic masterpiece. 

Faith, he said, was better than food. Judging by 
his well-nourished appearance, his faith, I reflected, 
must be really very great. For his own part, he could 
not imagine that milk was of any importance if the 
people truly believed. I did not like to suggest to His 
Grace that he had, as yet, taken no steps to promote 
belief among them — for he had never either visited 
them himself or sent a priest — but I thought about it. 
For his own part, he said, he did not believe in doctors. 
You got well or you did not according to the will of 
God. He was sorry that money which might have 
been spent in helping ' the cause ' should have been 



160 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

wasted on a hospital. After a little more I perceived 
that the root of the matter was the usual * Burden of 
the Balkans.' The doctor was a Greek ! His Grace, 
however, ended by saying that he would send a priest 
to convince such patients, for whom it was really neces- 
sary, that the fast might be broken. But he never 
did. 

However, to my relief, most of the patients suc- 
cumbed by degrees to the attractions of animal food. 
The few who bravely persisted suflFered in consequence, 
and, in the end, I was sorry to leave one girl unhealed, 
who previous to the fast had been mending steadily 
and well. But enough of hospitals. 

The sick I visited. The sound visited me. The 
relief lists here had been all drawn up previous to my 
arrival, but this made no difference in the mass of 
applicants ; if anything, it increased them. The yard 
was full of them daily, and they called me their * golden 
sister.' Plainer and heavier built than the Presba 
women, with faces like Dutch cheeses, they prolonged 
their draggled pigtails with string or wool, and orna- 
mented them at the ends with old brass buttons, 
obsolete Austrian coins, bits of steel chain, or the 
handle of a broken pair of scissors. 

*Give, give, give!' they cried from morning till 
night. 

* I have received nothing,' says one, throwing her 
arms round me — * nothing at all ! Oh, my golden 
sister, tell them to give to me 1' 

I take the name of her village. It has been burnt ; 
she is on the list. *Thou hast received flour.* She 
admits it reluctantly. Her ticket shows she has also 
had a blanket and a * mintan' (wadded coat). This, too, 
she admits. But all these were given her by another 
• madama.' This one (myself) has given her nothing — 



OCHRIDA 161 

nothing at all. She expects a new outfit from me. 
'To-day thou hast taken flour for a month! Gro, 
there is no more for thee.' She is very indignant. 
Someone else has had wool for socks or linen for a 
shirt. She is well clad, but she has made up her mind 
to have what the other woman has had, and is left 
declaiming. When I return at mid-day she will begin 
again, * Another woman has had/ etc. Very few 
families get more than their share — ^their neighbours 
see to that ; but it is impossible to see that the right 
member of a family gets the garment, for the stronger 
ones annex them. 

The able-bodied press forward ; I search in the back- 
ground for the aged and infirm. Some of these, who 
are not on the list — for their villages are not burnt— are 
more grateful for a small gift of flour than are those 
who have been receiving it for weeks. One poor old 
lady crossed herself and threw up her hands heaven- 
ward before shouldering her little sack, and some 
murmured blessings. Two stout and dumpy brides 
whose marriage coffers had been looted were so over- 
come with the gift of a length of good cloth apiece 
that one burst into tears, and both were loud in their 
thanks. Most, I am sorry to say, on receiving a gift, 
asked for another. 

Twice I was asked for help by women who said 
their husbands had been roasted to death in the oven 
by soldiers. ' Like bread !' added a man who thought 
I did not understand. The ovens are large buildings 
separate from the houses, and are heated by burning 
wood inside them. The tale was a possible one, and 
their manner of telling it inclined me to belief, for 
mediaeval manners prevail in this land. Of excessive 
flogging inflicted during the search for hidden weapons 
I had plenty of evidence. And the terror that the 

11 



162 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Moslems have of a Christian rising will drive them to 
great lengths in order to suppress it. It is indeed a 
wonder that any Christian village was left standing. 

If they cannot get what they want at the depot, 
my * golden sisters ' track me to the hospital, and 
appear as out-patients. They say they have a pain. 
When this statement breaks down under the doctor s 
examination, they say it is not the 'hakim' they 
want, but * madama ' ; they have a ticket for flour, 
and my servant has refused to give them any. They 
shout, cry, and all talk at once. 

An examination of their tickets shows that a week 
ago they received flour for a month. They must wait 
for three more bazar days. This has already been 
explained to them at the depot, but we explain it 
all over again. They begin again : * Listen, my golden 
sister : I have a ticket for flour, but your servant will 
not give it to me.' More explanations ; but you might 
as well argue with a cow. Before you have finished 
speaking they begin again : ' My golden sister, I have 
come for flour,' etc. After three or four more explana- 
tions I tell them to go. 

They squat on the ground, and prepare to spend the 
day. They admit that they have plenty of flour at 
home, but they know we have flour in the depot, so 
they mean to have more ; and there they squat, and 
begin again every time I pass, till it is time to return 
to their village. 

Their slow-wittedness and inability to grasp a new 
idea is almost incredible, their dogged obstinacy even 
more so. They will probably return every week imtil 
the flour is again due. When the doctor has written 
a prescription and given his instructions, trouble is apt 
to begin. All his eloquence sometimes fails to make 
the patient understand that she must take the paper 



OCHRIDA 168 

to the pharmacy and get the ' bilka ' there. She does 
not know where the pharmacy is. It is in the bfizar, 
where the folk of her village are now selling firewood. 
She has only to go to the bazar, and anyone can point 
it out to her. * My golden brother,' she begins (this 
to the doctor), * I have come for bilka ; you have given 
me only paper,' etc. Eenewed explanations. She is 
to go straight to the bazar ; she leaves reluctantly. 

When all the work is finished at the hospital I 
return to my quarters for lunch. There she is, squat- 
ting in the yard, with her prescription still in her 
hand. She has not been to the bazar — not she — 
though she will have to go there in the end on her 
way home. She has come straight to the depot, and 
she begins at once : ' Listen, my golden sister. I am 
a poor woman. I have come for bilka,' etc. Not all 
the eloquence of two interpreters, my landlady, her 
neighbours, and her mother, can make some women 
understand. 

Their male-folk are only a fraction more intelligent, 
but, under orders, carrying and dealing out flour- sacks, 
they worked hard and well. They usually sent their 
women out to do the begging. My dealings with 
them were mainly * political ' ; and whenever I got the 
chance I tried to point out to them that the expected 
rising must not take place. 

After what I had seen and heard, it seemed to me 
that they possessed about as much power of military 
organization as guinea-pigs, and that if another insur- 
rection took place on the lines of the last they would 
be slaughtered wholesale ; for both Greek and Serb, 
alarmed lest a new rising should cause Europe to 
support Bulgarian aspirations, and in many cases 
maddened by having blackmail forced from them, 
would probably aid in suppressing it. Also, imless 

11—2 



164 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

the country remained fairly quiet, the Turkish troops 
could not be withdrawn, and it would be impossible to 
get the * reform scheme ' into working order. 

Not that I greatly believed it was meant to succeed 
by either Austria or Russia, but because I hoped that 
other Powers might enforce it in spite of them. And 
I looked forward vainly to the day when a French, 
Italian, or British officer should ride into the town. A 
Russian would only mean more * Pan-Slavonic ' money 
and extension of Russian influence (for at this time 
the Japanese War was but just begun, and the di*ain 
on Russian finances not marked), and as for an Austrian, 
he would only help to smooth the road from Vienna to 
Salonika. 

The peasants here also were torn between fear of the 
Turks and of the * Committee.' A man came one day 
and asked me to take charge of a lot of ammunition. 
He was tired of living in hiding with it, and wished to 
return to work, and did not know what to do. If he 
gave it up to the Kaimmakam the Committee would 
kill him ; if the Turks found it in his possession they 
might kill him. He thought it would be safe with me. 
I was to hand it back again if wanted. I was sorry 
for him, but could not turn our premises into a store- 
house for the Committee. 

Politics here cover a multitude of sins. One night 
a man turned up mysteriously. In his village there 
were three traitors. Before anything further could be 
done they must be destroyed. They could not be shot, 
for this would probably bring down the authorities, 
and it was impossible to buy poison because the law 
on the sale of it was very strictly enforced. (This is 
interesting, as it shows that it is possible to enforce a 
law in Turkey when expedient.) But * madama ' (my- 
self) was a friend of the doctor. No doubt if she asked 



OCHRIDA 165 

him he would write her something that could be put in 
ooffee. Then the three gentlemen could be asked to 
supper, and their political diflferences quietly arranged. 
Nor had he any doubt that I should fulfil this humble 
request. An episode such as this is vividly interesting. 
It is possible to ride hastily through the Balkan Penin- 
sula and credit the people with Western twentieth- 
century feelings. A short residence among them 
reveals the Middle Ages, their sentiments, morals, and 
point of view, all preserved alive by the overlaying 
stratum of Oriental rule. 

There was a man in the town, a refugee from over 
Dibra way. When he was sober he talked Slav, but 
when he was drunk enough to straddle on his heels, 
which was not infrequently, he talked Albanian. He 
was a Bulgarian patriot. One day he came and begged 
my protection. Some soldiers had threatened last 
night to kill him. * Why did the soldiers want to kill 
him T I asked. * Because they suspected him/ * What 
of, and why V Then he related with pride that he was 
the man who had made the poisoned bread that had 
kUled fifteen Turkish soldiers. I advised him to clear 
out, saying that if he did such things I could not 
possibly help him. He was astonished that I was not 
aware of his great achievement, and still more so that 
I did not admire it. This was just before I left 
Ochrida, so I never knew if he took my advice. Later 
I learnt whence the poison had been obtained, and also 
that few, if any, of the soldiers, had really died, 
though they had all been very ill. 

This type of patriot I had no sympathy for, but 
there were other poor fellows for whom I was very 
sorry. They had lost their all, and possessed only 
paper notes given them in exchange for their com and 
cattle impounded by the Committee. This was in- 



166 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

genious, as it gave the Committee a lever for raising 
another revolt, for the notes are not payable till 
Macedonia is free. Meantime, what were they to do ? 
Would I cash the notes? A patient in the hospital 
treasured one in a knot in his handkerchief. It was a 
printed form, signed by the leader of a band who had 
made him kill three oxen and turn * chetnik.* The note 
was for £5, but the man vowed his cattle had been 
worth £12. Fortunately, he added, he had not had to 
fight, as he had been left as a reservist elsewhere, and 
the fight had taken place while he was away, but the 
village and all his goods were burnt. 

Daily I marvelled more at the crass stupidity of the 
Turkish Government. Such a very little common-sense 
and ordinary justice would have saved all this trouble. 
The Christian peasant here is not a fighting man ; if 
he were allowed to till his fields in peace without 
having more than the legitimate tax raised off his 
labour, and were guaranteed the security of himself 
and his women, revolutions are the last things he 
would be likely to undertake. 

Of the outside world he is absolutely ignorant — 
so ignorant that it was impossible to make a depu- 
tation from a village understand that English or 
Italian officers were expected at Monastir soon who 
would ride about the country and see that justice 
was done. They had heard of Russians, but of no 
other foreigners. Then the interpreter suggested 
* kaurski ' officers — that is, giaours, unbelievers — 
and they grasped that the officers would not be 
Turks, and cheered up. All that the peasant knows 
is that his life is wretched under the present state 
of things. Oppressed by the Government and 
terrorized by the Committee, he rises, and will con- 
tinue to rise so long as there is anything left of him, 



OCHRIDA 167 

and he is used, poor wretch ! as the cat's-paw to help 
some Power or other extract territory from the burning. 
That he rose on hehalf of Bulgaria is owing to the fact 
that the Bulgar party, though Bulgaria is a poor 
country, has for the last thirty years outbid easily all 
others. He would have risen as willingly for Servia 
or Greece had they been able to finance the matter as 
liberally. When Von Hahn visited Ochrida in 1868 
he found one Slav school and four Greek, and the 
people expressed their preference for the Greek party. 
Since then money has been poured into the land with 
a lavishness that is amazing. It comes from ' outside,' 
and is paid to the Exarch Josef. Or it is a handsome 
present frx)m the Russian Consul to the neighbourhood. 
It is called * Pan-Slavonic,' but it works against the 
Serb, who is as Slav as anybody. I remembered the 
bitter cry of Servia as I had heard it eighteen months 
before : ' Europe did not consider us as peoples ; she 
mapped the Balkan Peninsula out into spheres of 
influence, and we are in the Austrian sphere.' 

At Ochrida it was certainly not the Austrian sphere 
that I was in. The dismay of the people on learning 
that Russia was not conquering speedily was great. 
Japanese victories were following one another in quick 
succession. The local outbreak that had been promised 
for the end of March was put oS. All I could learn 
fix)m the villagers was that they had had no orders and 
did not know, and there were only two small bands in 
the neighbourhood. 

Once troops were sent out to search Vekchani for a 
band of twenty-five. The soldiers, who have a poor 
time in garrison, made, it seems, a sort of picnic of the 
affair, and were entertained by the Moslem part of the 
village with coffee and 'tambooras' (guitars) and a 
sing-song. They came back empty-handed. A rumour 



168 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

reached Monastir that an affair with troops had taken 
place. The foreign Consuls made inquiries, and the 
Vali, not unnaturally, refused to give any details of the 
affair. After this the * cheta ' was spoken of as very 
powerful, and my landlady, Maria, told me triumphantly 
that it had consisted of no less than 250 men, who had 
all escaped. 

Talk turned on * chetas/ 

* Do you know what they are doing V asked Achilles 
bitterly. 

I did not. 

' They are killing Greeks,' he said fiercely. 

' Killing Greeks !' said I in amazement. 

' Yes,' he replied ; * they are not fighting Turks, but 
Greeks. They go armed to a village, and they offer 
the people a petition to sign. It is to ask for a Bulgar 
priest, and to say they are Bulgars. They do not wish 
to change their priest, but if they do not sign they will 
be shot! We Greeks have had enough of this. I 
myself have had to give money to them. Otherwise 
I should have been shot fi-om behind a wall the first 
time my business took me outside the town. Now we 
have sworn an oath we will stand it no longer. We 
shall organize Greek bands, and for every Greek that 
is shot we shall kill ten Bulgars.' He stripped his 
right arm and slapped it dramatically. * With this 
arm I will myself do it,' he said fiercely, ' car vous 
savez, mademoiselle, nous autres, nous sommes aussi un 
peu extraordinaire !' 

Nor has there been another attack upon the Moslems, 
but the Bulgars have occupied themselves throughout 
the summer by making attacks upon Greek villages, 
which the Greeks have continued to avenge. My life, 
in fact, at Ochrida was no more dull than a * penny 
dreadful.' Something lively happened in each chapter. 



OCHRIDA 169 

I tried to get it in the Greek, the Bulgar, and the 
Turkish edition ; also in the Albanian and Serb if 
possible, and there was a perfect library of tales all 
quite diflferent. Then at night, when it was dark out- 
side, and the night-watchman cheerfully went tap-tap- 
tapping round the town with a staff and a lantern, I 
squatted by the stove and compared the lot with the 
accounts given in the English papers I received now 
and again. 

Something happens — the Lord alone knows what. 
It appears a different colour to each beholder. The 
report of it floats through bazars and gathers additions; 
it reaches a town, and is black or white, small or 
gigantic, according to the nationality which retails it 
to the correspondent, also in accordance with the 
sympathies of his interpreter. But it is not finished 
yet. It has to be painted Radical or Conservative to 
suit the paper it is going into, for not one of the said 
papers cares twopenny jam about the good of the 
Balkan peoples ; they merely use them as a lever for 
tipping home Governments in or out, and thereby 
building or blowing up the British Empire. 

Poor Balkan peoples ! the race is not to the swift 
nor thjB battle to the strong, but to him that is most 
heavily financed by an outside Power. Still, their 
position is not hopeless, for when Nature is chivied 
with a pitchfork she comes back with a repeating-rifle, 
and in time the fittest will probably survive, in spite of 
European intervention. 

At midnight, when all good people are abed, the 
troops were shifted — tramp, tramp in the dark. 
Whither or whence ? I was keen on knowing, for the 
Balkans had got into my blood, and I could not bear to 
leave when the relief work should be finished. I had 
an idea that the Albanian question was the one that 



170 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

was most pressing. All the unknown beyonds were 
a-calling, but I must plan my route to suit' political 
developments. News dribbled through that the last 
battalion to make a midnight flitting had gone, not 
south, as was said at first, but up Dibra way, to per- 
suade the Albanians to pay cattle-tax — ^a vain task. 
Why should they pay increased tax to make up for 
damage done by odious Bulgars ? On second thoughts, 
why pay tax at all ? They got no return for it ; it 
only paid Turkish governors that they would rather 
be without. Second thoughts are best, and not even 
artillery modified their views. It did mine, though, 
for I knew that the Turkish authorities would find me 
much easier to tackle than the Dibra Albanians, and 
that I should be turned back ignominiously and hunted 
out of the Empire if I appeared near a spot where 
anything really fimny was happening. I gave up a 
plan to dash through the hottest part of Old Servia to 
the back door of Montenegro as foredoomed to failure. 

But having lived now with the Montenegrins, the 
Serbs, and the * Bulgarian Macedonians,' I clung to the 
idea that somehow or other I must get right into 
Albanian territories, and see what the political situa- 
tion looked like from that side, too. 

A day or two after the reports of fighting at Dibra, 
excitement was nearer home. An old man was shot 
in the bazar just after sunset. Maria brought the 
news with my morning milk. Now we were all going 
to be killed. No Christian could go to the bazar. 
It was the beginning of the end, etc. The Christian 
version was that a Moslem had entered the old man s 
shop and asked for ' rakija '; as he had not paid for some 
previous drinks, he was refused. He then whipped 
out a revolver and shot the old man dead. The 
Moslem version was that the old man was met in the 



OCHRIDA 171 

streets after sunset by the night patrol minus the 
lantern enforced by law. They challenged him, but as 
he was unfortunately deaf, he did not hear, so they 
fired, and he was unfortunately killed. That he was 
kUled was the only part in which the tales corre- 
sponded, and as he had two bullets through his chest 
and one through his arm, it was a fact not easily got 
over. The result was that the man who sold rakija 
round the corner mixed a special blend with petroleum 
especially for Moslems. He said he was very sorry, 
but he had upset the lamp into it, and the demand for 
gratis drinks fell off. 

Next time it was the turn of a Moslem to figure on 
the death-list. Two officers were riding over fi-om 
Monastir, and quarrelled on the way, whereupon one 
shot the other dead. They were both said to have 
been drunk. 

Oh, it is a gay land for law and order ! 

I got so used to these episodes that, when one night 
I heard a row, a running about, and Dooley, the odd- 
job man, who was rather cracky, screaming, I only half 
woke up, and went to sleep again at once. Next 
morning my interpreter explained it. 

* I had very bad bellyache,' he said, * so I cried out 
" Help !" Then the " kavas " thought something was 
happening, and he came running in with his rifle and 
revolver. Then Dooley, when he saw the rifle, was 
very fiightened, so the kavas pretended he would 
shoot him, and he ran after Dooley with his rifle, and 
Dooley screamed, and we hope you were not dis- 
turbed 1' 

' Not at all,' said I, 

Then more excitement. A man was shot over at 
Vekchani, a Christian. Who shot which this time? 
Other Christians. The recent military raid on 



172 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Vekchani was connected with this latest death, rumour 
said. The word * traitor ' was mentioned. The 
Kaimmakam himself went over hotfoot, but no arrest 
was made. 

The Bishop had been very indignant about the man 
who was shot in the bazar, and wanted me to act in 
the matter. So I asked him what should be done in 
in the present case. Oddly enough, though it was 
much talked about, the Bishop had heard nothing — 
merely that a man had been shot, that was all; a 
Christian, he believed. He did not see that anything 
could be done. Nor did I, for it seemed to be one of 
those little affairs in which there is more than meets 
the eye ; and in Turkish territory the arranging of 
who is to be * removed ' is said to be an episcopal 
function. 

The problem of the Bishop fascinated me from the 
beginning: the old-young man with his inscrutable 
smile, his veneer of courtesy, and his capacity for flat 
contradiction ; his unctuous piety as he posed as one of 
the Lord s elect, and his taste for Munich beer ; his 
palace weU, even luxuriously, furnished in European 
style; himself, made Bishop at the callow age of 
twenty-five, swarthy, black-eyed, with the puflfy flesh 
and dull skin of a man who lives well and takes no 
exercise. What was his relationship to this mass of 
miserable peasantry ? How did he regard them, and 
to what end was he working ? 

The wretched refiigees he neither heeded nor 
helped. I discovered early that he had a terror of 
infection, and he was not even aware till the end of 
our stay that the sick, other than those in the 
hospital, had had British relief That, being Bulgar, 
neither Serb, Greek, nor Albanian had a good word t6 
say for him was a matter of course. I waited patiently 



OCHRIDA 173 

for the Bishop to explain himself. Messages flowed 
constantly between our depot and the palace. I called 
on the Bishop and the Bishop on me. His Grace's 
secretary, trained in an American college, a dire 
example of the mental indigestion caused by rashly 
overdosing the East with Western ideas it cannot 
assimilate, haunted my premises and swooped greedily 
on all my newspapers, which he bore off to the palace. 
He was European outside, and spoke English very fairly. 

The Bishop began to explain himself. He wanted 
me to supply rations for various ' chetniks.' I perceived 
that if I were not careful we should have revolutionary 
schemes carried on under the shelter of the British 
flag. We were being trusted by the Turkish Govern- 
ment to play no tricks, and were allowed quite 
extraordinary liberty of action. I replied that our 
business was to care for the wounded and feed the 
inhabitants of villages that had been burnt out. I 
must see the parties and hear particulars. I was told 
I could not see them. This was the little rift within 
the lute. His Grace made many similar requests, 
until at last his secretary was afraid to deliver the 
message to me, and left it with the interpreter with 
the remark that he knew it would be of no use. It 
appeared the relief was not going the way the Bishop 
had intended. That the peasants had been saved 
from starvation gave him no pleasure. 

* We had expected quite half the population would 
die as a result of the insurrection,' said his Jackal, 
* and not one quarter have. Next time a great many 
more must die, and Europe will have to listen to us. 
Next time there will be a great slaughter. Every 
foreign Consul will be killed as well as every foreigner. 
It will be their own faults !' 

'You propose to set the people free by sending 



174 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

them to heaven T I said ; * it is certainly one way.' I 
added : * You are not only wrong, but very silly, 
especially about the Consul-killing.' 

And he was much annoyed. We speedily got to 
the root of the matter — that Great Bulgaria had to 
be constructed at any cost. What became of the 
peasants for whose ' freedom ' the scheme was sup- 
posed to be worked was a matter of small moment. 
I gathered he had as yet taken no part in the fighting, 
and intended to be one of the survivors. 

At the beginning of March we gave out the last 
distribution of flour that the fimds permitted of, 
enough to last till the end of April (O.S.). After this, 
in view of the expected rising, the British Ambassador 
gave notice that it would be well to wind up the 
hospital work shortly, and that all agents who stayed 
up-country must do so at their own risk. At Ochrida 
it seemed clear, however, that nothing would happen 
just yet, 80, as there were still some wounded to see 
to, I arranged to stay on a bit, and called on the 
Bishop to tell him of our plans. He was very angry 
to hear we were leaving soon, and bade me write to 
England for more money ; he had expected us to feed 
the people all the summer. If an outbreak took place 
my presence was the more necessary, as a martjn: to 
the cause would be invaluable. 

* You are afraid I' he cried — ' you are afraid !' 

Up till now I had not entered into party politics 
with him, but had taken his advice whenever it did 
not entail active su{)port of *chetas.' Except for his 
habit of contradicting flatly, he had always been 
elaborately polite. Now the natural man burst through 
the ecclesiastical varnish. 

* You are afraid !' he repeated ; * you are running 
away. You think we shall take you as we did Miss 



OCHRIDA 175 

Stone. And it would be quite possible !' he added 
wrathfiilly. 

Now, the kidnapping of Miss Stone was one of the 
most mean and dirty political * jobs ' ever perpetrated. 
I wonder if the public has any idea how dirty. I had 
not credited the Bishop with a lofty moral standard, 
but this was lower than I expected. Also it was 
silly. 

* I like travelling,' said I, ' and it would be cheap. 
You would never have a piastre for me.' 

His Grace and the Jackal were taken aback. 

* Fourteen thousand pounds was paid for Miss Stone,' 
they said. 

* Miss Stone was an American,' I answered. * I am 
English. I can't afford to pay ransoms.' 

* But the British Grovemment would pay.' 

* Oh no, it would not — not a piastre.* 

* Miss Stone,' said the Bishop sententiously, * might 
have been killed I' 

There is something highly farcical in being 
threatened with brigandage and murder in the course 
of a morning call with a background of European fur- 
niture, and I laughed. 

* You kill me,' said I, * and there is the end of your 
Bulgaria. No civilized Power will help you. I am 
not going because I am afraid of you. The work is 
finished here, and I am going to ride through Albania.' 

* You can't,' cried the Jackal ; * it is most dangerous.' 

* Oh no it isn't,' said I ; ' the Albanians won't want 
** to take me like Miss Stone." ' 

Check to the Bishop. He changed the subject. 

I had been astonished at his outbreak ; the cause 
now appeared. I was black sheep for my nation. 
England, he said, was attacking Bussia under the 
Japanese flag, with English ships, English ofBcers, 



176 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

English weapons. England had provoked the declara- 
tion of war. The news in the papers I had lent him 
were lies, English lies. England had never liked the 
Balkan Slavs, and now she was attacking their only 
friend. 

Blood is thicker than water. * Scratch a Bussian 
and you find a Tartar,' seemed to apply to Bulgars. 
He threw off all pretence of friendship for England, 
and displayed a bitter Balkan hatred — raw and fierce. 
I was vividly interested. I wanted, of all things, to 
learn what part Bussia plays in Bulgaria s scheme for 
territorial aggrandisement. Weeks ago I had been 
convinced that the peasants were only tools. Now, at 
last, I had it fi:om the Bishop, a head centre of Bul- 
garian propaganda, that Russia was of paramount 
importance to their plans. I threw only enough doubt 
on his information to keep him going, and bore his 
abuse of n\y own country with equanimity. He felt 
better when he had let off steam, and we parted quite 
politely. 

Our depot was empty, and I remained alone with an 
interpreter to finish the hospital work. My surprise, 
therefore, was great when, coming home at an unusual 
hour, I found the yard filled with pack-horses and 
' kirijees/ who were busy stowing bales in our basement, 
and I learnt they contained men's clothes and shoes, 
had been consigned to the Bulgarian Bishop, and were 
to be put in the English premises by his orders. 

I waived the usual etiquette of sending to know if it 
were convenient, went straight to the palace, and asked 
if His Grace would kindly see me at once on an urgent 
matter. His Grace and the Jackal seemed flurried. I 
explained that, doubtless by mistake, goods belonging 
to the Bishop had been delivered to me. No, there 
was no mistake. The depot was no longer ours. The 



OCHRIDA 177 

Bishop had taken it. He was going to make a distri- 
bution of clothing, and it was more convenient to make 
it at our place. There was no room at the palace. I 
added up the situation mentally. Why had I not 
been told beforehand? Why had the goods been 

* dumped ' at an hour when I was usually out ? Why 
was there ' no room ' in the extensive palace ? Why 
was it more convenient to distribute from what were 
recognised as British premises ? Above all, why were 
His Grace and his secretary so upset ? They conversed 
together in rapid whispers, and I have rarely felt more 
uncomfortable. So long as I was in the depot I was 
bound to see that there was no possibility of a * cheta ' 
being fitted out under our protection. The Bishop 
was an adept at wire-pulling, but I would see him 
somewhere before he wire-puUed Great Britain. 

* The house is ours till the end of the month,' I said, 

* and has been paid for.' 

They were vexed, for it overthrew their first point. 

* The distribution can take place while you are out, 
and will not inconvenience you,' said the secretary, 
after more whispering. 

The situation was unpleasantly strained. 

* It is not the inconvenience,' said I, scraping up my 
courage ; ' the difficulty is that so long as I am here 
any distribution that takes place on our premises will 
be considered by the authorities to be English, and I 
know nothing either about the goods or the people who 
are to have them. I am sorry to disoblige His Grace.' 

This left little more to be said, for they did not 
think fit to enlighten me about their plan. I had it 
on my mind that I ought to ask for the removal of the 
bales, for the manner of both men suggested * there 
was more than met the eye.' But I did not. I believe 
I ' funked it.' 

12 



178 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

With apologies for troubling His Grace, I withdrew 
from the somewhat thunderous atmosphere of his 
study. And at a distance from the palace my 
interpreter and I looked at each other and burst 
out laughing. The bales remained where they were, 
and in order to make all * square and above-board ' so 
far as the British Relief Fund was concerned, I told the 
Kaimmakam on leaving that our distribution work had 
been quite completed. 

My last week was a crowded one. I had some 
money to give away ; the question was, how ? I 
thought of buying plough-oxen for one or two villages 
to aid the spring sowing. This was impossible, as the 
headmen I interviewed insisted that the beasts must 
be presents to individuals ( = themselves), and not for 
ploughing land to feed the village. The owner could 
let them out to his neighbours, and so make money. 
I had already learnt how the leading men of the 
villages made money by capturing the flour- tickets and 
selling them back to the owners — one gang even 
charged so much a head for letting the people have the 
flour; and I should have handed them over to the 
Kaimmakam had I discovered the fraud in time to see 
the matter through. Then I offered a few sheep and 
goats to certain villages to start a flock. Everyone 
quarrelled, and was certain that no one who had them 
would let anyone else have even one lamb. It was 
but another example of the * Burden of the Balkans.' 
They were too much occupied in * doing ' each other to 
be able to work together for a common end. I there- 
fore chose three very poor villages, gave money to each 
widow and child to buy one month's flour, and had 
almost accomplished the task, which gave very great 
pleasure, when a * bazar rumour ' raged through the 
town that £6,000 had arrived from England, and was 



OCHRIDA 179 

to be distributed broadcast ! An Eastern bazax rumour 
is a fearsome thing. 

Within twenty-four hours every woman in the 
neighbourhood was a widow and every child an 
orphan, and we were besieged by them. A few 
enterprising men joined the throng, and said they 
were widowers. A parley failed utterly. The yard 
was crammed, and they tried to get into the house. 
It was an anxious time. The crowd was such, I feared 
children would be hurt. 

We fastened the doors, and from an upper window 
I roared to them that we had nothing left^ — neither 
flour, linen, clothes, nor money. They must go. 

The scene beggars descriptions. They refused to 
believe me, struggled to get in, and cried out in the 
crush. It was getting impleasant. I went down with 
the kavas, managed to squeeze out, ordered every 
child to leave at once, collected them, and drove them 
out of the gate, which the kavas shut after them. 
This caused many women to go in search of their 
offspring. They were let out with difficulty, as a 
crowd was trying to get in. The women remaining 
then squatted on the ground, and declared they would 
remain tiU they received something, no matter what. 
So long as any remained in the yard those outside 
believed a distribution was going on. More flocked 
up and tried to get in. 

The Moslem kavas was getting excited ; he was 
itching to play the part of chucker-out. The air was 
thick with abuse. It had been going on for a couple 
of hours. The only way to avoid a catastrophe was to 
evict everyone, so that they might spread a counter- 
rumour and stop the affair ; but I could not employ a 
Moslem man to chuck out Christian women. 

There was a final and futile parley. Then I turned 

12—2 



180 THE BURDEN OF THE BAIJCANS 

to the nearest woman, pointed to the gate, and 
said : 

'GoT 

* No/ said she. 

I took her by the belt and collar and ran her down 
the slope ; the kavas whipped open the gate, and she 
was outside and the gate shut before she had got over 
her surprise. 

I hoped this would be enough, but never a bit. I 
was not educated for a policeman, and, as I evicted the 
fourth, feared they meant to tire me out. However, to 
my relief the fifth turned the scale, and the rest got up 
and went. It was one of the most trpng episodes I 
ever had to tackle. 

The next bazar rumour proved true. Ochrida was 
agog with the news that a Bussian newspaper corre- 
spondent was coming. His possible mission was much 
canvassed. He arrived from Kastoria with a military 
escort, and was chaperoned carefully about Ochrida 
between two Turkish officers. When I called next 
morning on the Bishop, to make my final farewells, the 
Bussian was coming out, and His Grace, * Pan-Slavoni- 
cally ' consoled, was in high spirits, and adorned once 
more with his inscrutable smile. 

We arranged that the hospital plant should be 
handed over to him, and he then asked how I was 
going to Monastir. 

* On horseback over the mountains to-morrow,' said I. 
His Grace was horrified. It was impossible : the 

fatigue would be terrible. He himself always drove 
by the carriage road. I preferred riding. He smiled 
fatuously, and said he was growing old, and horseback 
WM only for the very young. 

* Exercise is good,' said I. * His Grace is younger 
than I am, but I am English.' 



OCHRIDA 181 

His Grace expressed a total inability to compre- 
hend me. Sporting instincts were naturally beyond 
him. 

' I am going/ he said, * to ask you a great many 
questions on your religion, which no doubt is what has 
caused you to take up this work, and live alone in a 
wild land/ 

Hejjfffollowed'an excursus on faith. 

' I came,' said I, * to help the victims of the insurrec- 
tion, and to see the Eastern Question from a fresh side. 
I hope in time to explore the whole Peninsula, and see 
all its peoples.' 

The Bishop folded his hands and cast up his eyes. 
He could look very holy when he chose. 

* I continue to believe,' he said, * that it was religion 
that sent you.' 

I assured him I had not troubled about my body or 
my soul ; I had come to learn as much as I could of 
the truth about recent events, and see what could be 
done. 

The Bishop was nonplussed. I do not fancy truth 
was an article he greatly valued, and he certainly was 
not afflicted with a thirst for knowledge. He had not 
even learnt to speak Turkish. 

* *^ Enowest thou aught a Corsaint that men call Truth ? 
Couldst thou aught wissen us the way, where that 

wight dwelleth T 
** Nay, so God help me,"" said the gome then. 
^' I saw never palmer, with pike nor with scrip 
Axen after him ere, till now in this place !^ " 

The lines, vaguely remembered, sketched the situa- 
tion fairly. « 

* What have you learned V said the Bishop eagerly. 
I hesitated. The Bishop was persistent ; so was his 



182 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

secretary. They questioned and requestioned. I 
looked at the Bishop, young, smug, unctuous — the 
man who had faced no bullets, visited no sick - beds, 
comforted no dying ; who had fared softly in his palace 
while his flock rotted and starved. I thought of his 
cowardly dread of infection, the priestless burial of 
the little boy ; I heard again the words, * Not a quarter 
of the population are dead,' etc. ; I saw the helpless 
mass of wretched humanity with whose blood this man 
and his friends meant to paint red the frontiers of Big 
Bulgaria. Then I told quite frankly what I had seen 
of the game. Their interruptions only showed it more 
clearly, and I tried by questions to make them tell the 
tale themselves. The bitter sufferings of the people 
under the Sultan's (Government were nothing to them : 
better that they should continue to suffer than that 
Greece or Servia should gain an inch of territory. 
Both nations they abused freely. The European inter- 
vention which they demanded was to support only 
Bulgarian claims ; ' autonomy for Macedonia ' was to 
be a half-way house to Great Bulgaria. I wished 
Bulgaria a fair share of the Sultan's territories, but I 
did not admit the justice of all her claims, and I most 
strongly condemned her methods. 

Then it was the Bishop s turn, and he was equally 
outspoken. Christianity, he said, was the greatest 
power in the world, and would eventually triumph. 
England was not a Christian country, and would be 
wiped out by Holy Russia ; the sooner the better. He 
had a piece of news for me : Bussia had conquered 
Japan, and was occupying half of it. The other half 
was occupied by the English, who would shortly be 
forced to withdraw. We had dropped from tragedy 
to farce, and I laughed aloud. 

' As England wishes to take Japan herself, you will 



OCHRIDA 188 

be sorry to hear this !* he said. * Also that Bussia is 
going to occupy all the rest of India.' 

Here we had an excursus on geography, concerning 
which his ideas were suitably mediaeval. I explained 
that for the sake of the hiunan race I always wanted 
the best man to win. When we were no longer able 
to defend ourselves we should go, and not before. 

'You will,* said the Bishop, *you will. AU the 
world knows you have no army. You are very proud 
of your navy. What is a navy ? Nothing, I tell you 
— nothing ! I have seen a navy, and I know !' 

* His Grace,' said I, ' has perhaps seen the Bulgarian 
one.' 

The audience had now lasted quite long enough. I 
thanked the Bishop for all he had done for me, and 
took what I hoped was a last farewell of him. But 
etiquette had to be maintained. T was told His 
Grace would return my call that afternoon. 

When he arrived I was parleying with two widows 
of the town, each with an orphan. Maria rushed in : 
* The Bishop, the Bishop !' His Grace entered 
solemnly, Maria kissed his hand humbly, and retired, 
so did one widow ; the other sat firm and ignored His 
Grace completely. She was a stout, elderly party, 
with a good deal of presence. I perceived she intended 
to sit the Bishop out. The Bishop looked at her. 
She gazed over his head. For a little while he ignored 
her. Then he said suddenly to the child : 

* What school do you go to V 

* The Greek,' said the widow. 

' That is a pity,' said the Bishop. 

* No, it isn't,' said the widow. ' Greek is more 
useful.' 

* Children should learn the language of their father 
and their nation,' said the Bishop severely. 



184 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

* This child's father was an Armenian/ retorted the 
widow triumphantly. ^ It is my daughter's child, and 
I am Greek/ 

The Bishop tried to be clever. 

* What did you speak at home V he asked the child. 

* Turkish !' came the answer smartly. 

The widow regarded the discomfited Bishop with 
unspeakable contempt. He arose, made his adieus, 
and fled. 

We wrestled for the last time with the greedy 
demands of the pharmacy man, and the provision 
dealer, who was very drunk and more than usually 
obstreperous, went to bed early, to be ready to start 
at dawn, and spent a truly Balkan night. 

Dooley, the odd -job man of the depot, had been 
promised work in Monastir, and was to ride there 
with us. In the black hours before dawn came an 
awful row in the street — battering on the gates, 
shouts, screams, soldiers and what not, all mixed up 
in the dark. Dooley was arrested by the night patrol 
and taken to prison. I dressed hastily ; friends flocked 
in. It was a brutal outrage : poor Dooley had been 
merely coming to make final arrangements ; had been 
attacked and beaten by the soldiers. I was called on 
to act promptly and save him from a Turkish prison. 

Day dawned and our horses were ready, but the 
Kaimmakam, who had to be appealed to, was natur- 
ally not yet up. My chances of getting through to 
Monastir that night were slipping away, and my plans 
depended on it. Finally, when, to everyone's joy, 
Dooley was released — for the Kaimmakam acceded at 
once to my request — the victim of the brutal outrage 
was crazy drunk. Biding on horses was very cruel, 
he spluttered ; he had gone out at three in the morn- 
ing to hire a carriage ; he didn't mind the expense — 



OCHRIDA 185 

not he ; he wouldn't ride — not he ; was looking for 
a carriage when the soldiers arrested him! I made 
a final eflfort to save the poor devil, but it was in vain. 
He waB too drunk to sit in a saddle even could we 
induce him to try. 

We left him behind, and, owing to this final piece 
of local colour, had a stiiF ride to Monastir; for 
though we pushed on as fast as the mountain-tracks 
allowed, the sun went down before we got in. A 
bitter wind arose, and we crawled along at a foot's 
pace, for it was pitch-dark, and the road a mass of 
loose stones and holes; also it was fireezing hard. 
I clung to the saddle-peak, and comforted myself only 
by reflecting what fun it would have been to have 
brought the Bulgarian Bishop along. 

Finally the lights of Monastir came in sight. I 
dismounted, cold and stiff, at the door of the H6tel 
Stamboul ; high time, too, for my luckless interpreter, 
who was no horseman, was about done up, and my 
landlord, who had taken advantage of our escort to 
come to Monastir too, had had quite enough. 

But I was in a tearing, raging hurry, for an unique 
chance had offered itself for getting right through 
Albania, and I did not wish to lose it. A weU-known 
society was sending an agent fi'om one end of the 
country to the other on business, and was willing 
that I should accompany him. He was an Albanian, 
and spoke some French. The one drawback was that 
I had never seen him ; he had already started, and I 
must pick him up — an unknown quantity in a quite 
unknown land. As, however, I was going alone and 
on my own account, and so was responsible for no 
one*s money or life, I was firee to take any risk. The 
one thing necessary was to obtain Turkish Govern- 
ment permission for the expedition. Without this 



186 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

I should be fairly certain to be turned back somewhere, 
and the society might get into trouble, as Turkish 
officials were very suspicious of strangers. Some ot 
my friends on the relief work were of opinion that to 
ask permission was to court failure, and that a refusal 
was certain. The British Consul, however, knew best; 
he advised me to call by myself on the Vali, and 
predicted success. 

Calling by yourself at a Government Konak is a 
nervous task. There is a yard full of soldiers and 
gendarmes, and several staircases more or less muddy 
that lead to unknown heights, and, naturally, all the 
directions are scribbled up in Turkish. Upstairs there 
are corridors where officers hang about and smoke, and 
messengers hurry from one heavily-curtained door to 
another. No one took the faintest notice of me, so I 
addressed the most gorgeous in French. He did not 
understand, but called someone who did, and in two 
minutes I was in the presence of His Excellency. He 
was much amazed at my request, but very affable, and 
gave me leave to wander as long as I liked, though he 
was sure that cold and hardships would prevent my 
carrying out my proposed route. I fancy the fact that 
we both painted in water-colours was a bond of 
sympathy. He hoped I had my apparatus with me, 
and assured me I should see ' des choses tres bizarres.' 
I thanked him, and was about to leave, when he said 
that, as I had been on hospital work at Ochrida, I 
should perhaps like to see the Turkish hospital, over 
the arrangements of which he had taken much trouble, 
and he called up a soldier to take me there. 

It is a very decent building, airy, clean, and bright, 
with good wards, big windows, and a large garden. 
Mine was a surprise visit, and I found the bed-linen 
all clean. I do not know what the doctoring is like, 



OCHRIDA 187 

but the patients almost all looked cheery and comfort- 
able, with the exception of some in the typhoid ward, 
where there were some very bad cases. The pharmacy 
man took me round, and told me the prescriptions. 
Patients of every race and religion are received, but 
lack of fiinds prevent it from opening all its wards. 

I had now nothing left to do but buy a second-hand 
gendarmerie saddle and bridle, with a blue saddle- 
cloth adorned with scarlet crescents, cram the neces- 
saries of life into a pair of saddle-bags, roll up my 
blanket in a waterpcoof sheet, and be off. 



PART III 

IN THE LAND OF THE EAGLE 

^ If New and Old, disastrous feud, 
Must ever shock like armed foes. 
And this be true till time shall close, 

That Principles are rained in blood ; 

Not yet the wise of heart would cease 

To hold his hope through shame and guilt, 
But with his hand upon the hilt, 

Would pace the troubled land like peace ; 

Would love the gleams of good that broke 
From either side, nor veil his eyes : 
And if some dreadful need should rise, 

Would strike and firmly, and one stroke.^ 



189 



CHAPTER IX 

OP THE ALBANIAN 

* Oh, I know all about the Albanians/ cried a lady ; 

* they are those fiinny people with pink eyes and white 
hair/ 

But the Albanian is not so quickly explainable ; and 
of all the Balkan peoples he is least known to the 
English. 

His European name, ' Albanian ' is said to be con- 
nected with the word * Alp.' He calls himself * Shkyi- 
petar/ and his land * Shkyiperia ' — that is, * son of an 
eagle,' and ' land of the eagle '; nor could a more fitting 
name be found for the untamed mountain man, with 
his keen eyes, aquiline nose, and proud bearing. 

There are two marked Albanian types, the dark and 
the fair. The fair is commoner, so far as 
I have seen, in the South. The character- 
ifitic man has a nose like Dante s, with a 
drooping tip, narrow in the bridge and 
fine cut; very marked eyebrows that start 
straight and drop in a slant below the 
orbit bone ; a long jawbone that sweeps 
down in a fine line and ends in a firm typical 
chin cleft at the tip. The skuU is ^"JJ^^ 
straight-backed, as though a piece has 
been chopped oflF, and there is great width just above 
the ears, this especially in the fair type, which has 

191 




192 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

brown, sometimes almost flaxen, hair and gray eyes. 
In figure he is tall (not so tall as the Montenegrin), 
lightly built, slim-hipped, and as supple as a panther. 
The dark type, which near Ipek and Gusinje is very 
dark, is often longer skulled, rather shorter in height. 
The tribal system and lack of communication has 
accentuated local differences. 

Albania is divided by the river Skrunbi into two 
parts — Ghegaria, or North Albania, and Toskeria, or 
South. In the South there is a considerable popula- 
tion also of Greeks and Vlahs, with both of which the 
Albanians have intermarried. North of the Skumbi, 
with the exception of some foreign traders and Turkish 
soldiers and officials, the population is entirely Albanian. 
In the debateable vilayet of Kosovo there is still a 
considerable Servian population, but it is largely out- 
numbered. Among the Ghegs the tribal system still 
flourishes in the mountain districts. A man when 
asked his name says he is So-and-so, of the Hotti or 
Shala. No outside man, I am told, can become a 
member of a tribe, and the tribe has power to decide 
whether a man may sell all his property away from it. 
He may, and often does, marry a wife from another 
tribe. The marriage of coushis is forbidden. 

The largest tribe is that of the Mirdites, said to 
nimiber 30,000. Dibra is also a large tribe. Then 
come the Dukagini, the Fulati (including Shala and 
Shoshi), the Matija, the Kastrati, the Hotti, the 
Klementi and the Skreli, which average 10,000 apiece, 
and there are a niunber of minor tribes of from 1,000 
to 5,000 strong. (The figures are only approximate.) 
These tribes contain both Moslems and Roman Catholics, 
have their own leaders, and are not liable for conscrip- 
tion in the Turkish army. 

In Toskeria, though certain Begs can command an 




5a6l.])u<l)(u^. 



TOSK CJOSTUMK, SOUTHERN ALBANIA. 



194 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

armed following, the tribal system is practically dead ; 
but the people still fall into three main divisions : the 
Tosks, between the Skumbi and the Viosa ; the Liabs, 
south of the Tosks ; and the Chiams, further south still. 
All these have minor divisions. 

The language also is divided into two main dialects, 
Tosk and Gheg, and the difference in accent is marked. 
A man from Korch^ in the South finds Skodra talk aa 
diflScult to follow as a Cockney does broad Yorkshire. 
The Mirdites claim that their dialect is the purest of 
all, and their isolation from the world makes this 
highly probable. All the place-names in and around 
Mirdita are pure Sbky.ip*, which points to the fact that 
no foreigner haa ^\tfBr;occupi^*>tt.'^. ^ 

Shkyip is an -Arytfa •tbhgae',.'8ald;.hfU3 as marked an 
individuality* as 'the men who speak Ijb. Much of its 
vocabulary i*esemt)les early Greet, and J^atin ; but the 
words ofte^,. appear to be allied '.to j. and not derived 
from, thos^, .t/DJjgues. It possesses,, also, many odd 
consonant c(5pi^?jnations peculiar; tjcvatS.elf. Unlike any 
other Europ6aTa»:.t«4gUQ,. it •ha&*/rf.' definite and an 
indefinite form VC^VWsion toV'tfpuns. The adjective 
follows the indefinite'&trnij and is placed after the noun, 
and between noun and adjective comes what the 
grammar calls a 'characteristic' — a kind of article 
which agrees in gender with the noun and has a 
declension of its own. Thus : * diale i mire,' a good 
boy ; ' diali i mire,' the good boy. The comparison of 
adjectives is formed, not by. inflection, but merely by 
prefixing * more ' (' ma ') or * very ' (' shum '). 

The verbs are capable of expressing very subtle 
shades of meaning, and have, according to the latest 
grammar, no less than eleven moods and fifty-five 
cases. Many of these, however, are compounds with 
*to have' or * to be.' 



OF THE ALBANIAN 196 

No written line exists to show how the tongue grew 
or changed. Its past is wrapped in darkness. Long 
historical ballads have been passed from memory to 
memory. Literature, save of to-day, there is none. 
A uniform method of writing has not yet been adopted, 
and Albanian is awaiting an author to crystallize it. 
There is a tradition of an old Albanian alphabet both 
at Elbasan and at Skodra, but no successftil attempt 
to find an alphabet in which the language coidd be 
printed was made till 1879. A special alphabet was 
then arbitrarily constructed, a sadly mongrel affiiir 
compounded of Greek, Latin, and Cyrillic characters 
and some specially iayerited letters. With modifica- 
tions it is still /osed^il^y the^'press at Sofia, which 
publishes the Ihilayt paper in .th^-Tosk dialect, and 
various books ; akb by the British and Foreign Bible 
Society for the translation of the Grospels. But it is 
hopelessly unpractical and very expensive, requiring 
special typle ai^d type-setter, and wi}l.s6on be super- 
seded. Many ' attempts have bQen-;made to use the 
Latin alphabet, a^d.^jfje . extremely- practical system 
invented by Mgr. ,P^^mi Docy>^ the Abbot of the 
Mirdites, has overcome* -most df the difficulties, and, 
owing to its great simplicity, is making rapid 
way. 

The first book in the alphabet of 1879 was published 
at Constantinople, but the printing of the language 
was not long after forbidden on Turkish soil. The 
Sultan had learnt from experience that schools are 
centres of revolution, and woidd hear of no more 
national educational movements. Latterly he has 
made very active efforts to suppress the tongue 
altogether. In the South many people have been 
imprisoned for possessing books or papers printed in 
it, and all schools teaching it are forbidden. 

13—2 



196 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

But North Albania is a circumstance over which 
the Sultan has little control ; it possesses a printing- 
press and several schools. 

A language may die a natural death. I doubt if 
one has ever been killed. Persecution has perhaps 
supplied the necessary fillip. The knowledge of read- 
ing and writing the language is spreading rapidly. 
You find it in very unexpected quarters, and as a 
common bond of sympathy it is knitting together all 
classes of the people. Papers printed in London, 
^ in Bome, in Sofia, and Bukarest are smuggled 
in add read by Moslem and Christian alike all over 
the land. A literary- language shows signs of develop- 

mg. .•.•.*.:* ''•/*/:"' 

In Albania, .Qj4]n**'tlie prosadc^^'U^rk of dictionary- 
making is spiced*\trith a dash of' romance and ad- 
venture. The stoj*y of Kristoforidh is told throughout 
the land witl> bitter indignation. A* tt^tive of Elbasan, 
a patriot and'.eitChusiast, he devoted" •SQme forty years 
of his life to tli^^ijflding of a nxonuBierital dictionary, 
collecting not \)i^;;itte .main\ diaiects, but visiting 
village after villageSh'setoch oC.iqpoal words. He died 
in 1892, and bequeathed .to- his son the manuscript, 
which is reported to have contained no less than forty 
thousand words. The Greek Consul at Durazzo offered 
young Kristoforidh several thousand fi^ncs for the 
manuscript, and represented that his Grovemment 
wished to publish it. The Greek offer was accepted ; 
the Consul received the manuscript. Fai* from paying 
for it, he denounced the young man to the Turks 
for national propaganda, and he was imprisoned 
for two years. The fate of the dictionary is un- 
known. A rumour was spread that the Greeks had 
destroyed it. Some believe it exists and wiU yet see 
Kght. 



OF THE ALBANIAN 197 

The language is but part of the national question. 
The whole country wishes for independence. This it 
cannot obtain without the consent of the Powers. 
A successfiil' revolt, many fear, might lead to 
European intervention, and to a fiirther extension of 
Slav territory. The Albanians have no rich relations 
to support them as have the Bulgars, but as any 
extension of Russian influence is adverse to Austria, 
Austria is playing on the Albanian side. When 
Russia put a Consul into Mitrovitza in Slav interests, 
Austria hurried, not only to plant a rival Consul, but 
an Albanian school. So far Austria has * come out 
top' in this district, and has neatly planted her 
gendarmerie officers there. 

Italy, meanwhile, who would like to control both 
sides of the Adriatic, works hard to prove to the 
Albanian * Codlings your friend, not Short.' The 
astute Albanian listens to either charmer, accepts the 
money of both, and weighs the pros and cons. 

So far as I learnt, what Albania really wants is 
independence, recognised by Europe, and a Prince, 
preferably a European one, approved of by the Powers. 
I met few in favour of creating an Albanian royal 
family, nor did I hear any of the so-called Albanian 
claimants to that position spoken of as having any 
following in the country. They are mostly outsiders, 
unacquainted with the land. People of all classes 
throughout the land hastened to explain their hopes 
and fears for their fatherland, and to pray for English 
recognition of its existence. My presence in some 
towns caused a most painful amount of hope. People 
hailed me as a saviour, and treated me as though I 
were a knight-errant come to redress theirmcpngs. I 
was quite unprepared for this, and ij^^^ps^d ^6- 
I remember nothing more extraordina^1bha]p«<$k9ld of 



V * 



198 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

these interviews in the heart of the country, when I 
heard freedom preached passionately by keen-fisiced men 
with burning eyes, urgent, insistent, who prayed me 
ahnost with tears to lay their case before the British 
Government, saying, * England is a just country, and 
she will listen to the truth.' Nor shall I easily forget 
the day when I was taken in at a back-door after a 
long roundabout walk, and heard an address in French. 
It was torn into pieces as soon as read, for it bore 
many signatures, but I wrote it from memory very 
shortly afterwards : 

' Honoured Lady, 

' We cannot express to you the joy that your 
journey gives us. We know very well the terrible 
sufferings you must have undergone upon the road. 
They must be for some good purpose. We believe 
that God has sent you to save us. Only in your 
country in all the world does true freedom exist. You 
have seen the misery of our land ! Between the 
Moslem Begs, who are permitted to extort money 
from us, and the Government, which takes our money 
and gives us nothing in return, the majority of us are 
reduced to dire poverty. There are many who have 
scarcely a shirt to cover them. After a bad harvest 
many die of cold and hunger on the mountains. The 
people of our villages are ignorant savages, and there 
is none to help them. We pray you in God s name 
to write all day and all night, to print our misery 
in every paper and to ask for justice. The Slavs have 
Kussia to help them. We have no one. We entreat 
you to continue the journey that you have begun. 
For you there will be no danger, and you will be 
preserved through all difficulties. We thank you from 
our hearts. May God save you !' 



OF THE ALBANIAN 199 

It reads coldly in black and white. Set in the aching 
desolation of the land it was an exceeding bitter cry — 
poignant, tragic, helpless, and it is but one example 
out of many. I protested in vain I had neither power 
nor influence. 

Nor did folk waste time over revolutionary rhetoric. 
They lucidly unfolded the situation. * Russia's interest 
in and work for the Bulgarians,' they said, * has been, 
and is, purely for her own purposes. This England 
has long known. Bussia is her foe and ours. Together 
we fought her in the Crimea. The recent risings in 
Macedonia are the result of long years of Russian 
intrigue. That land is ours. It was ours before any 
Bulgar set foot in it. Now they work to persuade 
Europe that it is theirs. Bulgaria, as all the world 
knows, is a poor country. Financed by Russia, these 
people strive to take our land. We could easily have 
killed them all had we wished. Europe calls them 
patriots when they kill us, and condemns us if we 
avenge ourselves. England has just given money to 
feed these people. We do not wish these peasants to 
starve, for they are the victims of political intrigue, 
and are very ignorant. But if England means by 
giving this help that she will aid Pan-Slavonic plots 
and help Russia to take our land, then we think it 
shows great ignorance of the issues at stake and great 
injustice. If England will give us as much support as 
she has given the Bulgars, we will rise as soon as Lord 
Lansdowne is ready, and will make a far better job of 
it than they have.' 

Should independence under a European Prince be 
denied them, they must accept the protection either of 
Italy or Austria. They then choose Austria unhesita- 
tingly. In common with all the Balkan people, they 
believe the Austrian Empire will not last long. Austria 



200 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

will provide them with roads and railways, and then 
break up and leave them free and provided with modem 
improvements. Austria has promised to allow liberty 
of language, and has permitted an Albanian school at, 
Borgo Erizzo, in Dalmatia. 

Italy, on the contrary, strives hard to Italianize the 
large Albanian colonies in Calabria and Sicily (who 
belong, by the way, mainly to the Uniate Church), and, 
having once got a footing on the farther side of the 
Adriatic, would never voluntarily withdraw, but would 
pour in Italians and suppress the Albanian tongue. 
An anti-Italian propaganda is being worked evidently, 
for I was told by some villagers that union with Italy 
would be fraught with great danger. * Italy possesses 
the holiest thing in the world — the picture of the 
Blessed Virgin which the angels carried over the 
sea from Skodra and saved from the Turks. Yet 
Italy has behaved impiously, and has insulted the 
Pope, and the curse of God is upon her. Her people 
are starving, and her lands are desolate. Naturally 
we do not wish to fall under this curse.' Also 
Italy has married Montenegro, and is regarded as 
Pan-Slavonic. 

As for Greece, her name in the places I visited pro- 
duced only a torrent of abuse. It must be independ- 
ence or Austria. South Albania, having suffered far 
more from Turkish rule than the North, seemed more 
ready to accept Austria. The North preferred in- 
dependence, but might take Austria for want of 
better. 

The Dibra tigers, as their fellow-countrymen even call 
them, are all for independence. Austria is reported to 
be striving to tame their ferocity with gold. I believe 
the whole country desires release from the Sultan's 
Gk)vemment, and that they will press for it ere long. 



OF THE ALBANIAN 201 

Oddly enough, Albania's hereditary foe, Montenegro, 
is inclined to support her claim for independence. The 
wheels within wheels of Balkan politics are aknost 
endless. An Austrian occupation of Albania would 
be something like a deathblow to Servian national 
hopes. 

Such, in brief, is the present political situation ; but 
it would take a volume to enter into the endless subter- 
fuges, entanglements, and shufflings by which the 
external Powers strive to gain their ends, and the 
Albanians to outwit the lot. A large proportion of 
the sons of the eagle have always had their own way, 
and mean to continue doing so. 

An unhappy Greek, who held a Government appoint- 
ment under the * reform ' scheme, said to me in 
despair: 

* What is the use of my staying here ? 1 can do 
nothing. These people do not want Turkish laws. 
They simply tell me so. They will yield to nothing 
that will increase the Sultan's power. When I first 
came here, I went up into the mountains with four 
gendarmes as escort to parley with the leaders of a 
tribe, and to ask them to deliver up certain murderers, 
that they might be tried and punished according to 
law. They received me with great courtesy and 
hospitality. I explained my errand. They, thanked 
me, and said they were perfectly well able to punish 
their own criminals, and required no assistance &om 
the Turkish Government. I pressed the point. They 
said: 

* " We are fond of visitors, and happy to receive you 
as our guest. You are welcome to stay here so long 
as you like as a fi:iend, but if you mean to interfere in 
our affairs, we beg to point out to you that you are 
here with only four gendarmes, and every man of us 



202 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

is armed, and we recommend you to return whence you 
came while you can !" 

* I thought so, too. They were very polite, and gave 
me to eat and drink of their best, and I said good-bye. 
I have not been there again. We can do nothing t 
If we sent up troops, there would be terrible bloodshed. 
These mountain men fight like devils. Probably all 
the tribes in the North would rise, too. The Turkish 
Government cannot afford this. These men can 
neither read nor write, but they know very well how 
they stand. They have brains, I tell you — they have 
brains. We have arrested a few, but what is the use ? 
Their friends come to give evidence. I have assisted 
at the cross-examination of people of very many 
nationalities, and I have seen nothing like the intelli- 
gence of these wild men. They see at once where the 
question wiU lead them. You cannot catch them. 
You may feel certain they are lying, but they baffle 
you. They have never learned to read, therefore they 
have memories. They make up the story beforehand ; 
they never forget, and they make no mistakes. Natives 
of some wild lands are overawed at the sight of officials 
and men in European costume. These men are afiraid 
of nothing. I confess they are too clever for me. It 
is true they are savage. They have had to be in order 
to keep their liberty. When they are no longer 
obliged to live cut off from the world, they will awake 
and realize their strength. I assure you they are 
Bismarcks — veritable Bismarcks. Some day they will 
demand, and Europe will have to give them what 
they ask !' 

He was so much impressed with the futility of his 
errand that he talked of throwing up his appoint- 
ment. 

The reform scheme as first put forth provided for 



OF THE ALBANIAN 208 

the appointment of qualified Christian judges. Until 
then, under Turkish law, Christian judges were a mere 
matter of form, and appointed by the local prefect, 
who could put in any little shopman he pleased, 
regardless of qualification. They were paid about £25 a 
year, and their power was nil. Now they are ap- 
pointed by the Minister of Justice, must be trained 
lawyers, and receive about £100 a year. There are 
two Moslem and two Christian judges on the Bench, 
and the president is Moslem. The Christians can, 
therefore, be outvoted ; but I heard no complaints of 
this having been unfairly done. The Christians of 
Turkey have, no doubt, scored by this concession, but 
in Albania it has given very little satisfaction. 

The poorer part of the population is glad when a 
tyrannical Beg is locked up, but, on the whole, the 
people look with great distrust on any scheme* likely 
to give the Turkish Grovernment a stronger hold on 
them. Moreover, it is only in Turk-ridden districts 
that one hears tales of religious oppression. Once 
north of the Skumbi, I heard no more talk of oppressed 
Christians, save in Skodra, the seat of the Turkish 
Vali. 

The Albanian is always an Albanian. The Moslem 
Serb and the Moslem Bulgar have all sense of 
nationality swept away by the mighty power of Islam. 
They are reputed the most fanatical Turks in Europe, 
and are greatly dreaded by their Christian kinsmen. 
* Turk,' it cannot too strongly be said, means in the 
Balkan Peninsula Moslem, and has nothing to do with 
race. Many ' Turks ' know no Turkish, and talk pure 
Serb. 

With the Albanian it is otherwise. He is Albanian 
first. His religion comes afterwards. The celebrated 
fights among the Albanians are always intertribal, or 



20* THE BURDEN \)F THE BALKANS 

the quarrels of rival Begs. Christians may then fight 
Christians, and Moslems Moslems. The Christian the 
Albanian persecutes is the Slav Christian, and this is 
the old, old race hatred. Of all the passions that sway 
human fortunes, race hatred is, perhaps, the strongest 
and the most lasting. 

The dread that Europe, under Pan-Slavonic pressure, 
will give more land to the Slavs has, since the Treaty 
of Berlin, led to a merciless oppression of the Serbs in 
Kosovo vilayet, an oppression which is partly ven- 
geance for the loss of Dulcigno. 

In the face of a common foe, Moslem and Christian 
Albania unite. Some nations have a genius for 
religion. The AJbanians, as a race, are singularly 
devoid of it. Their Mohammedanism and their 
Christianity sits but lightly upon them, and in his 
heart the wild mountaineer is swayed more by un- 
written beliefe that date from the world's well-springs. 
Of the primitive paganism of the land little is known, 
and I have failed to learn what man or men converted 
this very conservative people to Christianity. Some 
may have listened to St. Paul himself and to his 
preachers. For at that time the Slav was unknown, 
and the neighbourhood of Thessalonica was largely 
inhabited by the aboriginal race. But the teaching 
must have penetrated the wilder parts very slowly. 
Preachers from Salonika bore it across South Albania 
in course of time, and the wild tribes ceased from 
human sacrifices and other barbarous rites. But they 
seem to have taken far less interest in it than did the 
other converted peoples, who hastened to found inde- 
pendent Churches, and to conduct their services (as is 
permitted by the Orthodox Church) in the lanffuage 
of the people. ^ ^ 

The South AJbanians alone neither troubled to do 



OF THE ALBANIAN 206 

this nor to translate the Scriptures. They left all 
Church matters in Greek hands, and threw in 
their lot with the Greeks when the final split be- 
tween the two Churches took place. The services are 
still in Greek, and the Bible was not translated into 
Albanian till the latter half of the nineteenth century. 

Recently, with the desire for autonomy, a desire 
for an independent Church has arisen. It is bitterly 
opposed by the Greek Patriarch, and the Sultan, 
who has seen the results of a Bulgarian Church, has 
refused his consent. Albania has no ' Russia * behind 
her to enforce her claims. A large proportion of the 
priests are Greek, and there is a tendency to replace 
Albanians by Greeks in the higher posts. Sermons in 
Albanian are strictly prohibited. This causes great 
wrath, and I was asked several times to tell the 
British public that the Greek Patriarch was ' a thief, 
a liar, and perhaps an assassin !' 

*The old people,' said the young, 'say that the 
Japanese are not Christian, and that the Russians are 
of our Church. What do we care about the Church ? 
We hate the Russians 1 Here, I tell you, we are all 
Japanese I' 

The effect of all this is to set on foot a scheme for 
a Uniate Church, under Austrian protection, which 
would tend to unite more closely North and South. 

In the North matters are different. The mountain 
tribes which have not turned Moslem have always 
been faithful to Rome, and have consequently retained 
much more national independence. 

But in neither north nor south did Christianity 
succeed in gripping the Albanians firmly. At the end 
of the fifteenth century, when Skenderbeg died, they 
soon came to terms with the Turks, and, mainly to 
retain freedom, began to ' turn Turk ' in considerable^ 



206 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

numbers : the chieftains' families that they might 
retain command, and the peasants, who were in contact 
with the Turks, in order to escape spoliation. In 
outlying parts they remained Christian, while their 
Begs went over to Islam. 

I believe the Mirdites and their Prince are the 
one example of an entire tribe which has remained 
Christian throughout. In the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries conversions to Mohammedanism were, 
for various reasons, very numerous, and many more 
were brought about at the beginning of the nineteenth 
century by Ali Pasha, who, during part of his lurid 
career, made religion a reason for robbing his Christian 
subjects of much property. 

But the Albanian, even when he appears to yield 
to circimistances, as often as not makes them yield 
to him. He took Christianity very lightly, and 
Mohammedanism, too, seems to have had but little 
effect upon him. Many of the people are extra- 
ordinarily lax about it ; in no place that I know have 
the Albanians taken the trouble to build a really 
fine mosque, and there are whole districts where the 
women are unveiled. Oddly enough, where they 
are veiled they are veiled extra thickly. A good 
Mohammedan should turn Mecca-wards and pray five 
times a day. I have spent day after day with Moslem 
gendarmes and horse-boys, and never seen an attempt 
at a prayer. But, on the other hand, once, when 
passing some soldiers of an Anatolian regiment who 
were devoutly praying by the wayside, my mounted 
escort pointed them out to me and laughed as though 
it were the best of jokes. 

Under the veneer of Mohammedanism often lies a 
thin layer of Christianity. In many villages ' Moslems' 
still give each other red eggs at Easter, and I have 




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THE NEW YORK 
PUBLIC LIBRARY 



AtTOM, LENOX AN* 
TILDCM FOUNDATIONS. 




OF THE ALBANIAN 207 

seen them making pilgrimages to a Christian shrine. 
I am told that some swear by the Virgin. There are 
often Christians and Moslems in the same family. If 
sk Moslem charm fails to cure they try a Christian one, 
or vice versd. The cross or the verses out of the Koran 
are simply amulets. Under all lies a bed-rock of pre- 
historic paganism, which has, perhaps, more influence 
in their lives than either of the other two. 

The Northern Moslems are Sunnites, or profess to be ; 
but the Moslems of the South all belong to a very 
unorthodox sect of Dervishes, the Bektashites. Hadji 
Bektash, variously reported to have come from Bok- 
hara and Khorassan, founded the order early in the 
fourteenth century. But the Dervish spiritual prin- 
ciples are far older than Mohammed's time, and Hadji 
Bektash, in so far as he was a Moslem, was a follower, 
it is said, of the Kaliph Ali. 

The present Bektashites, I am told, do not observe 
the Mohammedan fasts, and trouble very little about 
the prophet. They are very tolerant of other religions. 
Jella-a-din, nephew of Ali Pasha, and formerly Gk)vernor 
of Ochrida, had a Christian wife, whom he allowed to 
go regularly to church, stipulating only that she should 
be veiled. The teaching is said to be highly mystical 
and of a pantheistic nature, with a flavour of Omar 
Kayyam. Lately, I am told, it has been a good deal 
persecuted, and the Sultan has been working a Sunnite 
propaganda. A Governor who went only to the Bek- 
tashite * tekieh,' and not to mosque, would lose his post 
now. At one place I was told, ' It is better not to 
talk about it. We are afiuid of trouble.' 

In the event of a free Albania, it seems probable 
that many of the sect will turn Christian. For the 
lower classes, as do most religions, Bektashism sup- 
plies a quantity of miracles, and large numbers of 



208 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

lambs are sacrificed at the shrines of popular saints. 
Khizi, a mythical character, who is said to figure 
largely in Oriental spiritualism, is identified by many 
with St. Greorge of dragon fame, and the Bektashites 
keep St. Greorge s Day with ceremony. 

The Albanian, in short, stands out in marked con- 
trast to all the rest of the Sultan's subjects. In 
appearance he usually impresses the stranger very 
favourably. The ' magnificent Turk * that the Cook s 
tourist admires in Constantinople is almost always an 
Albanian. So is the faithful and honest kavas that 
protects him. When you meet someone who cries up 
the splendid physique of the Turkish army, you always 
find he has seen the Albanian regiment. 

And alone, of all the Balkan peoples, the Albanian 
is an artist. His peculiarly indomitable personality 
always brings him prominently forward. Where he 
has been handed over with part of the territory to 
Montenegro he is rapidly absorbing all the trade. 
When he ceases to obtain money by fighting he does 
so by commerce. He owns half the shops of Cetinje, 
and you may find him driving a flourishing trade all 
the way up the Dalmatian coast, and also in Italy, 
and in Bosnia. Commercial travellers who have to do 
with him will tell you that he understands business, 
and is reliable. He has, it appears, only to live under 
a decent Government to prosper. 

His aspirations are very great. As the aboriginal 
inhabitant, he claims all the five vilayets — Kosovo, 
Skodra, Monastir, Janina, and Salonika. The claims 
of other peoples also have to be considered, but when 
the division of the debateable lands takes place it is to 
be hoped that the rights of the Albanian will not again 
be ignored, and that his land will be extended eastward. 
It is said of him sometimes that he has no definite plan 



OF THE ALBANIAN 209 

of Grovemment, and haa not succeeded in obtaining his 
own independence ; but it must be remembered that, 
though Bulgaria owes her position entirely to outside 
help, when once started she has done very well. And 
the Albanian considers the Bulgar 'a thick-headed 
Scythian.* 



14 



CHAPTER X 

MONASTm TO TEPELEN 

* Turn we to survey. 
Where rougher climes a nobler race display ; 
No product here the barren hills afford. 
But man and steel, the soldier and the sword.*^ 

It was two o'clock a.m., pitch dark, and freezing hard, 
when I left Monastir in a large ramshackle carriage, 
with four horses abreast and a Bulgarian driver, two 
gendarmes riding ahead as escort, and two Albanians 
(our assistant at Ochrida and his brother) as travelling 
companions. The road was frozen into deep ruts, and 
we were rattled about like dried peas in a pod. As I 
had had no time to rest since leaving Ochrida, and had 
been riding all the previous afternoon to make sure my 
new saddle was all right, I nevertheless dozed till dawn, 
and dreamed I was on board ship. The pallid sun 
crawled up, the white fog lifted off the frozen land, and 
we all got out and walked to thaw our toes. 

Leaving Besna on our right, we turned along the 
western side of Lake Presba. Ploughing was in ftdl 
swing, and in some fields the young green com was 
already sprouting and promising food for the hungry 
land, and the big lake was extraordinarily beautiAil in 
the morning light. Ochrida is magnificent, but Presba 
is faery-like in its loveliness. 

My comrades held out hopes of a ' ban ' and a possible 

210 



MONASTIR TO TEPELEN 211 

fire, where we should rest and refresh at midday, but 
we arrived only to find it had been burnt down during 
the late insurrection, and a party of Albanian soldiers 
encamped in the ruins, as lonesome, melancholy, and 
comfortless as any Bulgarian refugees. I bought for 
twopence a very neatly-made wooden spoon, with an 
ingenious folding handle, from a trooper, who was 
whiling away the time by carving such fi-om a lump of 
boxwood, and producing artistic results with no other 
tools but a clumsy pocket-knife ; for the Albanian is a 
bom arts-and-crafbsman, clever-fingered and inventive, 
with an instinctive sense of design and a power of 
boldly handling strong colours that rarely fails him. 

No fire, no shelter, fit)zen ground, and a bitter wind. 
I took refiige in the carriage again, and having had 
nothing but a cup. of black coffee since last night's 
dinner, ate a whole fowl without any help. Then on 
again through a pass that was Montenegrin in its wild 
ruggedness — all loose gray rocks and big box-bushes, 
whose leaves were nipped red with the frost. Here 
my comrade pointed out the split in the cliffs whence 
a band of brigands had swooped down on his brother 
some twelve years ago, and carried him off into the 
mountains, where he suffered great hardships for six 
months as their prisoner. Now, however, the country 
had been reported safe, and no one had been ' held up ' 
for two years, for the chief brigand bands had surren- 
dered their rifles and been anmestied. 

We zigzagged down a steep and long descent, saw 
below us the small lake of Malik, the third of the 
Albanian lake group, whence flows the river Devoli, 
and reached the big fertile plain. . No more wooden, 
lath-and-plaster houses, but well-built stone ones, with 
red-tile roofs, neat villages, and scattered on the hill- 
slopes, the big wealthy-looking dwellings of the local 

14—2 



212 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Begs. The land was well cultivated, and the road very 
fair, and the men by the way walked with a swinging 
stride, and held their heads up. ' All here is Albanian/ 
said my comrade, and I felt I was once again in a paxt 
of the Peninsula where I felt at home. Part of the 
population is also claimed by Greece, some is Vlah, and 
it is clearly not Bulgarian. Nevertheless, part of this 
land, too, was to have been swept into Russia's Big 
Bulgaria of S. Stefano fame. 

Koritza (Korch^, Alb.) is a surprising town. It is 
clean, really clean — the cleanest town I know in the 
Turkish Empire — with straight, well-paved streets that 
are quite free from dogs and garbage. It lies high on 
a mountain-ringed plain, over 2,000 feet above sea- 
level, is healthy, and has a good water-supply. 

Scarcely more than a third of the inhabitants are 
Moslem. In the mountains hard by inferior coal is 
quarried, and the town actually boasts a steam flour- 
milL Were Korchd connected by a railway with the 
coast, there is no doubt it would develop rapidly, for 
the coal is good enough for export. Even with the 
present difficulties of commimication there are a 
surprising number of foreign goods in the shops. 
Much of its wealth has been made abroad, for though 
under present circumstances the Albanian finds it 
difficult to progress at home, he shows great business 
capacity in other lands, and proves his patriotism by 
spending his earnings in his native land. 

Korch^ is the more interesting because writers of 
forty years ago compare it most unfavourably with 
Ochrida. But while the Christian population there 
has been led to disaster by political propaganda, that 
of Korch6 has progressed steadily and stirely. 

Ochrida is still mediaeval, but Korche is civilized. I 
was received with very great hospitality at the Albanian 



MONASTIR TO TEPELEN 218 

girls' school, which is so much * up-to-date ' that I felt 
as if I had been suddenly dropped back into Europe. 
It is the only recognised school in all South Albania in 
which Albanian children can learn to read and write 
their own language. It uses the special Albanian, and 
not the Latin alphabet. 

A boys' school, which was started in Korch^ seven- 
teen years ago, with Grovemment permission, went on 
very successfully for fifteen years, when the authorities 
suddenly swooped down, closed it, and imprisoned the 
masters at Salonika without any form of trial. Korch^ 
being one of the places the Greeks wish to annex, the 
Greek Bishop of Korch6 objects to the teaching of the 
vemacidar. But the girls' school lives under Austrian 
and American protection, and has so far weathered all 
storms. 

I called on the Turkish Muttasarif, just to show that 
I was on a free-and-above-board Government-permitted 
expedition. He was affable, spoke French, and told 
me that the population consisted entirely of Greeks 
and Turks. Albania was a word we did not mention. 
I might have, he said, as large an escort of gendarmes 
as I pleased. I told him I believed there was no 
danger, and one would be enough just to show that I 
had leave to travel. He heaved a sigh of relief 

* No,' he said, * there is no danger. Here, thank 
Grod, we have no Bulgarians !' 

Bulgarians are not beloved in Korch^, the trade of 
which suffered much last year when the roads to 
Salonika and Monastir were infested by Bulgarian 
bands, and almost unpassable for many months. 
Korchd was very kind to me. It greeted my plan of 
riding all through Albania with enthusiasm. The 
houses I visited were all Albanian ; very good houses, 
too, comfortably and prettily arranged, and at each I 



214 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

was begged to tell England that there are better 
people than Bulgars to be freed. Here and elaewhere 
I was distressed at the high hopes raised by the 
mere fact that someone had come from England to 
see what the land was really like. Nor were my 
assurances that I possessed no political power ever of 
any avail. 

The political situation always fills the foreground in 
the free States of the Balkan Peninsula. In the lands 
that are yet Turkish it obscures the heavens and per- 
vades all space. Many wanderings had shown it me 
from the Servian and Montenegrin points of view. I 
had seen it at Besna and Ochrida through Exarchist 
and Patriarchist eyes. I knew what it looked like in 
the vilayet of f Kosovo, and was now to be shown it in 
a new light. You cannot escape it ; if you shut your 
eyes to it some one will rub your nose in it. I stayed 
a few pleasant days at Korch^, and then plunged alone 
into the unknown. 

One a.m. is a dree hour, and though my kind host 
supplied me with a breakfast of hot milk, I cannot 
say that I started to explore Albania with much 
enthusiasm. It was a brilliant, starlight night, and 
bitterly cold. I said good-bye to all my friends, and 
started in the same four-horsed carriage in search of 
the strange man who was to pilot me through a wild 
land. The road was terribly rough. I dozed un- 
happily till six, and stared through the white dawn on 
a lone bare land, as rugged as Montenegro, with narrow 
cultivated patches in the valleys and great snow-peaks 
above. 

At 9.30 we rattled into Kolonia, a group of tiny 
houses on a small and lofty plain, ringed round with 
bleak heights. 

My driver, a Bulgar, made me understand we must 



MONASTm TO TEPELEN 215 

rest for two hours, and put me down at a forlorn han. 
The owner showed me up to the empty and unfur- 
nished den which is the cold comfort offered by these 
hostelries. Albanian was the only tongue spoken. 
Several people came and stared at me, and retired. 
Then an officer appeared, the Izbashi. I tried him in 
Servian, as a sort of forlorn hope. He rose to it at 
onoe, for his Mama was a Bosniak. In came the 
Kaimmakam, in great state, with several police— a 
mild-looking, elderly man, who spoke only Turkish. 
The Izbashi translated. I was to go to the Kaim- 
makam's house, where there was a fire, and all was 
very good. So off we went. Arrived there, the 
Izbashi fetched his Bosnian mama, a fimny old girl, 
who was not veiled, but was particular to keep a shawl 
over the top of her head and carefully pinned under 
her chin while the Kaimmakam was in the room. 
Otherwise she did not treat the gentlemen with any 
respect, but chattered and joked away at a great rate. 
To entertain me the Kaimmakam produced a Turkish 
book, with pictures of the Marble Arch and the Bank, 
and was delighted when I recognised them. I fancy 
he imagined I resided, when at home, in one or the 
other. They were exceedingly hospitable, asked 
whether it was a day on which I ate meat, and in- 
sisted on preparing me a meal. 

Meanwhile the two men withdrew, and sent their 
ladies in — the wife of each and several daughters — all 
closely veiled, giggling wildly and in great excitement. 
They unwound themselves, and appeared in would-be 
European attire of the most appalling cut and design. 
The Izbashi's Bosnian mama showed me off, and was 
so voluble that I did not understand much ; but as she 
greatly preferred doing all the talking, this was of no 
consequence. Suddenly a hand was heard at the door. 



816 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

There was a wild seizing of wraps, several shrieks, and 
a rapid veiling. Even the Isbashi's mama put on her 
shawl again. The door opened, discreetly, a few 
inches, and a small boy of four squeezed in. This was 
considered a vast joke. My lord, who was the 
Izbashi's only hope, was well aware that he was the 
sole representative of the superior sex, and gave him- 
self the airs of a Pasha. Cross-legged on the Elaim- 
makam s couch, he received the homage of the ladies 
with much dignity and satisfaction, and perpetrated 
many witticisms at my expense, which were unfortu- 
nately lost upon me. More knocks and a parley. The 
ladies reswathed themselves, and went giggling out 
again, and, after sufficient interval had been left for 
their escape, the gentlemen and the dinner appeared. 
A bee&teak, bread and honey, a glass of wine, and a 
brand-new knife and fork to eat with — * quite alia 
Franca,' as the Izbashi said. They begged me to stay 
the night, but I made them understand that I was 
expected at Leskovik. 

Kolonia is entirely Moslem, and there are not more 
than 100 houses. There is little cultivable land in 
the neighbourhood, and the place, until quite recently, 
has been famed as a nest of brigands. The present 
disturbed state of the Turkish'^Empire has, however, 
given a good deal of employment to fighting men, and 
there has been no brigandage in this part for two 
years. Kolonia treated me, at any rate, very hand- 
somely, and sent me on my way rested and refreshed, 
and escorted by a firesh couple of gendarmes. 

On through a wild, bleak land of gray rock, sparsely 
inhabited, and for the most part uninhabitable. I 
grinned when I remembered that, in drawing-room 
meetings in England, people seriously propose to pen 
the 'naughty' Albanians into territory of this sort, 



MONASTIR TO TEPELEN 217 

and ask Lord Lansdowne to make the Sultan see that 
they stop there. 

A huge white wall of snow-dad mountain with an 
almost level sky-line towered on one hand, grim and 
impassable. Leskovik, small and stony, hung high on 
its slope. The Police Commissary and a mounted 
escort dashed out to meet me, and we clattered into 
the main street a little before sundown, after a sixteen 
houra' journey. 

The usual crowd gathered to see me, and it was an 
anxious moment, for here I was to meet my unknown 
travelling companion, and on him the success of my 
tour would largely depend. He appeared at once, and 
took me off to the house of a relative. I owe him 
many thanks, for though he had never before under- 
taken dragoman work, he piloted me successfully all 
through Albania. That I might see the wilds of the 
land he left his usual business route, and through all 
the consequent hardships and fatigues he was always 
cheery and helpful and good-natured. 

Leskovik is a quite small place, solid and stony, 
built much like a North Wales village, but clean and 
tidy, the population mostly Bektashite Moslems. 
Some of the Christian women had a small cross 
tattooed between their eyebrows. There is a small 
church and a Greek school. The town exports dried 
meat, the flesh of the mountain sheep, and has to 
import almost aUits com. Such cultivable land as 
there is is well worked. 

I was now in the vilayet of Janina, which is more 
under Turkish power than any other part of Albania. 
Its Vali is much hated, and it is the only one of the 
three Albanian vilayets I went through in which the 
Christian Albanians complained of persecution. This 
arises from the fact that the taxes in this part are 



218 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

fanned out to several powerful and notorious Moslem 
Begs, who, by exacting double and treble, even ten 
times, the dues by force of arms, and keeping the 
difference, find it worth while to support the Turkish 
Government. I was assured there were plenty of 
•good' Begs, but that only the *bad' ones had 
Grovemment appointments. 

Nor does the Christian population alone fear perse- 
cution. I was given a message to the effect that the 
Moslems were very pleased that I should visit their 
town, and were sorry they could not ask me to visit 
them, but some years ago an Austrian Consul had 
passed this way, and by invitation had spent the 
night at a Moslem house. Its master was shortly 
afterwards arrested and sent into exile without trials - 
The^ Kaimmakam, a young Albanian who speaks 
French well, came to see me twice, and expressed 
very liberal views. All religions to him were but 
paths to the same place : we must travel by the road ; 
whether we go by the church or the mosque makes 
no matter. It is the same God. When he went 
anywhere he went to mosque, * but what we have to 
remember is that we are all Albanians. In England,' 
he added, * there are many religions, and people do 
not kill each other about it.' Poor man ! he thought 
we were civilized, and had never heard of Passive 
Resisters. He questioned me about the Bulgarians, 
and was eager for news. This hatred of the Exarchists 
for the Patriarchists — could I explain it ? In order 
to free themselves from Moslem rule, here are the 
Christians who amuse themselves by killing each 
other I For himself, he did not like the Bulgarians, 
but he was sorry for the poor devils of peasants who 
were the victims of politicians. He asked me to tell 
him the truth about the state of the burnt villages, 



MONASTIR TO TEPELEN 219 

and said he was glad someone had supplied food. 
* But, I believe/ he added with a smile, ' that they did 
not make an Exarchist of you ! Mademoiselle, I can 
promise you that you will find friends in Albania.' 

From Leskovik I rode to Postenani, my guide's 
home, by a rough track through wild mountains skirt- 
ing round Malesin, a huge isolated sugar-loaf which, 
sixty-five years ago, was held as a fortress by one of 
AJi Pasha's Begs, who defended it success&Uy against 
the Turk for several years. Finally they discovered 
and cut off his water-supply, and he surrendered. He 
had three houses upon it : one at the top, one at the 
base, and one halfway up. Only the latter remains, 
and his son, the present Beg, is very poor. 

Postenani, a small village, lies very high, with a 
valley below it and a huge and almost perpendicular 
cliff towering at the back. It is almost all Christian. 
My arrival caused great excitement, no foreigner 
having been there lately, and never a woman ; and I 
was received with the greatest kindness and lavish 
hospitality. Any amount of visitors called on me, and 
I paid return visits on all. I am afraid to say how 
much black coffee, rakija, jam, water, and sweet-stuff I 
swallowed. They all had to be partaken of in each 
house. Few houses possessed chairs or tables, but 
they were comfortable and well-to-do. 

The floor, covered with scarlet and black rugs of good 
design ; the walls, panelled with dark wood almost up 
to the raftered, often well-carved, ceiling, the hooded 
stone fire-place, with its blazing logs, made a rich 
setting for the athletic figures of the young men, with 
their white fustanellas frilling round them, and the 
handsome women, clad for the most part in dark blue — 
grave, dignified, sober people, strong, well set up, and 
healthy. Much ceremony is observed. The young 



220 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

treat the elder with great deference. The women 
always kissed me, and laid my hand against their 
foreheads. The elder lady of the house sits with the 
guests, the son's wife waits on everyone, stands all the 
time, and leaves the room backwards. The houses 
were specklessly clean, the boards scrubbed to white- 
ness, the cups and cooking utensils shining. 

The feme of the help given to Macedonia had spread 
and raised high hopes. Surely, if England had helped 
the Bulgars they would help the Albanians when they 
knew their needs. I was distressed by the hopes 
founded on my visit. One woman declared that good 
could not fail to come of it. 

Brigandage and the Government, I was told, were 
what they suflTered from. The Government robbed 
them, and gave them no protection at aU. The richer 
men paid armed guards ; the others subscribed for 
two more. They greatly feared the men of the 
Kolonia district, but vowed I was safe, as there was no 
one in the village who would betray my presence to 
outsiders. Were it known, they would probably be 
raided, as I was worth putting to ransom. Moslems 
took to brigandage to escape conscription and to gain 
money to pay for exemption from military service. 
They were chiefly from rugged districts where there 
no means of earning enough otherwise. 

It was a dog's life in the Turkish army. Many of 
those who had taken up brigandage were amongst 
the strongest and most intelligent. In any other land 
such men would be good citizens. Here they lived 
like wild beasts on the mountain, and robbed rather 
than be robbed and oppressed by the Government. 
Such is brigandage from the native point of view. 
They dreaded the brigands, but they pitied them, and 
regarded them as the victims of circumstances. My 







^ O 



THE NEW YORK 
PUBLIC LIBRARY 



AtTOn, LCNOX AN» 
TtLDEN FOUNDATION!, 



MONASTIR TO TEPELEN 281 

gaide was afraid to travel anywhere with me without 
a gendarme or two, as, had anything happened to me, 
he would have been accused of connivance. 

I stayed some days with the kindly, simple villagers, 
many of whom had earned their money, as did my 
guide, in other parts. There seemed to be a great 
deal of esprit de corps among them. Those who had 
money paid taxes for those who had not, and made up 
the sum due from the village ; so also are the dowries 
for the poor girls subscribed by the community. The 
i^romen marry at sixteen or eighteen, generally under 
twenty. The daughter of a well-to-do peasant is 
expected to bring with her the value of £TlOO. 

Halfway up the cliff, not far from the village, is a 
hot sulphur spring, reached by a narrow path hacked 
in the rock-face, all wet and slippery, with a sheer 
precipice below, the last pieces very bad, but they drag 
invalids up it. Two cranky huts are stuck like 
swallows nests on the ledge. The water bubbles and 
rumbles loudly within, and hot steam spouts forth. 
This is highly esteemed as a rheumatism cure. There 
is no doctor within mQes, and the people prayed me to 
bring some water to England and have it analyzed to 
see if it would serve as a cure for other things ; but, 
unluckily, though, after untold escapes, I conveyed a 
glass bottleful in my saddle-bags all the way to London 
safely, the analysis failed, and the poor people will be 
disappointed. 

Poor people, hard - working, living strenuous, 
dangerous lives in the little oasis they have made 
among the mountains, who tendered their hospitality 
with such kingly courtesy, I was sorry to leave them. 
But time was flying. My guide made up his bale of 
goods, and the Kaimmakam sent over a couple of 
* suvarris ' with a polite message that I was to ride 



222 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

one of their horses if I wished. We had one pack 
and two saddle mules. The * kirijee * — a tall young 
fellow in a fustanella, with a very large sheath-knife 
as long as a Roman sword — strode alongside and took 
rides on top of the pack now and again. 

Loading up and farewells took some time, but at 
last we were off into the heart of the mountains, away 
over great loose stones, through wildly magnificent 
scenery, barren and lifeless, like the bones of a dead 
world ; then over the pass and along a hoof- wide track 
high along the mountain-side. Down far, far below 
lay the valley of the Vioea, green and fertile, * all 
a-blowing and a-growing,* and the heights beyond 
were fiercely blue. 

The leap from winter and the wilderness to spring, 
and colour was dazdingly sudden. Had I been a poet 
I should have written a verse about it. The sunshine 
warmed the heart of the pack-mule ; he sang aloud, 
leapt with all four feet at once off the ground, wagged 
his tail, lashed out fi^eely, and played like a lamb 
upon the giddy brink. 

The descent was far too abrupt for riding. We 
scrambled down somehow, and got to the bottom 
in an hour. Halfway down, in a copse, was a tiny 
stone chapel, now disused, as all the neighbouring 
tiny villages have turned Moslem. I was told, how- 
ever, that it was miraculously protected, and no one 
dared cut wood near it. This was evidently true, for 
the trees were the largest in the neighbourhood. The 
villages scattered about the mountain's foot were mere 
groups of ten or twenty cottages, but all stone, and 
solidly built. 

In the valley we struck the highroad, such as it is, 
and waiting by the bridge I spied military, and found, 
to my disgust, that two officers and three. troopers had 



MONASTER TO TEPELEN 228 

come to meet me. Leskovik had warned Permeti of 
my approach. A military escort almost always means 
you are * suspect.' Grendarmes will obey orders, and 
are often most obliging and useful on rough tracks. 
Officers are quite unmanageable and very expensive. 
A military escort also is a great expense to the village 
on which it is quartered. All the relief agents and 
correspondents in Macedonia had been more or less 
haunted by the army, excepting CHily myself. To 
have evaded it there, only to encounter it when out 
on ' the spree ' in Albania, was humiliating. 

Entering the town with this bodyguard caused 
crowds to turn out to see me. It was as bad as 
being a wild-beast show or the Koyal Family. I was 
conducted to a house where the Kaimmakam had 
arranged that I should stay. More than this, a 
soldier was put on guard at the door of my room 
to keep perpetual watch over my doings — a cheery 
polyglot youth whose business it was to bob in with 
every Christian visitor and overhear the conversation. 
As an officer was told off to accompany me wherever I 
went, I was practically a prisoner. I could not go out 
for a stroll without such a parade that crowds thronged 
to see me. I could not sit in my room without my 
hostess, a Greek, thinking it polite to keep me com- 
pany. As I understood no word of her conversation, 
and she always stood up whenever I moved, and as, so 
my guide told me, the presence of the soldier made 
her very nervous, the position was most embarrassing. 

I had been quartered on the poor lady quite against 
her will. I think she was selected because she was 
Greek, with a view to proving to me that it was a 
Greek town. The room was very swagger with Euro- 
pean carpet and ftimiture, a lamp and looking-glass 
tied up in gauze, and Berlin woolwork, virulent enough 



224 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

to have been made in Grermany, which glared from every 
comer and hung framed on the wall. In spite of this 
gallant attempt at being Em'opean, the bed was, as 
usual, spread upon the floor when night came. The 
soldier ate up the remains of my supper, and slept just 
outside my door. 

I paid a state call on the Kaimmakam next day — 
that is to say, I was told at what hour he wished to 
receive me, and was fetched by an officer. The 
Kaimmakam is very much a Turk, and comes from 
Asia Minor. His civility was extreme and his French 
very fair. He was entirely at my service, and no 
honour was too great for me. 

He dismissed all the other men, sent for his wife 
and mother, who spoke only Turkish, and started cross- 
examining me, but was not clever at it. I knew that 
Albania was disaffected, but I had not till then 
realized that the Turkish Government was so nervous 
about it. * Bless the man !* thought I, ' the political 
situation must be uncommonly " tittupy." ' It was 
ray first, but by no means my last, experience of being 
' suspect/ and I was amused. The Kaimmakam eyed 
me keenly all the time, piled on questions, and sup- 
plied information. The inhabitants, he said, were all 
Greek. 

* They nevertheless speak Albanian, do they not V 
said I. 

* Malheureusement,' said the Kaimmakam sadly. 
He added vaguely that they had somehow learnt 

it ! Many even imagined that they were Albanian. 
This was a pity, but with plenty of schools the matter 
would soon be set right ! 

I said that to an English person it was a sad and 
strange thing that people in the Balkan Peninsula 
scarcely ever knew what they really were. He agreed 



MONASTIR TO TEPELEN 225 

it waa * trha triste '; it was all caused by lack of educa- 
tion. With schools, in a few years, they hoped to set 
everything right I Thus he, too, was playing the old, 
old game of trying to prop Turkish rule by rubbing 
one race against another. I wondered how much he 
believed of what he told me. We talked about the 
blessings of education. I deplored the terribly 
dangerous state of the country — that even a town 
like Permeti was unsafe. Horror on the part of the 
Kaimmakam — no danger at all — * parole d'honneur.* 

' Then there is no need for that soldier to remain at 
my door V 

This was unexpected. The Kaimmakam smiled 
sweetly. 

* The soldier,' he explained, * was not there to pro- 
tect me, but merely because of my high rank.' 

* Alas, monsieur ! I am not a Princess — ^you mistake : 
I am of the lower classes. In England I am nobody ! 
I am not accustomed to ceremony, and it troubles me.' 

'You do not understand, mademoiselle. This 
soldier is simply to do you honour,' 

* I understand very well, monsieur. You think I 
am a spy.' 

The Kaimmakam was horrified. The soldier was 
my servant, and I could command him. 

I said good-bye to the Kaimmakam and returned to 
my lodging. There I told the soldier to go. He 
saluted cheerfully, and departed. In ten minutes he 
was back again, and said that the Kaimmakam said 
he was to wait for further orders 1 I gave it up, and 
reflected upon the political situation. I was sorry for 
the Kaimmakam, for he had * given the show away ' 
rather badly. 

The leading Christians of the town all called on me, 
and were most polite. The presence of the soldier 

15 



826 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

explained their position with silent eloquence. He 
and a police oflScer walked on either side of me, and 
helped me to pay return calls on the Christians. It 
was just before Easter, and the Christian houses 
were in the agonies of the ' spring clean,* which is in 
reality nothing more nor less than the Easter purifica- 
tion. Every room has to be scoured and whitewashed. 
The gipsy women of the town served as painters — 
swarthy, bright -eyed things in baggy breeches, as 
active as monkeys, who rushed about wielding their 
whitewash brushes with the greatest glee, chattering 
gaily the while. Not that the houses looked as if they 
required doing up; they were specklessly clean to begin 
with. The Dutch are said to be the cleanest house- 
wives, but I believe the South Albanians would run 
them hard. 

The town is clean, well built, and most beautifiiUy 
situated on the edge of the blue-green Viosa, which 
tears through a gully it has cut for itself in the loose 
soil. There are 7,000 inhabitants, three mosques, 
three churches, a Christian girl and boy school, and a 
Moslem boy school. A huge isolated rock, a fragment 
fallen from the mountain above, lies oijt boldly by the 
river's edge, crowned with the ruins of a monastery, 
the dwelling-place of some forgotten saint, and a 
spring of holy water flows firam its base. On the hill 
just above is a mass of ruined walls, all that is left of 
the fortresses built in Ali Pasha's time. Perhaps it 
was because I came to it out of stones and barrenness 
that, as I saw it from the ruins of Ali Pasha's fortress, 
Permeti, with its tall cypresses, purple Judas-trees, 
and delicate spring greenery, seemed one of the fair 
spots of the world. But it is on the edge of the wilder- 
ness, and the soldier threw back his head and yowled 
aloud, to imitate the wolves of a winter's night when 



MONASTIK TO TEPELEN 227 

the snow is deep on the mountain. Permeti, too, had 
a due respect for the capabilities of Kolonia, and 
remembered the day, twenty years ago, when a band 
had swept down and carried oif a Moslem maiden, the 
fierce fight, and the struggle in the then bridgeless 
river which drowned several of the combatants. 

The Kaimmakam duly returned my visit. An 
officer entered my room salaaming, and announced 
that Kaimmakam Beg was about to visit * Mamzelle 
Effendi.* I understood the two titles ; the rest was in 
Turkish. Enter the Kaimmakam at once. He had 
been telegraphing industriously, and found out quite 
a lot about me. Said I had come all the way from 
Korch^ to Leskovik without a dragoman. He was 
amazed. 1 said it was nothing for the English. The 
fact that I had been giving relief in Macedonia weighed 
heavy on his soul. So many lies, he said, had been 
written about Turkey, that he was very anxious that 
I should hear nothing but truth ; therefore he sent 
officers with me. I had come alone to learn the truth 
for myself, and he was doing his best to assist me. 
The * truth,* of course, was that all parties were 
feverishly anxious for my suffirages. 

The paying of compliments caused me much wear 
and tear- I put one on with a trowel; he piled on 
several with a spade. I found it impossible to put 
them on thick enough. The other party always went 
several better. The gist of it all was that no pains 
were to be spared to teach me the truth about 
Permeti. It is doubtless the rarity of that article in 
the Turkish Empire which makes the officials value it 
so highly. 

I sallied forth again, this time with a young 
Albanian officer, a cheery youth most anxious to show 
off his country. 

15—2 



228 



THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 



We proceeded to explore things Moslem. In a 
little garden, hedged round by towering cypresses, 
lay the tomb of a holy Bektashite Dervish ; here the 
good man had lived and died, and the spot is holy and 
works miracles. He was beheaded and died a martyr, 
but he picked up his head and carried it back to his 
garden. Of the respect in which he was held there 
was no doubt, for the grave was strewn with small 
coins, and a little wooden money-box was hung on the 
wall, and the spot was quite un- 
protected, save by the good man's 
spirit. Seeing that I was interested, 
the young oflBcer, no doubt a Bekta- 
shite himself, at once offered, to my 
great surprise, to take me to a 
'tekieh' (Bektashite monastery) that 
lay high on the hillside, above the 
town — a rich tekieh, so he said, 
owning wide lands and sunny vine- 
yards. 

It was a small, solid, stone build- 
ing with a courtyard in front. At 
the entrance we waited while the 
officer went in to interview the 
* Baba' (Father). My Christian guide 
doubted that we should be let in. We were, however, 
requested to go round to the back-door, and soon told 
the Baba was ready. In we went, to a bright little 
room with a low divan round it, and texts in Arabic 
on the walls, and big glass windows that commanded 
a grand view of all the valley. 

The Baba entered almost at once, a very grave and 
reverend signer in a long white robe ; under which he 
wore a shirt with narrow stripes of black, white, and 
yellow ; on his head a high white felt cap, divided into 




BEKTASHITE DERVISH. 



MONASTIR TO TEPELEN 299 

segments like a melon, and bound round by a green 
turban; and round his waist a leathern thong fast- 
ened by a wondrous button of rock crystal, the size 
and shape of a large hen's egg, segmented like the 
cap and set at the big end with turquoises and a red 
stone. He was very dark, with piercing eyes, shaggy 
broWs'j'gray hair, and a long beard. 

Courteous and dignified, he thanked me for visiting 
a humble Dervish, and prayed that the Lord would 
protect me now and always, and teach me much upon 
my journey. He seemed to imagine I was on some sort 
of mysterious quest. I regretted deeply that I could 
not talk with him direct, as he sat there and expressed 
religious sentiments with impressive dignity. 

* A man,* he said, * must always do his duty, though 
he never lived to see the results. Those that come 
after him will benefit by his work. But we are all 
born either with a good or a bad nature. It is our 
fate. A man, though he work ever so hard, his work 
is vain if his nature be bad.' 

He asked a good many questions about my journey, 
and seemed genuinely pleased to see me. 

After he had given us coffee he said that, as it was 
the first time I had ever visited a Bektashite tekieh, 
perhaps I should like to see all the building. There 
were two other small dwelling-rooms. A priest and 
a pupil lived with him ; their life, as I could see, was 
very simple, he said. They had many men to till the 
fields and make the bread. Giving bread to the 
needy was one of the duties of the monastery. 

He led us to the kitchen, a fine room with a huge 
fire-place, arched over by a stone vault carried on four 
columns. Rows and rows of great loaves were laid 
out on benches, and more were being made. 

Lastly, he showed the chapeL Of this I had but a 



280 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

passing glimpse from the doorway, for he did not invite 
me to enter. It had a divan round three sides of it, 
and an altar with candlesticks at one end, and waa 
quite unlike a mosque. 

When we left he showed us out at the front-door, 
shook my hand three times, said a long blessing over 
me, and hoped that I should be led that way again. 
I thanked him and he thanked me, and we parted. 
The young oflScer was greatly pleased with the suc- 
cess of the visit, and appeared to reverence the Baba 
greatly. 

Tepelen was to be my next halting-place, and as 
it was about a ten hours' ride, I arranged to leave 
early. I reckoned without my host, however. Kaim- 
makam Beg was going to pay a final call on ' Mamzelle 
EfFendi,' and though ready packed, booted, and saddled, 
I had to wait. After some hours Kaimmakam Beg 
sailed in, gay with a bright pink shirt. He had 
inquired overnight how much escort I would like, 
and I had asked for one suvarri. He now informed 
me that, in consideration of my exalted rank, he had 
decided to give me soldiers, but I could not start 
to-day because it was raining. Also that he was 
going to telegraph to Tepelen that I was to be 
quartered in a private house. 

My unlucky hostess had been kept in a constant 
nervous twitter by the presence of soldiers and officers ; 
all her relatives and children had haunted my room 
perpetually with the best of intentions, and I had had 
no moment of privacy. I did not wish on my tour to 
be a nuisance to everybody with my soldiers. I told 
the Kaimmakam firmly that it would be useless to 
make ready a room for me, I was not accustomed to 
any ceremony, and should go the ban. 

As for the rain, it often rained in England. I 



MONASTIR TO TEPELEN 231 

thanked him for all he had done for me, said I should 
start at once, and soldiers were unnecessary. He 
agreed ; but no sooner was I mounted than up came 
an officer, the Commissary of Police, a trooper, and 
two suvarris ! They were not pleased, for by this 
time it was raining hard, and it rapidly got worse. 
We rode along the valley of the Viosa, It is supposed 
to be carriageable, but, as all the bridges have fallen, 
is not. Through the sheets of gray rain, snow-clad 
peaks loomed dim on either hand, with tiny villages 
clinging to the lower slopes, and many Bektashite 
tekiehs. Then the rain became a ftisillade of water, and 
cut us off from all the world. The icy torrent lashed 
and stung my face and blinded me. I shut my eyes 
tight, set my teeth, hung on to the saddle-bow, and 
trusted to the mule, buoyed up always by the hope 
that I should tire out the military escort. 

At Klisura the valley narrows to a gorge. Perched 
on the great crag that commands it is the huge konak 
of a mighty Beg, son of one of Ali Pasha's Begs, till 
two years ago, so the tale runs, the curse of the neigh- 
bourhood. He seized everything — mills, farms and 
stock — levied blackmail freely, and tyrannized over the 
population, who complained so bitterly of him to the 
Grovernment that he is now under trial at Constanti- 
nople. The konak was passing rich, rumour said. All 
the nails that went to the making of one room were of 
pure silver, and in Ali Pasha s time the Beg possessed 
enough silver-mounted weapons to arm 300 men. 
It showed, dim and mysterious through the rain, a fit 
stronghold for a wild chieftain in a wild land. High 
above, veiled in the clouds on the very mountain-top, 
lay the ruins, I was told, of King Pyrrhus's castle — 
Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, and lord of all this land in 
the brave days of old, and still celebrated here. 



232 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

We rode into the ban at the mountain's foot, a 
desolate place with a few bare, dirty rooms, in one of 
which I had a fire lit; my guide, thekirijee and I 
steamed while we ate the eggs and bread we had 
brought with us. The military escort meanwhile 
drank rakija freely, and blew out itself and its horses 
down below, and ran me up a fine bill, which had to 
be paid. * Honour ' is a very expensive thing. My 
guide, who was used to getting about the country at a 
franc or two a day, was much distressed. 

I was to have been met by more military at this 
point, but they had not turned up. The lot that had 
come with me were soaking wet, and said it was im- 
possible to go on. I moimted, rode through them, and 
waved good-bye, which surprised them, as they seemed 
to expect backshish as well as their bill. As I knew I 
had paid enough for them to booze on for the rest of 
the day, I went straight ahead into the rain ; the two 
suvarris followed me, and that was the end of my first 
and last military escort. 

The ride through the gorge should have been magni- 
ficent, but all was drenched and blotted in a torrent 
of rain. The river was full and wide. Thick and 
muddy, it whirled along, carrying trees and branches ; 
here and there a clean stream rushed into it from its 
rocky banks with such violence that it made a whirl of 
clear blue-green in the muddy torrent. 

*The Viosa is a wicked river,' said the kirijee. 
' From source to mouth it turns no mill, it does no 
work, but much destruction every year. It has but one 
redeeming point : it drowns many Turks, Perhaps 
that is what it was made for. Who knows V 

Thunder crashed on the hiUs, and echoed and 
re-echoed fex away down the valley. The water 
streamed off my cloak. The road was too heavy for 



MONASTIR TO TEPELEN 238 

us to get up more than a trot. I began to wonder 
whether choking off a military escort were worth the 
price. We seemed to be constantly dismounting, 
dragging our beasts down gullies and up the other side 
(for the stone bridges that should have spanned the 
tributary streams had, every one, fallen), remounting 
on a wet saddle only to dismount again and clamber 
over a heap of boulders that had fallen from the 
mountain-side. Some of these, judging by the bushes 
rooted between them, had blocked the way for years ; 
but on the maps it is a carriageable road. My com- 
panions explained to me that, previous to the Treaty 
of Berlin, the road-tax was paid in labour and the 
roads were passable. By way of * reform,* a money 
tax was substituted. It has been collected ever since 
with praiseworthy regularity, and the roads remain 
untouched. Such bridges as existed in the neighbour- 
hood were built by a wealthy Beg at his own 
expense. 

We had had about eight hours of this, and I was be- 
ginning to wonder how many more I could stand, when a 
mosque and some ramshackle houses showed ghostly 
through the downpour ; the leading suvarri turned his 
horse into an entrance, there was a parley, and I 
slipped out of the saddle and followed him into a little 
dark drink-shop, smelling strongly of petroleum, and 
crowded with dripping men. We were at Dragut, 
and this was the ban and general shop. The river, 
we were told, was a raging torrent ; we could not 
reach Tepelen that night ; no boat could take us over. 
The ban was crowded because the folk who had tried 
to reach the bazar to-day had all returned from the 
ferry, unable to cross. We must pass the night here. 
It was a dree hole— dark, chill, foodless, fireless. I 
wondered why I had come, and only a belief that it 



284 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

was not my Kismet to die in Albania cheered me up. 
We asked for a fire, and drank rakija. 

After a weary twenty minutes the * hanjee ' took us 
up to a room he had made ready. An icy draught 
blew through its glassless windows, and our breath 
steamed in the chill, damp air ; there was a piece of 
matting on the floor, and a tiny tray with a few hot 
ashes in it. That was all. I was dismayed. The 
hanjee vowed this was the best room in the house, and 
that he had no fire-place. We crouched miserably over 
the wretched little * mangal '; it did not give enough 
heat to thaw our fingers, and our clothes were drip- 
ping. I looked at the smouldering bits of charcoal 
with desperate interest, saw they had been but freshly 
chipped off, and knew that they must have come from 
a burning log not far away. And that log was the 
only thing in the world I wanted. The hanjee then 
confessed to the fire-place, but said it was in his store- 
room, which was full of goats' hides, and not fit 
for me. 

It was in truth a melancholy spot. There was a 
large hole in the roof, through which the water was 
trickling. It was half full of sacks and onions, piled 
into a comer to be out of the wet, and all the walls 
were hung with smelly, gamey, half-dried goats' hides. 
But there was the hearth-stone, with two smouldering 
logs upon it. I don't believe I was ever half so glad 
to see anything. We soon had a blazing fire, called in 
the drenched gendarmes and kirijee to dry at it, and 
steamed gaily till the room was foggy, took our boots 
off, and roasted our feet. My cloak, which himg on a 
nail, still dripped so that it made puddles. Outside 
the rain turned to driving sleet. 

A neighbour came in and very kindly offered to let 
me spend the night in his harem, but I did not feel 



MONASTIR TO TEPELEN «85 

equal to being stranded, tired and damp, among people 
of whose language I scarcely knew a single word, and, 
moreover, I clung to the fire-place. I might be given 
a chilly little room all to myself with a little pan of 
charcoal in it. I had not the nerve for this, and 
shocked the poor man's sense of propriety, I fear, by 
electing to sleep alone in a house full of men. The 
hanjee supplied coarse maize bread, and with three 
eggs, * maggi/ and an onion fi:om the heap in the corner, 
I made by far the best soup I ever tasted. 

An interesting dispute arose when supper was over. 
The gendarmes were of opinion that the hanjee was a 
well-known bad lot, and that I could not sleep safely 
in his vicinity. The hanjee was certain the gendarmes 
were desperate characters, and I must avoid their end 
of the building. As I meant to sleep by the fire what- 
ever happened, I took no interest in their moral 
characters. The waterproof sheet had kept the blankets 
quite dry, which was all I cared about, and there was 
a dry patch on the floor large enough to hold me. The 
hanjee gave me a tree-stem to bolt the outer door with, 
which seemed rather superfluous, as there was a quite 
unfastened trap in the floor. I heated the blanket at 
the fire, rolled up tight in it, slept for eight hours with- 
out budging, and woke to the blank misery of gray 
dawn, gray ashes, a wet floor, and a lean white cat 
chewing a comer of goat-hide, 

I tried to stand, and found, to my horror, I was locked 
up with rheumatism all down one side from ankle to 
waist. ' Oh you silly fool 1* said I to myself; ' and you 
thought you understood roughing it !' As a matter of 
fact, it is usually a mistake to imagine one understands 
anything. I swallowed a large and indefinite dose of 
salicylate of soda, washed down with neat brandy, for 
the muddy dregs of water in the pitcher were too dirty 



236 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

to drink unboiled. I hauled myself on to my feet pain- 
fiilly, and unbarred the door. Things were a bit more 
cheerfiil when the fire was rekindled, and we break- 
fasted on maggi and the remains of last night's bread. 

The hanjee produciad his little bill, which included 
3s. 4d. for my bedroom. When I explained that for a 
smaller sum in Montenegro I had had meat, bread, 
wine, coffee, and rakija as well, he truthfully replied 
that Montenegro was a very different place. As, how- 
ever, he charged an unhappy peasant 2 francs merely 
for sleeping in the common room without any fire or 
food, I did not fare so badly. 

The sun was shining when we rode out, and the 
place looked exquisitely beautiful ; purple Judas-trees 
in full bloom, in subtle harmony with the silver-gray 
olive-gardens, showed it could be hot sometimes. But 
the snow had fallen in the night and lay low on the 
moimtain-sides ; it was dank and chilly till the sun 
gained strength, and every step of my beast sent a 
thrill of pain running up and down one side of me from 
ankle to hip-joint. 

An hour brought us to the Viosa, with Tepelen 
majestic, high on its further bank, fortified by big stone 
walls, loop-holed and buttressed, built by Ali Pasha, 
and left unfinished at his death. I had plenty of 
leisure to contemplate it. The swirling, whirling river 
raged in a turbid torrent, foaming between the eight 
buttresses of the broken bridge ; on the hill beyond 
was a crowd that bawled and yelled. One of my 
suvarris put his hands to his mouth and roared. A 
reply came bellowing back. The river had begun 
falling, and perhaps in three hours would be passable ; 
at present the ferry couldn't come at any price. 

We unloaded the pack-mule and set the beasts 
grazing. Several natives joined us in the hopes that 



MONASTIR TO TEPELEN 237 

a special effort would be made to take me across, and 
that they might profit by it, and I heard the story of 
the bridge. It was smashed by a great flood in winter 
six years ago, and ever since the town had suflfered 
bitterly. Most of its fields lie on the further side of 
the stream, and this is impassable for a large part of 
the winter. Then the land can neither be tilled nor 
sown. 

One of my suvarris owned a large piece, and had 
miade a living out of it. Since the bridge fell he was 
unable to do so, and had been obliged to join the 
police. There followed the old dismal story of arrears 
of pay. All the company prayed me to help them, 

' K you would only do so,' said a man, * you would 
give happiness to hundreds of people.' 

Many people, I was told, had offered to subscribe 
towards the rebuilding, and they had vainly petitioned 
Constantinople again and again. Forty or fifty people 
were drowned yearly trying to ford when the river is 
low to save the cost of the ferry, but when they had 
wanted to try and build a temporary wooden bridge 
across the still-standing buttresses, they had been 
forbidden, and told bridges belonged to a Government 
department. They were terribly in earnest about it. 

A Moslem vowed that all I had to do was to write 
to the Sultan and say I would do it myself. I said I 
had not money to build bridges. 

'It will cost you only a postage-stamp,' he said. 
* You must write and say that the sight of the suffer- 
ing of his Moslem subjects has made you, a woman and 
a Christian, undertake to help them. A woman and 
a Christian ! It will be such a terrible thing to the 
Padishah to be offered help by a female giaour, he will 
order the bridge to be built at once 1 But you must 
write from England. He receives all the letters that 



238 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

come from foreigners. Our poor petitions he never 
sees!' 

The Sultan, someone added, was afraid of the 
English ; he allowed them to do anything : ' See what 
they have been doing in Macedonia ! You can help us 
if you will.' 

The relief work in Macedonia was intended to be 
non-political and purely humanitarian ; indirectly it 
had great political effect, as I learnt daily, and inspired 
wild hopes in the Sultan s land alike among Moslems 
and Christians — hopes so great that it dawned upon 
me gradually that nothing but abject fear could have 
ever forced His Majesty to have permitted that work 
to be carried out. Were it not for the misery of the 
mass of his subjects, of all sects, there are times when 
I should feel sorry for that terror-stricken man cling- 
ing madly to his decaying power in Yildiz Kiosk, a 
prisoner in his own house, while his moon, no longer 
* crescent,' wanes pallid in a pool of blood. 

I stared at the gaunt wreck of the broken bridge, 
the wild mountains, the lone, lorn land. It had come 
to this : I, a ' female giaour,' was asked to shame the 
great Padishah by one of his Moslem subjects. The 
irony of things can scarce go further. Their insistent 
belief in my power would have made me believe I was 
the British Empire had not the burning, grinding 
pain in my leg reminded me I was only myself, and 
helpless to bear the intolerable weight of the * white 
man's burden,' which everywhere the people strove to 
thrust upon me. And this was at the birthplace of 
Ali Pasha — of Ali, Lord of South Albania, the Lion of 
Janina, gorgeous, glorious,brutal, barbarous — invincible 
Ali, whose rule reached from Arta to Ochrida, and 
who was only overpowered and slain when he had 
reached the age of eighty. Where art thou now, oh 



MONASTIR TO TEPELEN 239 

Ali Pasha? Thy people cry for help to a female 
giaour! 

Ali was born in 1741, over there in that little 
tekieh on the hillside to the right of the road as 
you ride to Tepelen. His father was a Dervish, and 
that is why he became great, says local tradition ; his 
father was Beg of Kabija, the village above the 
tekieh, says history, but Tepelen was sure he was also 
a Dervish, 

* Some Dervishes are allowed to have sons,' said the 
suvarri. 

Ali's father was robbed of his patrimony by his own 
brothers. He died sweetly revenged upon them, but 
he left his widow Khamka and his young son nothing 
but a patch of barren ground. Ali gained his bread 
as a kirijee. One day, when upon the march with 
a caravan, he met a holy man, who warned Ali's 
master he must use no violence towards the boy, for 
he was destined to have a great future. The master 
jeered. 

* If/ he said, * you know the future, tell me this : 
My mare is in foal. Will she bear a male or a female V 

The holy man said : 

' She wiU bear a mule.' 

The master was both scornful and angry. He shot 
the mare and ripped her open, and found a mule 
within her. Then was everyone greatly astonished, 
and they believed in the future of AIL 

Thus we whiled away the time waiting for the river 
to sink. There was nothing to eat, and the sun came 
out hot, so I went to sleep on the suvarri's big sheep- 
wool cloak, till I was awakened by wild yells. The 
caik had started from the other side, a huge and heavy, 
flat-bottomed barge, and was being whirled down- 
stream at a fearAil pace. 



240 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

' They will all drown T cried my guide, and he 
prayed aloud as they dashed straight at the piers of 
the bridge. Loud yells, an exciting second or two. 
they steered cleverly, shot safely through, paddling 
violently, and landed, some way below, triumphant — ^a 
wild set of black gipsies, ragged, half-stripped savages 
— ^and towed the barge up-stream level with the point 
they had started from. The suvarri leapt his gray 
horse into the caik, a gipsy bent to give me a pick-a- 
back. * You are really going V said my poor guide, as 
they dumped us both on board. 

I was so eager to buzz through the bridge with that 
crew of the ' devil's own ' that I did not realize till we 
were shoving off how really nervous the poor man was, 
and repented T had dragged him into danger. He 
buried his head in his hands ; we whirled down-stream ; 
the gipsies paddled for their lives, and the sweat poured 
off them as, with a supreme effort, they wrenched the 
caik round ; it shot clear between two piles, and reached 
the further bank in a few seconds. Two more voyages 
fetched the kirijee, the three mules, and the other 
suvarri without accident. 

This treat cost ten shillings, and gained me the 
gratitude of many unlucky peasants, who were stuck 
in the town unable to get away, and two townspeople, 
who came over with me; so it was money well 
expended. 

Kain set in again almost at once ; the wild stream 
rose again rapidly, and there would be no more traffic 
for days. The possibility of fetching me had been 
hotly debated all the morning, and, finally, it was by 
orders of the Kaimmakam that the attempt had been 
made. In fact, said the Police Commissary, only for a 
very special visitor like myself would the risk have been 
run. I fiincy, from the sensation our arrival caused, 



MONASTIR TO TEPELEN 241 

that the crossing was really rather dangerous. It felt 
at the time like the * water-shoot ' at Earl's Court. 

The hanjee hurried to prepare a room suitable for 
one so distinguished. He laid a red rug on the floor, 
and arranged eight brass ash-trays all in a row across 
the middle (I had to pick them up, as I kept 
tumbling over them, and explained in answer to many 
inquiries that respectable females don't smoke in 
England). He put up an iron bedstead, and covered it 
with a rug and two very handsome pieces of thick, 
cream-coloured silk, woven in stripes, added a scarlet 
cushion, and admired the effect greatly. 

Tepelen is a wonderful place, the wild heart of a 
wild land. Walled and buttressed, it stands on a high 
plateau, around which tower snow-clad mountains. 
Just above the town the torrential Drin dasheb 
into the Viosa, and spreads wide between great 
shingle-banks, the bare bones of the land it has 
devastated. The plateau ends in a rocky crag, scooped 
to a seat, which commands a huge view. Here Ali 
used to sit and look across his lands, while on another 
rock just opposite him sat his faithful Arab, who 
watched ceaselessly lest a foe should attack him in the 
rear. None dared attack him in front, for his eyes 
glittered like fire, and struck terror into all beholders. 
Alternate sun and storm swept the land ; the lower 
slopes of the hills were pink and purple with blossom- 
ing almonds and Judas-trees ; the mountains beyond 
were violently ultramarine, a riot of fierce colour. 
Such is the cradle of Ali Pasha. 

Tepelen is in Liabaria, and the Liabs (or Ljaps) have 
a sinister reputation. Two years ago, I was told, the 
road between Klisura and Tepelen was in the hands of 
brigands, and could not be passed without paying 
blackmail. Even now, to attempt to ride it without 

16 



242 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

gendarmes would be risky. The newly- appointed 
* reform ' judge told a dismial tale of savagery, with 
which he was unable to cope. 

* Oil commencer V he cried dolefully — * Oil oom- 
mencer V Schools were his chief idea, and these, un- 
doubtedly, he said should be Greek, * for Liabaria is 
part of Epirus, and Epirus was part of Greece ; there- 
fore the Liabs are Greeks/ 

That they persisted in talking Albanian and calling 
themselves Shkyipetars was a deplorable fact. Blood 
feuds raged, and a man's property is his only so 
long as he can defend it. As for his life, it is not so 
highly valued as a sheep s, for a sheep is food. There 
is now practically no communication with the outer 
world — far less than in Ali s time, a century ago. 
He kept the trade-route clear, and there was a bridge 
and a paved road up to the town. Ali's faults were 
glaring and obvious, and shocking to the Western 
mind. Viewed from the ramparts of Tepelen, they 
come into focus, and are seen in a truer light. He was 
of the people, and he handled them successfully, for he 
was one of that rare tribe of geniuses ' the man that 
was born to be a King.' The poor ' reform ' judge 
struck me as a man who had been given a far ' larger 
chunk than he could chew.' 

Now Ali's konak is a huge heap of ruins, and 
within his fortifications dwells a horde of filthy gipsies 
of a low and most villainous-looking type. These 
form the bulk of the inhabitants. One hundred gipsy 
houses, seventy Moslem Albanian, and thirty Christian, 
make up all the town. These latter have the bazar 
and such trade as the place carries on. The Kaim- 
makam and the gipsies alone dwell within Ali's walls, 
The land outside and the houses upon it all belong to 
the neighbouring tekieh, which is reputed ' very rich.' 




S5 

H 

tii 



5 












THE NEW YORK 
PUBLIC LIBRARY 



AtTOR, LENOX AN* 
riLDEN FOUNDATION*. 



MONASTIR TO TEPELEN 843 

The fortifications are solid and well built of hewn 
stone. Ali meant Tepelen to rank high as a town, and 
so it may do some day, for the Viosa valley is the 
only route fix)m the sea through the mountains to the 
interior, and it is an old, old trade-route, and the 
ancient way fix)m ApoUonia to Dodona. Fragments 
of ancient walls still stand within those of Ali. They 
are very rudely built, without mortar, of unhewn 
stones of unequal sizes somewhat smoothed on the 
outer surface, and roughly battlemented. They are 
called the walls of Helen. Tepe (Turkish) is a hill 
according to the Kaimmakam, and Tepe Eleni Helen s 
Hill. * Hel&ne,' he added, was * une femme tr^ connue 
dans Tantiquit^,' and the walls must therefore be 
Koman! (Greek and Latin are not compulsory in 
Turkish colleges.) I can assign no date to these walls, 
and have failed to learn anything about them. The 
ruins of former greatness and the filthy herd of human 
monkeys at present squatting within them make up 
one of the most melancholy pictures that I know. 

The Kaimmakam and the Police Commissary were, 
I believe, genuinely pleased to see anyone from the 
outer world, and made me most welcome. I was the 
only European who had been that way for several 
years. He selected the hour of 7 a.m. as the most 
suitable for receiving me at the konieik. I was asked 
if I wished to call ofl&cially or in a friendly manner, 
and replied I would do whichever they wished. 

They wished to be friends. The Kaimmakams 
sitting-room was heavily scented with musk, and 
entirely furnished with the snow-white rugs woven in 
the neighbourhood, huge fluffy things into which you 
sink comfortably, and the walls were hung with . 
quantities of photographs, for the Kaimmakam is an 
enthusiastic photographer. He recounted the diffi- 

16—2 



244 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

culties of his post sunong these wild people, and told 
me that, in accordance with the new reform scheme, 
he had just received instructions to start schools in 
two of the neighbouring villages. They were to be in 
the Turkish tongue, because the people were Moslems ; 
but he admitted that none of them understood it. He 
hoped that next time I came I should find the bridge 
built and the roads made. 

He was doing his best. Arrangements were being 
made. He showed me all his photographic plates, and 
begged me to take any I liked, for I must not leave 
Tepelen without a recollection of it, and unluckily he 
had no prints ready to offer me. I accepted four, and, 
oddly enough, brought them unbroken to England in 
my saddle-bags. He also gave me coffee, for which I 
was truly thankful, for as no one ever breakfasts in 
these lands, I had not succeeded in getting a mouthful 
of anything before paying my call. 

My visit to him is a bright spot in my experience of 
Turks. He was the only Turk I had to do with in 
Albania who did not cross-examine me and treat me 
as though it was only lack of evidence which prevented 
his ordering my immediate arrest. Tepelin is a savage 
spot, but it did not make me feel that I was living in 
the witness-box, or that life is but alternate games of 
* poker ' and * patience.' 



CHAPTER XI 

TBPBLBN TO BLBASAN 

AviiONA was the next place on our route. It was said 
to be distant but a ten hours' ride, and the track cLssez 
hien. The kirijee who had brought us from Poste- 
nani offered to take us on for a moderate sum, and 
further volunteered that he had a friend, one Zadig, 
in the Tepelen police, who would gladly be armed 
escort for us. The kindly Kaimmakam said I 
might have whatever escort I pleased, a military 
one if I wished, but for safety a couple of zaptiehs 
were enough. Zaptiehs, I should note, are far 
better escorts on rough tracks than suvarris, for 
when the 'going' is really bad the suvarri is 
entirely occupied in keeping his own horse on its 
legs, and has no spare hand to pull you out of 
a hole. 

Off we went. It was a fine day, and Zadig and the 
kirijee sang weird duets at the tops of their voices. 
We started along the river Benchi, but soon reached 
the Viosa, and followed its left bank down-stream on 
a more or less bad track. 

About half an hour from Tepelen we passed on the 
left a hill with a much-ruined ancient wall ringing its 
summit. The place is called Dukut, and has been 
identified by some, according to the Kainunakam, with 
Dodona, but Dodona has with &ir certainty been 

245 



246 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

located close to Janina. I dared not aflford time to 
climb up to investigate it, as in this wretched land 
the loss of a few hours may mean that night will over- 
take you in the wilderness, and the nights were as yet 
far too chill and damp to risk sleeping out in. In 
spite of flannel bandages and salicylate, the ghost of 
rheumatism still haunted me. 

We pushed on. At the door of a little tekieh a 
fine white-bearded old dervish was dealing out bread 
to the poor. After this the way grew worse and 
worse, and the land was almost uninhabited. Only a 
tiny village showed white on the mountain-side here 
and there, and, save a goatherd or two, we met no one 
the whole day. All the land looked like an undis- 
covered country, and as wild as the day it was created. 
We pounded over loose wet stones and then into awftil 
liquid mud and stiff wet clay. The legs of the poor 
mules sank in knee-deep, and came out with a loud plop. 

I had to sit my beast as long as possible, though I 
felt it was cruel, as I could not have tramped far in 
such * heavy going.* Mules are singularly stupid 
animals. They climb, it is true, with cat-like agility, 
but those that are used to travelling in a caravan 
persist in following the beast in firont, no matter what 
happens, and when the first mule has fallen into a 
mud-hole and been hauled out, the others fight desper- 
ately to be allowed to do the same. 

We made many d^toiuB with but slight benefit, and 
I went down all the worst descents on foot, as the 
animals pretty well rolled down them, and arrived in a 
heap at the bottom, and the pack-mule, often on its 
knees or haunches, had to be hauled on to its legs 
again by the two zaptiehs. 

Zadig (* the faithful ') was fitly so called, and showed 
strength, skill, and patience that was beyond all 



TEPELEN TO ELBASAN 247 

praise. I was nearly thrown once as my mount fell 
forward suddenly with one foreleg into a deep mud- 
hole, overbalanced, could not get a footing, and 
plimged violently, to the terror of the zaptiehs, 
who thought I was going to be smashed I could 
not dismount without falling under the beast in the 
mud, but managed to steady him down, and he 
climbed out all right. My saddle and bridle saved 
me many a spill. The bridle is specially necessary, as 
the kirijees supply only halters, and the beasts when 
scared are then quite out of control. 

The zaptiehs were anxious at our slow progress. 
The kirijee was in despair, and said he had never 
travelled a worse way. We made only a half-hour's 
halt for lunch, and to let the beasts browse, and then 
pushed on. Life, so far as I was concerned, resolved 
itself into a ceaseless struggle to keep my mule on its 
legs when I was mounted, and to keep my own 
balance when on foot. The valley narrowed, and we 
skirted along the mountain-side high above the yellow, 
swollen Viosa. Beyond it lay the district of Mala- 
kastra, of evil repute. The natives of the neighbour- 
hood do not hesitate to call it the ' slave country.* I 
made many efforts to learn the truth about this, and 
repeat the facts as told me. 

Since the Egyptian slave-trade has been checked, 
the natives of Malakastra, who are a lazy lot and all 
Moslems, have taken to selling their daughters into 
service for, some said, as little as £T5 or £T6 to anyone 
who requires * servants.' The houses of the wealthy 
Begs are, in many instances, served entirely by these 
girls, who remain from ten to fifteen years according 
to the terms of the agreement, and are then free, and 
usually return home and marry. At Permeti I was 
told that some men with a gang of thirty girls had 



248 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

very recently passed through, en route for the larger 
towna And at another place I heard of a girl who 
had escaped, after having been frightfully beaten, and 
had been recaptured. The Government is aware of 
the trade, but winks at it, and pretends that the 
service is voluntary. The zaptiehs were surprised at 
my doubting the possibility of the fact, and declared 
that the Malakastrans sold all their female children. 
They (the zaptiehs) lived on the slave route, and often 
saw men bringing along parties of girls. Many people 
spoke to me about the disgrace of this traffic, and 
begged me to make the £Bicts known. These were all 
Albanians. When, however, I asked a foreign Consul 
about it, he laughed, and said it was only a custom of 
the country, and as the girls were set free in the end, 
it was all right ; also that they probably did not 
have a harder time than they would if they stayed at 
home. All of which is true. Nevertheless, the system 
is one which must be open to the grossest abuse, for, 
so everyone assured me, the girl is her master's 
property, and cannot leave before the expiry of the 
agreed term of years. If it is not slavery, it is some- 
thing unpleasantly like it. 

Malakastra, as seen across the river, is a wild, moun- 
tainous land. The only village in sight was a solidly- 
built stone one. There was good land, too, I was told, 
but the people till little of it. The valley narrowed 
again, and became a rocky gorge. We made an abrupt 
descent on foot to the river's edge. How the beasts 
got down with unbroken legs I do not know. On either 
side the river were various almost inaccessible caverns 
high in the cliff face. These are all fabled to contain 
magic treasure, if you only know how to find it. 

In spite of the long march he had already made, the 
kirijee thought it worth while to scramble up to one 



TEPELEN TO ELBASAN 249 

of them, but returned to say that the entrance was 
blocked and he could not get in. Evening wab draw- 
ing in, and we were still in the wilderness. We had 
been nearly ten hours on the march, and were barely 
half-way to Avlona. Men and beasts were exhausted ; 
it would be impossible to push on in the dark even were 
they not. There was a han on the river s edge but a 
little further on, and there, said the zaptiehs, we must 
pass the night. 

It was a ramshackle wooden and stone affair, with a 
peculiarly villainous-looking owner. I rode into the 
yard and dismounted stiffly, while Zadig and his com- 
rade parleyed with the hanjee. The odd part of this 
sort of travelling is, that so long as you know you 
have another mile to go, you go, mechanically almost, 
dropping to sleep, swaying in the saddle, and waking 
with a start, but always hanging on somehow, dis- 
mounting and scrambling over yet another obstacle, 
even after you are past thinking of anything except 
that there is a goal you will reach some day ; there 
always seems another ounce left in you to be squeezed 
out until you know you have really arrived. Five 
minutes after the strain is off you know you are dead- 
dog-tired, could eat refuse, or sleep in a mud-hole. 

The only room in this han was, like that at Draguty. 
used as a storeroom for hides and maize, but it had 
a sound roof, and we were soon squatting round a 
crackling blaze of brushwood. The zaptiehs came in, 
very pleased with themselves. It was a bad neigh- 
bourhood they said, so, to insure my safety, they had 
told the hanjee that I was a prisoner. Now he would 
think I had no money, and there would only be a few 
pence to pay next morning. I was a much greater 
responsibility than a real prisoner, for if a prisoner 
escapes it is no great matter, whereas if I were taken by 



^ THE BUBDEN OF THE BAl^A^S 

^^ for me would be =o««- 
,. „.tives the -SirS^-^^SeontJ^bm*"- 

™aggi. I should P'ty,"^yf4e European bread, bu^ 

cla/s work oa nothiog ^"^^f^^ of the Near East 

thi brown, very slightly -^^' J^eat and rye. ^ far 
made. I am told, of a mixture ot 

inore sustaining. , in our coverings 

Warmed and fed. we ^^f^^Tat aJl. and the smoke 
sleep. But there was no chunney^ ^^^^^^ boles 

e^c4ed only through the shutter^^^ ,a 

Everan the floor .t was so de^«^^^ tirijee and my 
,«se streamed and smarted The t ^^^^ ^^^^k 

r«ide were sleeping «^«f ^y' ^^^^ng people from a fire 
^11, remembering **>** T^^V^rS ^ve- y*>"^ T"" ^ 
o« should tie a ^^^ ^^^^XtSo^-^ my head, and 
r:i«.l nose, I spread a damp towel o 
«^ asleep in five minutes. crawling through 

^%^ too soon the gr^y.^^^^J^^elaring that, as it 
^ shutters, and the kuijee ^as dec^r g ^^^ 

.^ x-aining. we had ^f ^^?1 ^„S,^^^ and a few cruste 
^ *lxxl of any sort could ^f^^tamed^ a ^^ ^^^^^ 

»^ .Ul we had left. We took the i^u F ^ ^^^^ed 

»--t.>^. It vvas hoot and saddle at once a ^^ ^^ 

1^ fine drizzle. Zadig triumphant for t ^^^ 

....^.i.n'ly moderate. fhe ^*^f| i,f didn't beUeve 
,^.^ior saddle suspiciously, and said he oi 
— m.^ a prisoner after aU. better, but 

^- o wer^ told we should find the way ^^^ 

_^,^ .vorse ; there was no ^^\^^ ^^^'^J^^ always 
^^j»8s country, over any kmd of ground, ai y 



TEPELEN TO ELBASAN 251 

very steep up or very steep down. Wherever it was 
not rough stone that had to be climbed, it was soppy 
clay that had to be waded. The mules had repeatedly 
to be hauled out of mud-holes by their tails. The 
zaptiehs were extremely kind to me, but I got into 
great difficulties with them, as their idea of getting 
me over a bad place was to grip me by both hands 
and leap wildly, without giving me time to get a 
footing or see where I was flying too. Then we 
landed anywhere all of a heap. When this happened 
on a sort of shelf of wet rock and mud overhanging 
the raging river I had to yell to my guide, who was 
struggling along another shelf, to tell them to let me 
pick my own way, and turn their attention to the 
beasts. 

All things come to an end in time. We emerged 
from the gorge, were on level ground again, reached 
the Shushitza, a tributary of the Yiosa, and crossed 
it by a brand-new stone bridge. I don't think I was 
ever so surprised to see anything. Down came the 
rain in torrents ; we rushed into the ban alongside — a 
highly superior ban, which supplied not only maize 
bread but excellent olives, plenty of oil and rakija, off 
which we feasted gratefully. It poured for an hour, 
then the sun came out and we with it. 

We were told it was but three hours to Avlona. 
There was a splendid paved road — as good as anyone 
could desire — for nearly 200 yards, and I felt most 
cheery* Then it gradually faded away ; bushes at 
least six years old appeared in the middle of it, 
there came a sea of clay for a quarter of a mile, and 
then, now and again, a few yards of pavement all 
alone in the wilderness. Three or four natives going 
our way said that soon it would be really very bad. 
And it was. It became a narrow shelf, trodden in 



«6S THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

a very steep hillside of wet day ; the hoof-pits were 
knee-deep; the whole was streaming. I was ahead, 
and wanted to dismount, but they all cried, ' No !* 
I sat the struggling beast for a few awful minutes 
as he reeled and fought for a footing on the giddy 
edge, then there was a wild yell, and the pack-mule 
rolled over on its side and lay stuck fast. This was 
enough for me. I dismounted into the squash, and 
followed the peasants, who were treading a new track 
higher up the hillside. 

The kirijee and zaptiehs dug the mule out, and got 
it on its legs with difficulty after partly unloading it. 
The Kaimmakam's photographic plates were on its upper 
side and were unhurt ! We crawled round somehow. I 
felt as though I had been going to Avlona all my life, 
and should continue doing so throughout eternity. 

We struck a hard track again, over land all glorious 
with anemones, purple, scarlet, and salmon colour, and 
reached high pastures on the hilltop, misty with pink 
asphodel and rich with thick turf — the best grazing- 
land in Aibania, so they said. Below lay grassy 
valleys, and beyond the hill, the district of Klimari, 
a group of five Christian villages, which have resisted 
the tax-gatherers so successfully that they pay only 
three-and-fourpence yearly tax per house, and are the 
envy and admiration of the neighbourhood. Here we 
yelled for directions to the goatherds — ruffianly-look- 
ing fellows, surrounded by wolfish hounds and armed 
with very long sheath-knives, something like the swords 
of the ancient Romans. Till last year they all carried 
guns as well, but were then disarmed under the 
' reform ' scheme. 

Except for the folk of Klimari, all the people 
scattered through this part are Moslems. But the 
women are unveiled and work in the fields, which 



TEPEl^N TO ELBASAN 26* 

points to the fact that they are but recently con- 
verted, and have taken Islam in a very superficial 
manner; for as Zadig, a Moslem, pointed out, it is 
only Christians who let their wives do all the work. 

Over the crest of a hill the Adriatic shone sud- 
denly with a glare of sunlight upon it, and an 
ultramarine island out beyond. Thalassa ! I thought 
we had almost arrived, but we asked a shepherd, * How 
far to Avlona V and he said, * Three hours,' which was 
what they had told us at the han several hours ago. 
Again we struck a track. This time it was inter- 
sected by streams, and all the bridges had fallen. Oh 
the joys of living under the Turkish Government f 
But there are people who wonder why the Albanians 
say it is a waste of money to pay road-tax. The first 
gully was some 10 feet deep with abrupt sides. The 
fallen bridge formed wobbly stepping-stones by which 
we crossed, and, by damming the stream, made a wide 
deep pool. ' The mules tumbled down the bank, and 
the leader pitched straight into the deepest part, 
clawed, went down on his haunches, and was got out 
with difl&culty. The kirijee forced my saddle-mule, 
much against his will, to a better spot, but the pack- 
mule hurled himself after the first one, stood in deep 
water, and fought to be allowed to climb the worst 
part, for where one mule ^as been the next madly 
persists in following. An awful plunging ensued, and 
the three men got him up finally by one hauling his 
tail while the others supported him on either side^ 
It took a good twenty minutes, and there were several 
more gullies to cross, all unrideable. 

The long rays of the evening light came slant and 
low. We passed through an olive-wood, grotesque, 
gray, and weird, haimted by black demoniac bufialoes, 
the most magic sight I have ever seen, and then, far 



264 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

away down below us, lay Avlona, with the sea and 
bay and island, like a map. 

There was an abrupt and rough descent over what 
looked like pure mica, all sharp and glittering, in 
great chunks. More mud, more olives. I recognised 
the funnel of a Uoyd steamer in the bay. We reached 
the paved road at the entrance of the town, and at 
the special request of the zaptiehs I mounted and 
rode to the inn door. 

We had been just twelve hours on the road. The 
elder zaptieh said he had been twenty years in the 
force, and never made such an awfiil journey. We 
had been two days on the road instead of one. The 
kirijee said it was because we had started on a 
Tuesday, the unluckiest day in all the week. Men 
and beasts were dead-tired. I felt a brute for having 
brought them along. I and my mule were the best 
preserved of the party, for he had carried the lightest 
weight, and I had ridden a good deal, but even I had 
only one idea in my head, and that was, that as soon 
as I had supped I would go on board that Uoyd 
steamer and leave the rest of Albania to take care of 
itself. Having eaten mutton for a solid half-hour, 
however, I did nothing of the sort. 

Zadig and his comrade came next morning to say 
good-bye. I was sorry to part with them. They had 
served me very faithfully, and without their help I 
should still be sticking in the clay. Touchingly grate- 
ful for their backshish, which I am sure they had 
earned many times over, the poor chaps said they 
had had no money for six months, and this was a 
godsend. They had tried to do their best for me. 
They kissed my hands and left me with a shower 
of good wishes. 

Avlona is a small town with about 5,000 inhabitants. 



TEPELEN TO ELBASAN ^5 

and lies on low, swampy ground, about half an hour 
from the port ; is surrounded with olive and cypress, 
is picturesque, gaily coloured and haunted by great 
w^hite storks that build on wall and roof and keep up 
a lively clapper-clapper with their long red beaks. 
But the large undrained marshes breed fever, and the 
stricken population drags miserably through the hot 
summer months, under a Government which regards 
all disease as Kismet. 

Three foreign consulates — Austrian, Italian, and 
Greek — are ' watching Albanian interests ' ; the fourth, 
Russian, of course, is watching the other three. Pro- 
paganda rage. The school and language question 
bums. Greece is active. Italy comes into line with 
the others here, has planted two Italian schools^ and 
is working to plant two others in the neighbourhood. 
An Austrian post-oflSce makes the sending and receiv- 
ing of letters safe. Throughout my tour I was begged 
by Albanians to commit nothing I had written about 
the state of the country to the Turkish post. 

A French company is successfiilly working the 
asphalt beds at Selenitza, some miles north of the 
town, and strings of little pack-donkeys carry the big 
black cakes down to the port. Avlona exports, also 
Vallonea, a species of acorn used for dyeing and 
tanning, and some hides and olive oil. Were it joined 
by roads to the interior, Avlona should be rich, for the 
hsij is the finest on the coast for harbour purposes. 

Now, the port, as someone naively said, * is not very 
good. It is just as God made it.' But Austrian 
steamers call regularly, and Avlona is accustomed to 
the sight of foreigners ; not to those, however, who 
drop down suddenly upon it from the wild interior. 
This was a quite unprecedented and alarming event. 

The Kaimmakam, a Turk, a dark, Eastern-looking 



266 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

thing, suspected me enormously. He began as usual 
by saying that the country was inhabited entirely by 
Greeks and Turks, that next year there would be 
excellent carriageable roads everywhere, and bridges 
galore, and that quantities of Greek schools were about 
to be erected. Then he got to business; he asked 
hundreds of questions. 

* No, monsieur, I am not a journalist nor a missionary. 
Je suis Anglaise. No, my father was not an ambas- 
sador, nor a Consul, nor a journalist, nor did he " make 
politics." My brothers are not oflScers, neither are 
they in the diplomatic service. No ; none of them 
have visited the Turkish Empire ; nor have my uncles, 
nor my cousins. They have no intention of so doing.' 

As he seemed anxious to learn about my family, I 
yarned to him about it till he was sick of the subject. 
There was nothing suspicious about me, and he was 
greatly bothered. He would like to know how many 
countries I had visited, and what places. I gave him 
strings of names in France, Germany, Italy, Austria, 
Servia, Montenegro and Bosnia. I was strictly truth- 
ful, and he believed no word I said. He must hear, 
also, all the Turkish places I had visited, why, when 
and how. I told him exactly. He was greasy-polite, 
and talked general conversation for a bit. Then he 
asked suddenly if I had an English passport as well as 
a teskereh. I gave it him. He examined all the visas 
with minute care, and I laughed aloud. 

It was a most barefaced attempt to * catch me out.' 
His surprise was beautiful. 

' Mademoiselle, it appears, has really been to all 
these places Y 

* As I have already told you, monsieur.' 

Finally he decided that ' to do me honour ' the Police 
Commissary had better accompany me everywhere. 



ITEPELEN TO ELBASAN 257 

He did. I had only to appear in the street, and he 
sprang out of the ground and watched me as a cat does 
a mouse. I walked him round and round the bazar 
for the sole purpose of exercising him till he was 
sincerely sorry I was * suspect.' 1 oflFered, also, to 
show him the contents of both my saddle-bags. He 
knew I was laughing at him, and could not see the 
joke. 

Several Christians asked me to visit. them, but sent 
afterwards to say they were afraid of receiving me lest 
they should be persecuted by the Government when I 
had left. ' The Vali of Janina, the head of the vilayet, 
is a " Turk of Turks," * I was told by some foreign 
residents, * and persecutes the Albanian language, and 
everything that tends towards instructing the Christ- 
ians. The Kaimmakam is not really a bad man, but 
terrified of the Vali. Aonong the Albanians them- 
selves there is no religious hatred, but the party for 
the liberation of Albania has been held back till lately 
by the jealousies of the local Albanian Begs.' 

News came in while I was at Avlona that the new 
* reform scheme' had been accepted but was not to 
apply to this vilayet, and caused great dismay. All 
the money would now go to the pockets of the foreign 
officers, who were doubtless already rich, nobody else 
would be paid, and no good would be done anywhere. 
The recent increase of the beast-tax is falling very 
hardly on these people, as they are great meat-eaters. 
One of the foreign Consuls said it could not possibly 
be enforced and was atrocious, for it was high for oxen, 
and in the case of lambs, more than the market value 
of the animal. The Bulgars had revolted, and the 
other peoples were being robbed to pay the expenses. 
The only thing for the others to do was to revolt too — 
the sooner the better ; the Albanian movement was 

17 



258 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

organizing and consolidating rapidly, and we should 
soon see resulta The Turk is at death's door, and the 
final struggle imminent. And so on, and so on. And 
the poor Police Commissary had to wait outside. 

I rode out to see the ruins at Canina on the hill 
behind the town. It is a suburb of Avlona, and con- 
sists chiefly of houses of the better-to-do Moslems. 
Several of these have lately been subject to severe 
police espionage, and one imprisoned for national 
propaganda. The Police Commissary and a soldier had 
to go with me to see that I was not mixed up in the 
affair. Afterwards I was asked to pay the hire of the 
Police Commissary's horse and of his saddle ! 

The details of the Turkish Government are incom- 
parably grotesque. It is a Gilbert and Sullivan opera 
written in blood. It got tired of hunting me after 
two or three days, and left me to wander round alone 
and draw and photograph as I pleased, for my travel- 
ling companion's business took some time more to 
transact. 

Orthodox Good Friday was very solemn, and every- 
one flocked to church in black. Avlona has a large 
Christian population, all Orthodox. The service lasted 
the whole day ; a painted crucifix, draped with black, 
stood in the middle of the church, and each one kissed 
the foot on entering. Halfway through the service it 
was removed, and a table put in its place, on which 
lay a bier, covered with a black cloth, painted with 
the body of the dead Christ, for no images are allowed 
by this church. Two priests carried the bier round 
the Church on their heads, preceded by an incense- 
bearer, walking backwards, and followed by a proces- 
sion. The service was all in Greek, and the singing a 
tuneless nasal yowl. In the late evening the church 
was crammed to suffocation, and as each one held a 



TEPELEN TO ELBASAN 269 

lighted candle, it was a glare of yellow light and foggy 
with smoke. In the middle of the service some of the 
Turkish police pushed their way in and had a look at 
the bier, their red fezzes conspicuous above the bare- 
headed crowd. The raucous voices, barbaric music, 
and gaudy, shabby trappings, dim through the smoke, 
made a dramatic scene which culminated when the 
priests lifted the bier and carried it fix)m the church ; 
there was a wild scramble of men and boys, who all 
strove to shove a shoulder under it, if only for a 
second, as it was borne all round the building, and the 
whole congregation followed with twinkling candles. 

Almost all the kirijees are Christians, and were 
holiday-making, and we had difficulty in finding any- 
one to take us on till after Easter. We finally got off 
on Sunday morning with a couple of Moslems and very 
good horses. The Kaimmakam told me he was short of 
police, and could not give me more than one suvarri, 
which, after the amount he had recklessly wasted upon 
me a few days before, was amusing. 

We rode along the edge of the ' lake ' of Avlona, a 
shallow, brackish lagoon in a swamp from which the 
sea has retreated, a place that breeds fever all the 
summer, and crossed it on a stone causeway to the 
village of Lart. It was about seven in the morning, 
the village lay bright- white by a great dazzle of water, 
and the sky was exquisitely clear. 

* Christ is risen !' cried the villagers as we rode 
through, and in front of every house curls of blue 
smoke rose from the big wood fire over which the 
Easter lamb was roasting, spitted lengthwise on a 
pole. Once through the village our troubles began ; 
they always do on a Turkish road. When starting on 
a journey in this land people give you an elaborate 
^ send-off' — * May the road be smooth for thee I 

17—2 



260 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

May no harm befall thee ! Mayest thou arrive safely 
at thy journey's end !' and so forth. 

I was told that no language contained so many and 
such beautiful farewells as does Albanian. I replied 
that there is no country in which they are so urgently 
required. We had to cross several miles of swamp, 
fetlock-deep at best, often hock-deep, and quite foggy 
with mosquitoes. Progress was frightfiiUy slow ; the 
mud black, oily, and smelly. We rode knee-deep in 
the sea at last, as the bottom was a little firmer 
there. 

Finally we reached our old firiend the Viosa, here 
wide, shallow, and tame, and crossed without diflGiculty, 
horses and all, in a big caik made of two dug-out 
tree-trunks, after the pack-animal had refused, rolled 
down the bank, nearly fallen into the river, been un- 
loaded, and picked up again. Landing from these 
caiks is a gymnastic feat. You have to make your 
horse jump into the water first ; then you persuade 
him to stand alongside, and you climb into the 
saddle from the caik's edge. After this we had a 
good track, and rode along merrily past a small 
Vlah village, where folk were dancing and singing 
weird songs. 

Soon, on a hilltop, we saw a solitary column, short 
and fiuted, shining white on the blue sky, and the 
suvarri told how, long ago, a great city stood there, 
the sea came right up to the hill, and that was the 
post to which the ships were tied. Such is all that 
local legend tells of ApoUonia — Apollonia, once one of 
the most important cities on the coast, celebrated alike 
for its commerce and its learning. 

From his studies here young Octavius hastened 
when he heard of the murder of his imcle, Julius 
Caesar, and it was one of the starting-points of the 



TEPELEN TO ELBASAN «61 

Egnatian Boad, the great military road between Borne 
and the East. Now tl^e sea has crept back, leaving a 
fever-stricken swamp in place of the port where Rome 
disembarked her legions, and not one wall stands of 
all the city. 

We rode up the next hill to the monastery of 
Pojana, and our horses' hoofs chipped black and white 
tessersB out of the path, part doubtless of the mosaic 
floor of a villa. Pojana and Avlona are both probably 
corruptions of the word 'ApoUonia,' but Pojana is, 
judging by the remains found, the site of the old town, 
and Avlona a new port with the old name, made when 
the sea left Apollonia high and dry. (It should be 
noted that this was not the ' Apollonia ' visited by 
St. Paul. That was a town not far from Salonika.) 
The monastery church is Byzantine. It is evidently 
of early date, but the people of the monastery could 
give me no history at all. At one time it has evidently 
been unroofed and partly destroyed, as the whole of 
the upper part is of later workmanship. It is built of 
stone. At the west end is a long open narthex, or 
porch, supported by a colonnade, the capitals of which 
are all grotesque beasts and bogies. The interior of 
the building is entirely whitewashed. Outside, the 
walls of both church and monastery are set with a 
quantity of classic fragments, many of them of great 
beauty. 

One little white marble Amazon kneeling to support 
a cornice is an admirable work, and with the exception 
of a lost foot and arm, as sharp-cut and perfect as 
when new. There are also a Medusa head in relief, 
some very good tomb reliefs, some inferior ones, and 
also some extraordinary and grotesque Byzantine 
reliefs, notably one of a goat grazing. Leaning 
against one of the doors of the church was the torso 



262 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

of what has been a draped male Boman portrait 
statue. The head, I was told cheerfully, had been 
knocked off and taken to a house in Avlona. AJso it 
had hands a little while ago, but they are *gone/ 
White and crystalline scars showed that folds of the 
toga had been quite recently broken off. Near it was 
the lower part of a draped female statue. Both 
fragments were of the finest white marble, and the 
best style of Boman work. 

It was Easter Sunday, and the courtyard was full 
of peasants in their best — tall men in dazzling white 
fustanellas, dark blue leggings, crimson waistcoats 
with two bands of silver chains crossed on the breast, 
and white coats with hanging sleeves embroidered 
.in black; women in long-skirted, sleeveless coats 
striped diagonally with scarlet — ^brilliantly aproned, and 
a-dangle with coins — who flashed and glittered Kke 
parrots in the sunshine. Dead Bome, Byzantium, 
and live Albanians, past culture and present desola- 
tion made an entirely fascinating whole. 

The head of the monastery, an Albanian, tall, 
haughty, a sort of ecclesiastical pasha, served by a 
most hmnble priest, and a host of fustanelled retainers, 
received me with affability, and offered hospitality. 
I decided to stay the night. All the land round, it 
appears, is swayed by him, and the monastery is 
wealthy though barbaric. Our horses were supplied 
lavishly with hay and com. I was informed that a 
sumptuous meal would be prepared for me, too, and 
particularly asked not to eat the food I had brought. 

The people who had come up to afternoon service 
had not expected anything half so amusing as a 
foreign female, and were most friendly. When I 
began a drawing of the church, a man who could 
speak a little Italian came forward and said : 



TEPELEN TO ELBASAN 263 

* Signorina, we are ignorant Albanians out of the 
village. We should like to see what you are doing, 
for we have never seen such a thing before. But, 
if it troubles you, we will go at once/ 

In all civilized countries an artist is reckoned fair 
game ; I have rarely met with such consideration, and 
oould but reply that they were all welcome. When 
I inquired if they had any * anticas ' to sell, they were 
overjoyed, and, so soon as afternoon service was over, 
invited me to go back to the village with them. It 
was an odd walk. They were far too polite to lead 
the way, and made me walk first, in solitary grandeur, 
while they followed in a troop. As I did not know 
the path, the plan, though well meant, was not wholly 
successftil. All the hillside was covered with copse- 
wood in fuU leaf and masses of wild-plum blossom, 
and was alive with butterflies — swallow-tails, fri- 
tillaries, red Admirals, tortoiseshells, brimstones, 
clouded yellows, and great coppers. The ground 
was thick with primroses and bee orchises, and beyond 
was the blue Adriatic. 

Pojana, the village, lay at the hill's foot. It is very 
tiny, and wretchedly poor. Pieces of columns, carved 
capitals, and hewn blocks of marble have been used as 
building material, and give the place a forlorn, sic 
transit look. An altar with a bull's head and a fine 
acanthus-leaved capital lay by the door of the first hut. 
I sat on a stone and held a coui*t. 

The arrival of a wealthy foreigner caused great 
excitement. Every house possessed a bagM of coins 
and other odds and ends. I tried to buy some- 
thing of everybody, so as not to disappoint them, and 
for a few francs got a number of late Boman Emperors 
and some of the little bronze coins of ApoUonia itself, 
with Apollo on one side and his lyre on the other, 



864 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

to the great satisfaction of the villagers and 
myself. 

The sun was setting when I reached the top of the 
hill again ; the wet marsh down below burned scarlet- 
gold between bars of purple land. A huge bay-tree 
stood up monumental against the glare. I never knew 
what ' to flourish like a green bay-tree ' meant before. 
The day faded and darkened into night. I was tired 
and hungry. I had lunched at 11 a.m., and it was 
now 8.30 p.m. There was no sign of that sumptuous 
meal. 

I asked my guide to unpack some food. He went 
ofi*, and returned dolefully to say that an Easter lamb 
was being prepared for us, and we had better wait. 
We waited hungrily. I bolted two tubes of maggi 
raw, and should have gnawed a crust had not the head 
of the monastery thought it his duty to keep me com- 
pany. Buoyed up always with the belief that the 
British Empire, if it buckles to the task, can outstay 
the world, I waited for that Easter lamb. It came at 
9.30 p.m. There was plenty of it. I had it in solitary 
grandeur. Two men came in with a chair, and placed 
upon it a whole shoulder and a pile of fragments, and 
gave me a huge and heavy loaf to nurse. On the 
floor they put a great bowl of milk, reeking of wood 
smoke, the grinning, blackened head of the lamb, and 
a dish of what looked like prunes and cream, but was 
really the lamb's liver chopped in lumps, half burnt, 
and mixed with clotted sour milk. A handful of salt 
and a bottle of sour wine completed the menu. It was 
a fleshy, barbaric meal. I believe I ate for three- 
quarters of an hour, and made no visible impression 
on it. The kirijee and the suvarris in the next room, 
however, subjugated it entirely. 

My room had two doors, neither of which fastened. 



TEPELEN TO ELBASAN 265 

but with my saddle for pillow I slept the sleep of 
repletion and exhaustion. Getting up in these places 
wastes no time. You have only to put your boots on, 
and the retainers help you to wash all that shows. 

The sun was just up ; the world was still and gray ; 
all was exquisite in the keen pure dawn. The people 
were flocking up to Easter Monday service, the women, 
Ylah and Albanian, all bearing in large flat baskets on 
their heads Easter offerings — eggs, bread, milk, and 
fowls. * Christ is risen,* they said. The air seemed 
full of the joy of life. 

I swallowed a bowl of milk hastily, and bestowed a 
handsome backshish on the head of the monastery, which 
he received with the condescending air of a Prince 
conferring a £a.vour, and was in the saddle before 
7.30 a.m., and away over trackless land with an 
extraordinary feeling of exultation. 

The world was all before me, and the beyond was 
ever a-calling. Easter lamb had agreed with every- 
one, and both kirijees and suvarri were as gay as birds. 
Away we went over undulating ground, through bushes 
and asphodel and small hooky acacias, which tear the 
clothes to ribbons. In a dip in the hills was a grave- 
yard, and fragments of classical columns kept guard 
over dead Moslems. The mud had all dried. We got 
along at a good pace, and reached Fieri in a couple of 
hours. The Fieri police were much exercised about 
us ; they had been telegraphed to by Avlona to expect 
us for the night. They had intended arranging the 
private house and military escort business, but, by 
staying at Pojano, I had out-manoeuvred them. They 
wanted me to stay while an escort was arranged, but I 
had shaken off all * honours ' with great difficulty, did 
did not want to start them again, and vowed I could 
not wait. My suvarri had to leave at Fieri. I asked 



266 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

for another to take me to Berat, and won my point. 
We halted only long enough to water and feed the 
beasts. 

Fieri is a big village belonging to a very enterprising 
Beg who wants to make it a trade centre, and has 
rebuilt all the market-place with large solid-looking 
houses of stone, which have a surprisingly up-to-date 
appearance. It was all agog with Easter Monday, and 
reminded me of * Benkoliday/ so gay it was. I heard 
music that twanged and squealed like bagpipes. It 
was an Albanian gipsy-band with four performers : two 
guitars, a violin, and a sort of clarionet. It came out 
and performed for my special benefit. I asked for 
Albanian music only. The clarionet squealed a jiggle- 
jaggle, bagpipey air, and the stringed instruments 
went buzz, buzz, buzz with great vigour. The per- 
formers burst into song, and sang imtil the sweat 
poured down them. The crowd, in its best fustanellas, 
applauded and kept its eyes fixed on me. When I 
paid for this treat, the leader of the band clapped the 
coin on his sticky, sweaty forehead, and withdrew 
backwards, fiddling, thus adorned. 

A fresh suvarri turned up, and we started for Berat, 
cheered to learn that the track had so dried up that, 
if we pushed on, we might arrive by nightfall, and not 
have to stay at a wayside han. We crossed the 
Janica, and reached the Lumi Beratit (River of Berat), 
a fair-sized river, thick and muddy. Following its 
left bank, we got along quickly. On our right 
was the mountain district, Malakastra, the 'slave 
country,' as I was assured here also. We rode 
over plain land — the * Muzakija,' named after the 
Muzaki, a celebrated line of chiefs who once ruled as 
far as Kastoria. The Muzakija includes all the coast 
land as far as Durazzo. The inhabitants are Christians, 



TEPELEN TO ELBASAN 267 

wretchedly poor, who live in mud-and- wattle shanties. 
The land is owned by Moslem Begs as chiftUks, and 
the peasants who work it are little better than serfs. 
A firanc a day, I was assured, was the utmost a man 
could earn for a long day's work, but that is rare and 
exceptional pay. Two piastres (4d.) is the usual price 
for road- or wall-making. 

These Begs, I was told, grow rich on the com and 
olives they export, and are hand-in-glove with the 
Turkish Government, which winks at their extortions 
so long as they send in tax enough. The poverty of 
Macedonia was child's play to that of the Muzakija. 
I saw women with barely enough clothing to cover 
their nakedness, and much of the housing was on a 
par with that of the temporary shelters run up by the 
re&gees in the burnt villages. 

^ Us ont assassin^ I'Albanie/ said a Consul to me, 
speaking of the Grovernment. 

If the British public wants to intervene on behalf of 
the Balkan people, common justice demands that it 
shoidd investigate the case of each, and not run only 
to the help of that which hoists the most bloody 
posters. 

The land of the Muzakija is very good, but water- 
logged in parts, and requires draining. Much is rudely 
cultivated and yields well. The breed of fiery little 
horses it was noted for has become scarce. There is 
good pasture on the hills, but owing to the badness of 
the roads few beasts are raised for export, the wretched 
beasts, except in very fine weather, arriving at port 
too exhausted to fetch good prices. We crossed the 
Lumi Beratit on a fine stone bridge built some seventy 
years ago by an Albanian Beg, and reached Berat 
about sunset. 

Berat is in an extraordinarily lovely situation, and 



268 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

scrambles down the hillside all bowery and flowery to 
the brink of the Beratit ; quaint wood-and-plaster 
houses overhang the river ; the ruined fortress crowns 
the height above ; the huge mountain range of Tomor 
(alt. 2,416 metres) towers square-headed, barren and 
snow-clad on one side, and the slopes of the neighbour- 
hills are gray with olives. The river, all unbanked, has 
wrought terrible devastation. Great tracts of land lie 
denuded, stagnant water festers in the hollows, and 
all the siunmer fever rages. Only the Christian 
quarter on the hill-top is fairly free. 

Malarial fevers are the curse of Albania, especially 
in the South. The doctors assured me that with this 
exception the people are very healthy, recover from 
very severe accidents, and often heal quite clean from 
wounds without any antiseptics. 

Now it was springtime, and no fever due for six 
weeks, and Berat looked an earthly Paradise. 

The Muttasarif, a cheery, stout old Turk, received 
me affably, and said I was the first Englishwoman in 
Berat within the memory of man. He detailed his 
plans for the improvement of the town, and was great 
on the new road about to be made from Avlona. I 
had my doubts about it, as I had already learnt that 
the engineer was afraid it would not be a very good 
road. Half of the money had already evaporated in 
Constantinople. Out of the rest he must pay himself 
for * il faut vivre.' Mashallah, the road would last two 
years if there were not much rain. 

According to the Muttasarif, however, Berat, next 
year, would have a perfect road, and simply bristle 
with schools of every description, always excepting one 
in the vernacular. I encouraged the good man's plans, 
and added that with such a force of water in the river 
he could light the town with electricity, work all the 



TEPELEN TO ELBASAN 269 

shoemaking (Berat's chief trade) with it, and run a light 
railway to Avlona. This completely staggered him. 

* You have only been here twenty-four hours, and 
you have already thought of all this ! You,' he added 
piously, * think only of people's bodies ; I — of their 
souls.' 

Berat has but one consulate, and that a Greek one. 
People cling to it as their one link with the outside 
world, and a safe means of receiving foreign corre- 
spondence, and the Greeks, having no rivals here, are 
working an active propaganda. There are four Greek 
schools, to which Greece is said to contribute £300 a 
year, and there is a Greek Bishop. But Italy is 
striving hard to plant a school of her own to counteract 
Greek influence. The town has about 11,000 inhabi- 
tants, rather more than half Moslem. 

The neighbour-lands are very savage. Blood-feuds 
rage and brigandage was rife till a year ago, when 
active efforts were made against it, many men cap- 
tured, and some executed. But the land is in a 
medieval state of barbarism, and the quarrels of the 
rival Begs have a Montague and Capulet flavour. 
The latest excitement was the case of Suli Beg. A 
certain man wished to give his daughter in marriage 
to a Vlah. But one of Suli Begs followers coveted 
her as bride. He appealed to Suli to help him. The 
girl's father, on the other hand, belonged to a rival 
Beg's party. The rival Beg said the girl should marry 
the Vlah ; Suli said she should not. Each party sent 
a troop of some thirty armed men, and a fight took 
place. Several were killed, others badly wounded, 
including three women and the girl herself, who was 
captured by Suli's men, carried off, and kept prisoner 
for a month. They were then forced to yield her, and 
she married the Vlah. This very fourteenth-century 



270 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

affair took place two years ago. It caused such excite- 
ment that Suli was captured, tried, and condemned to 
three and a half years' imprisonment. He had ap- 
pealed, and the case was to be retried in a higher 
court. I expressed fear that perhaps he might, after 
all, escape punishment. 

* Oh no/ said my informant. * You see, in this land 
things go very slowly. It has already taken much 
time to appeal and obtain promise of a new trial ; 
the trial itself will take much longer. Meanwhile 
Suli is in prison. Even if he succeed in proving him- 
self innocent, and reversing the judgment, he will still 
have had his three and a half years. It is so with us !' 

Berat was swarming with beggars. Some lived in 
holes in the banks outside the town. Conununica- 
tion with the outer world is difficult and very limited ; 
agriculture is archaic, and if the local crops fail dire 
want follows. After the drought of 1902 numbers of 
peasants died of starvation, vainly striving to eat 
leaves and bark, and the place, I was told, had not 
yet recovered from the losses it then suffered. Berat, 
when I arrived, had just been asked for £3,000 tax, 
and said bitterly, * It will all go to pay European 
officers, who are rich already. Em'ope had better 
leave the place alone than rob one district to pay for 
another. If we rise, will England guarantee us the 
same amoimt of help she has given the Bulgarians V 

Berat's chief trade is in hides, * opanke ' (the local 
leathern sandal), and saddlery. It has a jGaiscinating 
bazar. I wandered about alone when my guide was 
busy, and met with the greatest courtesy. If any 
little boys tried to follow me, they were stopped by 
the nearest man. The odd part of all these towns ia 
that the wild are so wild and the civilized so civilized. 
All the centuries are jiunbled together. The better-to- 



TEPELEN TO ELBASAN 271 

do wear European clothes and are quite smart, and at 
the pharmacy you can buy Vichy water and Giesshubel 
from a man who speaks French ; but, coming to market, 
you meet long, lean men of the mountains, in ragged 
fustaneUas, armed with flintlocks of a pattern quite 
250 years old, though of modem make. And the 
wildest thing of all I met was a sort of fakir — swarthy, 
half-stripped, mad-eyed — who carried a begging-bowl 
and a battle-axe that looked as if it hailed from the 
Far East. 

In the han I had a small, unfurnished room, with 
three swallows* nests in it, and a large hole in the 
floor, and I lived on lumps of meat from the cookshop. 
You select what looks most eatable. The man asks 
how many penn'orth you require. You indicate the 
size ; he hacks it ofl^, and, seizing a handful of salt in 
large, dirty-gray crystals from a pot alongside, he rubs 
it between his pahns and sprinkles your dish. He 
lends you the plate, and sends for it later. The food 
is rough, but it is nourishing. The meat is meat, and 
the bread is bread. It has not had half the goodness 
removed by freezing, by borates, by chemical processes 
or adulteration. 

The old town called the Kastra, which sounds as 
though the Romans had had a say in the matter (and 
that they had a town here seems shown also by some 
sculptures built into a church wall), stands on a hill 
high above the river. One side is precipitous and the 
other steep, and the summit is walled all round with 
fortifications of varying age. The lower courses are in 
many places of huge, irregular stones ; above this 
comes, at the main entrance, rubble and flat tiles set 
in plaster. On the right of the gate are the letters 
' M.K.' and a cross in red tiles. These are believed to 
show that this part was built by Michael Komnenus, 



872 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

who founded the Despoty of Epirus in 1202. The 
rest of the walls date from all or any of the inter- 
vening periods up to Ali Pasha's time. The Kastra 
has had ah exciting existence. Here Skenderbeg be- 
sieged the Turks, and near here fell Muzaki, Lord of 
the Muzakija. Later Herat was the capital of Toskeria, 
and was ruled by Pashas who claimed descent from 
the Kastriot family, till the end of the eighteenth 
century. The last of them, Kurd Pasha, waged fierce 
war with Kara Mahmoud, Pasha of Skodra. The 
Tosks were defeated and lost very heavily. But Kurd 
survived his foe, who was killed by the Montenegrins, 
and lived to capture young Ali of Tepelen, then 
practising as the leader of a brigand band. But for 
Kurd's mercy there would have been no Ali Pasha. 
Kurd is reputed rich and generous. It was he that 
built the bridge that still crosses the river. The 
builder he consulted said that such a swift stream 
could not be bridged, for he did not believe the Pasha 
would pay enough. Kurd, to show him money 
was nothing to him, pulled out a bag of gold and 
threw it into the water. The builder thereupon said 
it would be quite possible to build a good bridge, and 
did so. Thus runs the tale. 

After Kurd's death Ali Pasha seized Berat, and 
largely refortified the Kastra. And since his time it 
has been Turkish. 

On one of it« bastions lie seven fine old bronze 
guns, two of them on rotting gun - carriages. Any 
other country would put them in a museum. On one, 
which is of iron, is the date * 1684,' and the letters 
*T.W.' in Roman characters, which makes it likely 
that it is of English make. If so, it has seen many 
adventures before finding a final resting-place at 
Berat. 



374 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

The Kastra is now the Christian quarter. An old 
pre-Turkish church still stands, and in the hillside are 
hewn two tiny chapels. 

Outside the town are large Moslem cemeteries, and 
on the grave of more than one Bektashite saint many 
lamhs are slaughtered. Moslem grave-yards always 
spread far and wide. Of Orthodox Christian ones 
almost nothing is seen, either here or in Macedonia, as 
it is the custom among the members of the Greek 
Church — in these parts, at any rate — to disinter the 
corpses after three years' burial, wash the bones, hold 
a service over them, and store them in a special 
building. Should the corpse be not entirely decayed, 
it is considered a very bad omen. This digging up of 
remains seems very unpleasant to us, but several times 
Orthodox Christians remarked to me with disgust 
that the Moslems, owing to their horrible habit of 
leaving their dead undisturbed, wasted much good 
ground. 

I spent the inside of a week at Berat, received much 
hospitality, and was free from police supervision. My 
comrade was not so lucky. The Vali of Janina tele- 
graphed that he was suspect the day after our arrival, 
and he had to take his bags to the konak for police 
inspection. I went too, just to see that he was not 
bullied. The two police and a Pasha, said to be a 
great friend of the Sultan, were not at all pleased to 
see me, but did not like to turn me out. The search 
was very amusing. They were greatly excited over it, 
and at last I laughed, which surprised them greatly. 
They seemed to expect me to be alarmed and im- 
pressed. They spoke only Turkish, and my guide 
flatly refused to translate several quite ftmny things I 
wanted to say. He was of opinion, however, that my 
presence mitigated matters considerably. 



TEPELEN TO ELBASAN 275 

We left Berat for Elbasan at about six in the morn- 
ing, I on the most painful horse I have ever ridden, 
for it could neither trot nor amble, but joggled con- 
tinuously. I do not mind a *Tommyjog' for a reasonable 
time, but when it comes to jolting for twelve hours on 
^nd it is £sitiguing. I was thankful when the track 
was too bad for anything but a walk Otherwise the 
way w€is most amusing. We soon reached the river 
Devoli, a tributary of the Beratit, and followed its 
left bank. 

The suvarri, a very cheery, wiry young thing, who 
was pleased to consider my journey a commendably 
sporting affair, and to approve of it highly, declared 
that, barring a man's own little private affairs, the 
road was pretty safe. His own family, unluckily, had 
A great deal of blood upon it. His poor old father, who 
at his age could no longer settle these affairs of honour, 
had had to fly the neighbourhood. For himself it W€is 
not 80 bad, especially since he had joined the gen- 
darmerie. This afforded him some protection and kept 
him weU armed. For my sake he sincerely hoped we 
shotdd meet none of his foes to-day ; and he kept a 
sharp look-out with his gray hawk's eyes. Luckily, 
they did not live near the track; but his presence 
would be reported, and they would be expecting his 
return. He was never such a fool as to go back the 
way he had come ! The number of forlorn graves by 
the track were silent witnesses of the truth of his 
remarks. 

All the men ploughing wore flintlocks, and the young 
goatherds on the uplands each carried a Martini and a 
well-filled cartridge-belt. Some of them were quite 
boys — fine-looking young savages, too; upstanding 
and alert, with a swagger * do-you-bite-yoiur-thumb-at- 
me ^ air. Life in the outlying districts is very hard, 

18—2 



276 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

and only the fittest of all have any chance of surviving. 
Ahout a quarter of the land was cultivated, and 
clearances were being made in a forest, where the soil 
was rich. We rode out into a fair open grass plot, 
with two big walnut-trees in the middle. Here the 
suvarri halted us to admire the deep bullet trenches 
with which trunks and boughs were freely scored. A 
year ago two wretched men, a father and son, the 
owners of that house on the hill, had here dodged 
bullets until hit. A big txmiulus of stones covered 
all that was left of them. Why were they killed ? 
The suvarri did not know. Probably they had blood 
on them. If so, it was very foolish of them to go out 
not properly armed. (To go out without a gun under 
these circumstances is as foolish €is to go out without 
an umbrella in England, and then complain if you get 
wet.) The judges had sent the assailants to Hades. 
This is a wild Pagan land, called Moslem, but neither ' 
church nor mosque, priest nor * hodja,' is to be found in 
many of the scattered villages. 

Stones jammed in the fork of many a wayside 
branch told of the beliefs that really sway the people. 
They are put as resting-places for the feet of the dead 
as they pass through the air, and the neighbourhood 
had very considerately furnished the route with plenty. 
I fancy my kirijee added one. 

When called on for military service, the men of 
these vague villages will often declare themselves 
Christians and exempt, and afterwards repel with 
guns the men sent to collect army tax on the grounds 
that they are Moslems, and not liable. 

At last, in the valley, some stumps and a broken 
arch showed where the bridge had been. We steered 
for the river, and the suvarri, yelling and bawling to 
some peasants on the bank to know where it was 



TEPELEN TO ELBASAN 277 

fordable, took to the water. I won his esteem by 
following without hesitation. We just did not have 
to swim, and the others made the plunge with obvious 
reluctance. This amused him vastly ; and to prove 
that I W€is not afraid of anything, ^ not even Martinas,' 
he swung round his horse, and threw his rifle to his 
shoulder playfully. 

After this we bustled along over a fair track, and 
saw Elbasan out on a big plain — ^white minarets 
a- twinkle among cjrpresses — and we never seemed to 
get any nearer. 

Finally, we crossed the Skumbi, the frontier of 
Ghegaria, on another of Kurd Pasha's bridges, trailed 
into the town at sunset, and drew rein at the ban. 
I was horribly tired, for I had been too joggled to eat 
more than an egg and a bit of bread at midday, and I 
fondly hoped for rest and refreshment, but no such luck. 
The Police Commissary at Berat, who was reputed 
among the Christians to * have Satan in his heart,' had 
telegraphed that two suspicious and revolutionary 
characters were coming, and the police at Elbasan 
were awaiting us. I had scarcely time to climb up to 
a tiny unfrirnished room that gave on the balcony, and 
the hanjee was hospitably chasing the dust about 
the floor with a bundle of twigs when they were 
upon us. 

But Ghegaria is very differently managed from 
Toskeria. These police were a most gentlemanly 
couple of fellows. We were tired, they said, so any 
search that was required should be put off" till 
to-morrow. As for me, I was most welcome. But 
with the best of intentions they enlarged upon the 
theme, and, as the language is a flowery one, it was 
an hour before we could think of food. 



CHAPTER XII 

ELBASAN TO SKODBA 

I DID not appear next morning till 8 a.m., which is 
considered in this land such an ahnormally late hour 
that everyone hammered madly on my door, and 
thought I must be ill. The police had been waiting 
patiently for hours to arrange to take me on a firiendly 
visit to the Muttasarif, an Albanian but recently 
appointed — a big, jovial, white-haired old boy, who 
said I was his adopted sister, and could not do too 
much for me. Even through an interpreter his con- 
versation was interesting, fuW of quaint parables and 
pithy sayings. He loved his country, and told about 
its beauties and its strange wild peoples. He struck 
me as well fitted to cope with them, more especially as 
he is Albanian, for no foreigner ever seems to win the 
confidence of the mountain-man. 

* The other nations are old,' he said ; * my poor 
Albania is a child among them. She has much to 
learn.* 

He was anxious to encourage European visitors to 
the town and to open up traffic. I was to do anything 
I pleased, and to ask for as many guards €is I liked. 
In the town it was quite safe ; outside he would rather 
sei^d someone with me. The village people were as 
tame as sheep in the bazar, but in their own villages 
they were a little wild, he said merrily. 

278 




COSTUME, ELBASAN. 



280 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Elbasan took its cue from the Muttasarif, and was 
extraordinarily kind, from the soldier who, when asked 
to show the way, came along and took me and my 
travelling companion for a walk, and flatly refused a 
backshish on the groimds that we were friends, to the 
Begs, who are the big landowners. Upon these I was 
told it was my duty to calL I had my doubts myself 
about it, but was assured that it was not etiquette 
for them to call on me, and that it would please them 
extremely to see the only Englishwoman who had been 
to Elbasan, as far as anyone knew. 

It was correct to begin at the wealthiest and to 
proceed afterwards to the less rich. They were all, of 
course, amazed to see me, but exceedingly polite, and 
made me very welcome. All but one had succeeded in 
looking quite European. He had spoilt the effect with 
quite the most killing waistcoat the mind can imagine. 
A tall, soldierly, fair man was so like an English- 
man that I should have taken him for one at first sight 
had I come across him in a foreign hotel. Their houses 
strove all to be European, and I saw with regret that 
European carpets and walls badly frescoed by foreign 
workmen were more d la mode than the panelled walls 
and native rugs that I had admired in humbler dwell- 
ings. They all owned large estates, and were said to 
be good landlords. 

Elbasan has about 10,000 inhabitants ; rather more 
than half are Moslems. The Christians are Orthodox, 
but the recent appointment to the district of a Greek 
Bishop, who is making great Hellenizing efforts in the 
schools, as successor to an Albanian one, has caused 
fierce discontent. Elbasan is tempted Romewards, and 
is striving hard for the establishment of an Uniate 
Church and school, in which teaching and preaching 
in the vernacular would be possible under Austrian 



ELBASAN TO SKODRA 281 

protection. Could such a Church be established, I 
was told the Christian Albanians would go over to it 
almost in a body, and a number of Moslems would send 
their children to its school 

Patriotism flames in this district, and is far stronger 
than doctrinal religion. Much that I saw and heard 
indicated that, once freed from Turkish rule, whole 
villages that now call themselves Moslem would revert 
to Christianity at no distant date. Many Christians 
have declared themselves Eomans. The Orthodox 
Church, they said, meant Russia, Greece, and tyranny; 
Bome means men trained in the West and civilization. 

Elbasan's struggle for knowledge is very pathetic. 
You may find people who are bravely wrestling, 
unaided, with French and even German grammars. 
When it is remembered that no book can be imported 
into the Turkish Empire, except by smuggling, with- 
out passing the Turkish censor, which suspects every- 
thing it cannot understand, that no book can be sold 
that has not the stamp of the local Yali in it, and 
that before any book can be read these people have 
to learn a foreign language, the number of well- 
informed and exiucated persons is very remarkable. 
The failiu-e, so far, even with Austrian aid, to obtain 
the firman for the coveted Uniate Church and school 
is ascribed to Russia, who is said to terrorize the 
Sultan, and is hated with a hatred almost incredible 
in its virulence. In truth, the struggle in the Balkan 
Peninsula from some points of view is mainly Austro- 
Albanian versus Russo-Bulgarian, and anyone between 
is liable to be squashed. Albania vows that Russia 
encourages the absorption of South Albania by Greece, 
in order that Greece may be satisfied with territory 
there, and resign the rest of the Peninsula to be 
distributed according to Russian views. 



282 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

The large number of Vlahs who live in and near 
Elbasan, here as elsewhere, are in favour of Albanian 
independence. 

Elbasan does not merely talk. It w€i8 the only place 
where I was not told that * the road was going to be 
made next year.' The road to Ochrida was already 
begun — ^begun so elaborately, too, that I wondered if 
it could possibly keep up that standard and arrive at 
the other end. Elbasan covets roads to Durazzo and 
Berat as well, and is anxious for trade. It has already 
a soap factory that supplies all the neighbourhood 
with a very good article, made from olive oil, the 
crushed remains of the olive forming the fuel for boil- 
ing the soap, which is thus very economically turned 
out. Elbasan dreams of a great future, and its central 
situation would make it admirably suited for the 
capital of the country. 

Town life and country life are not the same thing. 
I had but just missed some local colour on the Berat 
track. News came in of a shooting affair the morning 
after I had passed. It was a characteristic and compli- 
cated tale of the Shpata district. A shepherd drove 
his flock to pasture on a tract of grass by that grave- 
marked path, but an hour's ride from the town. The 
owner came down and ordered him to go. The 
shepherd refused. Thereon the owner fired at him 
and missed, a thing you should never do in Albania. 
The shepherd then shot him dead, but was seen and 
recognised. Off went the gendarmerie hotfoot ; the 
shepherd had been * wanted' for some time. Ten 
years ago, as a lad of eighteen years, he had shot 
another youth dead. For this he was imprisoned at 
Elbasan. The police had a fit of activity, and the 
prison became so crowded that it was arranged to 
drafb a niunber of prisoners down to Monastir, this 




9 



8 



284 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

lad among them. They were nearly all Shpatiotes. 
The convoy was ambushed by a rescue party from the 
wilds of Shpata, and a fierce fight took place. The 
gendarmerie were beaten, and all the prisoners escaped. 
A punitive expedition was sent up next day, and 
another battle took place at one of the mountain 
villages. The gendarmerie officer was killed, but four 
prisoners taken, all of them fresh ones. As the 
gendarmes were returning with them to Elbasan the 
escaped murderer (the shepherd of the Berat road) 
leapt up suddenly from behind a rock, shot a gendarme 
dead, and got clean away. The gendarmes, enraged 
by the deaths of both officer and comrades, shot all 
four prisoners dead there and then on the track, and 
there the aifair ended. The shepherd was stiU at 
large when I left, and it was said he could not be 
taken without much bloodshed. 

We talked of murder, violence, and brigandage. 
Things look very different in the East and the West. 
You may travel among the Balkan people alone, and 
drop for the time being every Western habit ; you may 
eat with the natives, drink with them, sleep with 
them, ride with them, live as they do, and watch them 
patiently for months ; you may visit and revisit their 
lands, and think that you are beginning to understand 
them, when something occurs that turns a sudden 
searchlight upon them, and you perceive in a flash that 
you were as far as ever from seeing things from their 
point of view. To do this you must leap back across 
the centuries, wipe the West and all its ideas fi*om out 
you, let loose all that there is in you of primitive man, 
and learn six languages, all quite useless in other parts 
of the world. 

The difficulty, perhaps the impossibility, of this task 
is probably the reason why, up tiU the present, all 



ELBASAN TO SKODRA 286 

intervention by the Western Powers, however well 
intentioned, has, when loosening one knot of the 
tangled skein of Balkan politics, generally succeeded 
only in tightening all the others. 

The flashlight of revelation dies away, but after- 
wards the face of the land is chaoged. You cannot 
see it with Eastern eyes ; you never again see it with 
Western ones. It occurs to you that when the revo- 
lution begins, you might borrow the kavas's revolver, 
and that there is someone you would like to get rid of. 
You know that the West would be scandalized by the 
ideas that are surging through your mind. You are 
equally aware that the men with whom you are squat- 
ting round a wood fire would be shocked at your 
inability to go as far as they do. 

You are in the greatest danger of finding yourself in 
the position of the man of whom it was said : * Hit him 
hard 1 He ain't got no friends !' And the flashlight 
episodes are often so far removed from Western ideas 
and experiences that it is almost waste of breath to 
talk about them, for the West thinks it knows better, 
and flatly refrises to believe in them ; or the truth of 
the tale is proved beyond all doubt, and the West is 
so immeasurably shocked that it loses all sense of pro- 
portion and power of judgment, and blubbers hysteri- 
cally, as it did, for instance, over Alexander and Draga. 
For the West has a short memory, and has forgotten 
the things it did but a few generations ago when it, 
too, was young : how it carried the heads of feUow- 
countrymen on pikes and stuck their quarters about 
the town ; almost, if not quite, within living memory 
corpses rotted and stank on wayside gibbets even in 
England, and the heads of the Cato Street conspirators 
were hacked from their dead bodies in the year 1820. 

And these are some of the things the West should 



286 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

remember, for in spite of them it ha43 evolved a civiliza- 
tion that it admires so much that it wishes to force it 
on all the world. Through Western glasses the 
Shpata shepherd is seen as a mad dog, but he was 
explained otherwise to me. 

He had played the game according to the code of 
his district. The first was an aifair of honoiu: ; here a 
man's honour is very dear to him. His life is nothing 
compared to his honour. He was a Shpatiote ; he 
followed the Albanian rule. But the Turkish Govern- 
ment put him in prison for it. In Shpata they do not 
recognise the right of the Turkish Government to 
interfere in their private affairs. 

Afterwards, when he shot the gendarme, it was 
vengeance for those in the village who had been 
wounded and captured, and for his own wrongs. His 
last exploit upon the Berat road was not clearly ex- 
plicable for want of details, but the other man had fired 
first, and had brought the consequences on himself. 
If he was to be avenged, it was the business of the 
dead man's family, and not of the Turkish Government. 
If there were an Albanian Government, that would 
be another thing. But the Turks ! — no, thank you. 

'You think in England you are civQized, and can 
teach us,' said someone passionately to me. ' I tell 
you there is no one here that would commit crimes 
such as are found in London. There you can find men 
who live by selling the honour of women. This has 
been printed in your own newspapers. You have no 
feeling of honour. How do you punish such a man ? 
You make him pay money and put him in prison 1 
You let him live, and he is a disgrace to humanity. 
Bah ! we would shoot him like a wild beast ! Our 
brigands are poor men. By working hard in the fields 
they can only just live. They are quite ignorant, and 



ELBASAN TO SKODRA 287 

have never been to any school. They rob to live, and 
do so at the risk of their lives. But your brigands 
have often been to a university, and rob to obtain 
luxuries by lies and false promises. You have had all 
the advantages of education and civilization for years, 
and this is what you do. But you call us savages 
because we shoot people !* And it all depends upon 
the point of view. 

I was eager to see the Shpatiotes at home. The 
Muttasarif sent the Police Commissary and two 
gendarmes with me, as he said the people were entirely 
unused to strangers ; and we started early, that we 
might visit two villages and return before nightfall. 

I was told not to hire a horse, as I was to be lent 
the best one in the town. It turned out to be a very 
handsome gray, and had it not been bitted with a 
curb that would hold leviathan, would have been very 
many sizes too good for me. It began by biting 
the tails of both the suvarris' horses, which promptly 
lashed out. The Police Commissary begged me to 
dismount and change to something quieter, but I felt 
it was quite impossible for Great Britain to climb 
down before Albania. Nevertheless, as my gallant 
mount pranced sideways down the street, snapping 
wildly at the leading suvarri's horse, I was almost 
forced to admit that 'L'Empire c'est moi* was an 
attitude 1 could not maintain. The animal, however, 
had a splendid action, and, after the first quarter of an 
hour, I never enjoyed a ride more. 

We crossed Kurd Pasha's bridge, followed the river 
up-stream a little, and then struck into the Shpata 
district. It was a quite perfect spring day ; the hill- 
sides, well covered with copse-wood, were full of wild- 
plum and cherry all blossoming, and the ground was 
gay with big butterfly and bee orchises. As for the 



288 



THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 



lizards, they were the fattest and greenest I have 
ever met. The valley was but feebly cultivated. 
Men in cartridge-belts and fustanellas were guiding 
their primitive ploughs — crooked bits of wood, ii"on- 
shod, each drawn by a couple of buffaloes — through 
what appeared to be very rich soil. We halted a 
few minutes at a very lovely spot, to which the 
town comes for ' kief in the summer. * Kief means 
pleasure, and pleasure means doing 
nothing in the shade, by running 
water. A kavajee brings a tray of 
hot charcoal, on which he makes 
coffee, and everyone is content. A 
group of vast plane-trees shaded a 
grassy meadow, through which ran 
a clear and ice-cold stream which 
bubbled out of a cliff of gray rock 
that rose on one side. An ideal 
spot. In event of an Austrian 
occupation, it will be filled, no 
doubt, with marble tables, beer, 
sausages, and merry - go - rounds. 
Civilization has its drawbacks. 
We rode on, and in a field where 
a whole family was at work I was amused to see a Mar- 
tini laid across the baby's cradle. We were nearing a 
village. ' Villages ' here consist of districts with houses 
scattered about them, often not within sight of one 
another. It may be two hours* ride fi^om one end of 
a ' village ' to the other. We passed a few cottages 
among the bushes, and I was told we had arrived at 
the Moslem village Shushitza. 

We dismounted, and left the horses with the 
suvarris, and the Police Commissary, my travelling 
companion, and I went up to the nearest house. The 




COFFEE-SELLER. 



ELBASAN TO SKODRA 289 

two men sat down outside, and told me to go into the 
yard and see the women. These stared at me like 
startled deer, and then dashed into the house, calling 
for help to an elderly man ploughing in the field 
below. He picked up his rifle and hastened with an 
anxious face. The Police Commissary promptly hailed 
him, and said he was ' mik ' (a friend). 

The man's countenance cleared; he laughed, and 
came up and shook hands very heartily. We were 
very welcome as friends, he said. When his wife had 
cried that there were suvarris near he had been much 
alarmed, and had made sure that they had come for 
someone. He sat down and chattered gaily. The 
Police Commissary explained my errand. A lady from 
a distant land had come on purpose to see him. He 
was delighted and amused. I must see all the family. 
He ran into the house and called his wife and daughters. 
Though Moslem, they were all unveiled. He tried to 
make them come out and talk to us, but the sight of 
the police was too much for them, and they would only 
peer round the gate-post and laugh, so I went in to 
them. Drawing was impossible, as they all crowded 
round to examine me, and I only got one snapshot, for 
a dozen hands were eager to play with the camera. 

They were a healthy, well-built lot, and were clad in 
long drawers to the* ankle, and skirts, sometimes so 
frdl and short that they were like the men's fustanellas, 
white, sleeveless coats resembling those of the Mon- 
tenegrin women, but skimpier, and orange and scarlet 
aprons. Plenty of silver waist-clasps and coins com- 
pleted the costume. One child's chest was entirely 
covered with coins, cockle-shells, and odd bits of 
metal, and very proud she was of herself. 

They examined my garments carefully, and kept 
bobbing out to see the police, and then popping back 

19 



290 



THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 



again. The man took it all as a great joke, and asked 
us to stay and have coffee, but as we had much fiirther 
to go we did not accept. He said I might come and see 
him whenever I pleased. We said, * Tun ngiate tjete !' 
(*Long life to youl') to one another, and departed. 
Half the male population of Shpata, so the Police 
CJommissary said, was wanted by the police, which 
explained the poor man's first anxiety. Consequently, 
almost all the trade with the town is done by the 
women. Anyone who knew the language could, I 
believe, travel through the whole district without 
escort if he started with a good introduction. The 
laws of hospitality to a guest would often be a 
better protection than rifles. 

The two suvarris were well 
mounted, and my gallant gray 
was eager to race them, so we 
went up the mountain at a sur- 
prising pace, leaving the Police 
Commissary and my travelling 
companion far behind on hired 
steeds. The leading suvarri, a 
young Christian, enlivened the 
route by a song, which the other 
answered in a high falsetto. It 
afforded them great satisfaction, 
and was a naughty song, for they 
firmly refiised to offer it for trans- 
lation later. I replied with the 
* British Grenadiers.' After an 
hour or two we again sighted 
scattered houses and a woman or two. This was the 
outskirts of the Christian village of Selchan. We 
halted, and after a somewhat lengthy parley and some 
message-carrying, were told we were * mik ' and might 




PEASANT, VRCHA DIS- 
TRICT, SHPATA. 



ELBASAN TO SKODRA 291 

oome on. We waited for the rest of our party, and 
then made for a group of houses on the crest of the hill. 

Out came an old, old man, the patriarch of the 
place. His beak was hooky, his eyes keen, his 
shaven head and chin glittered with silver stubble, 
and though bent with age, he bore himself royally 
Every stranger was his guest, he said with lofty 
courtesy ; a meal was to be made for us at once. The 
fore-quarter of lamb we had brought with us was 
handed over to the woman to be cooked, and while the 
feast was preparing she came and sat with us. He 
had not been pleased when he first saw us, as he feared 
the police meant mischief; 'but,* he added frankly, 
with a gleam in his old eyes, * if you have come for 
anything, I have plenty of guns ready.' 

He picked up the suvarri's Martini, and said his own 
were the^ame pattern. I told him that in our villages 
no one ever carried rifles. He was much interested. 

* It is much better so,' he said. * Yours must be a 
fortunate land. Here we cannot live without them. 
I am eighty years old. Every year all my life people 
have said that things will be better, but they never 
are. Now they are talking again about reforms. I 
have heard it all so often before, and I shall die 
without seeing peace.' 

His simple dignity was very impressive. I asked 
his name. 

* I am Suliman to the Turks,' he replied, ' but I was 
baptized Constantine.' 

I asked if all the children had double names. The 
Police Commissary doubted it. They were all squat- 
ting round us, eager, healthy, bright-eyed little chaps, 
as keen as terriers. 

* What is your name V 
'Petro.' 

19—2 



292 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

* And your Turkish name V 

* Eegep/ 

* And yours V 
' Giorgi; 

* And your Turkish name V 

* Hussein/ 

And so forth. All had a double set of names, and 
explained they used whichever was expedient. The 
young suvarri, the Christian one, was very much 
grieved about them ; they were such nice boys, and 
would all grow up to be shot. He spoke to them very 
kindly, and tried to persuade them they must go to 
school and learn to read, or they would all grow up 
^haiduks' (brigands). They laughed. When each 
boy was fifteen, said the suvarri, he would be given a 
rifle and revolver, and taught to keep up the honour of 
the house. He himself had wanted to set up as a 
schoolmaster in Shpata, but to his great disappoint- 
ment had failed, and had but recently joined the 
police. He had a great desire to reclaim his com- 
patriots by civilized methods, but a school in the 
vernacular would be stopped, and to teach these 
little wild animals in Greek was almost impossible. 

This was one of the worst districts for blood- 
feuds, and every man in the village had blood upon 
him. 

*But,' said both suvarris, 'they have never been 
taught anything better.' 

Four or five were 'wanted badly,' and had been 
hunted for in vain. This was the reason why Constan- 
tino Suliman was the only man present, and why we 
had been kept waiting. The other men were probably 
all in hiding near. The old boy laughed when it was 
suggested to him, and said we were all friends to-day, 
and would not talk of such things. I was whiling^ 



ELBASAN TO SKODRA 293 

away the time by drawing, and having my sight 
focussed upon a distant bush, suddenly saw a head bob 
up and disappear, then a second. 

' The men are over there.' 

The young suvarri snatched his rifle, but the Police 
Commissary said we were all * mik ' to-day, and stopped 
his search. His movement had been observed, though, 
for no head showed again. I learnt later that Constan- 
tine Suliman was reckoned at forty rifles. 

Dinner was a great ceremony, and excellently 
cooked. It was served out of doors, and Constantino 
Suliman ate with us. We had broiled lamb, stewed 
fowl, a big bowl of milk, cheese, scrambled eggs, and 
huge loaves of maize bread. 

Constantino Suliman's conversation, translated, made 
me grieve that I could not talk to him directly, 

* We are poor ignorant people,' he said, ' and cannot 
travel and see the world. We thank you very much 
for coming to see us and us show what people fix)m 
another land are like. Mountains cannot visit moun- 
tains, but men can visit men.' He regretted deeply 
that I could not talk his language. * Though they tell 
you what I say,' he said, * you will never understand 
what we feel about you in our hearts. You have 
trusted us, and you are quite safe among us.' 

He pressed me to stay the night, and offered me the 
best of all he had. I should not have had the smallest 
fear of staying alone ; but the gendarmes had orders 
not to leave me, and if we had all stayed a search- 
party might have been sent fix)m the town and trouble 
started. It was, therefore, impossible. I promised, 
however, that I would not visit Elbasan again without 
coming to see him. My men managed to consume the 
whole of the colossal meal. Constantino Suliman 
picked up the fowl's breast-bone to divine the future. 



294 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Holding it up against the sun, he traced the shapes in 
it carefully. 

* One of us who is here will be shot dead in a fort- 
night/ he said solemnly. 

But he could not tell which. I trust it was not 
himself. 

When we left I asked what was the etiquette about 
remuneration, and was told that something might be 
given to the eldest woman, but that to Suliman him- 
self such a thing must not even be hinted at. Judging 
by the great joy the gift gave, money was extremely 
scarce in Shpata. We mounted, and the old man came 
with us to put us on another track. When I last saw 
him he was standing high on a rock, silhouetted against 
the sky, waving farewells to us, a noble old savage. 
Constantine Suliman, dignified and self-respecting, 
according to his lights has kept clean the honour 
of his house upon the mountains, and will die, uncon- 
quered, without ever seeing peace. The pity of it ! 

As we rode away I reflected upon the Bishop of 
Ochrida, a man who was supposed to be educated and 
civilized, and of Constantine Suliman, and his people, 
who had lived for eighty years cut off from aU the 
world. Which of the two is made of the finer 
stuff? 

We stopped at a second house on the way down. A 
little man in European garb rushed out ; he was the 
schoolmaster. I was begged to wait while he fetehed 
the school. He returned with the whole of it — ^two 
little boys and a little girl, set them in a row, and 
began asking them what was the Greek for * a hand,' 
' a foot,* ete. The little girl stood in the middle and 
answered loudly and correctly. The boys were very 
shy. Imagine the difficulty of taking an English 
village child, and having to begin by teaching it 



ELBASAN TO SKODRA 296 

French before you can teach it to read I The young 
suvarri took the book from the schoohnaster and 
started examining the children himself It was at 
once clear that he had been right in his desire to be 
a schoolmaster, for he got far better results from all 
three than did the excited teacher. These three 
children were all that could be mustered from thirty 
houses. There was a great prejudice against school. 
Some years ago a villager had been persuaded to let 
his son go to a school in one of the large towns, and 
the boy had returned home to die. You cannot cage 
falcons all at once. 

Our return to Elbasan in the evening was un- 
eventful. 

Mj' eight days there passed all too fast, paying 
visits and making water-colour sketches of the 
wonderful costumes of the neighbourhood. This was 
a sport that the Muttasarif entered into with great 
zest. Of all things, I was to stay and see the bazar 
on Saturday. Meantime he walked me off to his own 
house, and entertained me while his wife and daughters 
put on their best dresses for my benefit. Then I went 
into the harem. 

Cut off frt>m my male interpreter, I had to make 
shift as best I could, for the three ladies spoke 
Albanian only. But the pictures in my sketch-book 
explained themselves, and I knew the Albanian for 
most of the things in it. Madame was magnificent 
in fiill native dress, and sat cross-legged in flowery 
bloomers, a most beautiful crimson .velvet and gold 
jacket, and a white silk gauze shirt all gold em- 
broidered. The whole, set off with native orna- 
ments, was a fine rich colour scheme. Her daughters, 
alas ! were * European ' in long- trained skirts of pink 
flannel and silk blouses of bright yellow and purple 




WOMEN, CHERMSNIK, SHPATA, NKAR ELBASAN. 



ELBASAN TO SKODRA 297 

plaid (Teutonic, Til swear), trimmed with a plenty of 
yellow chiffon. Their hospitality was extreme. We 
sat on a divan, and they put bits of orange in my 
mouth. Papa looked on and beamed, and when I left 
gave me a bunch of beautiful ostrich-feathers. He 
had been told, he said, that English ladies wore them 
on their heads. He used them for penholders. I told 
him he was correctly informed, and that, moreover, 
they were always worn at Court, which pleased him 
much. 

On market-day, before seven in the morning, when 
I was but half-clad, there came a battering at my door 
and excited voices. The police wanted me at once. I 
hustled into a coat, and came on to the balcony, to find 
that by the Muttasarif 's orders they had captured a 
woman of the village of Chermenik, in Shpata, for me 
to draw, as it was the oddest dress of the neighbour- 
hood. She had a string of bark to seU, and was told 
I wanted to buy it. A crowd assembled and bargained 
with her for it while she raged and stamped, while I, 
in a most d^habill^ condition and stockingless, jotted 
her down as fast as I could lay brush to paper. She 
never knew she had been drawn, and we bought her 
stuff and let her go in about ten minutes. 

I spent all the day happily in the bazar with a 
host of strange folk, a blaze of colour, bizarre, old- 
world, decorative, all-glorious in the sunshine, and 
backgrounded by the mysterious depths of hot shadow 
in the little wooden shops. 

But all good things come to an end. The Mutta- 
sarif, kindly to the last, gave me a large bagftil 
of oranges firom his garden to eat on the way, I 
said good-bye regretfully, and we started early in 
the morning, along the Egnatian way, for Durazzo, 
passing through Pekin and Kavaia. Neither calls for 



298 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

much description, and the Eoman way is ahnost 
all destroyed. According to one of the foreign 
Consuls, the Turks tore it up pretty recently in a 
blind rage, with the intent to destroy aU communica- 
tions as far as possible. 

The hanjee at Pekin, when I remarked that the 
town was small, replied promptly : 

' A gold coin is small, but it is very good.' 

The Albanian talks in similies very neatly — e.g., 
^ He went on a horse and came back on a donkey ' 
(he failed in his errand). 

The cuckoo was hollaing loudly, and I tried to 
collect folk-lore about it, but learnt only that the first 
time you hear her you should eat something, and will 
then have plenty all the year. The flowers we call 
cuckoo flowers are here * lambs* flowers.' 

We spent the night at Kavaia, and left for Durazzo 
at five next morning. It was an easy ride, much of it 
along the seashore. 

Durazzo is in Skodra vilayet. Eoman Catholicism 
begins here, but out of the 1,000 houses only 120 are 
Roman Catholic. Books printed in Albanian by the 
Church press at Skodra circulate quite fi'eely, and 
Turkey has no say in the matter. To show that they 
still possessed some authority, however, the police 
asked me how many letters I had sent off by the 
Austrian mail, and why I had been to the Austrian 
consulate ! 

I had an interesting talk with one of the priests, a 
dark man, keen-eyed and vehement, putting all the 
energy of his nature into his religion, as his forefathers 
would have into a vendetta, never yielding an inch of 
his opinion, but accepting what was said to him with 
the fine courtesy that is the birthright of the Albanian 
and the Montenegrin. He told me the work of the 



ELBASAN TO SKODRA 299 

Boman Catholic Church in Albania had been for a 
long time hampered by the lack of native priests, but 
Austria is now training numbers ; all the Christian 
villages of the moimtains are now supplied, and a great 
civilizing work is being done. I never attended 
service in any of the Catholic churches without being 
struck with the difference between the grip they have 
on the people, who listen in awe-struck silence to their 
eloquent sermons, and the slack, indifferent spirit 
shown in the Greek churches of the South. 

Durazzo (Dyrrachium), formerly an island, is joined 
to the mainland by a huge marsh, partly salt, where 
the Government saltworks are, and partly fresh, and 
haunted by storks, frogs and fevers. For a Turkish 
port it is fairly flourishing. The Government, with 
unwonted energy, is making a road round the point by 
building a rough sea-wall, largely of smashed-up 
Koman remains, funeral slabs, columns and inscrip- 
tions. But Durazzo is often visited by boat, and is 
weU known to Europeans. I will, therefore, not 
describe its antiquities. 

I lived luxuriously at the big han, for my room had 
not only a bedstead, but a chair and table — the first I 
had met for miany a long day — and a convenient cook- 
shop over the way supplied food that tasted better 
than it looked. The han, like an old English one, is 
built round a yard, and has big balconies, in one of 
which lived a huge pet ram called Napoleon, with 
curly horns and a massive Roman nose, which the 
serving-men usually stopped to kiss as they passed. 
When it wanted a drink it baa'd loudly, and someone 
escorted it downstairs to the horse-trough in the yard, 
which was always picturesque with zaptiehs and 
suvarris, kirijees, and pack-beasts. The Albanians are 
fond of animals. I have never seen even the wildest 



800 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

of them torturing an animal for fun, a sight too 
common in South Italy. 

There is a really good carriageable road to Tirana, 
the only one I had seen since crossing the Turkish 
frontier months ago. The fact that I had not to be 
perpetually balancing, steering, scrambling, and dis- 
mounting, struck me as one of the most extraordinary 
experiences of my journey — as though a dream of 
years ago had come true. I had great difficulty in 
realizing that I had lived most of my life with roads 
as good. We went along quickly, and I saw at once 
by his splendid seat on horseback that the suvarri was 
not an Albanian. When we halted halfway he poured 
out a strange tale of sorrow. He was a Russian sub- 
ject and a Circassian. He hated Bussia with a bitter 
hatred, had escaped over the borders and got to 
Trebizond. His one desire was to go to Europe. He 
managed to be taken as horse-boy by a Turkish officer, 
and came with him to Durazzo. He then turned 
suvarri and married. This was two years ago. Now 
it had been discovered he was a Russian subject, and 
he must leave the force. If he became a Turkish one 
he must do military service, in which case he would 
have no pay, and his wife and child would be left alone 
to starve ; or he must pay exemption, which was im- 
possible. The only thing left for him was to fly in a 
foreign ship with them. Perhaps if he sold his horse 
and gun he could manage it. His great terror was 
that he should be given back to Russia. All he 
wanted was to serve the Sultan faithfully as a suvarri. 
Such is the curious irony of fate. The only man I 
met who told me he loved the Turk had to fly. To 
add to his trouble, his child was very ill. He looked 
wretchedly unhappy, and when he left, prayed me to 
write a note to his Bimbashi to say he had served me 



ELBASAN TO SKODRA 301 

well. He had a forlorn hope that a certificate of 
character from a foreigner would help him to keep his 
place. 

We passed a place called Shiak, near which is a 
group of some fifty houses, all inhabited by Moslem 
Albanians who left Bosnia at the time of the Austrian 
occupation. Ideas have changed a good deal in 
Albania since those days. 

Tirana (12,000 inhabitants), having a good road to 
the port, is remarkably flourishing. A fine bazar was 
in full swing, crowded with country folk in costiraies all 
different from those of Elbasan. Tirana was founded 
in 1600 by a rich Beg, who named' it to commemorate 
a Turkish victory at Teheran in Persia. The present 
Begs, the Toptans, who claim descent fix)m the Topiaa 
of old, and are exceedingly popular, have not only 
constructed the road at their own expense, but have 
impoi*ted agricultural implements and engaged Italians 
to teach the people how to use them. One of the 
family is in exile for 'patriotism,' and the town 
laments. The land being well cultivated, the soil rich, 
and the road good, export trade is increasing rapidly. 
All the houses stand in large gardens, which are a mass 
of cherry, fig, quince, plum, and walnut trees, and 
water is laid on by a channel to most of them. It is 
an extraordinarily clean town, and most picturesque. 
The mosques are exceptionally pretty, all coloured and 
painted with wonderful landscapes. It is an artist's 
paradise, and I regretted that I could only stay three 
days. 

To remind me, perhaps, that Tirana is in the heart 
of a wild land, a madman walked the streets stark- 
naked — a big man, well fed, tall, and white-haired, 
with skin dark-red and leathery from the exposure of 
many years — who gibbered inarticulately to the sheep 



302 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

and donkeys. Folk seemed to stand in awe of him, 
and did whatever he wanted. When he insisted on 
walking down the street arm-in-arm with a smart 
officer, the effisct was incomparably ludicrous. 

The few Christians of Tirana are all Orthodox. The 
Christian schoolmistress was active and intelligent, as 
were all the Albanian schoolmistresses I met. Educated 
women are much looked up to, and very much hold 
their own opinions in Albania, and men seemed to be as 
anxious to have their daughters educated as their sons. 
Even among the wild tribes, women, 
though the work they have to do is 
cruelly severe, are by no means the 
slaves they sometimes appear to be, 
but are treated with a certain rough 
chivalry and respected by the men. I 
was once with a party of men when 
news came in that a man in a neigh- 
bouring village had shot his wife, be- 
lieving her to be imfaithfiil. They 
said indignantly this was impossible ; 
he must have been stark-mad; the 
honour of Albanian women was quite 
MOSLEM WOMAN, ^tarnished ; only gipsies did such 
things, and they lived Kke beasts. 
Each sang the praises of his wife, and explained his 
views on marriage with a naivete that would shock 
the West, though no impropriety was intended. 

So great were they on women's rights, that when, 
in answer to questions, I told them that there were 
still Universities in England that did not grant de- 
grees to women, they were horrified : it was, they said, 
unjust, unreasonable, and uncivilized. 

Tirana was most kind to me. Only the Turkish 
Kaimmakam made it obvious that he thought my 




ELBASAN TO SKODRA 303 

presence superfluous, aud sent the police to ajsk me 
why I was always writing, and what ? I had been 
sketching from my window. 

The road to Tirana lay over the rich plain-land 
which belongs to the Begs of Tirana, except a piece 
near the coast, which the Sultan has 'obtained,' it 
is said, by exiling the owner. Turning towards 
the mountains, we saw Kruja high above us, and 
reached it by a steep ascent up a stony track — a six 
hours' ride in aU. 

Kruja was most friendly. Police and all were 
Albanian, and delighted to see me. The young, 
newly-appointed * reform ' judge, a Greek — the only 
Christian in the place — took a golden view of every- 
thing. The people were most industrious, he said. 
He was surprised to find them so amenable; there 
was much less crime than he had expected in such 
an outlying part. Robberies were rare, and there 
had been but three murders in six months in his very 
large district. All these people wanted was just and 
reasonable treatment. 

Kruja was the only place that did not demand and 
stamp my passport. From a friend passports were 
not required. The police were hurt when I offered it. 

Modem Kruja consists of 700 houses, scattered up 
and down the slopes among olive-gardens, in the midst 
of which Skenderbeg's famous stronghold towers up 
from the mountain-side on an isolated crag. On the 
land side it drops precipitately to a stony valley, 
beyond which tower the mountains in an abrupt and 
rugged wall. On the sea side it slopes steeply to the 
plain and the Adriatic beyond. 

Twice did the Turks vainly besiege this rock. The 
invincible Skenderbeg held it for five months against 
Murad II. and 40,000 men in 1450, and forced them 



304 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

back. Fifteen yeaxs later his successor, Mahomet II., 
swore to destroy the fortress, and led a yet greater 
force to the attack. This time the valiant Mirdites 
held it whQe Skenderbeg and his men incessantly 
raided the Turkish army from the surrounding rocky 
fastnesses. Mahomet, like Murad, was forced to retire 
from Elruja after losing, it is said, 30,000 men imder 
its walls. Such is the tale of that grim rock. 

A very poor, covered bazar street now leads up to 
the citadel, and within the walls stand only the konak, 
a mosque or two, three or four houses, and a tall tower. 
The walls are vast and solid, much of them later than 
Skenderbeg's time, for the crag has been defended 
since, both by Venetian and Turk. Some fine bronze 
cannon, lying on the grass, were seventy years old, 
and dated from the time of Sultan Mahmoud, the pre- 
sent Sultan's grandfather, said the Police Commissary 
who read the twiddly inscription for me. 

High in the mountain-side above the town, in a 
cavern, is a Bektashite tekieh — ^the shrine of a very 
holy Dervish, Sari Salik. His body had been removed 
to Corfii (I give the tale as told me), and there it 
is revered, under the name of St. Spiridion, as a 
Christian saint. But, of course, said my informant, 
he was not really Christian. 

I repeat the tale as an example of the strange 
mix-up of the creeds in the people's minds. The truth 
about saint and Dervish I have failed to discover. 

Much of the population now is Sunnite, and I 
gathered there is some friction between them and the 
Bektashites. But pilgrimages are regularly made to 
Sari Salik's shrine, and St. George is held in very 
high honour. His festival was due in a week, and 
I was begged to stay for it, as it was the great festival 
of the year. 







THE CASTLE, KRUJA. 



806 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

* I thought you were all Moslem here V I said. 

* So we are/ was the answer, * but, of course, we 
keep St. George's Day/ 

But time was flying; I was already overdue in 
England, and, to my regret, I had to fly too. 

We left Kruja very, very early. The moon hung 
delicately green in a sky rosy with approaching dawn, 
and the silver olives were magical. We left with 
nothing inside us but black coffee, and had been able to 
buy nothing overnight for the journey but some bread. 
The cookshop is a very lean one. A han halfway, 
we were assured, would supply us. 

The first part of the track is as fine as any I know — 
huge wooded rocks and a wild stream. The sim came 
out hot and brilliant, and the young greenery was all 
aglow. Much of the way was too rough to ride. 
Then came a grand oak forest, where clearings had 
but recently been made, and men were tilling the rich 
fat leaf-mould. Presently the air was diabolic with 
brimstone, and we rode out of the trees to a clear 
and brilliant spring that spread and formed a little 
lake, reeking of sulphur that thickly coated bank and 
reed and stone. As a cure, the peasants value the 
spring highly. Hard by stands a little open shed, 
railed in front ; within is a cross, and above a belfiy. 
It is a Boman Catholic chapel, on a very old site, 
and the Christians of the neighbourhood flock to the 
service, which is held once a vear. Otherwise it is 
left open and alone, protected only by its sanctity. 
The Albanians respect one another's holy things. In 
districts largely Moslem you may see a rough wooden 
cross standing all alone by the trackside with a little 
money-box attached to it. 

About midday we reached the halfway han. But 
^ when we got there the cupboard was bare.' Not a 



ELBASAN TO SKODRA 307 

bite of anything did it afford. We sat un(r'^''>^ree, 
and munched our dry bread ; it was yesterd* ^M:id 
very, very dry. But the hanjee's black cot it 

fresh energy into us. 

Just as we were ready to start one of the ki jees 
found he had dropped his best waistcoat on the 
way, and must rush back to find it. He knew he 
had had it at the sulphur spring, and required 
it urgently, I believe, to go to a party in. So we 
waited. 

To while away the time, up came a detachhaent of 
the Turkish army, some officers, and twenty-four 
ragged savages, three of them pure negro, one Arab, 
all the rest fi-eely ' tar-brushed,' and camped under 
our oak-tree. The Bimbashi, with huge white, tusky 
mustachios, had his blanket spread near us, squatted 
down with his Izbashi, and proceeded to eat a hearty 
limch, remarking truthfully that ' it was better in the 
belly than in the bag.' It was a very good lunch, and 
plenty of it. He kept throwing nice little meaty 
bones to his dog. Such was my ravenous hunger 
that I should have picked them up and eaten them 
myself had he not been looking. But I could not 
steal, and to beg I was ashamed. The poor lean 
Tommies fared yet harder. They had nothing at all 
but cold water, and, like us, had been on the road 
since four in the morning. They and I watched the 
dog with common interest. 

Two wild-looking youths came out of the ban and 
squatted by us, one quite a boy, with a dull, ferocious 
face, the other rather older, a good-looking fellow, 
gray-eyed and yellow-moustached ; both of them 
short and wiry, cartridge-belted, and armed with rifle 
and revolver. They were Mirdite zaptiehs, they said. 
I asked why they were here outside their frontiers. 

20—2 



308 



THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 



The better-looking one was delighted. He wrinkled 
up his eyes and laughed out frankly. 

* We are fi'ee Mirdites,' he said joyously. * If they 
did not pay us here to protect them we should 
come and pay ourselves. We are the men of the 
mountains.' 

I laughed aloud. He was very pleased. 
' Tell the lady,' he said, ' that in all Mirdita we only 
pay 100 paras of tax' (5d.=no taxes). 

I hoped the Mirdites would 
let me visit their land. He 
declared I should be very wel- 
come, but I had better go up 
from Skodra. Here we were 
but five hours from his frontiers, 
but the track was such that 
only a Mirdite could climb it. 
Was he regularly paid? He 
roared with laughter. It would 
be very bad for them if they 
did not pay him. He was the 
gayest young thing, and looked 
one straight in the face with 
honest eyes. I think he played 
the game straight as he under- 
stood it. I had three parts of a 
mind to ask him to take me up 
to Mirdita there and then, for the wilder these 
creatures are, the safer you are with them, if they 
mean to be friends. But a sudden trip to Mirdita 
would not have suited my companion's business. 

A pack of gipsies were camped close by. The 
Mirdite hailed a small boy and began to chaff him. 
The httle *gippo,' lean, black, and monkey-like, came 
up cautiously. He was nine years old, he said. His 




ROMAN CATIIOUC LADY, 
SKODRA. 



ELBASAN TO SKODRA 809 

brown hide showed through his ragged shirt, and he 
had a big pistol stuck in his sash. He snarled till his 
white teeth glittered, clapped his hand on his pistol, 
and said he could shoot us if he liked. I asked if it 
were really loaded, and the Mirdite was of opinion 
that if he were teased enough he would shoot for 
certain. Hand on weapon, the little wild animal 
swaggered off defiant. 

The kirijee turned up, happy about his waistcoat, 
and the young Mirdite kindly set us on the right 
track. 

All along this fat plain-land the peasants own their 
farms and are well-to-do. Most of them are Boman 
Catholica One who hailed us owned ninety head of 
cattle and seven hundred sheep, and was accounted 
wealthy. Everyone in Skodra vilayet goes armed, 
whether Moslem or Christian. My two kirijees carried 
rifles, and said they never travelled that road unarmed 
for fear of the hiU-tribes. They were Kruja men, and 
sang an almost endless song about Skenderbeg, which 
went on at intervals all day. Skenderbeg is a great 
hero in his own land. 

We passed Debristina, the seat of a Catholic 
bishopric, and crossed the river Mati in a fine caik, 
made of two dug-out tree-trunks lashed together. We 
were now on the marshy flats called Bregu Matit, and 
could see on the hilltop over near Alessio the holy 
tomb of a Moslem saint. The kirijees told his story. 

He lived long, long ago in the town, and was a 
butcher. One day a man came and bought some goat's 
flesh. Presently he returned and said it was not good. 
The butcher had none left, so kiUed another goat and 
gave him of it in exchange. Back came the man 
shortly, and said the flesh of this goat, too, was bad. 
The butcher slew another. This went on and on. 



810 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

and the butcher never complained or lost his patience. 
When he had killed his fortieth and last goat, in 
despair he hurled his knife into the air. Spirits seized 
on the knife, and it flew away and away and dropped 
on the very top of the hill. Then all the people saw 
that the butcher was very holy. From that day forth, 
indeed, he seems to have been a ^made man.' He 
was held in great repute, and when he died was buried 
on the spot were the knife miraculously fell, and 
even now it is a very good place to which to make a 
pilgrimage. 

As we approached Alessio I felt as if I were nearing 
home. The dresses of the peasants were all such as I 
had seen a hundred times in Skodra, and they looked 
like old friends. But Alessio is but a dree place, and 
cannot be recommended for a prolonged stay. Its 
ban is the very leanest I know, which is saying a good 
deal. A man very kindly turned out of one of its 
wretched cock-lofts for my benefit, but it was stacked 
with all the belongings of himself and a fiiend, includ- 
ing their dirty clothes, had five swallows' nests on its 
outer wall, only holes for windows, and large slits 
between the floor-boards, and the cookshop had nothing 
in it. We had to go to the butcher's and buy a sheep's 
head and liver and take it to be cooked. 

It was five when we reached Alessio, and we had left 
Elruja a little after 4 a.m. We had had nothing to 
eat but some dry bread all day, and when the dinner 
would be ready the cookshop man alone knew. I had 
to drink half a bottle of wine before I mustered energy 
to explore the town. 

It is a mean little place, mostly Christian, and stands 
on the river Drin, which I looked at with interest, for 
it rises in Lake Ochrida, but it is here a shrunken, 
dwindled Drin. In 1858 it suddenly forced for itself 




Q 
CO 

(4 
D 



ELBASAN TO SKODRA 311 

a new channel, and the mass of its waters now pour 
into the Bojana just below Skodra, and, by blocking the 
current of water from the lake, causes dire floods every 
winter. 

Beyond the river is a church and monastery. Of 
the old cathedral nothing remains, and the site of 
Skenderbeg's grave is unknown. All that remains of 
the Venetian occupation is the ruined citadel on the 
hill above. A sprinkling of houses and a wretched 
little bazar make up all there is of Alessio now. 

A gendarme came up and hailed me in Serb : 

' How is thy sister, and hast thou made many 
pictures this year? I know thee well. Every year 
dost thou come to Skodra.' 

He was going with some others to try and collect 
taxes, but did not think they would get much. 

*Ah, if thou didst but know my fatherland 1 I 
come from X .* 

I knew it. He was delighted. If I had only seen 
his brother and his ^ stara maika ' (old mother) I 

' Knowest thou, when the Austrians came I was a 
boy. People told me it would be much better with 
the Turks. I did not know. I was a fool. My brother 
stayed with our mother, and I came to the Turks. 
Two years ago I went back " kod nas " to see my stara 
maika. Now the town is very beautifrd. My brother • 
is rich ; he has sheep and a fine house. Look at me T 
He pointed to his ragged uniform. * By God, I was a 

fool r 

It was dark before we got our sheep's liver, which 
was swimming in gravy in a large bowl. I shall never, 
never eat such a delicious one again. 

At night the han was so picturesque that its 
deficiencies could be forgiven it. It was a great ram- 
shackle barn, with lofty roof all rafters and cobwebs. 



312 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

The floor was spread with straw and hay, and the 
pack-mules and horses of passing traders tethered to 
the walls. On a raised stone platform in the middle 
the kirijees and peasants cooked their evening meal 
and passed the night. The flickering fire-light cast 
bogy shadows, and threw red light on their keen faces. 
I climbed to my dirty cock-loft, blocked the window- 
hole with a shutter, for the wind blew cold, heard the 
grind, grind of the pack-beasts munching below, and 
was soon asleep with my head on my saddle. 

I was waked at very earliest dawn by the swallows. 
By putting up the shutter I had shut them all in, and 
they were dashing about the room, banging on the 
walls, and cursing loudly. 

It was Holy Cross Day, and folk all carried little 
crosses of two sticks, tied together like the cross of 
the infant St. John in the old masters. The ride to 
Skodra is a very easy one, all along the Drin, over the 
plains called Zadrima. Most of the villages are 
Christian ; some possess very old churches. 

San Giovanni di Medua (in Albanian * Sinjin '), the 
port for Skodra, lies on the coast but a mile or so away 
from Alessio. But though it is Skodra's port, and 
Skodra is the capital of North Albania, it has only just 
occurred to the authorities that it would be a good 
thing to make a carriageable road. * Next year ' is to 
see that accomplished ! The kirijees left their rifles at 
Alessio, to be picked up on their return, the way being 
of the safest, but the authorities thought fit to send 
a suvarri with me. As I was used to messing about 
Skodra unprotected, I felt much humiliated to enter it 
thus. 

We arrived without adventure at Bachelik, the 
suburb of Skodra, on the banks of the Drinazzo, and 
it all looked as familiar as Oxford Street. But I had 



ELBASAN TO SKODRA 318 

never arrived at the town by that route before, and 
had not realized that a Custom-house examination had 
to take place on the bridge. 

* Give me a medjidieh ' (3s. 4d.), said I to my 
comrade. 

Alas ! he had not a penny of change, and nor had I. 
Change is a great difficulty when travelling in Turkey, 
and can only be got from professional changers. 

Out came every ragged, dirty article from my saddle- 
bags. Down squatted everyone and searched them. 
I had a couple of books, which I should have hidden 
had I known beforehand. They were harmless works, 
but I had reasons for not wishing them to fall into 
official hands. They were seized at once. Then came 
my travelling inkpot, hard, heavy, suspicious. They 
set it on the ground, and someone applied a finger to 
the spring. Up went the lid with a pop, and they 
jumped out of the way with a hurry that showed they 
feared explosives. I dipped my little finger in the ink, 
and approached it to the nose of the nearest man. 
This is the sort of joke they think really funny, and it 
soothed them at once. They replaced everything 
except the two books. I put out a hand carelessly, 
picked them up, and put them in. No ; they were at 
once removed. My guide said it was no use. I must 
get them back later through the consulate. His goods 
were then examined. It took some time. My books 
lay on the sill of the Custom-house. Everyone spoke 
only Albanian. On the off-chance I cried aloud in 
Serb : 

* Please give me my books.' 

Up came an officer who who was hanging around. 
' Ah, thou speakest my language ! I am Bosniak !' 
He babbled of his fatherland, and examined the 
books. One was a French dictionary, the other an 



814 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

Italian work on Albania. He was troubled about 
them, especially the dictionary, put them down again, 
and I gave up all hope. To my surprise, just as I was 
mounting, he suddenly exclaimed : 

' Here, lady 1 I give thee thy books because thou 
speakest my language I' 

I shoved them into my holsters, unspeakably relieved, 
and in another twenty minutes drew rein at the door 
of the H6tel de TEurope. Out rushed the family, and 
before I had time to dismount, cried : ' Your sister 
sent us some Christmas cards !' and quite a number of 
unknown persons hailed me as an old friend. 



CHAPTER XIII 

MIBDITA 

Skopra again at last, I did not know if I were glad 
or sorry I had arrived. There is a certain charm 
about reaching a goal that has been before one for 
weeks. But the grip of the wilderness was upon me, 
and the charm of the mountains. When I saw myself 
in a mirror for the first time after all these glorious 
weeks, I was sorry for the ragged, copper-coloured 
thing, as ' fit as a fiddle,' that had to be caged in the 
West in a few weeks* time. I must see Mirdita before 
I tore myself away. 

Skodra previously had always resolutely opposed all 
my schemes for seeing the interior. It declared the 
life was too rough. Now it was prepared to give me 
any amount of help. 

The vilayet of Skodra is the fi-eest of all. It gives 
only voluntary military service, and does not pay 
tobacco duty. The Turkish garrison lives for the 
most part in the town, * because,' as the Albanians will 
tell you, * we do not like them to walk about the 
country/ For Skodra vilayet is the home of the 
Maljsore, the mountaineers — the true sons of the 
eagle. 

The Turkish Government is well aware that there 
are limits that cannot be transgressed without blood- 
shed, and both parties keep the peace with loaded 

315 



316 



THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 



rifles. I did not visit the Turkish Vali here. I put 
myself in Albanian hands, and was introduced to the 
Princess of the Mirdites, mother of Prenk Bib Doda, 
their exiled chieftain. 

The Mirdites, since the days when they are first 
heard of, have been famed the finest fighting men in 
all Albania, and of all the tribes the most independent. 
Old Bib Doda, with his Mirdites, fought gallantly on 
the British side at the Crimea. 

The Turks dreaded the grow- 
ing power of the tribe, and at 
the beginning of the war in 
1876 detained at first one of 
the princely family as a hostage 
for Mirdite fidelity. Prince 
Prenk, then a youth, took no 
part in the war, but planned 
to strike for complete indepen- 
dence. It is said he was in 
treaty with the Montenegrins. 
Most unfortunately for the 
Mirdites, an armistice wajs pro- 
claimed between Turk and Serb 
(1877), and the Tiurk having 
thus a very large army at 
liberty, turned it suddenly 
against the Mirdites. Till then 
the Mirdites had been uncon- 
quered and invincible. Modern arms and methods 
were too much for them. It is said also they were 
outnumbered. They made a valiant stand, but Dervish 
Pasha forced his way to the capital, Oroshi, and burnt 
it. The princely family escaped, but the young Prince 
was afterwards captured, and has ever since been an 
exile at Kastamundi in Ajsia Minor. A Turkish 




PEASANT, ENVIRONS OF 
SKODRA. 



MIRDITA 317 

Governor was appointed to Mirdita, but has to live 
without its frontiers. 

The Mirdites having lost their leader, the Turks 
thought it as well to leave them alone, and for twenty- 
five years they have lived ungovemed and leaderless. 
The fate of some of the other mountain tribes has been 
similar. Europe has treated them scurvily, and the 
Turk has made scapegoats of them. 

The aged Princess and her daughter the Princess 
Davidica, received me with the greatest kindness at 
her house in Skodra. She wore native dress and 
spoke only Albanian. Dark, dignified, and with an 
eternal sadness in her eyes, she is a mother eagle, 
mourning always for her captured son, and her heart 
is up in the highlands with the wild men of her dead 
husband's tribe. 

She and her daughter, whose personality is as 
marked as her mother's, kindly offered at once to send 
me up the country with their own men, and with an 
introduction to Monsignor the Abbot of the Mirdites. 
If I would only tell England about them, that was all 
she asked. It will be long before I forget the aged 
Princess, when she begged me to ask the help of 
England, that loves freedom for her exiled son and 
his friendless people. 

My travelling companion had come to his journey's 
end at Skodra, and had only to do his business and 
return, and my former guide, Dutsi, was now in 
service, so I hired one Jin to come up with me to 
Oroshi, for the Princess's men spoke Albanian only. 
Jin was rather a dear old thing ; had been kavas to 
both the Austrian and British consulates ; had been 
in the habit of valeting his masters, and, with the 
best of intentions, strove to do the same for me. As 
the above-mentioned gentlemen wore garments quite 



318 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

other to mine, poor Jin came badly to grief when he 
took it upon himself to explore my saddle-bags. The 
result of his weU-meant efforts was far too funny for 
publication. 

With Jin and two magnificent Mirdites — one the 
Princess's own kavas and the other a Mirdite zaptieh — 
both in brave attire, I started through the back of 
the town and over the plain towards the river. A 
tall block of antique masonry near the track and a 
second in the distance were, so Jin said, the remains 
of a bridge that used to bring water fix>m the moun- 
tains many hundred years ago. A Boman aqueduct, 
probably, for Skodra was a Boman station. 

Soon the plain ceased abruptly. High mountains 
rose suddenly, and the Drin rushed from out a narrow 
valley. We crossed over in a caik to the village 
opposite, which was full of soldiers. Close by, at 
Mjet, is the residence of the so-called Turkish Governor 
of Mirdita. 

Having lunched at the village han, we struck up 
into the mountains of the Mirdites. It is aU moun- 
tainous, but quite unlike any of the other Albanian 
districts that I know* The soil is a light brown sandy 
loam with but little rock. Roads could be made here 
without much diflSculty, as little or no blasting would 
be required. And the whole is thickly wooded. 
Mirdita, in fact, so far as I saw it, is a huge tract of 
forest-land, a large part valueless, except for firewood, 
as the young trees have been browsed by goats and 
ignorantly lopped, but there are thousands of pounds' 
worth of fine timber too, for the most part oak on the 
lower slopes, and pine above. But though timber can 
be floated down the Drin from the heart of the land, 
the Turkish Grovernment, unwilling that Mirdita 
should earn money, stops the wood before it reaches 



MIRDn^A 319 

the sea, and has forbidden the Princess to export. 
With all its capital locked up, development is a matter 
of extreme difficulty, and Mirdita is bitterly poor. 
The people make a little money by selling firewood, 
sheep's and goat's hides, fox and wolf skins, and the 
roots and bark of the sumach-tree (for dyeing and 
tanning). They buy some of their maize from the 
plain-land, otherwise the country is almost * self-con- 
tained.' Everything is home-made, and all a man has 
to buy is his gun and ammunition. Every man is 
armed, usually with * Martina ' and revolver. 

Oroshi can be reached in one day from Skodra, but 
my friends there, unaware of the iron condition into 
which Albania had wrought me, arranged that I should 
take two over it. We tracked along in leisurely 
fashion up the Gjadri, a small tributary of the Drin, 
meeting now and again a party of natives heavily 
laden, carrying their goods for sale at the frontier, or 
a herdsboy, who stared with astonished eyes. Other- 
wise a few scattered huts were all that told it was an 
inhabited land. But after the gray desolation of the 
other mountain tracts of Albania, its greenness and 
the warm colour of the soil looked almost English. 

At eventide we all arrived at a nice little house on 
a hilltop, with a great wooden cross alongside and a 
little old priest at the door — a charming old man, 
who spoke just enough Italian for me to understand 
him. He was devoted to the Princess, could not do 
enough for anyone sent by her, and prayed me for news 
of the exiled Prince and all the family. He made me 
sit on the couch and take my boots off at once, in- 
sisted on my putting on his slippers because they were 
warm, and was most anxious I should take off my 
leathern belt. In these lands, where a heavy belt full 
of cartridges and weapons is always worn, the first 



8«0 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

thing a man does on entering a friendly house is to 
divest himself of the burden with a sigh of reliet 
Mine, on the contrary, was rather urgently required 
by the make of my garments. The poor old gentle- 
man, to my horror, thought that my refusal to take it 
off was because it was full of money that I would not 
trust him with, and so distressed was he that, in 
sign of good faith, off it had to come. I, on the con- 
trary, would trust all my belongings, not merely to a 
worthy old priest, but to any Montenegrin or Albanian 
tribesman, providing always that he dwells so far in 
the wilderness as to be uncorrupted by civilization, 
and has received me as his guest. Petty prigging is 
not one of his vices, and his boast that he never betrays 
a friend nor spares a foe is not an idle one. 

The kindly old priest bustled about, and assured 
me he was treating me exactly as he should treat 
the King of England if he called on the way to 
Oroshi. 

* I am giving you my best, and I could do no more 
for him !' 

One thing puzzled him much, he said. It was very 
strange that the King should be called Edward when 
his mother's name was Victoria. He expressed great 
admiration for Queen Victoria, reminded me that the 
Mirdites had fought on our side in the Crimea, and 
was fiercely anti- Russian. Of all things he wanted 
to hear about the Japanese. A little nun came in to 
lay the supper, and, by the oddest chance in the world, 
two out of his few European plates had Japanese 
people upon them. He had been unaware of this, and 
was much interested. 

England was the only nation that could be trusted 
to act fairly towards Albania, he said. All the others 
that pretended to be friendly only wanted to take it. 



MIRDITA 



321 



' Ah, la povera Albania !* he cried, ' e morta ma * — 
with a little smile — * non ancora sepolta.' 

We had the cheeriest little supper of roast mutton, 
macaroni, and cheese, excellently cooked and served 
by the little nun, and I shared her tidy little bed- 
room at night. 

Next morning the worthy old man took me out to 
see his garden, where the roses hung heavy with dew. 
His village, Kasinjeti, is scattered, as all the villages 
are, and but a house or two showed 
among the trees. Below us lay the 
densely- wooded valleys, and far away 
snow-clad peaks showed clean-cut 
and sharp through the clear pure 
air of the dawn — an incomparably 
magnificent view, all wild nature, 
as unmarked by man as though 
Adam had not yet been created ; 
and, travelling express, it can be 
reached fi:om London in seven days ! 

With a sparse and scattered 
population the task of education is 
one of great difficulty. The children 
have to come long distances over 
wild tracks, and the parents, whose 
forbears from the beginning of 
time have never been taught, 
greatly prefer to keep the children at home to mind 
the goats. The London School Board, however, at the 
beginning had to wrestle with a similar difficulty. 

A newly -built school-house near the priest's dwelling, 
a schoolmaster, and eight or nine pupils, show that a 
start has been made. The children are very bright 
and learn quickly. Should this catch the eye of any 
Boman Catholic who has the missionary spirit, and 

21 




PEASANT WOMAN, 
ENVIRONS OF SKODRA. 



882 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

does not mind roughing it, I commend to his notice 
these sound, healthy, intelligent European children as 
ofltering a far better field for useful work than the 
blacks farther from home. None but Boman Catholics 
should apply. 

The little nun made me up a packet of food for the 
journey ; the Princess's kavas returned to Skodra, 
and, having said farewell to my most kindly enter- 
tertainers, I went my way with Jin and Antonio, the 
Mirdite zaptieh, up into the heart of the land. We 
crossed the Fan i ma, a tributary of the Mati, climbed 
a hill, descended into another valley, and reached and 
forded the Fan i vogele (Little Fani). 

We had been steadily going up all day. Near the 
river stood the zaptieh's house, and this he begged us 
to visit. He and his cousin had built it, and the 
interior was not yet quite finished. It was a solid 
stone house — nothing more nor less, in fact, than a 
block-house constructed for defence, the ground-floor 
pitch-dark and windowless, intended merely as store- 
house and stable, the upper floor reached by a ladder, 
and lighted by slits and loopholes. The floors and 
beams were all of oak, and very solid. 

Antonio was very proud of and pleased with the 
house that was his c€istle, and hurried to do the 
honours of it. Such was his hospitality that he 
would not let me off with less than six coffees and five 
rakijas. He was a dark man with strongly-marked 
features, tall, lean, and very long-necked. The long 
neck seemed to me a Mirdite peculiarity. As a whole, 
the Mirdites, as I saw them, did not strike me as so 
tall as the rest of the Albanians, but they are extra- 
ordinarily supple, wiry and active, have very good 
brainpans and bright, keen faces. I could not decide 
whether dark or fair predominated. 







CHURCH AT OROSHt. 



324 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

The women wear a costume unlike any of the others 
that I have met — a long white shirt, tied round the 
waist with a long red woollen fringe that forms an 
apron in front, and long linen trousers to the ankle 
elaborately embroidered with dark red- Over the 
shirt either a white, sleeveless coat with red patterns 
appliqu^ over the seams, or, instead of the coat, the 
short black, square-collared jacket (^djurdin') worn 
always by the men in other parts of North Albania, 
and said to be mourning for Skenderbeg. The 
Mirdites assiured me they were Skenderbeg's own 
men, and that is why both men and women wear 
this garment. 

The Mirdite women cut their hair in a straight 
fringe over the forehead, but plait that at the back, 
and tie it up in a handkerchief. They were decidedly 
short, but very strongly-built and deep-chested. I 
should think lung diseases were unknown in Mirdita. 

From the zaptieh's house it is but a short way to 
Oroshi, and Oroshi was a great surprise. It is in the 
midst of what is, perhaps, one of the least-known and 
most isolated peoples of Europe, and it contains one of 
the most civilized houses in all 'Albania, the home of a 
man who is one of the strong personalities of the Near 
East, Monsignor the Abbot of the Mirdites, who, 
single-hearted and single-handed, a man of culture and 
learning, has devoted himself to the saving of his wild 
brethren, and lives in the wilderness cut off from all 
the world. 

The Abbot is his own engineer and his own architect. 
On a wide shelf on the mountain-side stand the church 
he has planned and built, his house, and the school. 
The tall white bell-tower of the church stood up white 
against the mountain beyond, which is clefl by a 
wide gully, terraced and cultivated. Some twenty 



MIRDITA 826 

houses are scattered up it. This is Oroshi, the capital 
of the Mirdites. Before the inroad of Dervish Pasha 
it was a flourishing village of a hundred houses. Now 
ruins maj*k where many a house has stood, and the 
home of the Bib Dodas has never been rebuilt. 

The Abbot, whose title is the traditional one for the 
head of the Church in Mirdita, is in reality a secular 
priest, for the Benedictine abbey of Oroshi was long 
ago destroyed. His position is quite a unique one. 
This wild land of 30,000 people has no temporal head. 
It is princeless, and there is no tribunal of any kind 
before which a criminal can be brought. The Abbot 
is the only power in the land, and his power is purely 
spiritual. 

Exiled by the Turkish Government when quite a 
young man, he spent the years of his exile, not as do 
so many Turkish subjects, in Asia Minor, but, by the 
aid of the Church, under British government, first in 
Newfoundland and afterwards at Bombay, where he 
used to hear confessions in English. But his heart 
was always with his poor Mirdites, all unhelped in the 
wilderness, and after long years of exile he succeeded 
in obtaining a hearing at Constantinople, pleaded his 
cause, and won it. Now for fiftyeen years he has toiled 
for his brethren, striving by prayer, preaching, and 
example to win them from their state of prehistoric 
savagery. 

He has fifteen parishes under him, all of which he 
personally superintends. The difficulties to be struggled 
with are such as would crush a less able man, for it 
must be remembered that the land is without any form 
of government, and any attempt on his part to estab- 
lish a tribunal to punish crime would be exceeding his 
duties as a churchman, and be regarded as a breach of 
faith with the Porte. 



8£6 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

He has one powerfiil weapon to wield, and one only 
— that is, excommunication. Only by his own religious 
and moral power can he influence the people. He was 
extremely modest about the success of his efforts, but 
the respect in which he is held is marked and obvious, 
and the fact that his house is a quite European one, 
with large windows, speaks for itself in a land where 
every other house that is not a mere wooden hut is a 
loopholed block-house. 

* Those that I can induce to come to church I can 
influence,' he said. * With the others I have the 
greatest difficulty. When a crime is reported to me, 
all I can do is to denounce it from the altar and call 
upon the man to come and speak with me. He is 
usually not present, but the message is taken to him. 
Sometimes I fail entirely ; sometimes he comes after 
many messages, and I speak to him of what he has 
done and what it means.' 

It is almost always murder. These people are not 
thieves among one another, but on human life they set 
not the smallest value. I have been told that a man, 
after killing his enemy, has been known to regret 
having wasted a cartridge on such a paltry object. 
The vendettas, as in Shpata, are so numerous that 
most families owe somebody blood. 

The fifty Mirdite zaptiehs instituted by the Turks 
when they * conquered ' Mirdita are, like other Turk- 
appointed officials, rarely paid by the Government, and 
as there is no prison to which- to take a prisoner nor 
anyone to tiy him, there is little use in arresting him. 
The chief use of the zaptiehs is in providing armed 
escort to such as require it. Every stronger not 
properly introduced and vouched for is looked on with 
suspicion, and may be shot at sight. And the people 
cling jealously to the right of private vengeance given 



MIRDITA 827 

them by the law of the mountain, the prehistoric code 
which is all they know. Few of them go even to 
Skodra. They live in the same way as did their 
ancestors in Alexander the Great's day, and, having 
seen nothing else, are entirely content with it. 

The Abbot spoke with a sigh of the comfortable 
cottages of Newfoundland, with curtains in the 
windows and pots of flowers. 

* My poor people,' he said, * have not the least idea 
what comfort is.* 

Under his teaching, however, they are raising more 
flocks and tilling more ground. His own well-cared- 
for flocks and fields form a good object-lesson. 

He was extremely busy, for next Sunday was the 
feast of St. Alexander, the patron saint of Mirdita, 
he expected a gathering of the nation, and was to put 
up twenty-five priests in his own house. A gang of 
men was at work levelling the ground by the church 
and putting up a shrine. Preliminary services were 
being held in the church, and monsignore was wanted 
here, there, and everywhere. Had it not been that I 
was his guest, and there was nowhere else that I could 
stay, I should have much liked to have seen the 
gathering, but I could not trespass on his hospitality 
at such a time. Of his kindness I cannot speak 
too highly, and in all his rush of work he made time 
to tell me about his land and people. 

He said, with a laugh, that when he came back 
from his long exile* he was surprised to find how 
English luxuries had unfitted him for roughing it. 
He had had no idea before how rough the life in 
Albania really was. He declared that he was the 
only person I should ever meet who not only knew the 
life T had been brought up to, but the one I had been 
leading for the past weeks. It ought to have killed 



828 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

me ! We laughed over the fact that, on the contrary, 
it had suited me passing well ; as a matter of fact, bj 
this time it was European habits that struck me as 
strange, and when he served me with afternoon tea 
and biscuits I was amazed. 

I spent the next day walking about, seeing the 
school, and talking with its master, who spoke French. 
In the afternoon there came down two wild men to 
speak with monsignore, one of them quite young. All 
three walked up and down and up and down in deep 
and earnest conversation. Monsignore had a chair 
brought out at last and sat, and still the talk went 
on, and evening drew near. When at last they left, 
he came and told me the story. I can tell it but 
briefly. I can give no idea of the power of the man 
who told it. 

The younger of the two men was an orphan. He 
had been brought up by an unde, who had been a 
father to him and whom he loved much. Two years 
ago, as the uncle was returning home one evening, he 
was shot dead on the track. It was a cold-blooded 
and brutal murder, founded on some &ncied slight or 
dislike, and had no hereditary blood-feud as an excuse. 
By the law of the mountains it was the young man's 
duty to avenge his uncle. There was no other way of 
punishing the murderer; but by so doing he would 
start yet another blood-feud and a long train of 
murders. Monsignore sent for him, sympathized with 
him in his grief, and exhorted him not to foUow up 
one crime with another. 

After hours of prayer and persuasion he won his 
point. The young man gave his word to withhold his 
vengeance for a year. These people live in a state of 
*gyak' (blood) or ^bessa' (peace). When they have 
sworn bessa they never break their word. He went 



MIRDITA 329 

back home, and the murderer lived. When the year 
was ahnost ended monsignore sent for him again. He 
came. This time his bessa was obtained with very 
great difficulty. 

Now, the end of the second year was coming, and 
monsignore had given out in church that the young 
man was to come to him ; but this time he sent a 
message that he had waited long enough for his 
vengeance, and would not come. Monsignore sent as 
before, I believe, three or four times, and feared that 
this time he was about to fail. But no. This after- 
noon the youth had come, with an older friend, to 
explain that his mind was quite made up, and this 
year his uncle should be avenged. 

Then had followed the long argument which I had 
witnessed. It had been a severe wrestle ; monsignore 
looked worn out, but he had conquered. A third 
time his intense individuality, supported with all the 
power of his creed, had triumphed over the hereditary 
instinct of the mountain-man, public opinion, and the 
traditional law of all his race. The youth had once 
more given his bessa and had returned home. 

' He will keep it V I asked. 

' He will keep it.' 

* And is there no way in which the murderer can 
be punished V 

* None.* 

* And what will be the end of it V 

^ Qod knows. Every year that puts oflF the start- 
ing of more blood-feuds is so much to the good.' 

The episode tells more vividly what manner of man 
is monsignore, than any description I can add to it. 

In person he is tail and dark, and he bears his 
years very lightly. He is polished, courtly, and 
dignified. None who do not know what life means 



830 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS 

in that wilderness can realize the nobility of his self- 
sacrifice. He gave me his blessing when I left, and as 
I rode away I knew it would be many a long day 
before I should again meet a man who can tame the 
wolf of the mountains by words. 

There is little left to tell. With Antonio as guard, 
we followed the route we had come by as far as the 
Fan i vogele, which we crossed and followed down- 
stream by the track to Kolouri. This led through a 
more populated district. Stone block -houses with 
cultivated patches of ground were more firequent. 
In one lonely valley a woman's voice shrilled from the 
rocks above, a long, melancholy recitative ; a rhythmic, 
barbaric chant in strange harmony with the land- 
scape. 

' Someone is dead,' said Jin. ' She is telling all 
about him and what he did.' 

He hailed the nearest herdsboy. A man had been 
shot, he said briefly ; that was all. We rode on, and 
the wild notes died away in the distance. 

Kolouri possesses the only shop in Mirdita — a 
wooden shanty, whose owner serves as go-between in 
trade between Mirdita and Skodra, and who sells 
petroleum and tin-pots, the only luxuries in which 
Mirdita indulges. Here I passed the night and had 
a festive supper with Jin, Antonio, and the two shop- 
men. 

A short ride next day brought me to the borders of 
Mirdita. Far below lay the plain of Alessio, and a 
steep descent brought us down to the village of 
Ealmeti and the Princess Bib Doda's country-house by 
midday. 

Antonio was in a hurry to depart and prepare for 
guests at home on St. Alexander's Day. He said good- 
bye, and as I sat in the shade of the trees, and looked 



MIRDITA 331 

at the great mountain- wall I had just descended, I 
realized with a pang that Mirdita, too, was now in the 
past. Time had flown. Five months had gone all too 
quickly. The tribes of the mountains all called me. 
The Shali and the Shoshi, the Klementi ; there were 
Gusinje and Plava all to see, and they were all 
within my reach. But I had overstayed my time by 
weeks, and had little more than the clothes I stood up 
in. For ten wild minutes I believe I cherished the 
idea of buying native garments, flying back to the 
mountains, and ultimately borrowing my return fare 
from the nearest British Consul. But my route lay 
over the plain to Skodra, and thence vi& Cetinje to 
London. 

After Cetinje the charm was broken. I dropped 
into the West with a shock. Nor did I look as though 
I belonged to it, for most of those that I met on the 
four days' whirl to England said : ^ May I ask where 
you have come from V And I said : * I have come out 
of the wilderness, and I am going back there some 
day!' 




PKINTKD BY 

BILLIMO AND 80X8, LTD. 

OUILDFOBD 




>•' 



T E K E G R of'^^r^'^^^H 




MAP 

v>f a. tour itL tlie 
VllHyeta of 

SKODRA.MONASTIR 
AND JANINA. 

19 



Londa 







r> 1905. 



f GREECE\ 



.TE 



a the 

sty's 
this 

field 
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and 
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21 



22 



Uivrard Arnold. 



THE NEW YORK 
PUBLIC LIBRARY 



*»rw, LINOX AN* 
TILOCN WMNOATWMi. 



Telegrams : 4' and 43 Maddox Street, 

[ • Scholarly, London.' Bond Street, London, W. 

1 jMuarj, 1905. 



Mr. Edward Arnold's 

List of New Books. 



['HE EAST AFRICA PROTECTORATE 

By SIR CHARLES ELIOT, KC.M.G., 

LaTB H.M. COMMISSIOMBK FOB THB PaOTSCTOKATS. 

Author of ' Tukkky in Europb ' (by * Odyssbus 'X 

Demy 8tw. With lUustraHans and Map, 155. net« 

Sir Charles Eliot, whose authorship of the important work on the 
ear East, ' Turkey in Europe,' is now an open secret, had been, 
Dtil his recent resignation, for nearly four years His Majesty's 
Commissioner for the British East Africa Protectorate. In this 
ook he gives a very complete account of the country, its history and 
B peoples, and discusses with great fulness its prospects as a field 
tr European colonization. He describes the present system of 
Iministration in the Protectorate, and makes a number of interest- 
\g suggestions for the future. There are chapters on the Uganda 
[ailway, Trade, Slavery, Missions, a Journey down the Nile, and 
nimals, the whole formmg a comprehensive and valuable account of 
De of the most remarkable and, to the ordinary Englishman, least 
uniUar possessions of the British Empire. 



LONDON : EDWARD ARNOLD, 41 A 43 MADDOX STREET. W. 



2 Mr. Edward Arnolds List of New Books 

ALESSANDRO SCARLATTI : HIS LIFE 
AND WORKS. 

By EDWARD J. DENT, 

Fbllow of King's Coixegb, Cambridge. 

Royal Svo, With Portrait. 135. M. net* 

To most musical people Alessandro Scarlatti is little more than a 
name, and even musical historians have been singularly cautious in 
their references to him. He is, however, a very important figure in 
the history of music, on account of his influence on the formation of 
the classical style — i.e.f the style of Handel, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, 
and Beethoven. His numerous works have almost all remained in 
manuscript, although he was quite the most celebrated composer of 
his time (1659- 1725), and the difficulty of obtaining access to them 
has no doubt prevented musicians from studying him in detail. For 
this biography special researches have been made in the principal 
libraries of Europe, and much new material has come to light 
Besides the story of Scarlatti's life, derived in great part from hitherto 
unpublished diaries and letters, a careful analysis is ^ven of his 
most important compositions, considered specially in theur relation to 
the history of modem tonality and form. The book is copiously 
illustrated with musical examples, and includes a complete catalogue 
of Scarlatti's extant works, with the libraries where the manuscripts 
are to be found. 



FINAL RECOLLECTIONS OF A 
DIPLOMATIST. 

By the RIGHT HON. SIR HORACE RUMBOLD, Bart., 
G.C.B.. G.C.M.G. 

Demy Svo. 15s. net. 

Sir Horace Rumbold begins the third and concluding series of his 
* Recollections' in the year 1885 at the point to which he brought his 
readers in the volumes already published. He describes his life as 
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Greece from 
1885-1888, and to the Netherlands from 1888-1896. In the latter 
year he was appointed Ambassador to the Emperor of Austria — an 
exalted position which he retained until his retirement from the 
Diplomatic Service in 1900. [In preparation. 



Mr. Edward Amold^s List of New Books 3 

THE UNVEILING OF LHASA. 

By EDMUKD CANDLER. 

Den$y Svo. With Illustrations and Map, 15s. net* 
Second Impression. 

With the exception of a short period during which he was recover- 
ing from a dozen wounds, Mr. Candler was with the Tibet Mission 
from start to finish. The greater part of the book was written on 
the spot, while the impressions of events and scenery were still 
fresh. The result is a singularly graphic picture, not only of the 
physical and political difficulties overcome in the course of this 
unique expedition, but of the many dramatic incidents which 
attended its progress. The Gyantse operations, which occurred 
during Mr. Candler's absence, are ably described by an eye-witness, 
so that the reader has a continuous account of the whole affair. 

* Mr. Candler's account of his experiences in Tibet is as breezy and suggestive 
as is the excellent sketch which stands on the frontispiece. There is no attempt 
at a learned discjuisition on the mysteries of Buddhism, no laboured effort to 
explain the intncacies of Indian diplomacy, but just a clear and impartial 
narrative of the toils and difficulties of the Tibetan Mission. " The unveiling ot 
Lhasa ' ' is precisely the kind of book which the ordinary reader wants. ' — The Times. 

' The everyday incidents and accidents make the real romance of the enterprise. 
They are set forth in Mr. Candler's account with a vividness and charm which 
make the whole volume delightful reading.' — Westminster Gaxette. 



THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS. 

By M. EDITH DURHAM, 

Author op 'Thkough tub Lands op thb Sbrb. 

Demy Svo. With Illustrations and Map. 14s. net. 

In this story of her sixth visit to the Balkan Peninsula, Miss 
Durham, after an historical survey of the causes of the present state 
of affairs, gives a most interesting account of her work as relief 
agent for the Balkan Committee, and finally describes Albania 
and the Albanian, ' the root of all the Balkan difficulties.' She 
endeavours to look at the situation from the point of view of each 
nationality in turn, combining with a keen sense of humour and the 
picturesque a discerning eye for all kinds of imposture. The book 
contains a number of striking illustrations from sketches by the author. 



4 Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books 

FACTS AND IDEAS. 

By PHILIP GIBBS, 

Author op 'Knowlbixsb is Powex.' 

Crown Svo, 3s. 6d. 

As in the case of the author's previous book, the intention of 
these short studies of life, literature, philosophy, religion, history, 
and art, is to suggest ideas, subjects for investigation, and the like, 
connected with some of the great intellectual problems and achieve- 
ments of civilization. 

ECONOMIC METHOD AND 
ECONOMIC FALLACIES. 

By WILLIAM WARRAND CARLILE, M.A., 

Author op 'The Evolution op Modbxm Monet/ etc. 

Demy Svo, Cloth^ ids. 6d. net. 

In this work the keynote of the first two parts is the stress laid on 
the essential character of the distinction which exists between the 
methods of investigation that are appropriate in physics and those 
that are applicable in sciences, such as economics, which belong, 
in truth, to the mental sphere. In the third part the author brings 
his general line of reasoning to bear on the Fiscal Problem. While 
he is an uncompromising Free Trader, he would throw overboard 
those Free Trade arguments that ignore the national point of view 
in favour of the cosmopolitan. 

' Mr. Carlile is a bard hitter and an acute thinker. The dominant economical 
doctrines have had no more trenchant assailant for a long time.' — Tk* Timss. 



OUTLINES OF THE SYNOPTIC 
RECORD. 

By the Rev. BERNARD HUGH BOSANQUET, 

Vicar of Thames Ditton; 

And R. A. WENHAM. 

Crown Svo, 6s« 

* There is at the present moment a place for some such work as this, which, at 
once scholarly and popular, reverent, yet pervaded with the modem spirit, will 
put young students of theology and the educated laity in possession of the results 
of recent " higher " or literary criticism of the Gospels.' —SeotsmaH. 



Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books 5 

THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR: 

from tl>e ^utDteaft ot Dodtilities to tbe JSattle ot Xiao)?an0* 

By T. COWEN. 

Dmny 8vo. With numerous lUustraiionSj Pkms^ and Maps. 155. net. 

' Mr. Cowen's analysis of the events which led to the war is excellent. He 
puts things which we have all understood rather vaguely in a telling and direct 
Gishion. He has evidently taken the greatest care to collate his facts, and the 
consequence is that we have a most enthralling and connected narrative of the 
naval operations round Port Arthur, enriched with small but convincing details 
such as could only have been related by eye-witnesses. Mr. Cowen's description 
of the Yalu battle is spirited, and his accounts of Kin-chow and Nanshan are 
quite the best we have seen.' — Moming Post. 



THE REMINISCENCES OF SIR 
HENRY HAWKINS 

(JSaron JScampton). 
Edited by RICHARD HARRIS, K.C., 

Author op 'Illustrations op Advocacy, ' 'Auld Acquaintamcs,' ktc. 

Two Volumes. Demy 8vo. With Portraits. 30s. net. 
Second Impression. 

* A deliffhtful budget of miscellaneous reading. The Reminiscences are li^ht 
reading of a very easy and attractive kind ; but underlying them is the revelation 
of a strong and genial character, forcing its way to recognition by sheer merit 
alone. They are delightful, not alone by their wealth of anecdote, but also by 
their unconscious revelation of a strong and yet lovable personality.' — Standard. 



POLITICAL CARICATURES, 1904. 

By F. CARRUTHERS GOULD. 

Super royal ^to. 63. net. 
Also an Edition de Luxe of 100 large-paper copies , numbered and signed, 

£2 as. net. 

* One looks twice before he is quite sure that the price of " Political Carica- 
tures " is only 6s. Where else tor 68. . in a book or out of it, can we find so 
much good humour and so much hearty laughter? "F.C.G." is still our one 
cartoonist, and his is the only brush which pictures the real history of our time 
in caricature. ' — Daily Mail. 



6 Mr, Edward Arnold's List of New Books 

EDWARD AND PAMELA FITZ- 
GERALD. 

Sefttd some Bccount ot tbeft Xfvea 
Oompflet) ttom tbe Xettera ot tCbose xoho ftnew (Tbem* 

By GERALD CAMPBELL. 

Demy 8vo. With numerous PortraUs. las. 6d. net. 

* No one interested in the '98 rebellion, in the gay and chivalrous and hapless 
Lord Edward, or in eighteenth-century folk and manners, can afiford to miss this 
delightful volume/— H'orW. 

' The frankness of the correspondence of Lord Edward's aunts and sisters 
makes Mr. Campbell's volume more entertaining than most novels.' — Speaker. 



JERUSALEM UNDER THE HIGH 
PRIESTS. 

five Xectute0 on tbe period between Viebemfab anb tbe View 

tCestament. 

By EDWYN BEVAN, 

AuTKOS OP * Thb House op Sblkucus.' 

Demy Svo. js. 6d. 

' These lectures deserve careful study by everyone interested in the history of 
how Hellenism and Judaism first came into contact' — Cambridge Review, 



STUDIES IN VIRGIL. 

By TERROT REAVELEY GLOVER, 

Fellow and Classical Lectukkk op St. John's Collbgb, Cambsidgb, 
Author op *Lipb and Lbttbrs in thb Fourth Cbnturv.' 

Demy Svo. los. 6d« net. 

' Mr. Glover has achieved a real triumph ; he sends his readers away longing 
to take up their Virgil again.' — St. Jameses Gazette. 



Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books 7 

THE WHITE MAN IN NIGERIA. 

By GEORGE DOUGLAS HAZZLEDINE. 

' Demy 8vo. With numerous Illustrations and a Map. los. 6d. net. 

The author of this graphic account of life in Northern Nigeria was 
for sonie time Private Secretary to Sir Frederick Lugard, the High 
Commissioner, and was thus in a position to learn the truth about 
the country and its problems. 

' The author supplies some admirable pictures of the incidents which have lad 
to the British occupation of Northern Nigeria. His theories are sane and whole- 
some, his descriptions graphic and informing. ^One would like every responsible 
tax-paying British subject to read them.' — Athaunm. 

' A really fascinating book, which, while stirring and pictnresaue, vivid and 
human throughout, is as full of facts of the rarer and more valuable sort as the 
driest and most scientific treatise cou]d be. The book is certain to be read in 
France and Germany. By every law of common-sense it should be read, well 
and carefully read, in England. We hope it may be. '—Pall MaU GaxttU, 



SUNSHINE AND SENTIMENT IN 
PORTUGAL. 

By GILBERT WATSON, 

Author op 'Thkbb Rolling Stonss in Japan.' 

Demy Svo. With numerous lUustrations. las. 6d. net. 

' Mr. Watson has written a book which may be fittingly placed on the book- 
shelf between Sterne's " Sentimental Journey *' and Robert Louis Stevenson's 
" Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes." * ^Scotsman. 



ENGLAND IN EGYPT. 

By VISCOUNT MILNER, 

High Commissionkr por Sooth Africa. 

Eleventh Edition. With additions summarising the course of events to the 
year 1904. Crown 8vo. 6s« 

The great and far-reaching change in England's position in Egypt 
effected by the signature of the Anglo-French agreement has rendered 
necessary a hirther addition to Lord Miiner's "work, tracing the 
course of events from 1898, when the book was brought up to date 
by a chapter by Sir Clinton Dawkins, to the present time. This 
important task has been carried out by Sir Eldon Gorst, K.C.B., late 
Financial Adviser to the Egyptian Government, who describes in a 
masterly chapter the recent results of British rule in Egypt and the 
Soudan^ and the hopeful possibilities of the future. 



8 Mr. Edward Arnold^ s List of New Books 

ENGLISH ESTATE FORESTRY. 

By A. C. FORBES. 

Dmy Stfo. With lUustrations. las. 6d. net. 

Forestry is a subject the importance of which is by no means 
adequately recognised in this country. It is, indeed, seldom that 
one finds an owner of woodlands who has a competent knowledge of 
the scientific theory and practical possibilities of timber-planting. 
Mr. Forbes's book will be found a valuable corrective of the 
prevailing happy-go-lucky methods. 

* Mr. Forbes has prodaced a most excellent work, which should be on the 
shelves of all estate agents and owners of woodland property.' — Saturday Rgoiiw, 

' Perhaps the soundest and most useful book on forestry yet written by an 
Englishnuain for the ordinary reader.' — EstaU Magazine. 



GHOST STORIES OF AN ANTIQUARY. 

By MONTAGUE RHODES JAMES, Litt.D., 

Fbixow and Latb Tutor or Kikg's Collbgx, Camsridck. 

Crown 8w. With Illustrations hy the late James McBryde. 65. 
Second Impression. 

* We do not hesitate to sav that these are among the best ghost stories we have 
ever read ; they rank with that greatest of all ghost stories, Lord Lytton's " The 
Haunted and the Haunters." '--kTiiardiaH. 



COMMONSENSE COOKERY, 

J9a6et) on Ao^em Sngliab ant) Oontinental pctnciplea wotfieD out 

in Detail. 

By COLONEL KENNEY-HERBERT. 

Large Crown Svo. 7s* 6d. 



Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books 

MY SPORTING HOLIDAYS. 

By Sir HENRY SETON-KARR. C.M.G., M.P. 

Demy Svo. With numerous Illustrations. las. 6d. net. 

' The book which, like ** Scolopax's " delightful gossip, informs the reader's 
mind without ever taxing his patience grows yearly rarer. Sir Henry Seton- 
Karr's volume is a very pleasing specimen of this cla^, the notebook of one who 
has wandered far afield in search of sport, and can write of his doings without 
egotism or vain repetitions. His sketches of Western society are very vivid 
pictures, full of insight and good humour.' — Spectator. 

' This lively volume, which will be read with a great deal of pleasure by every 
sportsman who can get hold of it, records the author's adventures in search of 
sport during the last two-and-thirty years.' — Illustratid Sporting and Dramatic 



PAGES FROM A COUNTRY DIARY. 

By PERCIVAL SOMERS. 

Large Crown Svo. With Photogravure lUtistrations. 7s. 6d« 

'It is not often nowadays that a writer on indoor and outdoor life in the 
country appears with a knowledge so matured and a style so mellow as that of 
Mr. Percival Soihers. In fact, we do not believe that there could be a book 
which would better reflect the attitude of a country gentleman towards men and 
animals and afiiurs. His inimitable, genial manner is so effective that the reader 
is continually delighted, whether he is reading of a local steeplechase or how the 
author basketed some fine trout with the help of a phantom minnow when he was 
out with a party of dry-fly fishermen.' — World. 



HOUSE, GARDEN, AND FIELD. 

a Oollectfon ot Sbort Itatute Studies. 
By L. C. MIALL, F.R.S., 

PsoPBSsoR OP Biology in thb Univkrsitv op Lbkos, and Fullbxian Propbssoi op 
Physiology in thb Royal Institution. 

Crown Svo. With numerous Illustrations. 6s. 
Second Impression. 

* Quite the best things of the kind that have appeared since nature study 
became a subject in the schools.' — Field. 

* This admirable little work appears to be by far the best aid to the proper 
teaching of nature study that has hitherto come under our notice.'— Na^r#. 



lo Mr. Edward Arnolds List of New Books 

NEW FICTION. 

Croum 8v0. 6s. each. 



THE SEETHING POT. 

By GEORGE A. BIRMINGHAM. 

THE RAMBLING RECTOR 

By ELEANOR ALEXANDER, 

Author or ' Lady Annb's Wauc' 

Second Impression: 

' In *' The Rambling Rector " one finds the same delicate humour, imagination, 
and sentiment whicb distinguished " Lady Anne's Walk." ' — ManchisUr Guardum. 

* Miss Alexander has the goodly heritage of an admirable literary style com- 
bined with a sympathetic comprehension of the Irish people and a keen sense of 
humour.' — A thenaum. 

PETER'S PEDIGREE. 

By DOROTHEA CONYERS, 

AuTHOS OP 'Thx Boy, Some Hoksbs, akd a Girl.' 

With lUustraHons by Nora K. ShclUy. 
Third Impression, 

* The story is very clever and amusing, brimful of real Irish fun and humour, 
and adorned with illustrations quite up to its own mark.' — World. 

' This is one of the funniest books we haVe had the pleasure of reading for a 
long time, and is fall of genuine humour.' — IllustraUd Sporting and Dramatic News. 

SCENES OF JEWISH LIFE. 

By Mrs. ALFRED SIDGWICK, 

Author op * Cynthia's Way/ ' Thb Thousand Eugbnias, and othbr Storxbs,* ' Tbb 

Bbryl Stonss,' btc. 

Second Impression. 

* Mrs. Sidgwick's bright manner of telling her stories^ her delicate humour, 
and quick realization of the subtle pathos that is threaded through all Jewish life, 
appear on every page, and make the book both interesting and enjoyable reading.' 
— Westminster Gaxette, 

* A volume from the pen of Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick is always welcome, so alert 
is her intelligence, so keen her observation, so crisp and clear-cut her style. 
Altogether, this is an extremely vivacious and instructive volume.' — Spectator. 



Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books ii 

NEW FICTION.— Continued. 

THE CELESTIAL SURGEON. 

By F. F. MONTRESOR, 

Author of * Worth Whilr,' ' Into the Highways and Hsdgrs,' btc. 

Third Impression, 

* In " The Celestial Surgeon." Miss Montresor is at her best The character 
drawing, as is usaai with the writer, is excellent ; the characters sure all living 
human beings, neither too good nor too bad for evervday life. The book is not 
one for girls just out of the schoolroom, but their elders will be glad to have it.' 
— Guardian. 

'An immensely clever study of a group of temperaments, with the added 
advantage of a capitally constructed plot.'^Sf. Jamis's GagttU. 

THE SHADOW ON THE WALL. 

By MARY E. COLERIDGE, 

Author or *Thr King with Two Faces,' *Thb Fisrv Dawn,' etc 

Second Impression. 

* A new novel from the pen of Miss Coleridge is an event the pleasure of which 
is enhanced by the comparative rarity of its occurrence. All who are able to 
emancipate themselves sufficiently from the tyrannv of circumstance can hardly 
fail to recognise the charm of this delicately fantastic melodrama.'— 5^A;tatof. 

THE REAPER* 

By EDITH RICKERT. 

' A simple yet strange story of a mind at once simple and strange ; and 
throughout it the author would seem to have been guidea by a delicate-unerring 
instinct for the central, the captain thought or word or expression.' — The Times, 

' A novel the scene of which lies beyond the beaten track, and which will 
repay yon amply for the reading.' — Review of Revisws, 

CHECKMATE. 

By ETTA COURTNEY. 

* Miss Courtney has written an able novel, and one that will interest the reader 
from the first page to the last' — Shefidd Daily Independent. 

* The story is very interesting, and is told thronghont with great cleverness and 
skilL'-^OntiooA. 



12 Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books 

THE EVOLUTION THEORY. 

By Dr. AUGUST WEISMANN, 

Profbssor of Zoology in thb Ukivbrsity op Fkbibukg. 

Translated by J. ARTHUR THOMSON, 

RxGius Pkofbssok op Natural Histokv in thb University op Abbrdsbn, 

And MARGARET THOMSON. 

Two volumes^ Royal Svo. With tnany Illustrations, jas. net. 

The importance of this work is twofold. In the first place, it 
sums up the teaching of one of Darwin's greatest successors, who has 
been for many years a leader in biological progress. As Professor 
Weismann has from time to time during the last quarter of a century 
frankly altered some of his positions, this deliberate summing up of 
his mature conclusions is very valuable. In the second place, as 
the volumes discuss all the chief problems of organic evolution, they 
form a trustworthy guide to the whole subject, and may be regarded 
as furnishing — what is much needed — a Text-book of Evolution 
Theory. The book takes the form of lectures, which are so 
graduated that no one who follows their course can £eu1 to under- 
stand the most abstruse chapters. The translation has been revised 
by the author. 



LECTURES ON DISEASES OF 
CHILDREN. 

By ROBERT HUTCHISON, M.D. Edin., F.R.C.P., 

Assistant Physician to thk London Hospital and to thb Hospital por Sick Childkbm, 

Grbat Ormond Strbbt; 

AtrrHOR OP * Food and thb PRiNaPLBS op Dibtbtics.' 

Crown Svo. Ss. 6d. net. 

* It is difficult to praise this litde volume too highly. It deals with one of the 
most attractive and satisfactory subjects in medicine, the treatment of children's 
diseases ; the style is excellent, and the illustrations, which, with one or two 
exceptions, are taken from photographs of the author's cases, are nnusnally 
goocf.' — Nature. 

* Dr. Hutchison says in his preface that he does not intend to compete with 
the many excellent text-books on Children's Diseases, but we feel sure no student 
should be without this book, as, unable to spare time for the larger treatises, he 
will here learn many things which otherwise practice alone in after-life will teach 
him.'— Crffy'* Hospital GaxetU, 



Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books 13 

ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERY. 

By HERBERT HALL TURNER, D.Sc., F.R.S., 

Saviuan Pkofkssor or Astronomy in thb Univbrsity op Oxporo. 

Demy Svo. With Diagrams. los. 6d. net. 

In these lectures, written for delivery before the University of 
Chicago, Professor Turner traces the history of modem Astro- 
nomical Discovery, first showing by what an immense amount of 
labour and patience most discoveries have been made, and then 
describing in detail many of the more important ones. Among his 
topics are Uranus, Eros, and Neptune, Bradley's discoveries of the 
aberration of light and the nutation of the earth's axis, the photo- 
graphic measurement of the heavens, Schwabe's work on the sun- 
spot period, and Mr. Chandler's discoveries in connection with the 
Variation of Latitude. 

* A volnme of unusual interest. In its fascinating chapters the story of some 
half-dozen discoveries is developed in an exceedingly attractive manner.' — 
W$stminsUr GajutU, 



THE BECQUEREL RAYS AND THE 
PROPERTIES OF RADIUM. 

By the HON. R. J. STRUTT, 

Fbixow or Tjumity Collxgb, Cambudgb. 

Dmy 8v0. With Diagrams. 88. 6d. net* 

' The author possesses to a remarkable degree the faculty of stating difficult 
questions in a simple way, and of expressing tne answers in a language which is 
easily understood.' — Naturs, 

* The book may be confidently recommended to the general reader as a com- 
prehensible and attractive account of the latest developments of scientific thought 
on the structure of matter. ' — Camhridge Rtvuw, 



14 Mr. Edward Artwld^s List of New Books 

AN INTRODUCTION TO 

THE THEORY OF OPTICS. 

By ARTHUR SCHUSTER, Ph.D., Sc.D., F.R.S., 

pBoranoit Of Phvuci at thx UiovnsiTr or MAMCHBsrmB. 

Demy %vo. With mmtnms Diagrams. 15s. net 

This volume is intended to serve as an introduction to the study 
of the higher branches of the Theory of Light. In the first part of 
the book those portions of the subject are treated which are inde- 
pendent of any particular form of the undulatory theory. The author 
has endeavoured, by means of elementary mathematical reasoning, 
to give an accurate account of the study of vibrations, and has laid 
special stress on the theory of optical instruments. In the second 
part mathematical analysis is more freely used. The study of 
luminous vibrations is introduced through the treatment of waves 
propagated in elastic media, and only after the student has become 
familiar with the older forms of the elastic solid theory are the 
equations of the electro-magnetic theory adopted. The advantage 
of these equations, more especially in the treatment of double 
refraction, is explained, and the theory of ionic charges is adopted in 
the discussion of dispersion and metallic reflexion. 



THE ELECTRIC FURNACE. 

By HENRI MOISSAN, 

PsorBMOK Of ChBMISTKT AT THB SOKBONNB ; MbMBSB DB L'l WSIHt ' I. 

Authorized English Edition. 
Translated by A. T. de Mouilpied, M.Sc, Ph.D., 

ASSMTANT LbCTURBR I^ THB LiVBRFOOL UnIYBBSITV. 

Demy &vo. With numerous Illustratiaus. ids. 6d« net. 

This work embodies the original French Edition, together with 
the new matter incorporated in the German Edition. Moreover, 
Professor Moissan has written, specially for this edition, a chapter 
dealing with the most recent work. The book, while dealing largely 
with Professor Moissan's own researches, gives a general survey of 
the experimental work accomplished by means of the electric furnace 
up to the present time. The bearings of this work on technical pro- 
cesses are frequently discussed. 



Mr, Edward Arnold's List of New Books 15 

THE CHEMICAL SYNTHESIS OF 
VITAL PRODUCTS 

AND THE INTER-RELATIONS BETWEEN ORGANIC 

COMPOUNDS. 

By PROFESSOR RAPHAEL MELDOLA, F.R.S., 

OF THB ClTV AND GUILDS OP LONDON TbCHNICAL CoLLBGB, FiNSBUKT. 

Super Royal Svo. ais. net. 

The great achievements of modem Organic Chemistry in the 
domain of the synthesis or artificial production of compounds which 
are known to be formed as the result of the vital activities of plants 
and animals have not of late years been systematically recorded 

The object of the present book, upon which the author has been 
engaged for some years, is to set forth a statement as complete as 
possible of the present state of knowledge in this most interesting 
and important branch of science. The book will consist of two 
volumes, of which the first will be ready very shortly. The treat- 
ment is calculated to make the volume a work of reference which 
will be found indispensable for teachers, students, and investigators, 
whether in the fields of pure Chemistry, of Chemical Physiology, or 
of Chemical Technology. 



HUMAN EMBRYOLOGY AND 
MORPHOLOGY. 

By ARTHUR KEITH, M.D. Aberd., F.R.C.S. Eng., 

Lbctvrsr on Anatomy, London Hospital Mbdical Collbgb. 

A New Edition, Greatly enlarged. Demy Svo. las. 6d« net« 

The greater part of the work has been rewritten, many of the old 
illustrations have been replaced, and a large number of new figures 
introduced. The alterations have been rendered necessary owing to 
the advances which have been made in our knowledge of the early 
phases of development of the human embryo, of the implantation 
of the ovum and formation of the placenta, and of the development 
of the heart, lungs and nervous system. 



i6 Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books 

THE WALLET SERIES OF HANDBOOKS. 

Mr. Edward Arnold has pleasure in announcing the publication 
of a series of handbook^ ranging over a wide field, which are 
intended to be practical guides to beginners in the subjects with 
which they deal The first five volumes, of which descriptions are 
given below, may be r^arded as typical of the scope and treatment of 
the whole series, which is published at is. net per volume, paper, 
and 2s. net cloth. 

ON COLLECTING ENGRAVINGS, POTTERY, 
PORCELAIN, GLASS, AND SILVER. 

By ROBERT ELWARD. 

' Really very interesting and constitutes in brief an admirable historical and 
artistic sketch. It forms an excellent handbook for the guidance of amateurs.' — 
Scotsman. 

DRESS OUTFITS FOR ABROAD. 

By ARDERN HOLT. 

• To take more clothes than wanted is almost worse than not to have enough. 
... A perusal of this little volume, which is sensibly written, should enable any 
traveller, man or woman, to journey abroad suitably equipped.' — SkefiUd In- 

ELECTRIC LIGHTING FOR THE 
INEXPERIENCED. 

By HUBERT WALTER. 

' We really are delighted to meet with it ; common-sense, practical knowledge, 
and no small share of humour are marked characteristics of the work. ... As a 
guide to the plain man, who wants to know how to set about getting his house 
wired and fitted . . . this is the best work we have seen, and we have pleasure 
in recommending it as sxK}x.*--Elecificdl Review. 

HOCKEY AS A GAME FOR WOMEN. 

By EDITH THOMPSON. 

' Miss Thompson's book may be recommended to beginners as the very best 
that has yet appeared of its kind. It has the great merit of being quite practical 
throughout '-> Queen. 

WATER-COLOUR PAINTING. 

By MARY L. BREAKELL (• Pbnumbra *) 

' Miss Breakell's work is the product of knowledge and sympathy. She shows 
a thorough acquaintance with her subject, and is always able to illustrate her 
teaching by reference to the practice of great masters — past and present. The 
arrangement of the work is excellent.' — Manchester Courier . 



LONDON : EDWARD ARNOLD, 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, W. 



(«' 



FEB ' 1930