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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e5662c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #67568 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/67568) diff --git a/old/67568-0.txt b/old/67568-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 2b2a5c6..0000000 --- a/old/67568-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9625 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Peaks of Shala, by Rose Wilder Lane - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Peaks of Shala - -Author: Rose Wilder Lane - -Release Date: March 5, 2022 [eBook #67568] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at - https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images - made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEAKS OF SHALA *** - - - - - - Peaks of Shala - - _Rose Wilder Lane_ - - [Illustration: THE ROLLER THAT IS SMOOTHING THE NEW BOULEVARD IN - TIRANA] - - - - - Peaks of Shala - - By - Rose Wilder Lane - - _Profusely Illustrated by - Photographs taken on a - Special Expedition to - Albania_ - - [Illustration] - - Harper & Brothers Publishers - New York and London - MCMXXIII - - - - - PEAKS OF SHALA - - Copyright, 1923 - By Rose Wilder Lane - Printed in the U.S.A. - - D-X - - - - - To My Mother - Laura Ingalls Wilder - - - - - CONTENTS - - - CHAP. PAGE - - Introduction - - I. Shadows on Scutari plain--The voice in the Chafa Bishkasit--The - lands of the hidden tribes--A woman of Shala 1 - - II. Trails of the mountaineers--The man of Ipek kills his donkey--The - house of the Bishop of Pultit--Marriage by the Law - of Lec--The blood feud between Shala and Shoshi 15 - - III. The story of Pigeon and Little Eagle--The prehistoric city of - Pog, and the tale of the golden image--The gendarmes sing - of politics 33 - - IV. Welcome to the house of Marke Gjonni--We hear the voice - of an oread--A guardian spirit of the trails 54 - - V. The unearthly marriage of the man of Ipek--First night in a - native Albanian house 65 - - VI. The song of the flight of Marke Gjloshi--The hunted man of - Shoshi--The way through the Wood of the Ora--A woman - who believes in private property 87 - - VII. Can a man own a house?--We sing for our hosts of Pultit--Dawn - and a meeting on the trail--The village of Thethis - welcomes guests--Life or death for Perolli 111 - - VIII. In the house of Padre Marjan--Lulash gives a word of honor - and discusses marriage--The stolen daughter of Shala 131 - - IX. The chiefs of Thethis probate a will--We visit the house of - Lulash--A journey to upper Thethis 156 - - X. The water ora of Mali Sharit--The coming of the tribes to - Europe before the seas were born, and how the first Greeks - came in boats--Why Alexander the Great was born in - Emadhija, and of his journey to Macedonia--The sad - house of Koi Marku 171 - - XI. Mass in the church of Thethis--A mountain chief seeks a - wife--Down the valley of the Lumi Shala, while the drangojt - fight the dragon--How Rexh came to Scutari 203 - - XII. The song of the last great war with the dragon--An unexpected - bandit--How Ahmet, chief of the Mati, went by - night to Valona--The raising of Scanderbeg’s flag--An - Albanian love song 220 - - XIII. The backward trail--The man of Shala has a sense of humor--The - byraktor of Shoshi hears that the earth is round 243 - - XIV. A night by the byraktor’s fire--The byraktor calls a - council--Rexh to the rescue--The byraktor’s gendarme tears a - poncho--Moonlight on the Scutari plain 259 - - Postscript. In which is related what may be found behind - the curtain of silence which hides Albania, also how the - men of Dibra came with their rifles to Tirana, and how - Ahmet, the Hawk, chief of the Mati and present Prime - Minister of Albania, saved the Balkan equilibrium 285 - - - - - ILLUSTRATIONS - - - THE ROLLER THAT IS SMOOTHING THE NEW BOULEVARD - IN TIRANA _Frontispiece_ - - THE CHAFA BISHKASIT _Facing p._ 8 - - AN OLD SHEPHERD ” 38 - - RROK PEROLLI ” 58 - - AN ALBANIAN HODJI OF THE MATI ” 76 - - A GROUP OF MOUNTAIN FOLK ” 106 - - THE PLATEAU OF THETHIS ” 120 - - THE SHOPPING CENTER IN TIRANA ” 150 - - ONCE A DAY SHE COMES WALKING OVER FIFTEEN MILES - OF MOUNTAIN TRAILS ” 176 - - THE BANDIT WHOM WE MET IN THE CAVE ABOVE THE LUMI - SHALA AND WHO SANG US THE SONG OF DURGAT PASHA ” 224 - - THE SHALA VALLEYS ” 234 - - THE SHALA GUIDE ” 248 - - THE KIRI BRIDGE ” 278 - - A TOSHK ” 296 - - THE PAINTED MOSQUE IN TIRANA AND THE LOW WALL ON - WHICH, ALL DAY LONG, MEN SIT AND DISCUSS POLITICS ” 302 - - THE FIGHTING MEN FROM THE MOUNTAINS WHO CAME - INTO TIRANA TO DEFEND THE GOVERNMENT WHILE - ELEZ JUSUF WAS IN TIRANA ” 326 - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -I would not have this book considered too seriously. It is not an -attempt to untangle one thread in the Balkan snarl; it is not a -study of primitive peoples; it is not a contribution to the world’s -knowledge, and I hope no one will read it to improve the mind. It -should be read as the adventures in it were lived, with a gayly -inquiring mind, a taste for strange peoples and unknown trails, and a -delight in the unexpected. - -Here I give you only what I saw, felt, and most casually learned -while adventuring among the tribes in the interior northern Albanian -mountains. It is not even all of Albania, that little country too -small to be found on every map. It is simply a fragment of this large, -various, and romantic world, sent back by a traveler to those who stay -at home. - - R. W. L. - - - - -Annette Marquis accompanied the author on her trip through Albania and -it is to her skill that the photographs are due. - - - - -Peaks of Shala - - - - -CHAPTER I - - SHADOWS ON SCUTARI PLAIN--THE VOICE IN THE CHAFA BISHKASIT--THE LANDS - OF THE HIDDEN TRIBES--A WOMAN OF SHALA. - - -When the sun rose over the blue, snow-crested mountains that are the -southernmost slopes of the Dinaric Alps, it made, on the Scutari plain, -a pattern of our shadows; shadows of four small wooden-saddled ponies, -each led by a mountaineer with a rifle on his back, of two tall, ragged -gendarmes, and of a small trudging boy in a red Turkish fez--all moving -single file across an interminable plain shaggy with blossoming cactus. - -The wooden saddles were three-sided boxes made of peeled branches; -padded beneath with sheepskins, they fitted over the ponies’ backs. -On top of them our blankets were packed; saddlebags hung from the -four corners; enthroned in the midst we rode, comfortable as in an -easy-chair, sitting sidewise, our knees crossed, smoking cigarettes -and rocking gently with the ponies’ pace. And all this was to me an -enchantment suddenly appearing above the surface of well-arranged days, -as new South Sea islands rise before a mariner in hitherto familiar -waters. - -Three days earlier the mountains of Albania, indeed, Albania itself, -had been unknown to me, and disregarded. I had meant to go by Scutari -as a hurried walker brushes by the stranger on the street. Scutari -had been merely a place to pass on the way from Podgoritza to -Constantinople. And now, in this brightening dawn upon the Scutari -plain, I was riding to unknown adventure among the hidden tribes of -Dukaghini. - -This was the doing of Frances Hardy. That impetuous and efficient girl -had seized upon me and my small affairs as six months earlier she had -seized upon the refugee situation in Scutari, taking control, making -adjustment, creating a new pattern. A thin, athletic, sun-browned -girl, so full of energy that her very finger tips seemed to crackle -electrically--that was Frances Hardy. An Albaniac, I called her at our -first meeting, perceiving that one might disagree with her, argue with -her, even poke fun at her, and still be her friend. She had seized on -the word with delight--the perfect word, she said--and had returned at -once to her attack. - -“Constantinople’s nothing. Everyone goes to Constantinople. But if -you don’t see Albania, you’re wasting the chance of a lifetime. Up in -those mountains--right up there in those mountains, a day’s journey -from here--the people are living as they lived twenty centuries ago, -before the Greek or the Roman or the Slav was ever known. There are -prehistoric cities up there, old legends, songs, customs that no one -knows anything about. No stranger’s ever even seen them. Great Scott, -woman! And you sit there and talk about Constantinople!” - -“But if nobody goes there, how can we do so?” I said. - -“How does anyone ever do anything? Simply do it. Hire horses, get on -them, and go.” - -“Carrying our own guns?” - -“Oh, we’ll be safe enough! We may run into a blood feud or two, and get -our guides shot up, but nobody ever harms a woman. Nobody even shoots a -man in her presence.” - -“She means no Albanian ever does,” said Alex. - -“Bless ’em!” said Frances, and added, in Albanian, “Glory to their -feet!” - -I had the vaguest notion of Albania. I knew it was the smallest and -newest member of the League of Nations; I knew it was in the Balkan -wars, and I knew that recently the Albanians had driven from their -shores the Italian army of occupation. If some one, testing my -intelligence or psycho-analyzing, had said to me, “Albanians,” I should -have replied, “Bandits.” - -But Frances Hardy is irresistible in more ways than one. Therefore, -on this spring morning, while mists rose slowly from the blue waters -of Lake Scutari and the shadows of the mountains retreated from its -shores, we were riding northward toward the lands of the mountain -tribes. - -There were four of us, not counting our retainers. No, five, for at the -last moment small, chubby-cheeked Rexh,[1] in his red Mohammedan fez, -had gravely engaged Frances Hardy in argument as to the desirability -of his accompanying us. Twelve years old, a stanch Mohammedan, -self-adopted father of seven smaller refugee children for whom he -maintained a family life in a hut he had found, he had made all -arrangements for the trip without consulting us. He said that he had -never seen the mountains and that he thought it necessary to learn -about them as part of the education of a good Albanian. He pointed out -that he spoke excellent English, which he had learned in some three -months of association with Miss Hardy, and that he would be valuable -as an interpreter. It was true that we had one interpreter, but there -were six men and many saddlebags; he would keep an eye upon them all. -The care of his children he had arranged for; as to the Mohammedan -school in which he was a pupil, it taught him nothing; he would take -a vacation from it. He would be of use to us upon the trip; the trip -would be of value to him. Having said this, he gravely awaited Miss -Hardy’s decision. When she said, “All right, Rexh,” he permitted -himself to smile and looked over the packs, suggesting some changes -that would make us more comfortable. He now walked behind Miss Hardy’s -pony, a pistol and a knife in the belt of his American pajama coat. - -Our interpreter was also a friend; Rrok Perolli, secretary to the -Albanian Minister of the Interior. He was on a vacation, he said, -but as the northern interior tribes were antagonistic to the new -government, it might be as well not to mention who he was. We were -going very near to the Serbian lines; he had recently escaped from -sentence of death in a Serbian prison; there was a price on his head in -Serbia. It would be easy for one of the tribes to hand him across the -line. They could not kill him in our presence, of course, but, once out -of our sight, they could in ten minutes find Serbians who would do it -for them. - -He was a care-free young man, black haired, dark eyed, dressed in the -smartest of English tweed suits, with a businesslike revolver and -one of the handiest of daggers swinging in leather holsters at the -belt. His father was a merchant in Ipek, rich territory now held by -the Serbs; the son had been educated in London, Berlin, and Paris, -and spoke their languages as well as his own Albanian, also Serbian, -Italian, Turkish, and Greek. He enlivened the morning with songs in -all these languages, illustrating a running discussion of comparative -music. Swaying gently on his pony’s back, he sniffed the sweet air, -cool from the waters of Lake Scutari; he gazed cheerfully at the blue -hills beyond the lake, held by the Serbian armies; he was altogether -the happy office man off for a lazy vacation. Just the same, I wondered -a bit, taking everything into consideration. It cannot be said that I -was entirely unprepared for the interesting developments before us. - -Fourth in our party was Alex. Sunshiny hair, softly fluffed; wide blue -eyes; and that complexion of pink and white, like roses painted on a -china plate, that drives a dagger of envy into every feminine heart -and makes the fortunes of cosmetic makers. She wore a purple tam, -a leaf-brown sweater with a purple tie, and the trimmest of riding -trousers; she looked like a magazine cover. She was in reality the -most hard-headed, soberly sensible of girls; to her finger tips an -anti-Potterite. She and Frances were going into the mountains to decide -where to establish three schools. They had themselves collected in -America the money for them, and this was their vacation from Red Cross -work. - -At about noon we left the plain, and almost at once our ponies began -to stand up like pet dogs begging for cake, their hind legs supporting -their weight while front hoofs pawed for foothold above on the -stairlike, rocky trail. An Albanian held each of us tightly by elbow -or knee, ready to save us from squashy death if the pony lost its -balance, and as the little animals strained, clambered, gathered their -feet together for desperate leaps, a sudden long high wail broke forth -ahead. The two gendarmes were singing. - -Walking easily up a trail that I could have overcome only on hands -and knees, carrying their rifles and twenty pounds of canned goods on -their backs, they were merrily singing. Thumbs pressed tightly against -their ears, to prevent the air pressure of their lungs from bursting -ear drums, they sent far over the crags the long, shrill, high notes, -like nothing human I had ever heard. Frances Hardy, lying almost -perpendicular along her pony’s back, her chin on what would have been -the saddle pommel had there been one, looked downward at me, similarly -extended. - -“They’re making a song to the Chafa Bishkasit, the Road of the -Mountaineers,” she said. “That’s the Chafa up there. We’re going over -it to-day, and then we’ll be in the mountains. Aren’t you happy?” - -I could find no word emphatic enough for reply as I gazed up at the -tiny notch in a wave of snow-crest that curled against the sky five -thousand feet above us. - -The sun swung to its highest and sank again while we climbed. It was -low in the sky--it seemed on a level with us--when we made the last -interminable hundred yards up into the Chafa Bishkasit. We were in the -sky; there is no other way to say it, and no way in which to describe -that sensation of infinite airiness. Forty miles behind and below us -Lake Scutari lay flat, like a pool of mercury on a gray-brown floor. At -each side of our little gay-colored cavalcade a gray cliff rose perhaps -two hundred feet, too sheer to hold the snow that thickly crusted its -top. These cliffs were the posts of a gateway through which we looked -into the country of the hidden tribes. - -I had never seen or dreamed such mountains. Like thin, sharp rocks -stood on edge, they covered hundreds of miles with every variation of -light and shadow, and we looked across their tops to a far-away wave of -snow that broke high against the sky. The depths between the mountains -were hazy blue; out of the blueness sharp cliffs and huge flat slopes -of rock thrust upward, streaked with the rose and purple and Chinese -green of decomposing shale, and from their tops a thousand streams -poured downward, threading them with silver white. A low, continuous -murmur rose to us--the sound of innumerable waterfalls, softened by -immeasurable distances. - -Suddenly, clear and very far and thin, a call came out of the spaces. -It was like a fife, and yet not like it. Instantly our guides were -still, attentive. A moment of silence, and farther and thinner, -hardly to be heard above the beating of blood in our ears, there was -an answer. Then the first note began again and went on and on; there -seemed to be a pattern to it, not a tune--words? I looked at the others. - -Rrok Perolli was motionless, a cigarette between his lips, his hand -arrested in the act of striking a match. Little Rexh, his round face -intent beneath the red fez, his mouth slightly open, his eyes wide and -blank, was an image of concentrated listening. The two gendarmes stood -alert, like dogs straining at a leash, scenting something. Our four -guides, in their long white trousers, black jackets, colored turbans -and sashes, were like men frozen in attitudes of interrupted talk. - -[Illustration: THE CHAFA BISHKASIT - -The “Road of the Mountaineer”--the gateway to the northern lands.] - -The voice ceased. The other one came back like an echo, so faint I -thought I imagined it. Then--Bang! Bang! Bang! The very mountains -lifted up their voices and roared. It was like the cataclysm at the -end of the world; mountain striking against mountain, the air smashed -like glass and falling, clattering. Rrok Perolli lighted his cigarette. -The others shifted their rifles, tightened their sashes, said “Hite!” -to the horses, and we started on. All around us the echoes were still -contending, striking and breaking against one another like ore in a -mill. - -“What was it?” I cried to Perolli, whose horse was slipping down the -trail ahead, kept from going headlong by its owner, who held it by the -tail, bracing his bare feet on every foothold. - -“Telephoning,” said Perolli. “It’s the way they send news through the -mountains. A man on one of the peaks calls, and another one somewhere -hears him and answers. You’ve seen ’em hold their ears and throw their -voices. That’s it. And three shots to show that the talk’s ended.” - -“What was he saying?” - -“Something about Shala. Shala and Shoshi are in blood, evidently.” - -“Do we go through those tribes?” - -My horse slipped just then and a man snatched me from the saddle. The -horse, held by the tail, floundered on the trail, striking sparks from -his hoofs, shod with solid thin plates of steel; the packs went over -his head. My man set me on a shoulder-high rock and dashed to aid the -rescue. It looked for a moment as though they would all go down upon -Perolli below, but the horse got his footing and stood trembling, his -head covered with streaming blankets. - -I said then that I would walk, but it was not walking. It was jumping, -scrambling, dropping. Those mountains were evidently created to be -looked at, not to be walked upon. Bathed in perspiration, I stopped -from time to time to eat a bit of snow, and twelve-year-old Rexh looked -at me with compassion. He had walked nearly twenty miles that day and -was still gay and fresh; the men were still singing. - -“In a minute, Mrs. Lane, we will come to a resting place,” the pitying -Rexh encouraged me, and in perhaps half an hour my trembling legs -brought me around a bowlder to see the two gendarmes stopped in the -trail, crossing themselves. A wooden cross, blackened by storms and -years, leaned forward above them, supported by a pile of stones on a -small grassy knoll. Alex and Frances dropped from their ponies to lie -panting beside me on the grass, while the guides, smiling at our whim, -stopped also. Each of them crossed himself before sitting down, for the -mountain tribes have been Catholic almost ever since St. Paul preached -in the Balkans, and missionary priests have put the cross at each -resting place on the trails, to bring thoughts of God to weary men. - -Below our feet the cliffs fell away, down into blue haze; above us -were forested slopes, and above them sheer, great cliffs throwing -shadows across a dozen valleys. Our small grassy knoll was white with -daisies and with fallen petals from a blossoming apple tree that -arched above the cross. On it our men lay at ease, beautiful, graceful -animals, their rifles swung from their shoulders and laid ready to -their hands. - -“Why are Shala and Shoshi in blood?” Frances asked, casually, biting -idly at the stem of a daisy. Perolli did not know; he had gathered only -the fact that there was a feud. - -“Do we go through both tribes?” I wanted to know. - -“Through Shala. Shoshi’s farther down the river. We’ll go around it.” - -“Are our men Shala or Shoshi?” - -Perolli glanced at them. “Shala, by the pattern of the braiding on -their trousers. So we won’t have any troub----Hello! That’s a Shoshi -man coming up the trail, now.” - -It was Alex who acted quickest. She was sitting on a rock beside me, -her arms clasped about her knees; she rose instantly and, flinging out -a hand in the gesture of greeting, cried in her most feminine voice -those Albanian words that sound like, “Tune yet yetta!” and mean, “May -you live long!” - -The Shoshi man’s hand was on his rifle, but his step had not faltered. -He replied, coming on steadily, and the appropriateness of the greeting -struck me, for if it had not been uttered by a woman he would at that -moment have been dead. Our Shala men, with perfect courtesy, went -through the formalities of greeting on the trail, and this is the form, -translated to me by Rexh: - -“Long life to you!” - -“And to you, long life!” - -“How could you?” meaning, “How could you get here?” - -“Slowly, slowly, little by little.” - -No one who has ever seen those trails can doubt it. - -The Shoshi man sat down, our men offered him cigarettes, and up the -trail came a woman of Shoshi. She wore a tight, bell-shaped skirt of -horizontal black and white stripes, made of cloth heavier and thicker -than felt, the twelve-inch-wide marriage belt of heavy leather studded -with pounds of nails, and a jacket covered with three-inch-thick -fringe. Two heavy braids of black hair hung forward on her breasts, a -colored handkerchief was bound around her head, and her face, smoothly -weather browned, large eyed, delicately shaped, was the most beautiful -that I had ever seen. On her back, held by woven woolen straps that -crossed between her breasts, was a cradle tightly covered by a thick -blanket; in one hand she held a bunch of raw wool, and from the other -dangled a whirling spindle. Her feet were bare, and as she came up that -trail which had exhausted me she sang softly to herself, dexterously -spinning thread from the bunch of wool. - -Cheremi, our gayer gendarme, rose quickly and went to meet her. He -took her by the hand and laid his cheek caressingly against hers. He -was like a child, Cheremi, with his happy face, deep wrinkled with -laughter, the mischievous twinkle in his eyes, his bursts of wit and -song. But he looked all of his forty years as he gazed tenderly at the -woman of Shoshi. - -“She is a woman of my people,” he said, leading her gallantly to us. - -“Are you a woman?” said Frances Hardy, correctly, in Albanian. - -“I am born of Shala, married in Shoshi,” she answered. Her voice was -soft, and her hands and feet would have been madness to a sculptor. In -any Paris restaurant those slender fingers, almond nails, and delicate -wrists, aristocratic, well bred, would have been a sensation. - -We admired the baby, excavating it from five folds of blankets to do -so. How they live beneath the smothering I do not know; a Western -baby would die in three hours. We asked the mother how old she was. -Eighteen, she said, and she had been married three years. - -“And have you been home since?” - -“Ah no,” she said, with a wistful smile. - -“Born in Shala,” said Cheremi. “But she was married in Shoshi, and in -Shoshi she will die.” - -“I wonder what she thinks of us,” I said, for, though she must have -felt great curiosity about these strange beings, dropped apparently -from the sky upon her well-known trails, she did not reveal it by the -flicker of an eyelash, and she asked no questions. It was we who were -so rude. - -“How old do you think we are?” Frances asked her. She looked at us -candidly beneath her long lashes. - -“How can I say?” she answered. “I cannot read or write; I am stupid; I -gather wood.” - -The Shoshi man now rose, slinging his rifle back on his shoulder, and -said farewell. “Go on a smooth trail,” said our men, his blood enemies, -who must have killed him at sight if no woman had been there, and he -went on up the trail without turning his head, the woman following him. - -“Well, we must be getting on,” said Perolli. “We’ve a long way to go, -and we ought to get in before dark.” And he showed us, far away across -the darkening valley, the white dot that was the priest’s house where -we were to spend the night. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] Rexh--pronounced Redge. - - - - -CHAPTER II - - TRAILS OF THE MOUNTAINEERS--THE MAN OF IPEK KILLS HIS DONKEY--THE - HOUSE OF THE BISHOP OF PULTIT--MARRIAGE BY THE LAW OF LEC--THE BLOOD - FEUD BETWEEN SHALA AND SHOSHI. - - -Darkness was creeping up the slopes like a rising flood from the -valleys, and it had engulfed the trails long before we made the -descent into the village of Gjoanni, which I may as well say at once -is pronounced Zhwanee. Not that we were thinking about such far-away -things as written words. Everything that makes our ordinary lives was -already as far from us as another planet. It was as though we had -dropped through a hole in time and fallen into the days when men were -wild creatures in the forests. - -One reads in books of dizzying trails twelve inches wide, on which -travelers cling precariously between the sky and sudden death. Long -before dense darkness had risen to meet the shadow of the mountain -wall between us and the rest of the world we would have welcomed a -twelve-inch trail as though it were the Champs-Elysées. We were in a -land where a twelve-inch trail is to the people what the Twentieth -Century Limited is to America. - -My memories become incoherent here. I recall a thousand-foot slide of -decomposed shale, the color of an American Beauty rose. The flakes of -it were as large as a thumb-nail, and the mass of them tilted at surely -thirty-five degrees, sloping to a sheer cliff that dropped I cannot -say how far. The stone houses looked like children’s blocks at the -bottom of it. Across this we made our way on foot, and at every step -a considerable quantity of the shale sped away beneath the pressure -and plumped over the edge. The fourth time I slipped I remained on my -hands and knees; it seemed simpler. And for something like a century I -had the sensation a squirrel must have in a revolving cage--steadily -clawing upward and making no progress in that direction. But sidewise, -crablike, I did eventually come out on the other side and into the -waterfall. - -The waterfall was called a river. It was about two thousand feet long, -and stood on end. About every three feet it struck a bowlder as large -as an office desk, and leaped into the air until it hit the next one. -The shale was wet with spray for several yards. The water between three -bowlders, where we crossed, was a little more than knee deep, and there -was nothing whatever leisurely about its progress. I try to be calm -about it; I tried to be calm then. - -The horses went across first, four men to each horse. One gripped -a rope tied about its neck, one firmly held the tail, two stood -downstream and leaned their weight against the saddle. Then the men -carried across the packs and their trousers, which they had taken off -so that they should not get wet. Then they quite simply picked us up, -slung us across their shoulders, and took us over. - -It is a strange sensation, being a bag of meal hanging over a muscular -back, clutched firmly around the knees, green water roaring at toes -and chin, white spray choking and blinding you, and a thousand feet -of hungry bowlders waiting below for your bones. In the middle my man -stopped, braced himself, and shifted me to his other shoulder. Then he -shouted, and another man came out above us and held his free hand to -steady him through the worst of the current. - -After we were all over, the men clasped their ears, sent an exuberant -call out through the twilight, were answered from the far distances, -fired all their guns several times in joyous unison, and then, slinging -them back on their shoulders, went on blithely. - -They went on blithely into such a rain as I had never supposed could -be. Around the shoulder of the mountain we walked into it, as one -walks into a shower bath--scattering drops on the fringes of it so -few that they did not break the shock of its impact. Water fell upon -us suddenly; our piteous gasps and small cries of protesting misery -were muffled by the sound of its pouring on the rocks. In an instant -rivulets of chilly water were wandering over shrinking skin from soggy -mufflers to filling shoes, and there was no longer gayety in the world. -Even the Albanians were gloomy, occupied with the task of keeping -the slipping horses on the trail. In a few moments we had left their -struggles behind us. - -We climbed doggedly, in silence. Only the swishing of the relentless -rain and the clicking of our staffs on the rocks made little noises -against the distant roaring of waterfalls. By some trick of light -reflected from peak or cloud, the trail and the valley below it were -visible in a green-gray ghost of daylight, which made us seem unreal -even to ourselves. And we climbed, interminably, forever, putting one -foot before the other with the patient deep attentiveness of trudging -animals, while rain dripped unheeded from forehead to cheek to chin. -We climbed, absorbed in detail of slippery shale and stubborn bowlder, -till Perolli’s exclamation shocked us as though a rock had spoken. - -We must wait for our men, he said, and we dropped where we stood and -sat soddenly. To light a cigarette was as impossible to us in that rain -as to a swimmer under water. We sat and looked at one another, and -laughed aloud, and were silent again. The horses came past us at last, -each held by halter and by tail, and slowly they struggled over the -crest of the mountain and disappeared. We should go on, Perolli said, -and we murmured assent, but still we sat. When a stranger appeared on -the trail against the gray sky we moved only our eyes to look at him. - -He was a young man, dark eyed and handsome, but haggard. Besides -the rifle on his back was strapped a small baby. The little -head, uncovered, streaming with water, appeared above the thick -woolen-fringed collar of the man’s black jacket. The baby’s mouth was -open, drawn into a square of misery, but no sound came from it. The -man’s jacket had been darned and darned again, till no thread of the -original weaving was visible; his white homespun woolen trousers, -hung low on the hips, were worn so thin that the darns no longer held -together, and tatters fell around his bare ankles, above feet wrapped -in rags. The remnants of black braiding on his trousers were of a -pattern I had not seen before; I could not guess his tribe. Behind him -a shapeless bundle of household goods moved slowly on the tiny hoofs of -a donkey, and the little beast’s drooping ears and nose almost touched -the trail. - -“Long may you live!” And when he had returned the greeting we continued -the courteous formula. “How could you get here?” - -“Slowly, slowly, little by little.” - -“Are you a man?” - -“I am a man of Kossova, of the district of Ipek,” he answered, and it -was not necessary to say more, for the Serbs hold Ipek. The memory of -their taking it moved like a darkening shadow over his face, and it is -best to ignore such memories. - -Yet there was a little hope in his vague voice. He was going, he said, -in search of a farm on which he could live. He had tried to live in -the Shala country, but it was impossible there. There was too little -land for the tribe of Shala, and the making of land is slow among -mountains where stone walls must be built to catch the little earth -that remains when rain melts limestone. He had heard that in the valley -of Scutari there was soil, as there had been in Kossova, and his voice -sank into silence as though it were a burden too heavy to lift. - -But he tried to make the baby smile for the American _zonyas_. The -baby, too exhausted to cry any longer, was equally unable to smile, -and this last baffled effort suddenly became rage. It was only a twist -of the haggard face, an explosion in the depths of the man’s spirit, -and, like an explosion, it was over before we saw it, leaving on our -eyeballs a picture of something that no longer existed. - -“He has a beautiful smile,” the father said, apologetically, “very -beautiful,” and he took up his rifle. - -“Long may you live,” we said. “Go on a smooth trail.” - -In a moment the rain had blurred the figures of the man and the tiny -donkey, moving slowly down the mountain side. - -We wiped the streaming wet from our faces with water-withered hands, -picked up our staffs, and drove our bodies again to their task of -climbing. The burden of the world’s helplessness in misery was heavier -on our spirits than the weight of water-soaked woolen on exhausted -muscles. Why should man toil over such heart-breaking trails, endure -and struggle through such sufferings, only to keep alight a little -fire of life, when life means only suffering and painful effort? The -rifle-shot which interrupted the question seemed an answer to it. We -stopped, and the same thought was in all our eyes while we waited for -the echoes of the shot to roll away like thunder among the cliffs. - -Then Cheremi pressed his thumbs tightly against his ears and sent -down the trail the wild high note of the “telephone call.” He waited, -repeated it, repeated it once more. An answer came. - -The man of Ipek had killed his donkey. It had slipped from the trail; -it would not try to get up. And there on the mountain side, five hours -from shelter, with night upon them, he had killed it. - -“I wish you blind!” Cheremi called through the rain, and fired his -rifle to end the talk. - -We must help the man, we said. We must do something. But Cheremi and -Perolli, in whom also weariness had become anger, went on over the -ridge of the mountain, and we followed them. It was true; what could we -do? We could not carry the donkey’s pack, the only goods left to the -man of Ipek. - -In half an hour we met a beautiful girl. Her hazel eyes and chestnut -hair shone through the grayness of the rain, a wide silver-studded -marriage belt held the dripping tatters of a Shala dress about her -slender body, and her ankles were white above delicate feet bruised by -the trails. She drove before her six starveling goats that constantly -tried to evade her; they were traveling strange trails and wanted to -turn homeward. - -“Long may you live!” she murmured, anxiously urging them forward with -her staff, while we climbed the bowlders above the trail to let them -pass. Cheremi bent to take her hand and lay his cheek against hers, and -for an instant there was a beautiful smile on her lovely troubled face. -When she was gone we continued to sit, gazing into the valley. Far -below us, below jagged cliffs as vague as clouds, below tortured trees -from which every bough had been hacked to feed hungry flocks, below -slopes of bowlders which ran down into darkness, lights were already -gleaming. A thousand feet above them on the other side of the valley -the white speck of the priest’s house promised us rest and warmth. - -“But we must wait here,” said Perolli, surprised by our impatience. -“The woman is the wife of the man of Ipek, and she is a Shala woman. He -has killed his donkey; it may be that he is mad and will kill her, too.” - -Cheremi’s childlike smile was gone. His rifle lay across his knees, his -profile was set and stern, cruel. He was a man of Shala, and, though -he had never before seen this woman, he would avenge her if there were -need for vengeance, for she had been born in his tribe. So we waited -for the crash of a second shot. But only the rushing sound of the -waterfalls came up to us from the darkening valleys. - -With staffs and aching feet we found the trail when we went onward. -Unseen bowlders bruised our knees, unseen rocks rolled when we stepped -on them. We went for two hours down a slide of shale, slipping at every -step and clutching the empty darkness. At its bottom we came to wide -rapids, and this time the men put us on the little horses, and the -horses crossed by jumping from bowlder to bowlder; this seemed cruelty -to animals, but we were too weary to protest, and already we had become -Albanian in one thing--an absolute indifference to danger. - -When, an hour later, one of my pony’s hind legs went over the edge of a -crumbling trail and only my man’s grip on his tail kept him from quite -going over, the incident interrupted for only a second my enjoyment of -the wild, weird scene; a hundred miles of mountain tops fighting with -their shadows the light of the moon. - -At ten o’clock we fell from our saddles in the walled courtyard of -a ghostly white house, and a tall figure in the hooded robe of a -Franciscan father lighted us across it with a flaming pine torch. - -We really were in the Middle Ages, or in some century perhaps even -earlier. An hour after our greeting by the Bishop of Pultit we had -forgotten even to realize it; so adaptable are human beings that we -quite forgot that modern civilization had ever been. - -The hooded priest lighted us with his torch up a flight of worn stone -stairs and into a low, beamed room on the second floor of the bishop’s -house. There the bishop, rising from a wooden bench, welcomed us in -Albanian and Latin. He wore a rough, homespun woolen robe; his bare -feet were in wooden sandals; a rosary of wooden beads hung on his -chest. He was perhaps fifty, rotund, jovial, dignified. Perolli bent -one knee and kissed the episcopal hand; little Mohammedan Rexh, in his -red fez, gravely saluted; Cheremi, the ragged gendarme, put his rifle -in a corner and knelt for the bishop’s blessing. - -We sat, Alex, Frances, and I, in a row on a wooden bench in the chilly -bare room. A servant came in, barearmed, barelegged, clad in one piece -of brown cloth that reached his knees, and the bishop gave orders; the -servant returned with a hammered copper tray holding an earthen cup and -a wooden bottle of rakejia. Now rakejia is a cousin to vodka and one -of the strongest drinks that ever turned the imbiber’s blood to liquid -fire. We girls had debated about it; what should we do when courtesy -required us to drink it? We had decided that Perolli should explain -that we came from America and that in our tribe it was forbidden to -drink intoxicants. But after sixteen hours of travel in the Albanian -mountains we did not hesitate. One by one we took the cup that the -servant filled, and drained it dry. From that time onward we drank the -stuff like water, and it had no visible effect upon us, though in -a Paris restaurant one glass of mild wine will make me realize that -a second would be unwise. I don’t explain this, I simply note the -fact, and it gives me a different point of view on the chronicles of -hard-drinking past centuries. - -We sat there, talking, for an hour or more. The bishop said that he -had never been out of the mountains except for a trip long ago to the -Vatican in Rome; he had been there a year, and had conversed with his -brother priests in Latin. Then he had come back to the mountains and -had lived there ever since. His diocese included all the northern -tribes, and he visited them from time to time, riding wherever a donkey -could carry him, and walking where it could not. Ten years earlier he -had had another foreign visitor, a Miss Durham of England; he had heard -that she later wrote a book in which she told about the visit, and if -he could have afforded it he would have liked to send for that book. - -No, the Church had not very greatly altered the ancient customs of the -people. They were all good Catholics, and attended mass. But they still -buried the dead uncoffined, with three apples on the breast, and when -they put a stone or a wooden slab above the grave they often carved on -it, not only the cross, but also the sun. One would note, too, that at -the rising and setting of the sun they made the sign of the cross to it. - -He was not too intolerant of these things. After all, beyond the sun -was always the good God. It was not strange that what I had heard of -the marriage customs had baffled me, he said; I should not look for -traces of marriage by capture or marriage by purchase; the basis of the -tribal ceremonies is fire worship. - -On the day of the wedding the bride, elaborately dressed, is carried, -screaming and struggling, from her father’s house, and by her brothers -is delivered to the husband’s family at a place midway between the -lands of the two tribes. Since each tribe is technically a large -family, claiming a common prehistoric ancestor, it is forbidden to -marry within the tribe. The bride carries with her from her home -one invariable gift--a pair of fire tongs. When she arrives at her -husband’s house she takes a humble place in the corner, standing, her -hands folded on her breast, her eyes downcast, and for three days and -nights she is required to remain in that position, without lifting her -eyes, without moving, and without eating or drinking. - -“Though I believe,” said the bishop, smiling, “that she takes the -precaution of hiding some food and drink in her garments, and no doubt -the mother-in-law sees that she is allowed to rest a little while -the household is asleep.” And he explained that this custom remains -from the old days when the father of each house was also the priestly -guardian of the fire, and anyone coming to ask for a light from it -stood reverently in that position, silent, before the hearth, until the -father priest gave it to him. The bride, newcomer in the family, is a -suppliant for the gift of fire, of life, of the Mystery that continues -the race. - -On the third day she puts on the heavy belt that means she is a wife, -and thereafter she goes about the household, obeying the commands of -the elders, always standing until they tell her to sit, and for six -months not speaking unless they address her. And it is her duty to care -for the fire, and with her fire tongs to light the cigarettes smoked by -any of the family, or by their guests. Sometime, when it is convenient, -she and her husband will go to the church and be married by the priest. -Usually she has not seen her husband until she comes to his house, -since she is of another tribe and the marriage is arranged by the -families. - -“We have tried to prevent the betrothing of children before they are -born,” said the bishop, smiling ruefully, “and in many centuries we -have had some effect. Children now are usually not betrothed until -they are two or three years old. Even that we combat, of course, -yet I cannot say that the custom makes much unhappiness. Husbands -and wives are good comrades; they almost never quarrel and they are -devoted to their children. But you will see all that for yourself. Yet -occasionally there is something like this Shala-Shoshi affair, which -I fear will lead to much bloodshed. But the dinner is ready and my -servant will show you your room and bring water to wash your hands.” - -The servant led us to the bishop’s own bedroom, furnished by a -mattress laid on a raised platform of boards. Our saddlebags and -blankets had been piled on the rough wooden floor, and Rexh held the -torch while the bishop’s servant poured cold water from a wooden bucket -over our hands. Then he offered us a beautifully hand-woven towel of -red-and-white striped linen, and when we had dried our hands he led -us down a stone stairway, through a kitchen crowded with villagers, -where an old woman tended cooking pots over a fire built on the earthen -floor, and into the dining room. - -There was a long, rude table covered with hand-woven linen, rough -benches on each side of it. The bishop sat at its head, on a stool, and -served the soup. The Franciscan brother and a meek little priest in -black sat humbly near the foot of the table, and did not speak. There -was nothing in the stone-floored, plaster-walled room except the table, -the benches, and a rain-stained photograph on the discolored wall--a -picture of a gathering of Albanian priests, taken many years ago in -Tirana. - -“The feud between Shala and Shoshi looks very bad,” said the bishop. “I -fear there will be many deaths. We do what we can to prevent it, all -the authority of the Church is used against these feuds, but----” He -shrugged his shoulders. “It is their way of enforcing their law, the -Law of Lec, which has come down to them from prehistoric times. And the -Albanians are very tenacious of their own customs.” - -He filled our glasses with red wine. “You must not mistake my people,” -he said. “The blood feud is bad, very bad, but it is their only way of -enforcing laws, which are, in general, admirable. - -“The blood feud is not a lawless thing, as strangers sometimes think. -Nor has it anything to do with personal strife or hate. It is a form -of capital punishment, such as all nations have, and it is governed by -most strict laws. - -“You must remember that in these mountains we have never been conquered -by foreign governments. The Roman Empire claimed to have overpowered -Albania, it is true, as later the Turks did, but neither Rome nor -Constantinople was able to send its government into these mountains. -The people live as they did before the days of Greece, except for the -influence of the Church. It is a simple, communistic society, without -private property or any organized government. The only law is the -moral law, enforced by tradition, by custom, and by common consent. -The father of the family becomes the chief of the tribe, but he has no -power that conflicts with the moral law, the ancient Law of Lec. There -is a tradition that all this group of tribes was once, long ago, given -this moral law by a man named Lec, but that is doubtless a myth added -to through the ages. - -“This Law of Lec is based on personal honor, which is also the honor of -the tribe. A man or a tribe must punish an insult to honor by killing -the man who has given it. Thus, if a member of a tribe is killed -unjustly by a man of another tribe; if a woman is stolen or injured or -affronted; if any part of the tribal property is stolen; if a man or a -tribe fails to keep a _besa_ (a word of honor) in a matter of land or -war or marriage or irrigation--you will find excellent and admirable -irrigation systems here--then the crime is punished by death. But if -these crimes are committed against a member of the same tribe, then the -house of the guilty man is burned, and he is cast off by the tribe and -must go into the wilderness and live alone. - -“You will see this law working out in the case of Shala and Shoshi. -Last week a Shala man crossing the lands of Shoshi--the two tribes -having some time ago sworn a _besa_ that they would keep the peace -between them--saw a woman of Shoshi on the trail. He said to himself -that he would like that woman for his son, who was unmarried, though -of marriageable age, because his betrothed had died in childhood. So -the man of Shala took the woman of Shoshi to his house for his son, and -there she is now. - -“Apparently,” said the bishop, dryly, “she did not make any outcry, -for her husband was in their house only a few yards away, and it is -a question whether she and the son had not previously arranged the -abduction. However, the husband was, of course, obliged to avenge his -honor, and he went at once to the heights above Shala and shot the -son. This was, according to the Law, an unjustifiable murder, since -he should have killed the father who was the abductor. Therefore the -father waited on the trail above Shoshi and shot the husband. - -“It should have stopped there, but Shoshi’s honor is involved as long -as a woman of the tribe is held unlawfully in the hands of Shala. So -a hot-tempered Shoshi man has shot a man of Shala and it has become a -blood feud between the two tribes. As the woman was born in Pultit, -some say that Pultit’s honor is also involved. So you see that the -affair becomes complicated; I have been told by wise men that no less -than sixteen deaths will wipe out the insults on both sides. You -perhaps heard telephoning about it as you came in? The mountain sides -have been ringing with it. But what can one do? Excommunication, of -course. At every mass I tell my people that the anger of the Church -will descend on all who take part in the killings, but the Law of Lec -holds them, and it is, after all, their only civil law.” - -It took time to tell this, what with filling the glasses, serving the -food platters of delicious stewed rabbit and bowls of macaroni, a dish -the bishop had grown fond of in Rome--and then there were the cups of -syrupy Turkish coffee to be ceremoniously served and drunk, and for -hours, struggling with an agony of sleepiness, we had implored Perolli -in English to make our excuses and let us go to bed, he refusing -sternly, since it is the most terrible breach of mountain hospitality -for a guest to grow sleepy as early as midnight. But at one o’clock, -seeing Alex’s desperate eyes stony with the effort to keep them open, -and myself beholding at times two bishops, very small and far away, and -at times one, who loomed like a mountain, I managed in Latin to suggest -that we were tired. We had, I said--calling upon vagrant memories of -Cæsar and using both hands to illustrate--been walking and riding over -the trails since five the previous morning. The bishop was interested, -and asked my opinion of the mountains in comparison with those of -Switzerland and of the United States, and I hope I replied coherently. - -The rest I do not remember. Perolli says that I sat up straight, and -talked, though sometimes rather strangely. Frances and Alex were dumb, -he says, but smiled as though they were enjoying the conversation. How -was he to know that we were really tired? He thought we had been joking -about it. - - - - -CHAPTER III - - THE STORY OF PIGEON AND LITTLE EAGLE--THE PREHISTORIC CITY OF POG, AND - THE TALE OF THE GOLDEN IMAGE--THE GENDARMES SING OF POLITICS. - - -I came back to full consciousness for an instant, stumbling up the -stairs, and gathered that we were going to bed. By the torchlight my -wrist watch said a quarter past two. Frances and Alex do not remember -even that. Rexh awakened us at eight by shaking us, and we were rolled -in blankets on the floor of the bishop’s room. Outside was the pouring -sound of a steady rain. - -As soon as we were fully roused the bishop’s servant brought us tiny -cups of Turkish coffee. That was breakfast. Afterward we rose with -groans, opened the heavy wooden shutters of the window space, and -looked out. Through a rain that poured almost as solidly as a waterfall -we saw a low-walled courtyard and a schoolhouse. - -Beyond the schoolhouse there lay some fifty miles of the wildest -beautiful mountain country--blue peaks, fifteen-hundred-foot slanting -rocks, soft pink and rose and purple and green; brighter green masses -of young foliage in the valleys, bronze-brown and bright-brown bare -forests above them, and here and there snow drifts flung up among -smoky-gray clouds. Thirty-two waterfalls I counted from that window, -veining the mountains with wandering streaks of silver. But our gaze -came back and fastened upon the school. - -“I didn’t know they had one in the mountains!” exclaimed Alex, thinking -of her Mountain School Fund. “I thought our school at Thethis would be -the first one!” - -“Padre Marjan certainly said so when he walked down to ask us for it,” -said Frances. - -“Perhaps this isn’t a school,” said I. Though it looked like one, the -little square stone house through whose open doorway we saw rows of -benches, and boys sitting on them, barefooted, wearing the long, tight, -white trousers braided with black that hang low on the hip bones, the -gorgeous sashes, and the short black jackets thick with fringe, that -were white centuries ago, but were changed to mourning when Scanderbeg -died for Albanian liberty. - -It was a school. The pale, meek priest in black, who is the bishop’s -ecclesiastical household, showed it to us with pride; he is the -teacher. The Turks and the Austrians had blocked all attempts to bring -schools into the mountains, he said, and the people, not knowing -that schools existed, were naturally not eager to have them. But now -the Land of the Eagle was said to be free, after so many centuries -of Turkish rule in the valleys, and refugee children who had fled -before the Serbs were coming back to their tribes and telling about -the American school in Scutari, so that all the people wanted their -children to learn to read and write. The chiefs themselves, hearing -that there was a Tirana government, and not being able to write or -read letters about it, or to learn from newspapers (oh, simple-minded, -mediæval people!) the truth about European politics, saw what education -meant. - -The people had taken rocks from the mountains and made the schoolhouse. -They had cut precious trees and made the benches and the desks. They -had made a slate of a slab of the native rock, set in a rough wooden -frame; they wrote upon it with softer rocks. From Italy, across -the Adriatic to Durazzo, up to Tirana, to Scutari, and into the -mountains--a two weeks’ journey by donkey and river ferry--the bishop -had got three copy books and a bottle of ink. Pens had been made from -twigs. The priest had one book printed in Albanian. - -Since the boys must herd the flocks in the mountains, they could not -spend the day in school. There is so little land that the goats and -sheep are fed from trees. The shepherd climbs a tree, carefully cuts -the tender branches, and throws them down to the nibbling beasts that -eat the young buds and strip off the juicy bark. There is no tree in -all the mountains that the shepherds have not climbed; not a tree that -is not a branchless, gnarled trunk. - -So the school was open from six to nine in the mornings, and the boys -came to it, some from ten, twelve, fifteen miles away, and after school -they walked back again and took out the flocks. The school had been -open six weeks; already the copy books were half filled with beautiful, -neat writing, and the boys not only read easily from their one book, -but had no difficulty with sentences that Perolli wrote on the slate. - -I asked the priest what I could send him from Paris, and his eyes -filled with tears as he asked, hesitating a little for fear it was -too much, if I could send just a little white paper and half a dozen -pencils. The ink was almost gone; they could make more from berries, -but he would like the boys to see pencils and learn how to use them. -And, of course, when the two copy books were filled, there would be no -more paper. - -Returning from the dusky schoolroom through the gray slant of the rain, -we found in the bishop’s house the most handsome man we had yet seen. -Tall and lithe, wearing the tight black jacket, scarlet sash, and snowy -woolen trousers braided in black, he amazed us by his animal beauty and -grace. His silver chain was of the finest pattern, a ring was on a hand -that might have been perfectly gloved on Fifth Avenue, and his quiet -air of the aristocrat would have made him remarkable in any company. -Beside him was a manly little boy perhaps seven years old. He wore with -the same grace a miniature copy of the mountain costume. His manners -were perfection of grave courtesy, his eyes were keen and intelligent, -and his frank smile was charming. - -They were father and son, come to arrange for the boy’s schooling. The -father spoke to the boy with the courtesy he would have used to an -equal, and the boy replied as one. There was such pride and love in -their eyes that it was beautiful to see them together. For a little -while the father spoke of his ambitions for his son; he hoped to be -able to send him to the American school in Tirana, he dreamed even of -a university in Europe. He was proud that he and the boy were mountain -men, but he wanted the boy to be wiser, more learned, than the mountain -life had let his father be. - -“I,” he said, “am Plum [Pigeon], but my son is Sokol [Eagle]. I gave -him that name because his wings shall be stronger, his eyes keener, and -his flight higher, than mine.” - -Having been thus presented to the bishop, Sokol knelt for a blessing, -Plum on one knee beside him. Then the two went across the courtyard -to the schoolhouse, and I shall not forget the two against the dusky -doorway, the father looking down at the boy, and the boy visibly -courageous and resolute before the mysteries he was facing. - -“Long may you live,” said the father. “Go on a smooth trail.” - -“Long may you live,” said the boy. “God take you safely home.” Then -he went into the schoolhouse, and Plum followed the trail toward the -mountains. - -“He is a good man, and brave,” said the bishop, “and little Sokol will -be a great one.” - -At noon the rain was still pouring from apparently inexhaustible skies, -but Cheremi, Rexh, and Perolli assumed, as a matter of course, that we -would go on; the difficulty was that there were no mules. There should -have been a mule in the village, whose houses were scattered, miles -apart, all the way down the deep-walled gorge to the banks of the River -Shala, twenty-five miles away, but when Cheremi hastened lightly up a -twelve-hundred-foot peak and cried to the farthest house that we wanted -mules, the answer came back that there were none since the war. - -So he found an aged man--seventy-five years old, he was, but still -agile and bright eyed--and put our packs on his back, and at noon we -started out on foot, with fresh-peeled staffs provided by Rexh, and -new-baked corn bread in the saddlebags. - -After an hour of desperate climbing we stood on the peak from which -Cheremi had telephoned. The bishop’s house and the school lay dwarfed -beneath our feet, and Perolli, standing on a rock and holding his ears, -sent down to them a shrill hail. “Ooeeoo! Monseignor!” - -The bishop appeared in his woolen gown, a rifle in his hand, and all -the guns in our party went off at once, and again, and again, while -fifty miles of sheer rock cliffs barked back at them. My hands were -over my ears, but I saw the three answering white puffs from the -bishop’s rifle, and while the echoes were dying, still repeating -themselves down the valley, we saw him hand it to his servant and -protect his ear-drums with his thumbs. His call came up to us, “Go on a -smooth trail!” - -[Illustration: AN OLD SHEPHERD - - Wearing goatskin opangi on his feet, and trousers braided in his - tribal pattern.] - -“Now,” said Perolli, thrusting his revolver back into its holster, “we -have said good-by to the bishop. _Allons!_” - -“And to-night,” I said, joyously, “we’ll sleep in a native house.” - -Frances and Perolli did not seem enthusiastic about that hope, and as -we toiled up trails that were stairways of giant bowlders, or slid down -slopes of pale-green shale, above valleys where the clouds swirled -beneath us, the discussion continued fragmentarily. - -Frances’s reluctance I could ascribe to the shrieking of her muscles, -which, if tortured as mine had been by the previous day’s travel, must -be screaming with agony at her every step. But Perolli, true Albanian -in spite of his years of living in foreign capitals, was as fresh as -the crisp air that blew upon us between the gusts of driving rain. -He leaped up bowlders, he joined in the singing of the others, who, -with sixty-pound sacks on their backs, walked easily up the incredible -steeps, their thumbs at their ears, chanting songs of ancient battles -with the Turks. - -“Don’t you think it safe to stay in a native house?” said I, -remembering that he was an officer of the government traveling -incognito among unfriendly tribes, and that within sight were the -Albanian mountains held by the Serbs who had put a price on his head. - -“Safe?” said he, scornfully. “A man is always safe in another man’s -house. It has happened not once, but often, in these mountains, that a -man has given shelter to a hunted man and found, while the guest sat -at his fire, that he was harboring a man who had shot the son of the -house not an hour before. The neighbors bring in the body, and the -father sits beside it, with the murderer under his roof. And the father -gives him coffee and food and drink and rolls cigarettes for him, until -the guest is ready to go, and then he accompanies him for an hour’s -journey, so that none of the tribe can injure him, and says a courteous -farewell to him on the trail. ‘Go on a smooth road,’ he says. ‘There -is a word of peace between us for a day and a night because you are my -guest. After that I will follow you all my life, until I kill you.’” - -I began to see the exquisite, infinite complications of that system -of law and order, the Law of Lec, which guides these people in all -their actions, and I thought, “This goes back beyond the Middle Ages,” -remembering the old Bible stories of the time when men lived similarly, -under the laws of Moses. - -But already the sense of perspective in time was growing dim; we were -living in the past, not thinking of it, and the scores of future -centuries in which men would spread over Europe, invent private -property, build great cities and empires, discover America, and invent -machines, became as faint to us as the old memory of a dream. By the -next day we had forgotten it all; two weeks later I was to come back -to a room with a rug on the floor, a window in the wall, a bed, and -a stove, and feel such a sense of strangeness among them that, tired -as I was, I could not sleep between the unfamiliar sheets. Now that -I am back in my own century, writing of those days in the Albanian -mountains, I understand why men so easily slip into the ancient -savagery of war and all war’s atrocities. All that we call civilization -is like a tune heard yesterday, a little thing floating on the surface -of our minds, which sometimes we can keep step to, and then in a moment -it is gone so that we cannot remember it. - -Upon the trail that day we were barbarians, simple and primitive; we -were isolated, small bits of warmth and energy in a hostile universe -of stone and rain. And when, out of the gray mist of the trail -ahead, another simple barbarian appeared, we greeted him with the -unquestioning acceptance of understanding. He was a man of Pultit, bare -in the rain save for turban, loin cloth, and opangi. He was bound for -the house of the bishop to bring back the boy Sokol, whose father was -dead. - -Standing around him in the rain, we listened to the news. Three days -earlier Plum had sheltered a woman who was leaving a cruel husband, a -man of Shoshi. She had slept beneath Plum’s roof one night on her way -to her father’s tribe. That morning, as Plum returned after taking his -son to school, he had met the husband on the trail, and without a word -the husband had shot him down. But as he died Plum had managed to reach -his revolver and had killed the husband, saying, “This, from Sokol.” -And as Sokol was now the head of his family, he must return from school -to the house where the women were mourning his father. - -Cheremi thrice made the sign of the cross. “Plum was a good man,” he -said. - -“And loved his son,” Perolli added. For Plum with his last effort had -avenged himself, had closed the account. He left no blood feud to -darken the life of the little Eagle. The boy would be known as the son -of a hero, and to-day would take his place as a chief and a member of -all village councils. - -The man of Pultit, having told us this news and wished us long life -and smooth trails for our feet, went on down the mountain side, and -gripping our staffs tighter in water-soaked hands, we resumed our -climbing. - -We had begun that day with ponchos over our sweaters; our gendarmes had -begun it by taking off their jackets and trousers, so that the sluicing -rain would not wet them. These garments were in the packs, protected by -ponchos, and, barelegged, barearmed, with only the colored sashes about -their waists and cloths wound around their heads, the men went up and -down the interminable trails as easily as panthers. Now and then they -stopped and, kneeling on the trail, reached down a hand to one of us, -pulling us up over unusually large and steep bowlders, and from time to -time, as we struggled and panted after them, they offered to carry us. -With the blood pounding in our heads, blinding and deafening us, our -lungs torn with gasping in our aching sides, we refused, and struggled -on. Our gloves had become sodden in a moment; we stripped them off, -and soon the ponchos which impeded our climbing followed them; and -then, as we were wet to the skin, anyway, we discarded sweaters and -began to long for the complete freedom of nakedness. At each step our -feet made a sucking sound in the water that filled our shoes, but the -exertion of climbing and sliding kept our bodies warm, and by degrees, -as suppleness returned to our stiff muscles, we began to see the magic -country around us. We stood on rocks from which we saw a hundred miles -of snow-tipped peaks, blue gorges, bronze-brown forests. White and -smoke-colored clouds swirled beneath us, and through rifts in them -we saw tiny green terraced fields, the blue hair line of water in -stone-walled irrigation ditches, and houses tiny as those on a relief -map, made of stone and almost indistinguishable from the native rocks, -as large as they, among which they were set. - -“I shall not be happy until I stay in one of them,” I said, and at that -moment we heard a hail from Cheremi, who stood on the trail thirty -feet above our heads. He gestured toward three cone-shaped peaks of -solid rock that, rising steeply from the gorge three thousand feet -below, rose to some hundreds of feet above the level of our eyes. -Little Rexh, silent and watchful as ever at Frances’s side, translated -his words. - -“There is an old city,” he said, “the city of Pog. He says it was built -by his people, men of the Land of the Eagle, a hundred years before the -Romans came.” - -“Tell him to wait where he is,” we exclaimed, for, looking again at the -nearest cone-shaped mountain, we saw on its top traces of old walls, -and on its sides what might once have been a circling road, and we -clambered up the trail to ask Cheremi about it. - -“It is a very old city,” said Cheremi. “It was built before men began -to remember.” Standing on the edge of the trail, which was also the -edge of the gorge, he looked over perhaps a quarter of a mile of space -to the sharp-pointed peak of rock. In one hand he held his rifle, its -butt resting on the rock at his feet; the thumb of the other hand was -thrust through a fold of the scarlet sash about his loins, and the sun, -appearing blindingly at that moment in a rent of the clouds, shone on -his wet white skin and made it shimmer like satin. The deep seams worn -in his leathery face by forty years of childlike, mischievous mirth -became shallow (an unaccustomed look of solemnity had ironed them out) -and, looking straight and unwinking at the sun, he said, “The sun is -now the only living thing that saw that city built.” - -We shaded our eyes with cupped hands and looked at it. The world was -suddenly all aglitter, every leaf a heliograph, every giant slope of -rock reflecting a thousand rays, and our eyes watered. But, gazing -steadily, we saw the fragment of a wall, and below it, curling around -the tall, slender cone of the mountain, traces of a road that had -been walled, and a broken flight of four broad steps, torn apart -by the roots of a tree. It was the only tree we could see on the -three-thousand-foot height, but, like all the others of the forests, it -was a gnarled, branchless trunk; its young boughs had been cut every -spring to feed the goats. - -“Does anyone live there now?” - -“No,” said Cheremi. “It is the place where the ora love to sit, and -sometimes one hears them crying, like trees in a wind, when there is no -wind. But no human person lives there.” - -“What is an ora?” I asked, when Perolli had translated. - -“An ora--a spirit of the forest, soul of a tree or a rock. Nature -spirits,” said Frances. “You know the Greek oreads? Well, that’s the -Greek name of the Albanian ora; the Greeks got them from the Albanians.” - -“And they still live in these mountains?” - -“Apparently. Did you ever see an ora, Cheremi?” she asked him, in -Albanian. - -“No. Very few people see them. But I have heard them singing, and -once, in the Wood of the Ora, which we will pass to-morrow, I heard -them talking together in the twilight. I heard them say that my cousin -would die,” said Cheremi, seriously. - -“And did he die?” - -“Of course,” said he, surprised by the question. “He was a strong man, -but within six weeks, sitting beside the fire one night, he said that -he felt a pain in his heart, and in an hour he was dead.” Cheremi -crossed himself. - -“But about the city of Pog. Does anyone ever go there? Could we go -there?” - -People sometimes went, he said; the shepherds always went to cut the -branches of the trees, which belonged to the tribe of Pultit. How far -was it from where we stood? He thought for a time, and said, “Four -hours.” Albanians have no measure for distance except the time it takes -to walk it, and this time corresponds with no measurement of ours. He -had said that our walk of that day would be an hour and a half; we had -already been exhausting every ounce of energy and breath for four, and -were scarcely a third of the way. - -“What does one find when one gets there?” - -“Very little. There is the old wall which you see, and on the rock one -can follow the lines of the walls of houses, built square and with many -rooms, and from the rocks which have fallen they must have been tall -houses. That is all, except that on some of the large stones one can -see that the sun circle was carved. Everything else has been eaten by -the great flocks of years. But there is still treasure buried there.” - -“How do you know?” - -“I know because I have seen men who have seen it. There is a man of -Pultit whom I know. He went to the old city of Pog one day with his -goats. There had been a great storm and part of the wall had fallen. -Before that day the wall had had a corner, where now you see nothing. -Where the wall had fallen there was a golden image of a man, as large -as himself, shining in the sun. The man of Pultit forgot his goats in -looking at it. It was too heavy for him to carry, so he took a stone -and broke off four of its fingers, and with them in his sash he went to -get his brothers to help him carry away the image. - -“But it was night before he reached their house, and they said it was -better not to go to that city until morning. In the morning they went, -and where the image had been there was nothing but stones. Afterward, -in thinking of nothing but that image, the man went mad, and he now -lives alone and naked in the mountains, talking to the ora and begging -them to take him again to that image. But before that he sold the -fingers to the gold beaters in Scutari, and they said those fingers -were of the purest gold and not alloyed, as gold is now. I did not see -the fingers, but many did before they were beaten into ornaments.” - -“What do you think became of the image?” - -“Doubtless it had a bird or snake for guardian, and that spirit came -and took it away again,” said Cheremi, and Perolli explained that when -one buries a treasure one calls to some creature of the woods and -intrusts the hoard to its care. “O spirit of the small gray serpent -with poison in thy tooth, guard for me this treasure. Let no man see -it for ten times ten years, and then deliver it only to those of my -family,” would be a simple formula, but usually more imagination is -used. For instance, Perolli knew of a man who called the large magpie -to watch him bury his treasure, and he said to the bird, “Let no one -uncover this gold until two black mice have dragged three times around -this tree a carriage made of an acorn cup, with a small mouse in it.” -But his incantation was overheard, and the crafty neighbor caught and -dyed and trained the mice and made the carriage, and had them drag -it three times around the tree, after which the magpie gave up the -treasure. Otherwise it would have disappeared when a hand was laid upon -it. - -“But does Cheremi really believe these things?” I asked myself, and, -looking at his serious face and Perolli’s, I was struck with the -startling idea that Perolli believed them, too, in spite of his English -suit and European education, and I felt in my own mind something like -a soft landslide, uncovering possibilities of wild beliefs in myself. -“Anything can happen in the mountains of Albania,” I said, picking up -my staff and rising, for the shadows of the western mountains were -already climbing up the cone-shaped pinnacle of Pog. - -We went on, up and down the trail, over mountain after mountain that -at home no one would dream of climbing. The rain fell again, bringing -premature night down with the flood of water, and again we came into -clear weather and saw all the colors of sunset on the clouds below and -around us. - -Many times we passed above villages that clung like mud-daubers’ nests -on the cliffs below the trail, and once Cheremi stopped at the trail’s -edge and, closing his ears firmly with his thumbs, sent out into the -interminable miles of air the clear high note of the “telephone call.” - -A voice from the depths responded, and, searching with our eyes, we -discovered a white-and-black figure among the rocks some hundreds of -feet below. Then this conversation ensued: - -“Are you a man?” - -“I am a woman of Shoshi, married in Pultit.” - -“What is the name of your husband?” - -“The name of my husband is Lulash.” - -“Say to your husband, Lulash, that Cheremi is on the trail. Cheremi -goes to Plani with four strangers from far away and with a Mohammedan -youth of Scutari. To-night Cheremi will be in Plani. Say to Lulash that -he may bring to Cheremi in Plani the hundred kronen which he owes him.” - -“I will say to my husband, Lulash, that Cheremi is on the trail. -Cheremi goes to Plani with four strangers from far away and with a -Mohammedan youth of Scutari. To-night Cheremi will be in Plani. I will -say to Lulash that he may bring to Cheremi in Plani the hundred kronen -which he owes him.” - -“OO-EE-OO-OO!” The final shrill call came circling back among the peaks -like ripples of disturbed water, and up through its circling came the -answering call of the woman. Since he had been telephoning to a woman, -Cheremi did not fire his rifle three times, for which my ears were -grateful. - -We went on. And once, as I clambered up the side of a rock pile that -the child of a giant might have made in building a tower with blocks, -my staff (ah, how grateful I was for that third leg!) dislodged a -stone the size of my head, and Cheremi, turning like a cat, flung -himself downward and caught it as it tottered on the trail’s edge. -Then I looked and saw, far below, the miniature images of a woman and -a cradle, set among moving white spots that were sheep, and I saw that -the rock would have gone down the slope like a bomb from an airplane -and struck the cradle beside which the woman was sitting, and, I -thought, spinning. - -“One must be careful on the trails,” said Cheremi, and as the men -at that moment had finished a song with a joyous fusillade of rifle -shots, I asked if people were not sometimes killed by stray bullets. -Perolli said that of course it happened now and then, but everyone -understood that the killing was an accident and it caused no blood -feud. Accidents, he remarked, will happen anywhere, and he spoke of the -death toll of automobiles, which at that moment seemed as far from my -knowledge as the twenty centuries that separated us from them. - -“Through the Land of the Eagle the news is sung,” the second gendarme -began a new song, thumbs against his ears and sixty-pound pack on his -back, as he ascended the rocks above us. Cheremi took it up, repeating -each line as the other improvised it, and under his breath Rexh -translated them for me, storing them away in his memory, from which -I later transferred them to my notebook. As I listened I glanced at -Rrok Perolli, disguised servant of the new government about which they -were making the song, but his face wore a cheerful and unconcerned -expression, like a mask so perfect that it seems real. - -“Through the Land of the Eagle the news is sung----(It has a double -rhyme as they sing it, Mrs. Lane, but I do not know the English to make -it rhyme in your language),” said Rexh, apologetically. - - “What have the men of Tirana been doing? - I am a son of the mountain eagles; - I do not give up my nest while there is life in my claws; - I do not yield to the gendarmes! - I will drown them in their own blood. - Rise, rise, and go to the door. - There is a sergeant with twenty soldiers. - Ho! Ho! Sergeant, I am not the man you think! - I will not bow and be led to the slaughter. - I will not be killed like a lamb for the men of Tirana, - I am a goat and will fight!” - -“What do they mean about sergeants and soldiers?” I asked Perolli, and -he said, “These tribes do not understand that the new government in -Tirana is an all-Albanian government. They don’t think as a nation; -they think as tribes. They think the government is a Tirana government, -trying to destroy their liberty as the Romans and the Turks and the -Austrians and Italians and the Serbs and the Greeks and the Peace -Council tried to do. They know that the Peace Conference in Paris -arranged to divide Albania into three parts, giving one to Greece, one -to Italy, and one to Jugo-Slavia (and would have done it if Greece -and Serbia had been strong enough at the moment to grab a third of a -hornets’ nest and if we hadn’t driven out Italy). They know there is -a connection between the Peace Conference and the League of Nations, -so, now that the Albanian government is a member of the League, they -think that the men of Tirana have joined their enemies. They were so -dangerous that we had to send soldiers up here to burn the houses of -the Shala chiefs. But everything will be all right as soon as we can -get the government going and begin building schools and roads up here. -They just don’t understand yet.” - -Political discussion was cut short by one of the men who had run ahead -a few miles to inform the village of Plani that we were coming, and -who now popped out of the gathering darkness to announce that the -priest refused to receive us in his house. - -“The macaroni!” cried our men, with a contempt like vitriol. The priest -was of Italian blood; no Albanian would have been such a dog, they -said. And we sat down on the mountain side to consider what we should -do. - -“Why won’t the priest take us in?” I asked, shivering in my wet -garments, for night had brought chill down from the snow-covered peaks -above us. They were still pale fawn color and pink where the clouds -left them unhidden, but the valleys were black, and far away on some -distant slope there was a small light, red as a ruby--the flare from a -charcoal burner’s fire. - -“He says he has no servant,” replied the man who had run ahead to tell -the priest that we were coming, and even Cheremi, the joyous gendarme, -snorted aloud. - -“Priest though he is, he is a macaroni!” and, “Only a macaroni would -so disgrace our villages!” the Albanians exclaimed, shamed before the -strangers by such incredible inhospitality. - -“Perhaps he knows who you are and is afraid to take us in?” I said to -Perolli. - -“No. He doesn’t know who we are, and is afraid to shelter strangers who -may be Serbian or English spies. Cowardly Italian!” said Perolli. - -“My house,” Cheremi volunteered, hopefully, “is only across two -mountain ranges. You would be welcome there.” - - - - -CHAPTER IV - - WELCOME TO THE HOUSE OF MARKE GJONNI--WE HEAR THE VOICE OF AN OREAD--A - GUARDIAN SPIRIT OF THE TRAILS. - - -Concealed by the darkness, we lay back in our wet clothes on the wet -rocks and shook with smothered laughter. How Albanian! While Perolli -with a hundred honeyed words made excuses for the feebleness of foreign -women, already weary with only sixteen miles of mountain climbing. He -was still explaining when up the trail came the flare of a torch, and -an Albanian boy of perhaps fourteen years appeared, a turban on his -head, a rifle on his back, and a silver-hilted knife stuck through his -orange sash. - -“May you live long!” said he. - -“May you live long!” said we. - -“How could you?” He meant, “How could you get here?” - -“Slowly, slowly, little by little,” we replied. - -“Are you a man?” said Perolli. - -“I am a man of Pultit, of the village of Plani, of the house of Marke -Gjonni,” said the boy. “In our house there is always a welcome for the -stranger. The door of the house of Marke Gjonni is open to you.” - -“Glory to your lips and to your feet,” said Perolli, and to us in -English: “His father has sent him to ask us to come to his house. What -do you think?” - -“Is anyone going to think?” we cried. “There’ll be a fire, won’t there?” - -We followed the boy up the mountain side, our lungs sobbing and our -feet slipping on the trail dimly lighted by the torch, and so steep -that the palms of our hands were bruised by climbing it. Out of the -ceaseless swishing murmur of falling water that had surrounded us all -day one note rose above the rest; flying spray was like a mist on our -faces; we were following the edge of a waterfall hidden by the dark. -Then the trail turned; we stood on a level ledge; and suddenly all the -rifles in the world seemed to go off not ten feet away. - -“It’s all right!” Perolli’s shout came up from the darkness beneath -our feet. “They’re only welcoming you!” But I have never felt so -defenseless, so nakedly exposed to sudden death, as I did standing -there, clutching Frances and Alex, while sharp flashes darted out of -the blackness and deafening explosions contended with more deafening -echoes. All the household of Marke Gjonni stood on the trail, every -man firing his rifle until it was empty. Then a woman appeared with a -torch, her beautiful face and two heavy braids of hair painted on the -darkness like a Rembrandt, if Rembrandt had ever used a model from -ancient Greece, and we made our way through a jumble of greetings (“May -you live long! May you live long!” we repeated), and up a flight of -stone steps along the side of a blank stone wall, and through a low, -arched stone doorway. - -The stone-walled room was large--as large as the house itself--and low -ceilinged, and filled with shadows. Near the farther end, on the stone -floor, a bonfire burned in a ring of ashes. In the corner near the door -several goats and two kids and two sheep stopped their browsing on a -heap of dry-leaved branches, and looked at us with large eyes shining -in the torchlight. Five or six women came out of the shadows to greet -us, and behind us the men were coming in, reloading their rifles, -hanging them on pegs, closing and bolting the heavy wooden door. - -Rexh and our two gendarmes were already busy unrolling the packs, -spreading our blankets over heaps of dried grass on the other side of -the fire. In a moment we were sitting comfortably on them, extending -wet feet toward the flames, while one of our hosts put a fresh armful -of brush on the coals, another hacked slivers of pitch pine from a -great knot of it and set them blazing in a small wrought-iron basket -that hung from the ceiling, and another, with hollowed-out wooden bowls -of coffee, of sugar, and of water around him, began making Turkish -coffee in a tiny, long-handled iron bowl set in the hot ashes. - -“We’re going to have a night in a native house, after all,” said I, -happily, and added, starting, “What’s that?” A long, thin, curiously -unearthly sound--hardly a wail, though that is the dearest word I have -for it--was abroad in the night that surrounded the stone house. Even -the shadows seemed to crouch a little nearer the fire, hearing it, -and when it ceased the splashing of the waterfall was louder in the -stillness. Then the man with the coffee pot pushed it farther among the -coals, and with the little grating noise the movement of the household -recovered and went on. - -“Are you a man?” said our host, courteously, turning his clear dark -eyes on Perolli, and Perolli, silencing me with a glance, folded his -arms more comfortably around his drawn-up knees and began the proper -conversation of a guest. - -By degrees the house of Marke Gjonni grew clearer to our eyes; they -became accustomed to the firelight and the shadows and saw the guns -hanging on the wall, the browsing goats that, with a little tinkling of -bells, worried and tore at the dried green leaves on the oak branches -heaped for them, the outlines of a painted wooden chest filled with -corn meal, at which a woman worked making a loaf of bread on a flat -board. One of the men raked out some coals and set in them a round -flat iron pan on legs--the cross and the sun circle were wrought on -its bottom. In the midst of the flames he laid its cover to heat. Soon -the woman came with the bread, a loaf two feet across and two inches -thick, and deftly slid it from the board into the pan, which it exactly -fitted; one of the children put the cover over it and buried all in hot -ashes. - -There were ten or twelve children--little girls half naked, with -serious, beautiful faces and long-lashed brown eyes; small boys -dignified in little long tight trousers of white wool beautifully -braided in black, short fringed black jackets, and colored sashes -and turbans like those of their fathers. Two cradles stood near the -fire, covered tightly over high footboards and headboards with heavy -blankets; presently a woman partly uncovered one and, kneeling, offered -her breast to the tiny baby tied down in it. Only the baby’s puckered -little face showed; arms and legs tightly bound, it lay motionless and -uncomplaining, and when it was fed the mother kissed it tenderly and -covered it again, carefully smoothing the many folds of thick wool and -tucking the ends tightly beneath the cradle. - -Meantime Cheremi was taking off our shoes and stockings and bathing -our feet in cold water brought by one of the women. This was proper, -since when guests arrive the member of the family nearest to them by -ties of blood or affection acts as their servant, and Cheremi, being -an Albanian who knew us, was judged to stand in that position. By the -time we had drawn on dry woolen stockings from our packs the first cup -of coffee was ready. To the boiling water in the tiny pot the coffee -maker added two spoonfuls of the powdered coffee, two of sugar, stirred -the mixture till it foamed, and poured it into a handleless little cup -which he offered Perolli. But Perolli indicated me, and without the -slightest revelation of his surprise the host changed his gesture. - -[Illustration: RROK PEROLLI] - -“Beauty and good to you,” said I, in Albanian, prompted by Perolli, and -when I had drunk the thimbleful, “Good trails!” said I, handing back -the cup. For this is the manner in which one drinks coffee. Do not make -the mistake, when next you are in the Albanian mountains, of saying the -same things when you are offered rakejia. For rakejia there is a quite -different form of courtesies. And as soon as the coffee cup, rinsed -and refilled with freshly made coffee, has been given to each guest in -turn, you will be offered rakejia. - -Alex and Frances and I looked at one another, but we drained the large -goblet of colorless liquid fire in turn, without a word of protest. It -might have been the water that it looked like, so far as it affected -our minds or tongues, for I continue to ascribe to the fire warmth -and the blessed sensation of resting after those trails the sense of -contentment that filled us all. - -“Strange,” I said, for I still dimly remembered another way of life, as -though, perhaps, I had sometime dreamed it, “chimneys that don’t draw -make so much smoke in a room, yet here there is no chimney and a large -fire, and we don’t notice the smoke.” And, leaning back on the piled -blankets, I gazed up at the pale-blue clouds of it, rising beyond the -firelight into a velvety darkness overhead. But I really felt that I -had always lived thus, shut off by stone walls from the mountains and -the night, ringed around by friendly familiar faces, smelling the -delicious odor of corn bread baking and hearing the tinkling bells of -goats. - -“Where is America?” said our hosts, and: “How large are your tribes? -Do they have villages like ours, and mountains? Do you raise corn? How -many donkey loads do you raise to a field, and what is your method of -cultivating the soil? Have you stone ditches for carrying water from -the rivers to the fields?” Rousing ourselves, we tried to give them in -words a picture of our cities; we told of horses made of iron, fed by -coal, snorting black clouds of smoke and racing at great speeds for -long distances on roads made of iron; and I told of the irrigation -systems of California’s valleys, and Oregon’s; of orchards plowed by -steel-shod plows; of great machines as large as houses, cutting grain -on the plains of Kansas; of mountain streams like Albanian mountain -streams, which we harness as one might harness a donkey, and how their -invisible strength is carried unseen on wires for many, many long -hours--as far as an Albanian could walk in two days--and used to turn -wheels far away. - -Resting comfortably on their heels around the fire, they listened -as one would listen to a traveler from Mars, the men opening silver -tobacco boxes and deftly rolling cigarettes for us, the women spinning, -the children--each given its space in the circle--propping little chins -on beautiful, delicate hands and listening wide eyed. The questions -they asked--and the elders were as courteous to the children’s -curiosity as the children were to theirs--were keen and intelligent, -but when it came to explaining electricity I was as helpless as they -and could answer only with vague indications of some strange unknown -force which we use without understanding it. - -A woman, barefooted, barearmed, graceful as a sculptor’s hope of a -statue, lifted the cover from the baking-pan, crossed herself, made the -sign of the cross over the hot loaf, and took it up. Stooping, with the -smoking golden disk between her hands, she stopped, suddenly struck -motionless. The long, strange cry came again through the darkness, like -a voice of the wind and the mountains and the night. - -“Look here, Perolli,” said I, my stretched nerves unexpectedly relaxing -into the kind of anger that is part of fear, “what is that? Don’t be an -idiot! Tell me!” - -“It is an ora, if you must know,” said Perolli, and he looked at me -defiantly, as though he expected me to laugh. - -“An ora!” said Frances, sitting up. The strange, unearthly call came -again, very far away this time; we strained our ears to hear it. Then -silence and the roaring of the river. The turbaned men in the circle of -firelight, who had understood the word, nodded. - -“Holy crickets! Rose Lane, we’re actually hearing an oread!” Frances -exclaimed. And Alex said: “Oh no! Undoubtedly there is some natural -explanation.” - -“How do you know there isn’t what you call a natural explanation for an -oread?” Frances demanded, and the wild notion crossed my mind that if -Perolli had not been with fellow sharers of the blessings of Western -civilization he would have been crossing himself instead of lighting -another cigarette. Little Rexh, in his red fez, spoke earnestly: “Do -not believe there are no ora or devils in these mountains, Mrs. Lane. -There are very many of them.” - -“Of course,” said I, and I do not know how much I believed it and how -much I assumed that I did, in order to encourage our hosts to talk. “Do -you often see ora in this village?” I said across the fire to the many -intelligent, watching eyes, and Rexh picked up our words and turned -them into Albanian or English as we talked. - -“We do not see the ora,” said a tall man with many heavy silver chains -around his neck. “Do you see the ora in your country?” - -“I do not think they live in the West,” said I. “I think that they -are very old, like the Albanians, and, like you, do not leave their -mountains. This is the first time I have ever been where they live, and -I should like to meet one.” But I doubt if I should have said that if I -had been outside those solid stone walls. - -“Perhaps you will hear them talking when you go through the Wood of the -Ora,” said a woman whose three-year-old daughter was going to sleep in -her lap. - -“Very few people have seen them,” said the coffee maker, licking a -cigarette and placing his left hand on his heart as he offered it to -me. I fitted it into my cigarette holder; he lifted a burning twig from -the fire and lighted it. “Now my father was accompanied by an ora all -his life, but he was the only one who saw it, and he told no one about -it until just before he died.” - -“Did he ever talk with her?” - -“No, but she always walked before him on every safe trail. He was -sixteen when he first saw her; he was watching the goats in the -mountains. She appeared before him, standing on the trail. He said -that he knew at once that she was not of our kind, because she was so -beautiful. She was about twelve years old, wearing clothing not like -ours, but of a white and shining material--my father said that it was -like mist and it was like silk and it was like fire, but he could not -say what it was like. Her hair was golden. She stood on the trail and -with her hand she made a sign to him to stop, and he stopped, and they -looked at each other for a long time. Then he spoke to her, but she did -not answer. She was not there. And my father went on, and found on the -trail he would have taken a great rock that had just fallen, and he -knew that the ora had saved his life. - -“He came home, and said nothing. The next morning when he went out with -the goats the ora was waiting outside the door, and she went before him -all that day. Always after that, whenever he left the house, she went -before him on the trails. - -“My father was a strong man and very wise; he married and had many -children; he fought the Turks and the Austrians and the Serbs and the -Italians. He had a good life. But he never went anywhere unless the ora -went before him. In the morning when he left the house, if she was not -there he returned and sat by the fire that day. Often on the trails he -was with many people, but none but him ever saw the ora. She remained -always the same, always the size of a twelve-year-old child, always -very beautiful, shining white and with golden hair. - -“When she turned aside on the trail, my father turned also, and the -people did as he did, though he did not say why. My father was known -as a very wise man. Many times he saved the lives of many people by -following the ora.” - -Several of the older men in the intently listening circle shook their -heads, as though they remembered this, and when I asked them with my -eyes they said, “_Po! Po!_” which means, “Yes.” - -“When my father was sixty-five years old, strong and healthy, one day -the ora did not come. She did not come the next day, nor the next, nor -the next, for many days. Then my father knew that she would not come -again and that it was his time to die. So he arranged all his affairs -and died. Just before he died he told us about the ora; he told us -so that we would know why he was making ready for death, and it was -because his ora had left him.” - - - - -CHAPTER V - - THE UNEARTHLY MARRIAGE OF THE MAN OF IPEK--FIRST NIGHT IN A NATIVE - ALBANIAN HOUSE. - - -There was a moment of contemplative silence. Beyond the circle of -firelight the goats still tore and worried the dried leaves from the -oak branches. A woman came leisurely forward and put an iron pan on -the coals. When it was hot she brought scraps of pork and laid them in -it. Rexh, the little Mohammedan, turned his head so that he should not -smell that unclean meat. Frances said to Perolli, in a ravenous voice, -“How much longer will it be before we can eat?” - -He looked at her reprovingly. “In Albania it is not polite to care -about food.” - -“But it’s past midnight and we’ve had nothing to eat since noon!” -Frances mourned. - -“Slowly, slowly, little by little,” said Perolli, soothingly. For -myself, I curled more comfortably among the blankets, too contented to -ask for anything at all. It was as though I had returned to a place -that I knew long ago and found myself at home there. I had forgotten -that these people are living still in the childhood of the Aryan race -and that I am the daughter of a century that is, to them, in the far -and unknown future. Twenty-five centuries had vanished, for me, as -though they had never been. - -“That lady ora was no doubt betrothed to one of her own people,” said a -man who had not previously spoken. “Now in my lost country of Ipek--may -the Serbs who are murdering her feel our teeth in their throats!--I -know a man who was married to an ora.” - -A woman, barefooted, wearing a skirt of heavy black and white wool, a -wide, silver-studded leather belt and a blouse of sheer white, her two -thick black braids of hair falling from beneath a crimson headkerchief -almost to her knees, came out of the shadows beyond the fire and -lowered from her shoulder a beautifully shaped wooden jar of water. She -held it braced against her hip, and, stooping, poured a thin stream -over our outstretched hands. We laved them, the water sinking into the -ashes around the fire, and another woman handed us each a towel of -hand-woven red-and-white-plaided linen. Then we sat expectantly, but -only a wooden bowl of cheese was set on the floor before us. - -It was goat’s-milk cheese, rather like the cottage cheese of home, -except that it was hard, cut in cubes, and of an acrid, sourish flavor. -We each took a piece, nibbled it. - -“Oh, Perolli, can’t you tell them we’re starving? It’s almost one -o’clock in the morning!” cried Frances, pathetically. - -“Be patient,” said Perolli. “How many times must I say that it isn’t -polite in Albania to be so greedy?” - -“But it’s eleven hours since any of us had a bite!” Frances protested. -“Don’t tell me Cheremi and our other men aren’t starving.” - -“Albanians don’t care so much about food,” said Perolli. “I’m not -hungry.” He lit another cigarette, and, seeing the circle of politely -incurious but keen eyes fixed on us, I said, “Tell them that we are -very much interested in the story about the ora, and that we want to -hear about the man who married one.” And I surreptitiously prodded -Alex, who, sitting bolt upright with her eyes open, was obviously -asleep with fatigue. - -The man who had spoken of that unearthly marriage rolled and licked -a cigarette, offered it to Alex with his hand on his heart, rolled -himself another, lighted both with a blazing twig, settled comfortably -on his heels, and began. - -“This man was my friend, well known to me and to all the families of -Ipek. A strong man, a good fighter, and respected by all. But his life -was not complete, for the girl his father had chosen for him had died, -and he was not married. There were many girls he might have had, girls -of Montenegro and even of Shala and Shoshi and Kossova, but he said -that he did not wish to marry. He came to his thirty-seventh year and -was not married. - -“One night he was sitting alone in his house, making a cup of coffee -in the ashes of the fire, when the door opened. He looked, and there -was a woman who had come out of the darkness. She was no woman of our -tribe, nor of any other tribe of man, though she was dressed like our -women. My friend looked at her and said to himself that he had never -known women could be so beautiful. Men could be as beautiful as that, -yes, but not women. And he knew, though he did not know how he knew, -that she was not of our kind. - -“He said to her, ‘Long life to you!’ and she replied, ‘And to you long -life!’ She came and sat by his fire, and he gave her the cup of coffee -one gives a guest. She drank it and returned the cup to him, saying, -‘Good trails to your feet!’ Then they looked at each other for some -time without speaking. - -“Then she said to him, ‘Am I not beautiful?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ She -said to him, ‘Have you ever seen a woman more beautiful?’ And he said, -‘No.’ And after she had been silent for a long time she said to him, -‘Will you marry me?’ And he said, ‘No.’ - -“She said to him, ‘Do you think you will find a woman more beautiful -than I?’ He looked at her between the eyes and said, ‘I know that I -shall never see a woman so beautiful.’ She said, ‘Then will you marry -me?’ And he said, ‘No.’ - -“‘Why will you not marry me?’ she asked, and he said, ‘I do not wish -to marry.’ So for a time they sat silent, and then she said, ‘Do not -forget me,’ and went away. - -“He told me these things, and I said to him, ‘She was an ora.’ He said, -‘Yes, I know.’ I said, ‘Was she a gypsy ora?’ For, as you know, there -are two kinds of ora, and if she were a gypsy ora I would have been -troubled for my friend. He said, ‘No, she was a lady ora.’ We spoke no -more about it. - -“Three years went by, to a day, and again it happened that my friend -was sitting alone in his house, making a cup of coffee in the ashes of -the fire, when again the door opened.” - -The man of Ipek stopped speaking, opened his silver tobacco box, and -put a pinch of the long, fine, golden tobacco on a cigarette paper. He -spread it carefully, twisted it into the cone shape of the Albanian -cigarette, glanced at us to see that none of our cigarette holders were -empty, and placed the white slender cone between his lips. He lighted -it and drew several deliberate puffs. No one spoke. There was the red -circle of firelight, the graceful black and white and colored figures -huddled close to it, around us the shadows of the house, and beyond -them the vast, murmurous blackness of the night and the mountains; the -chill and mystery of them seemed to be pressing against the stone walls -that kept them out, and the sound of the waterfall was like the sighing -breaths of strange, wild things. - -“My friend was sitting by his fire, like this, but he was alone. It -was the third coming of that day of the year on which the ora had come -out of the darkness, and when again the door opened he knew, without -turning to see, who it was. - -“She came in, and he turned and said, ‘Long life to you!’ Then he saw -that with her was a manservant, and that manservant was of her own -kind. She said to my friend, ‘And to you long life!’ She sat by the -fire, and he gave her coffee, and she drank, and the manservant stood -in the shadows behind them. - -“‘Have you forgotten me?’ she said, and my friend said, ‘No.’ They -looked at each other, and she said, ‘Am I not beautiful?’ And he said, -‘Yes.’ Then she leaned close to him and said, ‘Will you marry me?’ And -he said, ‘No.’ - -“When he said that she rose, and she was more beautiful angry than she -had been before. She said: ‘Come with me. My father wishes to see you.’ - -“He said, ‘What have I to do with your father?’ - -“She said, ‘Come with me.’ - -“My friend did not know why he went, or how he went, or where he went. -They came to a place in the mountains, but it was a strange place, and -strange mountains--my friend could not describe that place. It was a -place in our mountains, but such a place as no man had ever seen. There -were trees that were alive; it was all my friend could say. There were -many souls of trees about him, and they were ora, and among them was -their king, who is the king of the ora. He stood before the king of the -ora. - -“The king looked at him and said, ‘Will you marry my daughter?’ And he -said, ‘No.’ - -“The king said to him:‘My daughter has seen you. My daughter wishes to -be your wife. She will be a good wife to you. She will bring you great -happiness. She is my daughter, a lady ora.’ - -“My friend said: ‘I thank you. Your daughter is very beautiful and very -good. But I do not wish to marry.’ - -“The king of the ora said, ‘If you will marry my daughter you will have -all the heart desires. I will make you rich in the things that men call -riches in the Land of the Eagle.’ - -“My friend said: ‘I am a poor man. I am not a bey of the south, of the -land of the Toshk, but I am a Gheg, a man of the mountains. All that I -need I earn with my hands, and that is enough. I do not wish to marry.’ - -“Then the king of the ora rose, and he was not angry, but he was very -terrible. He said, ‘Marry my daughter.’ - -“And my friend married his lady daughter.” - -The man of Ipek seemed to think that the story was ended. But I, who -had been scribbling all this down in my notebook, hidden in the shadow -of Rexh, as Perolli translated it to me paragraph by paragraph, did not -agree with him at all. “What happened?” I wanted to know. - -“Nothing happened. His family came into the empty house and he was -gone, leaving his gun on the wall and the empty coffee cup by the dead -ashes of the fire. They were very much afraid. My friend had not told -any man but me about the visit of the ora three years before, and I -said nothing. Some days went over the tops of the mountains, and no one -knew where he had gone. Then he came back, and brought with him his -wife, the ora.” - -The rest I got by questions. - -“No one could see her except my friend,” said the man of Ipek. “No -one but he ever saw her. He built himself a beautiful house; there -were rugs in it, and tables of carved wood, and bowls of copper and -silver--all things that are beautiful. Cigarette holders of amber and -silver with jeweled bowls, and sashes and turbans of silk, and cushions -of silk, and beautiful jars for bringing water from the springs. All -kinds of rich and beautiful things, and always great quantities of -delicate and rich foods. The men of Ipek remember that house well. - -“Yes, my friend is dead now. He lived in happiness with his wife for -twenty years, and they had children whom he loved. But only he could -see them, for to others they were invisible, like his wife. I have been -in his house many times when she was there, but I never saw her. Others -say they have seen strange things in that house; they have seen things -moved by hands they could not see. But I never saw that. Only I know -that my friend was happy with his wife and children. She was a lady -ora, and kept his house well. The gypsy ora are dirty folk, but the -lady ora love cleanliness and order. Everyone respected my friend and -his lady wife. Whenever he entered a village, all guns were fired in -his honor, for men said, ‘The man who married a lady ora is coming into -the village.’ Oh, it was all very well known in Ipek, among the people -of my tribe who are now slaves to the cursed Serbs. - -“When he died, no doubt she went back to her own people, taking their -children with her. His family came to take back his house, and they -found all manner of beautiful things, but no money. No money anywhere.” - -“What do you think of it?” I said to Frances. “Do you believe----Great -Scott! Of course it isn’t true! I don’t know what’s wrong with my mind. -Men don’t marry tree spirits. It’s absurd.” - -But, frankly, my conviction was that of the man who whistles cheerfully -while passing a graveyard at night, because, of course, he does not -believe in ghosts. - -“There’s some natural explanation,” said Alex. “The man went away for -some reason--perhaps he actually had found some of the treasure they -say is buried in these mountains--and when he came back he invented the -story to account for it.” - -“But he had told this man about seeing the ora three years earlier.” - -“Well, they’re a very patient people. Perhaps he waited three years -after he found the treasure before he dug it up.” - -“I should say they’re patient!” cried Frances. “Perolli, if you don’t -tell them we are simply dying of hunger, I will! It’s almost two -o’clock in the morning. Do they think we are made of--cast iron? I want -something to eat, and I want to go to sleep. Do they intend to talk -until morning?” - -“It is the custom, when strangers come, to talk to them,” said -Perolli, severely. “Their only way of hearing news, and their only -entertainment, is talking to guests. If you want to be rude about -eating and sleeping, go ahead; I won’t.” - -“Oh, all right,” Frances relented, sadly. “Perolli, do you believe in -ora?” - -“Well--do you believe in heaven and hell, and God and the devil? There -are lots of things in the world that you don’t see or touch. I don’t -know----” He said, briskly, “Of course I don’t believe in ora!” He -wavered again. “But when you know so many people who have seen them -and talked with them--I mean, who think they have----Everyone used to -believe such things, long ago, and perhaps, here in these mountains, -where the people have changed so little through all the centuries, -there may still be things--spirits, phantoms, whatever you like to -call them. Understand, I don’t believe it. But there may be something -in that myth that’s part of every religion, that there was a time when -there were other beings on earth besides men. And if there were once, -why then, if we could still see them, they must still be----But of -course it must be all imagination.” - -“And there was that sound we heard. I never heard anything like it -before. Perolli, you said it was an ora.” - -He looked badgered. “I meant, whatever it was, it is what these people -call an ora.” - -“Do the ora ever come into this village?” I demanded at large. - -“We hear them in the village at night,” said the coffee maker, quite -casually, as he measured a spoonful of brown powder into the tiny pot. -“No, we never see them. They call to us, and when we answer they talk, -but we cannot understand their language. Always when we speak to them -they answer in their own tongue.” - -“But, Cheremi, you heard them talking about your cousin’s death,” I -said. - -“We hear them talking together sometimes, yes,” said the coffee maker. -“If you go through the Wood of the Ora at twilight you will often hear -them talking in some language you will understand--in Persian or Arabic -or Greek or Albanian. Then if you listen perhaps you will hear them -speak of you or of some one you know. But if you speak to them, they -will be silent, and then they will go on talking together in their own -language, which no man understands. It is no doubt the old language of -the trees.” - -“But you cut the trees,” said Alex. - -“Yes,” I cried, struck by it. “You cut all the branches off the trees. -Doesn’t it cripple or hurt the ora?” - -“The ora is a spirit,” said the man of Ipek. “You cannot hurt a pure -spirit that has no body. Ora are spirits of the forests, but they are -not part of the trees. I understand it, but I do not say it very well. -Even if you cut down a tree you do not kill the ora. An ora does not -live, an ora simply is.” - -We were interrupted by Cheremi, who approached, knelt mysteriously by -Perolli’s side, and whispered. Perolli turned to us. “Our dinner is -delayed,” he said, “because they can find nothing to give to Rexh. -They have only pork in the house, and they have sent through all the -village and cannot find any eggs or goat’s meat. A boy has gone now, -over the mountains to the next village, to get something they can offer -a Mohammedan. You see, their flocks were destroyed when the Serbs -retreated through here, and if they kill one of the two sheep for us, -it means losing the lambs next year.” - -“But, Miss Hardy, I can eat corn bread. That is all I need,” said Rexh, -earnestly. - -“We can’t tell them that now. We should have thought of it sooner,” -said Perolli. “We must wait at least until the boy comes back.” - -“Oh, my sainted grandmother!” cried poor Frances. “Aren’t we going to -have any dinner at all till breakfast time?” - -“Is it because we are guests that our hosts are taking all this trouble -to give Rexh the food a Mohammedan can eat?” I asked. “They’re Roman -Catholics, aren’t they? Shouldn’t we have brought a Mohammedan into -their house?” - -[Illustration: AN ALBANIAN HODJI OF THE MATI] - -“Oh, that makes no difference,” said Perolli. “One religion or -another--all religions are the same in the sight of God. Mohammedan or -Catholic, we are all human, we all respect one another. No, our hosts -don’t mind the trouble; they’re only sorry that they have nothing but -pork in the house.” - -“What would happen, Rexh, if you ate pork without knowing it?” said I. - -“Nothing, Mrs. Lane. Nothing would happen even if I ate it, knowing I -was doing it. But for me it is wrong to eat pork, so I would never do -that. For these others,” he explained, carefully, looking very serious -and very twelve-year-old, “it is not wrong to eat pork. It is not the -pork itself that matters, Mrs. Lane. It is doing what is wrong that -matters. See”--he sat up, making his points gravely with straight -forefinger--“some things are wrong for the Catholics to do; they are -right for me. I can have nine wives, but the Catholics can have only -one. They can eat pork, but that is wrong for me. There are many things -like that. Each must do what he thinks is right. It does not matter -what it is. Men think differently. But God knows whether they do what -seems right to them. And in the end we all go to the same heaven, if we -have been good.” - -“Good_ness_, Rexh!” I murmured, feebly. I ask you, is that the talk -you would expect between Mohammedan and Catholic in the Near East? What -about massacres, and holy wars, and all that? - -“What about them?” said Perolli, when I asked him. “They may be in Asia -Minor--though, myself, I think religion hasn’t much to do with the -fighting between Christian and Turk. But we don’t have them in Albania. -We are all Albanians, first. And second, the Virgin Mary is the mother -of all good people, Mohammedan or Catholic. Why should we fight each -other?” - -And he told of Italy’s attempt to block Albania’s entry into the League -of Nations by asserting that the people were Mohammedan, and of the -Albanian Mohammedans’ quiet retort in sending to Geneva a delegation -led by an archbishop followed by I forget how many bishops. Then he -told about the people in Kossova, who are both Catholic and Mohammedan, -going to the mosque by day and attending mass by night; that is because -they were conquered by the Turks, who told them they must become -followers of Mohammed. “Very well,” they said, since it made little -difference to them. But then the priests told them that they must not -forsake the Church. “Very well,” they said again. And they are called -in Albania a word which means, “half-and-half.” - -“All that is not important,” said Perolli, his attention wandering, -for the group around the fire began to talk Albanian politics. Behind -his casually cheerful brown eyes I saw many things stirring, and I lay -back, staring up at the smoke beneath the roof and wondering what was -in all the hidden minds around me. Did our hosts suspect that Perolli -was part of the new, distrusted Tirana government? Why, really, was he -in these mountains? Was it truly only a vacation, and was he taking -his life in his hands and wandering along the edge of the Serbian -armies’ lines merely for pleasure? What were the real thoughts of these -barbaric-looking men, these men with shaved heads and scalp locks -hidden beneath their turbans, as question and answer and argument went -back and forth across the fire? - -They were talking in perhaps six languages; not everyone there -understood all those tongues, and subtle conversations beneath -conversations were going on; this man dropping into Italian for a -phrase, that one into a dialect of Samarkand or northern India. And -there was one man who persistently talked Serbian to Perolli--that -language, at least, I could recognize, and I could see him growing -restive under it, trying to take the talk into Albanian instead. - -The children who were still awake sat soberly listening, not speaking, -but gathering it all into their minds, turning their eyes from speaker -to speaker as the languages changed, puzzled a little, trying to -understand. And I realized how Albanian children get their education. - -“We’d be saying: ‘Run away and play, dear. This isn’t for children,’” I -commented. - -“We wouldn’t,” said Frances. “They’d have been in bed six hours ago. -How on earth do they live to grow up?” - -“Heaven knows. But aren’t they strong and beautiful when they do!” - -“It’s all right,” said Perolli, aside. “They’re talking about the -French--whether France will become enough afraid of Jugo-Slavia to side -with Italy down here. They aren’t for or against the Tirana government; -they don’t exactly understand it, but they’re waiting to find out. They -don’t know who I am. Don’t be worried.” - -And at last dinner appeared. It was exactly half past two in the -morning. - -Most of the children--they had had no supper at all, so far as we could -determine--were going to sleep, collapsing in soft little heaps where -they sat beside the fire. Various women of the household lifted them -tenderly, carried them to the farther corner of the house, near the -goats, and laid them in a row on the floor. There, covered head and -foot with heavy, tucked-in blankets, they continued to sleep. - -Meantime the table was brought for us. It was a large round piece of -wood, raised on little legs perhaps five inches from the floor. We sat -about it, comfortably cross-legged on our blankets, and before each of -us was laid a large chunk of corn bread broken from the flat loaf. In -the center of the table was set a wooden bowl filled with pieces of -pork. - -“Don’t!” said Perolli, quickly, restraining our famished gestures. “In -Albania it is not good manners to be eager to eat.” So we sat wretched -for some moments, savoring the delicious odor of food that we must -not touch, and politely making conversation with our hosts, who still -sprawled in graceful attitudes about the fire. Then, with slow and -indifferent movements, we fished out bits of the meat with our fingers, -and ate. - -It was delicious, the lean meat, stripped of every scrap of fat and -broiled on sticks over a wood fire. We ate eagerly, biting first the -meat, then a morsel of corn bread, coarse, made without leavening, but -sweet and nutty. The smallest crumb of it must not be scattered on -table or floor; when one fell, Perolli instructed us to pick it up and -kiss it. We should also have made the sign of the cross, for bread is -sacred in these mountains. Since we were not Catholics, that omission -might be overlooked. But we must pick up the crumb and kiss it; to have -ignored it would have been scandal. - -“In Albania,” said Perolli, “it is etiquette to leave a great deal of -the food.” And while we were still starving, after fourteen hours of -hunger, he ordered the dish away. - -After that, another wooden bowl filled with cubes of the fat pork, -fried crisp. Rexh, sitting a little apart, soberly ate his piece of -corn bread, for not even in the next village had the messenger been -able to find eggs or goat’s meat. - -When this second course was removed, fresh water was again brought to -wash our hands, while the table was removed to a little distance. Then -I saw why it was courteous to leave food, for all the villagers who had -come in to see us gathered around this second table. And when they had -finished and all had washed their hands--it was now past three in the -morning--the table was again moved, and the family ate, men and women -together, chatting and daintily dipping into the common dish. - -“Do you think, Perolli,” said Frances, “that we could go to bed now?” -And she looked enviously at Alex, who sat stony eyed, upright, and fast -asleep. - -“Oh, surely!” said Perolli. “They’ll understand that you’re tired.” And -he explained this to our hosts, who nodded, smiling. So Cheremi and -Rexh spread our blankets more smoothly on the floor, and we lay down in -a row, our heads on our saddlebags, and pulled another blanket over us. - -For a time the others sat by the fire and talked; one roasted coffee -over the coals in a long-handled pan, and then ground it in a cylinder -of brass. The warm brown smell of it and the sound of grinding kept -coming through my daze of fatigue. Then one by one they lay down, -covering their heads with blankets; the fire died to a fading glow of -coals; there was no sound except the incessant tinkling of the goats’ -bells and the crunching and tearing of the dried oak branches which -they munched. - -“My first night in a native Albanian house,” I thought, and the next -instant, it seemed to me, I started awake. The room was full of -movement and talk. It was still dark, but in the farther corner a -gray, slanting block of light came through the open door; smoke curled -and twisted in it. The fire was blazing; near it a man knelt, making -coffee. All around him men stood, twisting tighter their long colored -sashes; the rifles on their backs stood upward at every angle. Then -I saw the goats and sheep going one by one through the block of gray -light; a boy followed them, rifle on back and staff in hand, and I -realized that it was morning. - -I looked at my wrist watch, whose radium dial shone in the darkness. -Half past five. The man who was making coffee smiled at me. “Long may -you live!” said he, warmly, offering me the tiny cup with one hand, the -other on his heart. As in a nightmare I struggled to reach it, and made -my stiff lips say, “And to you long life!” - -Perolli sat up quickly, wide awake as an aroused animal. “Good -morning!” said he, happily. “Time to get up!” - -Rain was still sluicing down from a gray sky; every rock in the -interminable ranges of mountain peaks seemed to be the source of a -foaming stream. Frances, Alex, and I, with our toilet cases in our -hands, made our way along the side of a cliff to a waterfall, knelt -on the dripping rocks beside it, and washed and brushed our teeth. The -woman who accompanied us watched us with interest, and exclaimed, while -we showed her the tooth-paste tubes, the tooth brushes in their cases, -the cakes of soap, the jars of cold cream, the strange machine-made -Turkish toweling, and the white combs. Even to ourselves they seemed -exotic luxuries. How many curious things we have invented for the care -of our bodies, since the days when we lived as the mountain Albanians -still live. - -“And at that,” I said, enviously, “I wish I had her complexion!” The -woman stood by the waterfall, as graceful as a cat, strong limbed, -clear eyed, fine skinned, and her bare feet in the cold water were joys -to the eye, slim, beautifully formed, arched, with almond nails and a -rose-marble color. True, her face and hands were grimy with wood smoke, -and ours, when we looked at one another, set us off into exhausting -laughter. - -“My house is clean,” said the woman as she watched us scrubbing and -scrubbing again. “There are no lice in it.” - -“Now I wonder where she got that idea?” said Alex. “I thought they -thought lice were healthy.” - -Frances asked questions in Albanian. Yes, this house had kept for a -time a refugee child on his way from the American house in Scutari to -the lands of his tribe, and he had insisted on washing his bed and his -clothes; he had hated lice with an astonishing hatred; he said they -were small devils who would grow to be large devils, and the woman did -not think this was true, but she had washed all the beds, also all the -house, and now it was like an American house and had no lice. - -“But that isn’t what she meant. She meant that she doesn’t see why we -are washing,” said Alex, lifting her dripping face above a pool and -rubbing it with one hand. It isn’t easy to wash in a waterfall, with no -place to lay the soap. - -“We do this every morning,” Frances explained in Albanian. “It is -American custom.” The woman looked as though she thought it rather -foolish, still, if it were the custom---- - -“Also,” said Frances, “every morning we wash the children and the -babies, all over, from head to foot.” - -“Yes?” said the woman, indifferently. “Here babies stay in their -cradles. Children go into the water when they are old enough to swim. -Then only in the summer, when it is not cold.” - -Frances gave it up. We came back from the waterfall, on a path that -was like a terrace of heaven overlooking all the world of mountains -and valleys and swirling clouds. We were already wet to the skin with -rain, but that did not matter, for we had before us the day’s walking -in it, and our indifference to wet clothes and feet was already quite -Albanian. And the morning, and the mountain air, and the water-gushing -range after range of mountains, seemed to us glorious. We thought that -it would be fun to herd goats among these peaks and to live forever in -a stone house with a fire on the floor and a pan of corn bread baking -in the coals. No dusting, for there was no furniture; no making of -beds, for there were no beds; no curtains to keep fresh, for there were -no windows; no trouble with clothes, for centuries saw no change in -fashions; no work except hand weaving and embroidery and the washing of -linen in a brook. No haste, no worry, no struggle to invent new needs -that one must struggle to satisfy. All that simplicity and leisure our -ancestors traded for a rug on the floor, a trinket-covered dressing -table, for knives and forks and kitchen ranges, fountain pens and high -white collars and fashion books. It seemed to us, on that morning, a -trade in which we had been cheated. - -And even now I wonder, sometimes, about the value of the centuries that -have given us civilization. - -We had no doubt at all about their worthlessness that morning, when we -set out again--after a cup of Turkish coffee, each--to walk another -twenty miles over the Albanian mountains, through the Wood of the Ora -and the tribal lands of Plani and over the Chafa Bosheit to the next -village. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - - THE SONG OF THE FLIGHT OF MARKE GJLOSHI--THE HUNTED MAN OF SHOSHI--THE - WAY THROUGH THE WOOD OF THE ORA--A WOMAN WHO BELIEVES IN PRIVATE - PROPERTY. - - -Four men of Marke Gjonni’s household went with us to carry the -packs, so we left the stone house peaceful on the cliff below our -upward-climbing path, not disturbing it with any parting volley when -we paused for our last glimpse of it. A faint haze of blue smoke hung -over it, seeping through the slates of the roof; there was no other -sign of life about it, and only the smoke distinguished it from the -natural rocks. Beside us the stream, which was the waterfall, roared -and glittered in the sunlight as it fell into the depths; following -with our gaze its narrowing ribbon of silver and searching for the blue -smoke haze, we found the house, and I would have had Cheremi fling down -to it the keen high call of farewell, ended by six times three shots, -that we had sent back to the bishop. - -But no; there were only women left in the house, and how could I be so -crude as to imagine that one greeted women with rifle-shots? - -We went on for a time over sunshiny uplands, and I remember that day -as a succession of sun and shower, of small grassy plateaus and quick -dips down cliffsides, and struggles up again, beside and through -waterfalls that drenched the rocks with spray for yards around. Our -muscles were now accustomed to the exercise; they complained hardly at -all, and with occasional pauses for rest beneath the wooden crosses set -at long intervals along the trail we went gayly, accompanied by the -shrill songs of the men. - -“Marke Gjloshi is putting on his jacket,” sang the leading man. - -“Marke Gjloshi is putting on his jacket,” repeated Cheremi, for this -was a song he knew well, a song of Shala made in the days of the Turks, -and, repeating each line alternately, they sang: - - “Marke Gjloshi is putting on his jacket. - He goes to the Pasha and makes complaint: - ‘The Mohammedan has cursed the cross of my Christ! - He has cursed it, and I draw my pistol, - My death-spitting pistol, I draw it - And blow him to bits. He is scattered, - He is scattered like leaves on the rocks.’ - The Pasha is angry, the Pasha is crazy, - The Pasha goes mad and the bugles blow - And the guns are out, the gendarmes are out! - Marke Gjloshi is away on the road, - Away on the road a long way, - All the long way through the six tribes. - The Arabian Sea stops him, the Arabs stop him, - Arabs of the sandy sea, black Arabs. - There he stands, there he fights with the gendarmes. - ‘O Marke Gjloshi, what will you tell the nations? - What will you tell the Five Nations?’ - ‘I will tell the consuls the Sultan is to blame, - I will tell to God the Sultan is to blame. - But they will not free me, - But they will not let me go - Back to my tribe, back to my own tribe. - They tear me in pieces, they send me far away, - Far away to the other side of the sea. - My greetings, my greetings, to the lost six tribes!’” - -So in the mountains they sing the tales of the men who have been driven -from them, to become khedives of Egypt, pashas, themselves, of Turkey, -political leaders in Italy, great surgeons of France. From all these -countries men are coming back now to make the new free government of -Albania, and here among the mountaineers we were walking with Perolli, -an agent of this government, who dared not say who he was, for danger -of death. - -“I ask myself sometimes why God did not make me born in a happier -land,” said Perolli, as we looked out over scores of miles of valleys -inclosed by the sky-touching mountains, dotted meagerly with the tiny -stone houses. “But then I think, He has made me an Albanian, and given -me the most beautiful and the most unhappy land in all the world, for -His own purposes.” - -And he spoke of roads through these mountains, railroads, mines, great -power plants, all feeding the people, giving them comforts and luxuries -and knowledge. For all of Albania, beneath six feet of upper soil, -belongs to the government, as well as all the water power, and we -walked on, seeing even with our untrained eyes that the “white coal” of -those thousand streams is enough to turn every wheel in a reorganized -Europe, and dreaming--dreams that will never be realized. - -Then we saw the men stopping on the trail ahead, stopping with quick -hands on their rifles, and, remembering in a strange kind of panic -that no one could be killed in the presence of a woman, I flung myself -gasping up the slope, crying with my last half breath, “Long may you -live!” to two strange men who appeared before us. - -Then I collapsed, panting, on a grassy knoll, and dimly through my -dizzy eyes I saw that the men, relaxing gladly, were sitting down -around me and taking out their silver tobacco boxes. - -“A Shoshi man,” said Perolli, “with one of Pultit. I don’t just get it; -something to do with the blood feud. Let me listen.” - -We sat on the grassy knoll that seemed to be the edge at the end of the -world, so far below it the valleys lay, and listened while the men of -the tribes that were “in blood” talked easily together of unimportant -matters and offered one another cigarettes. - -The Shoshi man had taken off his turban and wore on his handsome head -only the tiny round white cap, hardly larger than the curved palm of a -hand, that covered his scalp lock. Around its edges the hair was shaved -clean to the skull, and with his weather-browned face and scarlet sash -bristling with knives he looked altogether the savage. - -He was an exile from his own tribe, we learned. A man of the tribe -had killed this man’s brother in a quarrel over irrigation water; the -chief men of the tribe had called a council and deplored the murder, -condemning the murderer to pay ten thousand kronen to the murdered -man’s family. This had been done, but the brother rebelled against the -decision. Blood could be paid for only in blood, he declared; such was -the ancient Law of Lec, and who were the men of these young centuries, -that they should set aside that law? Therefore he had shot and killed -the man who had killed his brother, and, sending his wife to the chiefs -to return the ten thousand kronen, he had fled to the house of a friend -in Pultit. - -Now it is the law that when the chiefs of a tribe take council together -and arrive at a decision, they must consult all the members of the -tribe involved in that decision; when they all agree to it, it must be -carried out. The honor of the chiefs is involved. If any party to the -agreement breaks it, then all the chiefs, together and separately, with -all masculine members of their families, must not rest until they kill -that man and clear their honor. So seven chiefs of Shoshi, with all -their sons and brothers, were hunting this Shoshi man. - -“As it should be,” said one of our men, judicially, and quoted their -proverb, “A goat is tied by the horns, a man by his word.” - -“That may be,” said the Shoshi man, retorting with another, “but ‘where -the tooth aches the tongue will go.’ This matter was a sore tooth to -me, and I had no sleep until I killed that man who killed my brother. -As to the money, I have returned it. Money will not buy my brother’s -blood.” - -The men fell silent, smoking. “But why hasn’t he been killed before -now?” I demanded of Perolli, when their words had been translated to me. - -“He is traveling with his friend, the man of Pultit,” said Perolli. “He -is under that man’s protection. If the chiefs of Shoshi kill him, they -will be in blood with the tribe of Pultit, whose hospitality they will -have violated. Shoshi is already in blood with Shala, and----” - -I exclaimed aloud. The endless complexities of the laws of these -supposedly lawless people were too much for me. It was almost as -bewildering as our own courts. - -“Meantime,” said Perolli, “the chiefs have torn down this man’s -house, and that would make it seem that they will reach some peaceful -settlement.” - -“Would it?” said I. - -“Of course. For if they meant not to stop until they killed him they -would not have destroyed his house. I think that they will hold another -council and simply banish him from the tribe and from the mountains.” - -“But if he does not go?” - -“Oh, then, of course, they would really have to kill him. And of course -they must kill him now, if they meet him. But as long as the man of -Pultit is with him, they will try not to meet him.” - -“So,” said I, “wherever there are laws there are ways of getting around -them. And,” I continued, remembering, “these men of ours would have to -be killing him now, if I were not here?” - -“Certainly,” said Perolli. “Our Shala men would have to, because Shala -is in blood with Shoshi, and this is a Shoshi man.” - -“Even when his own chiefs are hunting him? Even if he were banished -from the tribe?” - -“Well, one doesn’t stop to ask that. He wears the Shoshi braiding on -his trousers.” - -“I see,” said I, and after we had rested and talked and smoked together -for some time, the Shoshi man rose leisurely to go. The man of Pultit -rose instantly, with him, and each cast a searching glance over the -valley before them. Then they hitched more comfortably over their -shoulders the woven woolen straps that held their rifles, ran an alert -hand over the knives and pistols in their sashes, threw away the butts -of their cigarettes. - -“Long life to you,” they said, politely. - -“And to you long life,” we responded. “Go on a smooth trail.” - -In a moment the last glimpse of their heads had disappeared as they -made their way down the steep path. The forest was very still, the -sunlight on the wet rocks very golden, and for a hundred miles the -mountains stretched into the distance, frozen waves of a sea of -purple and gray and green and bronze brown, with foam of smoke-colored -clouds floating on them. It was all very peaceful and beautiful, and -we sang as we took the trail again, but for a long time, whenever the -sharp bark of a rifle was answered by a hundred cliffs, I wondered. -It was nothing, probably; some one firing his gun at the sky in sheer -exuberance of spirit. It happens all the time, in these mountains. - -It was on this day that we passed the Wood of the Ora, and, even though -I had not heard the stories of them, I should have felt an uncanny -sensation while going through that narrow, dark defile between gray -cliffs. The trees stood thickly there, climbing the bowlder-strewn -slope; they were cut, like all the trees of the mountains, to mere -limbless stumps, and they were very old. They seemed for centuries -to have writhed under the blows of the shepherds’ axes; they were -contorted as if in pain; their few half-amputated branches were like -mutilated arms. Beyond them rose rocks, perhaps five hundred feet high, -evil-looking cliffs contorted like the trees, and these faced, above -our heads, a smooth, sheer wall of tilted gray limestone that overhung -the trail. - -Our men stopped singing and Cheremi’s mirth-wrinkled face became -solemn; his eyes were awed and listening. “The Wood of the Ora,” he -said, in a hushed voice. - -“Of course,” said Alex, cheerfully, in an everyday voice that was like -a ray of daylight in a cave, “it’s simple enough. These cliffs repeat -far-away echoes, and that’s how the superstition started.” - -“One can explain everything,” said Frances. - -“And then explain the explanations,” said I. - -“And still most of the learning of every age seems to consist in -proving most of the learning of the other ages wrong,” said Frances. - -“Do you mean you actually believe that there are ora?” said Alex. “All -these stories of people who have seen people who have seen them--I’d -like to see one myself.” - -“And if you see one, it doesn’t prove that it exists,” said I. “We see -a great many things that don’t exist--and don’t see a great many that -do. - -“How can you prove that anything exists? Only by common belief. I once -had a letter from a man in an insane asylum, who wrote to ask if Art -Smith, an aviator I knew, saw in the upper air the shapes that he did. -Art Smith never had; I didn’t even bother to ask him. But if Art Smith -had seen them, and all other aviators had seen them, we would believe -that they existed; they would exist, and the man would be sane, because -he would believe as all the rest of us did. How do we know there are -air currents five thousand feet from the earth? Because everyone who -has been there has felt them. How do we know there are subtler currents -that carry wireless messages? Because everyone who uses a wireless -uses them. How do we know that there are ora in the Albanian mountains? -Because all the Albanians who live here have heard them, and many -have seen them. If we say there are no ora we will be crazy, by the -standards of these men. Or simply foolishly ignorant. What do we think -of an Albanian when he tells us that the power in a waterfall cannot be -carried invisibly on a wire?” - -“Do you believe there are ora?” said Alex. - -“No,” I said, “I don’t. But human beings began life on this planet -among spirits and demons; they knew they were there, they saw them -and heard them and arranged their lives by them; therefore, by any -measurement we know, spirits and demons existed. Here in the Albanian -mountains they still exist. We live among electric currents and ether -waves and X-rays and radium; we see them or use them; they exist. They -exist for us and not for the Albanians; spirits and demons exist for -the Albanians and not for us. And none of us can explain any of them; -it is all mystery. Listen!” - -We listened. All around us the trees seemed to be listening, too. From -far away on a distant peak we heard the shrill, clear, infinitely fine -sounds of a conversation, a conversation carried on from mountain to -mountain, swinging like thin wires over the wide valley of the Lumi -Shala. All around us the woods were perfectly silent, the cliffs were -still; against that background of profound silence we heard a water -drop falling from a rock, the delicate sound of our breathing and of -the blood in our ears. - -“Which proves nothing, of course. The sound wasn’t in the right -direction; the echoes didn’t work,” said Alex. - -“Yes,” I said. “But I wish they had. It would have given us such -delightfully shivery sensations.” - -So we came up out of the wood, and over the next mountain, and there -on a slope, where the dead grass was splotched with patches of rotting -snow and the soft earth trodden by the sharp hoofs of goats, we came -back with a jolt to problems of unquestioned reality. For we met a -woman, herding the goats, who believes in private property. - -She was a tall, dark-eyed woman, handsome, but not beautiful. Her -face, as we say, was full of character; and there was independence, -even a shade of defiance, in her bearing as she stood watching us -approach, her chin up, her eyes cool and steady, one hand grasping a -peeled branch as a staff, her ragged skirt strained against her by the -wind that blew down from the mountain pass. Her thick, dark hair hung -forward over her shoulders in two braids, and from each dangled a charm -of bright blue beads, defense against any demon she might meet in the -mountains. - -“Long life to you!” she said. - -“And to you long life!” we replied, and, seeing her glance fall -covetously on my cigarette--only the swiftest flicker of a glance, it -was--I offered her one. She took it, thanked me, lighted it from mine. - -“A bold woman,” said Perolli. - -“Why?” - -“In these mountains the women smoke, but not before men; that is a -man’s privilege, and it is unwomanly to smoke in their presence. Are -you a woman?” he asked her, in Albanian. - -“A woman of Pultit, married in Shala. A widow with two children, -demanding justice from my tribe,” she said. - -I looked about. There was nothing but snow and wet earth to sit on. -Well, she must have been standing for hours, watching the goats. I -leaned on my staff. “What justice?” said I. - -She told us with a calm precision; none of her people’s rhetorical -flourishes. Even through the barrier of language I could see that she -was stating her case as a lawyer might who was not addressing a jury. - -She had been married five years; she was twenty-one years old. She -had two children--boys. While she was married her husband had built -a house. It was a large house; two rooms. She had helped her husband -build that house. With her own hands she had laid the slate on the -roof. She liked that house. She had lived in it four years. Now her -husband had been killed by the Serbs and she wanted to keep that house. -She wanted to live in it, alone, with her two children. - -“But it is impossible!” said Perolli. “A large house, with two rooms, -for one woman?” - -By the Virgin Mary, she said, yes! She wanted that house; it was her -house. She was going to have that house. She was not going to stop -talking till she got that house. - -“By Jove! I like her spirit!” said Frances. The woman stood looking -from one to the other of us, defiant, superb. - -“Well, but what’s become of the house?” Alex demanded. - -Her husband’s brother, head of the family now, had taken it. He was -living in it with his wife and children and brothers and cousins and--I -forget exactly; seventeen of them in all. The family, which comprised -all the village at the foot of the slope on which we stood, had decided -that the house should be used for them. She and her children could -live with them. But she would not do it. She wanted that house all for -herself; she said again that it was her house. Until she got that house -nothing would content her or keep her silent. Her sons she had sent to -the priest’s house in Plani--to the same “macaroni” who had refused -us shelter. He had taken them in and promised to educate them for the -priesthood. For herself, she remained in this village, clamoring for -that house. If she got it before her sons were grown and married she -would bring them back to live with her. She might do so, even when they -were married. That did not matter; what she wanted was the house, her -house, all for herself. - -“Well,” said Perolli, “I pity the chiefs of that village.” - -“But where do you suppose she got the idea?” - -“Heavens knows. Who can tell what women will think of?” said Perolli. - -We left her standing on the cliff edge, still superb and still defiant, -the cigarette in her hand and the blue beads twinkling at the ends of -her braids. A bright scarlet handkerchief was twisted around her head, -and her wide belt, thickly studded with silver nails, shone like armor. -A picture of revolt, and I thought what a catastrophe she must be in -the peaceful village to which, clinging and dropping from bowlder to -bowlder, we were descending. - -“Will we see her again?” I asked. - -“Oh, she’ll probably drop in during the evening. She looks like a woman -who would,” said Perolli. - -The village was perhaps fifteen houses, clustered on flat land at the -foot of the cliffs. Beyond it, a creamy blue flood swollen by the -rains, the Lumi Shala ran straight between the mountain ranges. A score -of little streams, stone walled and crossed by tiny stone bridges, ran -through the village, and all the land on which it stood was cut into -odd-shaped pieces by many stone fences and raised channels of stone for -irrigation water. Dropping down into that village was rather like being -a very small gnat descending on a piece of half-made honeycomb. - -All the earth was sodden with water; we sank over shoe tops in it, -and, wading the streams, walking on fences, crossing the tiny bridges, -we came to the house selected for us by the man we had sent ahead, were -greeted with shouts and a volley of shots and ushered into the smoky, -warm dusk where the house fire glimmered like a red eye. - -Although this was our second night in a native house in the heart of -the Albanian mountains, I cannot tell you how natural it seemed to us. -It was as though we had always come home from the vast chill mountain -twilight to a dark warm room where a fire smoldered on an earthen -floor and the night was shut out by unbroken walls. It was as though -we had always said, “Long may you live!” to our hosts and crouched -comfortably, in steaming garments, beside the flames. - -We drank the offered cups of sweet thick coffee, the large glasses of -rakejia; Cheremi washed our feet; the dripping-wet goats and sheep were -herded in through the open door and fell to munching dried leaves; -the women nursed their babies, stooping above the painted gay cradles -where the infants lay bound. It was all quite commonplace to us, and -when, after an hour or so, Alex spoke of the stairway, she seemed for a -moment to be a stranger coming from strange, unknown experiences. - -“That stairway,” said Alex, “is about eighth century. I saw one like it -in Norway, preserved by the historical society. It was in a house like -this, too,” she added, in a tone of surprise, as though she saw the -house for the first time. - -It was slightly different from the house of Marke Gjonni. The end where -the goats were eating was shut off from the rest by a latticework of -woven willow boughs, and high against the wall where we sat by the -fire an inclosed platform of the same latticework hung like a huge -bird’s nest. It was reached by the stairway Alex had remarked--simply -a slanting log, notched roughly into steps. Above the fire itself was -another square of the interlaced branches, hung from the ceiling; the -smoke rose and curled against it and made long velvety fringes of soot, -and all around its edges were wooden pegs on which our coats were hung -to dry and haunches of goat’s meat were hung to smoke. From one of the -pegs swung the basket of wrought iron holding slivers of blazing pitch -pine; this was the lamp. - -“Eighth century,” I repeated, vaguely. “So we are living in the eighth -century.” - -“Or earlier. Oh yes, surely earlier, for the house I saw must have -been one of the last of its kind in Norway,” said Alex. But we said no -more about it, for centuries seemed unimportant then, and, indeed, we -did not remember very clearly any newer ways of living; we were too -comfortable where we were, like people coming home after a very short -journey. - -Perhaps ten men of the village had come in to see us; several older -and more dignified ones whom we took to be chiefs, and some young -ones, and half a dozen boys, all moving gracefully as panthers, their -white garments ghostly in the gloom, and each swinging his rifle from -his shoulder and hanging it on a peg near the door before he settled -himself near the fire, where the quivering light flickered over silver -chains, bright sashes, and colored turbans. Their large brown eyes -regarded us with serious friendliness; when they turned their heads -their profiles were sharp and fine against the darkness; and their -hands were slender, firmly molded, aristocratic. - -A small kid was brought for our inspection; we were to eat it for -dinner. It looked at us mildly, contented in the arm that held it -comfortably; its fur was soft as sealskin. One of the children rose -and smilingly kissed its delicate muzzle, with a gesture of charming -affection. Then they took it out and killed it, bringing back its skin, -which they hung on a peg. After a time the mother goat came over and -nuzzled that skin thoughtfully. - -Then they brought us a lamb, all woolly white with youth, and we -praised that, and they took it out and killed it. Its skin hung beside -that of the kid. And after that they showed us a fat hen, and it also -was so used to the companionship of humans that it uttered no faintest -squawk when the woman who held it nonchalantly wrung its neck, just -beyond the circle of firelight. - -After that our host handed over the making of coffee to one of the -village men and went out to help his wife cook the dinner; there was -a built-up place of stone outside where the cooking fire was made. -All this time we had been talking, making the courteous speeches that -accompany coffee drinking, and exchanging cigarettes. - -One of the empty cigarette boxes--the little, ten-cigarette, -tin-foil-lined ones--I handed to a little boy, perhaps four years old. -He took it gravely, thanking me like a man, and retired to look at it. -But hardly had he opened the flap when I saw the hand of a chief come -over the boy’s shoulder and quietly take the box. The boy gave it up, -not even a shade of discontent on his face, and it passed slowly from -hand to hand, was inspected, marveled at, discussed. The cunningness of -the folding, the beautiful design of printing and picture, the delicacy -of the tissue paper that had been around the cigarettes, the pliability -of the tin foil, of metal, and yet so thin, engrossed them all. When -they had satisfied their curiosity and admiration, it went back to the -boy, who took it with his hand on his heart, bowed, and sat for a long -time looking at it. - -“Have you ever seen such perfect courtesy?” said, I, marveling. “And -from such a baby!” - -Perolli looked at me in amazement. “Why, what’s strange about it?” he -asked. - -Undoubtedly we were among the most courteous people in the world, I -thought, but the next moment that idea was completely upset, for -out of the darkness walked that rebel woman who believes in private -property. - -She came quite calmly into the circle of the firelight, her beautiful -hands low on her thighs, below the wide, silver-shining marriage belt, -the blue beads twinkling at the ends of the long black braids of her -hair, her chin up, and a light of battle in her eyes. - -“May you live long!” said she to the circle, and, “To you long life!” -we responded. But the chiefs looked at her sidewise from narrowed -eyes and then again at the fire, and hostility came from them like -a chill air. The children looked at her with wide, attentive eyes, -chins on their hands; the sprawling, graceful, handsome youths seemed -amused. Beyond the firelight, the women of the household went about -their tasks; one came in and lowered from her shoulders a large, -kidney-shaped wooden keg of water. - -“When am I going to get my house?” said the woman. She stood there -superb, holding that question like a bone above a mob of starving dogs, -and they rose at it. - -I have never seen such pandemonium. Three chiefs spoke at once, -snarling; they were on their feet; all the men were on their feet; it -was like a picture by Jan Steen changed into the wildest of futurist -canvases. I expected them to fly at one another’s throats, after the -words that they hurled at one another like spears. I expected them -to strike the woman, so violently they thrust their faces close to -hers, clenching quivering fists on the hilts of the knives in their -sashes. She stamped her foot; her lips curled back like a dog’s from -her fine, gleaming teeth, and she stood her ground, flashing back at -them words that seemed poisoned by the venom in her eyes. “My house!” -she repeated, and, “I want my house!” These words, the only ones I -recognized, were like a motif in the clamor; Rexh and Perolli were both -too much absorbed to translate, and we added to the turmoil by frantic -appeals to them. - -Then, suddenly as the calm after an explosion, they were all quiet. -They sat down; they rolled cigarettes; the coffee maker picked up his -flung-away pot and went on making coffee. Only the eyes of the chiefs -were still cold and bitter, and the woman, though silent, was not at -all defeated. There was a pause. - -“Ask them what she wants,” said I, quickly, to Perolli. - -“Who can say what the avalanche desires?” replied the chief, -contemptuously. “She would break our village into pieces. She has no -respect for wisdom or custom. She says that a house is her house; she -is a widow with two sons, and she demands the house in which she lived -with her husband. She wishes to take a house from the tribe and keep -it for herself. Have the mountains seen such a thing since a hundred -hundred years before the Turks came? She is _gogoli_.”[2] - -“I helped to build that house,” said the woman. “With my own hands I -laid the roof upon it. It is my house. I will not give up my house.” - -[Illustration: A GROUP OF MOUNTAIN FOLK - -The woman of Pultit in the center.] - -Frances and I hugged each other in silent convulsions of delight. My -pen spilled ink on my excited hands as I tried to capture their words -in shorthand. I was seeing, actually seeing with my own eyes, the -invention of private property! - -“What are they going to do about it?” - -The question was not too tactful, nor too happily received, but they -answered it. “They have already called a council of the whole village -four times,” said Perolli. “They will do nothing about it. Houses -belong to the tribe. It is a large house, and the people have decided -that her dead husband’s brother shall have it for his household. She -has been offered a place in it. If she does not want that, she can live -wherever she likes in the tribe. No one will refuse shelter or food to -her and her children. She has friends with whom she can live, since she -quarrels with her husband’s brother. All this is absurd, and they will -not call another council to satisfy a foolish woman.” - -“I want my house,” said the woman. - -Then the oldest man--one of the little boys was playing with the silver -chains around his neck, and another hung heavily against his shoulder, -but his dignity was undisturbed and he was obviously chief of the -chiefs--appealed to me. - -“In your country, what would you do with such a woman?” And I perceived -that I was obliged to explain to this circle of eager listeners a -system of social and economic life of which they had never dreamed, of -which they knew as little as we know of the year 2900. - -The woman sat impassive, as unmoved as a rock of her mountains; the -younger men turned, propping their chins on their elbows and looking at -me attentively, and the chiefs waited with expectation. The children, -settled comfortably here and there in the mass of lounging bodies, -stopped their quiet playing to listen. - -“Go on,” said Alex, with friendly malice. “Just tell them what private -property is.” - -“I expect sympathy, not ribald mirth,” said I. “Well,” I said, -carefully, “tell them, Perolli, that when I say ‘man’ I mean either a -man or a woman. It isn’t quite true, of course, but I’ll have to say -that. Now then. In my country, a man owns a house.” - -“_Po! Po!_” they said, shaking their heads from side to side in the -sign that in Albanian means, “Yes.” “It is so here. A man owns the -house in which he lives.” - -“No, it’s not that. In my country, a man can own a house in which he -does not live.” - -Then they were surprised. “You must have many houses in your tribe, if -some are left vacant.” - -(“Shades of the housing situation!” murmured Alex. “Shut up!” said I.) - -“No,” I said. “You don’t understand. In my country a man owns a house. -It is his very own house. He owns it always; he owns it after he is -dead. He owns it when other people live in it.” - -“In your country dead men own houses? Dead men live in houses?” - -“No. Living in a house has nothing to do with owning a house. A man -owns a house; it is his house; other people live in that house, and -they pay him money to be allowed to live in his house.” - -“We do not understand. In your country do men of the same tribe pay one -another money for houses?” - -“Yes.” - -There was always a pause after I had spoken, while they pondered. - -“Ah!” they said. “In your country a man can build a house all by -himself. You have one man who makes all the houses for the village, and -the others divide with him the money they earn outside the tribe.” - -“No,” I said. “In my country many men must work to build a house.” And -I tried to think how best to go on. - -“But it is so here,” they said. “Many men of the tribe build a house, -and then the house is a house of the tribe.” - -“But it is different in my country,” I insisted. “In my country the -house does not belong to the tribe. It belongs to the man who owns the -land on which it is built, and he pays money to the men who build it -for him, and then it is his house. Even if he lives somewhere else, -it is still his house. Now in the case of this woman, the house would -belong to her husband, and when he died he would give her the house, -and then it would be her house. It would belong to her. The tribe would -not own the house, but she would pay money to the tribe from time to -time, because she had the house.” - -(“Don’t tell me you’re going to explain taxation, too!” chortled the -joyous Frances. “For the love of Michael, do this yourself, then!” said -I.) - -But the chiefs passed over the taxation idea; they stuck to the main -point, though their eyes were clouded with bewilderment. - -“How can a man own land?” said one, more in amazement than in question. -And, “But how can a man pay another man for helping him to build a -house, except by helping him as much in building another house? And -when all have helped one another equally, then no man would have two -houses unless every man had two houses, and that would be foolish, for -half the houses would be empty,” reasoned another, slowly. - -It was then that the remarkable intelligence of these people began to -dawn on me. For, given the experience from which he was reasoning, -I consider this one of the most intelligent and logical methods of -meeting a new idea that I have known. A case of almost pure logic, -given his starting point. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[2] Gogoli--bewitched by a demon of the mountains; insane. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - - CAN A MAN OWN A HOUSE?--WE SING FOR OUR HOSTS OF PULTIT--DAWN AND A - MEETING ON THE TRAIL--THE VILLAGE OF THETHIS WELCOMES GUESTS--LIFE OR - DEATH FOR PEROLLI. - - -But my delight in this discovery of their intelligence received a -violent blow almost at once, for another man--tall, keen featured, -black bearded, his face framed in the folds of a white turban, red -and blue stones gleaming dully in the links of the silver chains on -his breast; I will never forget him--leaned forward in the firelight -and said: “Such things can never be. Even a child knows that it would -be foolish to own a house in which he did not live. Of what use is a -house, except to live in? As it is, each man has the house in which he -lives, and there are houses for all, and they belong to the tribe that -built them. It is impossible that a man can own a house. It is not the -nature of men to own houses, and we will never do it, for the nature -of man is always the same. It is the same to-day as it was before the -Romans came, and it will always be the same. And no man will ever own a -house.” - -“Glory to your lips!” they said to him. “It is so.” - -The woman, who had been sitting quietly listening to this, now rose and -very quietly, without saying farewell, slipped out of the firelight, -and in a moment, by the sound of the closing door, I knew she had left -the house. But there was something about my last glimpse of her back -that makes me believe she is still clamoring for her house, and will be -until long after her baby sons are grown and married. Unless she gets -it sooner. - -There was a little silence after the woman had gone, and then one of -the youths, compressing his ears with his thumbs, began to sing. He -sang softly, for an Albanian mountaineer, but the high, clear notes -filled the house like those of a bugle. He uttered a phrase and paused; -Cheremi repeated it and paused; and, so singing alternately, repeating -always the same musical phrase with changing words, they chanted long -songs of war and adventure, old legends of men whose lives had been -worn into myths by the erosion of centuries. - -The music, strange and nostalgic, seemed to follow a scale quite -different from ours, a simple scale of five notes, thin and vibrating -like a violin string. - -“Sing one of the songs of your land, Flower,” said Cheremi to me, -politely. All the Albanians addressed us by our first names, as is the -custom, for among them the last name is merely the possessive form of -the father’s, and it is dropped in conversation. Long since my name had -been translated into their tongue, becoming Drana Rugi-gnusht, Flower -of the Narrow Road. - -And we gave them our best. We sang “Juanita,” and “My Old Kentucky -Home” and “Marching Through Georgia” and “Dixie” and “Columbia.” -We stood up and filled our lungs and sang with all our might, but -the result was thin and faint; even to our own ears our songs were -difficult to hear, after the ringing voices of the Albanians. -“Glory to your lips,” they said, courteously, trying to cover their -disappointment and lack of interest. Then we tried “A Hot Time in -the Old Town To-night,” and that fell flat. But from depths of her -memory Frances resurrected an old American popular song; its name I -never knew, I had never heard it before; it had something to do with -an obviously improper conversation over a telephone, ending, “Are you -wise, honey eyes? Good-by!” - -That got them! They sat up, very much interested. “We know that song, -too!” said they, and, putting their thumbs to their ears, they sang it -in voices that compared with ours as a factory whistle to a penny one. -Except that in their mouths it became a beautiful thing, vibrant with -innumerable grace notes, and striking truly where our version became -banal. Changed, but it was our melody as unmistakably as a beautiful -woman is the mother of her ugly daughter. “But that is not a true -mountain song, it is a song of the cities,” they said, and we wondered -whether it had come to us through Vienna or gone from us to them -through Paris. - -“Try them on the ‘Merry Widow,’” I said, knowing that that music had -come to us from the Balkans, and they laughed aloud at the strains -of that famous waltz. “Albanian gypsy music,” said they, and from -somewhere in the shadows they produced a sort of musical instrument, -cunningly carved from pine, in shape like a long, thin mandolin, strung -with horse hair, and on this with a hair-strung bow they played us the -real “Merry Widow” waltz. “You have gypsies in your country, too,” said -they, and we thought how the centuries have transformed the wandering -bands of ragged entertainers into our press-agented musical-comedy -companies; how the commercial age had divided fortune telling, -thieving, and music into complex and separate activities. - -At eleven o’clock Cheremi broke reluctantly from the merry group and, -approaching us stealthily, whispered his request to be permitted to go -home for the night. His house lay only four hours away, perhaps forty -miles by our measurements; he had not seen his family for two years, -and he wished to visit them. He would be back before dawn. We gave him -permission, and one of the villagers went with him, to guard him from -the village dogs. - -Then we learned that when darkness came the dogs were let loose, and -after their loosening only the boldest ventured outside stone walls. -And the long wolf howl that rose and quavered and sank and rose again -along the trail that Cheremi followed made the dangers of the night -vocal for us. We had seen the dogs, tied by the houses, curled into -sullen gray-white balls; they are wolves, they are the first dogs, -torn from the forests and made half-tame savage companions of these -primitive men. Here in the Albanian mountains the long process of -molding life, by which men have created the breeds of dogs we know, the -great Dane, the collie, the monstrous, fantastic bulldog, and the wispy -Pekingese is still in its beginning. - -For us, safe in the shelter of solid walls, the night wore away as the -previous one had done. Talk and music and the desperate struggle with -weariness; the leisurely dinner in the small hours of the morning; the -brief lapse into unconsciousness, lying on the floor, which we shared -with twenty others--our host and his wife and their smallest child, the -last quite naked, had ascended the notched log to the nest of woven -willow branches that hung above us on the wall--and the awakening at -dawn to the smell of new-made coffee. - -“Perolli,” said Frances, desperately, “I simply can’t walk another -twenty miles on one little cup of coffee. Isn’t there something left -over from dinner? Can’t I have just one little bite of corn bread? Oh, -Perolli, please!” - -“If we stay for that, it means we’ll never start,” said I. “Slowly, -slowly, little by little, breakfast will be ready at six this -afternoon.” - -“But I’m starving!” she wailed. - -To Alex and me the cool, sweet morning outside the smoke-filled dark -house called more irresistibly than any thought of food. So at six -o’clock, accompanied by the gay Cheremi, who had just returned, she -and I set out on the twenty-mile walk to Thethis,[3] leaving Perolli -explaining that Frances was of a different American tribe, a tribe -whose custom was to eat in the mornings. - -It was not rain; the sky was like one enormous waterspout. When we came -out of the smoky, reeking darkness of the cavelike house it was like -plunging into a waterfall. We gasped with the shock of it; water poured -down our faces, and in an instant there was not a dry inch of skin on -our bodies. But we had been some days in these mountains, walking in -the rain, and after the first chill impact our blood rebounded; we -were warm, and, clutching streaming staffs in dripping hands, Alex and -I followed Cheremi gayly enough. Though when we were separated for -a few feet on the trail the figures of the others became blurry and -indistinct, like figures seen through ground glass. - -We went first down the bed of a small stream that ran steeply from -the mountains above to the Lumi Shala below. The water was about a -foot deep, but as soon as we got used to the force of the current we -went very well. Whenever we came to a sheer drop of three or four feet -Cheremi braced himself and swung us lightly down. So we progressed for -perhaps a third of a mile, tingling with the exertion. Then we came out -on the narrow gravelly banks of the Lumi Shala, and were joined by a -strange Albanian, nude to the waist, who was out for a morning stroll. - -The proper thing was to offer him cigarettes, but how could one do it -beneath that pour of water? However, the difficulty soon solved itself, -for we found a bowlder as large as a house, with a natural corridor -running through it, and, though its walls dripped and our feet sank to -the ankles in little wells, we managed here to produce and light our -damp cigarettes. - -The little cave was filled with a curious greenish light, like that -beneath the sea; at either end of it a gray wall of falling water shut -off our view. Dimly we saw through it a vague blur of tawny gravel, and -nothing more. - -The strange Albanian conveyed to us with effort, in broken Serbian, -Italian, German, and Albanian, that this weather was bad for the -health, because when it rained the water in the streams was not good, -and drinking it caused pains in the lungs. - -“Good Heavens!” said we. “Pneumonia!” - -Then we went out of the cave, and Cheremi and the stranger carried us -across the waist-deep Lumi Shala on their backs, balanced precariously -on their shoulders, surrounded by what seemed an infinity of rushing -water, milky greenish in color and seeming to snap up at us with -millions of white teeth as the violent raindrops struck upon it. - -After that, it was only fifteen miles up the beds of streams, across -damp expanses of green and crimson and gray-blue shale, and along -narrow ledges suspended between two vaguenesses of gray, until we came -to the village of Thethis, on the headwaters of the Lumi Shala. - -We came to it suddenly, a high-lifted sweep of rock, like the prow of -a gigantic ship wedged between the sides of the narrowing valley. It -towered a thousand feet above our heads, and on either side of it a -white waterfall plunged from the sky and roared into gray depths below. - -We followed the side of a narrowing chasm, climbing back and forth -like ants on the side of the cliff, making for the top of one of those -waterfalls. We reached it and, standing in a welter of spray on a tiny -rock ledge, we hung over that battle of roaring water and granite -cliffs to admire the workmanship of the three-foot wall of stone that -held up the trail. The Albanian who was with us had made it, and he was -very proud of it. He might well be. - -Then the trail turned the shoulder of the cliff, climbed up a gorge so -narrow that the two-foot stream covered its bottom, turned again and -came out on a little plateau. There was a wide stream running across -the flat space; its water was milky green with melted limestone, and -it was strewn with large, smooth, round bowlders. Some of the bowlders -were pure white marble, others were bright rose pink, others were black -as ebony, and one great one was green as jade. - -A bridge of two logs, with railing of twisted branches, ran from -bowlder to bowlder across this incredible river, and we stood on it, -gazing at these colors and at a cliff that rose before us, striped -rose and green and gray and white in long jagged lines, as though it -had been painted, when we heard overhead an outburst of cries, like a -hundred sea gulls shrieking in a storm. We looked higher, and there on -the top of the cliff we saw a score of boys, naked except for bright -loin cloths, engaged in acrobatics. - -They made pyramids of their wet white bodies; four, three, two, one, -they stood on one another’s shoulders, and the four who upheld the -pyramid ran swiftly along the edge of the cliff, passing and circling -about a similar pyramid; from top to top of the pyramids the top youths -swung, passing each other in the air, landing on other shoulders, -balancing, taking flight again. The pyramids melted, as though -dissolved in the rain, and formed again, while all along the edge of -the precipice other boys made a frieze of living bodies, turning cart -wheels, somersaulting over one another, walking on their hands. - -We stood paralyzed. What did it mean? Then there was an explosion of -shots; the cliffs around us crackled like giant firecrackers, the -air seemed to fall in fragments around us, and through the din came -multiplied shouts. Four tall chiefs appeared on the cliff trail, -gorgeous in black and white and red and blue and green and silver. We -were being welcomed to Thethis. - -The shouts redoubled, rifles cracked from every rock, the church bell -wildly rung, and through the clamor, deafened and a little dizzy, we -came into the village of Thethis. The four chiefs, having greeted -us (“Long life to you! Glory to your feet! Glory to the trails that -brought you!” they said) preceded us up the last breathless quarter of -a mile of trail, and all along the way the boys turned handsprings on -the cliff tops. - -The village of Thethis is built on the plateau that tops the gigantic, -shiplike rock wedged in the narrow head of Shala Valley. All around it -rise the mountains, snow capped, seamed with white waterfalls like rich -quartz with streaks of silver; the shadows of them lie almost all day -long across the village. Thethis itself is perhaps thirty large, oblong -stone houses scattered at wide intervals on the flat land, and all the -land is divided neatly into squares by stone fences--some fields for -corn, some for grain, some for meadow. In the midst stands the church, -two stories, oblong and gray like the houses, and a network of trodden -paths leads to it. - -It seemed a quiet, peaceful place. But on the mountains above it to -the north the Serbian armies lay; their mountain-trained eyes were -doubtless watching us as we crossed the sodden fields. This is the -village, these are the chiefs, whose houses were destroyed by a company -of soldiers sent from the struggling Albanian government in Tirana. -The Serbs held the Albanian cities where the men of Thethis have -always gone to market; the grazing lands where they have always fed -their sheep lie in the grasp of Serbian armies. Scutari, the nearest -free Albanian market place, is a hundred miles away across two mountain -ranges. Therefore it was said that Thethis was friendly to the Serbs; -it was said that her men still went to market in the Albanian cities -that are now clutched by Serbia, that spies came and went across the -border, that the chiefs listened to the clink of Serbian gold. And Alex -and I remembered that in Thethis we were not to address Rrok Perolli, -secretary of the Albanian Minister of the Interior, by his real name. - -[Illustration: THE PLATEAU OF THETHIS In the foreground the church, -etc. The hills in the background are held by the Serbs.] - -But he was behind us on the trail, doubtless still engaged in trying -to get breakfast for Frances in the house we had left, and we went -forward with easy minds to meet Padre Marjan. He came barefooted and -bareheaded across the fields to welcome us, a thin, ascetic-looking man -in the brown robes of the Franciscan friar. Large brown eyes burned in -his face that seemed made of bones and stretched skin, the grasp of his -thin hand was hot and nervous. He spoke to us in Albanian, Italian, -and German, ushering us with apologies into the bleak rooms above the -church. - -The Serbians and Montenegrins, in their drive down toward Scutari, had -looted the church, he said. He had come into Thethis two months ago, -and found not even a wooden stool left. He was doing his best, but it -took time---- - -The rickety broken stairway led upward to a long hall; from this, a -door let us into the living room. It was bare; rain-stained wooden -walls and a floor that clattered beneath our feet. The one window was -shattered; fragments of glass held together by pasted paper. There were -a long wooden table and a bench, nothing more. No fire. Our soaked -garments were suddenly cold on us, and a chill entered our very bones. - -The only fire in the house, he said, was in the kitchen. We begged him -to take us to it, and in a moment we were sitting on a bench before a -crackling fire in a big stone fireplace. The tiny room was crowded with -villagers, the floor was muddy with their trampling, and more arrived -every moment. Padre Marjan had no servant, but all were eager to help -him. Some took off our shoes, others heated water over the fire, a -handsome youth who looked Serbian and talked German anxiously beat eggs -and sugar together while Padre Marjan made coffee. The warmth and the -genuine welcome they all gave thawed us and made us happy, and we sat -drinking the heartening mixture of eggs and coffee, while clouds of -steam rose from us all and a babble of talk went on. - -One tall, handsome chief--Lulash, his name was, and beyond doubt he -was the handsomest man we had yet seen--brought us a lamb as a gift. -Dripping beside him stood a ragged boy, barefooted and blue with -chill, who had come down the valley to bring us three eggs, which he -carried tied around his waist in a pouch of goat’s skin. He put them -carefully into our hands, and we tried to return the gift with some -pieces of hoarded candy. But he gazed in dismay at the strange things, -and nothing would persuade him to taste them. A colored handkerchief, -however, was accepted in an ecstasy that made him dumb; he could only -lay it upon his heart and touch our hands to his forehead. Another -chief came with a fat hen, others with eggs; all were eager to roll -cigarettes for us, all were smiling, and in a hundred beautiful phrases -they overwhelmed us with thanks for our coming, for our presence, for -the school that Alex and Frances had promised Thethis. For this was -to be the first of the mountain schools, and Alex, who had come into -the mountains to decide where to put the other two, was delighted to -learn that already, before the school building was begun, Padre Marjan -had started the school, and Lulash had promised a hundred trees to be -burned to make lime for the building. - -We sat talking of these things while Padre Marjan set pots of soup to -boiling in the fireplace, broke eggs, unlocked his box of precious -flour, busied himself with all preparations for dinner, climbing over -and around the tangle of lounging bodies, until another outbreak of -echoing noises announced the arrival of Frances and Perolli and Rexh -and our men with the packs. We felt a little tension with Perolli’s -arrival, seeing the keen eyes of the men fixed on his English clothes -and swarthy, intelligent face. He is as tall as most Europeans, but he -was small among those giants, and the neat leather-holstered revolver -and dagger that hung from his belt looked inadequate among all those -long, bristling rifles. - -But Padre Marjan, unaware of our apprehensions, was altogether the -happy welcoming host. He greeted the dripping Frances warmly, anxious -only to make her comfortable--she who was also responsible for the hope -of a school in Thethis. He welcomed Perolli also, calling him by his -first name. “How does he know that Perolli’s name is Rrok?” we girls -asked one another with startled eyes--and then, turning to the chiefs -with a radiant smile, “This guest,” said Padre Marjan, with pleasure, -“is Rrok Perolli, the secretary of the Minister of the Interior in -Tirana.” - -You read of such things calmly. Nothing that one reads is real to -him. Therefore you can never know what Padre Marjan’s innocent words -meant to us as he spoke them in his crowded kitchen in Thethis, at the -headwaters of the Lumi Shala, a hundred miles and twenty centuries from -anything you know. - -The wildness, the savagery and isolation of those mountains seemed to -come into the room. A hundred miles to Scutari, a hundred miles of -almost impassable mountains between us and any kind of help. There we -were, three girls and a boy, alone in the narrow valley beneath the -eyes of the Serbs, the Serbs who six months earlier had caught Perolli -and condemned him to death. - -A chill wind seemed to blow through the room; it was not imagined. -Every wide, friendly eye about us had narrowed, every lip tightened a -trifle. A thousand currents of antagonism, of distrust, of intrigue, -seemed like tangible things in the air; only Padre Marjan remained -warm, innocent and smiling. - -None of us four, certainly not Perolli, doubted that we had just heard -his death sentence spoken. And I felt again the depths below depths in -the Albanian mind, in that primitive mind which is so much more complex -than ours, as I saw him smile, easily and naturally, and heard him -saying, “Long may you live!” to the circle of his enemies. - -“And to you long life!” said they, while he offered them cigarettes and -they rolled others in exchange. He sat down easily on the bench before -the fire; with an unconsidered simultaneous movement we three girls -moved forward and sat beside him; the chiefs again took their places -on the floor, foremost of a mass of bodies and faces, and Padre Marjan -moved in and out and around us all, stirring and seasoning the contents -of the pots that bubbled in the fireplace. - -“Talk to them, say something!” said Perolli, in a careless tone, -offering me a cigarette. - -“Thank you,” said I, in Albanian, taking it. “Tell them that I come -from California, the most beautiful part of America, and that I have -seen the American mountains and the mountains of Switzerland, both -famous around the world, and that I have never seen such beautiful -mountains as those of the Land of the Eagle. (They will not do anything -while we are here, will they?)” - -Perolli translated. “They say: ‘Glory to your lips. Do you live among -the American mountains?’ (No, not unless they get me alone.)” - -“In America we cannot live among such mountains. We cannot climb such -trails; we are not strong, like the Albanians. When we go any distance -we ride, and we have forgotten how to walk up cliffs. We have rich, -soft houses, and we travel everywhere on soft cushions, and all our -life is easy. But old men still remember when our life was hard and -rugged, as it is here, and I have seen in America houses of stone, like -these, with very small windows and pegs on the walls where rifles were -hung. For our fathers’ fathers lived hard lives surrounded by enemies, -as the Albanians do now, and some old men still remember those days. -(Do you want me to keep them talking?)” - -“They say: ‘What has made the change? Have you cut down your -mountains?’ (Yes. I want a little while to think.)” And he leaned back -and crossed his knees and lighted another cigarette. - -“Well, America was very much like Albania in many ways,” said I. “We -were ruled by another nation, as the Albanians were, and we revolted, -like the Albanians. Then our tribes fought, as these tribes fight, -among themselves. And life was very hard. But we had a young government -of our own, as the Albanians have, and it grew stronger, and after -a while all the tribes stopped fighting. Then when they were not -fighting they used all their strength to make life easy, and it became -very easy, and all the houses had windows, because there were no more -enemies to shoot through them, and we made great wide trails that were -easy to travel, and we made and carried all kinds of goods on them, and -became very rich, just as Albania will do.” - -“And schools,” said Alex. “Don’t forget the schools.” - -Perolli translated at length. When he had finished, Lulash rose, and he -was very splendid in his six feet of height, a snowy turban with folds -beneath the chin outlining his strong, sensitive, sun-browned face, -silver chains clinking against the jewel-studded silver pistols in his -orange-and-red sash, and he made a beautiful speech, graceful with a -hundred flowery metaphors, thanking us and, beyond us, America, in the -name of his village, his tribe, and all his people, for the school and -the hope it brought. - -“I,” he said, “am a great chief; I have a great house and large flocks -and much silver, and all that I have I would give if I could read. I -am a chief of Thethis, and my people look to me, and many things are -happening outside our mountains that mean much to my people, and I -cannot learn what they are and what they mean, because I cannot read. -Every night I come to Padre Marjan and study the little black marks, -and long afterward I lie awake in my house and am shamed before myself -for the ignorance of my whole life. But you have brought learning into -my village; our children will know more than we. Our hope is in the -children; they will be little torches leading us out of the darkness. -You have lighted these torches, and I say to you, for Thethis, for -Shala, and for the Land of the Eagle, our hearts are yours to walk -upon. Long may you live!” - -“Go on a smooth trail,” said we, as he went out, all the other men -following him. Then, released from their observant eyes, we looked at -one another with all the panic we felt. - -“What will they do? Did he mean what he said? Can we expect any -protection from him for you, if we ask it?” said Frances. - -“_Qui sait?_” said Perolli. “We Albanians use many words. They have -gone to hold a council. All their immediate interests lie with the -Serbs. If they hand me over--well, you know the Serbian armies hold -their markets and their grazing lands, and a million Albanians are in -Serbia’s power. We have nothing like that to offer these chiefs from -Tirana, yet.” - -“But we are guests! But we are women!” we exclaimed. - -“Oh, they won’t act quickly. But the trails are long, in the mountains. -Let me think,” said Perolli. And we were silent, watching Padre Marjan -busy and anxious about the cooking. - -The hours went by, with a steadily increasing tension on the nerves. -It is so rarely that we are actually in the center of a situation -involving murder that we do not easily adjust ourselves to it. With -Perolli it was different; he did not disguise a very earnest desire to -save his life, but he is Albanian. He laughed, quite as usual; he sat -on the bench before the fire and told stories, and sang Albanian songs, -and joked with Padre Marjan. Only occasionally the thoughts beneath the -surface of his mind rose and engulfed him in a dark silence. At dinner -he ate with good appetite. As for us, watching him, we could not avoid -the horrid idea of the good breakfasts served before executions. - -We ate in the bare, bleak living room. It was intensely cold; we wore -sweaters and coats. Rain blew through the broken window upon us. We -would infinitely have preferred to be squatting by the fire in a native -house, but Padre Marjan’s hospitable pride would have been stabbed if -we had suggested eating in the kitchen. So we sat on the bench, with -the table before us, and both of them seemed very strange, and knives -and forks and plates appeared to us the most absurd of hindrances to -the simple and pleasant action of eating. Why, we said, did we ever -invent them; they are not really beautiful or useful; they simply -clutter up our lives; and we were aghast, thinking of all the factories -and railroad cars and stores and dishpans and the millions of hours of -washing up, all of it, one might say, an enormous river of human energy -running into the waste of heaps of broken crockery, and nothing more. - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[3] Pronounced as Thaythee--th as in truth. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - - IN THE HOUSE OF PADRE MARJAN--LULASH GIVES A WORD OF HONOR AND - DISCUSSES MARRIAGE--THE STOLEN DAUGHTER OF SHALA. - - -Padre Marjan sat with us, but did not eat, as it was a fast day. An -apparently endless succession of dishes--soup, lamb, omelettes, pork -chops, chicken--was brought in by Cheremi and served by Rexh in his red -fez. Poor little Rexh! He ate nothing but a bit of corn bread; he said -the pork chops had been broiled in the fireplace, and he feared that -some of the fat had spattered into the cooking pots. He was not sure, -but he feared so, and he thought it safer not to eat anything prepared -in them. - -The lamb’s head, skinned but otherwise intact, was served separately, -boiled, and the delicacy of the meal was its brains, which we got at -by cutting through the skull. When the chicken came, Cheremi presented -it with awe in his eyes, and after we had eaten he whispered behind -his hand to Perolli. In the kitchen, he said, they were talking of the -chicken; it was not of Padre Marjan’s raising, but it had been hatched -and brought up in the village, and they were sure that its breastbone -would foretell the immediate future of Thethis. Would we let him have -it? - -Perolli took up the thin bone and very carefully cleaned it of every -clinging bit of flesh. Then, with an apology to Padre Marjan, he held -it up to the light from the window. Through the translucent bone the -marrow, clouded with clotted blood, showed clearly, and Perolli read -it with serious eyes, pointing out to us its meaning. There was a clot -that meant a battle, a battle to the north, and there was a widening -red line running from a dark spot; the signs were clear. The government -would grow more powerful, and there would be war to the north, war with -the Serbs. - -He gave the bone to Cheremi, who tiptoed toward the kitchen with it. -I strained my ears to hear how it was received; I thought that the -portent of strong government might make the people think it unwise to -hand Perolli over to the Serbs; they must know that in any case his -death would be avenged by soldiers from Tirana. But would it, since -he was traveling “on a vacation”? Governments do not usually back up -their secret-service men who fail on the job. There was no sound from -the kitchen, and we entertained Padre Marjan by showing him how, in -America, we use the wishbone to foretell a part of the future. But any -wishbone will do that for us, while in Albania only the breastbone of -a hen that has lived all her life in the family will foretell that -family’s future. - -Outside, it continued to rain, if that state of the air when it is -surely half water can be called rain. We were glad to get back to the -kitchen fire. The chiefs and older men of the village did not return, -but many women and children came in to talk to the strangers, and it -was evident that the padre’s kitchen was the village club-house; they -were all at home and happy there. The padre himself washed the dishes -and swept the floor with a pine bough, chatting with them all as he did -so; one saw, in the atmosphere of intimacy and democracy and respect -around him what the Church used to be to the people long ago. - -Then he set pans of water to heating for our baths, and when they were -warm he lighted the way with a candle to his bedroom, which he had -loaned to us. Another large, bare room with wooden unpainted walls, a -bedstead of rough boards with a mattress laid on them, and sheets and -pillow cases of red-and-white-plaided cotton, hand woven; in one corner -an office desk, and on the wall beside the bed a rosary. - -At midnight Perolli and Padre Marjan retired to the cold, wet living -room, to roll themselves in blankets and sleep on the floor. We three -girls sat shivering on the mattress and wished we knew what the chiefs -were deciding. - -But, oh! it was good to take off the clothes, so many times soaked with -rain, in which we had walked and climbed and slept for three days and -nights. And forks may be idle luxuries, but there is no question that a -thin mattress filled with straw and laid on raised boards is one of the -greatest comforts in life! - -We were awakened in the damp chill of a watery gray dawn, and with -surprise found ourselves on its unfamiliar softness, in the bleak room -of unpainted boards. Padre Marjan was knocking at the door. In a moment -he entered, barefooted, in his long brown robe girded with cord, and, -going to the incongruous office desk, he carefully unlocked a lower -drawer and took out a box of soap. There were twenty small cakes of -soap in the box. He took out one, carefully, put the box back in the -drawer, locked it. - -He had been followed by a small boy, a very serious child, and visibly -nervous. About eleven years old, he wore the long, tight, black-braided -white trousers, colored sash, and woolly, fringed short black jacket -of his people, but they were all soaking wet and very old, mended and -mended again until hardly any of the original fabric was left. His bare -feet were blue with cold, and so were his bare arms, for the Scanderbeg -jacket has no sleeves, and he did not wear a shirt. He stood very -straight, and swallowed hard, keeping his face impassive. - -Padre Marjan turned to him, holding the cake of soap. He spoke -earnestly and at some little length. He then presented the cake of soap -to the child, who bent a knee to receive it, and kissed the padre’s -hand and then the soap. An impressive little ceremonial, which we -witnessed, wide eyed, from the mattress where we sat huddled among the -blankets. Rain was still sluicing against the windows, so that the -water on them was surely as thick as the glass. - -We looked inquiringly at Frances, who understood Albanian. Her eyes -shone, she was so excited. “It’s a school prize!” she said, and, -listening, “He’s the best scholar in school; already he can read and -write. Isn’t it splendid!” The boy saluted us gravely; one saw that he -had just gone through a profound emotional experience. “Long may you -live!” said he, and went out. - -Padre Marjan said that the school had been opened ten days before. -On the first day there were forty-three pupils, on the second day -sixty-two, on the third day ninety-seven. All the tribe was sending its -children to live with relatives in Thethis and go to school. No more -than ninety-seven could get into the padre’s living room; the others -must wait until, with the money Alex and Frances had collected, the -schoolhouse could be built. There were no benches or desks, of course; -the children stood packed tightly in the cold room, and he taught them -by writing with a piece of chalk on the walls. Already this boy could -read and write words of one syllable and merited a cake of soap. Padre -Marjan, at his own expense, had sent two hundred miles to Tirana for -fifty cakes of soap, to be used as prizes. There was, of course, no -other soap in the tribe; a more magnificent gift could not have been -imagined. - -The boy who got the cake of soap walked every morning nine miles -over the mountains to reach school at seven o’clock, and at nine, -after school, he walked back and took out the goats and spent all day -climbing trees and cutting twigs for them to eat. - -Padre Marjan said that as soon as he knew the Americans would build the -school he had started teaching, and he had written to the government in -Tirana and asked if it would help. He brought from the desk the letter -he had received in reply. Written by hand, for the poverty-stricken -young government had no typewriters, and sent by messenger into the -mountains, in six weeks it had reached Thethis, and the padre kept it -wrapped in a bit of hand-woven silk. Frances spelled it out; it said -that the government would give a hundred kronen a month to pay the -teacher. It was signed for the Minister of the Interior by Rrok Perolli. - -“My sainted grandmother!” cried Frances. “Where is Perolli?” At that -very minute the chiefs might be sending word to the Serbs to come and -get him. The chiefs themselves would surely not violate the hospitality -of their priest, but the Serbs would have no reverence for it and they -were only a few miles away. When we thought what a bargain the chiefs -might drive with the Serbs for Perolli it seemed too much to hope that -one of them, at least, would not hand him over. - -Padre Marjan spoke warmly of Perolli, whom he had so innocently -betrayed; he said that he had once seen him at a distance in Scutari, -and the village was honored to have him for a guest. While he said this -he wrapped the precious letter in its silk and laid it carefully away -in the desk. Then he went away, saying that he would send us a fire. - -In a few minutes it came, a pile of hot coals in a large iron baking -dish. Cheremi set it in the middle of the floor--where, indeed, it made -little impression on the damp chill of the room--and went to fetch us -cups of Turkish coffee. But we were too anxious to linger over it; we -swallowed it hastily and dressed as quickly as possible, talking about -what we could do to save Perolli. We thought that perhaps as American -citizens we could overawe the Serbs, but none of us really had much -hope of it; indeed, we had no right to attempt American protection for -a secret-service agent of the Albanian government along the borders of -the land held by invading Jugo-Slav armies. Still, we did not know that -he was a secret-service agent; we had every right to suppose that he -was merely our companion on a vacation trip. It was all very vague, but -distressing. - -Frances and Alex hurried out to find Perolli, but I sat helpless. No -human effort would get my feet into the iron-hard shrunken shoes that -had so long been water soaked. What on earth was I to do? Could I go -barefooted over the mountains? More immediate question, could I go -forth shoeless to inspire terror of America in the breasts of possible -Serbs? Ignoble predicament! - -While I sat struggling with the obdurate leather the door opened and -in came the magnificent figure of Lulash, the chief. He had none of -the marks of self-conscious importance that our statesmen have; he -was as simple, as graceful, and as unself-conscious as a tiger in -his own jungle, and at the moment he struck me with something of the -same spellbound, half-admiring terror. He looked as capable of swift, -unconcerned killing as the rifle on his back. Behind him came Perolli, -betraying the tension of his excitement only by the ease with which he -concealed it. - -Lulash saluted me as I stared up at him, petrified, from the mattress. -“Long may you live!” said he, and, swinging the rifle from his back, he -set it against the padre’s desk. Then he sat down on the floor--there -were, of course, no chairs in the room--close to the baking dish -filled with warm coals. He did not lounge, but sat straight, his legs -folded beneath him, and Perolli sat similarly on the other side of the -baking dish. Lulash took a silver tobacco box from his sash and slowly -rolled a cigarette; Perolli took from his pocket a box of the American -variety; they exchanged cigarettes, lighted them by bending close to -the red coals, and sat back again, watching each other in silence for -some moments. - -I put my shoes down stealthily, making not the slightest noise, tucked -my feet beneath me, and sat perfectly still. Outside, the rain made a -swishing sound; the soft roaring of a thousand waterfalls ran beneath -it like an accompaniment. Thin streaks of snow-chilled, wet air came -through the many cracks in the board walls and floor; they tore the -cigarette smoke into dancing wisps. Wet spread slowly on the walls; the -floor was spotted with damp where we had dropped our sodden clothes the -night before. The coals in the baking dish were filming over with gray -ash. - -It was the first time I had ever been present at a diplomatic -conference, and that one on which the fate of a nation depended. For if -these mountain men did turn Perolli over to the Serbs, getting thereby -the favor of the armies that held their cities and grazing lands, I had -no doubt that it meant soldiers from Tirana coming up to Thethis, civil -war with the northern tribes, and not at all improbably the murdering -of the new-born government. Perhaps, indeed, another outbreak in the -Balkans, the sore spot of Europe. And I could not understand Albanian! - -Lulash spoke first, in short, decisive sentences. I caught the word -“Serbs” and the word for “markets.” At the end of each sentence Perolli -shook his head sidewise, in the quick gesture that means, “Yes.” -Lulash was stating the case; Perolli was in his power; the Serbs -wanted Perolli; the Serbs held Thethis’s markets and grazing lands; -moreover--for I caught the word “kronen”--there was the probability of -reward. To all this Perolli assented. He had not yet spoken. - -There was another slight pause, but not for him to break. Lulash was -thinking. Then he leaned a little forward, put his hand on his heart, -and spoke again. There was not the faintest expression on Perolli’s -face; I could not make out what was happening. When Lulash had ceased -speaking Perolli smoked for a moment in silence. “You have done well,” -he said, then, in Albanian; and to me, “Have you got your fountain pen?” - -I got it out of my trousers pocket and gave it to him quickly--too -quickly. He was very leisurely about taking it. Then he opened his -notebook and wrote in it. Lulash watched the moving pen with a sort -of awed fascination. Perolli read aloud the words he had written, -closed the notebook, and put it in his pocket. He showed no pleasure of -relief, but the very atmosphere of the room had lightened. - -Both men leaned back more easily and for the first time seemed to taste -their cigarettes. Lulash looked at me; the aquiline profile became a -full-face view of the handsome, sensitive, strong face framed in folds -of white. What did I look like to those mountain eyes, I wondered, -sitting there disheveled among tumbled blankets, a brown sweater -bunched around my neck, my riding trousers creased and muddy and -dangling their unputteed legs? - -“I should be glad to see the women of my tribe wearing American -garments,” said Lulash. “Skirts are heavy and cumbersome; trousers are -far better.” - -Perolli translated. - -“Goodness! He thinks all American women wear trousers!” I said. “Well, -tell him I thank him; I agree with him; for the mountains trousers are -more comfortable. Tell him I am much interested in the women of his -tribe and would like to ask him some questions about them. And I’ll die -right here if you don’t tell me what’s happened.” - -“He will be glad to tell you anything he knows, but no man understands -the nature of women, which is like the streams that run under the -mountains. Don’t worry; it’s all over.” - -“What do you mean? Ask him if he thinks it is a good idea to betroth -children before they are born. (What did you write in the notebook?)” - -“He says he does not think it a good idea. (I tell you it’s all right.)” - -“Oh, thank goodness! Then he does not think the women are happy in -their marriages? (But tell me what he was saying to you, won’t you?)” - -“He says that as for happiness, his people do not expect happiness -in marriage; happiness comes from other things. (I cannot tell -you; he would understand the word; I will spell it. He has sworn a -_b_-_e_-_s_-_a_ that his whole tribe will be loyal to the Albanian -government as long as he lives. Careful! Don’t let him suspect I’m -talking about it.)” - -Albanians, with their many languages, are used to such conversations. I -hope I deceived Lulash; my training in dissimulation has been small. I -was rather dizzy. - -“From what does their happiness come, then?” said I. (“For Heaven’s -sake, what happened to make him do that?”) - -“Happiness,” said Lulash, “comes from the skies. It comes from -sunshine, and from light and shadow on the mountains, and from green -things in the spring. It comes also from rest when one is tired, and -from food when one is hungry, and from fire when one is cold. It comes -from singing together, and from walking on hard trails and being harder -than the rocks; and there is a kind of happiness that comes to a man in -battle, but that is a different kind. For us, marriage has nothing to -do with happiness.” - -Perolli, translating, added, “He did it because the Albanian government -has helped the American school here.” - -Then for the first time I really looked at Lulash. He had been until -then simply a marvelously beautiful animal; a man such as men must have -been before cities and machines and office desks brought dull skins -and eyes, joy rides, padded shoulders, and crippling collars. Now I -perceived that he was also a real person. - -He saw beyond immediate gain for himself or his people. He had refused -any advantages to be gained by this unexpected dropping into his -hands of this man that the Serbs wanted; he lived under the shadow -of mountains alive with Serbian troops, his village was filled with -Serbian influences, the Tirana government was two hundred miles away, -and he knew nothing of it except that it had promised a hundred kronen -a month to the mountain school that Alex and Frances had started. -Yet he had come, voluntarily, without urging, to swear a _besa_ of -loyalty to that government because it had helped the school. And the -_besa_, the word of honor, would hold him, I knew, as the strongest -treaties never hold Western governments. I admired that man. I felt a -tender sort of pity for him, too, because of his faith in the value of -being able to read. After all, what has it done for us? Like most of -civilization, it has done little more than create a useless desire that -men become slaves to satisfy. It has made us very little kinder, very -little less unsympathetic with alien points of view, and no farther -from war, poverty, and misery than the Albanians are. - -“Then what does marriage mean to the Albanians?” I said, grasping for -the thread of the conversation. - -Lulash was really puzzled by my idea that marriage and happiness -were in some way connected. He was courteous, but there was a little -surprise in his voice. “Marriage is a family question,” he said. “One -marries because one is old enough to marry, and that is the way the -family goes on from generation to generation. You marry in America, -do you not? You keep the family alive? How are marriages arranged in -America?” - -“With us,” I said, “marriage does not have much to do with the family. -Young people grow up thinking about themselves. Then, when they are old -enough, if they have money enough to live on, and if they meet some -one they like and want to marry, they marry. They marry to be happy, -because they have found some one they want to live with always. They go -away from their families, sometimes very far away, and live in a house -by themselves.” - -It came over me, while I watched the surprise growing in Lulash’s eyes, -how haphazard and egotistic--how shallowly rooted, really--our whole -system is. We marry because we want another human being, because--it -really comes to that--we want to use that other human being to make -happiness for ourselves. For even when one gets happiness by giving, -instead of taking, it is still fundamentally a demand, a demand that -the other take what is given, and that is sometimes the hardest of all -demands to satisfy. Two persons, each demanding that the other be a -source of personal happiness to him or her, each demanding, clutching, -insisting on that gift from the other--that is the spectacle of -American marriage. No wonder it so often ends in a heap of wreckage, -out of which maimed human beings struggle through divorce. - -“I do not understand what you mean by saying they must have money -enough to marry,” said Lulash. “There is always money enough to marry, -isn’t there? A man costs the tribe no more married than not married, -and if new girls are brought into the tribe by marriage, others are -given away in marriage. Even in the poorest tribes marriages never -stop.” - -“We have another system of owning property in America,” said I. “By -that system, often men cannot afford to marry until they are quite old. -They are never able to marry as young as you do here. In fact, many -persons never marry at all.” - -“Because there are not enough women?” - -“Oh no! The women work, too, and do not marry. (Goodness! Perolli, tell -him it is too difficult to explain.)” - -“He thinks,” said Perolli, “that you mean that in your country the -young men live like priests and the women like sworn virgins, such as -they sometimes have here. He’s very deeply shocked by such an idea. -I’ll have to tell him something--what? Either way, he’ll get the idea -that Americans are utterly immoral.” - -“Well, say that we have--that we have another kind of marriage, that -isn’t exactly marriage--say we have concubines. He’ll understand that, -from Turkey,” said I, in desperation. And while Perolli endeavored -to explain and still uphold the honor of America in the eyes of a -profoundly shocked chief of Shala, I tried to devise another way of -getting at the subject. For I did want to know what Albanian women felt -about being married to men they had never seen, in strange tribes, and -I knew they would never tell me through masculine interpreters. Lulash -would know. - -“But most of the sources of happiness that you mentioned are in the -lives of men,” I said. “Are the women happy?” - -“No,” said Lulash. “I do not think our women are happy.” He seemed -deeply troubled; there were perplexity and anxiety in his dark eyes, -and he moved restlessly--which Albanians almost never do--as he sat -on the floor by the heap of coals in the baking dish. They had sunk -quite into gray ashes; the bleak room was very cold, filled with the -ceaseless swishing sound of the rain and of the innumerable waterfalls -that poured from the mountains overhead. - -“Perhaps I shouldn’t be asking him this? Perhaps he is married to an -unhappy woman?” I asked. - -“No,” said Perolli. “He is not married; he is the only man in Shala who -is not married.” - -“Our women have their children; they love their children,” said Lulash. -“And they do not quarrel with their husbands. It almost never happens -that there are ugly words in a family. But I do not think the women -are happy. I do not know whether they would be happier if they chose -their own husbands. Girls of the marrying age are not very wise. But I -often think, when I see a young girl taken away to the house of some -old man, who perhaps is sick and ugly and morose because he must stay -all day in the house, that it is a sad thing. For myself, I would like -to see the American way tried here. I have said to my people that it -is wrong to betroth children before they are born. We do not do it -very often, now. Usually they are five or six years old, old enough so -that one can see what they will become and what they will like. But -parents do not often think of those things; they think more of marrying -their children into a richer, stronger tribe, so that when war and bad -seasons come there will be the strong, rich tribe to help them. Also, -it is better for the child who is married into a good tribe. So that -parents do not think much about the children themselves; they think -more about the family and the tribe.” - -“Why isn’t he married?” I said to Perolli. - -“Did they give the girl he wanted to some one else?” - -“How could they, when he would have been a baby then?” said Perolli, -indignant at my stupidity. “No. When he was old enough to marry he paid -the girl’s family and arranged her marriage to some one else. It is -well known why he has not married; he does not want to marry a woman of -the mountains, and he knows no other women.” - -“And in my country,” I said to Lulash, “I think it would be better if -parents thought more about the young man’s family.” - -“Yes,” he replied, “if they thought about the character of that family, -as they would doubtless do in America. Here, they think more about the -lands and herds and strong fighting men that the tribe has. I have -often thought at night--for I lie awake a great deal, thinking about -my people--that we would have better children if the women were free -to choose their own husbands. They would choose men who were young and -strong and beautiful. Also the young men would choose the strongest and -most beautiful girls. There is another thing, too. I believe there is -something like a spirit between two people, something that knows more -than their brains do about what their children will be, and that that -spirit would lead them into better marriages if they could listen to -it. I do not say it very well, because there is no word for it, but I -understand it. I would like to see my people try the American way,” he -repeated. - -He rose to his six feet of height, splendid in fine white wool and -silken sash, the jewel-studded chains clinking together on his chest, -and swung the rifle again on his back. “I will go now to my own house,” -he said. “If the _zaushka_ from America would follow me and drink -coffee before my fire, the path her feet would take would always be -flowery with spring to my eyes.” - -There is something contagious in that sort of thing. “Say to him that -my feet will be happy on the path,” I said to the amused Perolli. - -“Glory to your lips!” said Lulash. “Glory forever to the little feet -that brought you to Thethis!” - -The little feet were wearing at that moment two pairs of wrinkled, -thick woolen stockings, indescribably ludicrous beneath the flapping -legs of trousers around which I had not rewound the soaked woolen -leggings, and Perolli and I were helpless with laughter as soon as the -door had closed behind Lulash. - -“How am I ever going to get to his house?” I asked, wiping my eyes. - -“Oh, we’ll have somebody make you some goatskin opangi,” said Perolli. -“He won’t expect us very soon.” He flung out his arms in a jubilant -gesture. “A _besa_ of peace from Shala!” he exclaimed. “I couldn’t -have hoped for that! It means peace through the whole north; it means -internal security for northern Albania--if I can only get the other -tribes to join it.” - -Frances and Alex came in, desperately anxious to know what had -happened, and we three did a dance of pure delight. It was an -inexpressible relief to know that Perolli would get out of Shala alive, -and the _besa_ was almost too much. - -“But, Perolli,” said Frances, when I had told the whole conversation, -“do you mean to say that these people are--are absolutely moral? -I mean, as we understand morality? No love making along all these -mountain trails? No illegitimate children? Never?” - -“Never? Well, I have heard of one case,” said Perolli. “But don’t -forget that such a thing would mean a blood feud between tribes. No -man would make love to a girl of his own tribe, of course; a tribe -traces its ancestry back to a common ancestor, and it would be like an -American’s making love to his own sister. And if he seduced a girl of -another tribe he would be involving hundreds of people. Men have to -respect women in these mountains; they’re killed if they don’t, and not -only they, but their families. A blood feud is no joke. - -“However, I did hear of its happening once. The man’s family had to -send word to the family of the girl to whom he was betrothed, to say -that he could not marry her because he was going to have a child by -another woman. The three tribes met in council and prevented a blood -feud, but the man’s family had to pay his fiancée’s tribe ten thousand -kronen, and ten thousand kronen to the family of the man that the -other girl was engaged to. Then those two married, and the first man -married the girl who was going to have his child. But it was a terrible -disgrace to both their families. - -[Illustration: THE SHOPPING CENTER IN TIRANA - - These mountain women are admiring the strange weaving and color of - bandana handkerchiefs and unbleached muslin from Europe. But they - will sigh and content themselves with their own hand-woven silks and - cottons, and if they buy anything, it will be the brightly painted - cradle. An unbetrothed girl baby who was strapped into so fine a - cradle might well hope to be married in Tirana or Scutari.] - -But he cut short our awed admiration for such a rigidly moral -community. He was a man of Ipek, educated in Europe, and returned to -Tirana, and his attitude to the ignorant tribes of these mountains was -not one of admiration. - -“They are really a wretched lot,” he declared. “Now, take a thing like -this, for instance.” And he told us that in a house a few miles down -the valley there was a nine-year-old girl held prisoner. The story was -this: - -A man of Pultit had betrothed his unborn child to the unborn child of a -man of Shala, eighteen years ago. The two men, being friends, and one -evening drinking rakejia together, had agreed that if one child proved -to be a boy and the other a girl, they should marry. The wife of the -Pultit man had protested; she did not like the tribe of Shala, and she -did not like her husband’s friend, perhaps because he was too fond of -rakejia. Besides, she was an ambitious woman, and said that if she had -a daughter she would marry her in Scutari. Wild, irrational woman! But -the compact was made, and nothing was left to her but to hope that both -children would be boys, or both girls. - -However, she became the mother of a daughter, and the Shala man became -the father of a son. The girl was eleven years old, and in a few -more years would have been duly married in Shala, when the Serbs and -Montenegrins, pouring down over the mountains in the retreat before the -Austrians, suddenly invaded Albania, and in fighting those ancestral -enemies the girl’s father was killed. The mother immediately took her -children and fled to Scutari. - -Four years later, the girl now being of marriageable age, Shala sent -to Scutari for her, and what was their outrage to discover that the -mother not only would not give her up, but had actually betrothed her -to a Scutari man! The gendarmes of Scutari make simple and direct -justice difficult; mountain law does not apply there. Two Shala men -made an attempt to carry off the girl, and were captured by superior -forces and thrown into jail. Not killed, you perceive, but trapped, and -talked over at length, and kept in a cage for some time, and at length -freed, all most absurdly and unreasonably. They returned at once to -their task, but they found it impossible to seize the girl again. She -was closely guarded, not only by her mother, but by the family of the -Scutari man to whom she was unjustly betrothed. So, finding that way to -justice blocked, the Shala men caught her little sister, eight years -old, and triumphantly escaped with her into the mountains. - -She was not yet of marriageable age, and the Shala bridegroom must -wait another six years, but justice had been done, though imperfectly. -Pultit owed him a bride, and a Pultit bride he would have, with -patience. The girl was brought to his house, and was even now being -kept there, much against her will, while the family waited for her to -grow old enough to be married. - -“Those are things that we must change as soon as the government is -strong enough,” Perolli said, decisively, and we hoped that the -government would be strong enough in time to rescue the girl, though -the poor Shala lad, through no fault of his own, seemed doomed to live -an unhappy bachelor. - -In Padre Marjan’s kitchen we found at least twenty visitors from the -village; the men were there again, among them all the chiefs but -Lulash. The fireplace was full of bubbling pots and sizzling pans; -the padre, helped informally by whoever happened to be nearest, was -preparing our luncheon. My dilemma was announced; I stood before them -shoeless. A boy ran at once across the village and returned streaming, -as though he had been in a river, bringing two pieces of goatskin, -tanned with the soft brown hair on it. - -To the eager interest of everyone, I set my feet on the pieces, and -there were many exclamations of wonder at their smallness and at the -curious shape of them, the toes so close together and making a point, -instead of arching, each one separately, as the toes of their people -do, and they would have been glad to examine them more closely--asking -one another, as Rexh explained, if I would or would not take off the -strangely woven stockings later. Meanwhile the boy with a nail drew the -outlines of my feet on the leather and went away with it to his house, -where the opangi would be made. - -While this was happening the older men of the tribe went back to the -cold bedroom with Perolli, each one adding his own _besa_ of loyalty -to the one Lulash had sworn, and asking many questions about the aims -and strength of the Tirana government. They would not yet call it the -Albanian government; they could not comprehend the idea of the state, -so familiar to us that we never examine it. “Government” meant to them -not only the consent of the governed, but the active participation of -everyone in governing; they had, indeed, no conception of what we mean -by “government.” When they say “government” they mean what we mean when -we say, in a group, “Well, now we’re all agreed, let’s go on and do it.” - -Perolli spent that morning--and indeed most of his time in the few -succeeding days that we were together--trying to explain the idea of -a representative government to these simple communist people. And he -told us that within six weeks the Albanian government would really -come up into the mountains. The plan was to begin by sending into -the tribes men from Tirana who could read and write; they would be -connecting links between Tirana and the tribes, sitting in all the -tribal councils, making reports to Tirana and explaining the wishes of -the Tirana parliament to the mountaineers. - -These men would bring in with them, of course, the private-property -ideas of southern Albania (which is just changing from the feudal -system to modern capitalism), and I felt a regret, purely romantic, -perhaps, at the inevitable disappearance of this last surviving remnant -of the Aryan primitive communism in which our own fore-fathers lived, -and at the replacing of Lulash by men like our politicians. I am a -conservative, even a reactionary; I should like to keep the Albanian -mountains what they are. But no one can stop the changes in human -affairs; the eternal swing of the pendulum goes on; we have shop -stewards in England and a Plumb plan in America, and in Thethis, on -the headwaters of the Lumi Shala, we shall have agitators for private -ownership of land and houses, and--no doubt, in time--for private -property in mines and railroads and electric-power plants. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - - THE CHIEFS OF SHALA PROBATE A WILL--WE VISIT THE HOUSE OF LULASH--A - JOURNEY TO UPPER THETHIS. - - -I may say that such agitators will have a very bad time of it, as -doubtless all agitators deserve to have, since all agitators always -have had it. There was a conference that afternoon in the padre’s -bedroom, and this time it was the padre who wanted the principle of -private property established. A man had died and left a piece of land -to the Church, and the padre wanted the land to build the school on. -Four chiefs of Shala sat beside the desk, on a bench brought in for the -purpose, and Padre Marjan, gaunt and earnest in his Franciscan robe, -talked the case out before Perolli. (Perolli was no longer a hunted man -who might be turned over to the Serbs; he was now an honored guest, -emissary from an allied tribe, whose words were heard with respect.) - -Padre Marjan had written down the testator’s dying words in a notebook. -He read them, those little mysterious marks on paper. They said that -the man had made much land--every foot of earth is made by incredible -labor of uprooting bowlders and building stone walls to catch -washed-down soil--and he felt that he was leaving enough land to the -tribe to stand as his contribution, without this one small piece. That -piece he wished the tribe to give to the Church. - -There was also a statement from the man’s wife, saying that her husband -had long wished the Church to have that piece of land, and that she and -her children wished it also. - -“Those words are written words,” said Perolli, gravely, the eyes of all -upon him. “Therefore they are holy words; they are as the words of the -saints.” - -“That is doubtless so,” said one of the chiefs. “But this man was not -a saint, and, besides, how can he give away land? Land belongs to the -tribe of Shala.” - -“It is not as though I wished to take the land from Shala,” said Padre -Marjan. “I do not want it for myself. I wish to build a school upon it, -and the school will be for all the children of Shala. It will be for -the good of the tribe, that their children can learn to read and write.” - -“Glory to your lips,” said another chief. “But since it is for the -children of Shala, let it be built on the land of Shala. Build our -school upon it, and all our tribe will bless you.” - -“But this man left the land to the Church, for the welfare of his soul. -It is written here upon this paper that the land belongs to the Church. -It is the Church that will build the school in Thethis; I myself am -already teaching your children, and even when the new teacher comes -from Tirana the school will be under my care. I am the servant of the -Church in Thethis, and this land must belong to the Church.” - -“We will think about it,” said the chiefs. - -“Shall it be said,” demanded the padre, “that the Americans have come -from far across strange seas to bring money to build a school for the -children of Thethis, and that the people of Thethis will not give even -one small piece of land?” - -“But,” said I to Frances, “why do you want to take land from the tribe -and give it to the Church?” - -“The Church is the only light they have up here; the only center of -inspiration and learning,” said Frances. “See how the people come to -the padre’s kitchen; see what he means to them. I’m not a Catholic, but -can’t you see that if the school is to be a community center the Church -must have it? They don’t know how to make it what we want it to be, -themselves.” - -“Very well,” said the chiefs. “You may have the land, Padre Marjan.” - -My opangi had arrived. The edges of the leather had been turned upward -and joined across the toes by an intricately woven network of rawhide -thongs. Another network made a heel piece, and there were thongs to go -around the ankles. With the opangi came a pair of short, knitted purple -socks reaching just to the ankle, where they ended in points bound with -black braid and stiff with gold and silver embroidery. These were -really separate linings to the stiff and hard opangi, which had to be -soaked a long time in water and put on wet, in order to get them on at -all. - -Very conscious of my feet, which seemed large and unwieldy flopping -objects at the ends of my legs, I went across the flat, wet fields with -Perolli to drink coffee in the house of Lulash. - -The house of Lulash was different from any of the others we had seen. -It stood on a castlelike rock; we went up to it by a stairway cut -in the side of a cliff that rose almost sheer for so far that the -waterfall pouring down it looked like a motionless streak of snow near -the top. A natural bridge of rock crossed the little space between the -cliff and the rock on which the house of Lulash was built; a furious -little stream roared beneath us as we crossed the bridge, and then -there was another stairway leading up to the house. - -Lulash and a dozen men and women of his household stood outside his -door to receive us. No rifles were fired. We passed through a double -line of salutes and greetings and into a high-arched stone doorway. -There was a little hall, floored and walled with stone, and a massive -stone stair leading upward. This we climbed, and were in a large -whitewashed room, lighted by a window and furnished with beautifully -painted chests and a few hand-woven rugs. But this was not the only -room; there were others, and, leading us through several arched stone -doorways, Lulash brought us into the living room, where I exclaimed, -“My house in San Francisco!” - -It was exactly the same--long, wide, with the large gray stone -fireplace in the center of one wall, folded blankets of goats’ wool -piled like cushions around it; the alcove where my bookshelves used -to be was there--an old carved chest stood in it; and there were my -windows, where the nasturtiums used to grow and the orange curtains -frame the blues of San Francisco Bay and the Berkeley hills and the -sky. I went to those windows at once. But, no, the magic departed; -there was only the flat wet lands of Thethis below me, the stone houses -and stone fences, and beyond them the blue and purple and white and -black and rose color of the snow-crested mountains with a hundred -waterfalls. Beautiful, but like the stranger’s face that shatters the -wild, irrational expectation of having found a friend in an impossible -place. I turned my back upon those windows. - -But it was, it was the living room that I remembered! The gray -walls--but these were of plaster; the black floor; the huge gray stone -fireplace. Even the rug on the wall, where my treasured shawl used to -be. “It _is_ my house!” I said, while Perolli looked as though I had -suddenly gone mad, and all the others stood concealing their amazement. -“Tell them that it is exactly like my house at home, far away on the -other side of the world.” And I sat down on a pile of folded blankets -before the fire, not yet sure that I was not dreaming and that the -strange chests and stranger figures of turbaned men and barbarically -dressed barefooted women would not vanish when I awoke. - -“I did not think,” said Lulash, “that any of our houses would be as -fine as an American house.” He was so pleased that his hand quivered a -little on the long handle of the tiny brass pot in which he was making -the coffee. So I told them that only our finest houses are of stone, -that my house was of wood, and much smaller than his. But all our -houses had windows, I said. - -“Yes,” said Lulash, wistfully. “Windows are very good; I always wish -that all our houses had windows. But first we must have a _besa_ of -peace among all the tribes; it is not safe now to have windows, a man -never knows when his tribe will be ‘in blood’ and enemies will shoot -him through windows. You see that mine are so placed that it would be -difficult to shoot through them, and I have heavy shutters for closing -them at night, when the firelight makes it easier to see us from -outside.” - -But he was pleased that I praised his windows; he had gone through -many other tribes and down into Scutari to bring up the glass of -which he had heard, and made them with his own hands. They were on -leather hinges so that they would open and let in the air; he said he -had observed that sunshine and air were good things, and, if good -outdoors, why not good in houses? “But it will be a long time before my -people can have windows,” he said, sadly. - -He did not think it was good to keep the sheep and goats with the -family, either; all his flocks were driven at night into their own -quarters, on the lower floor of the house. - -Houses are the most endless subject in the world; all of humanity -and its history is expressed in houses, and while the coffee cup was -passed back and forth I told about American houses; about the log -cabins of the pioneers, such a little time ago as crude as those of -the Albanians; about the loophole glassless windows, and the pegs on -which rifles were hung; and about farmers’ houses in New England, where -the cattle live under the same roof, at the end of long sheds; and -suburban houses with gardens, and apartment houses where whole tribes -of people live, going up and down in movable rooms. And then I spoke -about water power and said that it became electricity--Lulash asked me -eagerly how it was done, but I did not know--and that brought us to the -whole subject of machinery. I drew a picture of a spinning wheel for -them and explained it, but they said it would not be practicable on the -trails, where the women did most of the spinning; a woman could not -carry her baby in its cradle and a spinning wheel, too; the spindle was -better; and I agreed with them. But if men and women did not work so -hard carrying water from the springs, they would have time to sit in -the house and work a spinning wheel, and I said that water could come -into houses in pipes, and Lulash and I discussed for some time how a -hollowed-out log could bring part of the waterfall into his house. But -he said regretfully that a log was so expensive; cutting a tree meant -destroying so much pasture for the goats, and it took a long time for -a tree to grow again. And I saw how princely had been his gift of a -hundred trees to be burned to make the lime to make the mortar to make -the schoolhouse, and the infinite labor of such a life made me realize -the stupendous obstacles mankind has overcome in climbing out of it. -And I thought that it was the long struggle to wrest from the unwilling -earth the material necessities of human life that turned humanity’s -terrific energy in the course it still follows, though the need for -it is past, and that perhaps some day this energy, turned into other -channels, will make the life of civilized man as rich in spiritual and -emotional values as it now is in material things. - -The gay Cheremi, bringing our breakfast of Turkish coffee next morning, -spoke with proud nonchalance in English. “Padre gone,” said he. “When -wake, no padre. He is went.” - -The import of these words came slowly to us. Awakening in that chill -room, to find ourselves between crimson sheets, beneath blankets of -woven goat’s hair, and to see the scarlet-sashed, scalplocked Cheremi -bearing the brass tray with its coffee cups, had always a quality of -unreality. It was not so much an awakening from dreams as to them. In -the transition from unconsciousness to consciousness we must traverse -so many centuries to feel at home, that we arrived a little breathless. - -But, “The padre gone?” Frances cried, after an instant. And we sat -dumb, staring at Cheremi’s beaming. Any impossibility was probable; -we did not question that the padre had disappeared in some strange -fashion, and our minds, while we hurriedly dressed, were not concerned -with the manner of his going so much as with what we should do -without him. We were prepared to deal gallantly with the catastrophic -emergency, as the walker up stairs in the dark is prepared for the last -step, which is not there. - -For when we found Perolli squatting by the kitchen fireplace, busy -with long-handled coffee pot and spoon, he confirmed Cheremi’s report -absent-mindedly. “Mmmhm. He went at dawn. Off to hear confessions in -upper Thethis. Getting ready for Easter. More coffee?” - -He seemed more abstracted than this anticlimax justified, and we drank -coffee again, in silence. The kitchen was dismal, a poor and wretched -place without Padre Marjan. Rain was pouring steadily outside, and the -house was filled with roar of waterfalls as a shell is filled with -sound of the sea. In those moments of cold gray light by the fire which -was dying slowly under hissing raindrops, I realized the courage and -endurance of Padre Marjan--of all the priests who, in these mountains, -keep alight a warmth and gayety of spirit for their people. - -“I’m going to upper Thethis myself,” said Perolli, at length. “Like to -come along? We’ve been invited to visit Sadiri Luka, the richest man in -the Five Tribes.” - -We roused ourselves with some little effort, for the grayness of the -day, the chill, and the ceaseless sound of pouring water were like an -actual weight on muscles. We swept the floor painstakingly and long, -with the pine bough. We went down the draughty stairs and out into the -downpour to bring back a wooden bucket of water; we tried to stir the -sullen embers into a blaze to warm it; we gave up in despair and washed -the coffee cups in water cold and sooty. We made the beds; we went up -and down the stairs, bringing water, emptying wash basins, carrying -ashes and wet wood. Our admiration and reverence for Padre Marjan grew -like Jonah’s gourd while we did these things, which he does every day -before beginning his work. At last we set out, opangi laced and staffs -in hand, to go to upper Thethis. - -A day of comparative dryness had broken our fishlike habits, and water -seemed again an unkind element in which to be moving. Crossing the -flat valley in single file, accompanied by the sucking, slushy sound -of water-filled stockings, we said little. The sheets of rain blurred -our sight, and the sound of it dulled our hearing. But when we began -cautiously to climb the slippery trail that edged up the mountain side, -exercise had begun to warm us, and we escaped from the silence which is -to human beings a more unfamiliar element than water. - -“How can he be the richest man in the Five Tribes? I thought these -people were communistic,” said Alex. - -“The tribes own only lands and houses and most of the forests,” said -Perolli. “A man or a family can own flocks, or buy and sell when they -go down to the cities. Sadiri Luka’s the richest man because he went -down to Ipek. He was a merchant there, and everyone is rich in Ipek. -How I wish I might show you that valley, my own valley--it is more -beautiful than you can imagine. There are such rich fields--the cows -stand knee deep there in greenness like a carpet--and the best fruits -of all the Balkans grow there. And butter, and honey, and fine flour, -and quantities of the finest wool that makes the beautiful rugs of my -people--there is everything in Ipek that you could wish to have, and -both hands running over. I mean,” he added, grimly, “there _was_. Yes, -Ipek was a rich and happy place before the Serbs came. And if Sadiri -Luka----” He broke off, on such a savage note that we were startled. - -“You see,” he resumed with a note of eagerness, stopping to point -with his staff, “just over that mountain--no, that one, farthest -east--well, just over that mountain, and down through a little gorge -where there will be violets soon, and then around the curve of the -hills, there begins my valley of Ipek. In four hours I could go there. -I know every step of the way. My father and my mother are there, and I -am the only son, and I have not seen them for two years, nor my houses, -nor my fields. And I could go there in four hours.” - -“Do you suppose,” said Frances, nervously, “that the Serbs have -field-glasses? If they had, Rrok, they could recognize you from their -lines up there. They might be looking at you right now.” - -“If they even had any code of honor,” he continued, not heeding her, -“if they had any proper respect for women, I could go straight through -their lines with you girls beside me, and I could go to see my people, -and I could show you what a country Albanians make when they only have -land to work, and we could come back again--we could do it all in one -day. There is not a tribe in our mountains who would not let a Serb -come and go in safety, with a woman beside him. But the Serbs---- And -Christ tells us to love our enemies! How can we? How _can_ we?” - -It was the unanswerable passionate question, and we did not try to -answer it. We went on, the little valley of Thethis narrowing below us, -till mountain overlapped mountain, and the gorge between was filled -with a foam-white green river. From time to time we struggled through -a waterfall, and there was one huge torrent that, leaping from a cliff -above the trail, arched over it in a curve that seemed solid as glass, -and we passed beneath it. Then, descending, we came to the little -valley of upper Thethis. Perhaps six or ten houses were scattered -there, among broken-off fragments of cliff as large as they, and -between them all the level land was glistening with water at the grass -roots. - -The house of Sadiri Luka was notable for its stone-walled courtyard and -its broad balcony. The heavy arch of the gateway was mediæval in its -grim solidity; we escaped from the rain to the peace of its shelter, -and there were welcomed by Sadiri Luka. He was middle-aged, sturdy, -even a little stodgy of figure, among the lithe mountaineers, and -this appearance suggested the successful business man--a suggestion -incongruous with his picturesque clothes. His trousers were the purest -white that new wool can be, his fringed jacket the densest black, the -colors of his sash were clear and gay, and his silver chains were -massive. There was even a heavy silver ring on his finger. And there -was no rifle on his back. - -The courtyard was a litter of cornstalks, almost entirely covered with -a roof of woven branches; evidently it was the home of flocks now out -in the rain attended by a shepherd cutting leaves for them. An arched -doorway opened into the first floor of the house, where we saw a -pensive donkey gazing profoundly upon the liquid gray weather. - -Obviously this was a rich house, and we followed Sadiri Luka -expectantly, up the stone stairs and down a long hall mysterious with -closed doors, to a large room full of color. There were rugs on the -stone floor, rugs on the stone walls, floor cushions covered with rugs -in front of the fireplace. There was no other furniture save a row -of old rifles on a wall. Their slender four-foot-long barrels were -inlaid with silver, their curved thin butts were of silver chased and -enameled, their triggers were intricate flint-lock affairs, and we tore -our eyes from them with a wrench, to reply with proper courteousness to -the welcome of our host. - -While he made the coffee a woman came quietly through the door beside -the fireplace and greeted us with poised and gracious dignity--one -of those many beautiful Albanian women who, because they were so -poised and so silent, remain a background for all our memories of -the mountains, more mysterious behind their level eyes and courteous -phrases than Turkish women behind their veils. - -Sitting on the cushions, we drank the coffee and the rakejia, from time -to time responding to the greeting of other guests come to meet us. -Perolli was quiet, fallen into one of the moods which we had learned -not to interrupt with requests for interpreting. There was constraint -in the atmosphere, and when, presently, he fell into low-voiced talk -with Sadiri Luka, we tactfully engaged the others in such conversation -as occurred to us. I forget how it happened that we first mentioned the -ora. There were, of course, ora in Thethis, we were told, but no one -remembered any news of interest concerning them. Then, prompted by the -incessant sound of rushing water, we inquired if there were ora of the -waters as well as of the forests. - -“The old men know these things,” said a handsome youth, somewhat bored. -He was a traveled young man; he had been in Budapest and Bucharest, and -spoke their languages as well as German and Italian, and--from wherever -gotten--he wore an American army shirt. Ora did not interest him. “Old -man,” said he, politely, turning to an aged chief beside him, “what do -you know of the water ora?” - -The old man took the amber mouthpiece of his long cigarette holder from -his shrunken lips and blew a reflective cloud of smoke. The alert Rexh -produced my notebook and fountain pen from his pajama pocket, laid them -beside me, and leaned forward, attentive. - - - - -CHAPTER X - - THE WATER ORA OF MALI SHARIT--THE COMING OF THE TRIBES TO EUROPE - BEFORE THE SEAS WERE BORN, AND HOW THE FIRST GREEKS CAME IN BOATS--WHY - ALEXANDER THE GREAT WAS BORN IN EMADHIJA, AND OF HIS JOURNEY TO - MACEDONIA--THE SAD HOUSE OF KOL MARKU. - - -“The water ora were an ancient race,” said the old man. “They were -here before the ora of the forests. I do not think there are very many -of them left, and no man has seen them in my time, nor in the time of -my father. But very long ago, before the tribes of Shala, Shoshi, and -Pultit were founded by the three brothers from the land that is now the -Merdite country, there was a man of their tribe who caught a water ora. -It is a very old song, and much of it has been forgotten, but the man -was a man from the Mali Sharit, and by three days he missed becoming -the king of the world. In my father’s time the thing that happened to -him was still sung. I heard that song when I was a child, but I have -forgotten the words of it. I remember only the thing that happened. - -“The man of Mali Sharit went every day to the wood on the mountain, and -in that wood was a lake, small, but like the sky in clearness. I do -not know why he went; he was probably laying by green leaves to feed -his sheep in the winter. But it happened that one day while he worked -he saw a very beautiful girl lift her head from that clear water and -look carefully in every direction. He was hidden by low leaves and she -did not see him. When she saw no one, she came from the water into the -sunshine, and danced in the sunshine. When she had danced until she -wished no longer to dance, she went again into the water. The man of -Mali Sharit went to the pool and looked into it, and it was like the -sky in clearness. - -“The next day this happened, and the next, and on the evening of the -third day the man of Mali Sharit went to a wise old woman and told her -what he had seen. He said: ‘I am thirsty for this girl. If I cannot -marry her I will marry no one and have no sons. Tell me what I can do.’ - -“The old woman thought, and said: ‘I will tell you what to do. -To-morrow you shall take to the edge of the pool a silver mirror and -lay it beside the pool. And you shall take a rope and tie yourself -round and round with your back against a tree trunk. And you shall stay -there without moving while the girl comes from the pool and goes into -it again. Then come and tell me what you saw.’ - -“The man of Mali Sharit did this. When the girl came from the water and -saw the mirror she looked into it for a long time. Then she saw the -man of Mali Sharit where he stood tied to the tree, and quickly she -went back into the water. That day she had not danced. - -“In the evening the old woman said: ‘It is good. For three days you -shall do again as you have done to-day. On the third day, lay beside -the mirror a dress of white silk in which there has been cut no opening -for the head to go through. The girl will put this on, in order to see -it upon her in the mirror. But when her head is inside it, while she -tries to find the opening that is not there, then loosen your ropes and -leap quickly, and take her to your house as your wife.’ - -“All that the old woman had said was wise, and the man of Mali Sharit -took the ora of the pool to his house as his wife. But that is not the -end of the song.” - -The old man paused to adjust a freshly rolled cigarette in his silver -holder. For a moment pale sunshine came through the slits of windows -in bars of light across the colored rugs and the mass of loungers upon -them; it struck a sparkle here and there from revolver hilt and silver -chain. Then it went out, and only the firelight richly accented the -duskiness. There was a constant coming and going on the long balcony -outside the windows, for behind one of the closed doors Padre Marjan -was hearing confessions and giving absolution or penance for sins. - -“It’s like some old, half-forgotten story,” I said, puzzled. “I -remember it, but only as he tells it.” - -“Mmmh. So do I,” said Alex. “I can’t just remember what comes next.” - -“_Asht shum i buker_ (It is very beautiful),” I said to the old man. -“And what was the end of the song?” - -“The man of Mali Sharit kept in his house the ora of the pool,” the -old man continued, “and she was his wife. For six months he was not -unhappy, for she was beautiful and she was good, but he longed to hear -her speak. And when the six months of humbleness and modesty were gone -and the time had come for her to laugh and be gay in his house, she was -still silent. The man of Mali Sharit worked hard for her. He brought -her fine wool to weave and he made a most beautiful cradle painted -with figures of animals and of birds and of fishes, for he remembered -that she was of the water. But when he gave her the wool she said -nothing, and when he showed her the cradle she was silent. He said to -her, ‘Tell me what you want, that I may get it for you,’ and she did -not answer. He went into the woods to a place he knew, and fought the -wild bees and brought her honey, and she ate the honey, smiling, but -still she did not speak. He did other things that I do not remember; -he did everything that his mind could devise, to make her break that -stillness, and she did not. His home was always very still, and he was -troubled. And when their son was born she loved the child, but she made -no sound when he was born and she made no song when she nursed him. - -“And when a year had gone by since their marriage he could endure this -stillness no longer. He went to the wise old woman and told her this -and asked her how to make his wife speak. - -“The old woman thought, and said, ‘You will kill a sheep and take the -bladder of the sheep and fill it with its blood. Secretly put the -bladder into the cradle of the child. To-night speak sternly to your -wife and command her to speak. If she does not answer, take your knife -and say to her, ‘Speak, or I will kill the child.’ If then she does not -speak, strike with your knife into the cradle and cut the bladder. When -she sees the blood your wife will speak.’ - -“The man of Mali Sharit went with a heavy heart and a dark mind and did -as the old woman had told him. He said to his wife, ‘Speak!’ and she -was silent. He took out his knife and showed it to her, and she was -silent. He laid his hand upon the cradle, he said he would kill the -child, and she looked at him with terrible eyes and was silent. Then he -struck, and the blood came red upon the blankets, and she spoke. - -“She spoke with a sob and a scream. She lifted the cradle in her arms, -and she said, ‘Had you been patient for three days longer, I could -have made you king of the world.’ Then she wept, and her tears became -a fountain, and the fountain became a mist, and the mist was gone. The -man of Mali Sharit never saw his wife again, and as for the child, in -three days he died. And I do not know what became of the man of Mali -Sharit.” - -In my disappointment I spoke too quickly, forgetting the excellence of -Rexh as an interpreter. “It isn’t Albanian, after all; it’s Greek,” I -said. “I remember now that I read it years ago.” - -“Yes, so do I,” said Alex, and her words crossed those of Rexh, who had -picked up mine and was turning them into Albanian. - -“_Po_,” said the old man, with irony. “It is a Greek song--it is as -Greek as Lec i Madhe.” - -I had thanked the old man with an insult, for even the Ghegs keep -smoldering in their hearts the knowledge that the Greeks hold Janina, -and the memory of the burned villages and slaughtered Albanians of -Epirus is only six years old. In an unguarded instant I had made for -myself one of those recollections that burn in sleepless night hours. -I called myself a fool, while I heard my voice trying to bury the -irremediable mistake by hurried words. “What is Lec i Madhe?” - -Frances and Alex were busy in a scrap bag of mythology, and Rexh -replied. “I don’t know what you call him in English, Mrs. Lane. Lec -i Madhe was our king of very long years ago, who went down from the -mountains and took all the cities of the world. He was the son of our -twentieth king, and he was a very great fighter. I think surely you -must know him by some name in English. We call him Lec i Madhe; it -means, the Great Lec. Because we had other kings before him called Lec.” - -“Lec i Madhe?” cried Frances, headlong at the word. “Alexander the -Great! What are they saying about him?” - -[Illustration: - - Once a week she comes walking over fifteen miles of mountain trails, - to be ready for business bright and early on Bazaar Day. This week - she has brought jars of kos (the thickened but not soured milk that - she makes by putting three sprigs of grape vine into the boiled milk) - and plums and baskets, and on the way she has been knitting. When she - finishes the gay sock pinned to her jacket she will sell that, too.] - -The young man in the American army shirt had listened not at all to the -story of the ora, but he heard Frances’s words and misunderstood them. -“Alexander the Greek?” he repeated. “Alexander was not Greek; he was -Albanian.” - -“You mean his mother was an Albanian,” said Frances. - -The young man smiled scornfully. “And you think his father was not? -When has a king of Albania married a foreign wife? Albanians marry -Albanians. When Filip the Second married, he married a woman of his own -people, but of another tribe, as the custom has always been. Do the -Greeks dare to say that Filip was a Greek? If he had been Greek, no -Albanian chief would have given him a daughter for wife. Even then we -Malisori[4] despised the Greeks.” - -“But Philip of Macedonia--was a Macedonian,” I said, feebly. “Wasn’t he -a Macedonian? The Macedonians weren’t Albanians, were they?” - -“Ask the old man what he knows about Lec i Madhe, Rexh,” said Frances. -But the old man, drawing solace from the amber mouthpiece with his -toothless lips, still brooded upon the song of the man of Mali Sharit. - -“The things which I have told happened to an Albanian of the tribe of -the Mali Sharit,” he said. “The song of them has been sung by the - -Malisori from the days when they happened till the days of my own -father’s manhood. The Greeks are a little, inquisitive people who have -played with paper and with writing since they first came to our shores -in boats, long ago--a hundred hundred years before the Romans came. We -gave them shelter then, we let them come to our shores, we let them -come from the cold seas and stay on our land, and they are guests who -steal from their hosts. They have killed our people; they have taken -Janina. Let them leave our songs and our kings alone. Greek!” said he, -muttering. “They will be claiming the Mali Shoshit, next!” - -Excitement so shook my fingers that the writing wavers on the page. The -blotted and rain-smeared notebook before me now evokes like a crystal -before the gazer the picture of that old man in the warm duskiness of -the house of Sadiri Luka, the streaming of rain on the roof, the smell -of coffee and cigarette smoke, the soft sound of moccasined feet going -down the corridor to confession at the knee of Padre Marjan. - -“The Greeks came to your shores?” I said, goading the old man on. “But -it is written in the books that they came from the lands watered by the -Danube, by the river that flows through Belgrade to the Black Sea. It -is written that they came down through the Balkans to build their great -and beautiful cities on the shores of the Ægean. And no one writes -about the Albanians. Where did the Albanians come from?” - -These words created a perceptible sensation. Hazel eyes and blue eyes -turned upon me in amazement. A middle-aged man who had come from the -room of confession to stack his rifle with others beside the fireplace -and to roll a cigarette stopped with the tobacco half poured and stared -at me. “It is not written where the Shqiptars came from?” said he, -in a tone of stupefaction. “But surely all the world knows where the -Shqiptars came from.” - -I assured him that it was written only that the Greeks, when they -came, found some savage tribes whose origin was unknown. But it was -thought that these tribes were old peoples of Europe who died out when -the peoples of to-day came--I stopped, to give them no clew to the -migrations of Aryans from India--who died out, I said, when the great -civilizations of to-day came into the world. And the first of these -civilizations was the Greek. - -The newcomer finished his cigarette thoughtfully, put it in its holder, -lighted it from a coal, and summed up his conclusions in an Albanian -proverb. “It is very true,” said he, “that only the spoon knows what is -in the dish.” - -“And when we speak of the Greeks,” said another chief, “let us remember -the saying of our fathers: The tree said to the wood cutter, ‘Why do -you kill me, for I have done nothing to you.’ And the wood cutter -replied, ‘You gave me the handle for the ax.’” - -The old man’s irritation had died. He looked upon us now with pity, as -ones who had offended because of ignorance. “If the American _zonyas_ -wish to know what we have learned from our fathers, who learned it -from their fathers and their fathers’ fathers, I will speak,” he said. -“All these things are very old, and none of them are written in books, -therefore they are true. I am an old man, and I have seen that when -men go down to the cities to learn what is in the books they come back -scorning the wisdom of their fathers and remembering nothing of it, and -they speak foolishly, words which do not agree with one another. But -the things that a man knows because he has seen them, the things he -considers while he walks on the trails and while he sits by the fires, -these things are not many, but they are sound. Then when a man is -lonely he puts words to these things and the words become a song, and -the song stays as it was said, in the memories of those who hear it. -Like the song of the man of Mali Sharit. These things in our songs are -therefore true, for I know many songs about many things, but no song -shows that another song is a liar. - -“Now it has always been said in our songs that the Shqiptars came long -ago from the east, from a crowded country beyond the eastern mountains. -There was no water in the Black Sea then. The people came across -mountain and valley, in many tribes. It was a land of great animals, -good to eat when they were killed. These peoples--we were not then -called Shqiptars, but each tribe had its own name, the name of its -chief--these peoples who were our fathers’ fathers took all the land -from the river in the north, that flows to-day through Belgrade, to the -plains in the south that are now a sea. - -“I do not know how long they lived here before the valleys became seas. -There was a rain that was like the rain that is falling now, and there -was a water that came up from the earth to meet it. And then there were -the seas, on the east and the west and the south, and many tribes, many -large tribes, were drowned in them. My grandfather told me this, and -he said that his grandfather said there had been a song with the names -of all these lost tribes, a song of mourning for the tribes that were -eaten by the seas. But the grandfather of my grandfather had not heard -that song. New songs come all the time and old songs are forgotten, -and we have had much to mourn since the forgotten tribes ceased to be -living men. - -“But this you must understand. It was after the seas came that the -Greeks came. They came in boats across the seas, and they were strange -peoples that we had never seen before, speaking a strange tongue. Their -boats came to the shores in the south, and our fathers had never seen -boats. That was the coming of the Greeks. They came, and came again, -and stayed, and built cities. The fathers of the Shqiptars stayed on -the mountains and watched them, and went down and gave them gifts. We -did not kill them, as we might have done when they were few and weak -and there were no Five Powers. - -“The Greeks were always a soft people--except one tribe of them, whose -name I do not remember. There was one tribe of good fighting men. But -most of the Greeks were plainsmen. From the first, they loved to sit -and think, to talk, and to write, and to read to one another what they -had written. That was their pleasure. - -“For this reason, all mountain men who liked to take their pleasure in -that way went down to their cities and learned from the Greeks how to -write, and having learned, they stayed there and wrote, and read what -they had written, and in this way their days passed and no songs were -sung about them. But the Greeks did not come to the mountains. When at -last the mountain men went down to Greece behind their king, then there -was no more Greece. And for these many years of years there would be no -Greece if the Five Powers would take their hands from the Balkans.” - -The old man did not speak without interruption. There were promptings -and contributions from his listeners, and now and then a question from -us. And he had to be brought back to Lec i Madhe, for the politics of -his own lifetime were fresher in his mind and more stirring to his -emotions. - -“Lec i Madhe was not a wise man like his father, but he was a chief -and a fighter, and a leader of great fighters,” said he. “There were -twenty-one kings before his father, who were kings of all the tribes -from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, north of the tribes of Greeks. The -kingdom was made by Karanna, who was a foreign chief from the eastern -shores of the Black Sea. He came over the sea and made the united -kingdom, and its capital was the city Emadhija.[5] After him came these -kings: Cenua, Trimi, Perdika, Argua, Filip, Ajeropi, and Ajeropi was -the first king whose family was of the pure blood of our fathers who -came first from the east. After him there were these kings: Alqeti the -son of Ajeropi; Aminti the son of Alqeti, who was the ally of Darius -the king of Persia. Then Lec the son of Aminti; Perdika i dyte, the -son’s son of Perdika, Arqelloja the son of Lec; Oresti the son of -Perdika i dyte; Arqelloja i dyte the son of Arqelloja; Armint’ i dyte -the son of Arqelloja i dyte; Pafsania who was a foreigner; Armint’ i -trete, the son of Armint’ i dyte; Lec i dyte, the son of Armint’ i -trete; Ptolemeoja, who was a foreigner; Perdika i trete, of the family -of Perdika; Armint’ i katerte, the son of Lec i dyte; Filip i dyte, the -son of Lec i dyte, and Lec i Madhe, the son of Filip i dyte. After Lec -i Madhe was Filip i trete----” - -But here the genealogy breaks off, for we wished to hear more of Lec i -Madhe, and we never came back to the story of his successors. - -“Lec i Madhe was born at Emadhija in the Mati,” began the old man, and -was interrupted by three small shrieks of excitement. - -“Alexander the Great born in Albania!” we exclaimed. “But--but it is -written that he was born in Macedonia!” - -“There were at that time two capitals of the united kingdom,” said the -old man. “There was Pela, between Salonika and Monastir, and there -was Emadhija, the old capital, lying in the valley which is now the -Mati. In Pela and in Emadhija Filip the Second had great houses, and -sometimes he was in Pela and sometimes in Emadhija. There was a trouble -between Filip the Second and his wife, because she loved Emadhija and -would not go with him to Pela. She went, it is true, but she did not -want to. And there was trouble between them because of a Greek woman -of Pela. I do not know the song, but I think that it was fancy and -foolishness, for Filip the Second was a good man and a wise king. But -this is true, that before Lec i Madhe was born his mother left Pela and -came back to the city Emadhija, and it was in Emadhija that Lec i Madhe -was born, and there he lived until he was out of the cradle. He rode on -a horse when he first went down to Pela, and Filip the Second came out -from Pela to meet him, and it was from the back of a horse that Lec i -Madhe first saw his father. - -“And it is said that when Lec i Madhe rode down from Emadhija with his -mother and many chiefs of the Malisori they passed through the valley -of Bulqis, where there are springs of strange waters, and that as they -passed through the forest--there was in those days a great forest in -the Bulqis, where now there are fields of grain--they rested by one of -the springs, in the place where the great rocks are standing in rows. -There they heard a sound of singing in a strange tongue, but the end of -the song they understood, and the end of the song was, ‘Long live Lec, -the son of Filip i dyte, Lec i Madhe, the king of the world!’[6] - -“Filip the Second was very proud of his son, and his pride led him to -the one great foolishness of a good and wise king. He said that he -would make Lec i Madhe king of the world, and that was well enough, -but he thought that to be king of the world a man must be more learned -than he himself. Whereas all old men who have watched the ways of the -world know that to be strong and ruthless will make a man powerful, but -to be learned makes a man full of dreams and hesitations. In his pride -and blindness, Filip the Second sent to Greece for an Albanian who had -learned the ways of the Greeks, and to that man he gave the boy, to be -taught books.” - -“Really, this is too much!” said Alex. “Aristotle an Albanian?” - -“Yes,” continued the old man, taking the amber mouthpiece from his -lips and tranquilly answering the sound of the name, “his name was -Aristotle, and he was from a family of the tribe of Ajeropi, his father -having gone to a village in Macedonia and become a merchant there. -Being rich, he sent his son, who was fond of thought rather than of -action, to learn the Greek ways of thinking. And it was this man who -was brought back by Filip the Second to teach his son, though there -were many chiefs of the Malisori who could have shown him how to be a -man and a leader of men. - -“The end of it was that Lec i Madhe became the king of the world. Is -that written in the books? _Po?_ Is it also written that he was made -king of the world by the chiefs of the Malisori who had loved his -father, and that Lec i Madhe himself was no man, nor ruler of men? Is -it written that when the Malisori came back to their mountains after -following Lec i Madhe to the ends of the earth they sang a song saying -it was good that the eyes of Filip the Second were closed forever, that -they might not shed tears of shame for his son? Is it written that this -harm was done to the Shqiptars by a man who had gone down to the cities -to learn from the Greeks to despise his own people?” - -“No,” I said, “it is not exactly written so.” - -But there were expostulations from some who, as Albanians, were proud -of Lec i Madhe and would cry down this attack on their most renowned -king, and objections from others who contended that the old man was -right, and all these were silenced by the entrance of Padre Marjan, -whose pale, fervent face and gentle voice brought us back to the -present. - -He was given the place of honor among these of his flock whom he had -shriven, and Sadiri Luka hastened from the withdrawn corner where he -had been talking with Perolli to make with his own hands a cup of -coffee for the padre. When the readjusted group was settled again, and -we had replied to Padre Marjan’s questions about our morning and our -journey, I asked him whether Aristotle was an Albanian. He said, yes. -I asked him then about the migration of the first Albanians and the -coming of the Greeks in boats, and he said he believed these stories to -be true. It was strange, I said, that the historians of the west, the -Greek scholars of the universities, could be so misled. Padre Marjan -smiled. - -“All these old things are debatable, of course,” he said, “and it -must be remembered that Greeks and Hellenized Albanians wrote all the -records. We Albanians have given no material to scholars. Besides, is -it strange that they should be mistaken about the lives of men who -died thirty centuries ago, when they are mistaken even about their own -times? In the same books which say that the Greeks were shepherds from -the Danube you will read that the Albanians of to-day are Mohammedans, -or brigands, or both.” - -This was so true that I was silent, and, lounging comfortably upon the -cushions, I smoked and watched the firelight run nimbly along silver -chains and leap from cigarette holder to knife hilt with every slight -movement of the entangled bodies around us. Padre Marjan spoke of the -unimportance of past glories and shames, of the new dawn of liberty -for Albania which brought responsibilities and duties, and of the -importance of eternal things, of goodness, strength, and courage, given -by God to man for man to use. For, said he, the knife in its scabbard -cuts no leaves to feed the flocks, and the goodness of man when not -used for those around him becomes a rusty knife, which is of value to -no one. - -His voice was tense in its softness, and, looking at his wasted face -and feverish eyes, I thought, “This man is wearing himself out, here -in these mountains, unknown, alone--for he must be starving for the -companionship of equals; it is lonely to be always the superior--and -when he has burned to ashes he will lie in a grave beside some village -church, under a wooden cross from which the rain will wash his painted -name long before the wood decays. There are so many of those little -graves that the rain has made nameless and that no one visits except -the nibbling sheep searching for a grass blade.” And I wondered where -Lec i Madhe lay buried, for, after all, all men wear themselves out, -or are worn out by the years, and the difference between the king of -the world and the priest of Thethis is nothing to the rain. Then Padre -Marjan gave back the empty coffee cup to Sadiri Luka, saying, “_Per te -mire_ (All good to you),” and rose. He would not stay to share the food -which the women were even then bringing, for there was a sick man in -upper Thethis, too ill to come to confession, who had sent, begging the -padre to come to him. The sick man’s son waited for him at the door, -and two chiefs laced his opangi, gave him his staff, and went with him -a little way on the trail. - -It was midafternoon, and since early morning the women had been -preparing the feast they offered us. A special dispensation had been -asked, and granted by Padre Marjan, for that feast, for though this was -Lent, we were not Catholics, and never before had Americans been guests -in upper Thethis. Far and wide the rumor had gone that in our own tribe -we were daughters of chiefs, and it was with apologies that the village -offered us its best. - -When we had washed our hands in water poured from a silver pitcher, and -dried them on a towel of white silk, a large brass tray was set on four -midget legs in the midst of our cushions, and the other guests withdrew -to places near the walls. Much urging persuaded Sadiri Luka to sit -with us and share such parts of the feast as did not break the Lenten -fast. Newly made wooden spoons were given us, and a silver bowl of hot -chicken broth was set in the center of the tray. - -Sadiri Luka spoke little, but his remarks were sound and well -considered. While our spoons rhythmically dipped the delicious broth, -he said that the whole question of good government in Albania depended -upon the fixing of the frontiers, and that the League of Nations talks -too much and does too little. He suggested, as explanation of this -fact, that the League is made of human beings. - -While we gorged upon pieces of miraculously tender roasted lamb, fished -from a heaping platter, he said that any definite frontier, however -unjust, would be better than the prolonged uncertainty which daily -encouraged further Serbian invasions. - -While we chose morsels of stewed chicken, he said that the greater -danger was not from Serbia, which fought with artillery, but from -Italy, now driven to intrigue. Italy, having been promised southern -Albania and much of the eastern Adriatic coast in return for joining -the Allies in the Great War, had now been cheated of payment, driven -from Albania by the Albanians, and refused Fiume. However, Italy -had authority from the League of Nations to occupy Albania again if -the Albanians could not maintain a stable government. Italy would, -therefore, do two things; first she would spend money and munitions in -trying to stir rebellion within Albania and in encouraging the already -savage discontent of Montenegro, Bosnia, and Croatia; then she would -develop an aggressive foreign policy, drop all pretense of accord -with France or England, and fight it out with Jugo-Slavia. When this -occurred, of course both Serbia and Italy would fall on Albania; any -trouble in the Balkans was a signal for that. - -The chicken being taken away, we were given a bowl of little cakes, -light as whipped cream, cooked in brown butter and served with honey. -Sadiri Luka said that the only hope of peace in the Balkans was a -Balkan federation; nothing less, he said, would persuade the European -Powers and Turkey to leave the Balkans alone. It was true that for -fifteen centuries the Slavs had been attacking Albania and tearing -territory from her; it was true that more than a million Albanians -were suffering under Serbian and Greek rule to-day; it was true that -Albanians had won the Greek war of independence, and the Young Turk -revolution, and their own revolution, only to see their country -mutilated by their neighbors and by European diplomacy. But if it were -possible for free Albania to live, he believed she would be the leader -in a movement for a Balkan federation, and he pointed out that, with -frontiers free and military expenses pooled, all the Balkan peoples -could develop lands and mines, water power and industries, and in time -readjust their boundaries by purchase, which would be cheaper than war. - -This solution was so logical that I suspected it to be in the realm -of pure fantasy, for I have long observed that human affairs and -logic have little in common. But we listened with great interest to -these opinions of Sadiri Luka, which came strangely from an Albanian -mountaineer whose trousers proclaimed in black braiding his descent -from a tribe older than history. - -The feast continued for a long time; there were bowls of kos, which is -sweet milk made solid in texture, but not sour, a joy on the tongue, -and there were platters of fluffy rice with gravy and giblets, and many -kinds of cheese, and little individual spits of broiled lamb, onions -and potatoes, and a cream made of powdered rice, milk, and honey, and -breast of chicken baked in sour cream, and crisp cakes of whipped -white of egg browned in butter and smothered in beaten raw eggs and -sugar--which is strange in words, but unexpectedly good to eat--and -many other things which we tasted absent-mindedly. For the setting sun -had briefly conquered the clouds, the rain had stopped, and we thought -of the trail to Thethis. - -It was good to be out in the rain-sweet air, and the waterfalls were -music in the evening quiet. Sunshine gleamed on the peaks of snow, -blue and purple shadows filled the valleys, and bells of flocks came -tinkling down the trails. When we had said farewell to Sadiri Luka and -the chiefs of upper Thethis, by the arching glass-clear torrent to -which they had accompanied us, we went on light-heartedly, humming to -ourselves. And Perolli sang a song of the mountaineers which is more -sound than words, being a song of evening with rippling water in it, -and sleepy birds, and the bells of the flocks answering one another -across ravines and from far mountain slopes. - -“Yes,” he said, “I am happy. I am happy, for Sadiri Luka is a true -Albanian, and when I go back to the plains I shall see that he is -released from the price on his head which has been offered in Scutari.” - -“What!” we cried. Yes, he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, ten thousand -kronen were officially offered for the head of Sadiri Luka. - -“And he doesn’t even carry a gun?” - -“Why should he? He is among his own people. It is no shame to go -unarmed among his own people. He would carry a rifle, certainly, if he -had to go to Scutari.” - -“But you are from Scutari--we are all from Scutari--Cheremi, Rexh--and -he asked us to his house?” - -Perolli looked at us with scorn. We had been guests in the house of -Sadiri Luka, he explained, with weary patience. If he had been twenty -times a traitor to Albania, could a guest have killed him? And on the -trail he had not carried a gun; no one could kill him, unarmed. He -could go to Scutari in safety, if he went unarmed. But, of course, he -would not do that, for that would be shameful. For two years he had -been living in upper Thethis, unable to go to Scutari without risking -his life, though he was a merchant, and poor, and could have made a -business for himself in Scutari. But it had all been a mistake, said -Perolli, which he would clear up. - -Sadiri Luka had lost all he owned in Ipek when the Serbs came in. He -escaped with only his rugs and the few pieces of silver we had seen. -But his flocks, which were in summer pasture on the high mountains, -had not been taken. Sadiri Luka had come back to his people in upper -Thethis, and in the winter he had brought his flocks there. And in -the spring he had sent them back to their summer pasture, now on the -other side of the 1913 frontier. For this the price had been put on his -head, as a traitor. How could his shepherds come and go with his flocks -across the new frontier, guarded by Serbian troops, unless he were a -traitor to Albania, unless he had secret dealings with the Serbs? For -two years his sheep had got safely to their summer pastures and back -again, while all the other flocks of Thethis had been taken by the -Serbs or killed at home because there was no longer pasture for them. - -The explanation, however, was quite simple. Sadiri Luka was a -successful smuggler of his sheep. He explained to Perolli how he -did it, for both of them knew by heart these mountains, which were -strange to the Serbs. Once safely across the frontier, the flocks -were comparatively safe, for the high plateaus where they grazed were -uninhabited and hard to reach; so far, none but Albanian shepherds -of Ipek had seen them there. Sheep, when they had no bells or lambs, -were silent things, and the flocks were moved by night. Sadiri Luka -said that, if he had reached Thethis in time, he could have saved all -the flocks by smuggling them through the ways he knew; already his -shepherds were taking with them the few lambs born in Thethis in the -last two years. - -There was no question that Sadiri Luka was a true Albanian. For the -Serbs had relied on their possession of the pasture lands to starve -the tribes on the border into treason to Albania, so that the frontier -could again be moved forward. Sadiri Luka, with his flocks, could have -been a powerful weapon in Serbian hands, an object-lesson to the people -of the advantages of friendship with Serbia which would have been well -worth paying for. But he preferred to risk his sheep by smuggling them. -The price on his head had been a mistake. The chiefs of Thethis had -already said this to Perolli, and talk with Sadiri Luka had convinced -him that it was true. Therefore he was very happy, and sang along the -trail. - -But joy is not a lasting thing on Albanian trails. We had gone but a -little way, perhaps half an hour, when the skies opened again. The -water fell with such force that we feared we would be washed from our -foothold, and, gasping and drenched, clutching bowlders and deformed -trees, we struggled into the shelter of a leaning cliff. We had hardly -reached it when around its corner came two women under loads of wood. -One was old and withered, with a strange, sharp expression; the other, -as she put down her burden and straightened her back, showed us a most -beautiful face. The pose of her head was regal, her forehead and eyes -and mouth struck the heart with their perfection of beauty and sorrow. - -“You are a happy girl,” she said to Frances, after our greetings. “I -have never before seen anyone so happy. Why do you come to our sad -country?” - -Frances said we came because we loved the Albanian people and wanted to -know them better. - -“We would bless the trails that led you to our house,” they said, and -added, “but ours is a sad house.” - -“Why?” we asked, and the old woman answered, while the younger stared -into the sheets of rain that veiled Thethis from us. - -The son of the house, Kol Marku, husband of the younger woman, was an -exile from his home. His wife had been brought to his house only a -week before the night when he killed his cousin, Pjeter Gjon. He had -not meant to do it. With a number of other men they had been sitting -by his fire, their rifles on their knees, as usual. They were cold and -tired and had been talking of crops, when suddenly Kol’s rifle spoke -and Pjeter fell back and died. Kol swore that he had not touched the -trigger, but when the body was carried to the house of Pjeter, Pjeter’s -family said that Kol had killed him in order to become the head of the -family and move with his bride into Pjeter’s rich house. They claimed -blood vengeance, by the Law of Lec. - -It was a killing within the tribe, a matter for the chiefs to settle. -They had conferred, and decided that Kol’s family should pay to the -family of Pjeter twelve thousand kronen, or that value in goods. The -family of Pjeter had refused to accept this. Again the chiefs met. -Twelve hundred kronen had been blood payment within a tribe before -the Balkan war, but everything was higher now, and the chiefs offered -fifteen hundred kronen. But the old mother of Pjeter was bitter, and -the family said that no money would pay for the blood of her only son. -They demanded blood for blood, life for life; only the death of Kol or -one of his brothers would pay the debt. Kol fled from the mountains and -his brothers walked in fear. - -Without their men the family could not live. The land was poor, was too -hard for the women to work. The irrigation ditches were down, and they -could not lift the rocks to rebuild them. And the lives of the men, -hunted without rest, became no longer good to them, so that they became -morose and sat always by the fire talking of death. Then the women went -to Padre Marjan, to ask of him the last ultimate effort. - -The good padre granted their plea. Wearing his holy robes and attended -by twenty-four chiefs walking in silence, he took the crucifix itself -from the church, and went to the house of Pjeter in upper Thethis. For -twelve hours he stood, holding the crucifix before the eyes of that -family and telling them as God’s messenger that they must forgive Kol. -For twelve hours the twenty-four chiefs stood beside him, waiting. But -the old mother was bitter, and upheld the spirits of her nephews, so -that they refused. - -Never before in all the mountains had anyone refused forgiveness asked -by the crucifix itself. It had been carried back to the church above -twenty-five bowed heads, and the people of Thethis knelt before it -in shame. And Kol could not come home, the men could not work in the -fields. The family was always hungry, and the young wife had wept till -her eyes were dry of tears. - -“We could not again ask Padre Marjan to take the crucifix,” said the -old woman, looking at us with eyes that begged that we would do so. But -the young woman’s eyes were somber and hopeless. The violence of the -rain had lessened; below us we saw the green valley, the many little -houses linked by tiny fields and a network of overflowing irrigation -ditches, and the wounded church which had no steeple. But a column of -smoke from the chimney showed that Padre Marjan was there. The women -lifted their packs, bent forward under them, and slowly went out of -sight down the trail. - -Before we reached the level of the valley Padre Marjan had seen us, -and came across the flat fields to escort us again to his door. He -met us at the edge of a gorge in whose depths a waterfall turned the -wheel of a mill beside a tiny house. Smoke seeped from the house roof -to mix with the spray of the waterfall, and as Padre Marjan greeted -us, up from that misty gorge leaped a figure that seemed risen from an -incantation. She was less a child than a sprite, bare of arm and leg, -clad in a scrap of sheepskin, with wildly tangled hair and bright, wild -eyes. Even as she leaped she addressed us in passionate words. - -Padre Marjan’s response was clear without translation. He told her -to be still and to go away; he spoke in distress and shame, but the -sternness of his tone was hollow. The child stood her ground, she -gulped and avoided the padre’s eye, but determination shook all her -little body, and she spoke again with vehemence. She was like one -crying out against some monstrous injustice. - -“What on earth does she say?” - -“Well”--Perolli was reluctant, and also avoided the padre’s eye--“did -you give her brother a handkerchief? She says it is not just, because -he also has new trousers, and she has neither handkerchief nor -trousers. Absurd! What would she do with trousers?” And he also looked -at her accusingly. - -Feet planted firmly, the child faced the tall group of us, flung back -her hair, and continued defiantly to speak: “It is not just. Is it my -fault I am a girl? Is it my fault that I am too small to work in the -mill? I go with the sheep, I carry the lamb, I climb the trees and cut -leaves. I bring water from the spring.” She beat her breast. “And my -brother gets new trousers, and also a handkerchief! I, I have nothing! -I have nothing to wear to the Easter mass, and my brother has new white -trousers! And my brother has a handkerchief!” She stamped her bare -foot. “I say to the world that it is not just. I shall cry to the Five -Tribes that it is not just!” - -“My word, but she’s magnificent!” said Frances. - -“Tell her quickly, Rexh--she shall have a handkerchief--she shall have -two handkerchiefs,” said Alex. - -“Glory to your lips,” said the child, for an instant unbroken by the -happiness. Then she swung her tangled hair across her face and fled, -weeping. - -It was curiosity as much as the renewed violence of rain which made -us follow her down the trail and go into the little house. Two women -welcomed us on the doorstep and led us into darkness lightened by a -handful of fire. They were mother and grandmother, both haggard and -worn by work. They had no coffee and no sugar, but they welcomed us -to their house by offering each in turn a cup of hot water, with all -the ceremonies of coffee drinking. They thanked us beautifully for -the handkerchief we had given their boy--the little girl had not yet -returned to the house--and we thanked them for the three eggs. He was a -good boy, they said, fourteen years old, and he had built the mill and -worked in it. A clever, good boy. The new trousers lay on the earthen -floor, carefully wrapped in a cloth; while she talked, the mother -unwrapped them and worked on the black Shala pattern. The boy’s father -had been killed in the Serbian retreat of 1914, but the boy had been -too young to fight. And the little girl was born on the mountains while -their village was burning. But the boy--always the talk returned to the -boy, and it was easy to see why he had the new Easter trousers. - -“Perhaps it is unjust to the girl, but it is because they are so poor,” -Padre Marjan said, as we went home through the gathering darkness. “And -I am sure she did not mean to beg. But you see they have so little, and -they do give all they have to the boy. After all, he is the head of the -family, and he is a good boy; he works their land and he works in the -mill; he keeps them all alive.” - -“And out of such poverty they sent us three eggs,” said Alex. - -Padre Marjan asked what she had said, and when he was told he answered, -“My people are poor and ignorant, but they know what is due a guest.” - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[4] Mountaineers. - -[5] The great city. - -[6] This story was told me in upper Thethis in the spring of 1921. In -the summer of 1922 I visited the Mati, accompanied by Annette Marquis -and Rrok Perolli. The Mati is a fertile high plateau defended by -an unbroken ring of almost impassable mountains. It has never been -conquered by foreign armies, though assailed by Romans, Turks, and -Serbs; through 1920 and 1921 the men of Mati successfully defended -their lands with their rifles against Serbian artillery. The present -Prime Minister of the Albanian republic, Ahmet Bey Mati (or Ahmet Zogu, -as he endeavors to persuade the people to call him, since the abolition -of titles in Albania) is chief of the family which has ruled the Mati -since Albania’s quarter century of freedom under Scanderbeg, in the -fifteenth century. - -We were the first foreigners who had ever entered the Mati. We found -the country, the people, and the customs quite different from those -of the Dukaghini tribes described in this book, excepting only the -unvarying Albanian hospitality. We visited the Bulqis, very terribly -devastated by the invading Serbs in 1920 and 1921, and partly circled -the city of Dibra, taken from Albania by the 1913 frontier line as a -knife takes out the eye of a potato. The Albanian frontier commission -of the League of Nations was at that time sitting in Scutari, and I -regret that commissions do not sometimes travel along the frontiers -they have made. - -As to the story of Lec i Madhe, we drank the delicious waters of the -many strangely flavored springs of Bulqis, and we lunched in the “place -where the great rocks are standing in rows.” These stones resemble -those of Carnac and Stonehenge, though on a much smaller scale, and -they may be relics of peoples who lived here prior to the arrival -of the Albanians, or they may be a curious accident of geological -formation. - -On the site of the city Emadhija we found traces which seemed to us -undeniably left by the work of human hands. They lie at the head of a -valley in a flat triangular space formed by meeting mountain chains, -one day’s journey from Kruja, the magnificent fifteenth-century -fortress built by Scanderbeg. One side of this triangular space is the -bed of a small stream, flowing against the base of the mountains; on -the opposite side, a stone conduit brings water from a spring several -miles distant to a fountain from which the village people still draw -their drinking water. The present village is on the mountain side above -the site of the city. The villagers say that the conduit was built by -Filip the Second. - -Of Emadhija itself nothing remains but a city pattern drawn on the -sterile level land by lines of stones. These lines are fairly regular, -four to six feet in width and two to three feet high; they form squares -and oblongs, arranged in curving rows, like plans of houses and -courtyards following winding streets. The stones, though much weathered -and broken, are in general rough cubes, and they are black, while the -stones of the river bed are white and gray limestone. Unfortunately, -none of our party had any archæological knowledge, but our untrained -observations convinced us that a city had undoubtedly existed there -at some time long past, and we believed that we saw the tops of walls -which had been buried by centuries of erosion from the adjacent -mountains. The villagers of that part of the Mati speak of the place -indifferently as “the ancient city Emadhija,” and “the birthplace of -Lec i Madhe.” - - - - -CHAPTER XI - - MASS IN THE CHURCH OF THETHIS--A MOUNTAIN CHIEF SEEKS A WIFE--DOWN THE - VALLEY OF THE LUMI SHALA, WHILE THE DRANGOJT FIGHT THE DRAGON--HOW - REXH CAME TO SCUTARI. - - -The next morning was Sunday, and we were awakened by the church bell. -It hung in a belfry over the padre’s kitchen, and the padre pulled the -rope himself. Then tucking his brown robe about his bare ankles, he -descended the broken, draughty stairs to the church, and we followed -him through blasts of cold rain that the wind drove through holes that -had been made in the walls by the invading Serbs. - -The church itself was bleak and cold; a bare room, whitewashed, with -the stations of the Cross represented by crudely colored lithographs -stained by the damp. A railing separated the body of the church from -the altar, where a very brightly colored picture of the Virgin hung, -surrounded by wreaths of paper flowers, above a rough table with a bit -of brocade spread carefully upon it. We girls were given a bench inside -the railing, and sat there in a row, in our many-times-water-soaked -sweaters and trousers. Outside the railing all the women and children -and half the men of the village knelt on the cold floor, and their -rain-drenched garments, threadbare and patched, made pools of water -about their knees. The rain was still pouring down, as undiminished as -a river, and the sound of it and of the waterfalls filled the chill -place. - -Padre Marjan began the mass, his high Albanian voice chanting the -Latin, and the congregation made the responses in the same tongue. A -ragged, barefooted man came to swing the censer for the padre, and -Perolli, in his neat English tweeds, revolver and knife swinging at -the belt, also assisted, going behind the altar with the padre to help -him put a brocaded robe over the brown one, and reverently handing the -cup and the wine. Rexh, in his red Mohammedan fez, watched it all with -serious eyes, his head around the edge of the doorway. - -After mass the padre dashed upstairs to look at our cooking dinner, -and hastened down again for a christening. I am not familiar with -Catholic ceremonial, but nothing could have been more touching than -Padre Marjan, thin, worn by fasting and work, barefooted, the edge of -his brown robe showing below the front hem of a white cotton garment, -bringing into the arms of the Church the tiny, wrinkled infant strapped -in its painted cradle. The woman who held it looked at him with a sort -of apprehensive anxiety; the crowd pressed informally around them. -Every time the padre turned to fetch the little glass bottle of oil, or -the tin can of holy water, or the square of crocheted cotton lace that -he laid over the cradle, the packed bodies gave way for him, and one -child or another picked up the end of his trailing robe to keep it from -beneath muddy, bare feet. - -At the end, “Is it a boy or a girl?” he asked. - -“A girl,” the woman whispered. And the padre ended his solemn words -with the name, “Regina.” - -The woman sighed and her tenseness relaxed. It must have been a great -moment for the mother, I thought; some one said that she had carried -the cradle forty miles over the mountains for this christening. We did -want to give the baby something; for the hundredth time we regretted -not having brought presents, and a hurried ransacking of all our -possessions produced only a little colored sport handkerchief. But when -we gave it to the baby it was as though we had presented a golden bowl; -the excitement, the passing from hand to hand, the reverent marveling -over such weaving, such color! - -We found Perolli upstairs in the kitchen, grinning to himself, and when -we asked him why, he said the christening was a joke on the padre. The -woman was not the child’s mother; the real mother, married by Albanian -custom, had not yet got around to having the church ceremony, and the -priest in the village forty miles away had refused to christen the -child until the parents were married by the Church. But the devout -neighbor, knowing that the infant was in danger of hell fire, had -brought it over the mountains and had it christened as her own, and -Padre Marjan, all unsuspecting, had performed the ceremony. - -Not half an hour later an almost naked man, streaming with rain as -though he had swum the forty miles, appeared, breathless, with a -water-soaked note from the other priest, and Padre Marjan read it -aghast. “Merely parochial business,” he said, tucking it in his belt -and bending over the bubbling pots in the fireplace to taste and -season. But his brown face remained wrinkled with worry. - -A matter far more serious distracted attention from this complication -in Church affairs, for Perolli, taking me aside, said to me: “You say -you love the Albanians and the Albanian mountains. Do you want to stay -here?” - -“I’d love to stay here for years,” I said. “It’s the most beautiful -country I’ve ever seen, and the most interesting people. But I can’t, -of course. Why?” - -“Because you can, if you really do want to,” said he. “I have a -proposal of marriage for you.” - -“What!” said I. “You’re joking!” - -“Not at all,” said Perolli, indignantly. “Do you think marriage is a -thing to joke about?” - -“But I never know what you mean,” I complained. “And why should anyone -want to marry me, here?” - -“You needn’t take it as a compliment to your personal charm, if that’s -what you mean,” said Perolli, coldly. “It’s really your short hair. But -I can get twenty thousand kronen for you, if you want to marry and stay -here.” - -“Twenty thousand kronen!” said I. “Two thousand dollars? For me? Here? -But for Heaven’s sake, why? You don’t mean anyone thinks me beautiful, -among all these Albanian women?” said I, indignantly. - -“Of course not,” said Perolli. - -“And I can’t even talk their language. What do you mean, twenty -thousand kronen? And what has short hair to do with it? Don’t be so -annoying, Perolli. What _do_ you mean?” - -“Well,” said Perolli, “Lulash would like to have an American wife. I -don’t mean he put it to me so crudely as that. He didn’t actually put -it to me at all, in fact. But I know that he will give twenty thousand -kronen for you, and you can stay here and make over the whole life of -Shala, if you like.” - -“But why me? Why not Frances, or Alex?” - -“Because you are all a long way past marrying age, in Albania, and -their hair is long, so naturally these people think they are already -married. But your hair is short, so they think you are a sworn virgin. -In these mountains, when a girl is old enough to marry and absolutely -refuses to marry the man to whom she has been promised, she may escape -the marriage by swearing before the chiefs of the two tribes an oath of -life-long virginity, and she cuts her hair and takes a man’s place in -the tribe. Naturally, when they see you, at your age, with short hair, -they think that is what you did. If you were an Albanian no one would -dream of marrying you, for the man to whom your parents gave you would -have to kill your husband to clear his honor, and all the chiefs before -whom you had sworn would be bound in honor to see that your husband -was killed. But America is a long way off; that man and the chiefs -would hardly come so far after you, especially as your customs are so -different. Besides, I think Lulash would take the chance, anyhow. He -really very much wants a woman to help him with the people, and he will -not marry a mountain woman.” - -“You mean he would listen to my ideas and take my advice--you mean he -wants a wife who will be his equal, a sort of partner?” - -“Of course. What else is a wife? He would like nothing better than to -have you give him American ideas.” - -“But I thought a woman had no rights at all, here.” - -“How absurd! She has all the rights that a man has.” - -“But women aren’t in the tribal councils?” - -“They are when it’s a council of the whole tribe. They aren’t chiefs, -no. But chiefs always talk things over with their wives.” - -“But women are bought and sold. You just said so. Didn’t you say you -were offered twenty thousand kronen for me?” - -“It’s an unusual situation. Here you are, without a family; I’m the -only man in the party; naturally he thinks of me as in the position of -a brother or a father. The man’s family always pays money to the girl’s -family before a marriage, but the girl isn’t sold; she’s been betrothed -in her childhood, for any number of reasons. The money the man pays is -spent for the girl’s clothes and household things.” - -“Then you’d be supposed to give me the twenty thousand kronen? And then -it would be his again, after all.” - -“Of course not. It’s yours, isn’t it? No one has any right to a woman’s -personal belongings, except her.” - -“You mean I could do anything I liked with it? I wouldn’t have to have -his consent?” - -“Of course you could do anything you liked with it,” Perolli said, -wearily. “This isn’t Europe.” - -“Obviously,” said I. “Nor America.” - -“Well, what do you say? Do you want to do it?” - -Men ask women to marry them for many reasons and from many motives, -even though they are all lumped under the word “love.” Sometimes the -asking is an honor that should make any woman, either happily or -regretfully, proud. And sometimes it isn’t. For myself, I shall always -remember as one of my finest experiences this offer of a scalplocked -Shala chief to pay twenty thousand kronen for me. There was no eager -clutching in it, no selfish, grasping, personal asking for personal -happiness; he could have had no idea whether or not this strange woman -would bring happiness into his house; his motives in asking her to -marry him had their roots quite outside himself. He believed that she -would help him in his work for the tribe. - -And I thought that a woman might have a much worse life than in -this remote, stranded fragment of primitive times still left among -the Albanian mountains, where respect for women is not taught like -courteous manners, but is as natural as breathing, so natural that it -is never discussed nor even thought about, and where marriage is not -centered in small egotisms, but in the larger idea of the family and -the future. - -But I must admit that to live that life requires other training than -any daughter of the twentieth century has received, for one’s ideas -have little to do with one’s actions; my mind might admire this alien -concept of life, but I fear that nothing will ever lead a Western woman -to marry for the good of anyone but herself. - -“Why, Perolli,” I said, “of course I can’t marry a Shala chief!” - -We came back to the fireplace where Padre Marjan was stirring the -tantalizing contents of the cooking pots, and were clutched by a -radiant Frances. She had ventured to speak to Padre Marjan about the -family of Kol Marku. And this was the news he had told her. The bitter -old mother of Pjeter was relenting. Because the holy Easter-time was -near--so Padre Marjan said, but we guessed that Padre Marjan himself -had caused her change of heart--the family of Pjeter had told him the -day before in upper Thethis that Koi Marku might come home, and the men -of his family work in peace, for two weeks. - -This was the law of the blood-feud truce; that the injured party might -grant, when it desired to do so, on holy days or at a time of common -danger from without, a reprieve of a stated length of time. During that -time the families or tribes involved would meet and greet each other -courteously, although on the day that the truce ended the law of the -blood debt applied again, and they must kill each other at sight. The -family of Pjeter had granted two weeks--fourteen days of burden lifted -from the spirit of the family of Kol Marku. A great deal could be done -in fourteen days, Padre Marjan said--fields cleared, ditches repaired, -seed sown, family councils held. And he was hopeful that this was the -beginning of complete forgiveness; perhaps in another year Kol Marku -might come home to stay with his family. The news was being telephoned -to the tribe in which he had taken refuge--a tribe in the valley of the -Kiri, near Scutari--and in two days at most he would be in Thethis. -Already the men of his family were working; we could see them from the -windows of Padre Marjan’s dining room, working in the rain with iron -bar and hammer, attacking a gigantic bowlder which lay in the middle -of their poor little field. Laboriously they chipped at it, cutting it -into pieces small enough to roll away, and they worked with trembling -haste, for it seemed a task too long to be done in two weeks. We wished -that we might be there when Kol Marku came home. - -And the next morning, in the rain that still continued to flood down -from apparently inexhaustible skies, we all stood on the edge of the -cliff, half a mile down the trail, and said farewell to the village of -Thethis. Everyone had come so far on the trail with us; Padre Marjan -thanked us in the name of the village; Lulash spoke, his hand on his -heart; Frances and Alex and I addressed them with as many happy phrases -of thanks as we could devise. All the guns were fired and fired again; -all along the cliff tops the boys were giving a last display of the -astounding feats that human muscles can do. - -“Go on a smooth trail!” they all called after us as we went over the -rustic bridge that crosses the green stream dotted with white bowlders -and black bowlders and rose-colored bowlders and the one huge bowlder -of jade, and, looking back from far down the trail, we saw the people -of Thethis still standing there, a black and white and gorgeously -colored mass against the gray rocks. - -Our way led down the Lumi Shala. Going northeastward from Scutari, we -had reached that river’s headwaters at Thethis, and now, crossing it, -we came southeastward, high on the shoulders of the mountains that -wall its narrow valley. Higher still, seen at intervals through breaks -in the lower mountains, a wall of pure white snow rose into the sky; -the wall of the second great mountain range, which we were to cross to -reach still more hidden fastnesses and wilder tribes. - -We went across the lands of the Shala tribe, but there were no villages -on the way and no scattered houses; it was fifteen miles to our next -stopping place, the village of Shala. “An hour and a half,” said -Cheremi, gayly; he had learned to speak short English sentences in the -few days he had been with us, but he could not learn that fifteen miles -of exhausting mountain climbing meant more than ninety pleasant minutes -to anybody. - -Padre Marjan has lent us his little horse, a beautiful bay, hardly -larger than a Shetland, but perfectly built, with a saddle of red -leather held on by finely woven woolen straps. He went across slides of -slippery shale, climbed giant bowlders, walked on a log that crossed -a two-hundred-foot gorge, and made his way straight up the courses of -waterfalls as easily and cheerfully as a pet dog. But after our days of -walking our muscles did not like even the very slight idleness of such -riding, and our own feet carried us most of the way. - -An indescribably wild, beautiful way it was, with hundred-mile vistas -opening before us, changing, disappearing again, as we rounded cliffs -or passed the ends of smaller mountain ranges that ran down to the -opposite banks of the Lumi Shala. There were villages over there; we -saw them built against the mountains like clumps of gray swallows’ -nest--the villages of Shoshi, with whom Shala was in blood. At the -foot of the waterfall streams that dashed down their cliffs we saw now -and then a little mill, flooded with water, its roof of slate hardly -showing above the flood, where in drier season Shoshi ground its grain -or put the loosely woven white woolen cloth to be soaked in the running -water and pounded by paddle wheels until it shrank into the feltlike -fabric that makes their garments. - -Here and there a red-brown or gray-white moving patch at the foot of -a clump of mangled trees announced that a little shepherd was there, -clinging to a tall stump and cutting twigs to throw down to the goats -and sheep; we were too far away to see him. And there were other -clumps of trees green with uncut leaves; always near these we saw, -bronze brown among the gray rocks, structures taller than a man and -shaped like a beehive. These were trees that the axes spare until the -leaves are fully grown and filled with sap. Then the branches are cut -and piled in a circle, the cut ends outward and the leaves to the -center, layer upon layer, until the beehive shape is completed, when -they are weighted down with rocks. The leaves dry, remaining green -and nutritious, and slowly through the winter the curious silos are -demolished armful by armful and carried into the houses to be fed to -the sheep and goats. - -The sky was still a leaden gray, with darker clouds moving sluggishly -among the mountains, and the air still seemed more than half full of -falling water. The soaked rawhide opangi were like soft rags on my -feet; at every step my woolen stockings emptied and filled with water -like sponges, and all our fingers were shrunk in ridges from the long -wetting. But we were gay, we sang along the way, the weak little songs -that so amused the steel-lunged mountaineers, and when a low growl of -thunder and a flicker of fire among the clouds announced a stronger -onslaught of the rain, Perolli waved his hand toward the mountain tops -and joyously shouted something--we thought, to the effect that we were -not flowers. - -“_Dranit?_” said I. “Great Scott! do you need announce that we aren’t -flowers? Shout that we are not drowned puppies, if you want to startle -onlookers.” - -“Not _dranit_--_drangojt_,” Perolli corrected. “I said to the dragon he -may growl as he likes; we’re not drangojt.” - -“No,” I said. “No, we aren’t. But what aren’t we?” - -“Drangojt,” replied Perolli, and broke into careless song. There were -times when I could have boxed that young man’s ears, for nothing is -more irritating than a sense of humor which is not yours. And the -Albanians have a sense of humor which is never idle, and seldom -comprehensible to the foreigner. - -“Drangojt means the people with wings, Mrs. Lane,” said Rexh, and -thought that all was clear. “You know, the people born with little -wings under their arms,” he elaborated, when I regarded him blankly. -“The people--I don’t know how other to say it, Mrs. Lane. Wings, you -know--what the birds fly with--wings. Under their arms. Don’t you have -people born with wings in your country?” - -I said that if we had I knew nothing of it, and Rexh’s forehead -wrinkled with perplexity. “But perhaps----Of course you are not a -drangue, you would not know the American drangojt,” he concluded, his -face clearing. “You can usually tell them, though, by their running -to their houses whenever it rains. First, you hear the dragon on the -mountains; then, you see all the drangojt running to houses. That is -the way you tell them; except, if you are their mother, then you see -the wings when they are born. But if you are not their mother, you -cannot see the wings, and you only know they are drangojt when they run -to their houses in the rain.” - -“Are they afraid they’ll get their wings wet?” said I, with great -interest. - -“Oh no! They are not afraid of anything. When the weather is -thundering, that is the dragon fighting with the drangojt. So when they -hear the dragon, all the drangojt go quickly to their houses to be -ready if they are called to fly and fight the dragon. Even the babies -fly home with their cradles. There is no drangue so young that it could -not anyway scratch the dragon.” - -That was the charm and delight of those days and nights, all too few, -which I spent in the Albanian mountains. Around every turn in the trail -the unexpected awaited us. - -We gazed with new interest upon the gray clouds that struggled among -the mountain tops. The dragon and the drangojt were fighting up there, -then? Yes, indeed, said Rexh. When the drangojt had defeated the -dragon, then he would go away and we would see the sun again. All the -world, he said, would be taken by the dragon, and we would never see -the sun again, if it were not for the brave drangojt. Once the dragon -had almost taken the world--that was when the waters fell and the seas -were born--and only the drangojt of Dukaghini had saved it then. That -was long ago. “Long, long years of years ago,” said Rexh. “I guess, -even before these tribes of people and drangojt were ever called -Dukaghini.” At that time, the dragon had lost his three heads, and that -was why there never since had been such a battle in the skies. - -“How do you know all this, Rexh?” we asked, respectfully. - -“It was told in the songs,” said he. - -“And do you know those songs?” - -No, he said regretfully. He had heard some of them when he was very -little--when he lived with his people in the mountains. But when the -Montenegrins came and killed all his family that had not died in the -fighting, and burned his village, then he had had to go all the way to -Scutari, hiding from the Montenegrins. “You know, they came all the -way to Scutari, too, Mrs. Lane. And I had to hide from them, because -I was so little. I took a gun from a dead man, and it was a good gun, -too, but it was so heavy I could not carry it, so I could not fight. I -was only six years old. So I had to hide, and when I came to Scutari I -found the first of my children, and then little by little I found the -others, and so I was very busy all these years. And learning English -and Arabic, and working with Miss Hardy, and all, I have forgotten to -sing. I’m sorry I do not remember the songs. - -“How did I find my children? They were just there, in the streets, -Mrs. Lane, and I saw them. I took the first one because he was littler -than me--than I--and he had cut his foot on a rock, and I knew by his -clothes he was of my tribe. And I had found a dry place to sleep, so I -took him there. And then the others just came, little by little. Some -when the Serbians came through in 1914, and some when the Austrians -came, and Glosh came from Gruda last fall when the Montenegrins were -killing up there. I hope they are all well and clean,” he added, -anxiously. “I told them to wash themselves and their clothes and their -blankets every week while I was gone. I made them give a _besa_ to do -it, and there is anyway plenty of water in the river and probably -it is not raining in Scutari, so it will be all right. But if it is -raining, then they will have to wash their clothes because they gave a -_besa_, and it perhaps can be that they will take cold.” - -The rain had become so breath-taking that we said no more, rapidly -following the trail which ran easily through a small deformed wood, -among the ten-foot cones of dried branches which were last fall’s store -of winter fodder. The path came soon to the edge of a cliff, dipped -over it, and ran along the wall of rock, high above the Lumi Shala. -Here, sheltered in a smoke-blackened shallow cave, we found Cheremi and -four strange men sitting by a tiny fire and smoking cigarettes. Bundles -of dried boughs which two of them had been carrying were stacked behind -them, and Padre Marjan’s little horse was munching a handful of leaves -and gazing out at the rain. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - - THE SONG OF THE LAST GREAT WAR WITH THE DRAGON--AN UNEXPECTED - BANDIT--HOW AHMET, CHIEF OF THE MATI, WENT BY NIGHT TO VALONA--THE - RAISING OF SCANDERBEG’s FLAG--AN ALBANIAN LOVE SONG. - - -They made places for us, laid another handful of dry twigs on the fire, -and rolled fresh cigarettes. The Lumi Shala was rising higher than they -had ever known it to do, they said, and the Drin was overflowing in the -Merdite country. And learning that we were from Scutari, they asked us -what we knew of the Tirana government, of which they had heard. Was it -true that the Land of the Eagle was free? - -Leaving discussion of politics to Perolli, we sat cross-legged, looking -into the straight lines of rain that covered the mouth of the cave like -a curtain. Faintly through them we could see a blueness of mountains -and a greenness of fields beyond the narrow rust-red ledge of the -trail. Time passed, with a murmur of talk and a crunching of leaves, -until Rexh touched my elbow. - -“Here is a man, Mrs. Lane, who knows the end of one of those songs. He -does not know it all, but he can sing about the eating, after the war -was ended. He will sing it for you, if you want him to.” - -He was a grimy man, barefooted, ragged, and incredibly whiskered. -But he carried besides his rifle on his back an old beautifully made -musical instrument somewhat resembling a mandolin, with a long neck -ending in a carved ram’s head. It was strung with fine wire, and he -handled it proudly; the wire, he said, had come from Scutari. In his -father’s day it had been strung with horsehair and played with a bow, -but at the time of his own marriage he had sent to Scutari for the -wire, and he now played it with a finger nail. Fresh cigarettes were -rolled and adjusted in holders, knees were crossed comfortably, and the -song began. - -It was only a fragment--the last song of all the songs about that great -war of the dragon and the drangojt above the Dukaghini mountains. The -strangely pitched twang of the wire accompanied the words, chanted in a -wild rhythm to the rain-filled valley of the Lumi Shala: - - “The ora of Shala came from the deathless forest, - From the wood that is always green beyond the Mali Nicaj. - The ora of Shala saw the war in the air above the forest, - She saw the war in the air above the crashing peaks, - She saw the blood of the dragon spilled on the rocks. - Ho lo! Ho la! The head of the dragon falls! - Ho lo! Ho la! Two heads of the dragon are dead! - Ho lo! Ho la! Three heads of the dragon fall on the rocks! - The men of the earth are saved! - The ora of Shala screamed the word that the earth was saved. - Three times the ora of Shala screamed, - And her scream was heard on the Mali Nicaj, - Her voice was heard on the Chafa Morines, - And the Lumi Shala ran through the valley of Shala. - Three times the ora of Shala called, - And the ora of all the mountains came to her call, - They came like sparks from a fire to the ora of Shala. - ‘Oh, my sisters, this is the word from the battle. - The dragon is dead and the world is saved! - The brave drangojt have saved the world. - The mountains stand without moving forevermore, - And the waters go back to their places, - For the brave drangojt have saved the world. - We will make a feasting for the saviors of the world. - My sister, go to the field for grain, - Cut it and thresh it and grind it, - Make bread and bake it well. - My sister, go to the mountains among the flocks, - Find a sheep with a lamb beside her, - Ask the sheep to give you her milk, - For we make a feast for the brave drangojt. - My sister, go to the tree that is hollow, - To the tree where the honey is made, - And ask the bees for their yellow honey. - My sister, here is a knife that is sharp; - Strike true, strike deep, strike quickly, - And bake the meat in a heated pit.’ - The first ora came with bread on her head, - The second ora came with a sack of milk, - A milk sack made from the skin of trees. - The third ora came with her hands full of honey. - The fourth ora came with two roasted animals, - Large roasted animals, hot and brown. - Now we can go to our brave drangojt. - The hair of the ora was unbound, - And their heads were crowned with flowers, - And the beauty of the world was their garment. - The ora of Shala came first to the Mali Riges, - The ora of Shala came to the camp of the drangojt. - ‘I hope we find you well, heroes of the earth, - Long may you live, the courage of the world.’ - Then rose and spoke Lleshi of Lleshi, - Chief of the tribe of the Merdite drangojt. - ‘Welcome to you from wherever you come. - Where have you been hiding your beauty?’ - ‘I am the sister of the ora of the Merdite, - She who is guarding the Mali Mundelles. - I am the ora of Shala. - Long live the heroes who have killed the dragon, - Long live the warriors who have saved the world.’ - Then on the grass they sat for the feasting. - All the ora turned back their sleeves, - Making ready to serve the heroes. - The first ora broke the round loaf of bread, - The second ora brought the hot roasted meat, - The third ora brought the bowl of yellow honey, - The fourth ora poured the milk from the sack. - All the ora brought good water from the spring, - And the drangojt drank from the cup of their hands. - When the feasting was ended they left that place, - They washed their hands in flowing water, - They lay by a fire on a carpet of leaves, - And they spoke of many things pleasant to hear. - They spoke till the star of the dawn came out - Above the peaks of the Mali Mundelles. - The star of the daylight came out, - For the power of the dragon was broken. - This was the feast of the Merdite drangojt - After the last great war with the dragon.” - -The player ran his finger down the wire in a final weird whine, and the -instrument lay silent on his knees. “That is all I know of that one,” -he said. “But if the American _zonyas_ would like to hear other songs, -I can sing them, for I am a bandit.” - -I cannot describe the shock we felt at those simple words. “_Jam -comitadj._” Yes, he had said them. Or had he? - -“_Comitadj?_” said I, noticing a strange stiffness in my lower jaw. -“_Nuk comitadj?_” - -“_Po_,” said he, quite calmly. And the modesty which reveals too great -pride touched his voice as he added, “I have been a bandit for many -years.” - -Automatically my eyes sought Frances’s. Hers were widely open, and -expressed only a shock as great as mine. We both turned a fascinated -gaze upon the bandit, who had laid aside his musical instrument and -rested a fond hand on his rifle. “For many years,” he repeated. - -“Do you like it?” said I, weakly. “Do you like--banditing?” - -I had read of bandits in the Balkans, and I had heard of them, and -I had even thought how self-possessed and cool I would be if I -encountered one of them. “Certainly,” I would say, with dignity. “Take -my money if you like; it is very little; you are welcome. But there -will be no use whatever in your holding me for ransom, because----” -I suppose everyone falls into these absurdities of imagined and -impossible conversations. The lure of them is their offer of escape -from reality. Certainly I had never believed that a real, living bandit -would step out of that fantastic realm and be a solid figure in the -daylight. I, _I_ in a bandit’s cave! Such things didn’t _happen_; they -were only in books. So I said, meekly, timidly, quite inadequately, “Do -you like--banditing?” - -[Illustration: THE BANDIT WHOM WE MET IN THE CAVE ABOVE THE LUMI SHALA -AND WHO SANG US THE SONG OF DURGAT PASHA - - A letter just received from Albania brings the news that he has cut - his beard, hung his rifle on the wall (when disarming the mountaineers - the Albanian government made an exception in his case), and is now - running, with considerable success, a sawmill in the Mati.] - -Yes, he said, he liked it very much. He became even poetic about it. -I admit I took no notes of what he said. But I recall Rexh’s voice -repeating lyrical words about life on the mountains, camp fires and -stars, freedom and fighting--the only life for a man, he declared. Once -he had stopped being a bandit and gone back to the life of houses, but -he was glad when the time came to be a bandit again. - -I had not thought that being a bandit was a seasonal occupation, and -I begged an explanation of these mysterious words. It developed that -they referred to wars unknown and unrecorded save in the songs of the -mountaineers, and we became so involved in references cryptic to me, -but clear to the listening Albanians, that at last I was obliged to -beg him to begin at the beginning and tell the straight story of his -life. This he did, with the modest reluctance of a hero surrounded by -admirers. - -“I was not a rich man,” he began, “but as our saying is, ‘The smallest -hair has its own shadow.’ There were sheep in my house, and it was a -house of two rooms, and the fields repaid our labor. The tobacco box in -my sash was never empty, and there was bread in the baking pan. There -was a son in the cradle and another by the fire, and life was as smooth -as the Lumi Shala in summer, until the coming of Durgat Pasha. - -“After that came the treason of Essad Pasha, and, having then neither -house, nor sheep, nor sons, nor tobacco, but only my rifle----” - -We must interrupt, to bring him back to Durgat Pasha, and he was -astonished that more than that name was needed to make us understand. -Had we never heard the songs of Durgat Pasha? Durgat Pasha, who in -1912 came from the Sultan of Turkey to subdue the Sons of the Eagle? -Durgat Pasha, who burned and killed, from the Mali Malines to the Malit -Shkodra? He bent over the instrument on his knees, twanged three wild -notes from it, and sang: - - “Seven Powers had called a council, - Seven Powers met and said, - ‘Shqiperia is no more in our hands, - All Shqiperia is not in our hands.’ - Then rose Durgat Pasha and took his gun. - ‘Leave this to me for three years. - O Sultan, I go for three years. - When I return the Shqiptars are yours.’ - Durgat Pasha came past the white lake, - Durgat Pasha to the Mali Malines, - Durgat Pasha to the Mali Shoshit, - Durgat Pasha and five thousand soldiers. - He sends word to Hasjakupit, - ‘You shall send your rifle to me. - Thirty Turkish pounds have I paid for my rifle, - Thirty pounds for my own rifle, - But I leave houses and lands and go with my rifle. - Thirty houses I leave behind me.’ - These were the words of Hasjakupit. - ‘Thirty houses I leave behind me, - And into Montenegro I go. - I go to King Nichola of Montenegro; - He will give me meat and bread.’ - Durgat Pasha on the top of the mountain, - Durgat Pasha with Shala around him, - Durgat Pasha had no bread or water, - Durgat Pasha’s rifles had nothing to eat. - And the fighting men of Shala were all around him, - The fighting of Shala was terrible. - Durgat Pasha went out of his way to Puka. - Puka and Iballa greeted him. - When he came to Bashchellek - All of Scutari came to greet him. - The people of Scutari were frightened. - Durgat Pasha was going to die, - And Scutari rubbed his face with a sack, - Scutari gave him food and drink. - Then rose Salo Kali of Scutari. - ‘My rifles I cannot give, - I have made _besa_ with one hundred men; - Our rifles are not for Durgat Pasha.’ - ‘Leave the _besa_, Salo Kali, - Take your hammer and shoe the horses. - That is your business, Salo Kali. - What have you to do with rifles?’ - ‘I have made _besa_ with one hundred men; - Our rifles are not for Durgat Pasha.’ - Durgat Pasha rubbed his forehead. - ‘I have never seen this kind of people, - I never saw a nation like Shala or Shoshi. - What can be done with the Shqiptars?’ - These were the words of Durgat Pasha. - -“That is the song of Durgat Pasha,” said the bandit. “When I came home -from the fighting, the men of Durgat Pasha had burned my house, and -my wife and my sons were dead. It was then I gave _besa_ to myself -never to hang my rifle on the wall and never to cut my beard until all -Albania was free. And I went to fight the Serbs at Chafa Bullit. That -was good fighting. All day we fought, and at night we lay by the camp -fires and the women gave us bread and meat. All day long, while we were -fighting, the women were on the trails bringing us bread and meat. Then -we were tired and slept, and the air was good, not like the air in -houses. And in the morning, when the stars were pale, we raised the war -cry and killed more Serbs. It was a good life. - -“It was at this time that the chiefs of Kossova came secretly by -night through the Serbian lines to the house of Ahmet Bey Mati, and -I was called by Ahmet to take them to Valona. He said that a word -would be spoken in Valona to make Albania free. I said to Ahmet: ‘The -Montenegrins hold Scutari and the seacoast even to San Giovanni, the -European Powers are in Durazzo, the Serbs have Kossova and the Dibra, -the Greeks are in the south. What is talk of freedom? This is not a -time to talk; it is a time to fight.’ Ahmet said, ‘Before the war cry, -the council of chiefs.’ Ahmet is chief of the Mati, head of the family -that has ruled the Mati since the days of Scanderbeg. He was a boy of -sixteen, newly come from the court of Sultan Abdul Hamid; he did not -wear the clothes of the Malisori, and the chiefs of the Mati laced his -opangi before every battle, because he did not know how to lace opangi. -Yet it must be said that it was his coming that saved the Mati from -the Serbs. He came quickly, killing seven horses between Monastir and -Borelli, and he told the chiefs what to do, and they saved the Mati. It -was hot fighting. For five months he had been fighting and sleeping on -the rocks. His chiefs loved him. - -“I said, ‘I am killing Serbs, and have no wish to go to Valona.’ Ahmet -said: ‘When my father died, my older brother sent me from my country -to the Turks. I do not know the trails. The chiefs of Kossova are my -guests, and they do not know the trails. We must go to Valona through -Elbassan, where the Serbs are. There is a meeting of all the chiefs -of Albania in Valona. If we are killed by the Serbs, there will be no -chiefs of the Malisori at that meeting. There will be only Toshks--men -of the plains.’ I said: ‘To-night the moon will be dark. We must start -as soon as we can see the small stars.’ - -“In three nights we were at the house of Asif Pasha in Elbassan. No, -nothing disturbed us on the way, except that we were obliged to kill -with our hands the dogs that sometimes came upon us from the villages. -The Serbs were everywhere, and we could not use our guns. When we came -to the house of Asif Pasha, the chiefs of Kossova with Ahmet slept -in one room, and I sat with Asif Pasha by the fire in another room. -Elbassan was held by many hundred Serbian soldiers. At midnight five -officers with thirty soldiers came to the door. They came in, and would -not take coffee. They stood, and said: ‘Who are the twelve men who -sleep to-night in this house? Do not lie, for we know that they are -here.’ - -“Asif Pasha said, ‘This is one of them.’ I said, ‘I will tell you who -they are, but I beg you not to let them know that I have told. I am -only a servant, and they are great chiefs. They are byraktors of five -villages of the Mati, three villages of the Merdite, and three villages -of Shala and Shoshi. They have come to Elbassan to talk with the Serbs. -They have come secretly, hiding from the other chiefs. I do not know -why. I beg you not to tell them that I have told, for they are tired -and dirty, and they are sleeping while the women clean their clothes so -that they will be clean to-morrow when they go to speak to your chiefs.’ - -“The officers sat down then, and one of them wrote. He wrote the names -of the chiefs as I gave them to him, and he wrote what I said, that the -Malisori were tired of fighting, and had little ammunition, and did -not like their chiefs that made them fight. While he wrote, Asif Pasha -gave them rakejia, and more and more rakejia, but no coffee. When the -Serbs had become foolish I went to the other room where the chiefs were -listening with their rifles in their hands, and I took them all by a -way I knew, out of Elbassan. - -“So we came to Valona, to the house of Ismail Kemal Bey Vlora, the same -who had been Grand Vizier of Abdul Hamid. He had come on an Austrian -warship to Durazzo, and there they had tried to kill him, and he had -come secretly, as we had come, to Valona. Valona was the only free -village in Albania then, except our mountain villages. There was a -council in his house. Chiefs of all the tribes from Kossova to Janina -were there, and when the council was ended Ismail Kemal Bey brought the -flag of Scanderbeg, which had always been hidden in his house, and with -a rope he made it run to the top of a pole on his house. It was the -red flag with the two-headed black eagle on it. I stood in the street -and saw it go to the top of the pole. The chiefs were on the balcony, -and Ismail Kemal Bey wept. Many men had tears on their cheeks. In the -streets they cried, ‘Rroft Shqiperia!’ and embraced one another. They -said that the spirit of Scanderbeg lived, and that Albania was free. -But I said, ‘The time has not come when I can hang my gun on the wall -or cut my beard.’ - -“The next night I started secretly back through the Serbian lines with -Ahmet and the chiefs of Kossova, to come to our own mountains and -kill the Serbs. We had been twenty-two days in Valona, and for those -twenty-two days I had not been a _comitadj_. I was glad to be one -again.” - -For the moment the fortunes of war were with the drangojt; the heavier -clouds had been driven away, and a pale sunshine fell on Shoshi, which -looked like a water-color picture in a gray frame. Our side of the -valley was in shadow, but the rain had ceased and we should have been -going on. I was held by a still unsatisfied curiosity about that bandit. - -“I thought bandits were highwaymen,” I murmured, and, unwilling to ask -interpreters to put the question that was in my mind, I laid the burden -on my own lame knowledge of their language. “You kill Serbs?” I asked. -“How do you get money?” - -The whiskered face seemed to smile broadly at this boldness. “I get it -on the trails,” he said. - -“From Albanians?” - -“I get it where I can,” he answered, indifferently. “The Austrians had -money, and there were many Austrians in Albania. This rifle came into -the mountains on an Austrian officer. I gave his clothes to a naked man -of Dibra who was fighting the Serbs there. I got four Italian capes -and trousers in one day, on the road north of Scutari, and there was -money on their bodies, too. As to Albanians--there was a rich Albanian -once, whom I met riding out from Ipek. Why should a man of Albanian -blood ride in the eyes of the Serbs with gold in his pocket, while true -Albanians are dying of cold and hunger? I took from him everything -he had, and left him on the trail as naked as he came to the cradle. -I said to him, ‘You are the Sultan, and I am the Grand Vizier. In -your name I will give these things to your people, and they will be -grateful.’” - -We laughed hastily. - -“But it is time to cut your beard and hang your rifle on the wall,” -Perolli suggested. “There is a free Albanian government now.” - -“But not a free Albania,” said the bandit. “The government forgets -that, and sits in council with the Powers that sold us to Italy and -gave us to Serbia. Have you forgotten Kossova and a million of your -brothers who are slaves to the Serbs?” - -“I am of Ipek,” Perolli answered him. “Nevertheless, I am first a -Shqiptar and second a man of Kossova. And I remember our proverb that -says, ‘Better an egg to-day than a chicken next year.’” - -“We have also a saying, ‘Better the nightingale once than the blackbird -every day,’” replied the bandit. - -“Let it be. ‘Every sheep hangs by her own leg,’” Perolli retorted, -rising. - -The honors were with him. For the moment, the bandit could think of no -proverb which would be a weapon, and could only reply to our courteous -farewells by wishing us smooth trails. - -“The good man of yesterday becomes a burden to-day and a danger -to-morrow,” said Perolli, as we went slowly along the ledge of trail. -“Why is it that our minds do not change as rapidly as the world changes -around us? These mountain men will cling to their rifles, though the -time is past when killing will solve our problems. Stupidity! But -sometimes I think the whole world is stupid.” - -We agreed with little assenting sounds, our minds too much occupied -with the difficulty of the way to spend energy on words. We were -absorbed in the narrow, slippery trail running rust red along a cliff -that wept iron. Only when we paused for breath did we see the beautiful -valley of the Lumi Shala beneath us. The rain was falling gently now, -a wavering veil of gray chiffon over the mountains that ran a scale of -paling blues to the white peaks in the west. Below them little fields -were green, burgeoning woods were faintly rainbow misted with colors of -new leaves, and there was a foam of plum blossom and a sudden rosy note -from a solitary peach tree. - -We looked in silence. And when we resumed our toiling way, Perolli -began to sing. It was a song with springtime in it, a song like the -valley of the Lumi Shala, an Albanian song of strangely pitched half -notes and indescribable transitions, breaking at intervals into the -burbling melody of a bird’s throat. We listened entranced; we begged -him to sing it again. - -[Illustration: THE SHALA VALLEYS] - -“It is called ‘The Mountain Song,’” he said. “But it isn’t one of the -songs of the trails; it is a song of the large villages of Kossova. -I think it isn’t more than fifty or sixty years old, because it is a -love song. Love songs are new in Albania, and you find them only in the -villages.” And he sang: - - “How beautiful is the month of May - When we go with the flocks to the mountains! - On the mountains we heard the voice of the wind. - Do you remember how happy we were? - - “In the month of May, through the blossoming trees, - The sound of song is abroad on the mountains. - The song of the nightingale, ge re ge re ge re. - Do you remember how happy we were? - - “I would I had died in that month of May - When you leaned on my breast and kissed me, saying, - ‘I do not wish to live without you.’ - Do you remember how happy we were? - - “I wish again for the month of May - That again we might be on the mountains, - That again we might hear the mountain voices. - Have you forgotten those days of beauty?” - -Again and again he sang it, while we tried to follow with our voices -those unwritten notes that express so much more clearly than any words -the beauty and fleetingness of spring. And when, unexpectedly, we -came upon five young men drawn up in a line to greet us, we could not -believe that the way had been so short and that we had come to the -village of Shala. - -It was indeed Shala, and in a moment we were being welcomed by the -padre and escorted up a stone stairway into his rooms above the church. - -These were better rooms than Padre Marjan’s; the windows were not -broken and the walls were solid. But they were bitterly cold, and -this priest was not our Father Marjan. He was older, squarer, more -sturdy, his hair was iron gray, and his presence was commanding--so -commanding that it was a bit chilly. He led us formally into a large, -bare room, where there were a long table and four hand-made chairs; he -gave us each a chair and himself remained standing, talking with grave -formality, in Albanian, to Perolli. Little pools of water spread around -our feet, as though we were umbrellas. - -We sat there half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half. There was no -fire; the room had the feeling of a room that has never had a fire in -it. We suggested to Perolli that he take us into the kitchen to get -warm, but he silenced us with a glance; indeed, it was obvious that -we were in the hospitable hands of the priest and that it would be an -unforgivable affront to make such a suggestion to him. - -We were so cold from the first, holding ourselves so tight to prevent -our shivering from becoming uncontrollable, that I do not know when the -real chills began. It was Alex’s gray-blue lips and cheeks that first -alarmed me. I said to Perolli that he _must_ get us warmed. He said -that before long we would have something to eat, and that would warm us. - -Then I saw Alex’s cheeks turn to a hot, burning red, and I said: -“Perolli! You’ve got to get Alex a chance to get into dry clothes. -Can’t you see she’s ill?” - -“Are you ill?” said Perolli, and, “Oh no, no, not at all!” said Alex, -her teeth chattering together. “I would like to lie down, if I could, -but it’s all right.” - -Another half hour went by, lengthening into an hour. Alex seemed -still more ill to me, though I could not see her very well; she grew -very, very large before my eyes and then very small and far away. -My head ached, and just as I thought I was warm at last, I would be -disappointed again by a chill that made me clench my teeth and grip -my chair. But when I saw Alex’s head fall forward as though she were -faint, I could stand it no longer. I got up. - -“Perolli,” I said, “tell our host we’ve got to get Alex dry and warm. -If you don’t I’ll undress her and rub her right here!” - -I would have said more, but I couldn’t. A pain like a knife stabbed -through my lungs, and before I could catch my breath stabbed neatly -again. It’s the kind of pain you can’t describe; if you’ve felt it you -know it, and if you haven’t, you can’t. I recognized it; it had struck -me years before and laid me in a hospital for six weeks. Pneumonia! - -There’s a kind of clan morality that controls us. It has nothing to -do with the moralities of religions or races or states; it is a group -affair, and the groups seem roughly to be made by common occupations. -Soldiers must conceal, and deny, their natural fear of death. -Labor-union men must let their children starve before they “scab.” -Farmers must not let their stock break through fences, or let a bit -of unused land become a nursery for weeds. Employers--and one sees -this, now, everywhere in Europe--must not pay higher wages than other -employers, however easy and more efficient it may be to do so. Women -who are married, or expect to marry, must not let a man’s fancy wander -from the woman who claims him. Doctors must let a patient die rather -than take the case from another doctor. And women like Alex and Frances -and me--for whom there is no generic term, except the meaningless -“modern women”--must never, so long as they can keep on their feet, -admit that they are ill. - -How Alex felt I don’t know; for myself, I was in a blue panic. I have -never wanted anything so much as I wanted to collapse right there, -in sheer terror. Pneumonia, in Shala, a hundred and fifty miles from -a doctor, from medicines, from even a bed. Pneumonia, among the -Albanians, whose only medical knowledge of it was that it came from -drinking rain water! - -Perolli had been surprised by my exclamation. “Why didn’t you say you -were uncomfortable?” he said to Alex. “If I’d had any idea----” - -“I’m all right,” said Alex, getting the words out quickly and shutting -her teeth hard. - -“Well, what are you fussing about, then?” said Perolli to me, -anxiously. “I’d take you girls to a fire if I could, but, you see, -they’re cooking in the kitchen, and naturally the padre doesn’t want to -take his guests there. We’ve been here three hours now; dinner ought to -be ready before long, and you’ll be all right as soon as you’ve had -something to eat.” - -That pain stabbed through my lungs again, taking all my breath and -engaging all my self-control, and I wilted. I wasn’t the good sport -Alex was. - -“I know I’m abominably rude,” I said, “but I’m too tired. I want to -lie down. Ask the padre if there isn’t somewhere we can lie down till -dinner.” - -It was too bad. Guests shouldn’t behave like that. There was another -room, and it had a mattress on the floor, but there was no candle; -a bit of blazing wood must be brought from the kitchen to light me -into it; our bags must be fetched; the household was quite upset. -I apologized and apologized, but at last I was able to tear off my -sopping stockings, pull some of our blankets over me, and lie down in -the darkness. I was falling into a kind of stupor. I could not get off -my soaking garments, but it did not matter, fever kept me even too -warm in them, and in a moment I--as the old-time novelists say--knew -no more. During that moment I felt some one crawling on the mattress -beside me, put out a hand, and touched Alex’s blazing cheek. - -We were awakened and brought out to dinner. It did not seem real. I -remember it like a delirium. There was hot soup, but each mouthful -seemed a cannon ball to get through a closing throat, and there were -corn bread and goat’s-milk cheese; the padre stood at the head of -the table through the meal, holding the torch. He did not eat with -us, Perolli said, because we were using all the dishes he had. It -transpired, too, that there was but the one mattress in the house. -The padre’s niece slept on it; he himself slept on the floor with a -blanket. The niece was a sweet, round-cheeked little girl of about -fourteen, quite the German Fräulein; she had been educated in Vienna -and Munich, and seemed most desperately lonely in Shala, hungry for -companionship and talk of the things she knew; but since the war and -the wreck of central Europe she must stay in Shala. I saw a tragedy -there. But I saw it very dimly through the mist of pain and fever. - -Alex and I took the mattress, with the simple, direct selfishness of -miserable animals; it was very narrow, but we lay head to foot on it -and managed. Frances, Perolli, and Rexh slept in blankets beside us on -the floor. All night long Alex moaned in her sleep, and I could not -tell the difference between reality and delirium; only the knives in my -lungs brought me out of the mists now and then to hear the ceaseless -pouring sound of rain and feel the damp chill of the room. - -In the gray morning Alex and I sat up and looked at each other. - -“How do you feel?” said I. - -“Fine,” said she. “Have you a fever?” - -“Fever? Not a bit,” said I. “But I’ve been thinking. It’s the tenth, -and I absolutely must be in Paris by the twentieth. It’s most -important--a business matter. So I don’t think I’d better go on with -you into the Merdite country. I think I’d better go back to Scutari and -catch the boat from Durazzo next Tuesday.” - -“But you can’t make it out of these mountains alone!” said she. “It’s a -hundred and fifty miles and you don’t know the trails or the language.” - -“Oh yes, I can!” I said. “Don’t talk nonsense, Alex dear.” - -“Well, you know what it is. It is up to you,” said she. (How I love -women for the way they love you and yet leave you free!) “Only, if you -did have a fever, you realize it would be dangerous to try to make it, -in this weather.” - -“If I had a fever, it strikes me it would be equally dangerous to -stay here,” I replied. “And I must be in Paris, on the job, by the -twentieth.” - -“Well, if it’s the job----” said she, and called Perolli. - -Perolli was deep in politics, and paused only a moment to say that if -he had any authority over me he would not listen for a moment to such a -mad notion; but I told him he hadn’t and asked him to get me a guide. -He said he did not know the men here, but would do his best, and by the -time I was dressed he brought the guide, a slim, too-handsome youth who -spoke Italian and swore to get me to Scutari in two days. - -Frances said that if I would insist on going, I must take Rexh with -me; and I said I would not dream of it, I would not think of letting -that twelve-year-old give up the trip into the farther mountains. All -along the way he had thought of little else, and half his sentences had -begun, “When we get into the Merdite country----” We argued about it, -Frances patient and I surprised to find how bad tempered I could be. -The packs must be rearranged, and I kept putting my hand down on things -that were not there; everything moved with incredible slowness, and -eternities passed before I cut short the interminable formalities of -farewell and plunged out into the cool, delightful rain. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - - THE BACKWARD TRAIL--THE MAN OF SHALA HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR--THE - BYRAKTOR OF SHOSHI HEARS THAT THE EARTH IS ROUND. - - -We started down the bed of a waterfall, the guide and I; the bad going, -the exhausting force of the current, my dizziness and breath-taking -pains, made the first half mile a blur. When we came out on a cliff -edge I sat down, and then for the first time I saw Rexh. He stood very -gravely, watching me; the rain had melted the dye in his red fez and -little streams of it ran down his round, serious face. - -“It is much better for me to come with you, Mrs. Lane,” he said. “You -do not know the language, and this Shala man he is a bad man.” - -“But, Rexh, my dear!” I said. “No, no! You must go back to Miss Hardy -and say that I say you cannot come.” He might never again have an -opportunity to see that farther interior country; it was a trip to -dream of for years and to remember always afterward. I had not asked -him to give it up; I did not want him to. I was safe enough; all the -tribal laws protected me; no one had any motive for injuring me, and -the Shala man, however bad, knew that I had no money and that he would -be well paid when he delivered me in Scutari. - -“All that is true, Mrs. Lane. But I think it best for me to come with -you,” said Rexh, inflexibly. And because I really had no strength for -combating such determination, I got up and went on, the Shala man -going before, with my pack protected by a poncho on his back, and Rexh -following after. - -We climbed up cliffs and lowered ourselves down them; we slipped and -slid and jumped down more little waterfalls; we waded knee-deep streams -and struggled over decomposed shale that clutched at our feet like -sand; we came down a switchback trail to the banks of the Lumi Shala, -and the Shala man carried me across it, on top of his pack. It was all -like a nightmare, of which I remember clearly only my thirst. Though I -was as wet as anything that lives in the sea, I could not get enough -to drink, and every one of the millions of springs invited my drinking -cup. Rexh, whose endless task was to fill it for me, protested. “In the -rains, the water makes you sick,” he said. “It turns to knives inside -you. You will be sick, Mrs. Lane.” - -He was the funniest figure you can imagine, in a suit of striped -American flannelette pajamas and the red fez that poured a dozen little -wavering streams of dye over his forehead and down his cheeks. - -If I were in France, I knew, the doctors would put me in a hot room -with all the windows closed, and insist that I must not have much -water. In America I would be given fresh air and water, and bathed to -keep down the fever. Well, I was in Albania, and I reasoned that, if I -was to have pneumonia, I might as well have it on the mountain trails -as in a cold, wet house, and when I got to Scutari I could be as ill as -I liked, with very little bother to anybody. - -“If the water makes me sick, Rexh, and if I become _gogoli_, with a -wild spirit of the mountains entered into me, you are not to mind,” I -said. “You are to get me down to Scutari somehow; above all things, do -not let me stay in a native house.” - -“Yes, Mrs. Lane.” Then we began to climb up the next mountain, and, -kneeling on a bowlder above me to help pull me up its side, Rexh said: -“Your hand is like a hot coal, Mrs. Lane, and this is not such a very -big bowlder. I think we must get a _mooshk_.” - -“What is a _mooshk_?” - -“He is what you ride on. I forget the English word--with long ears and -very little feet.” - -“A mule?” - -“Yes, that is it. We must get a mule for you to ride.” - -“Oh, do you think we can? Ask the Shala man if he knows where there is -one.” - -The Shala man, to my joy--but Rexh looked doubtful--said at once that -there was one at the next house. So we went into it, and sat for some -time by the fire, and were given coffee, our steaming clothes making -the place like a Turkish bath. But there was no mule; the Shala man -said we would find one at the next house. The houses were perhaps a -quarter of a mile apart here, scattered along the mountain sides above -the Lumi Shala, and the Shala man stopped at every one of them. There -would be a delirium of struggling up slopes so steep that I could go, -as it were, on all fours, without having to admit that my knees were -limp, and then of staggering downward, and then an interval of smoke -and fire and thick, sweet coffee, and then out into the water again. At -last I began really to protest. - -“I won’t go into this house,” I said, flatly. “We ought to make forty -miles at least before we stop, if we’re to get to Scutari in three -days. We have to keep going all the time. I’m not going to stop in any -more houses.” - -“Mrs. Lane, we have to,” said Rexh. - -“But why? It’s nonsense! This man’s saying always that the mule is at -the next house. These people know whether there’s a mule in the village -or not. We needn’t stop in every house.” - -“Yes, we do, Mrs. Lane. We are in Shoshi and this man will be killed -if he does not take care. You do not look like a woman, Mrs. Lane. You -look like a Montenegrin man, in those pants and that long gray coat. He -has to stop in every house, so that the people will see he is traveling -with a woman.” - -“But, Rexh, I thought we were going through Pultit.” - -“This is Shoshi, Mrs. Lane.” - -The Shala man, tall and young and very conscious that he was handsome, -stood easily on the slope beside us, rain running over him as though he -were a stone in a stream, his rifle held carefully protected from the -wet by a fold of the poncho. He seemed entirely happy. - -“What do you mean,” said I, furiously “by bringing me through Shoshi -when you agreed to take me through Pultit?” And when Rexh, like a small -image of an accusing judge, had translated, the Shala man looked like -an artless child surprised in innocent mischief. - -“He says he thought it would be fun. Because they can’t kill him while -you’re here, and he likes to go into their houses and drink coffee,” -said Rexh. - -I sat for some moments on the streaming bowlder, wiping my streaming -face now and then with my hand, and staring at that man with the -peculiar sense of humor. So he thought it funny, did he, to bring me -through a tribe whose rifles were oiled to kill him, and to sit at -their firesides, perfectly safe in my protection? Fastened in my own -little affairs like a turtle in his shell, I sat there, black with -rage, thinking that I would like to murder him, myself. Then suddenly I -put out my head and saw the wide world, and the spectacle of us three, -dripping there on that immense and drenched landscape in the middle of -Albania--the innocent Shala man who had been delightedly thumbing his -nose at Shoshi’s warriors, the small, serious Rexh with a map of tiny -red rivers over his face, and me, who looked like a Montenegrin man, -all of us so intently solemn---- - -But the vision was disastrous, for laughter set the knives slashing -through my lungs again, and I did not know how much of the rain on my -face was tears before I was able to speak. - -“Tell him I hope he enjoyed the joke, for it’s over,” I said. “You’re -Mohammedan, Rexh, and safe; just call to the house and tell them who -I am, and ask if they have a mule. And when they ask us in, tell them -glory to their house, but I cannot stop; I have made a vow to get to -Scutari.” - -The Shala man was so downcast at passing one household he could not -crow over, that my harshness would have relented under any other -circumstances. But I was convinced that I was in for pneumonia, and -every impulse in me concentrated in one obsession--to get to Scutari. - -“After this, Rexh, you are managing this party,” I said. - -“Yes, Mrs. Lane,” said he, toiling up the trail like a small -pajama-clad gnome. And with all the sagacity and resource with which he -manages his household of younger refugee children in Scutari, he took -charge. The clearest picture that remains to me of that day is that -of Rexh, his head tipped back and the staff in his left hand firmly -planted, while with his right forefinger he sternly laid down the law -to a thoroughly cowed Shala man. - -[Illustration: THE SHALA GUIDE - -Who took the author through Shoshi for a joke] - -It was Rexh who decreed that he carry the pack, while the Shala man -carried me up the worst of the slopes; it was he who sent a man from -one of the houses to climb the nearest mountain and call down the -valley that we were searching for a mule; it was he who decided when we -should stop to eat. - -He and the Shala man ate cold meat and corn bread and goat’s-milk -cheese, beside a fire on the earth floor of one of the houses, and it -was there that a violent-looking man, with a scarred face, clothed in -the merest fragments of rags, tried to terrify me into giving him an -order on the Red Cross in Scutari for clothes. He was a guest in the -house; he had been driven from his own village by the Serbs; his wife -and all his children had been killed around him; and I think he was a -little mad. - -“Give me clothes!” said he, thrusting his horrible face almost against -mine, one hand on the wooden-handled knife in his grimy sash. “You -Americans have given clothes to others! Give them to me!” - -“Tell him that all the American clothes are gone, all of them have been -given away, and there are no more. And tell him that in any case I am -not of the Red Cross and cannot give him an order. I am very, very -sorry.” - -“Write! Write me clothes on your pieces of paper!” the man snarled, and -if Rexh had not sat so calmly beside me I would have thought he meant -to strike me with the knife he drew. The incident was like the horror -in a nightmare. - -“Tell him I can write on paper,” I said, shrugging, “but the paper -will not get him clothes.” So he sat down, muttering. I was glad when -Rexh said we would go on, for I did not, like the Shala man, delight -in receiving courtesy at the hands of these people who so gladly would -have killed him. - -We went on over the trails, driven by the unflagging Rexh. His quiet -persistency really maddened the Shala man; it was like that of a fly. -He drove the Shala man onward without a pause, up and down cliffs, -over bridges of logs just missed by roaring cascades, through streams -where currents made him stagger. Surely half the time Rexh demanded -that the Shala man carry me; the rest of the time the two were pulling -me upward, or letting me downward, by both hands, as though I were a -bundle. And just as the light was failing we stood on the brink of the -most magnificent cañon of which I have ever dreamed. - -There were depths below depths of it, falling away from narrow green -terrace to terrace, and far down, at the edge of a drop that looked -as though it were a crack sheer to the center of the world, there was -a stone house. From the other side of the chasm a tilted slab of rock -rose up into the clouds--a stupendous great sweep like a wing of the -Victory of Samothrace, and it was striped in jagged lines of green and -gray and rose and white, hundreds of stripes, each as wide as the -stone house down in the blue distance. - -We knew it was a large house; we could hardly have seen it if it had -been a small one; it looked as large as a match box. - -“The byraktor of Shoshi lives there, Mrs. Lane, and I think we had -better stay with him to-night,” said Rexh. “There is a priest, but -he is four miles farther down the valley, and we would have to come -back in the morning, for this is where the trail begins to cross the -mountains to Scutari. Also, if there is a mule in Shoshi, the byraktor -will know him.” - -So we began dropping down to the house, the Shala man much pleased by -the adventure of calling upon his enemies’ war chief. We went easily, -for the way was a gigantic staircase of cliff and terraced green field. -Each field had its little house of stone; the trails down the cliff -were broadened and held up by walls of stone. True, the centers of the -trails were running ankle deep in water and springs gushed from every -wall, but the effect was of ease and order and fresh green things, and -before we reached the house of the byraktor my head was clearer and my -breath no longer stabbing pains. - -How to account for it I do not know; I am sure that in happier -conditions I should have had pneumonia. But the fact is that after -nearly forty miles of incredibly difficult journeying over those -mountains in twelve rain-drenched hours, I came to the byraktor’s fire -weak, it is true, and trembling like a convalescent, but with fever -gone and my lungs merely aching. I suggest the remedy for what it is -worth. - -The byraktor received us at his gateway, for his house was surrounded -by a high fence, almost a stockade, of woven branches. He was a tall, -keen, quick man; bright, dark eyes and aquiline nose and thin, flexible -lips, framed by the white turban’s fold beneath his chin; a jacket of -black sheep’s wool; one massive jeweled silver chain on his breast. His -swift smile was warm and beautiful, but one had a sense of reservations -behind it; he welcomed the audacious Shala man without a quiver, and -ushered us up the stone steps to the second floor of his house. - -There were several rooms, divided from the main large one by partitions -of woven willow boughs, and from the large room a high, arched doorway -in the stone wall led into farther regions. At least forty men and -women and children--five generations--were around the fire on the -floor. There was a little flurry of welcome and rearrangement, and in -a moment we were in the center of the circle, sitting on thick mats of -woven straw, while the byraktor made our coffee in the coals. - -The women were beautifully dressed; I had not seen so much elegance of -embroidery, of colored headkerchiefs, earrings, and chains of silver -and gold coins. Their dark, beautifully modeled faces, large dark eyes, -and heavy braids of black hair were set off by the profusion of rich -color. Most of them were sitting on low stools, embroidering or working -opangi, and the white-garbed men lounged at their feet, closer to the -fire, resting on elbows and smoking. - -There was the delicate negotiation about the mule. The byraktor owned -one, but he did not want to take it to Scutari. I left that to Rexh; -the byraktor listened to him as courteously as though the boy had been -twenty years older, and Rexh bargained with him as with an equal. A -hundred kronen, Rexh said, tentatively, at last, but even at that -terrific price the byraktor did not seem eager to make the trip (for, -of course, he himself would go where his mule went) and Rexh thought -best to drop the question for a while. - -“Where do you come from?” one of the youths asked me; and when I had -replied, “In what direction from here is America?” - -“California, the part of America from which I come,” I answered--and -did not very greatly stretch the truth--“is directly through the earth, -on the other side.” - -Why they sat up in such excitement I did not know; I had expected -surprise, but not such a volley of questions, not such a visible -sensation. Rexh sat replying to them, earnestly explaining, making -a gesture now and then; their eyes followed his hands, fascinated. -His talk became a monologue; it went on and on; all work stopped, -cigarettes burned to heedless fingers, the coffee bubbled unnoticed -by the byraktor. Little Rexh, sitting erect in his pajama coat, the -streaks of red dye now dried fantastically on his chubby face, held -them all spellbound, while I begged him in vain to tell me what he was -saying. - -“It is nothing, Mrs. Lane,” he answered me, at last. “I am telling them -about the map. I am telling them that the map is not flat, as it looks, -but round, like a ball.” - -He was telling them that the earth was round! And hearing my voice, -they appealed to me in a bombardment of questions. - -“Is the earth really round?” - -“Yes.” - -“You have seen it? You know that it is round?” - -“Yes.” - -“You have been around it, yourself?” - -“Yes,” I said, mendaciously. - -They sat back and considered this. Then they asked particulars. They -could understand that the earth was curved, for they had seen that the -mountains were not flat, so it would be possible for the earth to be -curved. But were the seas curved also? Would water curve? I said that -it would, that, indeed, it did. - -Had I been upon the great spaces of water and seen that they were -curved? - -I had been upon the seas, I said, and they were curved. They did not -look curved, because the earth was so large and the eye saw so little -of it, but they were curved, for one could go quite around the earth on -them. - -They smoked over this for some time. The byraktor rescued his coffee -pot, in deep abstraction. I did not expect them to believe what I -had said. How could they? It must have appeared to them the wildest -of fairy tales (although in all Albania there are no fairies, and -therefore--I suppose that is the reason--there are no Albanian fairy -tales). Men suffered much at the hands of our ancestors for telling -them the monstrous idea that the flat earth is round. I wished I knew -what thoughts were taking shape behind those dark Albanian eyes. - -Then the byraktor looked up. “If the solid earth is round,” he said, -“and if the water lies upon it in a curve, then this earth is moving -very rapidly. For if the earth were standing still the water would fall -off.” - -My astonishment was profound. I felt myself a child beside that mind, -and I thought that a man who could so wrestle with a new fact and -evolve from it an even more amazing conclusion was no man for me to -contend with in a little matter of hiring a mule and getting, somehow, -to Scutari. - -Presently large flocks of sheep and goats were driven through the -room, past the fire, and into the darkness beyond the arched doorway. -Rain-drenched shepherdesses, half clad in rags, followed them, and -having, with much noise of tearing branches, given them their dried oak -boughs to eat during the night, the shepherdesses returned and sat by -the fire, addressing the byraktor in tones of accustomed equality. - -There was a constant movement in the room--women coming and going, -nursing their babies and tucking blankets more tightly over the -cradles, undressing the smaller children, who played naked about the -fire until they were taken, unprotesting, to their blankets in other -rooms, and bringing casks of water, and making corn bread. - -One could always amuse the women by asking them about ages; they -guessed mine all the way from sixteen to forty, and there was one of -them, a splendid, smiling woman, good natured and competent, whose -age I guessed to be forty. She laughed aloud, showing all her white, -perfect teeth, and said that she was seventy-two, and that the byraktor -was her daughter’s son. - -“You have been drinking the new water,” she said, wisely, though I had -not mentioned the ache of my breathing. “You have the feeling of knives -here,” and she touched her chest. “But do not worry; it is all right; -it is only the water, and when the rain stops you will not feel them -any more.” And she patted my shoulder comfortingly. - -The question of the mule still hung unsettled. The byraktor seemed to -be thinking deeply; he asked the Shala man many questions about Rrok -Perolli. I caught the name and asked Rexh to listen, for I felt myself -surrounded by web within web of intrigue, but Rexh said that the Shala -man had nothing to tell, except that Perolli was in the mountains. -I wondered whether to tell the byraktor that Shala had sworn a -_besa_ with the Tirana government, and then thought best not venture -into mazes that I did not understand. But the byraktor was greatly -interested on learning that I had been in Montenegro, and all that I -knew about that part of Jugo-Slavia I told him; it was very little, but -he seemed to see more than I did in the robbery of the Serbian Minister -of Finance by Montenegrin bandits. - -“The story was in the newspapers,” I told him. “Some day there will be -newspapers in Albania, and schools in the mountains, and then you will -learn about these things when they happen.” - -“I have heard about the school in Thethis,” he answered. “Schools are -very good, but what my people need is food and clothes. We are very -poor. We have too little land. A school is of no use to a child who is -hungry, for hunger has no brains with which to learn. I do not care -for a school in Shoshi until all my people have enough bread. It is -not right to give the well-fed child a school, too; he has already -more than other children, and the school will only make him wiser and -prouder than the poorer ones. Already the families with fewer children -are stronger than those with many, and that is not right. I do not want -a school; I want land for my people, for food comes from land, and -after food comes the school. There is no hope for the mountain people -while enemies hold our valleys. First the Romans, then the Turks, then -the Austrians and Italians, and always, always the Serbs! And it may -be that the Serbs will be too strong for us and that we shall all die -fighting them.” - -After that he went to the other side of the fire, beside his -grandmother, and he sat for a long time talking to her. “Shkodra,” I -heard, which is the Albanian name of Scutari, and “_mooshk_” and I knew -he was talking of me and the mule I wanted to hire, but why it should -be such a long and grave discussion I did not understand. - -Then we had dinner, served on several little tables, that all might -eat at the same time, and the men and women ate together, but only the -youngest and most beautiful woman ate at the byraktor’s table, silent -and respectful, dipping her long, aristocratic fingers diffidently in -the dish. I thought she was his wife, but Rexh said no, she was his -son’s bride, still in those six months when she must not speak until -spoken to, nor sit unless asked, and the byraktor liked her very much -and wished to make her feel at home, because she was lonely for her own -tribe. - -After we had all washed our hands for the second time, and the men had -had an after-dinner smoke--I still turned my head from the proffered -cigarettes--the byraktor said that he would himself escort me to-morrow -on the road to Scutari. I should ride his mule, and it was arranged -that we should start at four o’clock. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - - A NIGHT BY THE BYRAKTOR’S FIRE--THE BYRAKTOR CALLS A COUNCIL--REXH TO - THE RESCUE--THE BYRAKTOR’S GENDARME TEARS A PONCHO--MOONLIGHT ON THE - SCUTARI PLAIN. - - -Then his grandmother made three beds, on three sides of the fire. She -brought a two-inch-thick mat of woven straw and laid it on the floor; -over it she spread a handsome blanket of goats’ hair dyed in stripes -of magenta and purple; under one end of the mat she put a triangular -piece of wood to serve as pillow, and when I lay down she tucked other -blankets over me. Rexh and the Shala man had the other mats, and all -the byraktor’s family went to their own places, leaving the big room -and the dying fire to us three guests. - -At four in the morning the house was astir. Out of the darkness yawning -men came to stir the slumbering fire; the byraktor appeared without his -turban, a weird figure with his shaven, skin-white head and long black -scalplock, and began to make the morning coffee; the sheep and goats -were driven out into the rain by the ragged shepherdesses. I sat up and -put on my opangi, and the sleepy Rexh, still streaked with red dye from -his fez, rolled out of his blankets. - -“To-day,” I said, “we get to Scutari.” For the pains in my lungs had -returned and I had lain all night half waking, haunted by fever visions -and voices. - -“Yes, yes,” said the Shala man. “I swear it! To-day we get to Scutari!” -But the byraktor looked at him, saying nothing, a quizzical look in his -dark eyes, and leisurely went on with his coffee making. - -“Rexh,” I said at five o’clock, “why don’t they start?” - -“I don’t know, Mrs. Lane,” he replied, earnestly. “They will not tell.” -He sat listening to every casual word, and thinking deeply. A dozen -times I had suggested that we should be starting. - -“Tell the byraktor we must go!” I said at six o’clock, impatient in the -doorway. For a long time all the world had been a clear gray, shadowed -only by the falling rain. “I pay a hundred kronen for his mule only -because it gets me to Scutari to-night.” - -Rexh announced this firmly to the byraktor; the byraktor, listening -attentively, assented with a shake of his head. - -At seven o’clock I walked madly up and down the small stone porch. The -byraktor’s gendarme had arrived; he stood washing his face in a stone -basin filled with rain water; at every splash in it he raised his head -and solemnly crossed himself and made the sign of the cross toward the -dawn. Inside the house, the byraktor was deep in conversation with his -grandmother. - -“They are talking politics, Mrs. Lane,” Rexh reported. “I do not yet -quite understand, but I think that you will not get to Scutari to-day.” - -“Rexh,” I said, “listen to me. I shall get to Scutari to-day. In ten -minutes by my watch I shall start to walk to Scutari, without the mule. -I have waited long enough. Tell that to the byraktor.” - -The byraktor came to the door and looked at me kindly. He had put on -his turban; he was a figure of rather awe-inspiring dignity. “Slowly -slowly, little by little,” said he, indulgently, and went back into the -house. - -When eight minutes had passed his grandmother came out--I was now -walking restlessly up and down the soaked, corn-stalk-strewn yard--and -led out of the lower part of the house the mule. The mule was the -very smallest donkey I have ever seen, the most bedraggled, the most -violently antagonistic to all the world. The woman tied him to the -wicker fence and brought out a measure of corn. “Slowly, slowly,” said -she to me, triumphantly. “One cannot start until the mule has eaten.” -Then she went back to her talk with her grandson, the byraktor. - -A moment later I interrupted them by the most courteous of farewells. -I blessed them and their house and their past and their future, their -families, their tribe, their hospitality, and their mule, and then I -left. The Shala man followed me, protesting; Rexh trudged beside me, -saying nothing, but very disapproving. - -“You cannot do such a thing to the byraktor of Shoshi!” said the Shala -man. - -“I have done it to the byraktor of Shoshi,” said I, violently, gasping -on the trail. I kept my knees stiff with sheer rage, but on the first -terrace above the byraktor’s house not even that could keep me going, -and I sat down in a heap on the trail to rest. - -The sun had not yet cleared the top of the stupendous sweep of striped -rock that soared above the chasm; it could hardly do so before noon. -The cañon was filled with silver light; the rain itself seemed silver; -the rose and blue and white of that great cliff glowed softly through -it, and the greens of the little fields below were soft as mist. I sat -looking at this, and insensibly realizing why time was so little to -these people, and how unimportant, really, all our little hastes are. - -Then, coming leisurely across the green, like little toys on a carpet, -appeared the byraktor, his gendarme, and the minute mule. In half an -hour they reached us, calm and unperturbed. The donkey bore a wooden -saddle quite as large as himself; they placed me on this and leisurely -began to climb. - -“To-night,” said I, firmly, “I shall be in Scutari.” - -Rexh translated this to the byraktor, but the byraktor said nothing. - -We proceeded slowly over the mountains. This was wilder going than I -had yet seen, and again the simplicity of these people was borne in -upon me. Coming to places that, to any European understanding, would -be absolutely impassable, the byraktor’s action was simple and direct. -He wrapped around his wrist the steel chain that held the mule by the -neck, and easily, without haste, he went on. The mule came, too; it -could not do otherwise, and when it would have fallen the steel chain -and the gendarme’s firm grip on its tail kept it going until its feet -got their grip again. I was, of course, on the mule’s back, and where -it went I went, too. - -The byraktor and the gendarme thought nothing of thus casually carrying -between them a mule with me on its back, and very shortly--so adaptable -is the human mind--I thought little of it myself. I recall sitting -there, comfortable in that armchair of a saddle, taking my smoked -glasses out of my pocket and polishing them; the sun was piercing -through the clouds, and the glare on the snow above was blinding to my -eyes. We were passing along a trail really too narrow for the mule; -my knees grazed a cliff; a glance over my shoulder went straight down -into depths where pine-tree tops looked like a lawn; at every second -the mule’s tiny hoofs slipped and rocks showered downward, the chain -tightened around the byraktor’s wrist and the muscles of his shoulders -knotted as the mule’s weight bore on them. It crossed my mind, as I -settled the smoked glasses on my nose, that two weeks earlier my heart -would have stopped at very sight of that trail, and then, as it dipped -downward and I heard the gendarme bracing his feet and felt the mule’s -weight sag against the strength of that useful tail, I looked up and -forgot everything else in the magnificence of shadow and sunshine on -the snow-piled heights. - -I do not mean that I am at all unusual in my attitude to danger. I’m -not, and the prospect of sudden death scares me stiff, as it does -everyone else. I mean that human beings are all chameleons. The stuff -of humanity is always the same, it merely takes on different colors -from its environment; in Albania there is not one of us who will not -become Albanian. There are many morals to be drawn from this; you may -apply the idea to education, or to your attitude toward immigrants or -capitalists or criminals or even to your next-door neighbor; it would -be useful also in considering international politics or religions that -are not yours, or the actions of men in war, but I did not draw any -morals, being immediately engaged in crossing the foot of the largest -waterfall I had yet encountered. - -It was so large that the men unsaddled the mule, stripped themselves, -and wrapped their clothes in several bundles before attempting to cross -it. Then they made a living chain of themselves; the byraktor, at its -head, advanced to a water-worn bowlder in the center of the current, -braced himself firmly, and became the pivot on which the chain moved. -The end man carried over the clothes, bundle by bundle, wrapped in -my poncho; then he carried me across--I was soaked in spray, but that -did not matter. Then he put one arm around the donkey and supported it -across, and then the saddle, and then he went back once more and took -the protesting Rexh and brought him over. The water was above their -waists; their white bodies slanted in the glassy current; three yards -below them the water poured in a crystal mass over the edge of the -pool, a second waterfall that struck in roaring foam fifty feet below. - -The worst of the current was between me and the central rock where the -byraktor was braced; several times the end man’s feet slipped there, -notably when he crossed with the donkey, which I gave up for lost, but -each time the chain of hands held firm. - -Their bodies came blue from the icy water, but they put on only their -cotton underdrawers, for they said we would next go through the snow, -and they did not want to get their beautifully embroidered trousers -wet; for the same reason they left their purple, gold-embroidered socks -and rawhide opangi in the packs, and went on barefoot. - -“Good! If we’re crossing the snow fields already, we’ll surely be in -Scutari by to-night,” I said. But I was joyful too soon, for when we -reached the first of the snow the party stopped. The byraktor sat down -on a rock and lighted a cigarette; the gendarme, without a word, began -to climb a tall cliff that overhung the trail. What did it mean? Rexh -did not know, and I sat impatiently on the mule, which began nosing -through the snow for some bite to eat. - -Then overhead the high, keen telephone call rang out, answered by far, -thin voices that sounded as though the crystal air itself had been -tapped, far away, by a giant finger. Even while the voices called and -answered in the sky, silent men began to appear, suddenly, without -my having noticed their approach. It was startling to see a strange, -turbaned head beside my elbow, to find that between two glances a -dignified, half-naked man was sitting on the rock beside the byraktor. - -Rexh came and led the mule to a little distance. The figure of the -gendarme, against the sky, raised its rifle, and I put my hands over my -ears just in time to dull the echo crash. “It is polite to go away for -a little distance, Mrs. Lane,” said Rexh. “The byraktor has called a -council of all chiefs of Shoshi.” - -In half an hour twenty men surrounded the byraktor. They were all, like -the byraktor and his gendarme, in cotton underdrawers, barefooted, -and naked above the waist, many of them wearing on their heads only -the tiny round white cap that covered their scalplocks. Each of them -carried his rifle on a woven strap slung over his shoulder, and all had -an arsenal in their sashes. They sat on small rocks, on the snow-filmed -ground, in a group about the byraktor’s bowlder. - -We were at the mouth of the highest pass. All around the little open -space towered cliffs heavy with snow, only to the east the mountain -ranges fell away, one beyond the other, to the just-suggested chasm -of the Lumi Shala Valley, and beyond it they rose again, purple and -blue and gray, to the foot of the great wave of snow that touched the -sky--the wave that Alex and Frances and Perolli were climbing, if they -had left Shala. A black cloud hanging over the pass they were to take -told that they were traveling in a storm. - -The council lasted half an hour, three quarters of an hour, an hour. -It concerned grave matters; the earnestness of those intent bodies and -keen faces said that. Meantime Rexh and I talked in low tones. - -“I am not paying the byraktor a hundred kronen to sit here while he -holds a council,” said I. “Do you think he intends to get me to Scutari -to-night?” - -“I do not think so, Mrs. Lane. But if you want to get there, it shall -be done. We must consider many things.” Rexh used his fingers to check -them off. “First, the byraktor must be thinking a great deal about the -new Tirana government. You remember that he asked the Shala man about -Rrok Perolli. Also he talked a long time with his mother’s mother, -and that was about politics. Second, the byraktor holds a council. -Therefore he is going to do something that concerns the tribe. The -byraktor, you know, is the war chief; he is the one who leads the -tribe to war. Shoshi is in blood with Shala, and Shala has sworn a -_besa_ with the Tirana government. We must think of all these things. -Now I think that the byraktor is also in blood with some of the tribes -along the Kiri River, between here and Scutari. I think that he has -hired you the mule so that he can travel in safety with you through -those tribes and get to Scutari, where he will inquire about the Tirana -government and whether it intends to join Shala in war against Shoshi. -That is what I think.” - -I looked at that twelve-year-old lad in amazement and admiration. -“Well, Rexh,” I said, humbly, “I must leave it to you to get me to -Scutari to-night, somehow. You think the byraktor intends to stop along -the way?” - -“Yes, Mrs. Lane. Also I think that the Shala man does not want to reach -Scutari to-night. He swears earnestly, but I think he is a serpent with -a forked tongue.” - -I sat there on the donkey, appalled. “But, Rexh, you know that I must -get to Scutari to-night. Tell them I have said it. I am of the American -tribe, and what Americans say they will do, they do. To-night I get to -Scutari!” - -“Yes, Mrs. Lane. But one must not tell all one thinks. We will say -nothing. We will see.” - -When the council was ended we went on leisurely through the pass, and -down into valleys, and up again over other mountains. At two o’clock we -left behind the last glimpse of the wall of snow to the east, the last -sight of the interior mountains of northern Albania, the most beautiful -mountain country in the world. At three o’clock we saw, glimmering on -the far-western horizon, the silvery edge of Lake Scutari, and far to -the right, deep between two ranges, the valley of the tribe of Pultit, -and the white house of the bishop, the tiniest of specks to my eyes; -but the Albanians saw it plainly, and distinguished it from any other. - -At four o’clock we began the tremendous descent into the Kiri Valley -and I was obliged to dismount. “The gendarme says he cannot hold the -donkey by the tail here, Mrs. Lane. He is afraid the tail will break.” - -And for two miles we swung downward bowlder by bowlder, exhausting -travel to the arms and shoulders; but the mountain women came up that -way with cradles on their backs. The mule made it by little leaps. - -“Now the road is good,” said the Shala man, and, indeed, the two-foot -path, no steeper anywhere than the steep trails on Tamalpais, seemed -a boulevard to me. Only twenty miles more to Scutari! And I thought -of getting off the clothes in which I had slept for three nights, and -a shampoo shone before me like a bright star. Rexh had been borrowing -trouble, I thought; there was still light on the western slopes and -twenty miles was nothing to these people. And just as I was thinking -this the byraktor halted. - -“We will go this way, now,” he said, “to the village where we stay -to-night.” - -Why was it so necessary that I reach Scutari before I slept? I do not -know. But the idea had become fixed, an obsession; I was irrational, -for the moment a monomaniac. There was nothing I would not have -sacrificed to satisfy that imperious desire. - -“Tell the byraktor that I must get on to Scutari,” I said. “I am -sick and must get quickly to a doctor. I cannot stay in any village -to-night; I must be with my own people.” - -“Yes, Mrs. Lane,” said Rexh, and, having talked for some time, he -explained, “I have told him that you have had word from your father, -who is the chief of your tribe, and that the word said you must go to -Durazzo and take a boat to your own country.” - -“Very well. What does he say?” - -“He says that you stop in this village to-night. It is a good village, -and you will be rested in the morning.” - -“I will be in Scutari in the morning,” I said. “Tell him again that I -must go to Scutari. If he cannot go himself, will he let me take the -mule?” - -“But he says the roads are dangerous and it will be dark.” - -“Tell him I am American and there is no danger that stops an American.” - -The byraktor looked at me, puzzled, but with a little humor in the -depths of his dark eyes. He had put on his turban; below its white -folds the silver chain dangled on his bare breast; above it the muzzle -of his rifle caught a glint of the western sunlight. - -“He says it is not a question of your safety; it is a question of his -honor. I was right, Mrs. Lane; he says that he is in blood with the -tribes through which one goes to Scutari. If he travels through them -by night he will be killed, and in the darkness no one will know who -has done it. He does not mind being killed, but to be killed by some -one his tribe cannot know and kill afterward would be black dishonor to -him. It is true, Mrs. Lane, and he is a great byraktor--the byraktor of -five hundred houses.” - -“But he need not go with me. You and the Shala man will go with me. I -only want his mule. Is he afraid for his mule? I will give him a paper, -and if I am killed and the mule is stolen he can get another mule from -the Red Cross house in Scutari.” - -I said this quite innocently, but the words taught me what blazing eyes -are. One hears of them; one seldom sees them. But the byraktor’s eyes -seemed actually to kindle into flame, and involuntarily I shrank back -when he turned them on me. - -“He does not think of the mule, Mrs. Lane. He thinks only of his honor. -You must not say such things. He says you cannot go on without him; -you are traveling under his protection, and it is his honor that is -concerned if anything happens to you.” - -I looked at the ring of utterly savage-looking men, half naked, with -shaven heads and scalplocks, surrounding me in those wild mountains, -and suddenly I struggled not to laugh. If a magic vision could have -shown me then to my friends at home, how they would have prayed that I -escape alive, while the real difficulty was that these savages wanted -only too embarrassingly to protect me. - -“But, Rexh, it is absurd. I did not ask for his protection; I simply -hired his mule. Tell him that he has brought me so far safely, so far -I have traveled under his protection. I thank him, I thank him deeply, -I am most grateful with my whole heart, but now I will leave his -protection and travel onward.” And to Rexh’s words, with my hand on my -heart, I added in Albanian, “I thank you from my heart.” - -The byraktor made a gesture, only a little gesture with his hand, but -the violence of its fury I cannot describe. “You thank me! You have -broken my honor!” he said, and even without Rexh’s murmured translation -I would have felt the menace of the silence that followed. - -“But,” I said, bewildered, “I am traveling with the Shala man. Isn’t -the Shala man protection? Besides, tell him I don’t need protection. I -am protected even here by the power of my own tribe.” - -“The Shala man shall take you in, Mrs. Lane,” said Rexh. That -too-handsome youth had hung back from the conversation, but Rexh’s -stern eye brought him into it. And then there was such a battle of -words that the very rocks joined it. The byraktor stood listening, -bending down a little, intent; Rexh--short, pudgy Rexh in his -flannelette pajamas--drove home with fist on chubby fist his earnest -words, and the Shala man called Heaven and the cliffs to witness his -clamor. The byraktor turned his eyes from Rexh to the Shala man, from -the Shala man to Rexh, and thoughtfully stroked his chin. Around us the -other men stood attentive. - -Then the Shala man turned and, lifting me from the trail to which I had -dismounted, swung me again into the saddle. He pounded the saddle with -his fist and exclaimed violently, his face congested with dark blood. - -“It is all right, Mrs. Lane,” said Rexh, grimly. “He will take you -in. He has told the byraktor why he cannot take you to Scutari; it is -because the gendarmes are looking for him to kill him. But he will take -you in. After that the gendarmes can have him; he is of no use.” - -Even my fixed idea was shaken by those astounding, calm words. - -“But, Rexh,” I said, in horror, “I can’t kill a man, even to get to -Scutari to-night. Do you think the gendarmes will really kill him if -he takes me in?” But one glance at the violently miserable Shala man -answered the question. - -“Yes, Mrs. Lane,” said Rexh. “They will kill him by law, because he has -killed some men. But, Mrs. Lane, he said he would take you to Scutari -and he must take you to Scutari. The byraktor will tell you so.” - -“_Po, po_,” said the byraktor, agreeing, and, “_Po, po_,” said the -others; and looking at the Shala man, I had no doubt that if he -faltered on the way Rexh’s tongue had barbs to drive him onward. - -“But explain to the byraktor that it is not American custom--that I -can’t take a man to be killed, Rexh. I’m sorry,” said I, for it did -seem a pity to disappoint Rexh so, when he had so nicely arranged -everything. I leaned from the saddle and spoke earnestly to the -byraktor myself, Rexh’s murmured translation for his ears while I -held his eyes: “I must get to Scutari to-night. It is necessary. But -I do not want to risk any man’s life. I take my own life in my hands -and go with it on the trail. No one else can carry it for me. That is -American custom. It is American custom that I thank you now, and give -back to you your protection, and go on alone. If it is not your custom, -I am sorry, but by all American custom your honor is safe, and I am -American, and Albanian law does not apply to me.” - -“You speak with a tongue of great learning,” said the byraktor, but -this time his manner was sympathetic. “However, my honor is my honor, -and my protection goes with you all the way to your own tribe. I will -go with you to Scutari.” - -“But I don’t want the byraktor to be killed, either!” I wailed; and -then the byraktor’s gendarme came forward. He was a low-browed, -rascally-looking fellow, a man with bad eyes like those of an -untrustworthy horse, and a charming smile. He was naked except for the -wide scarlet sash around his loins and the tiny white cap over his -scalplock. - -“The honor of my byraktor is my honor,” he said. “My byraktor is a good -byraktor and a great byraktor. He is byraktor of five hundred houses. -If he is killed, all the valley mourns. If he is killed in the dark -and we never know who killed him so that we can kill that man, that is -black dishonor for all the tribe of Shoshi. I am only one man, and if I -am killed it does not matter. I will go with you to Scutari.” - -“Glory to your lips!” said the others. “Good! It is decided.” - -“Well,” I thought, “all this is beautiful rhetoric, but no one will -kill him while I am with him.” As for the danger in the darkness, I did -not believe it for a moment. Who would shoot a person he could not see? -So I said good-by to the byraktor--all our long and flowery speeches -consumed another quarter of an hour, and the sunlight was climbing -away over the mountains so rapidly that we could see it go--and I said -good-by to all the others, and promised the frantic Shala man that -indeed he should be paid what had been promised; I would send him -the money by the gendarme, and I would send the mule and the hundred -kronen to the byraktor--and then another difficulty arose. If I left -the Shala man unprotected here, in the midst of the Shoshi men who -had traveled amiably with him all that day--but he had never wandered -beyond eyeshot of me--his life would be no safer than in the hands of -the gendarmes of Scutari. - -I actually felt despair when Rexh pointed this out. “Well, but he has -to get back through the tribe of Shoshi somehow, anyway, hasn’t he? Why -on earth did he ever start this idiotic trip?” - -“He wanted the money, Mrs. Lane, and he cannot think ahead. He came -through Shoshi only for a joke. If he can get away alive from these men -he can go back through Pultit.” - -“Well, ask the byraktor if he will give me this Shala man’s worthless -life. Ask him not to let his men shoot him until after to-morrow -night. Ask him if the Shala man may stay safely under the byraktor’s -protection until the gendarme gets back with his money, and then go in -peace.” - -So this was arranged, and the Shala man, turning his beautiful eyes -most languishingly to mine, fervently kissed my hands in Italian -fashion; and again I said good-by to the byraktor, and at last, just as -the last sunlight left the mountains, Rexh, the gendarme, the mule, and -I continued our way toward Scutari. - -We followed the winding trail along the banks of the Kiri River. -Twilight was over the rushing waters and the cliffs; all along the way -the trees were misty green with the youngest of new leaves, and the air -was very pure and still. It was all peaceful and very beautiful, and, -lulled into dreaminess, I leaned back in the wooden saddle, watching -the first stars pricking through the sky. The only sounds were the -little tinkling of the donkey’s steel-plated hoofs upon the rocks, and -the pouring, rushing noise of the Kiri. Mile after mile we went, the -narrow cañon opening fresh vistas before us at every turn of the trail -around the cliffs, and the twilight grew grayer, the stars brighter. - -But we were coming down the river, out of the mountains, and a sudden -shaft of pale sunlight striking a green hill on the other bank -surprised me by announcing that the sun had not yet set on the Scutari -plain. It was like coming into a new day. I sat up. - -“Tired, Rexh?” - -“No, Mrs. Lane.” - -“But you’ve been walking twelve hours! Sure you don’t want to ride?” - -“No, thank you, Mrs. Lane. I am truly not tired.” - -“I think I’ll walk awhile,” said I, sliding down from the saddle. Even -then he would not ride, but it was good to stretch tired muscles again, -and, hand in hand, Rexh and I ran for some time along the almost level, -winding trail, splashing through the little streams that crossed it, -until suddenly Rexh stopped. - -“We must not leave the gendarme behind, Mrs. Lane. Some one will shoot -him.” - -“So they will!” said I. “Well, let’s wait for him.” - -He overtook us, hurrying the mule with blows, and we fell in behind -him, speculating now and then around which turn of the cliffs we would -first see the Kiri bridge, that lovely succession of old stone arches, -built long ago in the Italian style, and wondering what the girls in -the Red Cross house would say when we so unexpectedly arrived. - -The crash of the thing that happened was like an explosion--over before -one had time to comprehend it. I happened to be looking toward the -gendarme, a couple of yards ahead of me, walking at the donkey’s head; -I had just taken my eyes from the creamy blue river and I saw him reach -for his rifle. A misty rain was falling; he had thrown my poncho over -his shoulders; the strap that held his rifle ran under it. His gesture -was quick and desperate, some part of the rifle caught on a rent in the -poncho and the heavy oilcloth ripped apart with a loud tearing sound. -The broken, frantic, struggling movement was printed on my eyeballs, -and then with headlong leaps I had reached him; we stood beside a -bowlder that had blocked my view of the trail, and in front of us were -two rifles, pointed straight at us. - -There were two men behind the rifles, but I swear that I saw only the -rifles. I flung out my hand and heard the most fluting feminine voice -I have ever commanded crying, “Long life to you!” And then the rifles -fired. - -I have tried to give the effect of the thing as it happened; I may -now say at once that I was not killed, though I shouldn’t have been -at all surprised if I had next realized that I was dead. Instead, I -saw two very haughty and displeased Albanians advancing up the trail. -“And to you long life!” they said, stiffly, and turned their heads -from the gendarme as they passed him. When they were quite gone I was -startled to find myself in a heap on the trail, weeping aloud like a -six-year-old. It’s odd how such things take you; I suppose it was the -surprise of it. - -[Illustration: THE KIRI BRIDGE] - -The gendarme did not seem unduly excited. He said he had killed the -cousin of one of those men not long before, and had been a little -afraid of meeting him on this road. He said they had lifted their -rifles when they saw me, and the bullets had gone over our heads. He -said that from now on, if I did not mind, he would wear my hat as a -disguise, because there were more of that man’s relatives about. And -would I mind walking beside him until we passed the Kiri bridge? He -would then be out of the dangerous territory. As for my poncho, he was -very sorry that he had torn it. I assured him that it did not matter. - -I walked beside him all the way to the Kiri bridge, and then got on the -wooden saddle again and leaned back and rested. There was still an hour -of traveling across the Scutari plain. - -The sunlight faded from the silvering western sky, the western -mountains were low dark shapes blotting out the stars. Far away a -light twinkled on the citadel of Scutari. For a long time it was the -only light in a vast darkness, and then the moon rose slowly above -the snow peaks of the eastern mountains. The sky was the pale blue -of a turquoise, flooded with creamy light, the lake of Scutari was a -silver glimmer, like quicksilver spilled far out on the plain. All -around us the tall spikes of yucca blossoms stood vaguely creamy in the -moonlight. We traveled over the silent land like silent ghosts, our -shadows wavering uncertainly beside us. - -The donkey walked with little, quick, indefatigable steps; the gendarme -swung along easily, his rifle on his back; Rexh trudged beside me with -his hand on the saddle. The soft earth let us pass without a sound. - -“Tired, Rexh?” - -“No, Mrs. Lane.” - -“What is the matter?” - -“I am thinking that you will go away to your own country and forget us. -You say you will come back to Albania, but you never will. It is easy -to forget when one is far away; the mind changes. A mind is like the -water in a river. We will forget you, too. But I would like to keep -this night, because it is a very beautiful night.” - -“Yes, Rexh, so would I.” - -The lights of Scutari were like scattered glow-worms among the trees. -How strange it would be to come back into the twentieth century again! -Scutari, Tirana, Salonica--Constantinople? No, not Constantinople. -I would go back to Paris. It was not so much that I was tired of -traveling as that I was filled with it. One must go across the -centuries and back, across a great deal of the world and back, perhaps, -to know all the strange things that are at home, all the romances and -surprises in one’s own self. - -The lights of Scutari were coming nearer. Scutari, Tirana, Durazzo, -the Adriatic, Trieste, and Venice, and then Paris--perhaps ten days -to Paris, the center of all Europe’s intrigues. For a weary instant I -felt again the pressure of all those currents which bewilder, crush, -and smother the struggling individual--movements of peoples, marching -of armies, alliances of nations, the tides of poverty and disease, the -tremendous impersonal economic conflicts. Silicia’s coal, Galicia’s -oil, England’s unemployed millions, Ireland, Egypt, India--my mind slid -away from them all. I was too pleasantly tired, too much under the -spell of the Albanian moon--perhaps, now, a little too old--to care -tremendously again for movements. They seemed at once too inevitable -and too unpredictable to be concerned about. - -The three of us were so small on that vast plain, the sweep of the -moon-filled sky and the bulk of the blue-black mountains were too -vast; simple as an Albanian, I thought of the world as made of little -individuals like ourselves, each lonely, surrounded by the unknown, -each a little world in himself. That little world was the real world. -Externals did not matter. If each of us could only make our own little -world clean and kind and peaceful---- - -“Tired, Mrs. Lane?” Rexh said, softly. - -“No, Rexh. Just thinking.” - -“Slowly, slowly, little by little,” said the byraktor’s gendarme. - - - - -POSTSCRIPT - - IN WHICH IS RELATED WHAT MAY BE FOUND BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF SILENCE - WHICH HIDES ALBANIA, ALSO HOW THE MEN OF DIBRA CAME WITH THEIR RIFLES - TO TIRANA, AND HOW AHMET, THE HAWK, CHIEF OF THE MATI AND PRESENT - PRIME MINISTER OF ALBANIA, SAVED THE BALKAN EQUILIBRIUM. - - -For me, there has been a sequel to this tale of my first adventures -in the Albanian mountains. And if I have transmitted, through the -little clickings of my typewriter, something of the interest and charm -those adventures had for me, perhaps there will be interest in the few -additional things I have learned about the Albanians. - -Just a year from the day on which I parted with the byraktor of -Shoshi, I came with a friend, Annette Marquis, down the Adriatic -on a Lloyd-Triestino boat to Durazzo. As always, a flock of little -boats came out to meet the steamer. Dingy, unpainted, rowed by -villainous-looking, swarthy men in rags, they seemed indeed the -emissaries of a nation of brigands. The nice girl from Boston, who was -traveling from Venice to Athens chaperoned by two aunts, looked at us -with horrified eyes. - -“You aren’t really going into Albania--all alone?” she gasped. -“Why--won’t you be killed?” The shipload of passengers crowded the -rail to watch us descend the swaying ladder, and gazed as the safe -crowd watches the lion tamer, divided between admiration for daring -and contempt for such senseless waste of courage. The weight of this -mass opinion swayed even my friend, who said, nervously, as we went -bobbing across waves of green water: “I wish I hadn’t listened to you -in Budapest. I wish I’d brought the gun they told us to bring.” - -“Nonsense!” I said, firmly--and would have believed no fortune teller -who had told me I was lying--“we’ll be safer in Albania than in New -York.” And with irrational, vicarious pride I pointed out to her the -many masts of sunken ships around us--remains of Austrian and Italian -cruisers impartially sunk by Albanians during the Great War. - -As the boat came nearer to the yellow walls of Durazzo I gazed with -complacency on the ruins of the palace of the Prince of Wied, the -German king forced on Albania by the European Powers just before -the Powers themselves leaped at one another’s throats. In 1914 the -Albanians rose and drove him out with their rifles; his palace is a -ruin now, and the palace grounds are a public park. But all Durazzo is -built upon ruins, for it was an ancient city when the Romans built the -towers and walls that still surround it, and there are still cafés on -the sites of the cafés where Cicero sat with parchment and stylus, -writing home to Rome for money to pay his way back--because, as he -admitted with some chagrin, he had wasted all his substance in that -merry and wicked city. Even for Cicero Durazzo had, in addition to its -living charms, the flavor of antiquity, for the Roman city was built on -the ruins of the older Albanian seaport. - -A year earlier there had been no automobiles in Albania, but now, to -our surprise, we found a valiant small Ford waiting at the pier, and -engaged it at once to take us to Tirana, forty miles away. Our baggage -was a problem until the chauffeur of a government truck, addressing -us in French, volunteered on his own responsibility to take it to the -capital for us. “Pay? _Mais, non!_” said he, hurt. “You are Americans, -and the stranger in Albania is our guest.” - -The road from Durazzo to Tirana crossed the low mountains that, from -Trieste to Valona, make the endless monotonous eastern wall of the -Adriatic. When you come over the crest of them you see lying before you -the green low central valley and the farther blue peaks of the lands of -the hidden tribes. And everything accustomed, everything commonplace, -everything that reflects ourselves to us, is left behind. Gray water -buffalo, flat-nosed, curly-horned, monstrous beasts that seem risen -from depths of primeval slime, plod down the road drawing high, narrow -wagons of wickerwork on huge wooden wheels. Shaggy, small donkeys carry -picturesque folk down the winding road to Shijak, the village by the -river where the bridge begins and ends in willow groves. - -Beyond Shijak the road goes over the last low hill, and twenty miles -of plain lie before it, most sparsely dotted with the great white -houses of the beys of central Albania. Against the eastern sky the -towering mountains, with their eternal smoke of clouds, catch the last -rays of the sun and make magic with it. For an hour the colors shift -and change, plum purple, orange gold, mauve and violet and sea green, -until at last only a pale gold moon and a silvery star shine in a -lemon-yellow sky. And the seven white minarets of Tirana lift above the -green of trees. - -Dusk was on the plain, and lights were glimmering through little houses -here and there, when we came to Tirana. No, the lights do not glimmer -through windows; these houses of peasants on the great estates have no -windows, as they have no chimneys. The light of the evening fire, built -on the earthen floor, shines through walls woven of willow withes, and -the smoke seeps through thatched roofs. - -Before us twinkled the street lamps of Tirana. These are literally -lamps, filled every day with kerosene and set on their poles, to -be lighted with a match after the evening call to prayer from the -minarets. Our little car passed between low, ghostly white walls, and -stopped before the gendarmerie. An officer came out, lifted one of the -street lamps from its pole and held it over the car door, the better to -see us. - -“Long may you live, _zonyas_!” said he, and, after he had glanced at -our passports: “All honor to you. Go on a smooth trail!” And the words -rekindled an old hearth fire in my heart. After a year of the bleakness -of Europe, I was at home again. - -Three days later rifles were crackling, machine guns were ripping out -their staccato shots, and we were under fire in the streets of Tirana. -It was the rebellion of March, 1922--a strange affair, which I am -about to relate. But before it can be understood, Albania itself must -be understood, for that crisis and its outcome are incomprehensible, -incredible, without their background. - -It would be useless, even though it were not dishonest, to claim that I -see Albania with impartial eyes. But this should be said: if I feel a -fondness for the little country which perhaps obscures clear judgment, -that fondness was created by knowing Albania. I came into it, as I have -said, rather prejudiced against it than otherwise. I did not intend -to stop there; I was persuaded to stay two weeks; and I have twice -returned to Albania and will go there again. - -Yes, I have become a special pleader for Albania. But I know the -country, I speak the language, I have traveled along the northwestern -frontier from Lake Scutari to the Dibra, I have spent months with the -people of tribes never before visited by a foreigner. And I have yet -to read in any American publication a reference to Albania which -is accurate. When a writer so well informed as Mr. Lathrop Stoddard -refers to Albania as a “land of rugged mountains and equally rugged -mountaineers which raises nothing but trouble,” and thinks that its -importance in the Balkan problem is due to Italy’s exaggeration of -Valona’s military importance; when all American consuls in Europe -warn travelers not to go to Albania, a land of brigands; when Albania -appears in the newspapers only as a joke or as the scene of another -lawless revolution--the few Americans who know Albania do become -special pleaders. - -There are good reasons for these misconceptions of Albania. For six -centuries the Albanians were one of the buried Christian minorities -of the Turkish Empire in Europe. Their great men who rose to places -of power in the Near East were not known to the outside world as -Albanians. Ismail Kemal Bey, Grand Vizier of Turkey, who raised the -flag of Albanian independence in 1912; Mehmet Ali, who led the struggle -for Egyptian independence in 1811 and founded the dynasty of the -Khedives of Egypt; Crispi, the great Italian statesman--these are a few -of the Albanians who, having lost their own country, have fought under -other banners. When the Albanians of Sicily rose behind Garibaldi and -fought for a free and united Italy, they were thought to be Italians. -When the Albanians of Epirus fought for the freedom of Greece, they -were thought to be Greek. When they fight for the freedom of Turkey, -they are thought to be Turks. And--this is of greater importance--when -the Albanians rose to fight for the freedom of Albania, they fought -behind a curtain of impenetrable silence. - -They were surrounded by a battle line. The Slavs were north and east; -the Greeks were south; the Italians were west. Albania was cut off from -the outside world in 1910; for thirteen years she has been cut off from -the world. No telegraph or telephone lines ran from Albania to Europe; -no mail got through without censorship, no traveler without passport -visé from enemies. Letters for Europe must still go by messenger -through Jugo-Slavia, or by Italian steamer to Italian ports. During -May and June, 1922, while I was in Tirana, Albania’s communication -with Europe was completely closed by the Italians, in retaliation for -Albania’s protest against the establishing of Italian post offices in -Albanian cities. - -Behind this veil of silence, the truth about Albania lies hidden. Only -one newspaper correspondent, to my knowledge, has visited Albania in -recent years--Mr. Maurer of the Chicago _Post_. Mr. Kenneth Roberts of -the _Saturday Evening Post_ lay for ten days ill in Tirana, left with -all haste for Montenegro, and later wrote of Albania--entertainingly. -News of Albania bears the date lines of Belgrade, Rome, Athens. Since -1910 it has been as accurate as news of France bearing a Berlin date -line. This is only human, for few of us are accurately just to our -enemies, and the Hungarian, Austrian, Serbian, Italian, and Greek -soldiers who have campaigned in Albania have returned to describe the -country as hell with variations. The one European who has spoken to me -of the Albanians without horror is a doctor in Budapest. He had worked -in Serbia during the war, and there had encountered a terribly wounded -Albanian still alive on a battlefield. The doctor bent over him to -examine his wounds, and the Albanian bit off the doctor’s little finger. - -“I cannot think of that man without admiration,” said the doctor, -looking thoughtfully at his mutilated hand. “I can’t blame him for -this; I had not spoken to him, and he thought I was an enemy. He was a -splendid fellow--stood the most frightful agony without a murmur, and -kept his spirit like a lion. I did what I could for him--had no hope of -saving him--and that night, wounded as he was, he got away. I hope he -reached home alive. Some day I’m going to see Albania.” - -I spoke of Albanians as a Christian minority in the old Turkish Empire. -One of the most frequent errors about Albania is the belief that it -is Mohammedan; this report has been used for political propaganda. -The Albanians became Christians before the Roman conquest, and were -Christians when they were subjugated by Turkey. They remained Christian -without exception until after the death of George Kastriotes--known in -European history by his Turkish name of Iskander Bey Scanderbeg--who -successfully revolted against Turkey and maintained Albanian -independence for twenty-five years, defeating the Turks in thirteen -great battles and innumerable small ones. After his death in 1467 -some of the chiefs of the central mountain tribes, exhausted by a -quarter century of war and confronting fresh Turkish armies, purchased -their actual independence by a verbal submission and became nominally -Mohammedan. When the Bechtaski sect--which may roughly be said to -bear the relation to Islam that the Methodist bears to the Church of -Rome--rose in Turkey, it found its most fertile ground among these -Mohammedan Albanians. The northern mountain tribes have always remained -Roman Catholic, and southern Albania Greek Catholic. - -None of these creeds, however, have affected national unity--Albania -is the only Balkan country in which religion and nationality are not -synonymous--and all of them are rooted shallowly above the old religion -of Albanians, which is the formless belief in a Great Unknown from -which sprang the gods and mythology of ancient Greece. In southern -Albania you will still hear the people taking oath _per kete djelle -eghe per kete hene_ (by the power of the sun and the moon). You -will still hear them calling upon Zeus--Zaa or Zee, the Voice--and -upon Athena--E Thana, The Intelligence. In the north, the Catholic -mountaineer greets the rising sun with the sign of the cross, and -hears in his forests the voices of the ora. This vague religion is -unconscious. The Albanian himself does not recognize it, but it is -the resisting subsoil which has prevented acknowledged religions -from taking deep root. Families of all religions freely intermarry; -Mohammedan women are unveiled, or Catholic women veiled, according -to the fashion of their town; in the mountains neither are veiled. -In Guri-Bardhe, a village of the Mati known as being fanatically -Mohammedan, the women were quite willing to pose for photographs, and -Limoni, the chief, was defying the local _hodji_ by demanding a modern -school; the _hodji_ taught the children nothing worth while, he said. -In the spring religious festivals--the two Easters and the fast of -Ramazan--all Albanians in Tirana took part, and Mohammedan fezzes were -thick in the midnight processions carrying Easter candles. - -There has never been friction along the frontiers of the three -religions. All Albanians united to resist the Romanizing and -Germanizing influence of Catholicism, the attempt of Shiek ul Islam to -cripple the Albanian language by a Turkish alphabet (a revolution was -fought, and won, for the Latin alphabet in 1910), and the Hellenizing -propaganda of certain Orthodox Churchmen. - -But there is a real division in Albania. It lies between the Toshks, or -southerners, and the Ghegs, who are the mountaineers. Men who have held -their mountain fastnesses and maintained their independence for six -centuries within the Turkish Empire look with distrust and contempt on -the Toshks whose valleys have been flooded by every wave of invaders. -The Toshks, who are the educated men of Albania, and the travelers, -are equally contemptuous of the Ghegs, ignorant men unable to read -or write. Nor do the Toshks admit that they cannot fight as well as -the Ghegs. It was the Toshks in Sicily who fought with Garibaldi, the -Toshks of Egypt who fought with Mehmet Ali; the Albanian soldiers in -Russia and Rumania and Turkey are Toshk; the 50,000 Albanians in the -United States are Toshk, and fought well with the Americans in France. -Hundreds of them have returned to spread American ideas through the -south; there are Toshk villages in which American English is spoken by -nearly every child. Men from these villagers led the forces that drove -the Italians from Valona in 1920. Indeed, say the Toshks, they can -fight as well as Ghegs. But it is not fighting that Albania needs. - -One of the errors about Albania, to which I fear my descriptions may -contribute is the belief that the country is entirely mountainous. -This is true of the northern part, adjoining Montenegro. Farther south -the ranges are like the partitions in a house; steep, high, almost -impassable, they surround valleys and plateaus of rich level land, much -of it irrigated. The climate of the valleys is semitropical; rice, -cotton, tobacco, citrus fruits, figs, and pomegranates flourish. The -southern plains, before the war, exported fine horses in considerable -numbers. Properly developed, Albania would be a rich agricultural -country, even without the fertile valleys of Kossova and Epirus. - -The mineral resources of Albania are unknown. During the Austrian -occupation, a survey was made, looking toward the development of copper -mines during the war; the results of the survey have vanished into the -archives of the Austrian War Department. However, even the untrained -eye perceives that there are copper and lead in the mountains. English -mining engineers have told me that there are probably also silver and -gold. I have seen veins of coal projecting on mountain sides; the -mountaineers chip it off with hatchets or pry it loose with levers, and -use it as fuel to a small extent. There are millions of feet of pine, -oak, birch, and beech timber; unlimited water power. There are oil -fields near Valona; producing oil wells were sunk, and later destroyed, -by the Italians. Valona’s military importance is not the only reason -that Albanians are not left in peace. - -There is also the political background. For twenty centuries the -Albanians have been a beleaguered remnant of the first Aryan race in -Europe. By character, temperament, and choice they belong with the -peoples of the west, not with their Slav neighbors in the Balkans. But -they have had no friends, either in west or east; their whole history -has been a struggle for existence. - -[Illustration: A TOSHK In his native costume of southern Albania.] - -They were never entirely subjugated by Rome; they were not destroyed -or assimilated by the Slavs who have been pushing them southward for -sixteen hundred years; they never ceased their resistance to Turkey. -Since 169 B.C., when the Romans drove them into the mountains, they -have been fighting for a free Albania, and giving the Balkans no peace. - -They fight with rifles and with diplomacy. They have had no friends, -but they profit by the quarrels of their enemies. Wherever there was a -weak place in Asia Minor or Central Europe, there the Albanians have -tried to strike a blow for Albania. The opportunity of their hero, -Scanderbeg, came in the fifteenth century, when the Sultan of Turkey -was killed on the battlefield he had won in Kossova. Scanderbeg, whose -childhood and youth had been spent in the Sultan’s court, was left -second in command of the Sultan’s victorious forces. He profited by -the confusion attending the Sultan’s death to get an order giving him -command of the fortress of Kruja, built by his father on a mountain -overlooking Tirana. The song says that he killed seven horses in -reaching Kruja, leaving his escort far behind in the Mati mountains. -When he reached the fortress, he at once proclaimed Albanian freedom, -and maintained it for twenty-five years of warfare, during which he -built citadels and roads and established laws which still exist. After -his death, his people waited four hundred years for another chance -to strike. Then the Young Turk movement rose. Albanians seized upon -it, precipitated the revolution at Uskub in Kossova, and were the -deciding factor in terrifying the Sultan and winning the Constitution -which promised to respect the languages and laws of subject peoples in -Turkey. When these promises were broken, when Montenegro and Serbia -invaded Albania, the chiefs raised the flag of Scanderbeg and wrote -their own Constitution of Lushnija. The Six Powers, in an effort to -maintain the Balkan equilibrium, gave Albania a German king. As soon -as the Powers were engaged in the Great War, Albania drove him out. -During the war she impartially fought both sides whenever they invaded -Albanian territory. When the war ended, when Jugo-Slavia replaced -Austria as Italy’s rival on the Adriatic, and England and France -quarreled, Albania played a shrewd game at Versailles and Geneva and -became officially an independent republic. - -Still blockaded after ten years of war and blockade, still fighting -invaders in the Mati and the Dibra, she became an independent republic. -Her people, from Hoti and Gruda to Corfu, from the Merdite to the -Adriatic, were refugees. Her flocks had been killed, her villages -burned, her orchards hacked down, her irrigation systems destroyed. -She had a provisional government, hardly strong enough to hold -itself together. She could not have a permanent government until her -boundaries were fixed by the League of Nations. - -She had great natural wealth and no debts, but she had no currency of -her own, no banks, no credit system. She had hides, wool, and olive -oil to export, but all her frontiers were closed by enemies. She had -minerals, forests, water power, oil, harbors, but no machines of any -kind, no trained men, no commercial organization. She had the strongest -men, the bravest fighters, the most indomitable national spirit in -Europe, but few of her people could read or write. Certainly more than -half the population was ill from malnutrition and malaria, and she had -probably the highest infantile mortality rate in Europe. - -This was the new Albania which must somehow maintain itself. And if -the curtain of silence behind which this Balkan drama is played were a -stone wall shutting out her neighbors, the situation would not be so -difficult. But Italy--promised southern Albania by the secret Treaty of -London in 1915 which induced her to join the Allies against Germany, -and cheated of her payment--has authority from the League of Nations -to occupy Albania again if the Albanians fail to maintain a stable -government. Serbia is still intriguing to push farther south and west -the boundary lines not yet entirely fixed by the League of Nations. - -There were other difficulties. Because the Toshks are the Albanians -who can read and write, the weak provisional government was Toshk. -Around the fires in their mountain houses, the Ghegs were saying that -only cowardly Toshks would allow free Albania to bow to a League of -Nations--a League of the very Powers who were her enemies. The Ghegs, -they said, were no such shameful trucklers. And every fire had its -refugee guests who had fled from burning villages, leaving terror -and death behind them. These refugees cried to their brother Ghegs -for vengeance. Did the Ghegs call themselves men and Albanians? they -demanded. “Our teeth in the throats of the Serbs!” the Ghegs replied. - -Meanwhile in Tirana the Toshks were talking softly of patience, and -of more patience, of waiting month after month for a commission and -yet another commission from the League of Nations. The Toshks--with -that threat of Italian invasion over them--were demanding peace, peace -at any cost. Albania must wait for the League of Nations to fix the -boundaries, must acquiesce in any boundaries fixed, must be quiet, must -wait. - -While they waited, the people starved. Prices in Albania are higher -than in the United States--higher in dollars. The homespun garments -have worn out; there is nothing to replace them. Fields have -been devastated, and no men left alive to till them. Flocks have -disappeared, horses and mules are gone. And as the boundaries have -been fixed, mile by mile upon a map, Dibra and Mati have lost their -market cities, Dukaghini and Merdite have lost their grazing lands, the -tribes of Hoti and Gruda and Castrati have been cut in two. Still, the -Albanian government spoke of peace, demanded peace, and--determined -to have peace--set about disarming the Ghegs in the very face of their -enemies. - -This was the Albania into whose capital I blithely rode, in the -rattling little Ford, on that spring night of 1922. I pass over all -the minor political disputes, the ambitions of selfish men, the -mistakes of foolish ones, the bitter rivalry between Elbassan, to the -south, Scutari, to the north, and Tirana, in the center, for the honor -and profit of being Albania’s capital. Tirana was, tentatively, the -capital; made so because it was everywhere conceded to be the least -progressive, the most hopelessly Mohammedan, the most dangerously -un-Albanian city in the country. The government had made Tirana the -capital for the same reason that the teacher puts the worst boy of the -class in the front seat. But this was no solace to Scutari or Elbassan. - -Tirana, the white, low town, drowsed in the sun; water rippled in -the gutters of the winding, walled streets; donkeys laden with cedar -boughs, the brooms of Tirana, carefully picked their footing on the -uneven cobbles; women with gayly painted cradles on their backs trudged -behind the donkeys. Men in rags of their homespun white garments and -Scanderbeg jackets and colored sashes sat all day on the low walls -around the mosques. The fez makers, amid their piles of raw wool and -mixing bowls and heating irons, were talking politics, and so were -the men in the street of the coppersmiths, which is musical from day -to sunset with the sound of little hammers beating glowing sheets of -metal. At noon the _hodjis_ droned their long prayers to Allah from -the minarets. At sunset their voices wailed again, above the sound of -clattering hoofs and tinkling bells as the flocks came home to the -courtyards. Then the sunset left a yellow sky behind the dark blue -mountains. The air was so still that the bells of a mule train, winding -down to Tirana on the far-off foothill trails, chimed with the sound of -running water in the gutters beside the courtyards’ mud-brick walls. -And the Cabinet Ministers of Albania came out to walk. - -They walked in a row, sedately, hands behind their backs, and after -them marched their escort, a single row of soldiers. They walked -down from Government House, the square two-storied building behind a -half-ruined wall; they walked past the Tirana Vocational School and, -turning in front of the painted mosque, by the two Cypresses of the -Dead, they went past the block of little shops that is Main Street, -past the cemetery filled with toppling turbaned stones, past the large -white barracks where soldiers sang of Lec i Madhe, and out on the -Durazzo road. Then they came slowly back, and slowly went out again. -With them on this same way walked all the men of Tirana, for this is -the custom at the sunset hour. And we walked, too, saying at intervals: -“Long may you live! Long may you live!” - -[Illustration: THE PAINTED MOSQUE IN TIRANA, AND THE LOW WALL ON WHICH, -ALL DAY LONG, MEN SIT AND DISCUSS POLITICS] - -It was on the second evening of our walking that, counting Their -Excellencies as they came toward us, I said: “Where is the other -one? Who is he?” For we had met them all except the Minister of the -Interior, and suddenly I realized that he was unknown to us. And Rrok -Perolli, who, strangely, was no longer with the government, nor talking -much of politics, but living quietly upon an inherited income in -Tirana, replied, “He is Ahmet Bey Mati.” - -The name awakened a thin, faint echo in my mind, an echo mixed with a -remembered sound of rain. But, “Long may you live!” I said to Their -Excellencies, and for a moment we stood talking in French. - -“The disarming is going well in the mountains, Your Excellency?” - -“Very well, very well. No trouble at all. _Tout est tranquil, madame._” - -I did not believe this, knowing that to a Gheg his rifle was his honor, -and either dearer than life. But there is a convention which exempts -the words of statesmen from measurement by the Decalogue. - -“Then we can soon be starting for the mountains?” - -“Certainly, certainly, madame. As soon as we can find proper guides and -horses for you.” - -We thanked them and, refusing a coffee, walked slowly on in the summer -evening. Nothing could have been more tranquil than the low white town, -with its cobbled winding streets, its stream murmuring beneath a stone -bridge, its minarets, its plane trees. The crowds went slowly up and -down, sauntering past the mosque’s naïvely pictured walls, past the -white-arcaded street of little shops whose owners sat crosslegged among -their goods, past the cemetery of toppling turbaned gravestones, past -the lighted windows of the cafés where men were singing the strange -Albanian melodies. It is a town to be happy in, Tirana. - -But the water rippling in the gutters stirred uneasiness in my mind, a -vague uneasy effort, out of which came a name. “Ahmet Bey Mati! What -have I heard about him, Rexh?” - -“I don’t know all you can have heard about him, Mrs. Lane. But you -remember the _comitadj_, in the cave above the Lumi Shala on the trail -from Thethis? The one that sang us the songs? He told you first about -Ahmet Bey and how they went to Valona.” - -“Oh, Rexh, sure enough! Doesn’t it seem a long time ago? And how you -have grown, and how much you have learned, since then!” - -For the little boy who trudged beside the donkey through that moonlit -night on the plains of Scutari was gone. The red fez, the flannelette -pajamas, were memories. It was a youth with a quick smile and earnest -eyes who walked beside me in Tirana, a student in the Vocational -School, learned in baseball and college yells and geometry, modest -still, and thinking more than he spoke, but no longer a child. It was -Frances--now in France--who had got Rexh into the American school, -handicapped though he was with lack of schooling and with his Gheg -tongue, and he had worked hard to justify her commendation. - -“I do my best, Mrs. Lane. At first I was very stupid, for I could not -understand the Toshk boys, and I could not understand the teachers when -they asked me questions, and I was two years behind with the books. But -now they speak English, and I have learned Toshk. So I am happy, and -my report card is very good. I would like to show you my next one. Now -that you have come, I have some one to show it to. It is a joke on me, -because, though you said you would come back, I did not think you ever -would. And aren’t you happy to find the school really here?” - -For we had talked a great deal about the school, a year before when it -was only a plan and a hope. Of all the work done by American children -in Europe, this school is most beautiful to me. It was not much the -Junior Red Cross did in Albania--only a few months of Frances Hardy’s -house for refugee children in Scutari, only a little medical work that -stopped too soon--but it did build the Vocational School, and Albania -will never forget it. Half of the country’s little income goes for the -1,100 schools started since 1912, but none of them can be equipped -or staffed like the Vocational School. It opened in July, with sixty -boys to learn English. For there are no technical books written in -Albanian, and Albanian was the only language the boys knew. Three -months later they were speaking, reading, and writing English, and the -first school year began. In March, when we came to Tirana, they were -the finest upstanding lot of youngsters that ever made a teacher proud, -and our arrival was celebrated by an evening’s entertainment, for which -the boys extemporised little plays in English, political parodies so -witty that they brought tears of mirth to the eyes. I do not think the -record of those boys is equaled anywhere, and to find Rexh among them -was the happy ending to the story. - -“And now Ahmet Bey is Minister of the Interior! Who is chief of the -Mati, then?” - -“His mother is chief when he is away, Mrs. Lane.” - -“Is he a good Minister of the Interior?” - -“He works very hard. I think he did not have much schooling. He came -from the court of Abdul Hamid when he was sixteen--you remember the -_comitadj_ told you--and he has been fighting ever since. He came to -Tirana last December when there was the strike.” - -“No, Rexh! A strike? In Tirana?” - -“It is a long story, Mrs. Lane. If you would have a coffee with me, I -would tell it all.” - -We left the others wandering down the Durazzo road and back, and sat -at a little table beneath a plane tree by the white arches of the -café. A waiter brought us cups of Turkish coffee, and while the crowd -went slowly past us and bursts of Albanian song came through the open -windows and a great yellow moon rose behind the white minaret, Rexh -told the tale of the first strike in Albanian history. - -“It was at the time of the Merdite trouble. I do not know what you have -heard of the Republic of the Merdite; it was a Serbian plan to get the -Merdite country. The people were starving, and the Serbs promised them -corn, and I think there was money for the Merdite chiefs, because some -of them signed a paper that said there was a Republic of the Merdite -and the Serbs sent that paper to Europe. Then other chiefs fought -these chiefs that signed it, and the Serbs came in, and Ahmet Bey Mati -was sent with our soldiers to fight the Serbs. It is five days to the -Merdite, when the trails are good. - -“You know, Mrs. Lane, Albania has no king. We have four regents, -that we call quarter-kings. We laugh when we say it. ‘There goes a -quarter-king,’ we say. There are the Ministers elected by Parliament, -and their chief, the Prime Minister; they are the real kings. They do -things, and then afterward the quarter-kings have to say, ‘Yes, that -is what we would have done.’ - -“While Ahmet Bey was gone to the Merdite with all our soldiers, there -were only three quarter-kings in Tirana. One was gone to Geneva; he -was a good one. One that was here was a good one. One was a friend of -Castoldi, the Italian. No good Albanian, Mrs. Lane, is a friend of -Italy. And the last quarter-king, he was from Dibra, and wanted to -fight the Serbs. - -“And while there were no soldiers here, secretly at midnight thirty -men with rifles came into Tirana, and went to the house of Pandeli -Evangeli, the Prime Minister. They went in over the walls and through -the windows. They pointed their rifles at Pandeli and said, ‘Resign.’ -So he resigned. Then he called for a horse and went home to Valona. - -“In the morning there was no Prime Minister. And Parliament was not in -session. Do you understand, Mrs. Lane?” - -I understood. Thus easily--if surmise could be believed--Italy had -captured the Albanian government. Two of the three quarter-kings -controlled the situation, and one of them was a Gheg. If he were given -his head, Italy had only to await the outbreak of violence between the -chiefs who wanted war on Serbia and those who were clamoring for peace, -and then march in with her authority from the League of Nations to -bring law and order into lawless Albania. “What happened, Rexh?” - -“But you have guessed it. The one good quarter-king could do nothing, -and resigned. The other two made a government to fight Serbia. Hassan -Prishtini of Kossova was the new Prime Minister. Then all Albania was -like a nest of hornets stirred with a stick. The men of Parliament went -riding from their villages to Elbassan, and Prishtini sent word to -Elbassan to kill them. Then all the men of Korcha went with rifles to -Elbassan to fight for Parliament. Troops with machine guns were coming -from Scutari to fight Prishtini. And, Mrs. Lane, there was an Italian -gunboat at Durazzo. Everywhere all men, Toshks and Ghegs, were saying, -what could they do to save the Constitution? But no one knew how to do -it. - -“Hassan Prishtini said, ‘The Constitution does not make Albania free; -we will make Albania really free. Albanians are not cowards and will -not be ruled by cowards,’ Hassan Prishtini said. ‘We have nothing to do -with Leagues of Nations that have sold us. We will fight the Serbs and -make Kossova free; we will take back our lands of Hoti and Gruda and -Castrati. The Italians do not dare touch us. We drove them once from -Valona; we can do it twice.’ That was what Hassan Prishtini said. - -“‘I think this will be a good year for pears,’ said the bear. ‘Why?’ -said the other bear. And the first bear replied, ‘Because I like them.’ - -“I forgot, Mrs. Lane, that people do not talk that way in English. I -forgot I was not talking in Albanian. In English you would say it: -Hassan Prishtini thought that he could do what he wanted to do because -he wanted to do it. But that is not thinking. - -“That very first morning, there was the strike. The two men that can -make the telephone work, and the man that clicks the telegraph, and -the chauffeur of the government automobile, and the cook and the -coffee maker of Government House, and the guard at the door, and -all the secretaries of all the Ministers--they all went to the Café -International, and had a meeting. Then they walked from the café to -Government House and back, singing the song of free Albania. After that -they did nothing. They sat and drank coffee. I do not know if you have -ever seen a strike, but that is what it is. They did not do anything, -and there was no telephone, no telegraph, no messenger, no coffee, -nothing at all, for the new government. - -“And Hassan Prishtini could not do anything. The new government sat in -Government House. Everybody else sat in the cafés. Elbassan did not -fight Parliament, because it could not get Tirana on the telephone. -Hassan Prishtini’s men in the mountains did not march anywhere, because -no orders came. All Albania thought something terrible was happening in -Tirana, and wasn’t it funny? Because nothing at all was happening. - -“On the third day, Ahmet Bey came with twelve hundred fighting men of -the Mati--Catholics, from northern Mati. They came in, and they did not -do anything. But there were no other fighting men in Tirana. So Hassan -Prishtini resigned, and when the Parliament came to Tirana it made a -new government, and Ahmet Bey Mati was Minister of the Interior. And -that was the end of the strike. There are songs about it, Mrs. Lane, if -you want me to get them for you.” - -It seemed to me the most remarkable tale of a political crisis that I -had ever heard, and for some time I considered it in silence, getting -the full delightful flavor of it. The moon and the minaret were a -Japanese print against the turquoise sky, and somewhere a mandolin -tinkled and a voice sang the “Mountain Song”: - - “How beautiful is the month of May, - When we go with the flocks to the mountains!” - -Then a discrepancy in Rexh’s story struck me. “If the Merdite is five -days from Tirana, and Ahmet was fighting the Serbs there, how did he -come to Tirana in three days? How did he know there was trouble in -Tirana?” - -“Ahmet is a Gheg, Mrs. Lane. A Gheg always expects trouble. When he -went into the mountains he left behind him men he could trust, hidden -in the woods by the telephone wires. There is a small round black -thing that can hear on a telephone wire--I do not know what you call -it. It is small, and has a wire that goes over the telephone wire; you -put it to your ear. Ahmet had got some of those from Vienna, and some -little mirrors, for the men he left behind him. In the morning after -Pandeli resigned, word went over the telephone to Elbassan to kill the -Parliament, and to some of Hassan Prishtini’s men to stay on the trails -to the Merdite and not let Ahmet get back to Tirana. Ahmet’s men heard -this, and with the little mirrors in the sunshine they telegraphed it -to the mountains, and other men telephoned it with their voices to -Ahmet. So he came secretly around Prishtini’s men, and came walking day -and night to Tirana. He left his men in the Merdite to hold the Serbs, -and took the twelve hundred fresh men from the Catholic part of the -Mati.” - -“Ahmet is Mohammedan?” - -“Yes, Mrs. Lane. His family has been Mohammedan since Scanderbeg died.” - -“In the morning I shall go to see Ahmet. He must be a remarkable man.” - -Rexh considered this statement. “He is a good man, yes. We have a -saying in the mountains, Mrs. Lane. ‘Ask a thousand men, then follow -your own advice.’ I think that is what Ahmet does.” - - * * * * * - -I had interviewed, without exceptional enthusiasm, each member of the -Albanian Cabinet save Ahmet, the Hawk, chief of the Mati. But I am not, -in general, enthusiastic about the Ministers or members of Parliament -that I have met in any country. In democratic countries their -profession gives their minds a remarkable agility, like that of the -elephant on the rolling ball. The muscular development of the elephant -a-pilin’ teak in the slushy mushy creek has more interest for me. -This is a matter of personal taste. However, I am about to become so -enthusiastic about Ahmet Bey Mati that it seems well to mention that my -enthusiasms are few, and not excited either by statesmen or soldiers. -Perhaps six scientists and business men are my heroes. Why, then, after -three minutes of talk with Ahmet Bey Mati, did I add to that short list -this mountain chief of semisavage tribes, who certainly knew nothing -either of science or of modern business? - -Government House in Tirana is an old residence, hurriedly converted -into offices. It stands at the end of a street, in a courtyard -surrounded by a high mud-brick wall rather badly broken at intervals. -A mountain man with a rifle sits at the big gate. Another guard, even -more gorgeous in white wool, scarlet jacket, and gold embroidery, -stands on the wooden porch. Inside, the bare wooden floors, partitions, -and stairways suggest a Middle Western American barn. Parliament Hall -is furnished with school desks for the members, and a red-covered -dais for the President, with the Scanderbeg flag above it, are bright -colors against whitewashed walls. The offices are nondescript with -overstuffed Italian furniture and fine Albanian rugs. Cigarettes are -on the desks, coffee is served to callers, and my feminine experience -of interviews was that facts must be fought for against a barrage of -French compliments. - -We had been in Tirana two days and could not put a finger on any fact -to account for the distinct uneasiness we felt. We were tormented by -a wholly irrational feeling that, somehow, somewhere, something was -wrong. Everything we could see appeared to be all right, everyone -assured us that everything was all right. I went into Ahmet Bey’s -office prepared to exchange the elaborate forms of mountain courtesy -and to look at Ahmet, no more. - -The office was bare. No overstuffed furniture, no rugs. Bare floor, -bare walls, an unpainted wooden table, and Ahmet. He was keen, -self-controlled, hard willed. That was the first impression. The second -was that he was the best-dressed man, in a European sense, that I had -seen for a long time. He was dressed like the successful American -business man who gives _carte blanche_ to a very good tailor and -forgets clothes. He rose, said, “_Tu njet jeta_” (“I am glad you have -come”), and while he said it he looked at me as a scientist looks at a -microscope slide. Then he offered me a chair, sat down, and added, “Can -I be of service to you, madame?” - -The shock was such that my mind blinked. Then I said that I wished -to visit Mati and the Merdite, and had come to the Ministry of the -Interior to arrange for the trip. Ahmet offered me a cigarette, and -lighted it, and my mind waked to alertness, for I saw that he was -making time in which to choose his reply. There _was_ something wrong; -our feeling was right! I would trip him into giving me a clew. - -Our eyes met as I thanked him for the cigarette, and I saw that he saw -that I knew he had been hesitating. Idiot that I was, to betray it, I -thought. And he said, “This is a difficult time in Albania, madame. I -cannot tell you whether you can go to the mountains or not. I cannot -discuss our difficulties with you to-day. In ten days’ time they will -be ended. I must ask you to wait ten days, perhaps less, certainly no -more. Then if you can come to see me again, I will tell you anything -you want to know. If it is possible for you to go into the mountains, -of course you will go as guest of the Albanian government.” - -Everything had been said. He accompanied me to the door, said: -“Long may you live! Go on a smooth trail!” and held the door open, -simultaneously for me to go out and for the next caller to come in. The -door shut. And I said, “That is one of the few great men I have met.” - -All that day, at intervals, I recalled that interview and marveled. How -had that man come from his background? From the leisurely, evasive, -allusive talks of the mountains, from the intricate subtleties of Abdul -Hamid’s court, where had he got that incisiveness, that direct, driving -force? It was genius, I said; nothing less. I went about asking, “Is -Ahmet Bey a patriot?” For if he were not, certainly he was one of the -most dangerous men in Albania. - -I was told that he was a nephew of Essad Pasha, who sold Albania to -Serbia for the title of its king, and was assassinated by Albanians -in Paris. I was told that Ahmet had sold timber rights in the Mati to -Italians, but had later revoked the sale. I was told that he was a very -rich man, and that he held the forty thousand fighting men of the Mati -in his hand. I was told that the Serbs, in one of their 1921 raids, had -burned the Great House in the Mati, the house in which his family had -lived for five centuries. Nothing else, apparently, was known about him. - -Walking that night at sunset time with all Tirana, we were surprised to -observe that the soldiers lounging around the fires in the courtyard of -their barracks were not the same soldiers who had been there the night -before. These were new men, recruits, and--by the pattern of their -trousers--men from the plains of the south. Raw peasant youths, they -looked. None of them carried rifles on their backs, and the few rifles -we saw were held awkwardly, as by unpracticed hands. Of course there -is a constant flow of recruits through Tirana, for as the government -disarms the mountaineers it endeavors to build up a trained citizen -army, on the Swiss plan. But we guessed, by the absence of the seasoned -soldiers, that there was battle, or danger of battle, somewhere else in -Albania. - -Incredible, as we walked homeward under the white moon, that on this -spring night men could be killing one another. Incredible, in this -magic of moon and rippling water and a little owl calling love notes -from the dark cypress, that anywhere there was anything but peace. The -tall carved wooden gate of our courtyard was romantic in the shadow of -Government House; our little house was picturesque with black shadows -on white plaster; there was glamour everywhere. - -“What’s that? Is that a mouse?” said Annette, through the darkness in -which we lay awake, watching the moonlight on the walls and breathing -the sweet spring air. We listened. Nothing. “I thought I heard -something--a sort of little crackling sound.” - -“Listen,” I said, half an hour later. “What is that throbbing?” - -Curiosity’s nagging at last got us from our beds. Kimono clad and in -slippers we went out into our courtyard. The throbbing came from an -engine; the engine that feeds the dynamo of Government House. Every -window blazed electric light. We looked at them in amazement; we looked -at our wrist watches under the moon. Ten o’clock. And we started when -the shadow of the wall beside us moved and spoke. “Long may you live, -_zonyas_! It will be very good if you go into your house.” - -“_Por hene asht shum i mire_” (“But the moonlight is very good, too”), -I objected, and saw the moonlight glint on a rifle barrel. “Why is -Government House lighted? And why are you in our courtyard?” - -“There are orders,” the man replied. “Ahmet Bey Mati has spoken. The -American _zonyas_ will go into their house.” - -He would say nothing more, and there seemed indeed nothing else to do, -so we went. The sound that lifted us from our pillows once more was -one that I shall not forget, nor willingly hear again. It came through -the night like a supernatural thing of hate and fury and irresistible -power. We did not know what it was; we had no power to wonder what it -was; we heard it with an agony of fear, involuntary, uncontrollable as -the pain of a stripped nerve. I remember now that instant and eternity -of time, and cannot bear the memory. I had not known that even in -nightmare one could drop into such abysses of the human spirit. Then -Tirana seemed to explode like a bunch of giant firecrackers, and with -such relief as I cannot describe I cried: “Rifles! They’re taking -Tirana!” And we tumbled out of our beds and grasped wildly in the -darkness for our clothes. - -Rifles are human possessions; rifles are solid things that at worst -can only kill. The sound of the rifles, multiplied a thousand times -by echoing courtyard walls, muffled and enabled us to bear that other -sound, still faintly heard through the uproar. “It’s only their war -cry,” we babbled to each other. “It’s the mountain men fighting. That’s -all it is.” Coherence came back to our minds. “It’s the Dibra,” I said. -“Dibra and the refugee Kossova men, come to take the government away -from the Toshks.” And we ran out into the courtyard. - -The rest of that night was anticlimax. Bafflement. Weary and chilly, we -came back to our house at three o’clock. We had explored the courtyard, -finding only that the shadows were full of silent, waiting men. They -spoke little; they said, in reply to our questions, that they did -not know what was happening. We had ventured out of the courtyard -into Tirana, that low white town that, to the eye, seemed sleeping -in the moonlight, and to the ear was bedlam. Bullets were whizzing, -scattering white plaster, smashing tiles. But mosques and minarets, -arcaded streets, arched stone bridge, rippling water, were peaceful in -the moonlight. No human being seemed to be abroad, save us two, who -wandered like forsaken ghosts through the incredible clamor. - -The windows of the Vocational School were alight, the American flag -was over the gate. We found the Americans making ready a midnight -luncheon in the kitchen, whose windows were barricaded against bullets. -Great Scott! they said, why hadn’t we stayed in bed? Have some baked -beans? We ate the beans and explained that we wanted to know what was -happening. Who knew what was happening, in Albania? said they, yawning. -Better go home to bed; time enough to find out in the morning what was -happening. So, weary and chilly, we went home to bed. The rifles were -still crackling like madly popping corn, tiles were still crashing from -roofs and plaster from walls, but the war cries were still. We slept -fitfully. - -A tapping on our window sill roused us again. The moonlight was gone -from our wall, the open window was a square of paler darkness in the -darkness. “I beg your pardon, I sincerely beg your pardon,” said a -voice in French. “This is most unconventional, I know. But if you will -pardon the lateness of the hour, may I ask you to permit us to call?” -It was the voice of His Excellency Spiro Koleka, Minister of Public -Works. - -He came in, accompanied by the secretary of the Prime Minister. We sat -up in our beds, coats around our shoulders, and told them where to find -chairs and cigarettes. They said that if we did not mind they would not -light the lamp. We asked what had occurred. - -“_Rien, rien du tout, mesdames_,” said the Minister of Public Works. -“_Tout est tranquil._” - -“The ancient Greeks had a saying,” began the secretary, gave us -that saying in Greek, and continued to speak for some time, not -uninterestingly, of Greek and other philosophers. The social tone of -that early morning call was impeccable. Good breeding required that -we maintain it. We sat exasperated in the dark, saying to ourselves -that we would gladly murder these two uncommunicative men. But we felt -that to ask them to leave the shelter of our house would be murder, in -cold fact. In the wan daylight of six o’clock they thanked us for our -hospitality, and went. - -Tirana was peaceful in the morning sunlight. Donkeys laden with cedar -boughs picked their footing on the uneven cobbles; women with gayly -painted cradles on their backs trudged behind the donkeys. Ducks were -swimming in the brimming gutters. Rrok Perolli stood in the doorway of -the Hotel Europa, enjoying the spring air. - -Elez Jusuf, chief of the Dibra, with five hundred men, had fought -his way into Tirana, he said. The Albanian government had--well, had -gone to Elbassan. Elez Jusuf was intrenched in the quarter beyond the -mosque, a maze of houses and walled yards entered by only two streets. -For reasons unknown, he had not walked on into Government House. - -“Ahmet has gone to Elbassan?” The dismay of my voice surprised me. - -No, he was still in Tirana. He was legally, in fact, the government; -by law, when a Minister was out of town his duties fell to one of -the Ministers remaining. Ahmet was the only one left, except the -necessarily idle Minister of Public Works. But what could he do? Elez -Jusuf was in the capital, with five hundred fighting men of the Dibra. -Ahmet had less than two hundred men, raw recruits from the peasant -village of the south. And more information came now from the open door -of reticence. Two days before, Byram Gjuri, an Albanian Gheg chief of -tribes in Montenegro, who had been supplied with arms from D’Annunzio -in Fiume, had marched on Scutari. Scutari had sent him word that it -would fight, and had frantically appealed to Tirana for help. That was -where the regular troops of Tirana had gone. The telephone line to -Scutari was cut. There had been an attack from the Dibra on Elbassan; -the fighting men of Elbassan had beaten it off, but they were staying -in Elbassan through this trouble. - -On the face of it, the thing was organized--organized, and supplied -with arms and money from outside Albania. Obviously, the capital -was lost. The government had fled. The telephone lines were cut. -Albania had been broken into its diverse tribes again, disintegrated -into particles held together only by a common spirit which could no -longer express itself coherently. After all the years of fighting and -blockade, all the desperate triumphs of diplomacy in Versailles and -Geneva, here was chaos again, and fresh invaders. - -This tragedy was behind the curtain of silence that isolates Albania -from the world. It went on in darkness, unknown. It meant another -war in the Balkans, the kindler of wars in Europe. All along a -thousand miles of new frontier and ancient hatred any outbreak in -the Balkans would spread. Italy would cross the Adriatic again; what -would Jugo-Slavia say to that? Serbia would come down in force from -the north; would Croatia, Bosnia, Dalmatia, Montenegro, not seize -the opportunity to strike at Serbia, the hated new master? Could -Jugo-Slavia turn her back on Hungary, in safety? All the Balkans and -Central Europe are tinder to any spark, to-day. As they were in 1914. - -But at that moment I was caring for Albania, for the Albanians who had -sheltered me by their fires and divided with me their corn bread and -goat’s-milk cheese. It was insupportable to me that war was going again -like a flame over those mountain villages, that the last of their men -must fight again on the edge of precipices, and the last of their women -and children die on the trails. There was desperation in the hope, the -irrational faith, which I placed in Ahmet, the Hawk, chief of the Mati. -“Ahmet will do something,” I said. - -“How can he? The Dibra men are in Tirana, and he has no soldiers.” - -“He will do something,” I said, “because he must.” - -“‘I think this will be a good year for pears,’ said the bear. ‘Why?’ -said the other bear. And the first bear replied, ‘Because I like them.’” - -“And who knows,” said I with violence, “that it isn’t a good year for -pears?” - -Thus we talked in the cafés, drinking coffee and looking out through -white arches at the plane trees and the donkeys patiently trudging -by. There was nothing else to do. Elez Jusuf was in Tirana, behind -enigmatic walls. Why did he not come out? We did not know. Ahmet was -alone in Government House. The sunshine was warm on white Tirana, the -water rippled in the gutters, the plane trees unfolded their tiny -leaves. The men of Tirana, that lukewarm, Mohammedan, un-Albanian city, -did nothing. They waited to see what would happen. We all waited. The -morning went by. - -The morning went very slowly by, and at noon an automobile came -roaring and shaking down the cobbled street. It brought Harry Charles -Augustus Eyres, British minister to Albania. We lunched with him at -the Red Cross house. Lean, dry, humorous eyed, gray haired, wholly the -Englishman, he talked of the psychology of Eastern peoples. He had -been forty years a diplomat in the Near East, and knew his subject. -I was perhaps wrong in connecting his official presence in Albania -with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company’s negotiations for the Valona oil -fields. He lived in Durazzo, and had that morning received a telephone -message--not from Ahmet--advising him of the situation in Tirana. - -“I must go and see my old friend Elez,” he said. It was his only -reference to the immediate situation. “Elez is a fine old chap, you -know. Patriotic Albanian. He had five thousand Dibra men ready to go -into Serbia last year. Bit of a job I had, too, persuading him that it -wasn’t done, really.” - -After luncheon he departed, to see his old friend Elez. Later he was -seen riding to Government House. At dinner he said that negotiations -were opened. One inferred that this little matter was practically -settled. - -“Queer thing, you know, this tale of Elez Jusuf’s,” he further -remarked. Elez Jusuf, it appeared, said that he was astounded to find -himself in the position of a rebel against the Albanian government. -With the mildest intentions, he had been coming down to Tirana to speak -with that government. Parliament had been elected when the Serbs were -holding all of Dibra; the Dibra representatives had been elected by -refugees, and Parliament had recently unseated them on the ground that -they were not properly elected. This left Dibra without representation -in the council of chiefs, said Elez. Surely it was proper that the -chief of the Dibra should come to Tirana to speak for Dibra to the -government. He traveled with an armed escort, of course, as a chief -should. On the trail he met his friends Zija Dibra and Mustapha Kruja, -with their escorts. They came on together. An hour from Tirana, on the -previous evening, they had met a body of government soldiers, sixty in -number. These soldiers had treacherously fired upon him. His men had -naturally returned the fire. The captain of the soldiers was killed, -the second in command, Sied Bey, fell down a cliff when his horse was -shot beneath him, and Elez Jusuf, very much surprised and perturbed, -came on to Tirana. He said he did not know what else to do. Just before -reaching Tirana, he had met a machine gun or two, and had taken them -along with him, after some incidental fighting. Why was the government -attacking him with machine guns? he demanded. He was not moving against -the government, with five hundred men. When the Dibra moved, it put -five thousand fighting men on the trails. - -“A queer tale,” said Mr. Eyres. “I don’t know what to make of it. On my -life, I believe the old fellow’s sincere.” - -The Albanians, he said, were a surprising people. Take Ahmet, now. That -afternoon Ahmet had said to him, “You recall the words of Aristides?” -Mr. Eyres, supposing the reference was to some Albanian unknown to him, -had inquired, “Who is Aristides?” And, by Jove! the chap meant the -Greek! Fancy an Albanian knowing about Aristides! - -We slept upon these meager developments. Elez Jusuf was still in -Tirana; Ahmet still in Government House. The dynamo ran all night. - -Next morning, more news in the cafés. Ahmet was demanding that Elez -Jusuf give up his arms and surrender himself, Mustapha Kruja, and Zija -Dibra for trial. Elez Jusuf replied that it was an insult to suggest -that any Dibra man gave up his rifle while he lived. If Mati thought it -could bring that shame upon the Dibra, the rifles of Dibra would finish -the talking. Mustapha Kruja had disappeared in the night; his men were -left leaderless with Elez behind the barricades. Zija Dibra was still -there. Mustapha Kruja and Zija Dibra were in the pay of Italy; Elez -Jusuf had been misled, tricked, by them. This was the talk in the cafés. - -[Illustration: THE FIGHTING MEN FROM THE MOUNTAINS WHO CAME INTO TIRANA -TO DEFEND THE GOVERNMENT WHILE ELEZ JUSUF WAS IN TIRANA - -In this group are men from seven tribes, distinguishable by the pattern -of their trousers.] - -Nearly noon, and talk stopping in the cafés. Shops closing, quietly, -one by one. A tightening, an apprehension, in the air. New faces, new -costumes, in the streets. Slowly, slowly, little by little, Tirana was -filling with tall, keen-eyed, weather-bitten men. Men in the tight -white trousers and rawhide opangi of the northern Tirana mountains. -Men in the fuller white trousers and embroidered socks of the central -mountains. Men in the very full brown trousers and curve-toed moccasins -of more southern tribes. Mountain men, all of them. They sat on the low -walls around the mosques, talking. They lounged on the curbstones, they -sauntered on the streets. More and more of them. Impossible to estimate -how many. A thin little trickle going steadily in and out of Government -House. And it was strange how a sense of Government House, a sense -of the one man alone behind those broken walls, grew upon Tirana. It -was as though Government House were a huge, mysterious, living thing. -Men walking in the streets glanced at it furtively, as if it might -be watching them. Groups stood and stared at it. There it was, quite -still. Still, like a crouching animal. What would it do? - -Three o’clock, and suddenly the answer. A gust of rifle shots, a growl -of machine guns, and the storm was on us. The streets were swept clean -of people in one quick scurry; windows barred, doors bolted. And we -were running through a swarm of bullets that sang like mosquitoes. -Running, we cried to each other, “Tricked the British Empire, by Jove!” -For the very sound of the guns said that this was grim earnest, this -was the end. Ahmet had gained time enough to bring in the mountain men. -Now he was fighting. - -At seven o’clock the next morning he was still fighting. Fifteen -hours, without a break, and Elez Jusuf was still alive and still in -Tirana. When the firing died in the bright morning we went picking -our way through wreckage of mud-brick walls, around bloody cobbles, -past plaster houses ripped to tatters by bullets. In the heart of the -wreckage Elez Jusuf was still holding out. - -At ten o’clock a drum beat in the street before the mosque where the -dead men lay, and a crowd listened to the singsong of the government -crier of news. He cried that at twelve o’clock Ahmet Bey would burn the -quarter that sheltered Elez Jusuf. Citizens whose homes were there had -two hours to take out their movable property. Passports to enter and -leave the quarter, obtainable at the post office. Machine guns surround -the quarter. Listen well! At twelve o’clock the machine guns will start -and the quarter will burn. After twelve o’clock no man leaves it alive. -By order of Ahmet Bey Mati. - -It is impossible to describe the feeling that day in Tirana. It was as -though a giant hand closed upon the heart, slowly, inexorably. Death. -At twelve o’clock the machine guns will start and the quarter will -burn. No man will leave it alive. Five hundred men. And this was true. -It was not a dream nor a tale in a book. It was reality. We asked, -“Will Ahmet do it?” as one struggles to awaken from nightmare. We were -always answered, quietly, “Yes.” Men were not speaking much, that day; -they simply said, “Yes.” - -The procession began. Women bowed under loads of things, blankets, -rugs, chairs, a frying pan, a child’s toy. Children going before them -lugging the spinning-wheel, the hand loom. Smaller children stumbling -and holding on to skirts. Veiled women, sobbing behind the veils, -walking pigeon toed and pitifully on high heels, in hampering trousers, -carrying boxes too heavy, so that they must stop to rest. One little -donkey, going back and forth, back and forth, bringing out trunks and -bedsteads and house doors. And for some time a frantic woman, veiled, -hysterical, clung to us, clung to our skirts on hands and knees, -talking a language we could not understand, pleading, begging as if -for her life, holding up five fingers, measuring five distances from -the ground. Maddening, our inability to understand her. Why the five -fingers? Five what? How could we do what she wanted? A stranger who -spoke French at last translated her words for us. She was a Turkish -woman, her husband was in Constantinople; her five children--little, -little children--were in the quarter. She had been visiting a friend -when Elez Jusuf came in. For two days she had not been able to get -back to the children, and now she saw that other people were bringing -out things, and the soldiers would not let her in to get her children. -We took her to the post office and got her the permit to pass the -soldiers. That was that. - -At eleven o’clock we met a teacher in the Vocational School. He said: -“I have come out for a minute, between classes. It---- I wanted to get -away from the boys. We have three grandsons of Elez Jusuf, you know.” -We had not known, and, knowing, what could one say? The teacher seemed -to feel that speaking about it would make it easier to go back to them. -“We couldn’t keep the news out. All these boys know Albanian politics -so well. Damn it! the finest boys God ever made.” There were tears in -his eyes and his words were not profane. “Not one of them missed one -recitation since this thing started. We moved the desks and barricaded -the windows; classes going right on. Boys said to me this morning, they -can’t fight for Albania, but they can study for her. Breaks you all -up, somehow,” he said, apologetically, and blew his nose. “Damn it!” -he said again. “I---- That young boy from the Dibra got up to answer -a question just now, and forgot the question. I said, ‘Never mind.’ I -was going to pass it over. He said: ‘No, please ask it again, sir. I -won’t be much longer in class.’ I thought he was going to break down, -on that, but he answered the question. Answered it right. Goes straight -on, with his head up. Their father’s in that hell hole, too. The boy’ll -have to go back and be chief of the Dibra.” - -It was impossible to say anything. We shook his hand and he went back -to the class. Mr. Eyres and his secretary went back and forth, from -Elez to Ahmet, from Ahmet to Elez, hastening, followed by the eyes of -us all. Their faces were not encouraging. - -Ten minutes to twelve. The last machine gun chuckling over the cobbles. -Six minutes to twelve. Files of men, with oil cans, going through the -streets. Four minutes to twelve, and the streets emptied save for the -last frantic stragglers coming with last armfuls of things. Three -minutes to twelve--and the drum beating! The open space before the -mosque was a mass of bodies, a suffocation of held breaths. Listen -well, people of Tirana! Elez Jusuf asks for time. A council is talking. -At two o’clock the machine guns will start, and the quarter will burn. -At two o’clock. By order of Ahmet Bey Mati. - -It would seem that the pressure of that giant hand would ease, but it -continued to tighten slowly, minute by minute. It continued to tighten, -even when at four minutes to two o’clock the crier called that the -council was still talking. Four o’clock, the third, last order. At six -minutes to four o’clock men were going with lighted torches; the oil -had been spread and wooden sprayers had thrown it over the roofs. At -five minutes to four o’clock the roar of an automobile in the streets, -and Elez Jusuf appeared, riding to Government House in the English car, -Mr. Eyres beside him. Tirana followed them to the gate in a wave of -men, a wave that slowed, eddied before the gate, and stopped. It seemed -that time stopped with it. - -Out of the gate a rider, lashing a galloping horse. Clatter of -spark-scattering hoofs on the cobbles, swish of the whip, and a swirl -of wind following. Four o’clock, and the ripping sound of one machine -gun, stopped abruptly. No more. - -Ten minutes after four o’clock, and Elez Jusuf and Mr. Eyres riding -out of the gate. Elez Jusuf sat straight and proudly; a fine old -mountaineer in his Scanderbeg jacket and silver chains, overlooking the -crowd as though it were not there. Only a glimpse of black Scanderbeg -jacket, silver chains, gray hair, profile of firm lines, and Elez Jusuf -had made entrance and exit. - -Immediately after the automobile, while the gate of Government House -still fascinated, two riders came through it. They were Austrian -engineers, in khaki riding clothes and puttees. They rode pack mules, -and camping outfit complete with tent was roped to the wooden saddles. -We knew them slightly, and stopped them as they came leisurely by, to -ask what they knew. - -Nothing, they said. Ahmet had sent for them that morning--they were -engineers employed by the government--and had asked them to make ready -to go out toward Dibra, to investigate and report on the possibility of -lighting Tirana with electricity from a waterfall twenty miles away. -They had been ready at one o’clock, and Ahmet had sent asking them to -wait, ready, in the courtyard of Government House until he gave them -the word to start. Word had that moment come, and they were starting. - -They stirred the smallest of interest as they rode on through Tirana. -Tirana was relaxing, as a tired man sighs. Men sat on the curbs, on -the low walls, on the ground. There was a crowd in the cafés, but no -singing, and little talking. The sunset hour was beginning, but no one -walked. - -In the whitewashed dining room of the Vocational School we sat drinking -tea. Mr. Eyres disclaimed the tiredness of his eyes. It had been most -interesting, he said. An interview he would not forget, that between -old Elez and Ahmet. “A strong man, Ahmet. Perhaps a little young, -just twenty-six, they tell me. Well, time will remedy that.” Elez -had been persuaded to go to Government House to meet and talk with -Ahmet. “Really a remarkable man, old Elez. He’d never before seen an -automobile, you know. Walked right up to it, sat in it, as though he -had ridden in one all his life; never turned a hair, coming or going. -Must have been a bit of a strain, after all he’d gone through.” He said -to Ahmet that he had talked with his men. They would not give up their -rifles. If it were required that they give up their rifles, Elez would -go back to his men and they would die fighting. Ahmet said, “Mustapha -Kruja will be hanged when we find him. Zija Dibra must leave Albania -forever. Give me a _besa_ of peace and go back to the Dibra with your -rifles.” - -Elez was silent a moment, and then gave the _besa_. The Dibra, he said, -would be loyal to the Constitutional Government of Albania as long as -he lived, and as long as his son’s sons ruled the Dibra. He saluted, -Ahmet saluted; the official interview was ended. And the messenger -left to countermand the orders given. “Something rather dramatic about -these chaps, really. Done just like that. No palavering, no signing of -papers. Not necessary, and Ahmet knows it. Elez would be cut into bits -before he’d break a _besa_. They’re admirable, in their way, these men.” - -Elez, turning to go, had turned back to speak again to Ahmet. The -Dibra and the Mati had long been enemies, he said. There had been no -friendship between them since the days of Scanderbeg. Was this not -a time to forget that old enmity? In their mountains, Dibra had not -understood the Tirana government. During those three days in Tirana, -Elez said, he had learned many new things. He believed now that Ahmet -Mati was fighting for Albania. Would Ahmet join him in a _besa_ of -peace between Mati and Dibra? - -This had been entirely unexpected, Mr. Eyres said. However, Ahmet -did not turn a hair. He and Elez made the _besa_ of peace, and then -Elez added another thing. “I have heard,” he said to Ahmet, “that you -intend to disarm the men of Dibra. You have not expected to do that -without fighting. Now I, Elez Jusuf, chief of the Dibra, say this: The -Serbs hold our city of Dibra. The Serbs are on the lands of my people. -Twice in this year the Serbs have come to kill our men and burn our -villages. Only our rifles stand between us and the Serbs. But you are -the chief of Albania and you are a wise chief. When you think it is -time to come to the Dibra to take away the rifles of the Dibra, I will -give you every rifle. There will be no trouble. I say this, on the -honor of Dibra.” - -Even this, to Mr. Eyres’s deeper astonishment, did not cause Ahmet -to turn that hair. He said merely, “That is well.” The interview was -ended. On the way back to his men, Elez suggested to Mr. Eyres that he -leave his son as hostage to insure that he had spoken the truth. If he -broke the _besa_, he said, in a matter-of-fact manner, Mr. Eyres might -kill his son. Misunderstanding Mr. Eyres’s reaction to this offer, he -added that his son would be glad to make his life a forfeit for the -honor of Dibra. “But what on earth would I do with the chap?” said Mr. -Eyres to us. “Bless my soul, I know old Elez will keep his word! Well, -rather! I told the old man to jolly well take his son along with him. -By the way, the young Elez has two lads of his own here in this school. -Asked me to give them greeting from him, said he was sorry he couldn’t -stop to see them. Elez’s riding out on the Dibra trail by this time, I -expect.” - -The young secretary of the absent Prime Minister came at that moment -to confirm this conjecture. The crisis was over. Albania, we said, was -saved once more. If the uprising had been--who could say?--an Italian -plot, Italy was checkmated again. There would be no new outbreak in -the Balkans this time, and that precarious balance in all European -politics, the Balkan equilibrium, was unchanged. We were saying this, -and I was thinking of the two Austrian engineers riding behind the -retreating Dibra men on their quest for electric lights for Tirana, -when the second blow fell upon us. - -The Red Cross mail car, gone that morning to meet the Italian steamer -at Durazzo, returned with the news that Hamid Bey Toptani, brother of -Essad Pasha, had taken Durazzo. He was an hour from Tirana, coming on -the Durazzo road, with at least six hundred armed men. How many more -were hidden in the hills when the automobile passed, no one could -guess. Under the American flag, the car had gone and come through the -lines, and no secret had been made of the fact that Tirana would be -attacked that night. - -There is a point at which human nerves cease to report emotion. For -three days and nights we had felt all that we are capable of feeling. -We heard this news blankly, understanding it, thinking about it, and -hardly caring. There was no resilience left in us with which to care. -It was like beginning again a story we had once read. - -“Where did Hamid Bey Toptani get his arms?” I asked. For the Toptani -family are not mountaineers, nor chiefs of mountaineers. The peasants -on the great estates of the plains do not carry rifles. - -“There is an Italian gunboat in the harbor of Durazzo, and another at -San Giovanni,” said the American who had gone with the mail. - -“It does look like a well-organized plan,” we said. Scutari attacked, -Elbassan attacked, Durazzo taken, Tirana attacked from the west and -from the east. A plot, in which only one small thing had gone wrong. -Had old Elez Jusuf, tricked by his two friends into involving the -Dibra, come too early to Tirana? Had Mustapha Kruja and Zija Dibra -intended to bring the Dibra men from the east when Hamid Bey Toptani -came from the west? Was it because the plan miscarried that they had -urged Elez Jusuf to sit intrenched in Tirana, while they hoped that -Toptani would come in time to help them take Government House? Or had -the Dibra men come on time, and Toptani purposely delayed, to leave the -hard fighting in Tirana to the Dibra men? - -Futile questions, for we could not know the answers. And our thoughts -settled upon Ahmet, three days and nights without sleep or rest, the -one man who was the government, sitting alone in Government House with -the checkerboard of this situation before him. How well he had moved -the pieces! Bringing in the British minister, to give him time to bring -in his fighting men. Settled, in his mind, that to-day must remove Elez -Jusuf, though he burned half Tirana to do it. And sending out, ten -minutes behind Elez, those two engineers to plan electric lights for -the capital! To plan electric lights for the city that--surely he knew -it--Hamid Bey Toptani would attack that night. Ahmet, the Hawk, chief -of the Mati, come from the court of Abdul Hamid when sixteen years old, -to fight the Serbs in the mountains. The chiefs of the Mati must lace -his opangi before every battle, because he did not know how to lace -opangi. But the chiefs of the Mati loved him. - -Two horses went cantering past the windows of the Red Cross dining -room, and because the clatter of horse’s hoofs is rare in Tirana they -must be bringing news. From the gateway of the courtyard we watched -them--a rider in the Mati costume, leading a lean, eager bay horse. -They went through the gate to Government House. In a moment they -reappeared, Ahmet Bey Mati riding the bay. He still wore the clothes -in which I had seen him; rumpled a little, they spoke of the sleepless -nights, and his face was white with fatigue. On his head an astrakan -fez; over his shoulder the strap that held a rifle; around his waist -the cartridge belt, and a belt holding silver-hilted revolver and -knives. A strange figure, in tailored business suit, riding the lean -bay through the streets of Tirana. Behind him, coming with the long -swinging walk of the mountaineers, perhaps sixty Mati men. - -“Long may you live, _zonya_!” said he, touching the astrakan fez in -salute. - -“Long may you live, Ahmet Mati!” - -They rode past the pictured mosque, down the street of little shops -and cafés, closed now, past the cemetery with its toppling turbaned -gravestones. At the barracks they stopped. For a moment Ahmet spoke -with the chiefs who gathered around his horse. Then he rode on, out on -the road to Durazzo, and behind him went his hundreds upon hundreds of -fighting men. It was the sunset hour; the mountains and the sky were -beautiful, and the little owl was beginning to call from the Cypress of -the Dead. The prayers of the _hodjis_ rose to Allah from the tops of -the white minarets. - -The moon was late that night, and mountains and plains were covered -with darkness when the rifles began to crackle on the hills. Little -flames of rifle fire ran along the tops of the hills like flickering -lightning. It was as though the hills were crackling with electricity. - -We stood in the courtyard of our house, watching them. Government House -was dark; the engine was no longer running. The little owl called from -the Cypress of the Dead. Sied Bey came through the gate and said to us -in French that he feared there would be trouble again in Tirana that -night; might the women and children of his family stay in the Red Cross -house? There was his old mother, who was ill; his sister, and many -children of his brothers and his cousins, little children. They had -come in that day from his estate, where the fighting was. Did we think -the Red Cross would give them shelter till morning, under the American -flag? - -They came behind him, through the darkness, and we said we would -take them to the Vocational School. Sied Bey could not leave his -post at Government House. There were the two veiled women, and nine -women servants carrying rolls of bedding, and so many little girls in -voluminous trousers, with chains of gold coins on foreheads and necks, -and so many very small boys in Turkish trousers and Scanderbeg jackets, -that we never counted them. We got them all into the Red Cross dining -room, where there was space for them to sleep on the floor, and we -offered them cigarettes and coffee. Within the dining room the sound of -the rifle fire was no louder than the soft crackling of burning wood. - -The older woman, worn and wrinkled and pale with illness, sat on the -cushions arranged for her by a servant, accepted the cigarette which -another servant had put in a long jeweled holder, and smoked silently. -But the younger one, throwing back her veil with a violent movement, -startled us by the revelation of a strong, beautiful face and eyes -full of anger. She spurned the cushions, she walked up and down like a -furious animal in a cage. - -“Pardon me,” she said, suddenly, in perfect English. “Forgive me. -You are good to shelter my mother. But I--but I am not made to stay -here, to stay here in a house, when there is fighting. Do you hear the -rifles?” She struck her clenched hand against the edge of the table, -and blood came on the knuckles. She walked up and down. - -“Do you think I cannot fight?” she said. “Ask my brother. Ask the -Serbs if I can fight. There is not a man in Albania who knows a rifle -better than I. They did not keep me in a house when the Serbs came! I -was out on the hills with the men when the Serbs came. And now--now -when traitors, when men who sell their honor for money, are murdering -Albania, I must sit in a house! I must sit on a cushion!” She stamped -on the cushion. “I, who have killed nineteen Serbs with these hands! -I must stay with my mother, because she is ill. Let Sied stay with my -mother. I have a rifle; I want to fight! Do you hear the rifles?” - -We were appalled. We were speechless before that infuriated woman who -had killed nineteen Serbs with her hands. We went away, leaving her -walking up and down, while her mother silently smoked and the children -watched from their heaps of rugs. - -In the street by the gate of Government House Sied Bey was watching the -sky to the northwest. Five red flares were there now, and the rifle -fire was running like flickering lightning over the western hills. - -“It is too bad my sister is not there,” he said. He was proud of her. -“My sister was a lion when the Serbs came in. There is no man better -than my sister in a battle.” - -He had not taken his gaze from the red flares. “Five villages,” he said -as though to himself. “This morning I was _seigneur_ of those five -villages, and to-night they are burning. _Eh bien_,” he said. “They -were rebels, then, my peasants. They were sheltering Hamid Bey. Their -villages must be burned.” - -The rifle fire went away over the hills. It wrote on the darkness as it -went that Hamid Bey Toptani was retreating. Then the moon rose over the -eastern mountains, and Tirana was white in the moonlight, and there was -no sound except the flowing of water in the gutters and the calling of -the little owl in the cypress. - -In the morning, all Tirana gathered silently about the strangest sight -ever known in that youngest city of Albania, which remembers only -three hundred years. Workmen were in the cemeteries. Groups of ragged -workmen walked upon the graves, loading the turbaned gravestones on -wheelbarrows, wheeling them away and dumping them beside the Durazzo -road. There were wooden plows, drawn by oxen, going over the Mohammedan -graves, plowing down the weeds. Ahmet Bey had given orders, before he -left Tirana, that all the old sacred cemeteries be made into public -parks. The sensation was profound. All day long a mass of fezzes -surrounded each cemetery. Their wearers said nothing, said not one -word; they stood and watched, silently. The workmen worked silently. -The only sound was the grating of levers on tombstones, the crunching -sound of the plow on the graves. - -There was no news from Durazzo. - -In the afternoon, another surprise for the citizens of Tirana. Three -hundred men were working on the Durazzo road. They began where the -road turns, beyond the barracks. With plows they went up and down the -road, many times. Ahmet had said that the road must be plowed deeply. -Ahmet had said that the road must be made slightly rounded, broad, with -ditches on either side. Men were digging the ditches. And two by two, -along the road, men were sitting facing each other, a hard rock between -their knees and hammers in their hands. Rhythmically striking, they -were breaking into little fragments the old turbaned gravestones from -the cemeteries. Heaps of the broken rock grew around them. Farther down -the Durazzo road more rocks were being piled ready for them to break. -Donkeys were carrying these rocks from the river bed east of Tirana. - -At sunset Tirana went out to walk, and there was that sight. No longer -a road to walk upon, but havoc of plowed ground and broken stones. -Ahmet Bey Mati had said that there must be a stone road from Tirana to -Durazzo, forty miles. The road was following him on the way he had gone -to fight Hamid Bey Toptani. There was still no news from that fight. - -The people said, “Ahmet Bey Mati,” in a strange tone. Partly amazed, -partly awed, partly colorless shock. They said, “Ahmet Bey Mati,” but -the placards that men were tacking to the Cypress of the Dead were -signed simply, Ahmet Zogu. He no longer called himself a bey; he no -longer used even the Turkish title given his family when Scanderbeg -was dead and the family became Mohammedan, the title which changed the -old name, Zogu, to Zogolli. The placards said that Tirana was under -military law; all shops and cafés would be closed, and no one walk on -the streets, after nine o’clock. Signed, Ahmet Zogu. - -At nine o’clock not a light showed on the streets and no footsteps were -heard on the cobbles. Ahmet Bey Mati had become an awful invisible -figure, a sort of limitless and incomprehensible power, in the darkness -over Tirana. There was still no news from Durazzo. - -Next morning the telegraph wire from Durazzo began again to click the -instrument in the room above the post office. Orders were coming from -Ahmet Bey Mati. Among them, orders that we should have guides, horses, -and interpreters for our trip to the mountains; a message to us that -the chiefs of Mati and Merdite, and the prefect of Scutari, had been -advised of our coming and would give us all facilities. On the wire the -operators talked, and travel was again open on the Durazzo road. News -poured upon us. - -Hamid Bey’s forces had been routed and scattered; Hamid Bey’s family -had escaped on an Italian gunboat; Hamid Bey had been pursued, turned -back on the very shore where a boat waited for him, was being hunted -northward through the mountains. Three men had been hanged at Shijak, -and the _han_ there, which had been Hamid Bey’s headquarters, was -burned. Durazzo had made no resistance to Ahmet. Ahmet had fined -Durazzo five thousand napoleons--twenty thousand dollars--to punish it -for not resisting Hamid Bey. Tirana was fined five thousand napoleons -for not helping the government when the Dibra men came in. Ahmet -Bey had arrested twenty-nine men, who would be tried in court for -treason. Five villages on Sied Bey’s estate were ashes, the families -homeless. Hamid Bey’s property was confiscated; his country house would -be burned. Byram Gjuri had fled to Belgrade. Scutari had not been -attacked. Zija Dibra would be taken to-morrow to Durazzo, to be put on -a steamer for Constantinople. All Albania was quiet. - -That day I met on the street His Excellency Spiro Koleka, Minister of -Public Works, who had called upon us in the night when the government -was fleeing from Tirana. “_Vous voyez, madame_,” said he, triumphantly, -“_Je vous ai dit la vérité. Tout est tranquil._” - -There is no more to this tale. This was the end of the March rebellion -of 1922, which for a week was one of the lighted fuses to the powder -magazine of Europe. It was lighted--I can only guess by whom--and was -stamped out by a chief of the Mati mountaineers, in Albania. A little -country, which no one knows. Albania--somewhere in the Balkans, isn’t -it? Or is it in the Caucasus? One of those places that are always -having revolutions, people fighting among themselves. Ought to have -sense enough to settle down and go to work. - -There is no more to this tale. Our trip to the mountains is not part of -it. Only a few more pictures come into my mind, when I remember those -days in Tirana. - -Picture of Ahmet Zogu, riding back from Durazzo. Riding the tired bay -horse, at the head of his Mati men. Riding through a silent crowd -which silently parted to let him pass. Rifle and revolver, knives and -cartridge belt, gone. The gray business suit cleaned and pressed. A -white face, and darkness under the eyes, and eyes that see straight to -the end of things. Soft tramping of feet in rawhide opangi behind him, -and the Mati men in dingy black-braided trousers and colored sashes and -Scanderbeg jackets, rifles all-angled above their kerchiefed heads, -pouring down the narrow street. Then lumbering behind them, dust filmed -and mud splashed, the empty automobile of the Albanian government, -gone forty miles to Durazzo to fetch Ahmet and come back empty because -he would ride at the head of his men. It goes last through the gates -of Government House, and the crowd can gaze only at the gate and its -solitary guard. - -Picture of Ahmet in his house. He sits in a gilded Louis Seize chair, -under a painted Turkish ceiling. Half a hundred rifles, museum pieces -he has chosen from the long mule trains of rifles brought down to -Tirana as the mountain tribes are disarmed, are stacked behind his -chair. A box telephone on the wall, an English grammar on the table, -a Mati man lying on the threshold of the door. Ahmet saying: “Albania -needs men, needs trained men. What am I, with power in my hands that I -cannot use because I am ignorant? I do not know Europe, America. Tirana -needs factories, Albania needs industries. The people are starving -and ragged; they walk with bare feet over the earth that covers their -fortunes. We need capitalistic development, not a hundred years from -now, but to-day. I am no good for that. How can we handle this? You -are from America. Can you tell us? Oil, mines, forests, water power, -land--what can Albania do with them, without trained men?” - -Another picture, a little one. Ahmet smiling. “Ah, but you wouldn’t -have been surprised if you had known, as I did, the men who were the -rebels. They were rich men. I thought, ‘Not all will be killed in the -fighting; we will capture some, arrest others. Why try them and hang -them? Their money will be more useful than their bodies. We will try -them and fine them.’ I thought how much money they had, and decided -there was enough money there to pay for electric lights for Tirana, so -naturally I sent for engineers to go out as soon as the Dibra trail was -clear.” - -“You had no doubt that you’d clear the trail?” - -“I had no time to doubt. I was busy clearing it.” - -And a last picture, always to be remembered by those who know Tirana. -It is the sunset hour, and all Tirana goes walking in the colored -evening air. Tirana goes walking down the smooth Durazzo road, the -road that is white and firm beneath the feet, from the turn beyond -the barracks all the way to the sea. The Cabinet Ministers of Albania -go walking in a row, sedately, their hands behind their backs, and in -the middle walks Ahmet Zogu, elected by Parliament Prime Minister of -Albania. Six even paces behind them marches their escort, a single row -of soldiers. - -The eastern mountains are catching the last light of the sun and making -magic with it. Plum purple, orange gold, mauve and violet and blue, the -colors shift and change, and the air is faintly golden over the green -plains where the mountain men are gathering as they used to gather in -the evenings long before Athens was built. Holding hands in long lines, -moving in a stamping circle, they are singing songs improvised by their -leader, who, with a handkerchief in his hand, acts in pantomime the -verses he creates. The strange, wild song in which they have clothed -and preserved the tales of all their heroes of two thousand years is -heard far over the green plains, where flocks of sheep are coming home -with little tinkling of bells. - - “Ahmet Bey, the Beautiful! O! O! Ahmet Bey! [they sing]. - Ahmet, the Son of the Mountain Eagle! - His wings spread out and cover us, - The shadow of his wings is over us, - His claws are terrible to our foes. - Ahmet Bey, the Beautiful! O! O! Ahmet Bey! - The men of Dibra came with their rifles, - Elez Jusuf, the chief of the Dibra, - Mustapha Kruja and Zija Dibra, - The Toptani family, curse of Albania, - Hamid Toptani, with nine hundred soldiers, - Nine hundred soldiers armed by Italians, - Came from Durazzo to murder Albania. - Ahmet Bey, the Beautiful! O! O! Ahmet Bey! - - “Elez Jusuf goes back to the Dibra, - _Besa_ of peace he has given to Ahmet. - Hamid Toptani flees through the mountains, - Cursed be the trees that give him hiding. - Zija Dibra is sent to Stamboul, - Zija Dibra, exiled from Dibra. - Five thousand napoleons, fine of Durazzo, - Five thousand napoleons, fine of Tirana. - Five villages burned. Let the market place tell - Names of the men who were hanged there at dawn. - - “Ahmet Bey, the Beautiful! O! O! Ahmet Bey! - He set three hundred men to work on the roads, - He built a good road from Tirana to Durazzo, - He makes electric lights in the capital of Albania. - O! O! Ahmet Bey, the Beautiful! O! Ahmet Bey!” - - -THE END - - - - -Transcriber’s Notes - -In a few cases, obvious errors or omissions in punctuation have been -corrected. - -Page 43: “kept out bodies warm” changed to “kept our bodies warm” - -Page 119: “a freize of living bodies” changed to “a frieze of living -bodies” - -Page 340: “blood ame on the knuckles” changed to “blood came on the -knuckles” - -The spelling of Spiro Koleka’s last name has been corrected. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEAKS OF SHALA *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Peaks of Shala</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Rose Wilder Lane</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 5, 2022 [eBook #67568]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEAKS OF SHALA ***</div> - - - - - -<h1 class="u"> Peaks of Shala</h1> - -<p class="center p0"> <i>Rose Wilder Lane</i> -</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img001"> - <img src="images/001.jpg" class="w75" alt="THE ROLLER THAT IS SMOOTHING THE NEW BOULEVARD IN TIRANA" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p0 caption">THE ROLLER THAT IS SMOOTHING THE NEW BOULEVARD IN TIRANA<br /></p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="center p0 xxbig"> Peaks of Shala</p> - -<p class="center p0 p2"> By<br /> -<span class="xbig">Rose Wilder Lane</span></p> - -<p class="center p0 big p2"> <i>Profusely Illustrated by - Photographs taken on a - Special Expedition to - Albania</i></p> - -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img000"> - <img src="images/000.jpg" class="w10" alt="Decorative image" /> -</span></p> - -<p class="center p0 big p2"> Harper & Brothers Publishers<br /> - New York and London<br /> - MCMXXIII -</p> - - - -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="center p0"> <span class="smcap">Peaks of Shala</span></p> -<hr class="r5" /> -<p class="center p0"> Copyright, 1923<br /> - By Rose Wilder Lane<br /> - Printed in the <abbr title="United States of America">U.S.A.</abbr></p> -<hr class="r5" /> -<p class="center p0"> D-X -</p> -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="center p0 p2"> To My Mother<br /> - Laura Ingalls Wilder -</p> - -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - - -<table class="autotable"> -<tr> -<th class="tdl" colspan="2"> -CHAP. -</th> -<th> -PAGE -</th> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -</td> -<td> -<a href="#INTRODUCTION">Introduction</a> -</td> -<td> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a> -</td> -<td> -Shadows on Scutari plain—The voice in the Chafa Bishkasit—The - lands of the hidden tribes—A woman of Shala -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_1">1</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a> -</td> -<td>Trails of the mountaineers—The man of Ipek kills his donkey—The - house of the Bishop of Pultit—Marriage by the Law - of Lec—The blood feud between Shala and Shoshi -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_15">15</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a> -</td> -<td>The story of Pigeon and Little Eagle—The prehistoric city of - Pog, and the tale of the golden image—The gendarmes sing - of politics -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_33">33</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a> -</td> -<td>Welcome to the house of Marke Gjonni—We hear the voice - of an oread—A guardian spirit of the trails -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_54">54</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a> -</td> -<td>The unearthly marriage of the man of Ipek—First night in a - native Albanian house -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_65">65</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a> -</td> -<td>The song of the flight of Marke Gjloshi—The hunted man of - Shoshi—The way through the Wood of the Ora—A woman - who believes in private property -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_87">87</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a> -</td> -<td>Can a man own a house?—We sing for our hosts of Pultit—Dawn - and a meeting on the trail—The village of Thethis - welcomes guests—Life or death for Perolli -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_111">111</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a> -</td> -<td>In the house of Padre Marjan—Lulash gives a word of honor - and discusses marriage—The stolen daughter of Shala -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_131">131</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a> -</td> -<td>The chiefs of Thethis probate a will—We visit the house of - Lulash—A journey to upper Thethis -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_156">156</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a> -</td> -<td>The water ora of Mali Sharit—The coming of the tribes to - Europe before the seas were born, and how the first Greeks - came in boats—Why Alexander the Great was born in - Emadhija, and of his journey to Macedonia—The sad - house of Koi Marku -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_171">171</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a> -</td> -<td>Mass in the church of Thethis—A mountain chief seeks a - wife—Down the valley of the Lumi Shala, while the drangojt - fight the dragon—How Rexh came to Scutari -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_203">203</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a> -</td> -<td>The song of the last great war with the dragon—An unexpected - bandit—How Ahmet, chief of the Mati, went by - night to Valona—The raising of Scanderbeg’s flag—An - Albanian love song -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_220">220</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a> -</td> -<td>The backward trail—The man of Shala has a sense of humor—The - byraktor of Shoshi hears that the earth is round -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_243">243</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a> -</td> -<td>A night by the byraktor’s fire—The byraktor calls a council—Rexh - to the rescue—The byraktor’s gendarme tears a - poncho—Moonlight on the Scutari plain -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_259">259</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -</td> -<td><a href="#POSTSCRIPT">Postscript.</a> In which is related what may be found behind - the curtain of silence which hides Albania, also how the - men of Dibra came with their rifles to Tirana, and how - Ahmet, the Hawk, chief of the Mati and present Prime - Minister of Albania, saved the Balkan equilibrium -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_285">285</a> -</td> -</tr> -</table> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="ILLUSTRATIONS">ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> -</div> - - -<table class="autotable"> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#img001"><span class="smcap">The Roller That Is Smoothing the New Boulevard - in Tirana</span></a> -</td> -<td class="tdr" colspan="2"> -<i>Frontispiece</i> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#img002"><span class="smcap">The Chafa Bishkasit</span></a> -</td> -<td> -<i>Facing p.</i> -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_8">8</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#img003"><span class="smcap">An Old Shepherd</span></a> -</td> -<td>” -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_38">38</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#img004"><span class="smcap">Rrok Perolli</span></a> -</td> -<td>” -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_58">58</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#img005"><span class="smcap">An Albanian Hodji of the Mati</span></a> -</td> -<td>” -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_76">76</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#img006"><span class="smcap">A Group of Mountain Folk</span></a> -</td> -<td>” -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_106">106</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#img007"><span class="smcap">The Plateau of Thethis</span></a> -</td> -<td>” -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_120">120</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#img008"><span class="smcap">The Shopping Center in Tirana</span></a> -</td> -<td>” -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_150">150</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#img009"><span class="smcap">Once a Day She Comes Walking Over Fifteen Miles - of Mountain Trails</span></a> -</td> -<td>” -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_176">176</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#img010"><span class="smcap">The Bandit Whom We Met in the Cave Above the Lumi - Shala and Who Sang Us the Song of Durgat Pasha</span></a> -</td> -<td>” -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_224">224</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#img011"><span class="smcap">The Shala Valleys</span></a> -</td> -<td>” -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_234">234</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#img012"><span class="smcap">The Shala Guide</span></a> -</td> -<td>” -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_248">248</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#img013"><span class="smcap">The Kiri Bridge</span></a> -</td> -<td>” -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_278">278</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#img014"><span class="smcap">A Toshk</span></a> -</td> -<td>” -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_296">296</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#img015"><span class="smcap">The Painted Mosque in Tirana and the Low Wall on - Which, All Day Long, Men Sit and Discuss Politics</span></a> -</td> -<td>” -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_302">302</a> -</td> -</tr> -<tr> -<td> -<a href="#img016"><span class="smcap">The Fighting Men from the Mountains Who Came - into Tirana to Defend the Government While - Elez Jusuf Was in Tirana</span></a> -</td> -<td>” -</td> -<td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_326">326</a> -</td> -</tr> -</table> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTION">INTRODUCTION</h2> -</div> - - -<p>I would not have this book considered too seriously. It is not an -attempt to untangle one thread in the Balkan snarl; it is not a -study of primitive peoples; it is not a contribution to the world’s -knowledge, and I hope no one will read it to improve the mind. It -should be read as the adventures in it were lived, with a gayly -inquiring mind, a taste for strange peoples and unknown trails, and a -delight in the unexpected.</p> - -<p>Here I give you only what I saw, felt, and most casually learned -while adventuring among the tribes in the interior northern Albanian -mountains. It is not even all of Albania, that little country too -small to be found on every map. It is simply a fragment of this large, -various, and romantic world, sent back by a traveler to those who stay -at home.</p> - -<p class="right p0"> -R. W. L.<br /> -</p> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center p0 p2">Annette Marquis accompanied the author on her trip through Albania and -it is to her skill that the photographs are due.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> -<p class="center p0 p2 xxbig">Peaks of Shala</p> -</div> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0">SHADOWS ON SCUTARI PLAIN—THE VOICE IN THE CHAFA BISHKASIT—THE LANDS -OF THE HIDDEN TRIBES—A WOMAN OF SHALA.</p> -</div> - - -<p>When the sun rose over the blue, snow-crested mountains that are the -southernmost slopes of the Dinaric Alps, it made, on the Scutari plain, -a pattern of our shadows; shadows of four small wooden-saddled ponies, -each led by a mountaineer with a rifle on his back, of two tall, ragged -gendarmes, and of a small trudging boy in a red Turkish fez—all moving -single file across an interminable plain shaggy with blossoming cactus.</p> - -<p>The wooden saddles were three-sided boxes made of peeled branches; -padded beneath with sheepskins, they fitted over the ponies’ backs. -On top of them our blankets were packed; saddlebags hung from the -four corners; enthroned in the midst we rode, comfortable as in an -easy-chair, sitting sidewise, our knees crossed, smoking cigarettes -and rocking gently with the ponies’ pace. And all this was to me an -enchantment suddenly appearing above the surface of well-arranged days, -as new South Sea islands rise before a mariner in hitherto familiar -waters.</p> - -<p>Three days earlier the mountains of Albania,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span> indeed, Albania itself, -had been unknown to me, and disregarded. I had meant to go by Scutari -as a hurried walker brushes by the stranger on the street. Scutari -had been merely a place to pass on the way from Podgoritza to -Constantinople. And now, in this brightening dawn upon the Scutari -plain, I was riding to unknown adventure among the hidden tribes of -Dukaghini.</p> - -<p>This was the doing of Frances Hardy. That impetuous and efficient girl -had seized upon me and my small affairs as six months earlier she had -seized upon the refugee situation in Scutari, taking control, making -adjustment, creating a new pattern. A thin, athletic, sun-browned -girl, so full of energy that her very finger tips seemed to crackle -electrically—that was Frances Hardy. An Albaniac, I called her at our -first meeting, perceiving that one might disagree with her, argue with -her, even poke fun at her, and still be her friend. She had seized on -the word with delight—the perfect word, she said—and had returned at -once to her attack.</p> - -<p>“Constantinople’s nothing. Everyone goes to Constantinople. But if -you don’t see Albania, you’re wasting the chance of a lifetime. Up in -those mountains—right up there in those mountains, a day’s journey -from here—the people are living as they lived twenty centuries ago, -before the Greek or the Roman or the Slav was ever known. There are -prehistoric cities up there, old legends, songs, customs that no one -knows anything about. No stranger’s ever even seen<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span> them. Great Scott, -woman! And you sit there and talk about Constantinople!”</p> - -<p>“But if nobody goes there, how can we do so?” I said.</p> - -<p>“How does anyone ever do anything? Simply do it. Hire horses, get on -them, and go.”</p> - -<p>“Carrying our own guns?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, we’ll be safe enough! We may run into a blood feud or two, and get -our guides shot up, but nobody ever harms a woman. Nobody even shoots a -man in her presence.”</p> - -<p>“She means no Albanian ever does,” said Alex.</p> - -<p>“Bless ’em!” said Frances, and added, in Albanian, “Glory to their -feet!”</p> - -<p>I had the vaguest notion of Albania. I knew it was the smallest and -newest member of the League of Nations; I knew it was in the Balkan -wars, and I knew that recently the Albanians had driven from their -shores the Italian army of occupation. If some one, testing my -intelligence or psycho-analyzing, had said to me, “Albanians,” I should -have replied, “Bandits.”</p> - -<p>But Frances Hardy is irresistible in more ways than one. Therefore, -on this spring morning, while mists rose slowly from the blue waters -of Lake Scutari and the shadows of the mountains retreated from its -shores, we were riding northward toward the lands of the mountain -tribes.</p> - -<p>There were four of us, not counting our retainers. No, five, for at the -last moment small, chubby-cheeked Rexh,<span class="fnanchor" id="fna1"><a href="#fn1">[1]</a></span> in his red Mohammedan<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span> fez, had gravely engaged Frances Hardy in argument as to the -desirability of his accompanying us. Twelve years old, a stanch -Mohammedan, self-adopted father of seven smaller refugee children for -whom he maintained a family life in a hut he had found, he had made -all arrangements for the trip without consulting us. He said that he -had never seen the mountains and that he thought it necessary to learn -about them as part of the education of a good Albanian. He pointed out -that he spoke excellent English, which he had learned in some three -months of association with Miss Hardy, and that he would be valuable -as an interpreter. It was true that we had one interpreter, but there -were six men and many saddlebags; he would keep an eye upon them all. -The care of his children he had arranged for; as to the Mohammedan -school in which he was a pupil, it taught him nothing; he would take -a vacation from it. He would be of use to us upon the trip; the trip -would be of value to him. Having said this, he gravely awaited Miss -Hardy’s decision. When she said, “All right, Rexh,” he permitted -himself to smile and looked over the packs, suggesting some changes -that would make us more comfortable. He now walked behind Miss Hardy’s -pony, a pistol and a knife in the belt of his American pajama coat.</p> - -<p>Our interpreter was also a friend; Rrok Perolli, secretary to the -Albanian Minister of the Interior. He was on a vacation, he said, -but as the northern interior tribes were antagonistic to the new -government,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span> it might be as well not to mention who he was. We were -going very near to the Serbian lines; he had recently escaped from -sentence of death in a Serbian prison; there was a price on his head in -Serbia. It would be easy for one of the tribes to hand him across the -line. They could not kill him in our presence, of course, but, once out -of our sight, they could in ten minutes find Serbians who would do it -for them.</p> - -<p>He was a care-free young man, black haired, dark eyed, dressed in the -smartest of English tweed suits, with a businesslike revolver and -one of the handiest of daggers swinging in leather holsters at the -belt. His father was a merchant in Ipek, rich territory now held by -the Serbs; the son had been educated in London, Berlin, and Paris, -and spoke their languages as well as his own Albanian, also Serbian, -Italian, Turkish, and Greek. He enlivened the morning with songs in -all these languages, illustrating a running discussion of comparative -music. Swaying gently on his pony’s back, he sniffed the sweet air, -cool from the waters of Lake Scutari; he gazed cheerfully at the blue -hills beyond the lake, held by the Serbian armies; he was altogether -the happy office man off for a lazy vacation. Just the same, I wondered -a bit, taking everything into consideration. It cannot be said that I -was entirely unprepared for the interesting developments before us.</p> - -<p>Fourth in our party was Alex. Sunshiny hair, softly fluffed; wide blue -eyes; and that complexion<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> of pink and white, like roses painted on a -china plate, that drives a dagger of envy into every feminine heart -and makes the fortunes of cosmetic makers. She wore a purple tam, -a leaf-brown sweater with a purple tie, and the trimmest of riding -trousers; she looked like a magazine cover. She was in reality the -most hard-headed, soberly sensible of girls; to her finger tips an -anti-Potterite. She and Frances were going into the mountains to decide -where to establish three schools. They had themselves collected in -America the money for them, and this was their vacation from Red Cross -work.</p> - -<p>At about noon we left the plain, and almost at once our ponies began -to stand up like pet dogs begging for cake, their hind legs supporting -their weight while front hoofs pawed for foothold above on the -stairlike, rocky trail. An Albanian held each of us tightly by elbow -or knee, ready to save us from squashy death if the pony lost its -balance, and as the little animals strained, clambered, gathered their -feet together for desperate leaps, a sudden long high wail broke forth -ahead. The two gendarmes were singing.</p> - -<p>Walking easily up a trail that I could have overcome only on hands -and knees, carrying their rifles and twenty pounds of canned goods on -their backs, they were merrily singing. Thumbs pressed tightly against -their ears, to prevent the air pressure of their lungs from bursting -ear drums, they sent far over the crags the long,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span> shrill, high notes, -like nothing human I had ever heard. Frances Hardy, lying almost -perpendicular along her pony’s back, her chin on what would have been -the saddle pommel had there been one, looked downward at me, similarly -extended.</p> - -<p>“They’re making a song to the Chafa Bishkasit, the Road of the -Mountaineers,” she said. “That’s the Chafa up there. We’re going over -it to-day, and then we’ll be in the mountains. Aren’t you happy?”</p> - -<p>I could find no word emphatic enough for reply as I gazed up at the -tiny notch in a wave of snow-crest that curled against the sky five -thousand feet above us.</p> - -<p>The sun swung to its highest and sank again while we climbed. It was -low in the sky—it seemed on a level with us—when we made the last -interminable hundred yards up into the Chafa Bishkasit. We were in the -sky; there is no other way to say it, and no way in which to describe -that sensation of infinite airiness. Forty miles behind and below us -Lake Scutari lay flat, like a pool of mercury on a gray-brown floor. At -each side of our little gay-colored cavalcade a gray cliff rose perhaps -two hundred feet, too sheer to hold the snow that thickly crusted its -top. These cliffs were the posts of a gateway through which we looked -into the country of the hidden tribes.</p> - -<p>I had never seen or dreamed such mountains. Like thin, sharp rocks -stood on edge, they covered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> hundreds of miles with every variation of -light and shadow, and we looked across their tops to a far-away wave of -snow that broke high against the sky. The depths between the mountains -were hazy blue; out of the blueness sharp cliffs and huge flat slopes -of rock thrust upward, streaked with the rose and purple and Chinese -green of decomposing shale, and from their tops a thousand streams -poured downward, threading them with silver white. A low, continuous -murmur rose to us—the sound of innumerable waterfalls, softened by -immeasurable distances.</p> - -<p>Suddenly, clear and very far and thin, a call came out of the spaces. -It was like a fife, and yet not like it. Instantly our guides were -still, attentive. A moment of silence, and farther and thinner, -hardly to be heard above the beating of blood in our ears, there was -an answer. Then the first note began again and went on and on; there -seemed to be a pattern to it, not a tune—words? I looked at the others.</p> - -<p>Rrok Perolli was motionless, a cigarette between his lips, his hand -arrested in the act of striking a match. Little Rexh, his round face -intent beneath the red fez, his mouth slightly open, his eyes wide and -blank, was an image of concentrated listening. The two gendarmes stood -alert, like dogs straining at a leash, scenting something. Our four -guides, in their long white trousers, black jackets, colored turbans -and sashes, were like men frozen in attitudes of interrupted talk.</p> - -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img002"> - <img src="images/002.jpg" class="w75" alt="THE CHAFA BISHKASIT" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p0 caption">THE CHAFA BISHKASIT<br />The “Road of the Mountaineer”—the gateway to the northern lands.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span></p> - -<p>The voice ceased. The other one came back like an echo, so faint I -thought I imagined it. Then—Bang! Bang! Bang! The very mountains -lifted up their voices and roared. It was like the cataclysm at the -end of the world; mountain striking against mountain, the air smashed -like glass and falling, clattering. Rrok Perolli lighted his cigarette. -The others shifted their rifles, tightened their sashes, said “Hite!” -to the horses, and we started on. All around us the echoes were still -contending, striking and breaking against one another like ore in a -mill.</p> - -<p>“What was it?” I cried to Perolli, whose horse was slipping down the -trail ahead, kept from going headlong by its owner, who held it by the -tail, bracing his bare feet on every foothold.</p> - -<p>“Telephoning,” said Perolli. “It’s the way they send news through the -mountains. A man on one of the peaks calls, and another one somewhere -hears him and answers. You’ve seen ’em hold their ears and throw their -voices. That’s it. And three shots to show that the talk’s ended.”</p> - -<p>“What was he saying?”</p> - -<p>“Something about Shala. Shala and Shoshi are in blood, evidently.”</p> - -<p>“Do we go through those tribes?”</p> - -<p>My horse slipped just then and a man snatched me from the saddle. The -horse, held by the tail, floundered on the trail, striking sparks from -his hoofs, shod with solid thin plates of steel; the packs went over -his head. My man set me on a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> shoulder-high rock and dashed to aid the -rescue. It looked for a moment as though they would all go down upon -Perolli below, but the horse got his footing and stood trembling, his -head covered with streaming blankets.</p> - -<p>I said then that I would walk, but it was not walking. It was jumping, -scrambling, dropping. Those mountains were evidently created to be -looked at, not to be walked upon. Bathed in perspiration, I stopped -from time to time to eat a bit of snow, and twelve-year-old Rexh looked -at me with compassion. He had walked nearly twenty miles that day and -was still gay and fresh; the men were still singing.</p> - -<p>“In a minute, Mrs. Lane, we will come to a resting place,” the pitying -Rexh encouraged me, and in perhaps half an hour my trembling legs -brought me around a bowlder to see the two gendarmes stopped in the -trail, crossing themselves. A wooden cross, blackened by storms and -years, leaned forward above them, supported by a pile of stones on a -small grassy knoll. Alex and Frances dropped from their ponies to lie -panting beside me on the grass, while the guides, smiling at our whim, -stopped also. Each of them crossed himself before sitting down, for the -mountain tribes have been Catholic almost ever since <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> Paul preached -in the Balkans, and missionary priests have put the cross at each -resting place on the trails, to bring thoughts of God to weary men.</p> - -<p>Below our feet the cliffs fell away, down into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span> blue haze; above us -were forested slopes, and above them sheer, great cliffs throwing -shadows across a dozen valleys. Our small grassy knoll was white with -daisies and with fallen petals from a blossoming apple tree that -arched above the cross. On it our men lay at ease, beautiful, graceful -animals, their rifles swung from their shoulders and laid ready to -their hands.</p> - -<p>“Why are Shala and Shoshi in blood?” Frances asked, casually, biting -idly at the stem of a daisy. Perolli did not know; he had gathered only -the fact that there was a feud.</p> - -<p>“Do we go through both tribes?” I wanted to know.</p> - -<p>“Through Shala. Shoshi’s farther down the river. We’ll go around it.”</p> - -<p>“Are our men Shala or Shoshi?”</p> - -<p>Perolli glanced at them. “Shala, by the pattern of the braiding on -their trousers. So we won’t have any troub——Hello! That’s a Shoshi -man coming up the trail, now.”</p> - -<p>It was Alex who acted quickest. She was sitting on a rock beside me, -her arms clasped about her knees; she rose instantly and, flinging out -a hand in the gesture of greeting, cried in her most feminine voice -those Albanian words that sound like, “Tune yet yetta!” and mean, “May -you live long!”</p> - -<p>The Shoshi man’s hand was on his rifle, but his step had not faltered. -He replied, coming on steadily, and the appropriateness of the greeting -struck me, for if it had not been uttered by a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> woman he would at that -moment have been dead. Our Shala men, with perfect courtesy, went -through the formalities of greeting on the trail, and this is the form, -translated to me by Rexh:</p> - -<p>“Long life to you!”</p> - -<p>“And to you, long life!”</p> - -<p>“How could you?” meaning, “How could you get here?”</p> - -<p>“Slowly, slowly, little by little.”</p> - -<p>No one who has ever seen those trails can doubt it.</p> - -<p>The Shoshi man sat down, our men offered him cigarettes, and up the -trail came a woman of Shoshi. She wore a tight, bell-shaped skirt of -horizontal black and white stripes, made of cloth heavier and thicker -than felt, the twelve-inch-wide marriage belt of heavy leather studded -with pounds of nails, and a jacket covered with three-inch-thick -fringe. Two heavy braids of black hair hung forward on her breasts, a -colored handkerchief was bound around her head, and her face, smoothly -weather browned, large eyed, delicately shaped, was the most beautiful -that I had ever seen. On her back, held by woven woolen straps that -crossed between her breasts, was a cradle tightly covered by a thick -blanket; in one hand she held a bunch of raw wool, and from the other -dangled a whirling spindle. Her feet were bare, and as she came up that -trail which had exhausted me she sang softly to herself, dexterously -spinning thread from the bunch of wool.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span></p> - -<p>Cheremi, our gayer gendarme, rose quickly and went to meet her. He -took her by the hand and laid his cheek caressingly against hers. He -was like a child, Cheremi, with his happy face, deep wrinkled with -laughter, the mischievous twinkle in his eyes, his bursts of wit and -song. But he looked all of his forty years as he gazed tenderly at the -woman of Shoshi.</p> - -<p>“She is a woman of my people,” he said, leading her gallantly to us.</p> - -<p>“Are you a woman?” said Frances Hardy, correctly, in Albanian.</p> - -<p>“I am born of Shala, married in Shoshi,” she answered. Her voice was -soft, and her hands and feet would have been madness to a sculptor. In -any Paris restaurant those slender fingers, almond nails, and delicate -wrists, aristocratic, well bred, would have been a sensation.</p> - -<p>We admired the baby, excavating it from five folds of blankets to do -so. How they live beneath the smothering I do not know; a Western -baby would die in three hours. We asked the mother how old she was. -Eighteen, she said, and she had been married three years.</p> - -<p>“And have you been home since?”</p> - -<p>“Ah no,” she said, with a wistful smile.</p> - -<p>“Born in Shala,” said Cheremi. “But she was married in Shoshi, and in -Shoshi she will die.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder what she thinks of us,” I said, for, though she must have -felt great curiosity about these strange beings, dropped apparently -from the sky upon her well-known trails, she did not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span> reveal it by the -flicker of an eyelash, and she asked no questions. It was we who were -so rude.</p> - -<p>“How old do you think we are?” Frances asked her. She looked at us -candidly beneath her long lashes.</p> - -<p>“How can I say?” she answered. “I cannot read or write; I am stupid; I -gather wood.”</p> - -<p>The Shoshi man now rose, slinging his rifle back on his shoulder, and -said farewell. “Go on a smooth trail,” said our men, his blood enemies, -who must have killed him at sight if no woman had been there, and he -went on up the trail without turning his head, the woman following him.</p> - -<p>“Well, we must be getting on,” said Perolli. “We’ve a long way to go, -and we ought to get in before dark.” And he showed us, far away across -the darkening valley, the white dot that was the priest’s house where -we were to spend the night.</p> - - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span></p> - -<p class="footnote" id="fn1"><a href="#fna1">[1]</a> Rexh—pronounced Redge.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0">TRAILS OF THE MOUNTAINEERS—THE MAN OF IPEK KILLS HIS DONKEY—THE -HOUSE OF THE BISHOP OF PULTIT—MARRIAGE BY THE LAW OF LEC—THE BLOOD -FEUD BETWEEN SHALA AND SHOSHI.</p> -</div> - - -<p>Darkness was creeping up the slopes like a rising flood from the -valleys, and it had engulfed the trails long before we made the -descent into the village of Gjoanni, which I may as well say at once -is pronounced Zhwanee. Not that we were thinking about such far-away -things as written words. Everything that makes our ordinary lives was -already as far from us as another planet. It was as though we had -dropped through a hole in time and fallen into the days when men were -wild creatures in the forests.</p> - -<p>One reads in books of dizzying trails twelve inches wide, on which -travelers cling precariously between the sky and sudden death. Long -before dense darkness had risen to meet the shadow of the mountain -wall between us and the rest of the world we would have welcomed a -twelve-inch trail as though it were the Champs-Elysées. We were in a -land where a twelve-inch trail is to the people what the Twentieth -Century Limited is to America.</p> - -<p>My memories become incoherent here. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span> recall a thousand-foot slide of -decomposed shale, the color of an American Beauty rose. The flakes of -it were as large as a thumb-nail, and the mass of them tilted at surely -thirty-five degrees, sloping to a sheer cliff that dropped I cannot -say how far. The stone houses looked like children’s blocks at the -bottom of it. Across this we made our way on foot, and at every step -a considerable quantity of the shale sped away beneath the pressure -and plumped over the edge. The fourth time I slipped I remained on my -hands and knees; it seemed simpler. And for something like a century I -had the sensation a squirrel must have in a revolving cage—steadily -clawing upward and making no progress in that direction. But sidewise, -crablike, I did eventually come out on the other side and into the -waterfall.</p> - -<p>The waterfall was called a river. It was about two thousand feet long, -and stood on end. About every three feet it struck a bowlder as large -as an office desk, and leaped into the air until it hit the next one. -The shale was wet with spray for several yards. The water between three -bowlders, where we crossed, was a little more than knee deep, and there -was nothing whatever leisurely about its progress. I try to be calm -about it; I tried to be calm then.</p> - -<p>The horses went across first, four men to each horse. One gripped -a rope tied about its neck, one firmly held the tail, two stood -downstream and leaned their weight against the saddle. Then the men -carried across the packs and their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span> trousers, which they had taken off -so that they should not get wet. Then they quite simply picked us up, -slung us across their shoulders, and took us over.</p> - -<p>It is a strange sensation, being a bag of meal hanging over a muscular -back, clutched firmly around the knees, green water roaring at toes -and chin, white spray choking and blinding you, and a thousand feet -of hungry bowlders waiting below for your bones. In the middle my man -stopped, braced himself, and shifted me to his other shoulder. Then he -shouted, and another man came out above us and held his free hand to -steady him through the worst of the current.</p> - -<p>After we were all over, the men clasped their ears, sent an exuberant -call out through the twilight, were answered from the far distances, -fired all their guns several times in joyous unison, and then, slinging -them back on their shoulders, went on blithely.</p> - -<p>They went on blithely into such a rain as I had never supposed could -be. Around the shoulder of the mountain we walked into it, as one -walks into a shower bath—scattering drops on the fringes of it so -few that they did not break the shock of its impact. Water fell upon -us suddenly; our piteous gasps and small cries of protesting misery -were muffled by the sound of its pouring on the rocks. In an instant -rivulets of chilly water were wandering over shrinking skin from soggy -mufflers to filling shoes, and there was no longer gayety in the world. -Even<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span> the Albanians were gloomy, occupied with the task of keeping -the slipping horses on the trail. In a few moments we had left their -struggles behind us.</p> - -<p>We climbed doggedly, in silence. Only the swishing of the relentless -rain and the clicking of our staffs on the rocks made little noises -against the distant roaring of waterfalls. By some trick of light -reflected from peak or cloud, the trail and the valley below it were -visible in a green-gray ghost of daylight, which made us seem unreal -even to ourselves. And we climbed, interminably, forever, putting one -foot before the other with the patient deep attentiveness of trudging -animals, while rain dripped unheeded from forehead to cheek to chin. -We climbed, absorbed in detail of slippery shale and stubborn bowlder, -till Perolli’s exclamation shocked us as though a rock had spoken.</p> - -<p>We must wait for our men, he said, and we dropped where we stood and -sat soddenly. To light a cigarette was as impossible to us in that rain -as to a swimmer under water. We sat and looked at one another, and -laughed aloud, and were silent again. The horses came past us at last, -each held by halter and by tail, and slowly they struggled over the -crest of the mountain and disappeared. We should go on, Perolli said, -and we murmured assent, but still we sat. When a stranger appeared on -the trail against the gray sky we moved only our eyes to look at him.</p> - -<p>He was a young man, dark eyed and handsome,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> but haggard. Besides -the rifle on his back was strapped a small baby. The little -head, uncovered, streaming with water, appeared above the thick -woolen-fringed collar of the man’s black jacket. The baby’s mouth was -open, drawn into a square of misery, but no sound came from it. The -man’s jacket had been darned and darned again, till no thread of the -original weaving was visible; his white homespun woolen trousers, -hung low on the hips, were worn so thin that the darns no longer held -together, and tatters fell around his bare ankles, above feet wrapped -in rags. The remnants of black braiding on his trousers were of a -pattern I had not seen before; I could not guess his tribe. Behind him -a shapeless bundle of household goods moved slowly on the tiny hoofs of -a donkey, and the little beast’s drooping ears and nose almost touched -the trail.</p> - -<p>“Long may you live!” And when he had returned the greeting we continued -the courteous formula. “How could you get here?”</p> - -<p>“Slowly, slowly, little by little.”</p> - -<p>“Are you a man?”</p> - -<p>“I am a man of Kossova, of the district of Ipek,” he answered, and it -was not necessary to say more, for the Serbs hold Ipek. The memory of -their taking it moved like a darkening shadow over his face, and it is -best to ignore such memories.</p> - -<p>Yet there was a little hope in his vague voice. He was going, he said, -in search of a farm on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span> which he could live. He had tried to live in -the Shala country, but it was impossible there. There was too little -land for the tribe of Shala, and the making of land is slow among -mountains where stone walls must be built to catch the little earth -that remains when rain melts limestone. He had heard that in the valley -of Scutari there was soil, as there had been in Kossova, and his voice -sank into silence as though it were a burden too heavy to lift.</p> - -<p>But he tried to make the baby smile for the American <i>zonyas</i>. The -baby, too exhausted to cry any longer, was equally unable to smile, -and this last baffled effort suddenly became rage. It was only a twist -of the haggard face, an explosion in the depths of the man’s spirit, -and, like an explosion, it was over before we saw it, leaving on our -eyeballs a picture of something that no longer existed.</p> - -<p>“He has a beautiful smile,” the father said, apologetically, “very -beautiful,” and he took up his rifle.</p> - -<p>“Long may you live,” we said. “Go on a smooth trail.”</p> - -<p>In a moment the rain had blurred the figures of the man and the tiny -donkey, moving slowly down the mountain side.</p> - -<p>We wiped the streaming wet from our faces with water-withered hands, -picked up our staffs, and drove our bodies again to their task of -climbing. The burden of the world’s helplessness in misery was heavier -on our spirits than the weight<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> of water-soaked woolen on exhausted -muscles. Why should man toil over such heart-breaking trails, endure -and struggle through such sufferings, only to keep alight a little -fire of life, when life means only suffering and painful effort? The -rifle-shot which interrupted the question seemed an answer to it. We -stopped, and the same thought was in all our eyes while we waited for -the echoes of the shot to roll away like thunder among the cliffs.</p> - -<p>Then Cheremi pressed his thumbs tightly against his ears and sent -down the trail the wild high note of the “telephone call.” He waited, -repeated it, repeated it once more. An answer came.</p> - -<p>The man of Ipek had killed his donkey. It had slipped from the trail; -it would not try to get up. And there on the mountain side, five hours -from shelter, with night upon them, he had killed it.</p> - -<p>“I wish you blind!” Cheremi called through the rain, and fired his -rifle to end the talk.</p> - -<p>We must help the man, we said. We must do something. But Cheremi and -Perolli, in whom also weariness had become anger, went on over the -ridge of the mountain, and we followed them. It was true; what could we -do? We could not carry the donkey’s pack, the only goods left to the -man of Ipek.</p> - -<p>In half an hour we met a beautiful girl. Her hazel eyes and chestnut -hair shone through the grayness of the rain, a wide silver-studded -marriage belt held the dripping tatters of a Shala<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> dress about her -slender body, and her ankles were white above delicate feet bruised by -the trails. She drove before her six starveling goats that constantly -tried to evade her; they were traveling strange trails and wanted to -turn homeward.</p> - -<p>“Long may you live!” she murmured, anxiously urging them forward with -her staff, while we climbed the bowlders above the trail to let them -pass. Cheremi bent to take her hand and lay his cheek against hers, and -for an instant there was a beautiful smile on her lovely troubled face. -When she was gone we continued to sit, gazing into the valley. Far -below us, below jagged cliffs as vague as clouds, below tortured trees -from which every bough had been hacked to feed hungry flocks, below -slopes of bowlders which ran down into darkness, lights were already -gleaming. A thousand feet above them on the other side of the valley -the white speck of the priest’s house promised us rest and warmth.</p> - -<p>“But we must wait here,” said Perolli, surprised by our impatience. -“The woman is the wife of the man of Ipek, and she is a Shala woman. He -has killed his donkey; it may be that he is mad and will kill her, too.”</p> - -<p>Cheremi’s childlike smile was gone. His rifle lay across his knees, his -profile was set and stern, cruel. He was a man of Shala, and, though -he had never before seen this woman, he would avenge her if there were -need for vengeance, for she had been born in his tribe. So we waited -for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span> the crash of a second shot. But only the rushing sound of the -waterfalls came up to us from the darkening valleys.</p> - -<p>With staffs and aching feet we found the trail when we went onward. -Unseen bowlders bruised our knees, unseen rocks rolled when we stepped -on them. We went for two hours down a slide of shale, slipping at every -step and clutching the empty darkness. At its bottom we came to wide -rapids, and this time the men put us on the little horses, and the -horses crossed by jumping from bowlder to bowlder; this seemed cruelty -to animals, but we were too weary to protest, and already we had become -Albanian in one thing—an absolute indifference to danger.</p> - -<p>When, an hour later, one of my pony’s hind legs went over the edge of a -crumbling trail and only my man’s grip on his tail kept him from quite -going over, the incident interrupted for only a second my enjoyment of -the wild, weird scene; a hundred miles of mountain tops fighting with -their shadows the light of the moon.</p> - -<p>At ten o’clock we fell from our saddles in the walled courtyard of -a ghostly white house, and a tall figure in the hooded robe of a -Franciscan father lighted us across it with a flaming pine torch.</p> - -<p>We really were in the Middle Ages, or in some century perhaps even -earlier. An hour after our greeting by the Bishop of Pultit we had -forgotten even to realize it; so adaptable are human beings that we -quite forgot that modern civilization had ever been.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span></p> - -<p>The hooded priest lighted us with his torch up a flight of worn stone -stairs and into a low, beamed room on the second floor of the bishop’s -house. There the bishop, rising from a wooden bench, welcomed us in -Albanian and Latin. He wore a rough, homespun woolen robe; his bare -feet were in wooden sandals; a rosary of wooden beads hung on his -chest. He was perhaps fifty, rotund, jovial, dignified. Perolli bent -one knee and kissed the episcopal hand; little Mohammedan Rexh, in his -red fez, gravely saluted; Cheremi, the ragged gendarme, put his rifle -in a corner and knelt for the bishop’s blessing.</p> - -<p>We sat, Alex, Frances, and I, in a row on a wooden bench in the chilly -bare room. A servant came in, barearmed, barelegged, clad in one piece -of brown cloth that reached his knees, and the bishop gave orders; the -servant returned with a hammered copper tray holding an earthen cup and -a wooden bottle of rakejia. Now rakejia is a cousin to vodka and one -of the strongest drinks that ever turned the imbiber’s blood to liquid -fire. We girls had debated about it; what should we do when courtesy -required us to drink it? We had decided that Perolli should explain -that we came from America and that in our tribe it was forbidden to -drink intoxicants. But after sixteen hours of travel in the Albanian -mountains we did not hesitate. One by one we took the cup that the -servant filled, and drained it dry. From that time onward we drank the -stuff like water, and it had no visible effect upon us,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span> though in -a Paris restaurant one glass of mild wine will make me realize that -a second would be unwise. I don’t explain this, I simply note the -fact, and it gives me a different point of view on the chronicles of -hard-drinking past centuries.</p> - -<p>We sat there, talking, for an hour or more. The bishop said that he -had never been out of the mountains except for a trip long ago to the -Vatican in Rome; he had been there a year, and had conversed with his -brother priests in Latin. Then he had come back to the mountains and -had lived there ever since. His diocese included all the northern -tribes, and he visited them from time to time, riding wherever a donkey -could carry him, and walking where it could not. Ten years earlier he -had had another foreign visitor, a Miss Durham of England; he had heard -that she later wrote a book in which she told about the visit, and if -he could have afforded it he would have liked to send for that book.</p> - -<p>No, the Church had not very greatly altered the ancient customs of the -people. They were all good Catholics, and attended mass. But they still -buried the dead uncoffined, with three apples on the breast, and when -they put a stone or a wooden slab above the grave they often carved on -it, not only the cross, but also the sun. One would note, too, that at -the rising and setting of the sun they made the sign of the cross to it.</p> - -<p>He was not too intolerant of these things. After all, beyond the sun -was always the good<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> God. It was not strange that what I had heard of -the marriage customs had baffled me, he said; I should not look for -traces of marriage by capture or marriage by purchase; the basis of the -tribal ceremonies is fire worship.</p> - -<p>On the day of the wedding the bride, elaborately dressed, is carried, -screaming and struggling, from her father’s house, and by her brothers -is delivered to the husband’s family at a place midway between the -lands of the two tribes. Since each tribe is technically a large -family, claiming a common prehistoric ancestor, it is forbidden to -marry within the tribe. The bride carries with her from her home -one invariable gift—a pair of fire tongs. When she arrives at her -husband’s house she takes a humble place in the corner, standing, her -hands folded on her breast, her eyes downcast, and for three days and -nights she is required to remain in that position, without lifting her -eyes, without moving, and without eating or drinking.</p> - -<p>“Though I believe,” said the bishop, smiling, “that she takes the -precaution of hiding some food and drink in her garments, and no doubt -the mother-in-law sees that she is allowed to rest a little while -the household is asleep.” And he explained that this custom remains -from the old days when the father of each house was also the priestly -guardian of the fire, and anyone coming to ask for a light from it -stood reverently in that position, silent, before the hearth, until the -father priest gave it to him. The bride, newcomer<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span> in the family, is a -suppliant for the gift of fire, of life, of the Mystery that continues -the race.</p> - -<p>On the third day she puts on the heavy belt that means she is a wife, -and thereafter she goes about the household, obeying the commands of -the elders, always standing until they tell her to sit, and for six -months not speaking unless they address her. And it is her duty to care -for the fire, and with her fire tongs to light the cigarettes smoked by -any of the family, or by their guests. Sometime, when it is convenient, -she and her husband will go to the church and be married by the priest. -Usually she has not seen her husband until she comes to his house, -since she is of another tribe and the marriage is arranged by the -families.</p> - -<p>“We have tried to prevent the betrothing of children before they are -born,” said the bishop, smiling ruefully, “and in many centuries we -have had some effect. Children now are usually not betrothed until -they are two or three years old. Even that we combat, of course, -yet I cannot say that the custom makes much unhappiness. Husbands -and wives are good comrades; they almost never quarrel and they are -devoted to their children. But you will see all that for yourself. Yet -occasionally there is something like this Shala-Shoshi affair, which -I fear will lead to much bloodshed. But the dinner is ready and my -servant will show you your room and bring water to wash your hands.”</p> - -<p>The servant led us to the bishop’s own bedroom,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> furnished by a -mattress laid on a raised platform of boards. Our saddlebags and -blankets had been piled on the rough wooden floor, and Rexh held the -torch while the bishop’s servant poured cold water from a wooden bucket -over our hands. Then he offered us a beautifully hand-woven towel of -red-and-white striped linen, and when we had dried our hands he led -us down a stone stairway, through a kitchen crowded with villagers, -where an old woman tended cooking pots over a fire built on the earthen -floor, and into the dining room.</p> - -<p>There was a long, rude table covered with hand-woven linen, rough -benches on each side of it. The bishop sat at its head, on a stool, and -served the soup. The Franciscan brother and a meek little priest in -black sat humbly near the foot of the table, and did not speak. There -was nothing in the stone-floored, plaster-walled room except the table, -the benches, and a rain-stained photograph on the discolored wall—a -picture of a gathering of Albanian priests, taken many years ago in -Tirana.</p> - -<p>“The feud between Shala and Shoshi looks very bad,” said the bishop. “I -fear there will be many deaths. We do what we can to prevent it, all -the authority of the Church is used against these feuds, but——”He -shrugged his shoulders. “It is their way of enforcing their law, the -Law of Lec, which has come down to them from prehistoric times. And the -Albanians are very tenacious of their own customs.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span></p> - -<p>He filled our glasses with red wine. “You must not mistake my people,” -he said. “The blood feud is bad, very bad, but it is their only way of -enforcing laws, which are, in general, admirable.</p> - -<p>“The blood feud is not a lawless thing, as strangers sometimes think. -Nor has it anything to do with personal strife or hate. It is a form -of capital punishment, such as all nations have, and it is governed by -most strict laws.</p> - -<p>“You must remember that in these mountains we have never been conquered -by foreign governments. The Roman Empire claimed to have overpowered -Albania, it is true, as later the Turks did, but neither Rome nor -Constantinople was able to send its government into these mountains. -The people live as they did before the days of Greece, except for the -influence of the Church. It is a simple, communistic society, without -private property or any organized government. The only law is the -moral law, enforced by tradition, by custom, and by common consent. -The father of the family becomes the chief of the tribe, but he has no -power that conflicts with the moral law, the ancient Law of Lec. There -is a tradition that all this group of tribes was once, long ago, given -this moral law by a man named Lec, but that is doubtless a myth added -to through the ages.</p> - -<p>“This Law of Lec is based on personal honor, which is also the honor of -the tribe. A man or a tribe must punish an insult to honor by killing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> -the man who has given it. Thus, if a member of a tribe is killed -unjustly by a man of another tribe; if a woman is stolen or injured or -affronted; if any part of the tribal property is stolen; if a man or a -tribe fails to keep a <i>besa</i> (a word of honor) in a matter of land -or war or marriage or irrigation—you will find excellent and admirable -irrigation systems here—then the crime is punished by death. But if -these crimes are committed against a member of the same tribe, then the -house of the guilty man is burned, and he is cast off by the tribe and -must go into the wilderness and live alone.</p> - -<p>“You will see this law working out in the case of Shala and Shoshi. -Last week a Shala man crossing the lands of Shoshi—the two tribes -having some time ago sworn a <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i> that they would keep the peace -between them—saw a woman of Shoshi on the trail. He said to himself -that he would like that woman for his son, who was unmarried, though -of marriageable age, because his betrothed had died in childhood. So -the man of Shala took the woman of Shoshi to his house for his son, and -there she is now.</p> - -<p>“Apparently,” said the bishop, dryly, “she did not make any outcry, -for her husband was in their house only a few yards away, and it is -a question whether she and the son had not previously arranged the -abduction. However, the husband was, of course, obliged to avenge his -honor, and he went at once to the heights above Shala and shot the -son. This was, according to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span> the Law, an unjustifiable murder, since -he should have killed the father who was the abductor. Therefore the -father waited on the trail above Shoshi and shot the husband.</p> - -<p>“It should have stopped there, but Shoshi’s honor is involved as long -as a woman of the tribe is held unlawfully in the hands of Shala. So -a hot-tempered Shoshi man has shot a man of Shala and it has become a -blood feud between the two tribes. As the woman was born in Pultit, -some say that Pultit’s honor is also involved. So you see that the -affair becomes complicated; I have been told by wise men that no less -than sixteen deaths will wipe out the insults on both sides. You -perhaps heard telephoning about it as you came in? The mountain sides -have been ringing with it. But what can one do? Excommunication, of -course. At every mass I tell my people that the anger of the Church -will descend on all who take part in the killings, but the Law of Lec -holds them, and it is, after all, their only civil law.”</p> - -<p>It took time to tell this, what with filling the glasses, serving the -food platters of delicious stewed rabbit and bowls of macaroni, a dish -the bishop had grown fond of in Rome—and then there were the cups of -syrupy Turkish coffee to be ceremoniously served and drunk, and for -hours, struggling with an agony of sleepiness, we had implored Perolli -in English to make our excuses and let us go to bed, he refusing -sternly, since it is the most terrible breach of mountain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> hospitality -for a guest to grow sleepy as early as midnight. But at one o’clock, -seeing Alex’s desperate eyes stony with the effort to keep them open, -and myself beholding at times two bishops, very small and far away, and -at times one, who loomed like a mountain, I managed in Latin to suggest -that we were tired. We had, I said—calling upon vagrant memories of -Cæsar and using both hands to illustrate—been walking and riding over -the trails since five the previous morning. The bishop was interested, -and asked my opinion of the mountains in comparison with those of -Switzerland and of the United States, and I hope I replied coherently.</p> - -<p>The rest I do not remember. Perolli says that I sat up straight, and -talked, though sometimes rather strangely. Frances and Alex were dumb, -he says, but smiled as though they were enjoying the conversation. How -was he to know that we were really tired? He thought we had been joking -about it.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0">THE STORY OF PIGEON AND LITTLE EAGLE—THE PREHISTORIC CITY OF POG, AND -THE TALE OF THE GOLDEN IMAGE—THE GENDARMES SING OF POLITICS.</p> -</div> - - -<p>I came back to full consciousness for an instant, stumbling up the -stairs, and gathered that we were going to bed. By the torchlight my -wrist watch said a quarter past two. Frances and Alex do not remember -even that. Rexh awakened us at eight by shaking us, and we were rolled -in blankets on the floor of the bishop’s room. Outside was the pouring -sound of a steady rain.</p> - -<p>As soon as we were fully roused the bishop’s servant brought us tiny -cups of Turkish coffee. That was breakfast. Afterward we rose with -groans, opened the heavy wooden shutters of the window space, and -looked out. Through a rain that poured almost as solidly as a waterfall -we saw a low-walled courtyard and a schoolhouse.</p> - -<p>Beyond the schoolhouse there lay some fifty miles of the wildest -beautiful mountain country—blue peaks, fifteen-hundred-foot slanting -rocks, soft pink and rose and purple and green; brighter green masses -of young foliage in the valleys, bronze-brown and bright-brown bare -forests<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span> above them, and here and there snow drifts flung up among -smoky-gray clouds. Thirty-two waterfalls I counted from that window, -veining the mountains with wandering streaks of silver. But our gaze -came back and fastened upon the school.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t know they had one in the mountains!” exclaimed Alex, thinking -of her Mountain School Fund. “I thought our school at Thethis would be -the first one!”</p> - -<p>“Padre Marjan certainly said so when he walked down to ask us for it,” -said Frances.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps this isn’t a school,” said I. Though it looked like one, the -little square stone house through whose open doorway we saw rows of -benches, and boys sitting on them, barefooted, wearing the long, tight, -white trousers braided with black that hang low on the hip bones, the -gorgeous sashes, and the short black jackets thick with fringe, that -were white centuries ago, but were changed to mourning when Scanderbeg -died for Albanian liberty.</p> - -<p>It was a school. The pale, meek priest in black, who is the bishop’s -ecclesiastical household, showed it to us with pride; he is the -teacher. The Turks and the Austrians had blocked all attempts to bring -schools into the mountains, he said, and the people, not knowing -that schools existed, were naturally not eager to have them. But now -the Land of the Eagle was said to be free, after so many centuries -of Turkish rule in the valleys, and refugee children who had fled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> -before the Serbs were coming back to their tribes and telling about -the American school in Scutari, so that all the people wanted their -children to learn to read and write. The chiefs themselves, hearing -that there was a Tirana government, and not being able to write or -read letters about it, or to learn from newspapers (oh, simple-minded, -mediæval people!) the truth about European politics, saw what education -meant.</p> - -<p>The people had taken rocks from the mountains and made the schoolhouse. -They had cut precious trees and made the benches and the desks. They -had made a slate of a slab of the native rock, set in a rough wooden -frame; they wrote upon it with softer rocks. From Italy, across -the Adriatic to Durazzo, up to Tirana, to Scutari, and into the -mountains—a two weeks’ journey by donkey and river ferry—the bishop -had got three copy books and a bottle of ink. Pens had been made from -twigs. The priest had one book printed in Albanian.</p> - -<p>Since the boys must herd the flocks in the mountains, they could not -spend the day in school. There is so little land that the goats and -sheep are fed from trees. The shepherd climbs a tree, carefully cuts -the tender branches, and throws them down to the nibbling beasts that -eat the young buds and strip off the juicy bark. There is no tree in -all the mountains that the shepherds have not climbed; not a tree that -is not a branchless, gnarled trunk.</p> - -<p>So the school was open from six to nine in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span> mornings, and the boys -came to it, some from ten, twelve, fifteen miles away, and after school -they walked back again and took out the flocks. The school had been -open six weeks; already the copy books were half filled with beautiful, -neat writing, and the boys not only read easily from their one book, -but had no difficulty with sentences that Perolli wrote on the slate.</p> - -<p>I asked the priest what I could send him from Paris, and his eyes -filled with tears as he asked, hesitating a little for fear it was -too much, if I could send just a little white paper and half a dozen -pencils. The ink was almost gone; they could make more from berries, -but he would like the boys to see pencils and learn how to use them. -And, of course, when the two copy books were filled, there would be no -more paper.</p> - -<p>Returning from the dusky schoolroom through the gray slant of the rain, -we found in the bishop’s house the most handsome man we had yet seen. -Tall and lithe, wearing the tight black jacket, scarlet sash, and snowy -woolen trousers braided in black, he amazed us by his animal beauty and -grace. His silver chain was of the finest pattern, a ring was on a hand -that might have been perfectly gloved on Fifth Avenue, and his quiet -air of the aristocrat would have made him remarkable in any company. -Beside him was a manly little boy perhaps seven years old. He wore with -the same grace a miniature copy of the mountain costume. His manners -were perfection of grave courtesy, his eyes were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> keen and intelligent, -and his frank smile was charming.</p> - -<p>They were father and son, come to arrange for the boy’s schooling. The -father spoke to the boy with the courtesy he would have used to an -equal, and the boy replied as one. There was such pride and love in -their eyes that it was beautiful to see them together. For a little -while the father spoke of his ambitions for his son; he hoped to be -able to send him to the American school in Tirana, he dreamed even of -a university in Europe. He was proud that he and the boy were mountain -men, but he wanted the boy to be wiser, more learned, than the mountain -life had let his father be.</p> - -<p>“I,” he said, “am Plum [Pigeon], but my son is Sokol [Eagle]. I gave -him that name because his wings shall be stronger, his eyes keener, and -his flight higher, than mine.”</p> - -<p>Having been thus presented to the bishop, Sokol knelt for a blessing, -Plum on one knee beside him. Then the two went across the courtyard -to the schoolhouse, and I shall not forget the two against the dusky -doorway, the father looking down at the boy, and the boy visibly -courageous and resolute before the mysteries he was facing.</p> - -<p>“Long may you live,” said the father. “Go on a smooth trail.”</p> - -<p>“Long may you live,” said the boy. “God take you safely home.” Then -he went into the schoolhouse, and Plum followed the trail toward the -mountains.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span></p> - -<p>“He is a good man, and brave,” said the bishop, “and little Sokol will -be a great one.”</p> - -<p>At noon the rain was still pouring from apparently inexhaustible skies, -but Cheremi, Rexh, and Perolli assumed, as a matter of course, that we -would go on; the difficulty was that there were no mules. There should -have been a mule in the village, whose houses were scattered, miles -apart, all the way down the deep-walled gorge to the banks of the River -Shala, twenty-five miles away, but when Cheremi hastened lightly up a -twelve-hundred-foot peak and cried to the farthest house that we wanted -mules, the answer came back that there were none since the war.</p> - -<p>So he found an aged man—seventy-five years old, he was, but still -agile and bright eyed—and put our packs on his back, and at noon we -started out on foot, with fresh-peeled staffs provided by Rexh, and -new-baked corn bread in the saddlebags.</p> - -<p>After an hour of desperate climbing we stood on the peak from which -Cheremi had telephoned. The bishop’s house and the school lay dwarfed -beneath our feet, and Perolli, standing on a rock and holding his ears, -sent down to them a shrill hail. “Ooeeoo! Monseignor!”</p> - -<p>The bishop appeared in his woolen gown, a rifle in his hand, and all -the guns in our party went off at once, and again, and again, while -fifty miles of sheer rock cliffs barked back at them. My hands were -over my ears, but I saw <span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>the three answering white puffs from the -bishop’s rifle, and while the echoes were dying, still repeating -themselves down the valley, we saw him hand it to his servant and -protect his ear-drums with his thumbs. His call came up to us, “Go on a -smooth trail!”</p> -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img003"> - <img src="images/003.jpg" class="w50" alt="AN OLD SHEPHERD" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p0 caption">AN OLD SHEPHERD<br />Wearing goatskin opangi on his feet, and trousers braided in his -tribal pattern.</p> - -<p>“Now,” said Perolli, thrusting his revolver back into its holster, “we -have said good-by to the bishop. <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Allons!</i>”</p> - -<p>“And to-night,” I said, joyously, “we’ll sleep in a native house.”</p> - -<p>Frances and Perolli did not seem enthusiastic about that hope, and as -we toiled up trails that were stairways of giant bowlders, or slid down -slopes of pale-green shale, above valleys where the clouds swirled -beneath us, the discussion continued fragmentarily.</p> - -<p>Frances’s reluctance I could ascribe to the shrieking of her muscles, -which, if tortured as mine had been by the previous day’s travel, must -be screaming with agony at her every step. But Perolli, true Albanian -in spite of his years of living in foreign capitals, was as fresh as -the crisp air that blew upon us between the gusts of driving rain. -He leaped up bowlders, he joined in the singing of the others, who, -with sixty-pound sacks on their backs, walked easily up the incredible -steeps, their thumbs at their ears, chanting songs of ancient battles -with the Turks.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you think it safe to stay in a native house?” said I, -remembering that he was an officer of the government traveling -incognito among unfriendly tribes, and that within sight<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span> were the -Albanian mountains held by the Serbs who had put a price on his head.</p> - -<p>“Safe?” said he, scornfully. “A man is always safe in another man’s -house. It has happened not once, but often, in these mountains, that a -man has given shelter to a hunted man and found, while the guest sat -at his fire, that he was harboring a man who had shot the son of the -house not an hour before. The neighbors bring in the body, and the -father sits beside it, with the murderer under his roof. And the father -gives him coffee and food and drink and rolls cigarettes for him, until -the guest is ready to go, and then he accompanies him for an hour’s -journey, so that none of the tribe can injure him, and says a courteous -farewell to him on the trail. ‘Go on a smooth road,’ he says. ‘There -is a word of peace between us for a day and a night because you are my -guest. After that I will follow you all my life, until I kill you.’”</p> - -<p>I began to see the exquisite, infinite complications of that system -of law and order, the Law of Lec, which guides these people in all -their actions, and I thought, “This goes back beyond the Middle Ages,” -remembering the old Bible stories of the time when men lived similarly, -under the laws of Moses.</p> - -<p>But already the sense of perspective in time was growing dim; we were -living in the past, not thinking of it, and the scores of future -centuries in which men would spread over Europe, invent private -property, build great cities and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span> empires, discover America, and invent -machines, became as faint to us as the old memory of a dream. By the -next day we had forgotten it all; two weeks later I was to come back -to a room with a rug on the floor, a window in the wall, a bed, and -a stove, and feel such a sense of strangeness among them that, tired -as I was, I could not sleep between the unfamiliar sheets. Now that -I am back in my own century, writing of those days in the Albanian -mountains, I understand why men so easily slip into the ancient -savagery of war and all war’s atrocities. All that we call civilization -is like a tune heard yesterday, a little thing floating on the surface -of our minds, which sometimes we can keep step to, and then in a moment -it is gone so that we cannot remember it.</p> - -<p>Upon the trail that day we were barbarians, simple and primitive; we -were isolated, small bits of warmth and energy in a hostile universe -of stone and rain. And when, out of the gray mist of the trail -ahead, another simple barbarian appeared, we greeted him with the -unquestioning acceptance of understanding. He was a man of Pultit, bare -in the rain save for turban, loin cloth, and opangi. He was bound for -the house of the bishop to bring back the boy Sokol, whose father was -dead.</p> - -<p>Standing around him in the rain, we listened to the news. Three days -earlier Plum had sheltered a woman who was leaving a cruel husband, a -man of Shoshi. She had slept beneath Plum’s roof one night on her way -to her father’s tribe.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span> That morning, as Plum returned after taking his -son to school, he had met the husband on the trail, and without a word -the husband had shot him down. But as he died Plum had managed to reach -his revolver and had killed the husband, saying, “This, from Sokol.” -And as Sokol was now the head of his family, he must return from school -to the house where the women were mourning his father.</p> - -<p>Cheremi thrice made the sign of the cross. “Plum was a good man,” he -said.</p> - -<p>“And loved his son,” Perolli added. For Plum with his last effort had -avenged himself, had closed the account. He left no blood feud to -darken the life of the little Eagle. The boy would be known as the son -of a hero, and to-day would take his place as a chief and a member of -all village councils.</p> - -<p>The man of Pultit, having told us this news and wished us long life -and smooth trails for our feet, went on down the mountain side, and -gripping our staffs tighter in water-soaked hands, we resumed our -climbing.</p> - -<p>We had begun that day with ponchos over our sweaters; our gendarmes had -begun it by taking off their jackets and trousers, so that the sluicing -rain would not wet them. These garments were in the packs, protected by -ponchos, and, barelegged, barearmed, with only the colored sashes about -their waists and cloths wound around their heads, the men went up and -down the interminable trails as easily as panthers. Now and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span> then they -stopped and, kneeling on the trail, reached down a hand to one of us, -pulling us up over unusually large and steep bowlders, and from time to -time, as we struggled and panted after them, they offered to carry us. -With the blood pounding in our heads, blinding and deafening us, our -lungs torn with gasping in our aching sides, we refused, and struggled -on. Our gloves had become sodden in a moment; we stripped them off, -and soon the ponchos which impeded our climbing followed them; and -then, as we were wet to the skin, anyway, we discarded sweaters and -began to long for the complete freedom of nakedness. At each step our -feet made a sucking sound in the water that filled our shoes, but the -exertion of climbing and sliding kept our bodies warm, and by degrees, -as suppleness returned to our stiff muscles, we began to see the magic -country around us. We stood on rocks from which we saw a hundred miles -of snow-tipped peaks, blue gorges, bronze-brown forests. White and -smoke-colored clouds swirled beneath us, and through rifts in them -we saw tiny green terraced fields, the blue hair line of water in -stone-walled irrigation ditches, and houses tiny as those on a relief -map, made of stone and almost indistinguishable from the native rocks, -as large as they, among which they were set.</p> - -<p>“I shall not be happy until I stay in one of them,” I said, and at that -moment we heard a hail from Cheremi, who stood on the trail thirty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> -feet above our heads. He gestured toward three cone-shaped peaks of -solid rock that, rising steeply from the gorge three thousand feet -below, rose to some hundreds of feet above the level of our eyes. -Little Rexh, silent and watchful as ever at Frances’s side, translated -his words.</p> - -<p>“There is an old city,” he said, “the city of Pog. He says it was built -by his people, men of the Land of the Eagle, a hundred years before the -Romans came.”</p> - -<p>“Tell him to wait where he is,” we exclaimed, for, looking again at the -nearest cone-shaped mountain, we saw on its top traces of old walls, -and on its sides what might once have been a circling road, and we -clambered up the trail to ask Cheremi about it.</p> - -<p>“It is a very old city,” said Cheremi. “It was built before men began -to remember.” Standing on the edge of the trail, which was also the -edge of the gorge, he looked over perhaps a quarter of a mile of space -to the sharp-pointed peak of rock. In one hand he held his rifle, its -butt resting on the rock at his feet; the thumb of the other hand was -thrust through a fold of the scarlet sash about his loins, and the sun, -appearing blindingly at that moment in a rent of the clouds, shone on -his wet white skin and made it shimmer like satin. The deep seams worn -in his leathery face by forty years of childlike, mischievous mirth -became shallow (an unaccustomed look of solemnity had ironed them out) -and, looking straight and unwinking at the sun, he said, “The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span> sun is -now the only living thing that saw that city built.”</p> - -<p>We shaded our eyes with cupped hands and looked at it. The world was -suddenly all aglitter, every leaf a heliograph, every giant slope of -rock reflecting a thousand rays, and our eyes watered. But, gazing -steadily, we saw the fragment of a wall, and below it, curling around -the tall, slender cone of the mountain, traces of a road that had -been walled, and a broken flight of four broad steps, torn apart -by the roots of a tree. It was the only tree we could see on the -three-thousand-foot height, but, like all the others of the forests, it -was a gnarled, branchless trunk; its young boughs had been cut every -spring to feed the goats.</p> - -<p>“Does anyone live there now?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Cheremi. “It is the place where the ora love to sit, and -sometimes one hears them crying, like trees in a wind, when there is no -wind. But no human person lives there.”</p> - -<p>“What is an ora?” I asked, when Perolli had translated.</p> - -<p>“An ora—a spirit of the forest, soul of a tree or a rock. Nature -spirits,” said Frances. “You know the Greek oreads? Well, that’s the -Greek name of the Albanian ora; the Greeks got them from the Albanians.”</p> - -<p>“And they still live in these mountains?”</p> - -<p>“Apparently. Did you ever see an ora, Cheremi?” she asked him, in -Albanian.</p> - -<p>“No. Very few people see them. But I have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span> heard them singing, and -once, in the Wood of the Ora, which we will pass to-morrow, I heard -them talking together in the twilight. I heard them say that my cousin -would die,” said Cheremi, seriously.</p> - -<p>“And did he die?”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” said he, surprised by the question. “He was a strong man, -but within six weeks, sitting beside the fire one night, he said that -he felt a pain in his heart, and in an hour he was dead.” Cheremi -crossed himself.</p> - -<p>“But about the city of Pog. Does anyone ever go there? Could we go -there?”</p> - -<p>People sometimes went, he said; the shepherds always went to cut the -branches of the trees, which belonged to the tribe of Pultit. How far -was it from where we stood? He thought for a time, and said, “Four -hours.” Albanians have no measure for distance except the time it takes -to walk it, and this time corresponds with no measurement of ours. He -had said that our walk of that day would be an hour and a half; we had -already been exhausting every ounce of energy and breath for four, and -were scarcely a third of the way.</p> - -<p>“What does one find when one gets there?”</p> - -<p>“Very little. There is the old wall which you see, and on the rock one -can follow the lines of the walls of houses, built square and with many -rooms, and from the rocks which have fallen they must have been tall -houses. That is all, except that on some of the large stones one can<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span> -see that the sun circle was carved. Everything else has been eaten by -the great flocks of years. But there is still treasure buried there.”</p> - -<p>“How do you know?”</p> - -<p>“I know because I have seen men who have seen it. There is a man of -Pultit whom I know. He went to the old city of Pog one day with his -goats. There had been a great storm and part of the wall had fallen. -Before that day the wall had had a corner, where now you see nothing. -Where the wall had fallen there was a golden image of a man, as large -as himself, shining in the sun. The man of Pultit forgot his goats in -looking at it. It was too heavy for him to carry, so he took a stone -and broke off four of its fingers, and with them in his sash he went to -get his brothers to help him carry away the image.</p> - -<p>“But it was night before he reached their house, and they said it was -better not to go to that city until morning. In the morning they went, -and where the image had been there was nothing but stones. Afterward, -in thinking of nothing but that image, the man went mad, and he now -lives alone and naked in the mountains, talking to the ora and begging -them to take him again to that image. But before that he sold the -fingers to the gold beaters in Scutari, and they said those fingers -were of the purest gold and not alloyed, as gold is now. I did not see -the fingers, but many did before they were beaten into ornaments.”</p> - -<p>“What do you think became of the image?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span></p> - -<p>“Doubtless it had a bird or snake for guardian, and that spirit came -and took it away again,” said Cheremi, and Perolli explained that when -one buries a treasure one calls to some creature of the woods and -intrusts the hoard to its care. “O spirit of the small gray serpent -with poison in thy tooth, guard for me this treasure. Let no man see -it for ten times ten years, and then deliver it only to those of my -family,” would be a simple formula, but usually more imagination is -used. For instance, Perolli knew of a man who called the large magpie -to watch him bury his treasure, and he said to the bird, “Let no one -uncover this gold until two black mice have dragged three times around -this tree a carriage made of an acorn cup, with a small mouse in it.” -But his incantation was overheard, and the crafty neighbor caught and -dyed and trained the mice and made the carriage, and had them drag -it three times around the tree, after which the magpie gave up the -treasure. Otherwise it would have disappeared when a hand was laid upon -it.</p> - -<p>“But does Cheremi really believe these things?” I asked myself, and, -looking at his serious face and Perolli’s, I was struck with the -startling idea that Perolli believed them, too, in spite of his English -suit and European education, and I felt in my own mind something like -a soft landslide, uncovering possibilities of wild beliefs in myself. -“Anything can happen in the mountains of Albania,” I said, picking up -my staff and rising, for the shadows of the western mountains were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span> -already climbing up the cone-shaped pinnacle of Pog.</p> - -<p>We went on, up and down the trail, over mountain after mountain that -at home no one would dream of climbing. The rain fell again, bringing -premature night down with the flood of water, and again we came into -clear weather and saw all the colors of sunset on the clouds below and -around us.</p> - -<p>Many times we passed above villages that clung like mud-daubers’ nests -on the cliffs below the trail, and once Cheremi stopped at the trail’s -edge and, closing his ears firmly with his thumbs, sent out into the -interminable miles of air the clear high note of the “telephone call.”</p> - -<p>A voice from the depths responded, and, searching with our eyes, we -discovered a white-and-black figure among the rocks some hundreds of -feet below. Then this conversation ensued:</p> - -<p>“Are you a man?”</p> - -<p>“I am a woman of Shoshi, married in Pultit.”</p> - -<p>“What is the name of your husband?”</p> - -<p>“The name of my husband is Lulash.”</p> - -<p>“Say to your husband, Lulash, that Cheremi is on the trail. Cheremi -goes to Plani with four strangers from far away and with a Mohammedan -youth of Scutari. To-night Cheremi will be in Plani. Say to Lulash that -he may bring to Cheremi in Plani the hundred kronen which he owes him.”</p> - -<p>“I will say to my husband, Lulash, that Cheremi is on the trail. -Cheremi goes to Plani<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> with four strangers from far away and with a -Mohammedan youth of Scutari. To-night Cheremi will be in Plani. I will -say to Lulash that he may bring to Cheremi in Plani the hundred kronen -which he owes him.”</p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Oo-ee-oo-oo!</span>” The final shrill call came circling back among -the peaks like ripples of disturbed water, and up through its circling -came the answering call of the woman. Since he had been telephoning to -a woman, Cheremi did not fire his rifle three times, for which my ears -were grateful.</p> - -<p>We went on. And once, as I clambered up the side of a rock pile that -the child of a giant might have made in building a tower with blocks, -my staff (ah, how grateful I was for that third leg!) dislodged a -stone the size of my head, and Cheremi, turning like a cat, flung -himself downward and caught it as it tottered on the trail’s edge. -Then I looked and saw, far below, the miniature images of a woman and -a cradle, set among moving white spots that were sheep, and I saw that -the rock would have gone down the slope like a bomb from an airplane -and struck the cradle beside which the woman was sitting, and, I -thought, spinning.</p> - -<p>“One must be careful on the trails,” said Cheremi, and as the men -at that moment had finished a song with a joyous fusillade of rifle -shots, I asked if people were not sometimes killed by stray bullets. -Perolli said that of course it happened now and then, but everyone -understood<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span> that the killing was an accident and it caused no blood -feud. Accidents, he remarked, will happen anywhere, and he spoke of the -death toll of automobiles, which at that moment seemed as far from my -knowledge as the twenty centuries that separated us from them.</p> - -<p>“Through the Land of the Eagle the news is sung,” the second gendarme -began a new song, thumbs against his ears and sixty-pound pack on his -back, as he ascended the rocks above us. Cheremi took it up, repeating -each line as the other improvised it, and under his breath Rexh -translated them for me, storing them away in his memory, from which -I later transferred them to my notebook. As I listened I glanced at -Rrok Perolli, disguised servant of the new government about which they -were making the song, but his face wore a cheerful and unconcerned -expression, like a mask so perfect that it seems real.</p> - -<p>“Through the Land of the Eagle the news is sung——(It has a double -rhyme as they sing it, Mrs. Lane, but I do not know the English to make -it rhyme in your language),” said Rexh, apologetically.</p> - -<p class="poetry p0"> -“What have the men of Tirana been doing?<br /> -I am a son of the mountain eagles;<br /> -I do not give up my nest while there is life in my claws;<br /> -I do not yield to the gendarmes!<br /> -I will drown them in their own blood.<br /> -Rise, rise, and go to the door.<br /> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>There is a sergeant with twenty soldiers.<br /> -Ho! Ho! Sergeant, I am not the man you think!<br /> -I will not bow and be led to the slaughter.<br /> -I will not be killed like a lamb for the men of Tirana,<br /> -I am a goat and will fight!”<br /> -</p> - -<p>“What do they mean about sergeants and soldiers?” I asked Perolli, and -he said, “These tribes do not understand that the new government in -Tirana is an all-Albanian government. They don’t think as a nation; -they think as tribes. They think the government is a Tirana government, -trying to destroy their liberty as the Romans and the Turks and the -Austrians and Italians and the Serbs and the Greeks and the Peace -Council tried to do. They know that the Peace Conference in Paris -arranged to divide Albania into three parts, giving one to Greece, one -to Italy, and one to Jugo-Slavia (and would have done it if Greece -and Serbia had been strong enough at the moment to grab a third of a -hornets’ nest and if we hadn’t driven out Italy). They know there is -a connection between the Peace Conference and the League of Nations, -so, now that the Albanian government is a member of the League, they -think that the men of Tirana have joined their enemies. They were so -dangerous that we had to send soldiers up here to burn the houses of -the Shala chiefs. But everything will be all right as soon as we can -get the government going and begin building schools and roads up here. -They just don’t understand yet.”</p> - -<p>Political discussion was cut short by one of the men who had run ahead -a few miles to inform the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span> village of Plani that we were coming, and -who now popped out of the gathering darkness to announce that the -priest refused to receive us in his house.</p> - -<p>“The macaroni!” cried our men, with a contempt like vitriol. The priest -was of Italian blood; no Albanian would have been such a dog, they -said. And we sat down on the mountain side to consider what we should -do.</p> - -<p>“Why won’t the priest take us in?” I asked, shivering in my wet -garments, for night had brought chill down from the snow-covered peaks -above us. They were still pale fawn color and pink where the clouds -left them unhidden, but the valleys were black, and far away on some -distant slope there was a small light, red as a ruby—the flare from a -charcoal burner’s fire.</p> - -<p>“He says he has no servant,” replied the man who had run ahead to tell -the priest that we were coming, and even Cheremi, the joyous gendarme, -snorted aloud.</p> - -<p>“Priest though he is, he is a macaroni!” and, “Only a macaroni would -so disgrace our villages!” the Albanians exclaimed, shamed before the -strangers by such incredible inhospitality.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps he knows who you are and is afraid to take us in?” I said to -Perolli.</p> - -<p>“No. He doesn’t know who we are, and is afraid to shelter strangers who -may be Serbian or English spies. Cowardly Italian!” said Perolli.</p> - -<p>“My house,” Cheremi volunteered, hopefully, “is only across two -mountain ranges. You would be welcome there.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0">WELCOME TO THE HOUSE OF MARKE GJONNI—WE HEAR THE VOICE OF AN OREAD—A -GUARDIAN SPIRIT OF THE TRAILS.</p> -</div> - - -<p>Concealed by the darkness, we lay back in our wet clothes on the wet -rocks and shook with smothered laughter. How Albanian! While Perolli -with a hundred honeyed words made excuses for the feebleness of foreign -women, already weary with only sixteen miles of mountain climbing. He -was still explaining when up the trail came the flare of a torch, and -an Albanian boy of perhaps fourteen years appeared, a turban on his -head, a rifle on his back, and a silver-hilted knife stuck through his -orange sash.</p> - -<p>“May you live long!” said he.</p> - -<p>“May you live long!” said we.</p> - -<p>“How could you?” He meant, “How could you get here?”</p> - -<p>“Slowly, slowly, little by little,” we replied.</p> - -<p>“Are you a man?” said Perolli.</p> - -<p>“I am a man of Pultit, of the village of Plani, of the house of Marke -Gjonni,” said the boy. “In our house there is always a welcome for the -stranger. The door of the house of Marke Gjonni is open to you.”</p> - -<p>“Glory to your lips and to your feet,” said<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span> Perolli, and to us in -English: “His father has sent him to ask us to come to his house. What -do you think?”</p> - -<p>“Is anyone going to think?” we cried. “There’ll be a fire, won’t there?”</p> - -<p>We followed the boy up the mountain side, our lungs sobbing and our -feet slipping on the trail dimly lighted by the torch, and so steep -that the palms of our hands were bruised by climbing it. Out of the -ceaseless swishing murmur of falling water that had surrounded us all -day one note rose above the rest; flying spray was like a mist on our -faces; we were following the edge of a waterfall hidden by the dark. -Then the trail turned; we stood on a level ledge; and suddenly all the -rifles in the world seemed to go off not ten feet away.</p> - -<p>“It’s all right!” Perolli’s shout came up from the darkness beneath -our feet. “They’re only welcoming you!” But I have never felt so -defenseless, so nakedly exposed to sudden death, as I did standing -there, clutching Frances and Alex, while sharp flashes darted out of -the blackness and deafening explosions contended with more deafening -echoes. All the household of Marke Gjonni stood on the trail, every -man firing his rifle until it was empty. Then a woman appeared with a -torch, her beautiful face and two heavy braids of hair painted on the -darkness like a Rembrandt, if Rembrandt had ever used a model from -ancient Greece, and we made our way through a jumble of greetings (“May -you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span> live long! May you live long!” we repeated), and up a flight of -stone steps along the side of a blank stone wall, and through a low, -arched stone doorway.</p> - -<p>The stone-walled room was large—as large as the house itself—and low -ceilinged, and filled with shadows. Near the farther end, on the stone -floor, a bonfire burned in a ring of ashes. In the corner near the door -several goats and two kids and two sheep stopped their browsing on a -heap of dry-leaved branches, and looked at us with large eyes shining -in the torchlight. Five or six women came out of the shadows to greet -us, and behind us the men were coming in, reloading their rifles, -hanging them on pegs, closing and bolting the heavy wooden door.</p> - -<p>Rexh and our two gendarmes were already busy unrolling the packs, -spreading our blankets over heaps of dried grass on the other side of -the fire. In a moment we were sitting comfortably on them, extending -wet feet toward the flames, while one of our hosts put a fresh armful -of brush on the coals, another hacked slivers of pitch pine from a -great knot of it and set them blazing in a small wrought-iron basket -that hung from the ceiling, and another, with hollowed-out wooden bowls -of coffee, of sugar, and of water around him, began making Turkish -coffee in a tiny, long-handled iron bowl set in the hot ashes.</p> - -<p>“We’re going to have a night in a native house, after all,” said I, -happily, and added, starting, “What’s that?” A long, thin, curiously -unearthly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span> sound—hardly a wail, though that is the dearest word I have -for it—was abroad in the night that surrounded the stone house. Even -the shadows seemed to crouch a little nearer the fire, hearing it, -and when it ceased the splashing of the waterfall was louder in the -stillness. Then the man with the coffee pot pushed it farther among the -coals, and with the little grating noise the movement of the household -recovered and went on.</p> - -<p>“Are you a man?” said our host, courteously, turning his clear dark -eyes on Perolli, and Perolli, silencing me with a glance, folded his -arms more comfortably around his drawn-up knees and began the proper -conversation of a guest.</p> - -<p>By degrees the house of Marke Gjonni grew clearer to our eyes; they -became accustomed to the firelight and the shadows and saw the guns -hanging on the wall, the browsing goats that, with a little tinkling of -bells, worried and tore at the dried green leaves on the oak branches -heaped for them, the outlines of a painted wooden chest filled with -corn meal, at which a woman worked making a loaf of bread on a flat -board. One of the men raked out some coals and set in them a round -flat iron pan on legs—the cross and the sun circle were wrought on -its bottom. In the midst of the flames he laid its cover to heat. Soon -the woman came with the bread, a loaf two feet across and two inches -thick, and deftly slid it from the board into the pan, which it exactly -fitted; one of the children put the cover over it and buried all in hot -ashes.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span></p> - -<p>There were ten or twelve children—little girls half naked, with -serious, beautiful faces and long-lashed brown eyes; small boys -dignified in little long tight trousers of white wool beautifully -braided in black, short fringed black jackets, and colored sashes -and turbans like those of their fathers. Two cradles stood near the -fire, covered tightly over high footboards and headboards with heavy -blankets; presently a woman partly uncovered one and, kneeling, offered -her breast to the tiny baby tied down in it. Only the baby’s puckered -little face showed; arms and legs tightly bound, it lay motionless and -uncomplaining, and when it was fed the mother kissed it tenderly and -covered it again, carefully smoothing the many folds of thick wool and -tucking the ends tightly beneath the cradle.</p> - -<p>Meantime Cheremi was taking off our shoes and stockings and bathing -our feet in cold water brought by one of the women. This was proper, -since when guests arrive the member of the family nearest to them by -ties of blood or affection acts as their servant, and Cheremi, being -an Albanian who knew us, was judged to stand in that position. By the -time we had drawn on dry woolen stockings from our packs the first cup -of coffee was ready. To the boiling water in the tiny pot the coffee -maker added two spoonfuls of the powdered coffee, two of sugar, stirred -the mixture till it foamed, and poured it into a handleless little cup -which he offered Perolli. But Perolli indicated me, and without the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span> -slightest revelation of his surprise the host changed his gesture.</p> - -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img004"> - <img src="images/004.jpg" class="w50" alt="RROK PEROLLI" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p0 caption">RROK PEROLLI</p> - -<p>“Beauty and good to you,” said I, in Albanian, prompted by Perolli, and -when I had drunk the thimbleful, “Good trails!” said I, handing back -the cup. For this is the manner in which one drinks coffee. Do not make -the mistake, when next you are in the Albanian mountains, of saying the -same things when you are offered rakejia. For rakejia there is a quite -different form of courtesies. And as soon as the coffee cup, rinsed -and refilled with freshly made coffee, has been given to each guest in -turn, you will be offered rakejia.</p> - -<p>Alex and Frances and I looked at one another, but we drained the large -goblet of colorless liquid fire in turn, without a word of protest. It -might have been the water that it looked like, so far as it affected -our minds or tongues, for I continue to ascribe to the fire warmth -and the blessed sensation of resting after those trails the sense of -contentment that filled us all.</p> - -<p>“Strange,” I said, for I still dimly remembered another way of life, as -though, perhaps, I had sometime dreamed it, “chimneys that don’t draw -make so much smoke in a room, yet here there is no chimney and a large -fire, and we don’t notice the smoke.” And, leaning back on the piled -blankets, I gazed up at the pale-blue clouds of it, rising beyond the -firelight into a velvety darkness overhead. But I really felt that I -had always lived thus, shut off by stone walls from the mountains and -the night, ringed around by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span> friendly familiar faces, smelling the -delicious odor of corn bread baking and hearing the tinkling bells of -goats.</p> - -<p>“Where is America?” said our hosts, and: “How large are your tribes? -Do they have villages like ours, and mountains? Do you raise corn? How -many donkey loads do you raise to a field, and what is your method of -cultivating the soil? Have you stone ditches for carrying water from -the rivers to the fields?” Rousing ourselves, we tried to give them in -words a picture of our cities; we told of horses made of iron, fed by -coal, snorting black clouds of smoke and racing at great speeds for -long distances on roads made of iron; and I told of the irrigation -systems of California’s valleys, and Oregon’s; of orchards plowed by -steel-shod plows; of great machines as large as houses, cutting grain -on the plains of Kansas; of mountain streams like Albanian mountain -streams, which we harness as one might harness a donkey, and how their -invisible strength is carried unseen on wires for many, many long -hours—as far as an Albanian could walk in two days—and used to turn -wheels far away.</p> - -<p>Resting comfortably on their heels around the fire, they listened -as one would listen to a traveler from Mars, the men opening silver -tobacco boxes and deftly rolling cigarettes for us, the women spinning, -the children—each given its space in the circle—propping little chins -on beautiful, delicate hands and listening wide eyed. The questions -they asked—and the elders were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> as courteous to the children’s -curiosity as the children were to theirs—were keen and intelligent, -but when it came to explaining electricity I was as helpless as they -and could answer only with vague indications of some strange unknown -force which we use without understanding it.</p> - -<p>A woman, barefooted, barearmed, graceful as a sculptor’s hope of a -statue, lifted the cover from the baking-pan, crossed herself, made the -sign of the cross over the hot loaf, and took it up. Stooping, with the -smoking golden disk between her hands, she stopped, suddenly struck -motionless. The long, strange cry came again through the darkness, like -a voice of the wind and the mountains and the night.</p> - -<p>“Look here, Perolli,” said I, my stretched nerves unexpectedly relaxing -into the kind of anger that is part of fear, “what is that? Don’t be an -idiot! Tell me!”</p> - -<p>“It is an ora, if you must know,” said Perolli, and he looked at me -defiantly, as though he expected me to laugh.</p> - -<p>“An ora!” said Frances, sitting up. The strange, unearthly call came -again, very far away this time; we strained our ears to hear it. Then -silence and the roaring of the river. The turbaned men in the circle of -firelight, who had understood the word, nodded.</p> - -<p>“Holy crickets! Rose Lane, we’re actually hearing an oread!” Frances -exclaimed. And Alex said: “Oh no! Undoubtedly there is some natural -explanation.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span></p> - -<p>“How do you know there isn’t what you call a natural explanation for an -oread?” Frances demanded, and the wild notion crossed my mind that if -Perolli had not been with fellow sharers of the blessings of Western -civilization he would have been crossing himself instead of lighting -another cigarette. Little Rexh, in his red fez, spoke earnestly: “Do -not believe there are no ora or devils in these mountains, Mrs. Lane. -There are very many of them.”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” said I, and I do not know how much I believed it and how -much I assumed that I did, in order to encourage our hosts to talk. “Do -you often see ora in this village?” I said across the fire to the many -intelligent, watching eyes, and Rexh picked up our words and turned -them into Albanian or English as we talked.</p> - -<p>“We do not see the ora,” said a tall man with many heavy silver chains -around his neck. “Do you see the ora in your country?”</p> - -<p>“I do not think they live in the West,” said I. “I think that they -are very old, like the Albanians, and, like you, do not leave their -mountains. This is the first time I have ever been where they live, and -I should like to meet one.” But I doubt if I should have said that if I -had been outside those solid stone walls.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you will hear them talking when you go through the Wood of the -Ora,” said a woman whose three-year-old daughter was going to sleep in -her lap.</p> - -<p>“Very few people have seen them,” said the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span> coffee maker, licking a -cigarette and placing his left hand on his heart as he offered it to -me. I fitted it into my cigarette holder; he lifted a burning twig from -the fire and lighted it. “Now my father was accompanied by an ora all -his life, but he was the only one who saw it, and he told no one about -it until just before he died.”</p> - -<p>“Did he ever talk with her?”</p> - -<p>“No, but she always walked before him on every safe trail. He was -sixteen when he first saw her; he was watching the goats in the -mountains. She appeared before him, standing on the trail. He said -that he knew at once that she was not of our kind, because she was so -beautiful. She was about twelve years old, wearing clothing not like -ours, but of a white and shining material—my father said that it was -like mist and it was like silk and it was like fire, but he could not -say what it was like. Her hair was golden. She stood on the trail and -with her hand she made a sign to him to stop, and he stopped, and they -looked at each other for a long time. Then he spoke to her, but she did -not answer. She was not there. And my father went on, and found on the -trail he would have taken a great rock that had just fallen, and he -knew that the ora had saved his life.</p> - -<p>“He came home, and said nothing. The next morning when he went out with -the goats the ora was waiting outside the door, and she went before him -all that day. Always after that, whenever he left the house, she went -before him on the trails.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span></p> - -<p>“My father was a strong man and very wise; he married and had many -children; he fought the Turks and the Austrians and the Serbs and the -Italians. He had a good life. But he never went anywhere unless the ora -went before him. In the morning when he left the house, if she was not -there he returned and sat by the fire that day. Often on the trails he -was with many people, but none but him ever saw the ora. She remained -always the same, always the size of a twelve-year-old child, always -very beautiful, shining white and with golden hair.</p> - -<p>“When she turned aside on the trail, my father turned also, and the -people did as he did, though he did not say why. My father was known -as a very wise man. Many times he saved the lives of many people by -following the ora.”</p> - -<p>Several of the older men in the intently listening circle shook their -heads, as though they remembered this, and when I asked them with my -eyes they said, “<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">Po! Po!</i>” which means, “Yes.”</p> - -<p>“When my father was sixty-five years old, strong and healthy, one day -the ora did not come. She did not come the next day, nor the next, nor -the next, for many days. Then my father knew that she would not come -again and that it was his time to die. So he arranged all his affairs -and died. Just before he died he told us about the ora; he told us -so that we would know why he was making ready for death, and it was -because his ora had left him.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0">THE UNEARTHLY MARRIAGE OF THE MAN OF IPEK—FIRST NIGHT IN A NATIVE -ALBANIAN HOUSE.</p> -</div> - - -<p>There was a moment of contemplative silence. Beyond the circle of -firelight the goats still tore and worried the dried leaves from the -oak branches. A woman came leisurely forward and put an iron pan on -the coals. When it was hot she brought scraps of pork and laid them in -it. Rexh, the little Mohammedan, turned his head so that he should not -smell that unclean meat. Frances said to Perolli, in a ravenous voice, -“How much longer will it be before we can eat?”</p> - -<p>He looked at her reprovingly. “In Albania it is not polite to care -about food.”</p> - -<p>“But it’s past midnight and we’ve had nothing to eat since noon!” -Frances mourned.</p> - -<p>“Slowly, slowly, little by little,” said Perolli, soothingly. For -myself, I curled more comfortably among the blankets, too contented to -ask for anything at all. It was as though I had returned to a place -that I knew long ago and found myself at home there. I had forgotten -that these people are living still in the childhood of the Aryan race -and that I am the daughter of a century that is, to them, in the far -and unknown<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span> future. Twenty-five centuries had vanished, for me, as -though they had never been.</p> - -<p>“That lady ora was no doubt betrothed to one of her own people,” said a -man who had not previously spoken. “Now in my lost country of Ipek—may -the Serbs who are murdering her feel our teeth in their throats!—I -know a man who was married to an ora.”</p> - -<p>A woman, barefooted, wearing a skirt of heavy black and white wool, a -wide, silver-studded leather belt and a blouse of sheer white, her two -thick black braids of hair falling from beneath a crimson headkerchief -almost to her knees, came out of the shadows beyond the fire and -lowered from her shoulder a beautifully shaped wooden jar of water. She -held it braced against her hip, and, stooping, poured a thin stream -over our outstretched hands. We laved them, the water sinking into the -ashes around the fire, and another woman handed us each a towel of -hand-woven red-and-white-plaided linen. Then we sat expectantly, but -only a wooden bowl of cheese was set on the floor before us.</p> - -<p>It was goat’s-milk cheese, rather like the cottage cheese of home, -except that it was hard, cut in cubes, and of an acrid, sourish flavor. -We each took a piece, nibbled it.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Perolli, can’t you tell them we’re starving? It’s almost one -o’clock in the morning!” cried Frances, pathetically.</p> - -<p>“Be patient,” said Perolli. “How many times<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span> must I say that it isn’t -polite in Albania to be so greedy?”</p> - -<p>“But it’s eleven hours since any of us had a bite!” Frances protested. -“Don’t tell me Cheremi and our other men aren’t starving.”</p> - -<p>“Albanians don’t care so much about food,” said Perolli. “I’m not -hungry.” He lit another cigarette, and, seeing the circle of politely -incurious but keen eyes fixed on us, I said, “Tell them that we are -very much interested in the story about the ora, and that we want to -hear about the man who married one.” And I surreptitiously prodded -Alex, who, sitting bolt upright with her eyes open, was obviously -asleep with fatigue.</p> - -<p>The man who had spoken of that unearthly marriage rolled and licked -a cigarette, offered it to Alex with his hand on his heart, rolled -himself another, lighted both with a blazing twig, settled comfortably -on his heels, and began.</p> - -<p>“This man was my friend, well known to me and to all the families of -Ipek. A strong man, a good fighter, and respected by all. But his life -was not complete, for the girl his father had chosen for him had died, -and he was not married. There were many girls he might have had, girls -of Montenegro and even of Shala and Shoshi and Kossova, but he said -that he did not wish to marry. He came to his thirty-seventh year and -was not married.</p> - -<p>“One night he was sitting alone in his house, making a cup of coffee -in the ashes of the fire, when the door opened. He looked, and there -was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span> a woman who had come out of the darkness. She was no woman of our -tribe, nor of any other tribe of man, though she was dressed like our -women. My friend looked at her and said to himself that he had never -known women could be so beautiful. Men could be as beautiful as that, -yes, but not women. And he knew, though he did not know how he knew, -that she was not of our kind.</p> - -<p>“He said to her, ‘Long life to you!’ and she replied, ‘And to you long -life!’ She came and sat by his fire, and he gave her the cup of coffee -one gives a guest. She drank it and returned the cup to him, saying, -‘Good trails to your feet!’ Then they looked at each other for some -time without speaking.</p> - -<p>“Then she said to him, ‘Am I not beautiful?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ She -said to him, ‘Have you ever seen a woman more beautiful?’ And he said, -‘No.’ And after she had been silent for a long time she said to him, -‘Will you marry me?’ And he said, ‘No.’</p> - -<p>“She said to him, ‘Do you think you will find a woman more beautiful -than I?’ He looked at her between the eyes and said, ‘I know that I -shall never see a woman so beautiful.’ She said, ‘Then will you marry -me?’ And he said, ‘No.’</p> - -<p>“‘Why will you not marry me?’ she asked, and he said, ‘I do not wish -to marry.’ So for a time they sat silent, and then she said, ‘Do not -forget me,’ and went away.</p> - -<p>“He told me these things, and I said to him, ‘She was an ora.’ He said, -‘Yes, I know.’ I said,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span> ‘Was she a gypsy ora?’ For, as you know, there -are two kinds of ora, and if she were a gypsy ora I would have been -troubled for my friend. He said, ‘No, she was a lady ora.’ We spoke no -more about it.</p> - -<p>“Three years went by, to a day, and again it happened that my friend -was sitting alone in his house, making a cup of coffee in the ashes of -the fire, when again the door opened.”</p> - -<p>The man of Ipek stopped speaking, opened his silver tobacco box, and -put a pinch of the long, fine, golden tobacco on a cigarette paper. He -spread it carefully, twisted it into the cone shape of the Albanian -cigarette, glanced at us to see that none of our cigarette holders were -empty, and placed the white slender cone between his lips. He lighted -it and drew several deliberate puffs. No one spoke. There was the red -circle of firelight, the graceful black and white and colored figures -huddled close to it, around us the shadows of the house, and beyond -them the vast, murmurous blackness of the night and the mountains; the -chill and mystery of them seemed to be pressing against the stone walls -that kept them out, and the sound of the waterfall was like the sighing -breaths of strange, wild things.</p> - -<p>“My friend was sitting by his fire, like this, but he was alone. It -was the third coming of that day of the year on which the ora had come -out of the darkness, and when again the door opened he knew, without -turning to see, who it was.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span></p> - -<p>“She came in, and he turned and said, ‘Long life to you!’ Then he saw -that with her was a manservant, and that manservant was of her own -kind. She said to my friend, ‘And to you long life!’ She sat by the -fire, and he gave her coffee, and she drank, and the manservant stood -in the shadows behind them.</p> - -<p>“‘Have you forgotten me?’ she said, and my friend said, ‘No.’ They -looked at each other, and she said, ‘Am I not beautiful?’ And he said, -‘Yes.’ Then she leaned close to him and said, ‘Will you marry me?’ And -he said, ‘No.’</p> - -<p>“When he said that she rose, and she was more beautiful angry than she -had been before. She said: ‘Come with me. My father wishes to see you.’</p> - -<p>“He said, ‘What have I to do with your father?’</p> - -<p>“She said, ‘Come with me.’</p> - -<p>“My friend did not know why he went, or how he went, or where he went. -They came to a place in the mountains, but it was a strange place, and -strange mountains—my friend could not describe that place. It was a -place in our mountains, but such a place as no man had ever seen. There -were trees that were alive; it was all my friend could say. There were -many souls of trees about him, and they were ora, and among them was -their king, who is the king of the ora. He stood before the king of the -ora.</p> - -<p>“The king looked at him and said, ‘Will you marry my daughter?’ And he -said, ‘No.’</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span></p> - -<p>“The king said to him:‘My daughter has seen you. My daughter wishes to -be your wife. She will be a good wife to you. She will bring you great -happiness. She is my daughter, a lady ora.’</p> - -<p>“My friend said: ‘I thank you. Your daughter is very beautiful and very -good. But I do not wish to marry.’</p> - -<p>“The king of the ora said, ‘If you will marry my daughter you will have -all the heart desires. I will make you rich in the things that men call -riches in the Land of the Eagle.’</p> - -<p>“My friend said: ‘I am a poor man. I am not a bey of the south, of the -land of the Toshk, but I am a Gheg, a man of the mountains. All that I -need I earn with my hands, and that is enough. I do not wish to marry.’</p> - -<p>“Then the king of the ora rose, and he was not angry, but he was very -terrible. He said, ‘Marry my daughter.’</p> - -<p>“And my friend married his lady daughter.”</p> - -<p>The man of Ipek seemed to think that the story was ended. But I, who -had been scribbling all this down in my notebook, hidden in the shadow -of Rexh, as Perolli translated it to me paragraph by paragraph, did not -agree with him at all. “What happened?” I wanted to know.</p> - -<p>“Nothing happened. His family came into the empty house and he was -gone, leaving his gun on the wall and the empty coffee cup by the dead -ashes of the fire. They were very much<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span> afraid. My friend had not told -any man but me about the visit of the ora three years before, and I -said nothing. Some days went over the tops of the mountains, and no one -knew where he had gone. Then he came back, and brought with him his -wife, the ora.”</p> - -<p>The rest I got by questions.</p> - -<p>“No one could see her except my friend,” said the man of Ipek. “No -one but he ever saw her. He built himself a beautiful house; there -were rugs in it, and tables of carved wood, and bowls of copper and -silver—all things that are beautiful. Cigarette holders of amber and -silver with jeweled bowls, and sashes and turbans of silk, and cushions -of silk, and beautiful jars for bringing water from the springs. All -kinds of rich and beautiful things, and always great quantities of -delicate and rich foods. The men of Ipek remember that house well.</p> - -<p>“Yes, my friend is dead now. He lived in happiness with his wife for -twenty years, and they had children whom he loved. But only he could -see them, for to others they were invisible, like his wife. I have been -in his house many times when she was there, but I never saw her. Others -say they have seen strange things in that house; they have seen things -moved by hands they could not see. But I never saw that. Only I know -that my friend was happy with his wife and children. She was a lady -ora, and kept his house well. The gypsy ora are dirty folk, but the -lady ora love cleanliness and order. Everyone<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span> respected my friend and -his lady wife. Whenever he entered a village, all guns were fired in -his honor, for men said, ‘The man who married a lady ora is coming into -the village.’ Oh, it was all very well known in Ipek, among the people -of my tribe who are now slaves to the cursed Serbs.</p> - -<p>“When he died, no doubt she went back to her own people, taking their -children with her. His family came to take back his house, and they -found all manner of beautiful things, but no money. No money anywhere.”</p> - -<p>“What do you think of it?” I said to Frances. “Do you believe——Great -Scott! Of course it isn’t true! I don’t know what’s wrong with my mind. -Men don’t marry tree spirits. It’s absurd.”</p> - -<p>But, frankly, my conviction was that of the man who whistles cheerfully -while passing a graveyard at night, because, of course, he does not -believe in ghosts.</p> - -<p>“There’s some natural explanation,” said Alex. “The man went away for -some reason—perhaps he actually had found some of the treasure they -say is buried in these mountains—and when he came back he invented the -story to account for it.”</p> - -<p>“But he had told this man about seeing the ora three years earlier.”</p> - -<p>“Well, they’re a very patient people. Perhaps he waited three years -after he found the treasure before he dug it up.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span></p> - -<p>“I should say they’re patient!” cried Frances. “Perolli, if you don’t -tell them we are simply dying of hunger, I will! It’s almost two -o’clock in the morning. Do they think we are made of—cast iron? I want -something to eat, and I want to go to sleep. Do they intend to talk -until morning?”</p> - -<p>“It is the custom, when strangers come, to talk to them,” said -Perolli, severely. “Their only way of hearing news, and their only -entertainment, is talking to guests. If you want to be rude about -eating and sleeping, go ahead; I won’t.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, all right,” Frances relented, sadly. “Perolli, do you believe in -ora?”</p> - -<p>“Well—do you believe in heaven and hell, and God and the devil? There -are lots of things in the world that you don’t see or touch. I don’t -know——” He said, briskly, “Of course I don’t believe in ora!” He -wavered again. “But when you know so many people who have seen them -and talked with them—I mean, who think they have——Everyone used to -believe such things, long ago, and perhaps, here in these mountains, -where the people have changed so little through all the centuries, -there may still be things—spirits, phantoms, whatever you like to -call them. Understand, I don’t believe it. But there may be something -in that myth that’s part of every religion, that there was a time when -there were other beings on earth besides men. And if there were once, -why then, if we could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span> still see them, they must still be——But of -course it must be all imagination.”</p> - -<p>“And there was that sound we heard. I never heard anything like it -before. Perolli, you said it was an ora.”</p> - -<p>He looked badgered. “I meant, whatever it was, it is what these people -call an ora.”</p> - -<p>“Do the ora ever come into this village?” I demanded at large.</p> - -<p>“We hear them in the village at night,” said the coffee maker, quite -casually, as he measured a spoonful of brown powder into the tiny pot. -“No, we never see them. They call to us, and when we answer they talk, -but we cannot understand their language. Always when we speak to them -they answer in their own tongue.”</p> - -<p>“But, Cheremi, you heard them talking about your cousin’s death,” I -said.</p> - -<p>“We hear them talking together sometimes, yes,” said the coffee maker. -“If you go through the Wood of the Ora at twilight you will often hear -them talking in some language you will understand—in Persian or Arabic -or Greek or Albanian. Then if you listen perhaps you will hear them -speak of you or of some one you know. But if you speak to them, they -will be silent, and then they will go on talking together in their own -language, which no man understands. It is no doubt the old language of -the trees.”</p> - -<p>“But you cut the trees,” said Alex.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” I cried, struck by it. “You cut all the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span> branches off the trees. -Doesn’t it cripple or hurt the ora?”</p> - -<p>“The ora is a spirit,” said the man of Ipek. “You cannot hurt a pure -spirit that has no body. Ora are spirits of the forests, but they are -not part of the trees. I understand it, but I do not say it very well. -Even if you cut down a tree you do not kill the ora. An ora does not -live, an ora simply is.”</p> - -<p>We were interrupted by Cheremi, who approached, knelt mysteriously by -Perolli’s side, and whispered. Perolli turned to us. “Our dinner is -delayed,” he said, “because they can find nothing to give to Rexh. -They have only pork in the house, and they have sent through all the -village and cannot find any eggs or goat’s meat. A boy has gone now, -over the mountains to the next village, to get something they can offer -a Mohammedan. You see, their flocks were destroyed when the Serbs -retreated through here, and if they kill one of the two sheep for us, -it means losing the lambs next year.”</p> - -<p>“But, Miss Hardy, I can eat corn bread. That is all I need,” said Rexh, -earnestly.</p> - -<p>“We can’t tell them that now. We should have thought of it sooner,” -said Perolli. “We must wait at least until the boy comes back.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my sainted grandmother!” cried poor Frances. “Aren’t we going to -have any dinner at all till breakfast time?”</p> - -<p>“Is it because we are guests that our hosts are taking all this trouble -to give Rexh the food a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span> Mohammedan can eat?” I asked. “They’re Roman -Catholics, aren’t they? Shouldn’t we have brought a Mohammedan into -their house?”</p> - - -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img005"> - <img src="images/005.jpg" class="w50" alt="AN ALBANIAN HODJI OF THE MATI" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p0 caption">AN ALBANIAN HODJI OF THE MATI</p> - - -<p>“Oh, that makes no difference,” said Perolli. “One religion or -another—all religions are the same in the sight of God. Mohammedan or -Catholic, we are all human, we all respect one another. No, our hosts -don’t mind the trouble; they’re only sorry that they have nothing but -pork in the house.”</p> - -<p>“What would happen, Rexh, if you ate pork without knowing it?” said I.</p> - -<p>“Nothing, Mrs. Lane. Nothing would happen even if I ate it, knowing I -was doing it. But for me it is wrong to eat pork, so I would never do -that. For these others,” he explained, carefully, looking very serious -and very twelve-year-old, “it is not wrong to eat pork. It is not the -pork itself that matters, Mrs. Lane. It is doing what is wrong that -matters. See”—he sat up, making his points gravely with straight -forefinger—“some things are wrong for the Catholics to do; they are -right for me. I can have nine wives, but the Catholics can have only -one. They can eat pork, but that is wrong for me. There are many things -like that. Each must do what he thinks is right. It does not matter -what it is. Men think differently. But God knows whether they do what -seems right to them. And in the end we all go to the same heaven, if we -have been good.”</p> - -<p>“Good<em>ness</em>, Rexh!” I murmured, feebly. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span> ask you, is that the -talk you would expect between Mohammedan and Catholic in the Near East? -What about massacres, and holy wars, and all that?</p> - -<p>“What about them?” said Perolli, when I asked him. “They may be in Asia -Minor—though, myself, I think religion hasn’t much to do with the -fighting between Christian and Turk. But we don’t have them in Albania. -We are all Albanians, first. And second, the Virgin Mary is the mother -of all good people, Mohammedan or Catholic. Why should we fight each -other?”</p> - -<p>And he told of Italy’s attempt to block Albania’s entry into the League -of Nations by asserting that the people were Mohammedan, and of the -Albanian Mohammedans’ quiet retort in sending to Geneva a delegation -led by an archbishop followed by I forget how many bishops. Then he -told about the people in Kossova, who are both Catholic and Mohammedan, -going to the mosque by day and attending mass by night; that is because -they were conquered by the Turks, who told them they must become -followers of Mohammed. “Very well,” they said, since it made little -difference to them. But then the priests told them that they must not -forsake the Church. “Very well,” they said again. And they are called -in Albania a word which means, “half-and-half.”</p> - -<p>“All that is not important,” said Perolli, his attention wandering, -for the group around the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span> fire began to talk Albanian politics. Behind -his casually cheerful brown eyes I saw many things stirring, and I lay -back, staring up at the smoke beneath the roof and wondering what was -in all the hidden minds around me. Did our hosts suspect that Perolli -was part of the new, distrusted Tirana government? Why, really, was he -in these mountains? Was it truly only a vacation, and was he taking -his life in his hands and wandering along the edge of the Serbian -armies’ lines merely for pleasure? What were the real thoughts of these -barbaric-looking men, these men with shaved heads and scalp locks -hidden beneath their turbans, as question and answer and argument went -back and forth across the fire?</p> - -<p>They were talking in perhaps six languages; not everyone there -understood all those tongues, and subtle conversations beneath -conversations were going on; this man dropping into Italian for a -phrase, that one into a dialect of Samarkand or northern India. And -there was one man who persistently talked Serbian to Perolli—that -language, at least, I could recognize, and I could see him growing -restive under it, trying to take the talk into Albanian instead.</p> - -<p>The children who were still awake sat soberly listening, not speaking, -but gathering it all into their minds, turning their eyes from speaker -to speaker as the languages changed, puzzled a little, trying to -understand. And I realized how Albanian children get their education.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span></p> - -<p>“We’d be saying: ‘Run away and play, dear. This isn’t for children,’” I -commented.</p> - -<p>“We wouldn’t,” said Frances. “They’d have been in bed six hours ago. -How on earth do they live to grow up?”</p> - -<p>“Heaven knows. But aren’t they strong and beautiful when they do!”</p> - -<p>“It’s all right,” said Perolli, aside. “They’re talking about the -French—whether France will become enough afraid of Jugo-Slavia to side -with Italy down here. They aren’t for or against the Tirana government; -they don’t exactly understand it, but they’re waiting to find out. They -don’t know who I am. Don’t be worried.”</p> - -<p>And at last dinner appeared. It was exactly half past two in the -morning.</p> - -<p>Most of the children—they had had no supper at all, so far as we could -determine—were going to sleep, collapsing in soft little heaps where -they sat beside the fire. Various women of the household lifted them -tenderly, carried them to the farther corner of the house, near the -goats, and laid them in a row on the floor. There, covered head and -foot with heavy, tucked-in blankets, they continued to sleep.</p> - -<p>Meantime the table was brought for us. It was a large round piece of -wood, raised on little legs perhaps five inches from the floor. We sat -about it, comfortably cross-legged on our blankets, and before each of -us was laid a large chunk of corn bread broken from the flat loaf. In -the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span> center of the table was set a wooden bowl filled with pieces of -pork.</p> - -<p>“Don’t!” said Perolli, quickly, restraining our famished gestures. “In -Albania it is not good manners to be eager to eat.” So we sat wretched -for some moments, savoring the delicious odor of food that we must -not touch, and politely making conversation with our hosts, who still -sprawled in graceful attitudes about the fire. Then, with slow and -indifferent movements, we fished out bits of the meat with our fingers, -and ate.</p> - -<p>It was delicious, the lean meat, stripped of every scrap of fat and -broiled on sticks over a wood fire. We ate eagerly, biting first the -meat, then a morsel of corn bread, coarse, made without leavening, but -sweet and nutty. The smallest crumb of it must not be scattered on -table or floor; when one fell, Perolli instructed us to pick it up and -kiss it. We should also have made the sign of the cross, for bread is -sacred in these mountains. Since we were not Catholics, that omission -might be overlooked. But we must pick up the crumb and kiss it; to have -ignored it would have been scandal.</p> - -<p>“In Albania,” said Perolli, “it is etiquette to leave a great deal of -the food.” And while we were still starving, after fourteen hours of -hunger, he ordered the dish away.</p> - -<p>After that, another wooden bowl filled with cubes of the fat pork, -fried crisp. Rexh, sitting a little apart, soberly ate his piece of -corn bread,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span> for not even in the next village had the messenger been -able to find eggs or goat’s meat.</p> - -<p>When this second course was removed, fresh water was again brought to -wash our hands, while the table was removed to a little distance. Then -I saw why it was courteous to leave food, for all the villagers who had -come in to see us gathered around this second table. And when they had -finished and all had washed their hands—it was now past three in the -morning—the table was again moved, and the family ate, men and women -together, chatting and daintily dipping into the common dish.</p> - -<p>“Do you think, Perolli,” said Frances, “that we could go to bed now?” -And she looked enviously at Alex, who sat stony eyed, upright, and fast -asleep.</p> - -<p>“Oh, surely!” said Perolli. “They’ll understand that you’re tired.” And -he explained this to our hosts, who nodded, smiling. So Cheremi and -Rexh spread our blankets more smoothly on the floor, and we lay down in -a row, our heads on our saddlebags, and pulled another blanket over us.</p> - -<p>For a time the others sat by the fire and talked; one roasted coffee -over the coals in a long-handled pan, and then ground it in a cylinder -of brass. The warm brown smell of it and the sound of grinding kept -coming through my daze of fatigue. Then one by one they lay down, -covering their heads with blankets; the fire died to a fading glow of -coals; there was no sound<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span> except the incessant tinkling of the goats’ -bells and the crunching and tearing of the dried oak branches which -they munched.</p> - -<p>“My first night in a native Albanian house,” I thought, and the next -instant, it seemed to me, I started awake. The room was full of -movement and talk. It was still dark, but in the farther corner a -gray, slanting block of light came through the open door; smoke curled -and twisted in it. The fire was blazing; near it a man knelt, making -coffee. All around him men stood, twisting tighter their long colored -sashes; the rifles on their backs stood upward at every angle. Then -I saw the goats and sheep going one by one through the block of gray -light; a boy followed them, rifle on back and staff in hand, and I -realized that it was morning.</p> - -<p>I looked at my wrist watch, whose radium dial shone in the darkness. -Half past five. The man who was making coffee smiled at me. “Long may -you live!” said he, warmly, offering me the tiny cup with one hand, the -other on his heart. As in a nightmare I struggled to reach it, and made -my stiff lips say, “And to you long life!”</p> - -<p>Perolli sat up quickly, wide awake as an aroused animal. “Good -morning!” said he, happily. “Time to get up!”</p> - -<p>Rain was still sluicing down from a gray sky; every rock in the -interminable ranges of mountain peaks seemed to be the source of a -foaming stream. Frances, Alex, and I, with our toilet cases in our -hands, made our way along the side<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span> of a cliff to a waterfall, knelt -on the dripping rocks beside it, and washed and brushed our teeth. The -woman who accompanied us watched us with interest, and exclaimed, while -we showed her the tooth-paste tubes, the tooth brushes in their cases, -the cakes of soap, the jars of cold cream, the strange machine-made -Turkish toweling, and the white combs. Even to ourselves they seemed -exotic luxuries. How many curious things we have invented for the care -of our bodies, since the days when we lived as the mountain Albanians -still live.</p> - -<p>“And at that,” I said, enviously, “I wish I had her complexion!” The -woman stood by the waterfall, as graceful as a cat, strong limbed, -clear eyed, fine skinned, and her bare feet in the cold water were joys -to the eye, slim, beautifully formed, arched, with almond nails and a -rose-marble color. True, her face and hands were grimy with wood smoke, -and ours, when we looked at one another, set us off into exhausting -laughter.</p> - -<p>“My house is clean,” said the woman as she watched us scrubbing and -scrubbing again. “There are no lice in it.”</p> - -<p>“Now I wonder where she got that idea?” said Alex. “I thought they -thought lice were healthy.”</p> - -<p>Frances asked questions in Albanian. Yes, this house had kept for a -time a refugee child on his way from the American house in Scutari to -the lands of his tribe, and he had insisted on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span> washing his bed and his -clothes; he had hated lice with an astonishing hatred; he said they -were small devils who would grow to be large devils, and the woman did -not think this was true, but she had washed all the beds, also all the -house, and now it was like an American house and had no lice.</p> - -<p>“But that isn’t what she meant. She meant that she doesn’t see why we -are washing,” said Alex, lifting her dripping face above a pool and -rubbing it with one hand. It isn’t easy to wash in a waterfall, with no -place to lay the soap.</p> - -<p>“We do this every morning,” Frances explained in Albanian. “It is -American custom.” The woman looked as though she thought it rather -foolish, still, if it were the custom——</p> - -<p>“Also,” said Frances, “every morning we wash the children and the -babies, all over, from head to foot.”</p> - -<p>“Yes?” said the woman, indifferently. “Here babies stay in their -cradles. Children go into the water when they are old enough to swim. -Then only in the summer, when it is not cold.”</p> - -<p>Frances gave it up. We came back from the waterfall, on a path that -was like a terrace of heaven overlooking all the world of mountains -and valleys and swirling clouds. We were already wet to the skin with -rain, but that did not matter, for we had before us the day’s walking -in it, and our indifference to wet clothes and feet was already quite -Albanian. And the morning, and the mountain air, and the water-gushing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span> -range after range of mountains, seemed to us glorious. We thought that -it would be fun to herd goats among these peaks and to live forever in -a stone house with a fire on the floor and a pan of corn bread baking -in the coals. No dusting, for there was no furniture; no making of -beds, for there were no beds; no curtains to keep fresh, for there were -no windows; no trouble with clothes, for centuries saw no change in -fashions; no work except hand weaving and embroidery and the washing of -linen in a brook. No haste, no worry, no struggle to invent new needs -that one must struggle to satisfy. All that simplicity and leisure our -ancestors traded for a rug on the floor, a trinket-covered dressing -table, for knives and forks and kitchen ranges, fountain pens and high -white collars and fashion books. It seemed to us, on that morning, a -trade in which we had been cheated.</p> - -<p>And even now I wonder, sometimes, about the value of the centuries that -have given us civilization.</p> - -<p>We had no doubt at all about their worthlessness that morning, when we -set out again—after a cup of Turkish coffee, each—to walk another -twenty miles over the Albanian mountains, through the Wood of the Ora -and the tribal lands of Plani and over the Chafa Bosheit to the next -village.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0">THE SONG OF THE FLIGHT OF MARKE GJLOSHI—THE HUNTED MAN OF SHOSHI—THE -WAY THROUGH THE WOOD OF THE ORA—A WOMAN WHO BELIEVES IN PRIVATE -PROPERTY.</p> -</div> - - -<p>Four men of Marke Gjonni’s household went with us to carry the -packs, so we left the stone house peaceful on the cliff below our -upward-climbing path, not disturbing it with any parting volley when -we paused for our last glimpse of it. A faint haze of blue smoke hung -over it, seeping through the slates of the roof; there was no other -sign of life about it, and only the smoke distinguished it from the -natural rocks. Beside us the stream, which was the waterfall, roared -and glittered in the sunlight as it fell into the depths; following -with our gaze its narrowing ribbon of silver and searching for the blue -smoke haze, we found the house, and I would have had Cheremi fling down -to it the keen high call of farewell, ended by six times three shots, -that we had sent back to the bishop.</p> - -<p>But no; there were only women left in the house, and how could I be so -crude as to imagine that one greeted women with rifle-shots?</p> - -<p>We went on for a time over sunshiny uplands, and I remember that day -as a succession of sun<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span> and shower, of small grassy plateaus and quick -dips down cliffsides, and struggles up again, beside and through -waterfalls that drenched the rocks with spray for yards around. Our -muscles were now accustomed to the exercise; they complained hardly at -all, and with occasional pauses for rest beneath the wooden crosses set -at long intervals along the trail we went gayly, accompanied by the -shrill songs of the men.</p> - -<p>“Marke Gjloshi is putting on his jacket,” sang the leading man.</p> - -<p>“Marke Gjloshi is putting on his jacket,” repeated Cheremi, for this -was a song he knew well, a song of Shala made in the days of the Turks, -and, repeating each line alternately, they sang:</p> - -<p class="poetry p0"> -“Marke Gjloshi is putting on his jacket.<br /> -He goes to the Pasha and makes complaint:<br /> -‘The Mohammedan has cursed the cross of my Christ!<br /> -He has cursed it, and I draw my pistol,<br /> -My death-spitting pistol, I draw it<br /> -And blow him to bits. He is scattered,<br /> -He is scattered like leaves on the rocks.’<br /> -The Pasha is angry, the Pasha is crazy,<br /> -The Pasha goes mad and the bugles blow<br /> -And the guns are out, the gendarmes are out!<br /> -Marke Gjloshi is away on the road,<br /> -Away on the road a long way,<br /> -All the long way through the six tribes.<br /> -The Arabian Sea stops him, the Arabs stop him,<br /> -Arabs of the sandy sea, black Arabs.<br /> -There he stands, there he fights with the gendarmes.<br /> -‘O Marke Gjloshi, what will you tell the nations?<br /> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>What will you tell the Five Nations?’<br /> -‘I will tell the consuls the Sultan is to blame,<br /> -I will tell to God the Sultan is to blame.<br /> -But they will not free me,<br /> -But they will not let me go<br /> -Back to my tribe, back to my own tribe.<br /> -They tear me in pieces, they send me far away,<br /> -Far away to the other side of the sea.<br /> -My greetings, my greetings, to the lost six tribes!’” -</p> - -<p>So in the mountains they sing the tales of the men who have been driven -from them, to become khedives of Egypt, pashas, themselves, of Turkey, -political leaders in Italy, great surgeons of France. From all these -countries men are coming back now to make the new free government of -Albania, and here among the mountaineers we were walking with Perolli, -an agent of this government, who dared not say who he was, for danger -of death.</p> - -<p>“I ask myself sometimes why God did not make me born in a happier -land,” said Perolli, as we looked out over scores of miles of valleys -inclosed by the sky-touching mountains, dotted meagerly with the tiny -stone houses. “But then I think, He has made me an Albanian, and given -me the most beautiful and the most unhappy land in all the world, for -His own purposes.”</p> - -<p>And he spoke of roads through these mountains, railroads, mines, great -power plants, all feeding the people, giving them comforts and luxuries -and knowledge. For all of Albania, beneath six feet of upper soil, -belongs to the government, as well as all the water power, and we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span> -walked on, seeing even with our untrained eyes that the “white coal” of -those thousand streams is enough to turn every wheel in a reorganized -Europe, and dreaming—dreams that will never be realized.</p> - -<p>Then we saw the men stopping on the trail ahead, stopping with quick -hands on their rifles, and, remembering in a strange kind of panic -that no one could be killed in the presence of a woman, I flung myself -gasping up the slope, crying with my last half breath, “Long may you -live!” to two strange men who appeared before us.</p> - -<p>Then I collapsed, panting, on a grassy knoll, and dimly through my -dizzy eyes I saw that the men, relaxing gladly, were sitting down -around me and taking out their silver tobacco boxes.</p> - -<p>“A Shoshi man,” said Perolli, “with one of Pultit. I don’t just get it; -something to do with the blood feud. Let me listen.”</p> - -<p>We sat on the grassy knoll that seemed to be the edge at the end of the -world, so far below it the valleys lay, and listened while the men of -the tribes that were “in blood” talked easily together of unimportant -matters and offered one another cigarettes.</p> - -<p>The Shoshi man had taken off his turban and wore on his handsome head -only the tiny round white cap, hardly larger than the curved palm of a -hand, that covered his scalp lock. Around its edges the hair was shaved -clean to the skull, and with his weather-browned face and scarlet sash -bristling with knives he looked altogether the savage.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span></p> - -<p>He was an exile from his own tribe, we learned. A man of the tribe -had killed this man’s brother in a quarrel over irrigation water; the -chief men of the tribe had called a council and deplored the murder, -condemning the murderer to pay ten thousand kronen to the murdered -man’s family. This had been done, but the brother rebelled against the -decision. Blood could be paid for only in blood, he declared; such was -the ancient Law of Lec, and who were the men of these young centuries, -that they should set aside that law? Therefore he had shot and killed -the man who had killed his brother, and, sending his wife to the chiefs -to return the ten thousand kronen, he had fled to the house of a friend -in Pultit.</p> - -<p>Now it is the law that when the chiefs of a tribe take council together -and arrive at a decision, they must consult all the members of the -tribe involved in that decision; when they all agree to it, it must be -carried out. The honor of the chiefs is involved. If any party to the -agreement breaks it, then all the chiefs, together and separately, with -all masculine members of their families, must not rest until they kill -that man and clear their honor. So seven chiefs of Shoshi, with all -their sons and brothers, were hunting this Shoshi man.</p> - -<p>“As it should be,” said one of our men, judicially, and quoted their -proverb, “A goat is tied by the horns, a man by his word.”</p> - -<p>“That may be,” said the Shoshi man, retorting with another, “but ‘where -the tooth aches<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span> the tongue will go.’ This matter was a sore tooth to -me, and I had no sleep until I killed that man who killed my brother. -As to the money, I have returned it. Money will not buy my brother’s -blood.”</p> - -<p>The men fell silent, smoking. “But why hasn’t he been killed before -now?” I demanded of Perolli, when their words had been translated to me.</p> - -<p>“He is traveling with his friend, the man of Pultit,” said Perolli. “He -is under that man’s protection. If the chiefs of Shoshi kill him, they -will be in blood with the tribe of Pultit, whose hospitality they will -have violated. Shoshi is already in blood with Shala, and——”</p> - -<p>I exclaimed aloud. The endless complexities of the laws of these -supposedly lawless people were too much for me. It was almost as -bewildering as our own courts.</p> - -<p>“Meantime,” said Perolli, “the chiefs have torn down this man’s -house, and that would make it seem that they will reach some peaceful -settlement.”</p> - -<p>“Would it?” said I.</p> - -<p>“Of course. For if they meant not to stop until they killed him they -would not have destroyed his house. I think that they will hold another -council and simply banish him from the tribe and from the mountains.”</p> - -<p>“But if he does not go?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, then, of course, they would really have to kill him. And of course -they must kill him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span> now, if they meet him. But as long as the man of -Pultit is with him, they will try not to meet him.”</p> - -<p>“So,” said I, “wherever there are laws there are ways of getting around -them. And,” I continued, remembering, “these men of ours would have to -be killing him now, if I were not here?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly,” said Perolli. “Our Shala men would have to, because Shala -is in blood with Shoshi, and this is a Shoshi man.”</p> - -<p>“Even when his own chiefs are hunting him? Even if he were banished -from the tribe?”</p> - -<p>“Well, one doesn’t stop to ask that. He wears the Shoshi braiding on -his trousers.”</p> - -<p>“I see,” said I, and after we had rested and talked and smoked together -for some time, the Shoshi man rose leisurely to go. The man of Pultit -rose instantly, with him, and each cast a searching glance over the -valley before them. Then they hitched more comfortably over their -shoulders the woven woolen straps that held their rifles, ran an alert -hand over the knives and pistols in their sashes, threw away the butts -of their cigarettes.</p> - -<p>“Long life to you,” they said, politely.</p> - -<p>“And to you long life,” we responded. “Go on a smooth trail.”</p> - -<p>In a moment the last glimpse of their heads had disappeared as they -made their way down the steep path. The forest was very still, the -sunlight on the wet rocks very golden, and for a hundred miles the -mountains stretched into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span> the distance, frozen waves of a sea of -purple and gray and green and bronze brown, with foam of smoke-colored -clouds floating on them. It was all very peaceful and beautiful, and -we sang as we took the trail again, but for a long time, whenever the -sharp bark of a rifle was answered by a hundred cliffs, I wondered. -It was nothing, probably; some one firing his gun at the sky in sheer -exuberance of spirit. It happens all the time, in these mountains.</p> - -<p>It was on this day that we passed the Wood of the Ora, and, even though -I had not heard the stories of them, I should have felt an uncanny -sensation while going through that narrow, dark defile between gray -cliffs. The trees stood thickly there, climbing the bowlder-strewn -slope; they were cut, like all the trees of the mountains, to mere -limbless stumps, and they were very old. They seemed for centuries -to have writhed under the blows of the shepherds’ axes; they were -contorted as if in pain; their few half-amputated branches were like -mutilated arms. Beyond them rose rocks, perhaps five hundred feet high, -evil-looking cliffs contorted like the trees, and these faced, above -our heads, a smooth, sheer wall of tilted gray limestone that overhung -the trail.</p> - -<p>Our men stopped singing and Cheremi’s mirth-wrinkled face became -solemn; his eyes were awed and listening. “The Wood of the Ora,” he -said, in a hushed voice.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” said Alex, cheerfully, in an everyday<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span> voice that was like -a ray of daylight in a cave, “it’s simple enough. These cliffs repeat -far-away echoes, and that’s how the superstition started.”</p> - -<p>“One can explain everything,” said Frances.</p> - -<p>“And then explain the explanations,” said I.</p> - -<p>“And still most of the learning of every age seems to consist in -proving most of the learning of the other ages wrong,” said Frances.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean you actually believe that there are ora?” said Alex. “All -these stories of people who have seen people who have seen them—I’d -like to see one myself.”</p> - -<p>“And if you see one, it doesn’t prove that it exists,” said I. “We see -a great many things that don’t exist—and don’t see a great many that -do.</p> - -<p>“How can you prove that anything exists? Only by common belief. I once -had a letter from a man in an insane asylum, who wrote to ask if Art -Smith, an aviator I knew, saw in the upper air the shapes that he did. -Art Smith never had; I didn’t even bother to ask him. But if Art Smith -had seen them, and all other aviators had seen them, we would believe -that they existed; they would exist, and the man would be sane, because -he would believe as all the rest of us did. How do we know there are -air currents five thousand feet from the earth? Because everyone who -has been there has felt them. How do we know there are subtler currents -that carry wireless messages? Because<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span> everyone who uses a wireless -uses them. How do we know that there are ora in the Albanian mountains? -Because all the Albanians who live here have heard them, and many -have seen them. If we say there are no ora we will be crazy, by the -standards of these men. Or simply foolishly ignorant. What do we think -of an Albanian when he tells us that the power in a waterfall cannot be -carried invisibly on a wire?”</p> - -<p>“Do you believe there are ora?” said Alex.</p> - -<p>“No,” I said, “I don’t. But human beings began life on this planet -among spirits and demons; they knew they were there, they saw them -and heard them and arranged their lives by them; therefore, by any -measurement we know, spirits and demons existed. Here in the Albanian -mountains they still exist. We live among electric currents and ether -waves and X-rays and radium; we see them or use them; they exist. They -exist for us and not for the Albanians; spirits and demons exist for -the Albanians and not for us. And none of us can explain any of them; -it is all mystery. Listen!”</p> - -<p>We listened. All around us the trees seemed to be listening, too. From -far away on a distant peak we heard the shrill, clear, infinitely fine -sounds of a conversation, a conversation carried on from mountain to -mountain, swinging like thin wires over the wide valley of the Lumi -Shala. All around us the woods were perfectly silent, the cliffs were -still; against that background of profound silence we heard a water<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span> -drop falling from a rock, the delicate sound of our breathing and of -the blood in our ears.</p> - -<p>“Which proves nothing, of course. The sound wasn’t in the right -direction; the echoes didn’t work,” said Alex.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” I said. “But I wish they had. It would have given us such -delightfully shivery sensations.”</p> - -<p>So we came up out of the wood, and over the next mountain, and there -on a slope, where the dead grass was splotched with patches of rotting -snow and the soft earth trodden by the sharp hoofs of goats, we came -back with a jolt to problems of unquestioned reality. For we met a -woman, herding the goats, who believes in private property.</p> - -<p>She was a tall, dark-eyed woman, handsome, but not beautiful. Her -face, as we say, was full of character; and there was independence, -even a shade of defiance, in her bearing as she stood watching us -approach, her chin up, her eyes cool and steady, one hand grasping a -peeled branch as a staff, her ragged skirt strained against her by the -wind that blew down from the mountain pass. Her thick, dark hair hung -forward over her shoulders in two braids, and from each dangled a charm -of bright blue beads, defense against any demon she might meet in the -mountains.</p> - -<p>“Long life to you!” she said.</p> - -<p>“And to you long life!” we replied, and, seeing her glance fall -covetously on my cigarette—only<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span> the swiftest flicker of a glance, it -was—I offered her one. She took it, thanked me, lighted it from mine.</p> - -<p>“A bold woman,” said Perolli.</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“In these mountains the women smoke, but not before men; that is a -man’s privilege, and it is unwomanly to smoke in their presence. Are -you a woman?” he asked her, in Albanian.</p> - -<p>“A woman of Pultit, married in Shala. A widow with two children, -demanding justice from my tribe,” she said.</p> - -<p>I looked about. There was nothing but snow and wet earth to sit on. -Well, she must have been standing for hours, watching the goats. I -leaned on my staff. “What justice?” said I.</p> - -<p>She told us with a calm precision; none of her people’s rhetorical -flourishes. Even through the barrier of language I could see that she -was stating her case as a lawyer might who was not addressing a jury.</p> - -<p>She had been married five years; she was twenty-one years old. She -had two children—boys. While she was married her husband had built -a house. It was a large house; two rooms. She had helped her husband -build that house. With her own hands she had laid the slate on the -roof. She liked that house. She had lived in it four years. Now her -husband had been killed by the Serbs and she wanted to keep that house. -She wanted to live in it, alone, with her two children.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span></p> - -<p>“But it is impossible!” said Perolli. “A large house, with two rooms, -for one woman?”</p> - -<p>By the Virgin Mary, she said, yes! She wanted that house; it was her -house. She was going to have that house. She was not going to stop -talking till she got that house.</p> - -<p>“By Jove! I like her spirit!” said Frances. The woman stood looking -from one to the other of us, defiant, superb.</p> - -<p>“Well, but what’s become of the house?” Alex demanded.</p> - -<p>Her husband’s brother, head of the family now, had taken it. He was -living in it with his wife and children and brothers and cousins and—I -forget exactly; seventeen of them in all. The family, which comprised -all the village at the foot of the slope on which we stood, had decided -that the house should be used for them. She and her children could -live with them. But she would not do it. She wanted that house all for -herself; she said again that it was her house. Until she got that house -nothing would content her or keep her silent. Her sons she had sent to -the priest’s house in Plani—to the same “macaroni” who had refused -us shelter. He had taken them in and promised to educate them for the -priesthood. For herself, she remained in this village, clamoring for -that house. If she got it before her sons were grown and married she -would bring them back to live with her. She might do so, even when they -were married. That did not matter; what she wanted was the house, her -house, all for herself.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span></p> - -<p>“Well,” said Perolli, “I pity the chiefs of that village.”</p> - -<p>“But where do you suppose she got the idea?”</p> - -<p>“Heavens knows. Who can tell what women will think of?” said Perolli.</p> - -<p>We left her standing on the cliff edge, still superb and still defiant, -the cigarette in her hand and the blue beads twinkling at the ends of -her braids. A bright scarlet handkerchief was twisted around her head, -and her wide belt, thickly studded with silver nails, shone like armor. -A picture of revolt, and I thought what a catastrophe she must be in -the peaceful village to which, clinging and dropping from bowlder to -bowlder, we were descending.</p> - -<p>“Will we see her again?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“Oh, she’ll probably drop in during the evening. She looks like a woman -who would,” said Perolli.</p> - -<p>The village was perhaps fifteen houses, clustered on flat land at the -foot of the cliffs. Beyond it, a creamy blue flood swollen by the -rains, the Lumi Shala ran straight between the mountain ranges. A score -of little streams, stone walled and crossed by tiny stone bridges, ran -through the village, and all the land on which it stood was cut into -odd-shaped pieces by many stone fences and raised channels of stone for -irrigation water. Dropping down into that village was rather like being -a very small gnat descending on a piece of half-made honeycomb.</p> - -<p>All the earth was sodden with water; we sank<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span> over shoe tops in it, -and, wading the streams, walking on fences, crossing the tiny bridges, -we came to the house selected for us by the man we had sent ahead, were -greeted with shouts and a volley of shots and ushered into the smoky, -warm dusk where the house fire glimmered like a red eye.</p> - -<p>Although this was our second night in a native house in the heart of -the Albanian mountains, I cannot tell you how natural it seemed to us. -It was as though we had always come home from the vast chill mountain -twilight to a dark warm room where a fire smoldered on an earthen -floor and the night was shut out by unbroken walls. It was as though -we had always said, “Long may you live!” to our hosts and crouched -comfortably, in steaming garments, beside the flames.</p> - -<p>We drank the offered cups of sweet thick coffee, the large glasses of -rakejia; Cheremi washed our feet; the dripping-wet goats and sheep were -herded in through the open door and fell to munching dried leaves; -the women nursed their babies, stooping above the painted gay cradles -where the infants lay bound. It was all quite commonplace to us, and -when, after an hour or so, Alex spoke of the stairway, she seemed for a -moment to be a stranger coming from strange, unknown experiences.</p> - -<p>“That stairway,” said Alex, “is about eighth century. I saw one like it -in Norway, preserved by the historical society. It was in a house like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span> -this, too,” she added, in a tone of surprise, as though she saw the -house for the first time.</p> - -<p>It was slightly different from the house of Marke Gjonni. The end where -the goats were eating was shut off from the rest by a latticework of -woven willow boughs, and high against the wall where we sat by the -fire an inclosed platform of the same latticework hung like a huge -bird’s nest. It was reached by the stairway Alex had remarked—simply -a slanting log, notched roughly into steps. Above the fire itself was -another square of the interlaced branches, hung from the ceiling; the -smoke rose and curled against it and made long velvety fringes of soot, -and all around its edges were wooden pegs on which our coats were hung -to dry and haunches of goat’s meat were hung to smoke. From one of the -pegs swung the basket of wrought iron holding slivers of blazing pitch -pine; this was the lamp.</p> - -<p>“Eighth century,” I repeated, vaguely. “So we are living in the eighth -century.”</p> - -<p>“Or earlier. Oh yes, surely earlier, for the house I saw must have -been one of the last of its kind in Norway,” said Alex. But we said no -more about it, for centuries seemed unimportant then, and, indeed, we -did not remember very clearly any newer ways of living; we were too -comfortable where we were, like people coming home after a very short -journey.</p> - -<p>Perhaps ten men of the village had come in to see us; several older -and more dignified ones<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span> whom we took to be chiefs, and some young -ones, and half a dozen boys, all moving gracefully as panthers, their -white garments ghostly in the gloom, and each swinging his rifle from -his shoulder and hanging it on a peg near the door before he settled -himself near the fire, where the quivering light flickered over silver -chains, bright sashes, and colored turbans. Their large brown eyes -regarded us with serious friendliness; when they turned their heads -their profiles were sharp and fine against the darkness; and their -hands were slender, firmly molded, aristocratic.</p> - -<p>A small kid was brought for our inspection; we were to eat it for -dinner. It looked at us mildly, contented in the arm that held it -comfortably; its fur was soft as sealskin. One of the children rose -and smilingly kissed its delicate muzzle, with a gesture of charming -affection. Then they took it out and killed it, bringing back its skin, -which they hung on a peg. After a time the mother goat came over and -nuzzled that skin thoughtfully.</p> - -<p>Then they brought us a lamb, all woolly white with youth, and we -praised that, and they took it out and killed it. Its skin hung beside -that of the kid. And after that they showed us a fat hen, and it also -was so used to the companionship of humans that it uttered no faintest -squawk when the woman who held it nonchalantly wrung its neck, just -beyond the circle of firelight.</p> - -<p>After that our host handed over the making of coffee to one of the -village men and went out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span> to help his wife cook the dinner; there was -a built-up place of stone outside where the cooking fire was made. -All this time we had been talking, making the courteous speeches that -accompany coffee drinking, and exchanging cigarettes.</p> - -<p>One of the empty cigarette boxes—the little, ten-cigarette, -tin-foil-lined ones—I handed to a little boy, perhaps four years old. -He took it gravely, thanking me like a man, and retired to look at it. -But hardly had he opened the flap when I saw the hand of a chief come -over the boy’s shoulder and quietly take the box. The boy gave it up, -not even a shade of discontent on his face, and it passed slowly from -hand to hand, was inspected, marveled at, discussed. The cunningness of -the folding, the beautiful design of printing and picture, the delicacy -of the tissue paper that had been around the cigarettes, the pliability -of the tin foil, of metal, and yet so thin, engrossed them all. When -they had satisfied their curiosity and admiration, it went back to the -boy, who took it with his hand on his heart, bowed, and sat for a long -time looking at it.</p> - -<p>“Have you ever seen such perfect courtesy?” said, I, marveling. “And -from such a baby!”</p> - -<p>Perolli looked at me in amazement. “Why, what’s strange about it?” he -asked.</p> - -<p>Undoubtedly we were among the most courteous people in the world, I -thought, but the next moment that idea was completely upset,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span> for -out of the darkness walked that rebel woman who believes in private -property.</p> - -<p>She came quite calmly into the circle of the firelight, her beautiful -hands low on her thighs, below the wide, silver-shining marriage belt, -the blue beads twinkling at the ends of the long black braids of her -hair, her chin up, and a light of battle in her eyes.</p> - -<p>“May you live long!” said she to the circle, and, “To you long life!” -we responded. But the chiefs looked at her sidewise from narrowed -eyes and then again at the fire, and hostility came from them like -a chill air. The children looked at her with wide, attentive eyes, -chins on their hands; the sprawling, graceful, handsome youths seemed -amused. Beyond the firelight, the women of the household went about -their tasks; one came in and lowered from her shoulders a large, -kidney-shaped wooden keg of water.</p> - -<p>“When am I going to get my house?” said the woman. She stood there -superb, holding that question like a bone above a mob of starving dogs, -and they rose at it.</p> - -<p>I have never seen such pandemonium. Three chiefs spoke at once, -snarling; they were on their feet; all the men were on their feet; it -was like a picture by Jan Steen changed into the wildest of futurist -canvases. I expected them to fly at one another’s throats, after the -words that they hurled at one another like spears. I expected them -to strike the woman, so violently they thrust their faces close to -hers, clenching quivering<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span> fists on the hilts of the knives in their -sashes. She stamped her foot; her lips curled back like a dog’s from -her fine, gleaming teeth, and she stood her ground, flashing back at -them words that seemed poisoned by the venom in her eyes. “My house!” -she repeated, and, “I want my house!” These words, the only ones I -recognized, were like a motif in the clamor; Rexh and Perolli were both -too much absorbed to translate, and we added to the turmoil by frantic -appeals to them.</p> - -<p>Then, suddenly as the calm after an explosion, they were all quiet. -They sat down; they rolled cigarettes; the coffee maker picked up his -flung-away pot and went on making coffee. Only the eyes of the chiefs -were still cold and bitter, and the woman, though silent, was not at -all defeated. There was a pause.</p> - -<p>“Ask them what she wants,” said I, quickly, to Perolli.</p> - -<p>“Who can say what the avalanche desires?” replied the chief, -contemptuously. “She would break our village into pieces. She has no -respect for wisdom or custom. She says that a house is her house; she -is a widow with two sons, and she demands the house in which she lived -with her husband. She wishes to take a house from the tribe and keep -it for herself. Have the mountains seen such a thing since a hundred -hundred years before the Turks came? She is <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">gogoli</i>.”<span class="fnanchor" id="fna2"><a href="#fn2">[2]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I helped to build that house,” said the woman. “With my own hands I laid the -roof upon it. It is my house. I will not give up my house.”</p> - -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img006"> - <img src="images/006.jpg" class="w75" alt="A GROUP OF MOUNTAIN FOLK" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p0 caption">A GROUP OF MOUNTAIN FOLK<br />The woman of Pultit in the center.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span> </p> - -<p>Frances and I hugged each other in silent convulsions of delight. My -pen spilled ink on my excited hands as I tried to capture their words -in shorthand. I was seeing, actually seeing with my own eyes, the -invention of private property!</p> - -<p>“What are they going to do about it?”</p> - -<p>The question was not too tactful, nor too happily received, but they -answered it. “They have already called a council of the whole village -four times,” said Perolli. “They will do nothing about it. Houses -belong to the tribe. It is a large house, and the people have decided -that her dead husband’s brother shall have it for his household. She -has been offered a place in it. If she does not want that, she can live -wherever she likes in the tribe. No one will refuse shelter or food to -her and her children. She has friends with whom she can live, since she -quarrels with her husband’s brother. All this is absurd, and they will -not call another council to satisfy a foolish woman.”</p> - -<p>“I want my house,” said the woman.</p> - -<p>Then the oldest man—one of the little boys was playing with the silver -chains around his neck, and another hung heavily against his shoulder, -but his dignity was undisturbed and he was obviously chief of the -chiefs—appealed to me.</p> - -<p>“In your country, what would you do with such a woman?” And I perceived -that I was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span> obliged to explain to this circle of eager listeners a -system of social and economic life of which they had never dreamed, of -which they knew as little as we know of the year 2900.</p> - -<p>The woman sat impassive, as unmoved as a rock of her mountains; the -younger men turned, propping their chins on their elbows and looking at -me attentively, and the chiefs waited with expectation. The children, -settled comfortably here and there in the mass of lounging bodies, -stopped their quiet playing to listen.</p> - -<p>“Go on,” said Alex, with friendly malice. “Just tell them what private -property is.”</p> - -<p>“I expect sympathy, not ribald mirth,” said I. “Well,” I said, -carefully, “tell them, Perolli, that when I say ‘man’ I mean either a -man or a woman. It isn’t quite true, of course, but I’ll have to say -that. Now then. In my country, a man owns a house.”</p> - -<p>“<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">Po! Po!</i>” they said, shaking their heads from side to side in -the sign that in Albanian means, “Yes.” “It is so here. A man owns the -house in which he lives.”</p> - -<p>“No, it’s not that. In my country, a man can own a house in which he -does not live.”</p> - -<p>Then they were surprised. “You must have many houses in your tribe, if -some are left vacant.”</p> - -<p>(“Shades of the housing situation!” murmured Alex. “Shut up!” said I.)</p> - -<p>“No,” I said. “You don’t understand. In my country a man owns a house. -It is his very<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span> own house. He owns it always; he owns it after he is -dead. He owns it when other people live in it.”</p> - -<p>“In your country dead men own houses? Dead men live in houses?”</p> - -<p>“No. Living in a house has nothing to do with owning a house. A man -owns a house; it is his house; other people live in that house, and -they pay him money to be allowed to live in his house.”</p> - -<p>“We do not understand. In your country do men of the same tribe pay one -another money for houses?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>There was always a pause after I had spoken, while they pondered.</p> - -<p>“Ah!” they said. “In your country a man can build a house all by -himself. You have one man who makes all the houses for the village, and -the others divide with him the money they earn outside the tribe.”</p> - -<p>“No,” I said. “In my country many men must work to build a house.” And -I tried to think how best to go on.</p> - -<p>“But it is so here,” they said. “Many men of the tribe build a house, -and then the house is a house of the tribe.”</p> - -<p>“But it is different in my country,” I insisted. “In my country the -house does not belong to the tribe. It belongs to the man who owns the -land on which it is built, and he pays money to the men who build it -for him, and then it is his house.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span> Even if he lives somewhere else, -it is still his house. Now in the case of this woman, the house would -belong to her husband, and when he died he would give her the house, -and then it would be her house. It would belong to her. The tribe would -not own the house, but she would pay money to the tribe from time to -time, because she had the house.”</p> - -<p>(“Don’t tell me you’re going to explain taxation, too!” chortled the -joyous Frances. “For the love of Michael, do this yourself, then!” said -I.)</p> - -<p>But the chiefs passed over the taxation idea; they stuck to the main -point, though their eyes were clouded with bewilderment.</p> - -<p>“How can a man own land?” said one, more in amazement than in question. -And, “But how can a man pay another man for helping him to build a -house, except by helping him as much in building another house? And -when all have helped one another equally, then no man would have two -houses unless every man had two houses, and that would be foolish, for -half the houses would be empty,” reasoned another, slowly.</p> - -<p>It was then that the remarkable intelligence of these people began to -dawn on me. For, given the experience from which he was reasoning, -I consider this one of the most intelligent and logical methods of -meeting a new idea that I have known. A case of almost pure logic, -given his starting point.</p> - - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span></p> - -<p class="footnote" id="fn2"><a href="#fna2">[2]</a> Gogoli—bewitched by a demon of the mountains; insane.</p> - -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0">CAN A MAN OWN A HOUSE?—WE SING FOR OUR HOSTS OF PULTIT—DAWN AND A -MEETING ON THE TRAIL—THE VILLAGE OF THETHIS WELCOMES GUESTS—LIFE OR -DEATH FOR PEROLLI.</p> -</div> - - -<p>But my delight in this discovery of their intelligence received a -violent blow almost at once, for another man—tall, keen featured, -black bearded, his face framed in the folds of a white turban, red -and blue stones gleaming dully in the links of the silver chains on -his breast; I will never forget him—leaned forward in the firelight -and said: “Such things can never be. Even a child knows that it would -be foolish to own a house in which he did not live. Of what use is a -house, except to live in? As it is, each man has the house in which he -lives, and there are houses for all, and they belong to the tribe that -built them. It is impossible that a man can own a house. It is not the -nature of men to own houses, and we will never do it, for the nature -of man is always the same. It is the same to-day as it was before the -Romans came, and it will always be the same. And no man will ever own a -house.”</p> - -<p>“Glory to your lips!” they said to him. “It is so.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span></p> - -<p>The woman, who had been sitting quietly listening to this, now rose and -very quietly, without saying farewell, slipped out of the firelight, -and in a moment, by the sound of the closing door, I knew she had left -the house. But there was something about my last glimpse of her back -that makes me believe she is still clamoring for her house, and will be -until long after her baby sons are grown and married. Unless she gets -it sooner.</p> - -<p>There was a little silence after the woman had gone, and then one of -the youths, compressing his ears with his thumbs, began to sing. He -sang softly, for an Albanian mountaineer, but the high, clear notes -filled the house like those of a bugle. He uttered a phrase and paused; -Cheremi repeated it and paused; and, so singing alternately, repeating -always the same musical phrase with changing words, they chanted long -songs of war and adventure, old legends of men whose lives had been -worn into myths by the erosion of centuries.</p> - -<p>The music, strange and nostalgic, seemed to follow a scale quite -different from ours, a simple scale of five notes, thin and vibrating -like a violin string.</p> - -<p>“Sing one of the songs of your land, Flower,” said Cheremi to me, -politely. All the Albanians addressed us by our first names, as is the -custom, for among them the last name is merely the possessive form of -the father’s, and it is dropped in conversation. Long since my name had -been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span> translated into their tongue, becoming Drana Rugi-gnusht, Flower -of the Narrow Road.</p> - -<p>And we gave them our best. We sang “Juanita,” and “My Old Kentucky -Home” and “Marching Through Georgia” and “Dixie” and “Columbia.” -We stood up and filled our lungs and sang with all our might, but -the result was thin and faint; even to our own ears our songs were -difficult to hear, after the ringing voices of the Albanians. -“Glory to your lips,” they said, courteously, trying to cover their -disappointment and lack of interest. Then we tried “A Hot Time in -the Old Town To-night,” and that fell flat. But from depths of her -memory Frances resurrected an old American popular song; its name I -never knew, I had never heard it before; it had something to do with -an obviously improper conversation over a telephone, ending, “Are you -wise, honey eyes? Good-by!”</p> - -<p>That got them! They sat up, very much interested. “We know that song, -too!” said they, and, putting their thumbs to their ears, they sang it -in voices that compared with ours as a factory whistle to a penny one. -Except that in their mouths it became a beautiful thing, vibrant with -innumerable grace notes, and striking truly where our version became -banal. Changed, but it was our melody as unmistakably as a beautiful -woman is the mother of her ugly daughter. “But that is not a true -mountain song, it is a song of the cities,” they said, and we wondered -whether it had come to us through Vienna or gone from us to them -through Paris.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span></p> - -<p>“Try them on the ‘Merry Widow,’” I said, knowing that that music had -come to us from the Balkans, and they laughed aloud at the strains -of that famous waltz. “Albanian gypsy music,” said they, and from -somewhere in the shadows they produced a sort of musical instrument, -cunningly carved from pine, in shape like a long, thin mandolin, strung -with horse hair, and on this with a hair-strung bow they played us the -real “Merry Widow” waltz. “You have gypsies in your country, too,” said -they, and we thought how the centuries have transformed the wandering -bands of ragged entertainers into our press-agented musical-comedy -companies; how the commercial age had divided fortune telling, -thieving, and music into complex and separate activities.</p> - -<p>At eleven o’clock Cheremi broke reluctantly from the merry group and, -approaching us stealthily, whispered his request to be permitted to go -home for the night. His house lay only four hours away, perhaps forty -miles by our measurements; he had not seen his family for two years, -and he wished to visit them. He would be back before dawn. We gave him -permission, and one of the villagers went with him, to guard him from -the village dogs.</p> - -<p>Then we learned that when darkness came the dogs were let loose, and -after their loosening only the boldest ventured outside stone walls. -And the long wolf howl that rose and quavered and sank and rose again -along the trail that Cheremi<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span> followed made the dangers of the night -vocal for us. We had seen the dogs, tied by the houses, curled into -sullen gray-white balls; they are wolves, they are the first dogs, -torn from the forests and made half-tame savage companions of these -primitive men. Here in the Albanian mountains the long process of -molding life, by which men have created the breeds of dogs we know, the -great Dane, the collie, the monstrous, fantastic bulldog, and the wispy -Pekingese is still in its beginning.</p> - -<p>For us, safe in the shelter of solid walls, the night wore away as the -previous one had done. Talk and music and the desperate struggle with -weariness; the leisurely dinner in the small hours of the morning; the -brief lapse into unconsciousness, lying on the floor, which we shared -with twenty others—our host and his wife and their smallest child, the -last quite naked, had ascended the notched log to the nest of woven -willow branches that hung above us on the wall—and the awakening at -dawn to the smell of new-made coffee.</p> - -<p>“Perolli,” said Frances, desperately, “I simply can’t walk another -twenty miles on one little cup of coffee. Isn’t there something left -over from dinner? Can’t I have just one little bite of corn bread? Oh, -Perolli, please!”</p> - -<p>“If we stay for that, it means we’ll never start,” said I. “Slowly, -slowly, little by little, breakfast will be ready at six this -afternoon.”</p> - -<p>“But I’m starving!” she wailed.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span></p> - -<p>To Alex and me the cool, sweet morning outside the smoke-filled dark -house called more irresistibly than any thought of food. So at six -o’clock, accompanied by the gay Cheremi, who had just returned, she -and I set out on the twenty-mile walk to Thethis,<span class="fnanchor" id="fna3"><a href="#fn3">[3]</a></span> leaving Perolli -explaining that Frances was of a different American tribe, a tribe -whose custom was to eat in the mornings.</p> - -<p>It was not rain; the sky was like one enormous waterspout. When we came -out of the smoky, reeking darkness of the cavelike house it was like -plunging into a waterfall. We gasped with the shock of it; water poured -down our faces, and in an instant there was not a dry inch of skin on -our bodies. But we had been some days in these mountains, walking in -the rain, and after the first chill impact our blood rebounded; we -were warm, and, clutching streaming staffs in dripping hands, Alex and -I followed Cheremi gayly enough. Though when we were separated for -a few feet on the trail the figures of the others became blurry and -indistinct, like figures seen through ground glass.</p> - -<p>We went first down the bed of a small stream that ran steeply from -the mountains above to the Lumi Shala below. The water was about a -foot deep, but as soon as we got used to the force of the current we -went very well. Whenever we came to a sheer drop of three or four feet -Cheremi braced himself and swung us lightly down. So <span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span>we progressed for perhaps a third of a mile, tingling with the -exertion. Then we came out on the narrow gravelly banks of the Lumi -Shala, and were joined by a strange Albanian, nude to the waist, who -was out for a morning stroll.</p> - -<p>The proper thing was to offer him cigarettes, but how could one do it -beneath that pour of water? However, the difficulty soon solved itself, -for we found a bowlder as large as a house, with a natural corridor -running through it, and, though its walls dripped and our feet sank to -the ankles in little wells, we managed here to produce and light our -damp cigarettes.</p> - -<p>The little cave was filled with a curious greenish light, like that -beneath the sea; at either end of it a gray wall of falling water shut -off our view. Dimly we saw through it a vague blur of tawny gravel, and -nothing more.</p> - -<p>The strange Albanian conveyed to us with effort, in broken Serbian, -Italian, German, and Albanian, that this weather was bad for the -health, because when it rained the water in the streams was not good, -and drinking it caused pains in the lungs.</p> - -<p>“Good Heavens!” said we. “Pneumonia!”</p> - -<p>Then we went out of the cave, and Cheremi and the stranger carried us -across the waist-deep Lumi Shala on their backs, balanced precariously -on their shoulders, surrounded by what seemed an infinity of rushing -water, milky greenish in color and seeming to snap up at us with -millions of white teeth as the violent raindrops struck upon it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span></p> - -<p>After that, it was only fifteen miles up the beds of streams, across -damp expanses of green and crimson and gray-blue shale, and along -narrow ledges suspended between two vaguenesses of gray, until we came -to the village of Thethis, on the headwaters of the Lumi Shala.</p> - -<p>We came to it suddenly, a high-lifted sweep of rock, like the prow of -a gigantic ship wedged between the sides of the narrowing valley. It -towered a thousand feet above our heads, and on either side of it a -white waterfall plunged from the sky and roared into gray depths below.</p> - -<p>We followed the side of a narrowing chasm, climbing back and forth -like ants on the side of the cliff, making for the top of one of those -waterfalls. We reached it and, standing in a welter of spray on a tiny -rock ledge, we hung over that battle of roaring water and granite -cliffs to admire the workmanship of the three-foot wall of stone that -held up the trail. The Albanian who was with us had made it, and he was -very proud of it. He might well be.</p> - -<p>Then the trail turned the shoulder of the cliff, climbed up a gorge so -narrow that the two-foot stream covered its bottom, turned again and -came out on a little plateau. There was a wide stream running across -the flat space; its water was milky green with melted limestone, and -it was strewn with large, smooth, round bowlders. Some of the bowlders -were pure white marble, others were bright rose pink, others were black -as ebony, and one great one was green as jade.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span></p> - -<p>A bridge of two logs, with railing of twisted branches, ran from -bowlder to bowlder across this incredible river, and we stood on it, -gazing at these colors and at a cliff that rose before us, striped -rose and green and gray and white in long jagged lines, as though it -had been painted, when we heard overhead an outburst of cries, like a -hundred sea gulls shrieking in a storm. We looked higher, and there on -the top of the cliff we saw a score of boys, naked except for bright -loin cloths, engaged in acrobatics.</p> - -<p>They made pyramids of their wet white bodies; four, three, two, one, -they stood on one another’s shoulders, and the four who upheld the -pyramid ran swiftly along the edge of the cliff, passing and circling -about a similar pyramid; from top to top of the pyramids the top youths -swung, passing each other in the air, landing on other shoulders, -balancing, taking flight again. The pyramids melted, as though -dissolved in the rain, and formed again, while all along the edge of -the precipice other boys made a frieze of living bodies, turning cart -wheels, somersaulting over one another, walking on their hands.</p> - -<p>We stood paralyzed. What did it mean? Then there was an explosion of -shots; the cliffs around us crackled like giant firecrackers, the -air seemed to fall in fragments around us, and through the din came -multiplied shouts. Four tall chiefs appeared on the cliff trail, -gorgeous in black and white and red and blue and green and silver. We -were being welcomed to Thethis.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span></p> - -<p>The shouts redoubled, rifles cracked from every rock, the church bell -wildly rung, and through the clamor, deafened and a little dizzy, we -came into the village of Thethis. The four chiefs, having greeted -us (“Long life to you! Glory to your feet! Glory to the trails that -brought you!” they said) preceded us up the last breathless quarter of -a mile of trail, and all along the way the boys turned handsprings on -the cliff tops.</p> - -<p>The village of Thethis is built on the plateau that tops the gigantic, -shiplike rock wedged in the narrow head of Shala Valley. All around it -rise the mountains, snow capped, seamed with white waterfalls like rich -quartz with streaks of silver; the shadows of them lie almost all day -long across the village. Thethis itself is perhaps thirty large, oblong -stone houses scattered at wide intervals on the flat land, and all the -land is divided neatly into squares by stone fences—some fields for -corn, some for grain, some for meadow. In the midst stands the church, -two stories, oblong and gray like the houses, and a network of trodden -paths leads to it.</p> - -<p>It seemed a quiet, peaceful place. But on the mountains above it to -the north the Serbian armies lay; their mountain-trained eyes were -doubtless watching us as we crossed the sodden fields. This is the -village, these are the chiefs, whose houses were destroyed by a company -of soldiers sent from the struggling Albanian government in Tirana. -The Serbs held the Albanian<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span> cities where the men of Thethis have -always gone to market; the grazing lands where they have always fed -their sheep lie in the grasp of Serbian armies. Scutari, the nearest -free Albanian market place, is a hundred miles away across two mountain -ranges. Therefore it was said that Thethis was friendly to the Serbs; -it was said that her men still went to market in the Albanian cities -that are now clutched by Serbia, that spies came and went across the -border, that the chiefs listened to the clink of Serbian gold. And Alex -and I remembered that in Thethis we were not to address Rrok Perolli, -secretary of the Albanian Minister of the Interior, by his real name.</p> - -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img007"> - <img src="images/007.jpg" class="w75" alt="THE PLATEAU OF THETHIS" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p0 caption">THE PLATEAU OF THETHIS<br />In the foreground the church, etc. The hills in the background are held by the Serbs.</p> - -<p>But he was behind us on the trail, doubtless still engaged in trying -to get breakfast for Frances in the house we had left, and we went -forward with easy minds to meet Padre Marjan. He came barefooted and -bareheaded across the fields to welcome us, a thin, ascetic-looking man -in the brown robes of the Franciscan friar. Large brown eyes burned in -his face that seemed made of bones and stretched skin, the grasp of his -thin hand was hot and nervous. He spoke to us in Albanian, Italian, -and German, ushering us with apologies into the bleak rooms above the -church.</p> - -<p>The Serbians and Montenegrins, in their drive down toward Scutari, had -looted the church, he said. He had come into Thethis two months ago, -and found not even a wooden stool left. He was doing his best, but it -took time——</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span></p> - -<p>The rickety broken stairway led upward to a long hall; from this, a -door let us into the living room. It was bare; rain-stained wooden -walls and a floor that clattered beneath our feet. The one window was -shattered; fragments of glass held together by pasted paper. There were -a long wooden table and a bench, nothing more. No fire. Our soaked -garments were suddenly cold on us, and a chill entered our very bones.</p> - -<p>The only fire in the house, he said, was in the kitchen. We begged him -to take us to it, and in a moment we were sitting on a bench before a -crackling fire in a big stone fireplace. The tiny room was crowded with -villagers, the floor was muddy with their trampling, and more arrived -every moment. Padre Marjan had no servant, but all were eager to help -him. Some took off our shoes, others heated water over the fire, a -handsome youth who looked Serbian and talked German anxiously beat eggs -and sugar together while Padre Marjan made coffee. The warmth and the -genuine welcome they all gave thawed us and made us happy, and we sat -drinking the heartening mixture of eggs and coffee, while clouds of -steam rose from us all and a babble of talk went on.</p> - -<p>One tall, handsome chief—Lulash, his name was, and beyond doubt he -was the handsomest man we had yet seen—brought us a lamb as a gift. -Dripping beside him stood a ragged boy, barefooted and blue with -chill, who had come down the valley to bring us three eggs, which he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span> -carried tied around his waist in a pouch of goat’s skin. He put them -carefully into our hands, and we tried to return the gift with some -pieces of hoarded candy. But he gazed in dismay at the strange things, -and nothing would persuade him to taste them. A colored handkerchief, -however, was accepted in an ecstasy that made him dumb; he could only -lay it upon his heart and touch our hands to his forehead. Another -chief came with a fat hen, others with eggs; all were eager to roll -cigarettes for us, all were smiling, and in a hundred beautiful phrases -they overwhelmed us with thanks for our coming, for our presence, for -the school that Alex and Frances had promised Thethis. For this was -to be the first of the mountain schools, and Alex, who had come into -the mountains to decide where to put the other two, was delighted to -learn that already, before the school building was begun, Padre Marjan -had started the school, and Lulash had promised a hundred trees to be -burned to make lime for the building.</p> - -<p>We sat talking of these things while Padre Marjan set pots of soup to -boiling in the fireplace, broke eggs, unlocked his box of precious -flour, busied himself with all preparations for dinner, climbing over -and around the tangle of lounging bodies, until another outbreak of -echoing noises announced the arrival of Frances and Perolli and Rexh -and our men with the packs. We felt a little tension with Perolli’s -arrival, seeing the keen eyes of the men fixed on his English<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span> clothes -and swarthy, intelligent face. He is as tall as most Europeans, but he -was small among those giants, and the neat leather-holstered revolver -and dagger that hung from his belt looked inadequate among all those -long, bristling rifles.</p> - -<p>But Padre Marjan, unaware of our apprehensions, was altogether the -happy welcoming host. He greeted the dripping Frances warmly, anxious -only to make her comfortable—she who was also responsible for the hope -of a school in Thethis. He welcomed Perolli also, calling him by his -first name. “How does he know that Perolli’s name is Rrok?” we girls -asked one another with startled eyes—and then, turning to the chiefs -with a radiant smile, “This guest,” said Padre Marjan, with pleasure, -“is Rrok Perolli, the secretary of the Minister of the Interior in -Tirana.”</p> - -<p>You read of such things calmly. Nothing that one reads is real to -him. Therefore you can never know what Padre Marjan’s innocent words -meant to us as he spoke them in his crowded kitchen in Thethis, at the -headwaters of the Lumi Shala, a hundred miles and twenty centuries from -anything you know.</p> - -<p>The wildness, the savagery and isolation of those mountains seemed to -come into the room. A hundred miles to Scutari, a hundred miles of -almost impassable mountains between us and any kind of help. There we -were, three girls and a boy, alone in the narrow valley beneath the -eyes of the Serbs, the Serbs who six months<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span> earlier had caught Perolli -and condemned him to death.</p> - -<p>A chill wind seemed to blow through the room; it was not imagined. -Every wide, friendly eye about us had narrowed, every lip tightened a -trifle. A thousand currents of antagonism, of distrust, of intrigue, -seemed like tangible things in the air; only Padre Marjan remained -warm, innocent and smiling.</p> - -<p>None of us four, certainly not Perolli, doubted that we had just heard -his death sentence spoken. And I felt again the depths below depths in -the Albanian mind, in that primitive mind which is so much more complex -than ours, as I saw him smile, easily and naturally, and heard him -saying, “Long may you live!” to the circle of his enemies.</p> - -<p>“And to you long life!” said they, while he offered them cigarettes and -they rolled others in exchange. He sat down easily on the bench before -the fire; with an unconsidered simultaneous movement we three girls -moved forward and sat beside him; the chiefs again took their places -on the floor, foremost of a mass of bodies and faces, and Padre Marjan -moved in and out and around us all, stirring and seasoning the contents -of the pots that bubbled in the fireplace.</p> - -<p>“Talk to them, say something!” said Perolli, in a careless tone, -offering me a cigarette.</p> - -<p>“Thank you,” said I, in Albanian, taking it. “Tell them that I come -from California, the most beautiful part of America, and that I have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span> -seen the American mountains and the mountains of Switzerland, both -famous around the world, and that I have never seen such beautiful -mountains as those of the Land of the Eagle. (They will not do anything -while we are here, will they?)”</p> - -<p>Perolli translated. “They say: ‘Glory to your lips. Do you live among -the American mountains?’ (No, not unless they get me alone.)”</p> - -<p>“In America we cannot live among such mountains. We cannot climb such -trails; we are not strong, like the Albanians. When we go any distance -we ride, and we have forgotten how to walk up cliffs. We have rich, -soft houses, and we travel everywhere on soft cushions, and all our -life is easy. But old men still remember when our life was hard and -rugged, as it is here, and I have seen in America houses of stone, like -these, with very small windows and pegs on the walls where rifles were -hung. For our fathers’ fathers lived hard lives surrounded by enemies, -as the Albanians do now, and some old men still remember those days. -(Do you want me to keep them talking?)”</p> - -<p>“They say: ‘What has made the change? Have you cut down your -mountains?’ (Yes. I want a little while to think.)” And he leaned back -and crossed his knees and lighted another cigarette.</p> - -<p>“Well, America was very much like Albania in many ways,” said I. “We -were ruled by another nation, as the Albanians were, and we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span> revolted, -like the Albanians. Then our tribes fought, as these tribes fight, -among themselves. And life was very hard. But we had a young government -of our own, as the Albanians have, and it grew stronger, and after -a while all the tribes stopped fighting. Then when they were not -fighting they used all their strength to make life easy, and it became -very easy, and all the houses had windows, because there were no more -enemies to shoot through them, and we made great wide trails that were -easy to travel, and we made and carried all kinds of goods on them, and -became very rich, just as Albania will do.”</p> - -<p>“And schools,” said Alex. “Don’t forget the schools.”</p> - -<p>Perolli translated at length. When he had finished, Lulash rose, and he -was very splendid in his six feet of height, a snowy turban with folds -beneath the chin outlining his strong, sensitive, sun-browned face, -silver chains clinking against the jewel-studded silver pistols in his -orange-and-red sash, and he made a beautiful speech, graceful with a -hundred flowery metaphors, thanking us and, beyond us, America, in the -name of his village, his tribe, and all his people, for the school and -the hope it brought.</p> - -<p>“I,” he said, “am a great chief; I have a great house and large flocks -and much silver, and all that I have I would give if I could read. I -am a chief of Thethis, and my people look to me, and many things are -happening outside our mountains that mean much to my people, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> I -cannot learn what they are and what they mean, because I cannot read. -Every night I come to Padre Marjan and study the little black marks, -and long afterward I lie awake in my house and am shamed before myself -for the ignorance of my whole life. But you have brought learning into -my village; our children will know more than we. Our hope is in the -children; they will be little torches leading us out of the darkness. -You have lighted these torches, and I say to you, for Thethis, for -Shala, and for the Land of the Eagle, our hearts are yours to walk -upon. Long may you live!”</p> - -<p>“Go on a smooth trail,” said we, as he went out, all the other men -following him. Then, released from their observant eyes, we looked at -one another with all the panic we felt.</p> - -<p>“What will they do? Did he mean what he said? Can we expect any -protection from him for you, if we ask it?” said Frances.</p> - -<p>“<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Qui sait?</i>” said Perolli. “We Albanians use many words. They -have gone to hold a council. All their immediate interests lie with the -Serbs. If they hand me over—well, you know the Serbian armies hold -their markets and their grazing lands, and a million Albanians are in -Serbia’s power. We have nothing like that to offer these chiefs from -Tirana, yet.”</p> - -<p>“But we are guests! But we are women!” we exclaimed.</p> - -<p>“Oh, they won’t act quickly. But the trails are long, in the mountains. -Let me think,” said<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span> Perolli. And we were silent, watching Padre Marjan -busy and anxious about the cooking.</p> - -<p>The hours went by, with a steadily increasing tension on the nerves. -It is so rarely that we are actually in the center of a situation -involving murder that we do not easily adjust ourselves to it. With -Perolli it was different; he did not disguise a very earnest desire to -save his life, but he is Albanian. He laughed, quite as usual; he sat -on the bench before the fire and told stories, and sang Albanian songs, -and joked with Padre Marjan. Only occasionally the thoughts beneath the -surface of his mind rose and engulfed him in a dark silence. At dinner -he ate with good appetite. As for us, watching him, we could not avoid -the horrid idea of the good breakfasts served before executions.</p> - -<p>We ate in the bare, bleak living room. It was intensely cold; we wore -sweaters and coats. Rain blew through the broken window upon us. We -would infinitely have preferred to be squatting by the fire in a native -house, but Padre Marjan’s hospitable pride would have been stabbed if -we had suggested eating in the kitchen. So we sat on the bench, with -the table before us, and both of them seemed very strange, and knives -and forks and plates appeared to us the most absurd of hindrances to -the simple and pleasant action of eating. Why, we said, did we ever -invent them; they are not really beautiful or useful; they simply -clutter up our lives; and we were aghast, thinking of all the factories -and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span> railroad cars and stores and dishpans and the millions of hours of -washing up, all of it, one might say, an enormous river of human energy -running into the waste of heaps of broken crockery, and nothing more.</p> - - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span></p> - -<p class="footnote" id="fn3"><a href="#fna3">[3]</a> Pronounced as Thaythee—th as in truth.</p> - -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0">IN THE HOUSE OF PADRE MARJAN—LULASH GIVES A WORD OF HONOR AND -DISCUSSES MARRIAGE—THE STOLEN DAUGHTER OF SHALA.</p> -</div> - - -<p>Padre Marjan sat with us, but did not eat, as it was a fast day. An -apparently endless succession of dishes—soup, lamb, omelettes, pork -chops, chicken—was brought in by Cheremi and served by Rexh in his red -fez. Poor little Rexh! He ate nothing but a bit of corn bread; he said -the pork chops had been broiled in the fireplace, and he feared that -some of the fat had spattered into the cooking pots. He was not sure, -but he feared so, and he thought it safer not to eat anything prepared -in them.</p> - -<p>The lamb’s head, skinned but otherwise intact, was served separately, -boiled, and the delicacy of the meal was its brains, which we got at -by cutting through the skull. When the chicken came, Cheremi presented -it with awe in his eyes, and after we had eaten he whispered behind -his hand to Perolli. In the kitchen, he said, they were talking of the -chicken; it was not of Padre Marjan’s raising, but it had been hatched -and brought up in the village, and they were sure that its breastbone -would foretell the immediate future of Thethis. Would we let him have -it?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span></p> - -<p>Perolli took up the thin bone and very carefully cleaned it of every -clinging bit of flesh. Then, with an apology to Padre Marjan, he held -it up to the light from the window. Through the translucent bone the -marrow, clouded with clotted blood, showed clearly, and Perolli read -it with serious eyes, pointing out to us its meaning. There was a clot -that meant a battle, a battle to the north, and there was a widening -red line running from a dark spot; the signs were clear. The government -would grow more powerful, and there would be war to the north, war with -the Serbs.</p> - -<p>He gave the bone to Cheremi, who tiptoed toward the kitchen with it. -I strained my ears to hear how it was received; I thought that the -portent of strong government might make the people think it unwise to -hand Perolli over to the Serbs; they must know that in any case his -death would be avenged by soldiers from Tirana. But would it, since -he was traveling “on a vacation”? Governments do not usually back up -their secret-service men who fail on the job. There was no sound from -the kitchen, and we entertained Padre Marjan by showing him how, in -America, we use the wishbone to foretell a part of the future. But any -wishbone will do that for us, while in Albania only the breastbone of -a hen that has lived all her life in the family will foretell that -family’s future.</p> - -<p>Outside, it continued to rain, if that state of the air when it is -surely half water can be called<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span> rain. We were glad to get back to the -kitchen fire. The chiefs and older men of the village did not return, -but many women and children came in to talk to the strangers, and it -was evident that the padre’s kitchen was the village club-house; they -were all at home and happy there. The padre himself washed the dishes -and swept the floor with a pine bough, chatting with them all as he did -so; one saw, in the atmosphere of intimacy and democracy and respect -around him what the Church used to be to the people long ago.</p> - -<p>Then he set pans of water to heating for our baths, and when they were -warm he lighted the way with a candle to his bedroom, which he had -loaned to us. Another large, bare room with wooden unpainted walls, a -bedstead of rough boards with a mattress laid on them, and sheets and -pillow cases of red-and-white-plaided cotton, hand woven; in one corner -an office desk, and on the wall beside the bed a rosary.</p> - -<p>At midnight Perolli and Padre Marjan retired to the cold, wet living -room, to roll themselves in blankets and sleep on the floor. We three -girls sat shivering on the mattress and wished we knew what the chiefs -were deciding.</p> - -<p>But, oh! it was good to take off the clothes, so many times soaked with -rain, in which we had walked and climbed and slept for three days and -nights. And forks may be idle luxuries, but there is no question that a -thin mattress filled with straw and laid on raised boards is one of the -greatest comforts in life!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span></p> - -<p>We were awakened in the damp chill of a watery gray dawn, and with -surprise found ourselves on its unfamiliar softness, in the bleak room -of unpainted boards. Padre Marjan was knocking at the door. In a moment -he entered, barefooted, in his long brown robe girded with cord, and, -going to the incongruous office desk, he carefully unlocked a lower -drawer and took out a box of soap. There were twenty small cakes of -soap in the box. He took out one, carefully, put the box back in the -drawer, locked it.</p> - -<p>He had been followed by a small boy, a very serious child, and visibly -nervous. About eleven years old, he wore the long, tight, black-braided -white trousers, colored sash, and woolly, fringed short black jacket -of his people, but they were all soaking wet and very old, mended and -mended again until hardly any of the original fabric was left. His bare -feet were blue with cold, and so were his bare arms, for the Scanderbeg -jacket has no sleeves, and he did not wear a shirt. He stood very -straight, and swallowed hard, keeping his face impassive.</p> - -<p>Padre Marjan turned to him, holding the cake of soap. He spoke -earnestly and at some little length. He then presented the cake of soap -to the child, who bent a knee to receive it, and kissed the padre’s -hand and then the soap. An impressive little ceremonial, which we -witnessed, wide eyed, from the mattress where we sat huddled among the -blankets. Rain was still sluicing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span> against the windows, so that the -water on them was surely as thick as the glass.</p> - -<p>We looked inquiringly at Frances, who understood Albanian. Her eyes -shone, she was so excited. “It’s a school prize!” she said, and, -listening, “He’s the best scholar in school; already he can read and -write. Isn’t it splendid!” The boy saluted us gravely; one saw that he -had just gone through a profound emotional experience. “Long may you -live!” said he, and went out.</p> - -<p>Padre Marjan said that the school had been opened ten days before. -On the first day there were forty-three pupils, on the second day -sixty-two, on the third day ninety-seven. All the tribe was sending its -children to live with relatives in Thethis and go to school. No more -than ninety-seven could get into the padre’s living room; the others -must wait until, with the money Alex and Frances had collected, the -schoolhouse could be built. There were no benches or desks, of course; -the children stood packed tightly in the cold room, and he taught them -by writing with a piece of chalk on the walls. Already this boy could -read and write words of one syllable and merited a cake of soap. Padre -Marjan, at his own expense, had sent two hundred miles to Tirana for -fifty cakes of soap, to be used as prizes. There was, of course, no -other soap in the tribe; a more magnificent gift could not have been -imagined.</p> - -<p>The boy who got the cake of soap walked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span> every morning nine miles -over the mountains to reach school at seven o’clock, and at nine, -after school, he walked back and took out the goats and spent all day -climbing trees and cutting twigs for them to eat.</p> - -<p>Padre Marjan said that as soon as he knew the Americans would build the -school he had started teaching, and he had written to the government in -Tirana and asked if it would help. He brought from the desk the letter -he had received in reply. Written by hand, for the poverty-stricken -young government had no typewriters, and sent by messenger into the -mountains, in six weeks it had reached Thethis, and the padre kept it -wrapped in a bit of hand-woven silk. Frances spelled it out; it said -that the government would give a hundred kronen a month to pay the -teacher. It was signed for the Minister of the Interior by Rrok Perolli.</p> - -<p>“My sainted grandmother!” cried Frances. “Where is Perolli?” At that -very minute the chiefs might be sending word to the Serbs to come and -get him. The chiefs themselves would surely not violate the hospitality -of their priest, but the Serbs would have no reverence for it and they -were only a few miles away. When we thought what a bargain the chiefs -might drive with the Serbs for Perolli it seemed too much to hope that -one of them, at least, would not hand him over.</p> - -<p>Padre Marjan spoke warmly of Perolli, whom he had so innocently -betrayed; he said that he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span> had once seen him at a distance in Scutari, -and the village was honored to have him for a guest. While he said this -he wrapped the precious letter in its silk and laid it carefully away -in the desk. Then he went away, saying that he would send us a fire.</p> - -<p>In a few minutes it came, a pile of hot coals in a large iron baking -dish. Cheremi set it in the middle of the floor—where, indeed, it made -little impression on the damp chill of the room—and went to fetch us -cups of Turkish coffee. But we were too anxious to linger over it; we -swallowed it hastily and dressed as quickly as possible, talking about -what we could do to save Perolli. We thought that perhaps as American -citizens we could overawe the Serbs, but none of us really had much -hope of it; indeed, we had no right to attempt American protection for -a secret-service agent of the Albanian government along the borders of -the land held by invading Jugo-Slav armies. Still, we did not know that -he was a secret-service agent; we had every right to suppose that he -was merely our companion on a vacation trip. It was all very vague, but -distressing.</p> - -<p>Frances and Alex hurried out to find Perolli, but I sat helpless. No -human effort would get my feet into the iron-hard shrunken shoes that -had so long been water soaked. What on earth was I to do? Could I go -barefooted over the mountains? More immediate question, could I go -forth shoeless to inspire terror<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span> of America in the breasts of possible -Serbs? Ignoble predicament!</p> - -<p>While I sat struggling with the obdurate leather the door opened and -in came the magnificent figure of Lulash, the chief. He had none of -the marks of self-conscious importance that our statesmen have; he -was as simple, as graceful, and as unself-conscious as a tiger in -his own jungle, and at the moment he struck me with something of the -same spellbound, half-admiring terror. He looked as capable of swift, -unconcerned killing as the rifle on his back. Behind him came Perolli, -betraying the tension of his excitement only by the ease with which he -concealed it.</p> - -<p>Lulash saluted me as I stared up at him, petrified, from the mattress. -“Long may you live!” said he, and, swinging the rifle from his back, he -set it against the padre’s desk. Then he sat down on the floor—there -were, of course, no chairs in the room—close to the baking dish -filled with warm coals. He did not lounge, but sat straight, his legs -folded beneath him, and Perolli sat similarly on the other side of the -baking dish. Lulash took a silver tobacco box from his sash and slowly -rolled a cigarette; Perolli took from his pocket a box of the American -variety; they exchanged cigarettes, lighted them by bending close to -the red coals, and sat back again, watching each other in silence for -some moments.</p> - -<p>I put my shoes down stealthily, making not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span> the slightest noise, tucked -my feet beneath me, and sat perfectly still. Outside, the rain made a -swishing sound; the soft roaring of a thousand waterfalls ran beneath -it like an accompaniment. Thin streaks of snow-chilled, wet air came -through the many cracks in the board walls and floor; they tore the -cigarette smoke into dancing wisps. Wet spread slowly on the walls; the -floor was spotted with damp where we had dropped our sodden clothes the -night before. The coals in the baking dish were filming over with gray -ash.</p> - -<p>It was the first time I had ever been present at a diplomatic -conference, and that one on which the fate of a nation depended. For if -these mountain men did turn Perolli over to the Serbs, getting thereby -the favor of the armies that held their cities and grazing lands, I had -no doubt that it meant soldiers from Tirana coming up to Thethis, civil -war with the northern tribes, and not at all improbably the murdering -of the new-born government. Perhaps, indeed, another outbreak in the -Balkans, the sore spot of Europe. And I could not understand Albanian!</p> - -<p>Lulash spoke first, in short, decisive sentences. I caught the word -“Serbs” and the word for “markets.” At the end of each sentence Perolli -shook his head sidewise, in the quick gesture that means, “Yes.” -Lulash was stating the case; Perolli was in his power; the Serbs -wanted Perolli; the Serbs held Thethis’s markets and grazing lands; -moreover—for I caught the word<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span> “kronen”—there was the probability of -reward. To all this Perolli assented. He had not yet spoken.</p> - -<p>There was another slight pause, but not for him to break. Lulash was -thinking. Then he leaned a little forward, put his hand on his heart, -and spoke again. There was not the faintest expression on Perolli’s -face; I could not make out what was happening. When Lulash had ceased -speaking Perolli smoked for a moment in silence. “You have done well,” -he said, then, in Albanian; and to me, “Have you got your fountain pen?”</p> - -<p>I got it out of my trousers pocket and gave it to him quickly—too -quickly. He was very leisurely about taking it. Then he opened his -notebook and wrote in it. Lulash watched the moving pen with a sort -of awed fascination. Perolli read aloud the words he had written, -closed the notebook, and put it in his pocket. He showed no pleasure of -relief, but the very atmosphere of the room had lightened.</p> - -<p>Both men leaned back more easily and for the first time seemed to taste -their cigarettes. Lulash looked at me; the aquiline profile became a -full-face view of the handsome, sensitive, strong face framed in folds -of white. What did I look like to those mountain eyes, I wondered, -sitting there disheveled among tumbled blankets, a brown sweater -bunched around my neck, my riding trousers creased and muddy and -dangling their unputteed legs?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span></p> - -<p>“I should be glad to see the women of my tribe wearing American -garments,” said Lulash. “Skirts are heavy and cumbersome; trousers are -far better.”</p> - -<p>Perolli translated.</p> - -<p>“Goodness! He thinks all American women wear trousers!” I said. “Well, -tell him I thank him; I agree with him; for the mountains trousers are -more comfortable. Tell him I am much interested in the women of his -tribe and would like to ask him some questions about them. And I’ll die -right here if you don’t tell me what’s happened.”</p> - -<p>“He will be glad to tell you anything he knows, but no man understands -the nature of women, which is like the streams that run under the -mountains. Don’t worry; it’s all over.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean? Ask him if he thinks it is a good idea to betroth -children before they are born. (What did you write in the notebook?)”</p> - -<p>“He says he does not think it a good idea. (I tell you it’s all right.)”</p> - -<p>“Oh, thank goodness! Then he does not think the women are happy in -their marriages? (But tell me what he was saying to you, won’t you?)”</p> - -<p>“He says that as for happiness, his people do not expect happiness -in marriage; happiness comes from other things. (I cannot tell -you; he would understand the word; I will spell it. He has sworn a -<i>b</i>-<i>e</i>-<i>s</i>-<i>a</i> that his whole tribe will be loyal -to the Albanian government as long as he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span> lives. Careful! Don’t let him -suspect I’m talking about it.)”</p> - -<p>Albanians, with their many languages, are used to such conversations. I -hope I deceived Lulash; my training in dissimulation has been small. I -was rather dizzy.</p> - -<p>“From what does their happiness come, then?” said I. (“For Heaven’s -sake, what happened to make him do that?”)</p> - -<p>“Happiness,” said Lulash, “comes from the skies. It comes from -sunshine, and from light and shadow on the mountains, and from green -things in the spring. It comes also from rest when one is tired, and -from food when one is hungry, and from fire when one is cold. It comes -from singing together, and from walking on hard trails and being harder -than the rocks; and there is a kind of happiness that comes to a man in -battle, but that is a different kind. For us, marriage has nothing to -do with happiness.”</p> - -<p>Perolli, translating, added, “He did it because the Albanian government -has helped the American school here.”</p> - -<p>Then for the first time I really looked at Lulash. He had been until -then simply a marvelously beautiful animal; a man such as men must have -been before cities and machines and office desks brought dull skins -and eyes, joy rides, padded shoulders, and crippling collars. Now I -perceived that he was also a real person.</p> - -<p>He saw beyond immediate gain for himself or his people. He had refused -any advantages to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span> be gained by this unexpected dropping into his -hands of this man that the Serbs wanted; he lived under the shadow -of mountains alive with Serbian troops, his village was filled with -Serbian influences, the Tirana government was two hundred miles away, -and he knew nothing of it except that it had promised a hundred kronen -a month to the mountain school that Alex and Frances had started. -Yet he had come, voluntarily, without urging, to swear a <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i> -of loyalty to that government because it had helped the school. And -the <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i>, the word of honor, would hold him, I knew, as the -strongest treaties never hold Western governments. I admired that man. -I felt a tender sort of pity for him, too, because of his faith in the -value of being able to read. After all, what has it done for us? Like -most of civilization, it has done little more than create a useless -desire that men become slaves to satisfy. It has made us very little -kinder, very little less unsympathetic with alien points of view, and -no farther from war, poverty, and misery than the Albanians are.</p> - -<p>“Then what does marriage mean to the Albanians?” I said, grasping for -the thread of the conversation.</p> - -<p>Lulash was really puzzled by my idea that marriage and happiness -were in some way connected. He was courteous, but there was a little -surprise in his voice. “Marriage is a family question,” he said. “One -marries because one is old enough to marry, and that is the way<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span> the -family goes on from generation to generation. You marry in America, -do you not? You keep the family alive? How are marriages arranged in -America?”</p> - -<p>“With us,” I said, “marriage does not have much to do with the family. -Young people grow up thinking about themselves. Then, when they are old -enough, if they have money enough to live on, and if they meet some -one they like and want to marry, they marry. They marry to be happy, -because they have found some one they want to live with always. They go -away from their families, sometimes very far away, and live in a house -by themselves.”</p> - -<p>It came over me, while I watched the surprise growing in Lulash’s eyes, -how haphazard and egotistic—how shallowly rooted, really—our whole -system is. We marry because we want another human being, because—it -really comes to that—we want to use that other human being to make -happiness for ourselves. For even when one gets happiness by giving, -instead of taking, it is still fundamentally a demand, a demand that -the other take what is given, and that is sometimes the hardest of all -demands to satisfy. Two persons, each demanding that the other be a -source of personal happiness to him or her, each demanding, clutching, -insisting on that gift from the other—that is the spectacle of -American marriage. No wonder it so often ends in a heap of wreckage, -out of which maimed human beings struggle through divorce.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span></p> - -<p>“I do not understand what you mean by saying they must have money -enough to marry,” said Lulash. “There is always money enough to marry, -isn’t there? A man costs the tribe no more married than not married, -and if new girls are brought into the tribe by marriage, others are -given away in marriage. Even in the poorest tribes marriages never -stop.”</p> - -<p>“We have another system of owning property in America,” said I. “By -that system, often men cannot afford to marry until they are quite old. -They are never able to marry as young as you do here. In fact, many -persons never marry at all.”</p> - -<p>“Because there are not enough women?”</p> - -<p>“Oh no! The women work, too, and do not marry. (Goodness! Perolli, tell -him it is too difficult to explain.)”</p> - -<p>“He thinks,” said Perolli, “that you mean that in your country the -young men live like priests and the women like sworn virgins, such as -they sometimes have here. He’s very deeply shocked by such an idea. -I’ll have to tell him something—what? Either way, he’ll get the idea -that Americans are utterly immoral.”</p> - -<p>“Well, say that we have—that we have another kind of marriage, that -isn’t exactly marriage—say we have concubines. He’ll understand that, -from Turkey,” said I, in desperation. And while Perolli endeavored -to explain and still uphold the honor of America in the eyes of a -profoundly shocked chief of Shala, I tried to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span> devise another way of -getting at the subject. For I did want to know what Albanian women felt -about being married to men they had never seen, in strange tribes, and -I knew they would never tell me through masculine interpreters. Lulash -would know.</p> - -<p>“But most of the sources of happiness that you mentioned are in the -lives of men,” I said. “Are the women happy?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Lulash. “I do not think our women are happy.” He seemed -deeply troubled; there were perplexity and anxiety in his dark eyes, -and he moved restlessly—which Albanians almost never do—as he sat -on the floor by the heap of coals in the baking dish. They had sunk -quite into gray ashes; the bleak room was very cold, filled with the -ceaseless swishing sound of the rain and of the innumerable waterfalls -that poured from the mountains overhead.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I shouldn’t be asking him this? Perhaps he is married to an -unhappy woman?” I asked.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Perolli. “He is not married; he is the only man in Shala who -is not married.”</p> - -<p>“Our women have their children; they love their children,” said Lulash. -“And they do not quarrel with their husbands. It almost never happens -that there are ugly words in a family. But I do not think the women -are happy. I do not know whether they would be happier if they chose -their own husbands. Girls of the marrying age are not very wise. But I -often think,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span> when I see a young girl taken away to the house of some -old man, who perhaps is sick and ugly and morose because he must stay -all day in the house, that it is a sad thing. For myself, I would like -to see the American way tried here. I have said to my people that it -is wrong to betroth children before they are born. We do not do it -very often, now. Usually they are five or six years old, old enough so -that one can see what they will become and what they will like. But -parents do not often think of those things; they think more of marrying -their children into a richer, stronger tribe, so that when war and bad -seasons come there will be the strong, rich tribe to help them. Also, -it is better for the child who is married into a good tribe. So that -parents do not think much about the children themselves; they think -more about the family and the tribe.”</p> - -<p>“Why isn’t he married?” I said to Perolli.</p> - -<p>“Did they give the girl he wanted to some one else?”</p> - -<p>“How could they, when he would have been a baby then?” said Perolli, -indignant at my stupidity. “No. When he was old enough to marry he paid -the girl’s family and arranged her marriage to some one else. It is -well known why he has not married; he does not want to marry a woman of -the mountains, and he knows no other women.”</p> - -<p>“And in my country,” I said to Lulash, “I think it would be better if -parents thought more about the young man’s family.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span></p> - -<p>“Yes,” he replied, “if they thought about the character of that family, -as they would doubtless do in America. Here, they think more about the -lands and herds and strong fighting men that the tribe has. I have -often thought at night—for I lie awake a great deal, thinking about -my people—that we would have better children if the women were free -to choose their own husbands. They would choose men who were young and -strong and beautiful. Also the young men would choose the strongest and -most beautiful girls. There is another thing, too. I believe there is -something like a spirit between two people, something that knows more -than their brains do about what their children will be, and that that -spirit would lead them into better marriages if they could listen to -it. I do not say it very well, because there is no word for it, but I -understand it. I would like to see my people try the American way,” he -repeated.</p> - -<p>He rose to his six feet of height, splendid in fine white wool and -silken sash, the jewel-studded chains clinking together on his chest, -and swung the rifle again on his back. “I will go now to my own house,” -he said. “If the <i xml:lang="bg" lang="bg">zaushka</i> from America would follow me and drink -coffee before my fire, the path her feet would take would always be -flowery with spring to my eyes.”</p> - -<p>There is something contagious in that sort of thing. “Say to him that -my feet will be happy on the path,” I said to the amused Perolli.</p> - -<p>“Glory to your lips!” said Lulash. “Glory<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span> forever to the little feet -that brought you to Thethis!”</p> - -<p>The little feet were wearing at that moment two pairs of wrinkled, -thick woolen stockings, indescribably ludicrous beneath the flapping -legs of trousers around which I had not rewound the soaked woolen -leggings, and Perolli and I were helpless with laughter as soon as the -door had closed behind Lulash.</p> - -<p>“How am I ever going to get to his house?” I asked, wiping my eyes.</p> - -<p>“Oh, we’ll have somebody make you some goatskin opangi,” said Perolli. -“He won’t expect us very soon.” He flung out his arms in a jubilant -gesture. “A <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i> of peace from Shala!” he exclaimed. “I couldn’t -have hoped for that! It means peace through the whole north; it means -internal security for northern Albania—if I can only get the other -tribes to join it.”</p> - -<p>Frances and Alex came in, desperately anxious to know what had -happened, and we three did a dance of pure delight. It was an -inexpressible relief to know that Perolli would get out of Shala alive, -and the <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i> was almost too much.</p> - -<p>“But, Perolli,” said Frances, when I had told the whole conversation, -“do you mean to say that these people are—are absolutely moral? -I mean, as we understand morality? No love making along all these -mountain trails? No illegitimate children? Never?”</p> - -<p>“Never? Well, I have heard of one case,” said Perolli. “But don’t -forget that such a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span> thing would mean a blood feud between tribes. No -man would make love to a girl of his own tribe, of course; a tribe -traces its ancestry back to a common ancestor, and it would be like an -American’s making love to his own sister. And if he seduced a girl of -another tribe he would be involving hundreds of people. Men have to -respect women in these mountains; they’re killed if they don’t, and not -only they, but their families. A blood feud is no joke.</p> - -<p>“However, I did hear of its happening once. The man’s family had to -send word to the family of the girl to whom he was betrothed, to say -that he could not marry her because he was going to have a child by -another woman. The three tribes met in council and prevented a blood -feud, but the man’s family had to pay his fiancée’s tribe ten thousand -kronen, and ten thousand kronen to the family of the man that the -other girl was engaged to. Then those two married, and the first man -married the girl who was going to have his child. But it was a terrible -disgrace to both their families.</p> - -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img008"> - <img src="images/008.jpg" class="w75" alt="THE SHOPPING CENTER IN TIRANA" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p0 caption">THE SHOPPING CENTER IN TIRANA<br />These mountain women are admiring the strange weaving and color of bandana handkerchiefs and unbleached muslin from Europe. But they will sigh and content themselves with their own hand-woven silks and cottons, and if they buy anything, it will be the brightly painted cradle. An unbetrothed girl baby who was strapped into so fine a cradle might well hope to be married in Tirana or Scutari.</p> - -<p>But he cut short our awed admiration for such a rigidly moral -community. He was a man of Ipek, educated in Europe, and returned to -Tirana, and his attitude to the ignorant tribes of these mountains was -not one of admiration.</p> - -<p>“They are really a wretched lot,” he declared. “Now, take a thing like -this, for instance.” And he told us that in a house a few miles down -the valley there was a nine-year-old girl held prisoner. The story was -this:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span></p> - -<p>A man of Pultit had betrothed his unborn child to the unborn child of a -man of Shala, eighteen years ago. The two men, being friends, and one -evening drinking rakejia together, had agreed that if one child proved -to be a boy and the other a girl, they should marry. The wife of the -Pultit man had protested; she did not like the tribe of Shala, and she -did not like her husband’s friend, perhaps because he was too fond of -rakejia. Besides, she was an ambitious woman, and said that if she had -a daughter she would marry her in Scutari. Wild, irrational woman! But -the compact was made, and nothing was left to her but to hope that both -children would be boys, or both girls.</p> - -<p>However, she became the mother of a daughter, and the Shala man became -the father of a son. The girl was eleven years old, and in a few -more years would have been duly married in Shala, when the Serbs and -Montenegrins, pouring down over the mountains in the retreat before the -Austrians, suddenly invaded Albania, and in fighting those ancestral -enemies the girl’s father was killed. The mother immediately took her -children and fled to Scutari.</p> - -<p>Four years later, the girl now being of marriageable age, Shala sent -to Scutari for her, and what was their outrage to discover that the -mother not only would not give her up, but had actually betrothed her -to a Scutari man! The gendarmes of Scutari make simple and direct -justice difficult; mountain law does not apply<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span> there. Two Shala men -made an attempt to carry off the girl, and were captured by superior -forces and thrown into jail. Not killed, you perceive, but trapped, and -talked over at length, and kept in a cage for some time, and at length -freed, all most absurdly and unreasonably. They returned at once to -their task, but they found it impossible to seize the girl again. She -was closely guarded, not only by her mother, but by the family of the -Scutari man to whom she was unjustly betrothed. So, finding that way to -justice blocked, the Shala men caught her little sister, eight years -old, and triumphantly escaped with her into the mountains.</p> - -<p>She was not yet of marriageable age, and the Shala bridegroom must -wait another six years, but justice had been done, though imperfectly. -Pultit owed him a bride, and a Pultit bride he would have, with -patience. The girl was brought to his house, and was even now being -kept there, much against her will, while the family waited for her to -grow old enough to be married.</p> - -<p>“Those are things that we must change as soon as the government is -strong enough,” Perolli said, decisively, and we hoped that the -government would be strong enough in time to rescue the girl, though -the poor Shala lad, through no fault of his own, seemed doomed to live -an unhappy bachelor.</p> - -<p>In Padre Marjan’s kitchen we found at least twenty visitors from the -village; the men were there again, among them all the chiefs but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span> -Lulash. The fireplace was full of bubbling pots and sizzling pans; -the padre, helped informally by whoever happened to be nearest, was -preparing our luncheon. My dilemma was announced; I stood before them -shoeless. A boy ran at once across the village and returned streaming, -as though he had been in a river, bringing two pieces of goatskin, -tanned with the soft brown hair on it.</p> - -<p>To the eager interest of everyone, I set my feet on the pieces, and -there were many exclamations of wonder at their smallness and at the -curious shape of them, the toes so close together and making a point, -instead of arching, each one separately, as the toes of their people -do, and they would have been glad to examine them more closely—asking -one another, as Rexh explained, if I would or would not take off the -strangely woven stockings later. Meanwhile the boy with a nail drew the -outlines of my feet on the leather and went away with it to his house, -where the opangi would be made.</p> - -<p>While this was happening the older men of the tribe went back to the -cold bedroom with Perolli, each one adding his own <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i> of -loyalty to the one Lulash had sworn, and asking many questions about -the aims and strength of the Tirana government. They would not yet -call it the Albanian government; they could not comprehend the idea of -the state, so familiar to us that we never examine it. “Government” -meant to them not only the consent of the governed, but the active -participation of everyone in governing;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span> they had, indeed, no -conception of what we mean by “government.” When they say “government” -they mean what we mean when we say, in a group, “Well, now we’re all -agreed, let’s go on and do it.”</p> - -<p>Perolli spent that morning—and indeed most of his time in the few -succeeding days that we were together—trying to explain the idea of -a representative government to these simple communist people. And he -told us that within six weeks the Albanian government would really -come up into the mountains. The plan was to begin by sending into -the tribes men from Tirana who could read and write; they would be -connecting links between Tirana and the tribes, sitting in all the -tribal councils, making reports to Tirana and explaining the wishes of -the Tirana parliament to the mountaineers.</p> - -<p>These men would bring in with them, of course, the private-property -ideas of southern Albania (which is just changing from the feudal -system to modern capitalism), and I felt a regret, purely romantic, -perhaps, at the inevitable disappearance of this last surviving remnant -of the Aryan primitive communism in which our own fore-fathers lived, -and at the replacing of Lulash by men like our politicians. I am a -conservative, even a reactionary; I should like to keep the Albanian -mountains what they are. But no one can stop the changes in human -affairs; the eternal swing of the pendulum goes on; we have shop -stewards in England and a Plumb plan in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span> America, and in Thethis, on -the headwaters of the Lumi Shala, we shall have agitators for private -ownership of land and houses, and—no doubt, in time—for private -property in mines and railroads and electric-power plants.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0">THE CHIEFS OF SHALA PROBATE A WILL—WE VISIT THE HOUSE OF LULASH—A -JOURNEY TO UPPER THETHIS.</p> -</div> - - -<p>I may say that such agitators will have a very bad time of it, as -doubtless all agitators deserve to have, since all agitators always -have had it. There was a conference that afternoon in the padre’s -bedroom, and this time it was the padre who wanted the principle of -private property established. A man had died and left a piece of land -to the Church, and the padre wanted the land to build the school on. -Four chiefs of Shala sat beside the desk, on a bench brought in for the -purpose, and Padre Marjan, gaunt and earnest in his Franciscan robe, -talked the case out before Perolli. (Perolli was no longer a hunted man -who might be turned over to the Serbs; he was now an honored guest, -emissary from an allied tribe, whose words were heard with respect.)</p> - -<p>Padre Marjan had written down the testator’s dying words in a notebook. -He read them, those little mysterious marks on paper. They said that -the man had made much land—every foot of earth is made by incredible -labor of uprooting bowlders and building stone walls to catch<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span> -washed-down soil—and he felt that he was leaving enough land to the -tribe to stand as his contribution, without this one small piece. That -piece he wished the tribe to give to the Church.</p> - -<p>There was also a statement from the man’s wife, saying that her husband -had long wished the Church to have that piece of land, and that she and -her children wished it also.</p> - -<p>“Those words are written words,” said Perolli, gravely, the eyes of all -upon him. “Therefore they are holy words; they are as the words of the -saints.”</p> - -<p>“That is doubtless so,” said one of the chiefs. “But this man was not -a saint, and, besides, how can he give away land? Land belongs to the -tribe of Shala.”</p> - -<p>“It is not as though I wished to take the land from Shala,” said Padre -Marjan. “I do not want it for myself. I wish to build a school upon it, -and the school will be for all the children of Shala. It will be for -the good of the tribe, that their children can learn to read and write.”</p> - -<p>“Glory to your lips,” said another chief. “But since it is for the -children of Shala, let it be built on the land of Shala. Build our -school upon it, and all our tribe will bless you.”</p> - -<p>“But this man left the land to the Church, for the welfare of his soul. -It is written here upon this paper that the land belongs to the Church. -It is the Church that will build the school in Thethis; I myself am -already teaching your children, and even when the new teacher comes -from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span> Tirana the school will be under my care. I am the servant of the -Church in Thethis, and this land must belong to the Church.”</p> - -<p>“We will think about it,” said the chiefs.</p> - -<p>“Shall it be said,” demanded the padre, “that the Americans have come -from far across strange seas to bring money to build a school for the -children of Thethis, and that the people of Thethis will not give even -one small piece of land?”</p> - -<p>“But,” said I to Frances, “why do you want to take land from the tribe -and give it to the Church?”</p> - -<p>“The Church is the only light they have up here; the only center of -inspiration and learning,” said Frances. “See how the people come to -the padre’s kitchen; see what he means to them. I’m not a Catholic, but -can’t you see that if the school is to be a community center the Church -must have it? They don’t know how to make it what we want it to be, -themselves.”</p> - -<p>“Very well,” said the chiefs. “You may have the land, Padre Marjan.”</p> - -<p>My opangi had arrived. The edges of the leather had been turned upward -and joined across the toes by an intricately woven network of rawhide -thongs. Another network made a heel piece, and there were thongs to go -around the ankles. With the opangi came a pair of short, knitted purple -socks reaching just to the ankle, where they ended in points bound with -black braid and stiff with gold and silver<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span> embroidery. These were -really separate linings to the stiff and hard opangi, which had to be -soaked a long time in water and put on wet, in order to get them on at -all.</p> - -<p>Very conscious of my feet, which seemed large and unwieldy flopping -objects at the ends of my legs, I went across the flat, wet fields with -Perolli to drink coffee in the house of Lulash.</p> - -<p>The house of Lulash was different from any of the others we had seen. -It stood on a castlelike rock; we went up to it by a stairway cut -in the side of a cliff that rose almost sheer for so far that the -waterfall pouring down it looked like a motionless streak of snow near -the top. A natural bridge of rock crossed the little space between the -cliff and the rock on which the house of Lulash was built; a furious -little stream roared beneath us as we crossed the bridge, and then -there was another stairway leading up to the house.</p> - -<p>Lulash and a dozen men and women of his household stood outside his -door to receive us. No rifles were fired. We passed through a double -line of salutes and greetings and into a high-arched stone doorway. -There was a little hall, floored and walled with stone, and a massive -stone stair leading upward. This we climbed, and were in a large -whitewashed room, lighted by a window and furnished with beautifully -painted chests and a few hand-woven rugs. But this was not the only -room; there were others, and, leading us through several arched stone<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span> -doorways, Lulash brought us into the living room, where I exclaimed, -“My house in San Francisco!”</p> - -<p>It was exactly the same—long, wide, with the large gray stone -fireplace in the center of one wall, folded blankets of goats’ wool -piled like cushions around it; the alcove where my bookshelves used -to be was there—an old carved chest stood in it; and there were my -windows, where the nasturtiums used to grow and the orange curtains -frame the blues of San Francisco Bay and the Berkeley hills and the -sky. I went to those windows at once. But, no, the magic departed; -there was only the flat wet lands of Thethis below me, the stone houses -and stone fences, and beyond them the blue and purple and white and -black and rose color of the snow-crested mountains with a hundred -waterfalls. Beautiful, but like the stranger’s face that shatters the -wild, irrational expectation of having found a friend in an impossible -place. I turned my back upon those windows.</p> - -<p>But it was, it was the living room that I remembered! The gray -walls—but these were of plaster; the black floor; the huge gray stone -fireplace. Even the rug on the wall, where my treasured shawl used to -be. “It <em>is</em> my house!” I said, while Perolli looked as though -I had suddenly gone mad, and all the others stood concealing their -amazement. “Tell them that it is exactly like my house at home, far -away on the other side of the world.” And I sat down on a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span> pile of -folded blankets before the fire, not yet sure that I was not dreaming -and that the strange chests and stranger figures of turbaned men and -barbarically dressed barefooted women would not vanish when I awoke.</p> - -<p>“I did not think,” said Lulash, “that any of our houses would be as -fine as an American house.” He was so pleased that his hand quivered a -little on the long handle of the tiny brass pot in which he was making -the coffee. So I told them that only our finest houses are of stone, -that my house was of wood, and much smaller than his. But all our -houses had windows, I said.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Lulash, wistfully. “Windows are very good; I always wish -that all our houses had windows. But first we must have a <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i> -of peace among all the tribes; it is not safe now to have windows, a -man never knows when his tribe will be ‘in blood’ and enemies will -shoot him through windows. You see that mine are so placed that it -would be difficult to shoot through them, and I have heavy shutters for -closing them at night, when the firelight makes it easier to see us -from outside.”</p> - -<p>But he was pleased that I praised his windows; he had gone through -many other tribes and down into Scutari to bring up the glass of -which he had heard, and made them with his own hands. They were on -leather hinges so that they would open and let in the air; he said he -had observed that sunshine and air were good things,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span> and, if good -outdoors, why not good in houses? “But it will be a long time before my -people can have windows,” he said, sadly.</p> - -<p>He did not think it was good to keep the sheep and goats with the -family, either; all his flocks were driven at night into their own -quarters, on the lower floor of the house.</p> - -<p>Houses are the most endless subject in the world; all of humanity -and its history is expressed in houses, and while the coffee cup was -passed back and forth I told about American houses; about the log -cabins of the pioneers, such a little time ago as crude as those of -the Albanians; about the loophole glassless windows, and the pegs on -which rifles were hung; and about farmers’ houses in New England, where -the cattle live under the same roof, at the end of long sheds; and -suburban houses with gardens, and apartment houses where whole tribes -of people live, going up and down in movable rooms. And then I spoke -about water power and said that it became electricity—Lulash asked me -eagerly how it was done, but I did not know—and that brought us to the -whole subject of machinery. I drew a picture of a spinning wheel for -them and explained it, but they said it would not be practicable on the -trails, where the women did most of the spinning; a woman could not -carry her baby in its cradle and a spinning wheel, too; the spindle was -better; and I agreed with them. But if men and women did not work so -hard carrying water from the springs, they would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span> have time to sit in -the house and work a spinning wheel, and I said that water could come -into houses in pipes, and Lulash and I discussed for some time how a -hollowed-out log could bring part of the waterfall into his house. But -he said regretfully that a log was so expensive; cutting a tree meant -destroying so much pasture for the goats, and it took a long time for -a tree to grow again. And I saw how princely had been his gift of a -hundred trees to be burned to make the lime to make the mortar to make -the schoolhouse, and the infinite labor of such a life made me realize -the stupendous obstacles mankind has overcome in climbing out of it. -And I thought that it was the long struggle to wrest from the unwilling -earth the material necessities of human life that turned humanity’s -terrific energy in the course it still follows, though the need for -it is past, and that perhaps some day this energy, turned into other -channels, will make the life of civilized man as rich in spiritual and -emotional values as it now is in material things.</p> - -<p>The gay Cheremi, bringing our breakfast of Turkish coffee next morning, -spoke with proud nonchalance in English. “Padre gone,” said he. “When -wake, no padre. He is went.”</p> - -<p>The import of these words came slowly to us. Awakening in that chill -room, to find ourselves between crimson sheets, beneath blankets of -woven goat’s hair, and to see the scarlet-sashed, scalplocked Cheremi -bearing the brass tray with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span> its coffee cups, had always a quality of -unreality. It was not so much an awakening from dreams as to them. In -the transition from unconsciousness to consciousness we must traverse -so many centuries to feel at home, that we arrived a little breathless.</p> - -<p>But, “The padre gone?” Frances cried, after an instant. And we sat -dumb, staring at Cheremi’s beaming. Any impossibility was probable; -we did not question that the padre had disappeared in some strange -fashion, and our minds, while we hurriedly dressed, were not concerned -with the manner of his going so much as with what we should do -without him. We were prepared to deal gallantly with the catastrophic -emergency, as the walker up stairs in the dark is prepared for the last -step, which is not there.</p> - -<p>For when we found Perolli squatting by the kitchen fireplace, busy -with long-handled coffee pot and spoon, he confirmed Cheremi’s report -absent-mindedly. “Mmmhm. He went at dawn. Off to hear confessions in -upper Thethis. Getting ready for Easter. More coffee?”</p> - -<p>He seemed more abstracted than this anticlimax justified, and we drank -coffee again, in silence. The kitchen was dismal, a poor and wretched -place without Padre Marjan. Rain was pouring steadily outside, and the -house was filled with roar of waterfalls as a shell is filled with -sound of the sea. In those moments of cold gray light by the fire which -was dying<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span> slowly under hissing raindrops, I realized the courage and -endurance of Padre Marjan—of all the priests who, in these mountains, -keep alight a warmth and gayety of spirit for their people.</p> - -<p>“I’m going to upper Thethis myself,” said Perolli, at length. “Like to -come along? We’ve been invited to visit Sadiri Luka, the richest man in -the Five Tribes.”</p> - -<p>We roused ourselves with some little effort, for the grayness of the -day, the chill, and the ceaseless sound of pouring water were like an -actual weight on muscles. We swept the floor painstakingly and long, -with the pine bough. We went down the draughty stairs and out into the -downpour to bring back a wooden bucket of water; we tried to stir the -sullen embers into a blaze to warm it; we gave up in despair and washed -the coffee cups in water cold and sooty. We made the beds; we went up -and down the stairs, bringing water, emptying wash basins, carrying -ashes and wet wood. Our admiration and reverence for Padre Marjan grew -like Jonah’s gourd while we did these things, which he does every day -before beginning his work. At last we set out, opangi laced and staffs -in hand, to go to upper Thethis.</p> - -<p>A day of comparative dryness had broken our fishlike habits, and water -seemed again an unkind element in which to be moving. Crossing the -flat valley in single file, accompanied by the sucking, slushy sound -of water-filled stockings,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span> we said little. The sheets of rain blurred -our sight, and the sound of it dulled our hearing. But when we began -cautiously to climb the slippery trail that edged up the mountain side, -exercise had begun to warm us, and we escaped from the silence which is -to human beings a more unfamiliar element than water.</p> - -<p>“How can he be the richest man in the Five Tribes? I thought these -people were communistic,” said Alex.</p> - -<p>“The tribes own only lands and houses and most of the forests,” said -Perolli. “A man or a family can own flocks, or buy and sell when they -go down to the cities. Sadiri Luka’s the richest man because he went -down to Ipek. He was a merchant there, and everyone is rich in Ipek. -How I wish I might show you that valley, my own valley—it is more -beautiful than you can imagine. There are such rich fields—the cows -stand knee deep there in greenness like a carpet—and the best fruits -of all the Balkans grow there. And butter, and honey, and fine flour, -and quantities of the finest wool that makes the beautiful rugs of my -people—there is everything in Ipek that you could wish to have, and -both hands running over. I mean,” he added, grimly, “there <em>was</em>. -Yes, Ipek was a rich and happy place before the Serbs came. And if -Sadiri Luka——” He broke off, on such a savage note that we were -startled.</p> - -<p>“You see,” he resumed with a note of eagerness, stopping to point -with his staff, “just over<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span> that mountain—no, that one, farthest -east—well, just over that mountain, and down through a little gorge -where there will be violets soon, and then around the curve of the -hills, there begins my valley of Ipek. In four hours I could go there. -I know every step of the way. My father and my mother are there, and I -am the only son, and I have not seen them for two years, nor my houses, -nor my fields. And I could go there in four hours.”</p> - -<p>“Do you suppose,” said Frances, nervously, “that the Serbs have -field-glasses? If they had, Rrok, they could recognize you from their -lines up there. They might be looking at you right now.”</p> - -<p>“If they even had any code of honor,” he continued, not heeding her, -“if they had any proper respect for women, I could go straight through -their lines with you girls beside me, and I could go to see my people, -and I could show you what a country Albanians make when they only have -land to work, and we could come back again—we could do it all in one -day. There is not a tribe in our mountains who would not let a Serb -come and go in safety, with a woman beside him. But the Serbs—— And -Christ tells us to love our enemies! How can we? How <em>can</em> we?”</p> - -<p>It was the unanswerable passionate question, and we did not try to -answer it. We went on, the little valley of Thethis narrowing below us, -till mountain overlapped mountain, and the gorge between was filled -with a foam-white green<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span> river. From time to time we struggled through -a waterfall, and there was one huge torrent that, leaping from a cliff -above the trail, arched over it in a curve that seemed solid as glass, -and we passed beneath it. Then, descending, we came to the little -valley of upper Thethis. Perhaps six or ten houses were scattered -there, among broken-off fragments of cliff as large as they, and -between them all the level land was glistening with water at the grass -roots.</p> - -<p>The house of Sadiri Luka was notable for its stone-walled courtyard and -its broad balcony. The heavy arch of the gateway was mediæval in its -grim solidity; we escaped from the rain to the peace of its shelter, -and there were welcomed by Sadiri Luka. He was middle-aged, sturdy, -even a little stodgy of figure, among the lithe mountaineers, and -this appearance suggested the successful business man—a suggestion -incongruous with his picturesque clothes. His trousers were the purest -white that new wool can be, his fringed jacket the densest black, the -colors of his sash were clear and gay, and his silver chains were -massive. There was even a heavy silver ring on his finger. And there -was no rifle on his back.</p> - -<p>The courtyard was a litter of cornstalks, almost entirely covered with -a roof of woven branches; evidently it was the home of flocks now out -in the rain attended by a shepherd cutting leaves for them. An arched -doorway opened into the first floor of the house, where we saw a -pensive<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span> donkey gazing profoundly upon the liquid gray weather.</p> - -<p>Obviously this was a rich house, and we followed Sadiri Luka -expectantly, up the stone stairs and down a long hall mysterious with -closed doors, to a large room full of color. There were rugs on the -stone floor, rugs on the stone walls, floor cushions covered with rugs -in front of the fireplace. There was no other furniture save a row -of old rifles on a wall. Their slender four-foot-long barrels were -inlaid with silver, their curved thin butts were of silver chased and -enameled, their triggers were intricate flint-lock affairs, and we tore -our eyes from them with a wrench, to reply with proper courteousness to -the welcome of our host.</p> - -<p>While he made the coffee a woman came quietly through the door beside -the fireplace and greeted us with poised and gracious dignity—one -of those many beautiful Albanian women who, because they were so -poised and so silent, remain a background for all our memories of -the mountains, more mysterious behind their level eyes and courteous -phrases than Turkish women behind their veils.</p> - -<p>Sitting on the cushions, we drank the coffee and the rakejia, from time -to time responding to the greeting of other guests come to meet us. -Perolli was quiet, fallen into one of the moods which we had learned -not to interrupt with requests for interpreting. There was constraint -in the atmosphere, and when, presently, he fell<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span> into low-voiced talk -with Sadiri Luka, we tactfully engaged the others in such conversation -as occurred to us. I forget how it happened that we first mentioned the -ora. There were, of course, ora in Thethis, we were told, but no one -remembered any news of interest concerning them. Then, prompted by the -incessant sound of rushing water, we inquired if there were ora of the -waters as well as of the forests.</p> - -<p>“The old men know these things,” said a handsome youth, somewhat bored. -He was a traveled young man; he had been in Budapest and Bucharest, and -spoke their languages as well as German and Italian, and—from wherever -gotten—he wore an American army shirt. Ora did not interest him. “Old -man,” said he, politely, turning to an aged chief beside him, “what do -you know of the water ora?”</p> - -<p>The old man took the amber mouthpiece of his long cigarette holder from -his shrunken lips and blew a reflective cloud of smoke. The alert Rexh -produced my notebook and fountain pen from his pajama pocket, laid them -beside me, and leaned forward, attentive.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0">THE WATER ORA OF MALI SHARIT—THE COMING OF THE TRIBES TO EUROPE -BEFORE THE SEAS WERE BORN, AND HOW THE FIRST GREEKS CAME IN BOATS—WHY -ALEXANDER THE GREAT WAS BORN IN EMADHIJA, AND OF HIS JOURNEY TO -MACEDONIA—THE SAD HOUSE OF KOL MARKU.</p> -</div> - - -<p>“The water ora were an ancient race,” said the old man. “They were -here before the ora of the forests. I do not think there are very many -of them left, and no man has seen them in my time, nor in the time of -my father. But very long ago, before the tribes of Shala, Shoshi, and -Pultit were founded by the three brothers from the land that is now the -Merdite country, there was a man of their tribe who caught a water ora. -It is a very old song, and much of it has been forgotten, but the man -was a man from the Mali Sharit, and by three days he missed becoming -the king of the world. In my father’s time the thing that happened to -him was still sung. I heard that song when I was a child, but I have -forgotten the words of it. I remember only the thing that happened.</p> - -<p>“The man of Mali Sharit went every day to the wood on the mountain, and -in that wood was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span> a lake, small, but like the sky in clearness. I do -not know why he went; he was probably laying by green leaves to feed -his sheep in the winter. But it happened that one day while he worked -he saw a very beautiful girl lift her head from that clear water and -look carefully in every direction. He was hidden by low leaves and she -did not see him. When she saw no one, she came from the water into the -sunshine, and danced in the sunshine. When she had danced until she -wished no longer to dance, she went again into the water. The man of -Mali Sharit went to the pool and looked into it, and it was like the -sky in clearness.</p> - -<p>“The next day this happened, and the next, and on the evening of the -third day the man of Mali Sharit went to a wise old woman and told her -what he had seen. He said: ‘I am thirsty for this girl. If I cannot -marry her I will marry no one and have no sons. Tell me what I can do.’</p> - -<p>“The old woman thought, and said: ‘I will tell you what to do. -To-morrow you shall take to the edge of the pool a silver mirror and -lay it beside the pool. And you shall take a rope and tie yourself -round and round with your back against a tree trunk. And you shall stay -there without moving while the girl comes from the pool and goes into -it again. Then come and tell me what you saw.’</p> - -<p>“The man of Mali Sharit did this. When the girl came from the water and -saw the mirror she looked into it for a long time. Then she saw<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span> the -man of Mali Sharit where he stood tied to the tree, and quickly she -went back into the water. That day she had not danced.</p> - -<p>“In the evening the old woman said: ‘It is good. For three days you -shall do again as you have done to-day. On the third day, lay beside -the mirror a dress of white silk in which there has been cut no opening -for the head to go through. The girl will put this on, in order to see -it upon her in the mirror. But when her head is inside it, while she -tries to find the opening that is not there, then loosen your ropes and -leap quickly, and take her to your house as your wife.’</p> - -<p>“All that the old woman had said was wise, and the man of Mali Sharit -took the ora of the pool to his house as his wife. But that is not the -end of the song.”</p> - -<p>The old man paused to adjust a freshly rolled cigarette in his silver -holder. For a moment pale sunshine came through the slits of windows -in bars of light across the colored rugs and the mass of loungers upon -them; it struck a sparkle here and there from revolver hilt and silver -chain. Then it went out, and only the firelight richly accented the -duskiness. There was a constant coming and going on the long balcony -outside the windows, for behind one of the closed doors Padre Marjan -was hearing confessions and giving absolution or penance for sins.</p> - -<p>“It’s like some old, half-forgotten story,” I said, puzzled. “I -remember it, but only as he tells it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span></p> - -<p>“Mmmh. So do I,” said Alex. “I can’t just remember what comes next.”</p> - -<p>“<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">Asht shum i buker</i> (It is very beautiful),” I said to the old -man. “And what was the end of the song?”</p> - -<p>“The man of Mali Sharit kept in his house the ora of the pool,” the -old man continued, “and she was his wife. For six months he was not -unhappy, for she was beautiful and she was good, but he longed to hear -her speak. And when the six months of humbleness and modesty were gone -and the time had come for her to laugh and be gay in his house, she was -still silent. The man of Mali Sharit worked hard for her. He brought -her fine wool to weave and he made a most beautiful cradle painted -with figures of animals and of birds and of fishes, for he remembered -that she was of the water. But when he gave her the wool she said -nothing, and when he showed her the cradle she was silent. He said to -her, ‘Tell me what you want, that I may get it for you,’ and she did -not answer. He went into the woods to a place he knew, and fought the -wild bees and brought her honey, and she ate the honey, smiling, but -still she did not speak. He did other things that I do not remember; -he did everything that his mind could devise, to make her break that -stillness, and she did not. His home was always very still, and he was -troubled. And when their son was born she loved the child, but she made -no sound when he was born and she made no song when she nursed him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span></p> - -<p>“And when a year had gone by since their marriage he could endure this -stillness no longer. He went to the wise old woman and told her this -and asked her how to make his wife speak.</p> - -<p>“The old woman thought, and said, ‘You will kill a sheep and take the -bladder of the sheep and fill it with its blood. Secretly put the -bladder into the cradle of the child. To-night speak sternly to your -wife and command her to speak. If she does not answer, take your knife -and say to her, ‘Speak, or I will kill the child.’ If then she does not -speak, strike with your knife into the cradle and cut the bladder. When -she sees the blood your wife will speak.’</p> - -<p>“The man of Mali Sharit went with a heavy heart and a dark mind and did -as the old woman had told him. He said to his wife, ‘Speak!’ and she -was silent. He took out his knife and showed it to her, and she was -silent. He laid his hand upon the cradle, he said he would kill the -child, and she looked at him with terrible eyes and was silent. Then he -struck, and the blood came red upon the blankets, and she spoke.</p> - -<p>“She spoke with a sob and a scream. She lifted the cradle in her arms, -and she said, ‘Had you been patient for three days longer, I could -have made you king of the world.’ Then she wept, and her tears became -a fountain, and the fountain became a mist, and the mist was gone. The -man of Mali Sharit never saw his wife again, and as for the child, in -three days he died. And I do not know what became of the man of Mali -Sharit.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span></p> - -<p>In my disappointment I spoke too quickly, forgetting the excellence of -Rexh as an interpreter. “It isn’t Albanian, after all; it’s Greek,” I -said. “I remember now that I read it years ago.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, so do I,” said Alex, and her words crossed those of Rexh, who had -picked up mine and was turning them into Albanian.</p> - -<p>“<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">Po</i>,” said the old man, with irony. “It is a Greek song—it is -as Greek as Lec i Madhe.”</p> - -<p>I had thanked the old man with an insult, for even the Ghegs keep -smoldering in their hearts the knowledge that the Greeks hold Janina, -and the memory of the burned villages and slaughtered Albanians of -Epirus is only six years old. In an unguarded instant I had made for -myself one of those recollections that burn in sleepless night hours. -I called myself a fool, while I heard my voice trying to bury the -irremediable mistake by hurried words. “What is Lec i Madhe?”</p> - -<p>Frances and Alex were busy in a scrap bag of mythology, and Rexh -replied. “I don’t know what you call him in English, Mrs. Lane. Lec -i Madhe was our king of very long years ago, who went down from the -mountains and took all the cities of the world. He was the son of our -twentieth king, and he was a very great fighter. I think surely you -must know him by some name in English. We call him Lec i Madhe; it -means, the Great Lec. Because we had other kings before him called Lec.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span></p> - -<p>“Lec i Madhe?” cried Frances, headlong at the word. “Alexander the -Great! What are they saying about him?”</p> - -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img009"> - <img src="images/009.jpg" class="w75" alt="Walking over 15 miles of trails" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p0 caption">Once a week she comes walking over fifteen miles of mountain trails, -to be ready for business bright and early on Bazaar Day. This week -she has brought jars of kos (the thickened but not soured milk that -she makes by putting three sprigs of grape vine into the boiled milk) -and plums and baskets, and on the way she has been knitting. When she -finishes the gay sock pinned to her jacket she will sell that, too.</p> - - -<p>The young man in the American army shirt had listened not at all to the -story of the ora, but he heard Frances’s words and misunderstood them. -“Alexander the Greek?” he repeated. “Alexander was not Greek; he was -Albanian.”</p> - -<p>“You mean his mother was an Albanian,” said Frances.</p> - -<p>The young man smiled scornfully. “And you think his father was not? -When has a king of Albania married a foreign wife? Albanians marry -Albanians. When Filip the Second married, he married a woman of his own -people, but of another tribe, as the custom has always been. Do the -Greeks dare to say that Filip was a Greek? If he had been Greek, no -Albanian chief would have given him a daughter for wife. Even then we -Malisori<span class="fnanchor" id="fna4"><a href="#fn4">[4]</a></span> despised the Greeks.”</p> - -<p>“But Philip of Macedonia—was a Macedonian,” I said, feebly. “Wasn’t he -a Macedonian? The Macedonians weren’t Albanians, were they?”</p> - -<p>“Ask the old man what he knows about Lec i Madhe, Rexh,” said Frances. -But the old man, drawing solace from the amber mouthpiece with his -toothless lips, still brooded upon the song of the man of Mali Sharit.</p> - -<p>“The things which I have told happened to an Albanian of the tribe of -the Mali Sharit,” he said. “The song of them has been sung by the -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span> Malisori from the days when they happened till the days of my own -father’s manhood. The Greeks are a little, inquisitive people who have -played with paper and with writing since they first came to our shores -in boats, long ago—a hundred hundred years before the Romans came. We -gave them shelter then, we let them come to our shores, we let them -come from the cold seas and stay on our land, and they are guests who -steal from their hosts. They have killed our people; they have taken -Janina. Let them leave our songs and our kings alone. Greek!” said he, -muttering. “They will be claiming the Mali Shoshit, next!”</p> - -<p>Excitement so shook my fingers that the writing wavers on the page. The -blotted and rain-smeared notebook before me now evokes like a crystal -before the gazer the picture of that old man in the warm duskiness of -the house of Sadiri Luka, the streaming of rain on the roof, the smell -of coffee and cigarette smoke, the soft sound of moccasined feet going -down the corridor to confession at the knee of Padre Marjan.</p> - -<p>“The Greeks came to your shores?” I said, goading the old man on. “But -it is written in the books that they came from the lands watered by the -Danube, by the river that flows through Belgrade to the Black Sea. It -is written that they came down through the Balkans to build their great -and beautiful cities on the shores of the Ægean. And no one writes -about the Albanians. Where did the Albanians come from?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span></p> - -<p>These words created a perceptible sensation. Hazel eyes and blue eyes -turned upon me in amazement. A middle-aged man who had come from the -room of confession to stack his rifle with others beside the fireplace -and to roll a cigarette stopped with the tobacco half poured and stared -at me. “It is not written where the Shqiptars came from?” said he, -in a tone of stupefaction. “But surely all the world knows where the -Shqiptars came from.”</p> - -<p>I assured him that it was written only that the Greeks, when they -came, found some savage tribes whose origin was unknown. But it was -thought that these tribes were old peoples of Europe who died out when -the peoples of to-day came—I stopped, to give them no clew to the -migrations of Aryans from India—who died out, I said, when the great -civilizations of to-day came into the world. And the first of these -civilizations was the Greek.</p> - -<p>The newcomer finished his cigarette thoughtfully, put it in its holder, -lighted it from a coal, and summed up his conclusions in an Albanian -proverb. “It is very true,” said he, “that only the spoon knows what is -in the dish.”</p> - -<p>“And when we speak of the Greeks,” said another chief, “let us remember -the saying of our fathers: The tree said to the wood cutter, ‘Why do -you kill me, for I have done nothing to you.’ And the wood cutter -replied, ‘You gave me the handle for the ax.’”</p> - -<p>The old man’s irritation had died. He looked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span> upon us now with pity, -as ones who had offended because of ignorance. “If the American -<i>zonyas</i> wish to know what we have learned from our fathers, -who learned it from their fathers and their fathers’ fathers, I will -speak,” he said. “All these things are very old, and none of them are -written in books, therefore they are true. I am an old man, and I have -seen that when men go down to the cities to learn what is in the books -they come back scorning the wisdom of their fathers and remembering -nothing of it, and they speak foolishly, words which do not agree with -one another. But the things that a man knows because he has seen them, -the things he considers while he walks on the trails and while he sits -by the fires, these things are not many, but they are sound. Then when -a man is lonely he puts words to these things and the words become a -song, and the song stays as it was said, in the memories of those who -hear it. Like the song of the man of Mali Sharit. These things in our -songs are therefore true, for I know many songs about many things, but -no song shows that another song is a liar.</p> - -<p>“Now it has always been said in our songs that the Shqiptars came long -ago from the east, from a crowded country beyond the eastern mountains. -There was no water in the Black Sea then. The people came across -mountain and valley, in many tribes. It was a land of great animals, -good to eat when they were killed. These peoples—we were not then -called Shqiptars,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span> but each tribe had its own name, the name of its -chief—these peoples who were our fathers’ fathers took all the land -from the river in the north, that flows to-day through Belgrade, to the -plains in the south that are now a sea.</p> - -<p>“I do not know how long they lived here before the valleys became seas. -There was a rain that was like the rain that is falling now, and there -was a water that came up from the earth to meet it. And then there were -the seas, on the east and the west and the south, and many tribes, many -large tribes, were drowned in them. My grandfather told me this, and -he said that his grandfather said there had been a song with the names -of all these lost tribes, a song of mourning for the tribes that were -eaten by the seas. But the grandfather of my grandfather had not heard -that song. New songs come all the time and old songs are forgotten, -and we have had much to mourn since the forgotten tribes ceased to be -living men.</p> - -<p>“But this you must understand. It was after the seas came that the -Greeks came. They came in boats across the seas, and they were strange -peoples that we had never seen before, speaking a strange tongue. Their -boats came to the shores in the south, and our fathers had never seen -boats. That was the coming of the Greeks. They came, and came again, -and stayed, and built cities. The fathers of the Shqiptars stayed on -the mountains and watched them, and went down and gave them gifts. We -did not kill them,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span> as we might have done when they were few and weak -and there were no Five Powers.</p> - -<p>“The Greeks were always a soft people—except one tribe of them, whose -name I do not remember. There was one tribe of good fighting men. But -most of the Greeks were plainsmen. From the first, they loved to sit -and think, to talk, and to write, and to read to one another what they -had written. That was their pleasure.</p> - -<p>“For this reason, all mountain men who liked to take their pleasure in -that way went down to their cities and learned from the Greeks how to -write, and having learned, they stayed there and wrote, and read what -they had written, and in this way their days passed and no songs were -sung about them. But the Greeks did not come to the mountains. When at -last the mountain men went down to Greece behind their king, then there -was no more Greece. And for these many years of years there would be no -Greece if the Five Powers would take their hands from the Balkans.”</p> - -<p>The old man did not speak without interruption. There were promptings -and contributions from his listeners, and now and then a question from -us. And he had to be brought back to Lec i Madhe, for the politics of -his own lifetime were fresher in his mind and more stirring to his -emotions.</p> - -<p>“Lec i Madhe was not a wise man like his father, but he was a chief -and a fighter, and a leader of great fighters,” said he. “There were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span> -twenty-one kings before his father, who were kings of all the tribes -from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, north of the tribes of Greeks. The -kingdom was made by Karanna, who was a foreign chief from the eastern -shores of the Black Sea. He came over the sea and made the united -kingdom, and its capital was the city Emadhija.<span class="fnanchor" id="fna5"><a href="#fn5">[5]</a></span> After him came these -kings: Cenua, Trimi, Perdika, Argua, Filip, Ajeropi, and Ajeropi was -the first king whose family was of the pure blood of our fathers who -came first from the east. After him there were these kings: Alqeti the -son of Ajeropi; Aminti the son of Alqeti, who was the ally of Darius -the king of Persia. Then Lec the son of Aminti; Perdika i dyte, the -son’s son of Perdika, Arqelloja the son of Lec; Oresti the son of -Perdika i dyte; Arqelloja i dyte the son of Arqelloja; Armint’ i dyte -the son of Arqelloja i dyte; Pafsania who was a foreigner; Armint’ i -trete, the son of Armint’ i dyte; Lec i dyte, the son of Armint’ i -trete; Ptolemeoja, who was a foreigner; Perdika i trete, of the family -of Perdika; Armint’ i katerte, the son of Lec i dyte; Filip i dyte, the -son of Lec i dyte, and Lec i Madhe, the son of Filip i dyte. After Lec -i Madhe was Filip i trete——”</p> - -<p>But here the genealogy breaks off, for we wished to hear more of Lec i -Madhe, and we never came back to the story of his successors.</p> - -<p>“Lec i Madhe was born at Emadhija in the Mati,” began the old man, and was interrupted by three small shrieks of -excitement.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span></p> - -<p>“Alexander the Great born in Albania!” we exclaimed. “But—but it is -written that he was born in Macedonia!”</p> - -<p>“There were at that time two capitals of the united kingdom,” said the -old man. “There was Pela, between Salonika and Monastir, and there -was Emadhija, the old capital, lying in the valley which is now the -Mati. In Pela and in Emadhija Filip the Second had great houses, and -sometimes he was in Pela and sometimes in Emadhija. There was a trouble -between Filip the Second and his wife, because she loved Emadhija and -would not go with him to Pela. She went, it is true, but she did not -want to. And there was trouble between them because of a Greek woman -of Pela. I do not know the song, but I think that it was fancy and -foolishness, for Filip the Second was a good man and a wise king. But -this is true, that before Lec i Madhe was born his mother left Pela and -came back to the city Emadhija, and it was in Emadhija that Lec i Madhe -was born, and there he lived until he was out of the cradle. He rode on -a horse when he first went down to Pela, and Filip the Second came out -from Pela to meet him, and it was from the back of a horse that Lec i -Madhe first saw his father.</p> - -<p>“And it is said that when Lec i Madhe rode down from Emadhija with his -mother and many chiefs of the Malisori they passed through the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span> valley -of Bulqis, where there are springs of strange waters, and that as they -passed through the forest—there was in those days a great forest in -the Bulqis, where now there are fields of grain—they rested by one of -the springs, in the place where the great rocks are standing in rows. -There they heard a sound of singing in a strange tongue, but the end of -the song they understood, and the end of the song was, ‘Long live Lec, -the son of Filip i dyte, Lec i Madhe, the king of the world!’<span class="fnanchor" id="fna6"><a href="#fn6">[6]</a></span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span></p> - -<p>“Filip the Second was very proud of his son, and his pride led him to -the one great foolishness of a good and wise king. He said that he -would make Lec i Madhe king of the world, and that was well enough, -but he thought that to be king of the world a man must be more learned -than he himself. Whereas all old men who have watched the ways of the -world know that to be strong and ruthless will make a man powerful, but -to be learned makes a man full of dreams and hesitations. In his pride -and blindness, Filip the Second sent to Greece for an Albanian who had -learned the ways of the Greeks, and to that man he gave the boy, to be -taught books.”</p> - -<p>“Really, this is too much!” said Alex. “Aristotle an Albanian?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” continued the old man, taking the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span> amber mouthpiece from his -lips and tranquilly answering the sound of the name, “his name was -Aristotle, and he was from a family of the tribe of Ajeropi, his father -having gone to a village in Macedonia and become a merchant there. -Being rich, he sent his son, who was fond of thought rather than of -action, to learn the Greek ways of thinking. And it was this man who -was brought back by Filip the Second to teach his son, though there -were many chiefs of the Malisori who could have shown him how to be a -man and a leader of men.</p> - -<p>“The end of it was that Lec i Madhe became the king of the world. Is -that written in the books? <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">Po?</i> Is it also written that he was -made king of the world by the chiefs of the Malisori who had loved his -father, and that Lec i Madhe himself was no man, nor ruler of men? Is -it written that when the Malisori came back to their mountains after -following Lec i Madhe to the ends of the earth they sang a song saying -it was good that the eyes of Filip the Second were closed forever, that -they might not shed tears of shame for his son? Is it written that this -harm was done to the Shqiptars by a man who had gone down to the cities -to learn from the Greeks to despise his own people?”</p> - -<p>“No,” I said, “it is not exactly written so.”</p> - -<p>But there were expostulations from some who, as Albanians, were proud -of Lec i Madhe and would cry down this attack on their most renowned -king, and objections from others who<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span> contended that the old man was -right, and all these were silenced by the entrance of Padre Marjan, -whose pale, fervent face and gentle voice brought us back to the -present.</p> - -<p>He was given the place of honor among these of his flock whom he had -shriven, and Sadiri Luka hastened from the withdrawn corner where he -had been talking with Perolli to make with his own hands a cup of -coffee for the padre. When the readjusted group was settled again, and -we had replied to Padre Marjan’s questions about our morning and our -journey, I asked him whether Aristotle was an Albanian. He said, yes. -I asked him then about the migration of the first Albanians and the -coming of the Greeks in boats, and he said he believed these stories to -be true. It was strange, I said, that the historians of the west, the -Greek scholars of the universities, could be so misled. Padre Marjan -smiled.</p> - -<p>“All these old things are debatable, of course,” he said, “and it -must be remembered that Greeks and Hellenized Albanians wrote all the -records. We Albanians have given no material to scholars. Besides, is -it strange that they should be mistaken about the lives of men who -died thirty centuries ago, when they are mistaken even about their own -times? In the same books which say that the Greeks were shepherds from -the Danube you will read that the Albanians of to-day are Mohammedans, -or brigands, or both.”</p> - -<p>This was so true that I was silent, and, lounging<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span> comfortably upon the -cushions, I smoked and watched the firelight run nimbly along silver -chains and leap from cigarette holder to knife hilt with every slight -movement of the entangled bodies around us. Padre Marjan spoke of the -unimportance of past glories and shames, of the new dawn of liberty -for Albania which brought responsibilities and duties, and of the -importance of eternal things, of goodness, strength, and courage, given -by God to man for man to use. For, said he, the knife in its scabbard -cuts no leaves to feed the flocks, and the goodness of man when not -used for those around him becomes a rusty knife, which is of value to -no one.</p> - -<p>His voice was tense in its softness, and, looking at his wasted face -and feverish eyes, I thought, “This man is wearing himself out, here -in these mountains, unknown, alone—for he must be starving for the -companionship of equals; it is lonely to be always the superior—and -when he has burned to ashes he will lie in a grave beside some village -church, under a wooden cross from which the rain will wash his painted -name long before the wood decays. There are so many of those little -graves that the rain has made nameless and that no one visits except -the nibbling sheep searching for a grass blade.” And I wondered where -Lec i Madhe lay buried, for, after all, all men wear themselves out, -or are worn out by the years, and the difference between the king of -the world and the priest of Thethis is nothing to the rain. Then Padre -Marjan gave back the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span> empty coffee cup to Sadiri Luka, saying, “<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">Per -te mire</i> (All good to you),” and rose. He would not stay to share -the food which the women were even then bringing, for there was a sick -man in upper Thethis, too ill to come to confession, who had sent, -begging the padre to come to him. The sick man’s son waited for him at -the door, and two chiefs laced his opangi, gave him his staff, and went -with him a little way on the trail.</p> - -<p>It was midafternoon, and since early morning the women had been -preparing the feast they offered us. A special dispensation had been -asked, and granted by Padre Marjan, for that feast, for though this was -Lent, we were not Catholics, and never before had Americans been guests -in upper Thethis. Far and wide the rumor had gone that in our own tribe -we were daughters of chiefs, and it was with apologies that the village -offered us its best.</p> - -<p>When we had washed our hands in water poured from a silver pitcher, and -dried them on a towel of white silk, a large brass tray was set on four -midget legs in the midst of our cushions, and the other guests withdrew -to places near the walls. Much urging persuaded Sadiri Luka to sit -with us and share such parts of the feast as did not break the Lenten -fast. Newly made wooden spoons were given us, and a silver bowl of hot -chicken broth was set in the center of the tray.</p> - -<p>Sadiri Luka spoke little, but his remarks were sound and well -considered. While our spoons<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span> rhythmically dipped the delicious broth, -he said that the whole question of good government in Albania depended -upon the fixing of the frontiers, and that the League of Nations talks -too much and does too little. He suggested, as explanation of this -fact, that the League is made of human beings.</p> - -<p>While we gorged upon pieces of miraculously tender roasted lamb, fished -from a heaping platter, he said that any definite frontier, however -unjust, would be better than the prolonged uncertainty which daily -encouraged further Serbian invasions.</p> - -<p>While we chose morsels of stewed chicken, he said that the greater -danger was not from Serbia, which fought with artillery, but from -Italy, now driven to intrigue. Italy, having been promised southern -Albania and much of the eastern Adriatic coast in return for joining -the Allies in the Great War, had now been cheated of payment, driven -from Albania by the Albanians, and refused Fiume. However, Italy -had authority from the League of Nations to occupy Albania again if -the Albanians could not maintain a stable government. Italy would, -therefore, do two things; first she would spend money and munitions in -trying to stir rebellion within Albania and in encouraging the already -savage discontent of Montenegro, Bosnia, and Croatia; then she would -develop an aggressive foreign policy, drop all pretense of accord -with France or England, and fight it out with Jugo-Slavia.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span> When this -occurred, of course both Serbia and Italy would fall on Albania; any -trouble in the Balkans was a signal for that.</p> - -<p>The chicken being taken away, we were given a bowl of little cakes, -light as whipped cream, cooked in brown butter and served with honey. -Sadiri Luka said that the only hope of peace in the Balkans was a -Balkan federation; nothing less, he said, would persuade the European -Powers and Turkey to leave the Balkans alone. It was true that for -fifteen centuries the Slavs had been attacking Albania and tearing -territory from her; it was true that more than a million Albanians -were suffering under Serbian and Greek rule to-day; it was true that -Albanians had won the Greek war of independence, and the Young Turk -revolution, and their own revolution, only to see their country -mutilated by their neighbors and by European diplomacy. But if it were -possible for free Albania to live, he believed she would be the leader -in a movement for a Balkan federation, and he pointed out that, with -frontiers free and military expenses pooled, all the Balkan peoples -could develop lands and mines, water power and industries, and in time -readjust their boundaries by purchase, which would be cheaper than war.</p> - -<p>This solution was so logical that I suspected it to be in the realm -of pure fantasy, for I have long observed that human affairs and -logic have little in common. But we listened with great interest to -these opinions of Sadiri Luka, which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span> came strangely from an Albanian -mountaineer whose trousers proclaimed in black braiding his descent -from a tribe older than history.</p> - -<p>The feast continued for a long time; there were bowls of kos, which is -sweet milk made solid in texture, but not sour, a joy on the tongue, -and there were platters of fluffy rice with gravy and giblets, and many -kinds of cheese, and little individual spits of broiled lamb, onions -and potatoes, and a cream made of powdered rice, milk, and honey, and -breast of chicken baked in sour cream, and crisp cakes of whipped -white of egg browned in butter and smothered in beaten raw eggs and -sugar—which is strange in words, but unexpectedly good to eat—and -many other things which we tasted absent-mindedly. For the setting sun -had briefly conquered the clouds, the rain had stopped, and we thought -of the trail to Thethis.</p> - -<p>It was good to be out in the rain-sweet air, and the waterfalls were -music in the evening quiet. Sunshine gleamed on the peaks of snow, -blue and purple shadows filled the valleys, and bells of flocks came -tinkling down the trails. When we had said farewell to Sadiri Luka and -the chiefs of upper Thethis, by the arching glass-clear torrent to -which they had accompanied us, we went on light-heartedly, humming to -ourselves. And Perolli sang a song of the mountaineers which is more -sound than words, being a song of evening with rippling water in it, -and sleepy birds, and the bells of the flocks answering<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span> one another -across ravines and from far mountain slopes.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said, “I am happy. I am happy, for Sadiri Luka is a true -Albanian, and when I go back to the plains I shall see that he is -released from the price on his head which has been offered in Scutari.”</p> - -<p>“What!” we cried. Yes, he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, ten thousand -kronen were officially offered for the head of Sadiri Luka.</p> - -<p>“And he doesn’t even carry a gun?”</p> - -<p>“Why should he? He is among his own people. It is no shame to go -unarmed among his own people. He would carry a rifle, certainly, if he -had to go to Scutari.”</p> - -<p>“But you are from Scutari—we are all from Scutari—Cheremi, Rexh—and -he asked us to his house?”</p> - -<p>Perolli looked at us with scorn. We had been guests in the house of -Sadiri Luka, he explained, with weary patience. If he had been twenty -times a traitor to Albania, could a guest have killed him? And on the -trail he had not carried a gun; no one could kill him, unarmed. He -could go to Scutari in safety, if he went unarmed. But, of course, he -would not do that, for that would be shameful. For two years he had -been living in upper Thethis, unable to go to Scutari without risking -his life, though he was a merchant, and poor, and could have made a -business for himself in Scutari. But it had all been a mistake, said -Perolli, which he would clear up.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span></p> - -<p>Sadiri Luka had lost all he owned in Ipek when the Serbs came in. He -escaped with only his rugs and the few pieces of silver we had seen. -But his flocks, which were in summer pasture on the high mountains, -had not been taken. Sadiri Luka had come back to his people in upper -Thethis, and in the winter he had brought his flocks there. And in -the spring he had sent them back to their summer pasture, now on the -other side of the 1913 frontier. For this the price had been put on his -head, as a traitor. How could his shepherds come and go with his flocks -across the new frontier, guarded by Serbian troops, unless he were a -traitor to Albania, unless he had secret dealings with the Serbs? For -two years his sheep had got safely to their summer pastures and back -again, while all the other flocks of Thethis had been taken by the -Serbs or killed at home because there was no longer pasture for them.</p> - -<p>The explanation, however, was quite simple. Sadiri Luka was a -successful smuggler of his sheep. He explained to Perolli how he -did it, for both of them knew by heart these mountains, which were -strange to the Serbs. Once safely across the frontier, the flocks -were comparatively safe, for the high plateaus where they grazed were -uninhabited and hard to reach; so far, none but Albanian shepherds -of Ipek had seen them there. Sheep, when they had no bells or lambs, -were silent things, and the flocks were moved by night. Sadiri Luka -said that, if he had reached<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span> Thethis in time, he could have saved all -the flocks by smuggling them through the ways he knew; already his -shepherds were taking with them the few lambs born in Thethis in the -last two years.</p> - -<p>There was no question that Sadiri Luka was a true Albanian. For the -Serbs had relied on their possession of the pasture lands to starve -the tribes on the border into treason to Albania, so that the frontier -could again be moved forward. Sadiri Luka, with his flocks, could have -been a powerful weapon in Serbian hands, an object-lesson to the people -of the advantages of friendship with Serbia which would have been well -worth paying for. But he preferred to risk his sheep by smuggling them. -The price on his head had been a mistake. The chiefs of Thethis had -already said this to Perolli, and talk with Sadiri Luka had convinced -him that it was true. Therefore he was very happy, and sang along the -trail.</p> - -<p>But joy is not a lasting thing on Albanian trails. We had gone but a -little way, perhaps half an hour, when the skies opened again. The -water fell with such force that we feared we would be washed from our -foothold, and, gasping and drenched, clutching bowlders and deformed -trees, we struggled into the shelter of a leaning cliff. We had hardly -reached it when around its corner came two women under loads of wood. -One was old and withered, with a strange, sharp expression; the other, -as she put down her burden and straightened her back,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span> showed us a most -beautiful face. The pose of her head was regal, her forehead and eyes -and mouth struck the heart with their perfection of beauty and sorrow.</p> - -<p>“You are a happy girl,” she said to Frances, after our greetings. “I -have never before seen anyone so happy. Why do you come to our sad -country?”</p> - -<p>Frances said we came because we loved the Albanian people and wanted to -know them better.</p> - -<p>“We would bless the trails that led you to our house,” they said, and -added, “but ours is a sad house.”</p> - -<p>“Why?” we asked, and the old woman answered, while the younger stared -into the sheets of rain that veiled Thethis from us.</p> - -<p>The son of the house, Kol Marku, husband of the younger woman, was an -exile from his home. His wife had been brought to his house only a -week before the night when he killed his cousin, Pjeter Gjon. He had -not meant to do it. With a number of other men they had been sitting -by his fire, their rifles on their knees, as usual. They were cold and -tired and had been talking of crops, when suddenly Kol’s rifle spoke -and Pjeter fell back and died. Kol swore that he had not touched the -trigger, but when the body was carried to the house of Pjeter, Pjeter’s -family said that Kol had killed him in order to become the head of the -family and move with his bride into Pjeter’s rich house. They claimed -blood vengeance, by the Law of Lec.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span></p> - -<p>It was a killing within the tribe, a matter for the chiefs to settle. -They had conferred, and decided that Kol’s family should pay to the -family of Pjeter twelve thousand kronen, or that value in goods. The -family of Pjeter had refused to accept this. Again the chiefs met. -Twelve hundred kronen had been blood payment within a tribe before -the Balkan war, but everything was higher now, and the chiefs offered -fifteen hundred kronen. But the old mother of Pjeter was bitter, and -the family said that no money would pay for the blood of her only son. -They demanded blood for blood, life for life; only the death of Kol or -one of his brothers would pay the debt. Kol fled from the mountains and -his brothers walked in fear.</p> - -<p>Without their men the family could not live. The land was poor, was too -hard for the women to work. The irrigation ditches were down, and they -could not lift the rocks to rebuild them. And the lives of the men, -hunted without rest, became no longer good to them, so that they became -morose and sat always by the fire talking of death. Then the women went -to Padre Marjan, to ask of him the last ultimate effort.</p> - -<p>The good padre granted their plea. Wearing his holy robes and attended -by twenty-four chiefs walking in silence, he took the crucifix itself -from the church, and went to the house of Pjeter in upper Thethis. For -twelve hours he stood, holding the crucifix before the eyes of that -family and telling them as God’s messenger that they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span> must forgive Kol. -For twelve hours the twenty-four chiefs stood beside him, waiting. But -the old mother was bitter, and upheld the spirits of her nephews, so -that they refused.</p> - -<p>Never before in all the mountains had anyone refused forgiveness asked -by the crucifix itself. It had been carried back to the church above -twenty-five bowed heads, and the people of Thethis knelt before it -in shame. And Kol could not come home, the men could not work in the -fields. The family was always hungry, and the young wife had wept till -her eyes were dry of tears.</p> - -<p>“We could not again ask Padre Marjan to take the crucifix,” said the -old woman, looking at us with eyes that begged that we would do so. But -the young woman’s eyes were somber and hopeless. The violence of the -rain had lessened; below us we saw the green valley, the many little -houses linked by tiny fields and a network of overflowing irrigation -ditches, and the wounded church which had no steeple. But a column of -smoke from the chimney showed that Padre Marjan was there. The women -lifted their packs, bent forward under them, and slowly went out of -sight down the trail.</p> - -<p>Before we reached the level of the valley Padre Marjan had seen us, -and came across the flat fields to escort us again to his door. He -met us at the edge of a gorge in whose depths a waterfall turned the -wheel of a mill beside a tiny house. Smoke seeped from the house roof -to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span> mix with the spray of the waterfall, and as Padre Marjan greeted -us, up from that misty gorge leaped a figure that seemed risen from an -incantation. She was less a child than a sprite, bare of arm and leg, -clad in a scrap of sheepskin, with wildly tangled hair and bright, wild -eyes. Even as she leaped she addressed us in passionate words.</p> - -<p>Padre Marjan’s response was clear without translation. He told her -to be still and to go away; he spoke in distress and shame, but the -sternness of his tone was hollow. The child stood her ground, she -gulped and avoided the padre’s eye, but determination shook all her -little body, and she spoke again with vehemence. She was like one -crying out against some monstrous injustice.</p> - -<p>“What on earth does she say?”</p> - -<p>“Well”—Perolli was reluctant, and also avoided the padre’s eye—“did -you give her brother a handkerchief? She says it is not just, because -he also has new trousers, and she has neither handkerchief nor -trousers. Absurd! What would she do with trousers?” And he also looked -at her accusingly.</p> - -<p>Feet planted firmly, the child faced the tall group of us, flung back -her hair, and continued defiantly to speak: “It is not just. Is it my -fault I am a girl? Is it my fault that I am too small to work in the -mill? I go with the sheep, I carry the lamb, I climb the trees and cut -leaves. I bring water from the spring.” She<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span> beat her breast. “And my -brother gets new trousers, and also a handkerchief! I, I have nothing! -I have nothing to wear to the Easter mass, and my brother has new white -trousers! And my brother has a handkerchief!” She stamped her bare -foot. “I say to the world that it is not just. I shall cry to the Five -Tribes that it is not just!”</p> - -<p>“My word, but she’s magnificent!” said Frances.</p> - -<p>“Tell her quickly, Rexh—she shall have a handkerchief—she shall have -two handkerchiefs,” said Alex.</p> - -<p>“Glory to your lips,” said the child, for an instant unbroken by the -happiness. Then she swung her tangled hair across her face and fled, -weeping.</p> - -<p>It was curiosity as much as the renewed violence of rain which made -us follow her down the trail and go into the little house. Two women -welcomed us on the doorstep and led us into darkness lightened by a -handful of fire. They were mother and grandmother, both haggard and -worn by work. They had no coffee and no sugar, but they welcomed us -to their house by offering each in turn a cup of hot water, with all -the ceremonies of coffee drinking. They thanked us beautifully for -the handkerchief we had given their boy—the little girl had not yet -returned to the house—and we thanked them for the three eggs. He was a -good boy, they said, fourteen years old, and he had built the mill and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span> -worked in it. A clever, good boy. The new trousers lay on the earthen -floor, carefully wrapped in a cloth; while she talked, the mother -unwrapped them and worked on the black Shala pattern. The boy’s father -had been killed in the Serbian retreat of 1914, but the boy had been -too young to fight. And the little girl was born on the mountains while -their village was burning. But the boy—always the talk returned to the -boy, and it was easy to see why he had the new Easter trousers.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps it is unjust to the girl, but it is because they are so poor,” -Padre Marjan said, as we went home through the gathering darkness. “And -I am sure she did not mean to beg. But you see they have so little, and -they do give all they have to the boy. After all, he is the head of the -family, and he is a good boy; he works their land and he works in the -mill; he keeps them all alive.”</p> - -<p>“And out of such poverty they sent us three eggs,” said Alex.</p> - -<p>Padre Marjan asked what she had said, and when he was told he answered, -“My people are poor and ignorant, but they know what is due a guest.”</p> - - -<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> - -<p class="footnote" id="fn4"><a href="#fna4">[4]</a> Mountaineers.</p> - -<p class="footnote" id="fn5"><a href="#fna5">[5]</a> The great city.</p> - -<p class="footnote" id="fn6"><a href="#fna6">[6]</a> This story was told me in upper Thethis in the spring of 1921. In -the summer of 1922 I visited the Mati, accompanied by Annette Marquis -and Rrok Perolli. The Mati is a fertile high plateau defended by -an unbroken ring of almost impassable mountains. It has never been -conquered by foreign armies, though assailed by Romans, Turks, and -Serbs; through 1920 and 1921 the men of Mati successfully defended -their lands with their rifles against Serbian artillery. The present -Prime Minister of the Albanian republic, Ahmet Bey Mati (or Ahmet Zogu, -as he endeavors to persuade the people to call him, since the abolition -of titles in Albania) is chief of the family which has ruled the Mati -since Albania’s quarter century of freedom under Scanderbeg, in the -fifteenth century.</p> - -<p class="footnote">We were the first foreigners who had ever entered the Mati. We found -the country, the people, and the customs quite different from those -of the Dukaghini tribes described in this book, excepting only the -unvarying Albanian hospitality. We visited the Bulqis, very terribly -devastated by the invading Serbs in 1920 and 1921, and partly circled -the city of Dibra, taken from Albania by the 1913 frontier line as a -knife takes out the eye of a potato. The Albanian frontier commission -of the League of Nations was at that time sitting in Scutari, and I -regret that commissions do not sometimes travel along the frontiers -they have made.</p> - -<p class="footnote">As to the story of Lec i Madhe, we drank the delicious waters of the -many strangely flavored springs of Bulqis, and we lunched in the “place -where the great rocks are standing in rows.” These stones resemble -those of Carnac and Stonehenge, though on a much smaller scale, and -they may be relics of peoples who lived here prior to the arrival -of the Albanians, or they may be a curious accident of geological -formation.</p> - -<p class="footnote">On the site of the city Emadhija we found traces which seemed to us -undeniably left by the work of human hands. They lie at the head of a -valley in a flat triangular space formed by meeting mountain chains, -one day’s journey from Kruja, the magnificent fifteenth-century -fortress built by Scanderbeg. One side of this triangular space is the -bed of a small stream, flowing against the base of the mountains; on -the opposite side, a stone conduit brings water from a spring several -miles distant to a fountain from which the village people still draw -their drinking water. The present village is on the mountain side above -the site of the city. The villagers say that the conduit was built by -Filip the Second.</p> - -<p class="footnote">Of Emadhija itself nothing remains but a city pattern drawn on the -sterile level land by lines of stones. These lines are fairly regular, -four to six feet in width and two to three feet high; they form squares -and oblongs, arranged in curving rows, like plans of houses and -courtyards following winding streets. The stones, though much weathered -and broken, are in general rough cubes, and they are black, while the -stones of the river bed are white and gray limestone. Unfortunately, -none of our party had any archæological knowledge, but our untrained -observations convinced us that a city had undoubtedly existed there -at some time long past, and we believed that we saw the tops of walls -which had been buried by centuries of erosion from the adjacent -mountains. The villagers of that part of the Mati speak of the place -indifferently as “the ancient city Emadhija,” and “the birthplace of -Lec i Madhe.”</p> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span></p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0">MASS IN THE CHURCH OF THETHIS—A MOUNTAIN CHIEF SEEKS A WIFE—DOWN THE -VALLEY OF THE LUMI SHALA, WHILE THE DRANGOJT FIGHT THE DRAGON—HOW -REXH CAME TO SCUTARI.</p> -</div> - - -<p>The next morning was Sunday, and we were awakened by the church bell. -It hung in a belfry over the padre’s kitchen, and the padre pulled the -rope himself. Then tucking his brown robe about his bare ankles, he -descended the broken, draughty stairs to the church, and we followed -him through blasts of cold rain that the wind drove through holes that -had been made in the walls by the invading Serbs.</p> - -<p>The church itself was bleak and cold; a bare room, whitewashed, with -the stations of the Cross represented by crudely colored lithographs -stained by the damp. A railing separated the body of the church from -the altar, where a very brightly colored picture of the Virgin hung, -surrounded by wreaths of paper flowers, above a rough table with a bit -of brocade spread carefully upon it. We girls were given a bench inside -the railing, and sat there in a row, in our many-times-water-soaked -sweaters and trousers. Outside the railing all the women and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span> children -and half the men of the village knelt on the cold floor, and their -rain-drenched garments, threadbare and patched, made pools of water -about their knees. The rain was still pouring down, as undiminished as -a river, and the sound of it and of the waterfalls filled the chill -place.</p> - -<p>Padre Marjan began the mass, his high Albanian voice chanting the -Latin, and the congregation made the responses in the same tongue. A -ragged, barefooted man came to swing the censer for the padre, and -Perolli, in his neat English tweeds, revolver and knife swinging at -the belt, also assisted, going behind the altar with the padre to help -him put a brocaded robe over the brown one, and reverently handing the -cup and the wine. Rexh, in his red Mohammedan fez, watched it all with -serious eyes, his head around the edge of the doorway.</p> - -<p>After mass the padre dashed upstairs to look at our cooking dinner, -and hastened down again for a christening. I am not familiar with -Catholic ceremonial, but nothing could have been more touching than -Padre Marjan, thin, worn by fasting and work, barefooted, the edge of -his brown robe showing below the front hem of a white cotton garment, -bringing into the arms of the Church the tiny, wrinkled infant strapped -in its painted cradle. The woman who held it looked at him with a sort -of apprehensive anxiety; the crowd pressed informally around them. -Every time the padre turned to fetch the little glass bottle of oil, or -the tin can of holy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span> water, or the square of crocheted cotton lace that -he laid over the cradle, the packed bodies gave way for him, and one -child or another picked up the end of his trailing robe to keep it from -beneath muddy, bare feet.</p> - -<p>At the end, “Is it a boy or a girl?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“A girl,” the woman whispered. And the padre ended his solemn words -with the name, “Regina.”</p> - -<p>The woman sighed and her tenseness relaxed. It must have been a great -moment for the mother, I thought; some one said that she had carried -the cradle forty miles over the mountains for this christening. We did -want to give the baby something; for the hundredth time we regretted -not having brought presents, and a hurried ransacking of all our -possessions produced only a little colored sport handkerchief. But when -we gave it to the baby it was as though we had presented a golden bowl; -the excitement, the passing from hand to hand, the reverent marveling -over such weaving, such color!</p> - -<p>We found Perolli upstairs in the kitchen, grinning to himself, and when -we asked him why, he said the christening was a joke on the padre. The -woman was not the child’s mother; the real mother, married by Albanian -custom, had not yet got around to having the church ceremony, and the -priest in the village forty miles away had refused to christen the -child until the parents were married by the Church. But the devout -neighbor, knowing that the infant was in danger<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span> of hell fire, had -brought it over the mountains and had it christened as her own, and -Padre Marjan, all unsuspecting, had performed the ceremony.</p> - -<p>Not half an hour later an almost naked man, streaming with rain as -though he had swum the forty miles, appeared, breathless, with a -water-soaked note from the other priest, and Padre Marjan read it -aghast. “Merely parochial business,” he said, tucking it in his belt -and bending over the bubbling pots in the fireplace to taste and -season. But his brown face remained wrinkled with worry.</p> - -<p>A matter far more serious distracted attention from this complication -in Church affairs, for Perolli, taking me aside, said to me: “You say -you love the Albanians and the Albanian mountains. Do you want to stay -here?”</p> - -<p>“I’d love to stay here for years,” I said. “It’s the most beautiful -country I’ve ever seen, and the most interesting people. But I can’t, -of course. Why?”</p> - -<p>“Because you can, if you really do want to,” said he. “I have a -proposal of marriage for you.”</p> - -<p>“What!” said I. “You’re joking!”</p> - -<p>“Not at all,” said Perolli, indignantly. “Do you think marriage is a -thing to joke about?”</p> - -<p>“But I never know what you mean,” I complained. “And why should anyone -want to marry me, here?”</p> - -<p>“You needn’t take it as a compliment to your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span> personal charm, if that’s -what you mean,” said Perolli, coldly. “It’s really your short hair. But -I can get twenty thousand kronen for you, if you want to marry and stay -here.”</p> - -<p>“Twenty thousand kronen!” said I. “Two thousand dollars? For me? Here? -But for Heaven’s sake, why? You don’t mean anyone thinks me beautiful, -among all these Albanian women?” said I, indignantly.</p> - -<p>“Of course not,” said Perolli.</p> - -<p>“And I can’t even talk their language. What do you mean, twenty -thousand kronen? And what has short hair to do with it? Don’t be so -annoying, Perolli. What <em>do</em> you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Perolli, “Lulash would like to have an American wife. I -don’t mean he put it to me so crudely as that. He didn’t actually put -it to me at all, in fact. But I know that he will give twenty thousand -kronen for you, and you can stay here and make over the whole life of -Shala, if you like.”</p> - -<p>“But why me? Why not Frances, or Alex?”</p> - -<p>“Because you are all a long way past marrying age, in Albania, and -their hair is long, so naturally these people think they are already -married. But your hair is short, so they think you are a sworn virgin. -In these mountains, when a girl is old enough to marry and absolutely -refuses to marry the man to whom she has been promised, she may escape -the marriage by swearing before the chiefs of the two tribes an oath of -life-long virginity, and she cuts her hair and takes a man’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span> place in -the tribe. Naturally, when they see you, at your age, with short hair, -they think that is what you did. If you were an Albanian no one would -dream of marrying you, for the man to whom your parents gave you would -have to kill your husband to clear his honor, and all the chiefs before -whom you had sworn would be bound in honor to see that your husband -was killed. But America is a long way off; that man and the chiefs -would hardly come so far after you, especially as your customs are so -different. Besides, I think Lulash would take the chance, anyhow. He -really very much wants a woman to help him with the people, and he will -not marry a mountain woman.”</p> - -<p>“You mean he would listen to my ideas and take my advice—you mean he -wants a wife who will be his equal, a sort of partner?”</p> - -<p>“Of course. What else is a wife? He would like nothing better than to -have you give him American ideas.”</p> - -<p>“But I thought a woman had no rights at all, here.”</p> - -<p>“How absurd! She has all the rights that a man has.”</p> - -<p>“But women aren’t in the tribal councils?”</p> - -<p>“They are when it’s a council of the whole tribe. They aren’t chiefs, -no. But chiefs always talk things over with their wives.”</p> - -<p>“But women are bought and sold. You just said so. Didn’t you say you -were offered twenty thousand kronen for me?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span></p> - -<p>“It’s an unusual situation. Here you are, without a family; I’m the -only man in the party; naturally he thinks of me as in the position of -a brother or a father. The man’s family always pays money to the girl’s -family before a marriage, but the girl isn’t sold; she’s been betrothed -in her childhood, for any number of reasons. The money the man pays is -spent for the girl’s clothes and household things.”</p> - -<p>“Then you’d be supposed to give me the twenty thousand kronen? And then -it would be his again, after all.”</p> - -<p>“Of course not. It’s yours, isn’t it? No one has any right to a woman’s -personal belongings, except her.”</p> - -<p>“You mean I could do anything I liked with it? I wouldn’t have to have -his consent?”</p> - -<p>“Of course you could do anything you liked with it,” Perolli said, -wearily. “This isn’t Europe.”</p> - -<p>“Obviously,” said I. “Nor America.”</p> - -<p>“Well, what do you say? Do you want to do it?”</p> - -<p>Men ask women to marry them for many reasons and from many motives, -even though they are all lumped under the word “love.” Sometimes the -asking is an honor that should make any woman, either happily or -regretfully, proud. And sometimes it isn’t. For myself, I shall always -remember as one of my finest experiences this offer of a scalplocked -Shala chief to pay twenty thousand kronen for me. There was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span> no eager -clutching in it, no selfish, grasping, personal asking for personal -happiness; he could have had no idea whether or not this strange woman -would bring happiness into his house; his motives in asking her to -marry him had their roots quite outside himself. He believed that she -would help him in his work for the tribe.</p> - -<p>And I thought that a woman might have a much worse life than in -this remote, stranded fragment of primitive times still left among -the Albanian mountains, where respect for women is not taught like -courteous manners, but is as natural as breathing, so natural that it -is never discussed nor even thought about, and where marriage is not -centered in small egotisms, but in the larger idea of the family and -the future.</p> - -<p>But I must admit that to live that life requires other training than -any daughter of the twentieth century has received, for one’s ideas -have little to do with one’s actions; my mind might admire this alien -concept of life, but I fear that nothing will ever lead a Western woman -to marry for the good of anyone but herself.</p> - -<p>“Why, Perolli,” I said, “of course I can’t marry a Shala chief!”</p> - -<p>We came back to the fireplace where Padre Marjan was stirring the -tantalizing contents of the cooking pots, and were clutched by a -radiant Frances. She had ventured to speak to Padre Marjan about the -family of Kol Marku. And this was the news he had told her. The bitter -old mother of Pjeter was relenting. Because the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span> holy Easter-time was -near—so Padre Marjan said, but we guessed that Padre Marjan himself -had caused her change of heart—the family of Pjeter had told him the -day before in upper Thethis that Koi Marku might come home, and the men -of his family work in peace, for two weeks.</p> - -<p>This was the law of the blood-feud truce; that the injured party might -grant, when it desired to do so, on holy days or at a time of common -danger from without, a reprieve of a stated length of time. During that -time the families or tribes involved would meet and greet each other -courteously, although on the day that the truce ended the law of the -blood debt applied again, and they must kill each other at sight. The -family of Pjeter had granted two weeks—fourteen days of burden lifted -from the spirit of the family of Kol Marku. A great deal could be done -in fourteen days, Padre Marjan said—fields cleared, ditches repaired, -seed sown, family councils held. And he was hopeful that this was the -beginning of complete forgiveness; perhaps in another year Kol Marku -might come home to stay with his family. The news was being telephoned -to the tribe in which he had taken refuge—a tribe in the valley of the -Kiri, near Scutari—and in two days at most he would be in Thethis. -Already the men of his family were working; we could see them from the -windows of Padre Marjan’s dining room, working in the rain with iron -bar and hammer, attacking a gigantic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span> bowlder which lay in the middle -of their poor little field. Laboriously they chipped at it, cutting it -into pieces small enough to roll away, and they worked with trembling -haste, for it seemed a task too long to be done in two weeks. We wished -that we might be there when Kol Marku came home.</p> - -<p>And the next morning, in the rain that still continued to flood down -from apparently inexhaustible skies, we all stood on the edge of the -cliff, half a mile down the trail, and said farewell to the village of -Thethis. Everyone had come so far on the trail with us; Padre Marjan -thanked us in the name of the village; Lulash spoke, his hand on his -heart; Frances and Alex and I addressed them with as many happy phrases -of thanks as we could devise. All the guns were fired and fired again; -all along the cliff tops the boys were giving a last display of the -astounding feats that human muscles can do.</p> - -<p>“Go on a smooth trail!” they all called after us as we went over the -rustic bridge that crosses the green stream dotted with white bowlders -and black bowlders and rose-colored bowlders and the one huge bowlder -of jade, and, looking back from far down the trail, we saw the people -of Thethis still standing there, a black and white and gorgeously -colored mass against the gray rocks.</p> - -<p>Our way led down the Lumi Shala. Going northeastward from Scutari, we -had reached that river’s headwaters at Thethis, and now, crossing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span> it, -we came southeastward, high on the shoulders of the mountains that -wall its narrow valley. Higher still, seen at intervals through breaks -in the lower mountains, a wall of pure white snow rose into the sky; -the wall of the second great mountain range, which we were to cross to -reach still more hidden fastnesses and wilder tribes.</p> - -<p>We went across the lands of the Shala tribe, but there were no villages -on the way and no scattered houses; it was fifteen miles to our next -stopping place, the village of Shala. “An hour and a half,” said -Cheremi, gayly; he had learned to speak short English sentences in the -few days he had been with us, but he could not learn that fifteen miles -of exhausting mountain climbing meant more than ninety pleasant minutes -to anybody.</p> - -<p>Padre Marjan has lent us his little horse, a beautiful bay, hardly -larger than a Shetland, but perfectly built, with a saddle of red -leather held on by finely woven woolen straps. He went across slides of -slippery shale, climbed giant bowlders, walked on a log that crossed -a two-hundred-foot gorge, and made his way straight up the courses of -waterfalls as easily and cheerfully as a pet dog. But after our days of -walking our muscles did not like even the very slight idleness of such -riding, and our own feet carried us most of the way.</p> - -<p>An indescribably wild, beautiful way it was, with hundred-mile vistas -opening before us, changing, disappearing again, as we rounded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span> cliffs -or passed the ends of smaller mountain ranges that ran down to the -opposite banks of the Lumi Shala. There were villages over there; we -saw them built against the mountains like clumps of gray swallows’ -nest—the villages of Shoshi, with whom Shala was in blood. At the -foot of the waterfall streams that dashed down their cliffs we saw now -and then a little mill, flooded with water, its roof of slate hardly -showing above the flood, where in drier season Shoshi ground its grain -or put the loosely woven white woolen cloth to be soaked in the running -water and pounded by paddle wheels until it shrank into the feltlike -fabric that makes their garments.</p> - -<p>Here and there a red-brown or gray-white moving patch at the foot of -a clump of mangled trees announced that a little shepherd was there, -clinging to a tall stump and cutting twigs to throw down to the goats -and sheep; we were too far away to see him. And there were other -clumps of trees green with uncut leaves; always near these we saw, -bronze brown among the gray rocks, structures taller than a man and -shaped like a beehive. These were trees that the axes spare until the -leaves are fully grown and filled with sap. Then the branches are cut -and piled in a circle, the cut ends outward and the leaves to the -center, layer upon layer, until the beehive shape is completed, when -they are weighted down with rocks. The leaves dry, remaining green -and nutritious, and slowly through the winter the curious silos are -demolished armful<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span> by armful and carried into the houses to be fed to -the sheep and goats.</p> - -<p>The sky was still a leaden gray, with darker clouds moving sluggishly -among the mountains, and the air still seemed more than half full of -falling water. The soaked rawhide opangi were like soft rags on my -feet; at every step my woolen stockings emptied and filled with water -like sponges, and all our fingers were shrunk in ridges from the long -wetting. But we were gay, we sang along the way, the weak little songs -that so amused the steel-lunged mountaineers, and when a low growl of -thunder and a flicker of fire among the clouds announced a stronger -onslaught of the rain, Perolli waved his hand toward the mountain tops -and joyously shouted something—we thought, to the effect that we were -not flowers.</p> - -<p>“<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">Dranit?</i>” said I. “Great Scott! do you need announce that we -aren’t flowers? Shout that we are not drowned puppies, if you want to -startle onlookers.”</p> - -<p>“Not <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">dranit</i>—<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">drangojt</i>,” Perolli corrected. “I said to the -dragon he may growl as he likes; we’re not drangojt.”</p> - -<p>“No,” I said. “No, we aren’t. But what aren’t we?”</p> - -<p>“Drangojt,” replied Perolli, and broke into careless song. There were -times when I could have boxed that young man’s ears, for nothing is -more irritating than a sense of humor which is not yours. And the -Albanians have a sense<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span> of humor which is never idle, and seldom -comprehensible to the foreigner.</p> - -<p>“Drangojt means the people with wings, Mrs. Lane,” said Rexh, and -thought that all was clear. “You know, the people born with little -wings under their arms,” he elaborated, when I regarded him blankly. -“The people—I don’t know how other to say it, Mrs. Lane. Wings, you -know—what the birds fly with—wings. Under their arms. Don’t you have -people born with wings in your country?”</p> - -<p>I said that if we had I knew nothing of it, and Rexh’s forehead -wrinkled with perplexity. “But perhaps——Of course you are not a -drangue, you would not know the American drangojt,” he concluded, his -face clearing. “You can usually tell them, though, by their running -to their houses whenever it rains. First, you hear the dragon on the -mountains; then, you see all the drangojt running to houses. That is -the way you tell them; except, if you are their mother, then you see -the wings when they are born. But if you are not their mother, you -cannot see the wings, and you only know they are drangojt when they run -to their houses in the rain.”</p> - -<p>“Are they afraid they’ll get their wings wet?” said I, with great -interest.</p> - -<p>“Oh no! They are not afraid of anything. When the weather is -thundering, that is the dragon fighting with the drangojt. So when they -hear the dragon, all the drangojt go quickly to their houses to be -ready if they are called to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span> fly and fight the dragon. Even the babies -fly home with their cradles. There is no drangue so young that it could -not anyway scratch the dragon.”</p> - -<p>That was the charm and delight of those days and nights, all too few, -which I spent in the Albanian mountains. Around every turn in the trail -the unexpected awaited us.</p> - -<p>We gazed with new interest upon the gray clouds that struggled among -the mountain tops. The dragon and the drangojt were fighting up there, -then? Yes, indeed, said Rexh. When the drangojt had defeated the -dragon, then he would go away and we would see the sun again. All the -world, he said, would be taken by the dragon, and we would never see -the sun again, if it were not for the brave drangojt. Once the dragon -had almost taken the world—that was when the waters fell and the seas -were born—and only the drangojt of Dukaghini had saved it then. That -was long ago. “Long, long years of years ago,” said Rexh. “I guess, -even before these tribes of people and drangojt were ever called -Dukaghini.” At that time, the dragon had lost his three heads, and that -was why there never since had been such a battle in the skies.</p> - -<p>“How do you know all this, Rexh?” we asked, respectfully.</p> - -<p>“It was told in the songs,” said he.</p> - -<p>“And do you know those songs?”</p> - -<p>No, he said regretfully. He had heard some of them when he was very -little—when he lived<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span> with his people in the mountains. But when the -Montenegrins came and killed all his family that had not died in the -fighting, and burned his village, then he had had to go all the way to -Scutari, hiding from the Montenegrins. “You know, they came all the -way to Scutari, too, Mrs. Lane. And I had to hide from them, because -I was so little. I took a gun from a dead man, and it was a good gun, -too, but it was so heavy I could not carry it, so I could not fight. I -was only six years old. So I had to hide, and when I came to Scutari I -found the first of my children, and then little by little I found the -others, and so I was very busy all these years. And learning English -and Arabic, and working with Miss Hardy, and all, I have forgotten to -sing. I’m sorry I do not remember the songs.</p> - -<p>“How did I find my children? They were just there, in the streets, -Mrs. Lane, and I saw them. I took the first one because he was littler -than me—than I—and he had cut his foot on a rock, and I knew by his -clothes he was of my tribe. And I had found a dry place to sleep, so I -took him there. And then the others just came, little by little. Some -when the Serbians came through in 1914, and some when the Austrians -came, and Glosh came from Gruda last fall when the Montenegrins were -killing up there. I hope they are all well and clean,” he added, -anxiously. “I told them to wash themselves and their clothes and their -blankets every week while I was gone. I made them give a <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i> to -do it, and there is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span> anyway plenty of water in the river and probably -it is not raining in Scutari, so it will be all right. But if it is -raining, then they will have to wash their clothes because they gave a -<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i>, and it perhaps can be that they will take cold.”</p> - -<p>The rain had become so breath-taking that we said no more, rapidly -following the trail which ran easily through a small deformed wood, -among the ten-foot cones of dried branches which were last fall’s store -of winter fodder. The path came soon to the edge of a cliff, dipped -over it, and ran along the wall of rock, high above the Lumi Shala. -Here, sheltered in a smoke-blackened shallow cave, we found Cheremi and -four strange men sitting by a tiny fire and smoking cigarettes. Bundles -of dried boughs which two of them had been carrying were stacked behind -them, and Padre Marjan’s little horse was munching a handful of leaves -and gazing out at the rain.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0">THE SONG OF THE LAST GREAT WAR WITH THE DRAGON—AN UNEXPECTED -BANDIT—HOW AHMET, CHIEF OF THE MATI, WENT BY NIGHT TO VALONA—THE -RAISING OF SCANDERBEG’s FLAG—AN ALBANIAN LOVE SONG.</p> -</div> - - -<p>They made places for us, laid another handful of dry twigs on the fire, -and rolled fresh cigarettes. The Lumi Shala was rising higher than they -had ever known it to do, they said, and the Drin was overflowing in the -Merdite country. And learning that we were from Scutari, they asked us -what we knew of the Tirana government, of which they had heard. Was it -true that the Land of the Eagle was free?</p> - -<p>Leaving discussion of politics to Perolli, we sat cross-legged, looking -into the straight lines of rain that covered the mouth of the cave like -a curtain. Faintly through them we could see a blueness of mountains -and a greenness of fields beyond the narrow rust-red ledge of the -trail. Time passed, with a murmur of talk and a crunching of leaves, -until Rexh touched my elbow.</p> - -<p>“Here is a man, Mrs. Lane, who knows the end of one of those songs. He -does not know it all, but he can sing about the eating, after the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span> war -was ended. He will sing it for you, if you want him to.”</p> - -<p>He was a grimy man, barefooted, ragged, and incredibly whiskered. -But he carried besides his rifle on his back an old beautifully made -musical instrument somewhat resembling a mandolin, with a long neck -ending in a carved ram’s head. It was strung with fine wire, and he -handled it proudly; the wire, he said, had come from Scutari. In his -father’s day it had been strung with horsehair and played with a bow, -but at the time of his own marriage he had sent to Scutari for the -wire, and he now played it with a finger nail. Fresh cigarettes were -rolled and adjusted in holders, knees were crossed comfortably, and the -song began.</p> - -<p>It was only a fragment—the last song of all the songs about that great -war of the dragon and the drangojt above the Dukaghini mountains. The -strangely pitched twang of the wire accompanied the words, chanted in a -wild rhythm to the rain-filled valley of the Lumi Shala:</p> - -<p class="poetry p0"> -“The ora of Shala came from the deathless forest,<br /> -From the wood that is always green beyond the Mali Nicaj.<br /> -The ora of Shala saw the war in the air above the forest,<br /> -She saw the war in the air above the crashing peaks,<br /> -She saw the blood of the dragon spilled on the rocks.<br /> -Ho lo! Ho la! The head of the dragon falls!<br /> -Ho lo! Ho la! Two heads of the dragon are dead!<br /> -Ho lo! Ho la! Three heads of the dragon fall on the rocks!<br /> -The men of the earth are saved!<br /> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span>The ora of Shala screamed the word that the earth was saved.<br /> -Three times the ora of Shala screamed,<br /> -And her scream was heard on the Mali Nicaj,<br /> -Her voice was heard on the Chafa Morines,<br /> -And the Lumi Shala ran through the valley of Shala.<br /> -Three times the ora of Shala called,<br /> -And the ora of all the mountains came to her call,<br /> -They came like sparks from a fire to the ora of Shala.<br /> -‘Oh, my sisters, this is the word from the battle.<br /> -The dragon is dead and the world is saved!<br /> -The brave drangojt have saved the world.<br /> -The mountains stand without moving forevermore,<br /> -And the waters go back to their places,<br /> -For the brave drangojt have saved the world.<br /> -We will make a feasting for the saviors of the world.<br /> -My sister, go to the field for grain,<br /> -Cut it and thresh it and grind it,<br /> -Make bread and bake it well.<br /> -My sister, go to the mountains among the flocks,<br /> -Find a sheep with a lamb beside her,<br /> -Ask the sheep to give you her milk,<br /> -For we make a feast for the brave drangojt.<br /> -My sister, go to the tree that is hollow,<br /> -To the tree where the honey is made,<br /> -And ask the bees for their yellow honey.<br /> -My sister, here is a knife that is sharp;<br /> -Strike true, strike deep, strike quickly,<br /> -And bake the meat in a heated pit.’<br /> -The first ora came with bread on her head,<br /> -The second ora came with a sack of milk,<br /> -A milk sack made from the skin of trees.<br /> -The third ora came with her hands full of honey.<br /> -The fourth ora came with two roasted animals,<br /> -Large roasted animals, hot and brown.<br /> -Now we can go to our brave drangojt.<br /> -The hair of the ora was unbound,<br /> -And their heads were crowned with flowers,<br /> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span>And the beauty of the world was their garment.<br /> -The ora of Shala came first to the Mali Riges,<br /> -The ora of Shala came to the camp of the drangojt.<br /> -‘I hope we find you well, heroes of the earth,<br /> -Long may you live, the courage of the world.’<br /> -Then rose and spoke Lleshi of Lleshi,<br /> -Chief of the tribe of the Merdite drangojt.<br /> -‘Welcome to you from wherever you come.<br /> -Where have you been hiding your beauty?’<br /> -‘I am the sister of the ora of the Merdite,<br /> -She who is guarding the Mali Mundelles.<br /> -I am the ora of Shala.<br /> -Long live the heroes who have killed the dragon,<br /> -Long live the warriors who have saved the world.’<br /> -Then on the grass they sat for the feasting.<br /> -All the ora turned back their sleeves,<br /> -Making ready to serve the heroes.<br /> -The first ora broke the round loaf of bread,<br /> -The second ora brought the hot roasted meat,<br /> -The third ora brought the bowl of yellow honey,<br /> -The fourth ora poured the milk from the sack.<br /> -All the ora brought good water from the spring,<br /> -And the drangojt drank from the cup of their hands.<br /> -When the feasting was ended they left that place,<br /> -They washed their hands in flowing water,<br /> -They lay by a fire on a carpet of leaves,<br /> -And they spoke of many things pleasant to hear.<br /> -They spoke till the star of the dawn came out<br /> -Above the peaks of the Mali Mundelles.<br /> -The star of the daylight came out,<br /> -For the power of the dragon was broken.<br /> -This was the feast of the Merdite drangojt<br /> -After the last great war with the dragon.” -</p> - -<p>The player ran his finger down the wire in a final weird whine, and the -instrument lay silent on his knees. “That is all I know of that one,” -he said. “But if the American <i>zonyas</i> would like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span> to hear other -songs, I can sing them, for I am a bandit.”</p> - -<p>I cannot describe the shock we felt at those simple words. “<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">Jam -comitadj.</i>” Yes, he had said them. Or had he?</p> - -<p>“<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">Comitadj?</i>” said I, noticing a strange stiffness in my lower -jaw. “<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">Nuk comitadj?</i>”</p> - -<p>“<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">Po</i>,” said he, quite calmly. And the modesty which reveals too -great pride touched his voice as he added, “I have been a bandit for -many years.”</p> - -<p>Automatically my eyes sought Frances’s. Hers were widely open, and -expressed only a shock as great as mine. We both turned a fascinated -gaze upon the bandit, who had laid aside his musical instrument and -rested a fond hand on his rifle. “For many years,” he repeated.</p> - -<p>“Do you like it?” said I, weakly. “Do you like—banditing?”</p> - -<p>I had read of bandits in the Balkans, and I had heard of them, and -I had even thought how self-possessed and cool I would be if I -encountered one of them. “Certainly,” I would say, with dignity. “Take -my money if you like; it is very little; you are welcome. But there -will be no use whatever in your holding me for ransom, because——” -I suppose everyone falls into these absurdities of imagined and -impossible conversations. The lure of them is their offer of escape -from reality. Certainly I had never believed that a real, living -bandit would step out of that fantastic realm and be a solid figure -in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span> the daylight. I, <em>I</em> in a bandit’s cave! Such things didn’t -<em>happen</em>; they were only in books. So I said, meekly, timidly, -quite inadequately, “Do you like—banditing?”</p> -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img010"> - <img src="images/010.jpg" class="w50" alt="THE BANDIT WHOM WE MET IN THE CAVE ABOVE THE LUMI SHALA" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p0 caption">THE BANDIT WHOM WE MET IN THE CAVE ABOVE THE LUMI SHALA -AND WHO SANG US THE SONG OF DURGAT PASHA<br />A letter just received from Albania brings the news that he has cut -his beard, hung his rifle on the wall (when disarming the mountaineers -the Albanian government made an exception in his case), and is now -running, with considerable success, a sawmill in the Mati.</p> - - -<p>Yes, he said, he liked it very much. He became even poetic about it. -I admit I took no notes of what he said. But I recall Rexh’s voice -repeating lyrical words about life on the mountains, camp fires and -stars, freedom and fighting—the only life for a man, he declared. Once -he had stopped being a bandit and gone back to the life of houses, but -he was glad when the time came to be a bandit again.</p> - -<p>I had not thought that being a bandit was a seasonal occupation, and -I begged an explanation of these mysterious words. It developed that -they referred to wars unknown and unrecorded save in the songs of the -mountaineers, and we became so involved in references cryptic to me, -but clear to the listening Albanians, that at last I was obliged to -beg him to begin at the beginning and tell the straight story of his -life. This he did, with the modest reluctance of a hero surrounded by -admirers.</p> - -<p>“I was not a rich man,” he began, “but as our saying is, ‘The smallest -hair has its own shadow.’ There were sheep in my house, and it was a -house of two rooms, and the fields repaid our labor. The tobacco box in -my sash was never empty, and there was bread in the baking pan. There -was a son in the cradle and another by the fire, and life was as smooth -as the Lumi<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span> Shala in summer, until the coming of Durgat Pasha.</p> - -<p>“After that came the treason of Essad Pasha, and, having then neither -house, nor sheep, nor sons, nor tobacco, but only my rifle——”</p> - -<p>We must interrupt, to bring him back to Durgat Pasha, and he was -astonished that more than that name was needed to make us understand. -Had we never heard the songs of Durgat Pasha? Durgat Pasha, who in -1912 came from the Sultan of Turkey to subdue the Sons of the Eagle? -Durgat Pasha, who burned and killed, from the Mali Malines to the Malit -Shkodra? He bent over the instrument on his knees, twanged three wild -notes from it, and sang:</p> - -<p class="poetry p0"> -“Seven Powers had called a council,<br /> -Seven Powers met and said,<br /> -‘Shqiperia is no more in our hands,<br /> -All Shqiperia is not in our hands.’<br /> -Then rose Durgat Pasha and took his gun.<br /> -‘Leave this to me for three years.<br /> -O Sultan, I go for three years.<br /> -When I return the Shqiptars are yours.’<br /> -Durgat Pasha came past the white lake,<br /> -Durgat Pasha to the Mali Malines,<br /> -Durgat Pasha to the Mali Shoshit,<br /> -Durgat Pasha and five thousand soldiers.<br /> -He sends word to Hasjakupit,<br /> -‘You shall send your rifle to me.<br /> -Thirty Turkish pounds have I paid for my rifle,<br /> -Thirty pounds for my own rifle,<br /> -But I leave houses and lands and go with my rifle.<br /> -Thirty houses I leave behind me.’<br /> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span>These were the words of Hasjakupit.<br /> -‘Thirty houses I leave behind me,<br /> -And into Montenegro I go.<br /> -I go to King Nichola of Montenegro;<br /> -He will give me meat and bread.’<br /> -Durgat Pasha on the top of the mountain,<br /> -Durgat Pasha with Shala around him,<br /> -Durgat Pasha had no bread or water,<br /> -Durgat Pasha’s rifles had nothing to eat.<br /> -And the fighting men of Shala were all around him,<br /> -The fighting of Shala was terrible.<br /> -Durgat Pasha went out of his way to Puka.<br /> -Puka and Iballa greeted him.<br /> -When he came to Bashchellek<br /> -All of Scutari came to greet him.<br /> -The people of Scutari were frightened.<br /> -Durgat Pasha was going to die,<br /> -And Scutari rubbed his face with a sack,<br /> -Scutari gave him food and drink.<br /> -Then rose Salo Kali of Scutari.<br /> -‘My rifles I cannot give,<br /> -I have made <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i> with one hundred men;<br /> -Our rifles are not for Durgat Pasha.’<br /> -‘Leave the <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i>, Salo Kali,<br /> -Take your hammer and shoe the horses.<br /> -That is your business, Salo Kali.<br /> -What have you to do with rifles?’<br /> -‘I have made <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i> with one hundred men;<br /> -Our rifles are not for Durgat Pasha.’<br /> -Durgat Pasha rubbed his forehead.<br /> -‘I have never seen this kind of people,<br /> -I never saw a nation like Shala or Shoshi.<br /> -What can be done with the Shqiptars?’<br /> -These were the words of Durgat Pasha.<br /> -</p> - -<p>“That is the song of Durgat Pasha,” said the bandit. “When I came home -from the fighting, the men of Durgat Pasha had burned my house,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span> and my -wife and my sons were dead. It was then I gave <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i> to myself -never to hang my rifle on the wall and never to cut my beard until all -Albania was free. And I went to fight the Serbs at Chafa Bullit. That -was good fighting. All day we fought, and at night we lay by the camp -fires and the women gave us bread and meat. All day long, while we were -fighting, the women were on the trails bringing us bread and meat. Then -we were tired and slept, and the air was good, not like the air in -houses. And in the morning, when the stars were pale, we raised the war -cry and killed more Serbs. It was a good life.</p> - -<p>“It was at this time that the chiefs of Kossova came secretly by -night through the Serbian lines to the house of Ahmet Bey Mati, and -I was called by Ahmet to take them to Valona. He said that a word -would be spoken in Valona to make Albania free. I said to Ahmet: ‘The -Montenegrins hold Scutari and the seacoast even to San Giovanni, the -European Powers are in Durazzo, the Serbs have Kossova and the Dibra, -the Greeks are in the south. What is talk of freedom? This is not a -time to talk; it is a time to fight.’ Ahmet said, ‘Before the war cry, -the council of chiefs.’ Ahmet is chief of the Mati, head of the family -that has ruled the Mati since the days of Scanderbeg. He was a boy of -sixteen, newly come from the court of Sultan Abdul Hamid; he did not -wear the clothes of the Malisori, and the chiefs of the Mati laced<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span> his -opangi before every battle, because he did not know how to lace opangi. -Yet it must be said that it was his coming that saved the Mati from -the Serbs. He came quickly, killing seven horses between Monastir and -Borelli, and he told the chiefs what to do, and they saved the Mati. It -was hot fighting. For five months he had been fighting and sleeping on -the rocks. His chiefs loved him.</p> - -<p>“I said, ‘I am killing Serbs, and have no wish to go to Valona.’ Ahmet -said: ‘When my father died, my older brother sent me from my country -to the Turks. I do not know the trails. The chiefs of Kossova are my -guests, and they do not know the trails. We must go to Valona through -Elbassan, where the Serbs are. There is a meeting of all the chiefs -of Albania in Valona. If we are killed by the Serbs, there will be no -chiefs of the Malisori at that meeting. There will be only Toshks—men -of the plains.’ I said: ‘To-night the moon will be dark. We must start -as soon as we can see the small stars.’</p> - -<p>“In three nights we were at the house of Asif Pasha in Elbassan. No, -nothing disturbed us on the way, except that we were obliged to kill -with our hands the dogs that sometimes came upon us from the villages. -The Serbs were everywhere, and we could not use our guns. When we came -to the house of Asif Pasha, the chiefs of Kossova with Ahmet slept -in one room, and I sat with Asif Pasha by the fire in another room. -Elbassan was held by many hundred Serbian soldiers.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span> At midnight five -officers with thirty soldiers came to the door. They came in, and would -not take coffee. They stood, and said: ‘Who are the twelve men who -sleep to-night in this house? Do not lie, for we know that they are -here.’</p> - -<p>“Asif Pasha said, ‘This is one of them.’ I said, ‘I will tell you who -they are, but I beg you not to let them know that I have told. I am -only a servant, and they are great chiefs. They are byraktors of five -villages of the Mati, three villages of the Merdite, and three villages -of Shala and Shoshi. They have come to Elbassan to talk with the Serbs. -They have come secretly, hiding from the other chiefs. I do not know -why. I beg you not to tell them that I have told, for they are tired -and dirty, and they are sleeping while the women clean their clothes so -that they will be clean to-morrow when they go to speak to your chiefs.’</p> - -<p>“The officers sat down then, and one of them wrote. He wrote the names -of the chiefs as I gave them to him, and he wrote what I said, that the -Malisori were tired of fighting, and had little ammunition, and did -not like their chiefs that made them fight. While he wrote, Asif Pasha -gave them rakejia, and more and more rakejia, but no coffee. When the -Serbs had become foolish I went to the other room where the chiefs were -listening with their rifles in their hands, and I took them all by a -way I knew, out of Elbassan.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span></p> - -<p>“So we came to Valona, to the house of Ismail Kemal Bey Vlora, the same -who had been Grand Vizier of Abdul Hamid. He had come on an Austrian -warship to Durazzo, and there they had tried to kill him, and he had -come secretly, as we had come, to Valona. Valona was the only free -village in Albania then, except our mountain villages. There was a -council in his house. Chiefs of all the tribes from Kossova to Janina -were there, and when the council was ended Ismail Kemal Bey brought the -flag of Scanderbeg, which had always been hidden in his house, and with -a rope he made it run to the top of a pole on his house. It was the -red flag with the two-headed black eagle on it. I stood in the street -and saw it go to the top of the pole. The chiefs were on the balcony, -and Ismail Kemal Bey wept. Many men had tears on their cheeks. In the -streets they cried, ‘Rroft Shqiperia!’ and embraced one another. They -said that the spirit of Scanderbeg lived, and that Albania was free. -But I said, ‘The time has not come when I can hang my gun on the wall -or cut my beard.’</p> - -<p>“The next night I started secretly back through the Serbian lines with -Ahmet and the chiefs of Kossova, to come to our own mountains and -kill the Serbs. We had been twenty-two days in Valona, and for those -twenty-two days I had not been a <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">comitadj</i>. I was glad to be one -again.”</p> - -<p>For the moment the fortunes of war were with the drangojt; the heavier -clouds had been driven<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span> away, and a pale sunshine fell on Shoshi, which -looked like a water-color picture in a gray frame. Our side of the -valley was in shadow, but the rain had ceased and we should have been -going on. I was held by a still unsatisfied curiosity about that bandit.</p> - -<p>“I thought bandits were highwaymen,” I murmured, and, unwilling to ask -interpreters to put the question that was in my mind, I laid the burden -on my own lame knowledge of their language. “You kill Serbs?” I asked. -“How do you get money?”</p> - -<p>The whiskered face seemed to smile broadly at this boldness. “I get it -on the trails,” he said.</p> - -<p>“From Albanians?”</p> - -<p>“I get it where I can,” he answered, indifferently. “The Austrians had -money, and there were many Austrians in Albania. This rifle came into -the mountains on an Austrian officer. I gave his clothes to a naked man -of Dibra who was fighting the Serbs there. I got four Italian capes -and trousers in one day, on the road north of Scutari, and there was -money on their bodies, too. As to Albanians—there was a rich Albanian -once, whom I met riding out from Ipek. Why should a man of Albanian -blood ride in the eyes of the Serbs with gold in his pocket, while true -Albanians are dying of cold and hunger? I took from him everything -he had, and left him on the trail as naked as he came to the cradle. -I said to him, ‘You are the Sultan, and I am the Grand<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span> Vizier. In -your name I will give these things to your people, and they will be -grateful.’”</p> - -<p>We laughed hastily.</p> - -<p>“But it is time to cut your beard and hang your rifle on the wall,” -Perolli suggested. “There is a free Albanian government now.”</p> - -<p>“But not a free Albania,” said the bandit. “The government forgets -that, and sits in council with the Powers that sold us to Italy and -gave us to Serbia. Have you forgotten Kossova and a million of your -brothers who are slaves to the Serbs?”</p> - -<p>“I am of Ipek,” Perolli answered him. “Nevertheless, I am first a -Shqiptar and second a man of Kossova. And I remember our proverb that -says, ‘Better an egg to-day than a chicken next year.’”</p> - -<p>“We have also a saying, ‘Better the nightingale once than the blackbird -every day,’” replied the bandit.</p> - -<p>“Let it be. ‘Every sheep hangs by her own leg,’” Perolli retorted, -rising.</p> - -<p>The honors were with him. For the moment, the bandit could think of no -proverb which would be a weapon, and could only reply to our courteous -farewells by wishing us smooth trails.</p> - -<p>“The good man of yesterday becomes a burden to-day and a danger -to-morrow,” said Perolli, as we went slowly along the ledge of trail. -“Why is it that our minds do not change as rapidly as the world changes -around us? These mountain men will cling to their rifles, though the -time is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span> past when killing will solve our problems. Stupidity! But -sometimes I think the whole world is stupid.”</p> - -<p>We agreed with little assenting sounds, our minds too much occupied -with the difficulty of the way to spend energy on words. We were -absorbed in the narrow, slippery trail running rust red along a cliff -that wept iron. Only when we paused for breath did we see the beautiful -valley of the Lumi Shala beneath us. The rain was falling gently now, -a wavering veil of gray chiffon over the mountains that ran a scale of -paling blues to the white peaks in the west. Below them little fields -were green, burgeoning woods were faintly rainbow misted with colors of -new leaves, and there was a foam of plum blossom and a sudden rosy note -from a solitary peach tree.</p> - -<p>We looked in silence. And when we resumed our toiling way, Perolli -began to sing. It was a song with springtime in it, a song like the -valley of the Lumi Shala, an Albanian song of strangely pitched half -notes and indescribable transitions, breaking at intervals into the -burbling melody of a bird’s throat. We listened entranced; we begged -him to sing it again.</p> - - -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img011"> - <img src="images/011.jpg" class="w75" alt="THE SHALA VALLEYS" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p0 caption">THE SHALA VALLEYS</p> - -<p>“It is called ‘The Mountain Song,’” he said. “But it isn’t one of the -songs of the trails; it is a song of the large villages of Kossova. -I think it isn’t more than fifty or sixty years old, because it is a -love song. Love songs are new in Albania, and you find them only in the -villages.” And he sang:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span></p> - -<p class="poetry p0"> -“How beautiful is the month of May<br /> -When we go with the flocks to the mountains!<br /> -On the mountains we heard the voice of the wind.<br /> -Do you remember how happy we were?<br /> -<br /> -“In the month of May, through the blossoming trees,<br /> -The sound of song is abroad on the mountains.<br /> -The song of the nightingale, ge re ge re ge re.<br /> -Do you remember how happy we were?<br /> -<br /> -“I would I had died in that month of May<br /> -When you leaned on my breast and kissed me, saying,<br /> -‘I do not wish to live without you.’<br /> -Do you remember how happy we were?<br /> -<br /> -“I wish again for the month of May<br /> -That again we might be on the mountains,<br /> -That again we might hear the mountain voices.<br /> -Have you forgotten those days of beauty?”<br /></p> - -<p>Again and again he sang it, while we tried to follow with our voices -those unwritten notes that express so much more clearly than any words -the beauty and fleetingness of spring. And when, unexpectedly, we -came upon five young men drawn up in a line to greet us, we could not -believe that the way had been so short and that we had come to the -village of Shala.</p> - -<p>It was indeed Shala, and in a moment we were being welcomed by the -padre and escorted up a stone stairway into his rooms above the church.</p> - -<p>These were better rooms than Padre Marjan’s; the windows were not -broken and the walls were solid. But they were bitterly cold, and -this priest was not our Father Marjan. He was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span> older, squarer, more -sturdy, his hair was iron gray, and his presence was commanding—so -commanding that it was a bit chilly. He led us formally into a large, -bare room, where there were a long table and four hand-made chairs; he -gave us each a chair and himself remained standing, talking with grave -formality, in Albanian, to Perolli. Little pools of water spread around -our feet, as though we were umbrellas.</p> - -<p>We sat there half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half. There was no -fire; the room had the feeling of a room that has never had a fire in -it. We suggested to Perolli that he take us into the kitchen to get -warm, but he silenced us with a glance; indeed, it was obvious that -we were in the hospitable hands of the priest and that it would be an -unforgivable affront to make such a suggestion to him.</p> - -<p>We were so cold from the first, holding ourselves so tight to prevent -our shivering from becoming uncontrollable, that I do not know when the -real chills began. It was Alex’s gray-blue lips and cheeks that first -alarmed me. I said to Perolli that he <em>must</em> get us warmed. He -said that before long we would have something to eat, and that would -warm us.</p> - -<p>Then I saw Alex’s cheeks turn to a hot, burning red, and I said: -“Perolli! You’ve got to get Alex a chance to get into dry clothes. -Can’t you see she’s ill?”</p> - -<p>“Are you ill?” said Perolli, and, “Oh no, no, not at all!” said Alex, -her teeth chattering<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span> together. “I would like to lie down, if I could, -but it’s all right.”</p> - -<p>Another half hour went by, lengthening into an hour. Alex seemed -still more ill to me, though I could not see her very well; she grew -very, very large before my eyes and then very small and far away. -My head ached, and just as I thought I was warm at last, I would be -disappointed again by a chill that made me clench my teeth and grip -my chair. But when I saw Alex’s head fall forward as though she were -faint, I could stand it no longer. I got up.</p> - -<p>“Perolli,” I said, “tell our host we’ve got to get Alex dry and warm. -If you don’t I’ll undress her and rub her right here!”</p> - -<p>I would have said more, but I couldn’t. A pain like a knife stabbed -through my lungs, and before I could catch my breath stabbed neatly -again. It’s the kind of pain you can’t describe; if you’ve felt it you -know it, and if you haven’t, you can’t. I recognized it; it had struck -me years before and laid me in a hospital for six weeks. Pneumonia!</p> - -<p>There’s a kind of clan morality that controls us. It has nothing to -do with the moralities of religions or races or states; it is a group -affair, and the groups seem roughly to be made by common occupations. -Soldiers must conceal, and deny, their natural fear of death. -Labor-union men must let their children starve before they “scab.” -Farmers must not let their stock break through fences, or let a bit -of unused land<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span> become a nursery for weeds. Employers—and one sees -this, now, everywhere in Europe—must not pay higher wages than other -employers, however easy and more efficient it may be to do so. Women -who are married, or expect to marry, must not let a man’s fancy wander -from the woman who claims him. Doctors must let a patient die rather -than take the case from another doctor. And women like Alex and Frances -and me—for whom there is no generic term, except the meaningless -“modern women”—must never, so long as they can keep on their feet, -admit that they are ill.</p> - -<p>How Alex felt I don’t know; for myself, I was in a blue panic. I have -never wanted anything so much as I wanted to collapse right there, -in sheer terror. Pneumonia, in Shala, a hundred and fifty miles from -a doctor, from medicines, from even a bed. Pneumonia, among the -Albanians, whose only medical knowledge of it was that it came from -drinking rain water!</p> - -<p>Perolli had been surprised by my exclamation. “Why didn’t you say you -were uncomfortable?” he said to Alex. “If I’d had any idea——”</p> - -<p>“I’m all right,” said Alex, getting the words out quickly and shutting -her teeth hard.</p> - -<p>“Well, what are you fussing about, then?” said Perolli to me, -anxiously. “I’d take you girls to a fire if I could, but, you see, -they’re cooking in the kitchen, and naturally the padre doesn’t want to -take his guests there. We’ve been here three hours now; dinner ought to -be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span> ready before long, and you’ll be all right as soon as you’ve had -something to eat.”</p> - -<p>That pain stabbed through my lungs again, taking all my breath and -engaging all my self-control, and I wilted. I wasn’t the good sport -Alex was.</p> - -<p>“I know I’m abominably rude,” I said, “but I’m too tired. I want to -lie down. Ask the padre if there isn’t somewhere we can lie down till -dinner.”</p> - -<p>It was too bad. Guests shouldn’t behave like that. There was another -room, and it had a mattress on the floor, but there was no candle; -a bit of blazing wood must be brought from the kitchen to light me -into it; our bags must be fetched; the household was quite upset. -I apologized and apologized, but at last I was able to tear off my -sopping stockings, pull some of our blankets over me, and lie down in -the darkness. I was falling into a kind of stupor. I could not get off -my soaking garments, but it did not matter, fever kept me even too -warm in them, and in a moment I—as the old-time novelists say—knew -no more. During that moment I felt some one crawling on the mattress -beside me, put out a hand, and touched Alex’s blazing cheek.</p> - -<p>We were awakened and brought out to dinner. It did not seem real. I -remember it like a delirium. There was hot soup, but each mouthful -seemed a cannon ball to get through a closing throat, and there were -corn bread and goat’s-milk<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span> cheese; the padre stood at the head of -the table through the meal, holding the torch. He did not eat with -us, Perolli said, because we were using all the dishes he had. It -transpired, too, that there was but the one mattress in the house. -The padre’s niece slept on it; he himself slept on the floor with a -blanket. The niece was a sweet, round-cheeked little girl of about -fourteen, quite the German Fräulein; she had been educated in Vienna -and Munich, and seemed most desperately lonely in Shala, hungry for -companionship and talk of the things she knew; but since the war and -the wreck of central Europe she must stay in Shala. I saw a tragedy -there. But I saw it very dimly through the mist of pain and fever.</p> - -<p>Alex and I took the mattress, with the simple, direct selfishness of -miserable animals; it was very narrow, but we lay head to foot on it -and managed. Frances, Perolli, and Rexh slept in blankets beside us on -the floor. All night long Alex moaned in her sleep, and I could not -tell the difference between reality and delirium; only the knives in my -lungs brought me out of the mists now and then to hear the ceaseless -pouring sound of rain and feel the damp chill of the room.</p> - -<p>In the gray morning Alex and I sat up and looked at each other.</p> - -<p>“How do you feel?” said I.</p> - -<p>“Fine,” said she. “Have you a fever?”</p> - -<p>“Fever? Not a bit,” said I. “But I’ve been thinking. It’s the tenth, -and I absolutely must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span> be in Paris by the twentieth. It’s most -important—a business matter. So I don’t think I’d better go on with -you into the Merdite country. I think I’d better go back to Scutari and -catch the boat from Durazzo next Tuesday.”</p> - -<p>“But you can’t make it out of these mountains alone!” said she. “It’s a -hundred and fifty miles and you don’t know the trails or the language.”</p> - -<p>“Oh yes, I can!” I said. “Don’t talk nonsense, Alex dear.”</p> - -<p>“Well, you know what it is. It is up to you,” said she. (How I love -women for the way they love you and yet leave you free!) “Only, if you -did have a fever, you realize it would be dangerous to try to make it, -in this weather.”</p> - -<p>“If I had a fever, it strikes me it would be equally dangerous to -stay here,” I replied. “And I must be in Paris, on the job, by the -twentieth.”</p> - -<p>“Well, if it’s the job——” said she, and called Perolli.</p> - -<p>Perolli was deep in politics, and paused only a moment to say that if -he had any authority over me he would not listen for a moment to such a -mad notion; but I told him he hadn’t and asked him to get me a guide. -He said he did not know the men here, but would do his best, and by the -time I was dressed he brought the guide, a slim, too-handsome youth who -spoke Italian and swore to get me to Scutari in two days.</p> - -<p>Frances said that if I would insist on going, I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span> must take Rexh with -me; and I said I would not dream of it, I would not think of letting -that twelve-year-old give up the trip into the farther mountains. All -along the way he had thought of little else, and half his sentences had -begun, “When we get into the Merdite country——” We argued about it, -Frances patient and I surprised to find how bad tempered I could be. -The packs must be rearranged, and I kept putting my hand down on things -that were not there; everything moved with incredible slowness, and -eternities passed before I cut short the interminable formalities of -farewell and plunged out into the cool, delightful rain.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0">THE BACKWARD TRAIL—THE MAN OF SHALA HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR—THE -BYRAKTOR OF SHOSHI HEARS THAT THE EARTH IS ROUND.</p> -</div> - - -<p>We started down the bed of a waterfall, the guide and I; the bad going, -the exhausting force of the current, my dizziness and breath-taking -pains, made the first half mile a blur. When we came out on a cliff -edge I sat down, and then for the first time I saw Rexh. He stood very -gravely, watching me; the rain had melted the dye in his red fez and -little streams of it ran down his round, serious face.</p> - -<p>“It is much better for me to come with you, Mrs. Lane,” he said. “You -do not know the language, and this Shala man he is a bad man.”</p> - -<p>“But, Rexh, my dear!” I said. “No, no! You must go back to Miss Hardy -and say that I say you cannot come.” He might never again have an -opportunity to see that farther interior country; it was a trip to -dream of for years and to remember always afterward. I had not asked -him to give it up; I did not want him to. I was safe enough; all the -tribal laws protected me; no one had any motive for injuring me, and -the Shala man, however bad, knew that I had no money and that he would -be well paid when he delivered me in Scutari.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span></p> - -<p>“All that is true, Mrs. Lane. But I think it best for me to come with -you,” said Rexh, inflexibly. And because I really had no strength for -combating such determination, I got up and went on, the Shala man -going before, with my pack protected by a poncho on his back, and Rexh -following after.</p> - -<p>We climbed up cliffs and lowered ourselves down them; we slipped and -slid and jumped down more little waterfalls; we waded knee-deep streams -and struggled over decomposed shale that clutched at our feet like -sand; we came down a switchback trail to the banks of the Lumi Shala, -and the Shala man carried me across it, on top of his pack. It was all -like a nightmare, of which I remember clearly only my thirst. Though I -was as wet as anything that lives in the sea, I could not get enough -to drink, and every one of the millions of springs invited my drinking -cup. Rexh, whose endless task was to fill it for me, protested. “In the -rains, the water makes you sick,” he said. “It turns to knives inside -you. You will be sick, Mrs. Lane.”</p> - -<p>He was the funniest figure you can imagine, in a suit of striped -American flannelette pajamas and the red fez that poured a dozen little -wavering streams of dye over his forehead and down his cheeks.</p> - -<p>If I were in France, I knew, the doctors would put me in a hot room -with all the windows closed, and insist that I must not have much -water. In America I would be given fresh air<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span> and water, and bathed to -keep down the fever. Well, I was in Albania, and I reasoned that, if I -was to have pneumonia, I might as well have it on the mountain trails -as in a cold, wet house, and when I got to Scutari I could be as ill as -I liked, with very little bother to anybody.</p> - -<p>“If the water makes me sick, Rexh, and if I become <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">gogoli</i>, with -a wild spirit of the mountains entered into me, you are not to mind,” I -said. “You are to get me down to Scutari somehow; above all things, do -not let me stay in a native house.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mrs. Lane.” Then we began to climb up the next mountain, and, -kneeling on a bowlder above me to help pull me up its side, Rexh said: -“Your hand is like a hot coal, Mrs. Lane, and this is not such a very -big bowlder. I think we must get a <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">mooshk</i>.”</p> - -<p>“What is a <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">mooshk</i>?”</p> - -<p>“He is what you ride on. I forget the English word—with long ears and -very little feet.”</p> - -<p>“A mule?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, that is it. We must get a mule for you to ride.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, do you think we can? Ask the Shala man if he knows where there is -one.”</p> - -<p>The Shala man, to my joy—but Rexh looked doubtful—said at once that -there was one at the next house. So we went into it, and sat for some -time by the fire, and were given coffee, our steaming clothes making -the place like a Turkish bath. But there was no mule; the Shala man -said we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span> would find one at the next house. The houses were perhaps a -quarter of a mile apart here, scattered along the mountain sides above -the Lumi Shala, and the Shala man stopped at every one of them. There -would be a delirium of struggling up slopes so steep that I could go, -as it were, on all fours, without having to admit that my knees were -limp, and then of staggering downward, and then an interval of smoke -and fire and thick, sweet coffee, and then out into the water again. At -last I began really to protest.</p> - -<p>“I won’t go into this house,” I said, flatly. “We ought to make forty -miles at least before we stop, if we’re to get to Scutari in three -days. We have to keep going all the time. I’m not going to stop in any -more houses.”</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Lane, we have to,” said Rexh.</p> - -<p>“But why? It’s nonsense! This man’s saying always that the mule is at -the next house. These people know whether there’s a mule in the village -or not. We needn’t stop in every house.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, we do, Mrs. Lane. We are in Shoshi and this man will be killed -if he does not take care. You do not look like a woman, Mrs. Lane. You -look like a Montenegrin man, in those pants and that long gray coat. He -has to stop in every house, so that the people will see he is traveling -with a woman.”</p> - -<p>“But, Rexh, I thought we were going through Pultit.”</p> - -<p>“This is Shoshi, Mrs. Lane.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span></p> - -<p>The Shala man, tall and young and very conscious that he was handsome, -stood easily on the slope beside us, rain running over him as though he -were a stone in a stream, his rifle held carefully protected from the -wet by a fold of the poncho. He seemed entirely happy.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean,” said I, furiously “by bringing me through Shoshi -when you agreed to take me through Pultit?” And when Rexh, like a small -image of an accusing judge, had translated, the Shala man looked like -an artless child surprised in innocent mischief.</p> - -<p>“He says he thought it would be fun. Because they can’t kill him while -you’re here, and he likes to go into their houses and drink coffee,” -said Rexh.</p> - -<p>I sat for some moments on the streaming bowlder, wiping my streaming -face now and then with my hand, and staring at that man with the -peculiar sense of humor. So he thought it funny, did he, to bring me -through a tribe whose rifles were oiled to kill him, and to sit at -their firesides, perfectly safe in my protection? Fastened in my own -little affairs like a turtle in his shell, I sat there, black with -rage, thinking that I would like to murder him, myself. Then suddenly I -put out my head and saw the wide world, and the spectacle of us three, -dripping there on that immense and drenched landscape in the middle of -Albania—the innocent Shala man who had been delightedly thumbing his -nose at Shoshi’s warriors, the small, serious Rexh<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span> with a map of tiny -red rivers over his face, and me, who looked like a Montenegrin man, -all of us so intently solemn——</p> - -<p>But the vision was disastrous, for laughter set the knives slashing -through my lungs again, and I did not know how much of the rain on my -face was tears before I was able to speak.</p> - -<p>“Tell him I hope he enjoyed the joke, for it’s over,” I said. “You’re -Mohammedan, Rexh, and safe; just call to the house and tell them who -I am, and ask if they have a mule. And when they ask us in, tell them -glory to their house, but I cannot stop; I have made a vow to get to -Scutari.”</p> - -<p>The Shala man was so downcast at passing one household he could not -crow over, that my harshness would have relented under any other -circumstances. But I was convinced that I was in for pneumonia, and -every impulse in me concentrated in one obsession—to get to Scutari.</p> - -<p>“After this, Rexh, you are managing this party,” I said.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mrs. Lane,” said he, toiling up the trail like a small -pajama-clad gnome. And with all the sagacity and resource with which he -manages his household of younger refugee children in Scutari, he took -charge. The clearest picture that remains to me of that day is that -of Rexh, his head tipped back and the staff in his left hand firmly -planted, while with his right forefinger he sternly laid down the law -to a thoroughly cowed Shala man.</p> - -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img012"> - <img src="images/012.jpg" class="w50" alt="THE SHALA GUIDE" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p0 caption">THE SHALA GUIDE<br />Who took the author through Shoshi for a joke</p> - - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span></p> - -<p>It was Rexh who decreed that he carry the pack, while the Shala man -carried me up the worst of the slopes; it was he who sent a man from -one of the houses to climb the nearest mountain and call down the -valley that we were searching for a mule; it was he who decided when we -should stop to eat.</p> - -<p>He and the Shala man ate cold meat and corn bread and goat’s-milk -cheese, beside a fire on the earth floor of one of the houses, and it -was there that a violent-looking man, with a scarred face, clothed in -the merest fragments of rags, tried to terrify me into giving him an -order on the Red Cross in Scutari for clothes. He was a guest in the -house; he had been driven from his own village by the Serbs; his wife -and all his children had been killed around him; and I think he was a -little mad.</p> - -<p>“Give me clothes!” said he, thrusting his horrible face almost against -mine, one hand on the wooden-handled knife in his grimy sash. “You -Americans have given clothes to others! Give them to me!”</p> - -<p>“Tell him that all the American clothes are gone, all of them have been -given away, and there are no more. And tell him that in any case I am -not of the Red Cross and cannot give him an order. I am very, very -sorry.”</p> - -<p>“Write! Write me clothes on your pieces of paper!” the man snarled, and -if Rexh had not sat so calmly beside me I would have thought he meant -to strike me with the knife he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span> drew. The incident was like the horror -in a nightmare.</p> - -<p>“Tell him I can write on paper,” I said, shrugging, “but the paper -will not get him clothes.” So he sat down, muttering. I was glad when -Rexh said we would go on, for I did not, like the Shala man, delight -in receiving courtesy at the hands of these people who so gladly would -have killed him.</p> - -<p>We went on over the trails, driven by the unflagging Rexh. His quiet -persistency really maddened the Shala man; it was like that of a fly. -He drove the Shala man onward without a pause, up and down cliffs, -over bridges of logs just missed by roaring cascades, through streams -where currents made him stagger. Surely half the time Rexh demanded -that the Shala man carry me; the rest of the time the two were pulling -me upward, or letting me downward, by both hands, as though I were a -bundle. And just as the light was failing we stood on the brink of the -most magnificent cañon of which I have ever dreamed.</p> - -<p>There were depths below depths of it, falling away from narrow green -terrace to terrace, and far down, at the edge of a drop that looked -as though it were a crack sheer to the center of the world, there was -a stone house. From the other side of the chasm a tilted slab of rock -rose up into the clouds—a stupendous great sweep like a wing of the -Victory of Samothrace, and it was striped in jagged lines of green and -gray and rose<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span> and white, hundreds of stripes, each as wide as the -stone house down in the blue distance.</p> - -<p>We knew it was a large house; we could hardly have seen it if it had -been a small one; it looked as large as a match box.</p> - -<p>“The byraktor of Shoshi lives there, Mrs. Lane, and I think we had -better stay with him to-night,” said Rexh. “There is a priest, but -he is four miles farther down the valley, and we would have to come -back in the morning, for this is where the trail begins to cross the -mountains to Scutari. Also, if there is a mule in Shoshi, the byraktor -will know him.”</p> - -<p>So we began dropping down to the house, the Shala man much pleased by -the adventure of calling upon his enemies’ war chief. We went easily, -for the way was a gigantic staircase of cliff and terraced green field. -Each field had its little house of stone; the trails down the cliff -were broadened and held up by walls of stone. True, the centers of the -trails were running ankle deep in water and springs gushed from every -wall, but the effect was of ease and order and fresh green things, and -before we reached the house of the byraktor my head was clearer and my -breath no longer stabbing pains.</p> - -<p>How to account for it I do not know; I am sure that in happier -conditions I should have had pneumonia. But the fact is that after -nearly forty miles of incredibly difficult journeying over those -mountains in twelve rain-drenched hours, I came to the byraktor’s fire -weak, it is true, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span> trembling like a convalescent, but with fever -gone and my lungs merely aching. I suggest the remedy for what it is -worth.</p> - -<p>The byraktor received us at his gateway, for his house was surrounded -by a high fence, almost a stockade, of woven branches. He was a tall, -keen, quick man; bright, dark eyes and aquiline nose and thin, flexible -lips, framed by the white turban’s fold beneath his chin; a jacket of -black sheep’s wool; one massive jeweled silver chain on his breast. His -swift smile was warm and beautiful, but one had a sense of reservations -behind it; he welcomed the audacious Shala man without a quiver, and -ushered us up the stone steps to the second floor of his house.</p> - -<p>There were several rooms, divided from the main large one by partitions -of woven willow boughs, and from the large room a high, arched doorway -in the stone wall led into farther regions. At least forty men and -women and children—five generations—were around the fire on the -floor. There was a little flurry of welcome and rearrangement, and in -a moment we were in the center of the circle, sitting on thick mats of -woven straw, while the byraktor made our coffee in the coals.</p> - -<p>The women were beautifully dressed; I had not seen so much elegance of -embroidery, of colored headkerchiefs, earrings, and chains of silver -and gold coins. Their dark, beautifully modeled faces, large dark eyes, -and heavy braids of black hair were set off by the profusion of rich<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span> -color. Most of them were sitting on low stools, embroidering or working -opangi, and the white-garbed men lounged at their feet, closer to the -fire, resting on elbows and smoking.</p> - -<p>There was the delicate negotiation about the mule. The byraktor owned -one, but he did not want to take it to Scutari. I left that to Rexh; -the byraktor listened to him as courteously as though the boy had been -twenty years older, and Rexh bargained with him as with an equal. A -hundred kronen, Rexh said, tentatively, at last, but even at that -terrific price the byraktor did not seem eager to make the trip (for, -of course, he himself would go where his mule went) and Rexh thought -best to drop the question for a while.</p> - -<p>“Where do you come from?” one of the youths asked me; and when I had -replied, “In what direction from here is America?”</p> - -<p>“California, the part of America from which I come,” I answered—and -did not very greatly stretch the truth—“is directly through the earth, -on the other side.”</p> - -<p>Why they sat up in such excitement I did not know; I had expected -surprise, but not such a volley of questions, not such a visible -sensation. Rexh sat replying to them, earnestly explaining, making -a gesture now and then; their eyes followed his hands, fascinated. -His talk became a monologue; it went on and on; all work stopped, -cigarettes burned to heedless fingers, the coffee bubbled unnoticed -by the byraktor. Little Rexh,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span> sitting erect in his pajama coat, the -streaks of red dye now dried fantastically on his chubby face, held -them all spellbound, while I begged him in vain to tell me what he was -saying.</p> - -<p>“It is nothing, Mrs. Lane,” he answered me, at last. “I am telling them -about the map. I am telling them that the map is not flat, as it looks, -but round, like a ball.”</p> - -<p>He was telling them that the earth was round! And hearing my voice, -they appealed to me in a bombardment of questions.</p> - -<p>“Is the earth really round?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“You have seen it? You know that it is round?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“You have been around it, yourself?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” I said, mendaciously.</p> - -<p>They sat back and considered this. Then they asked particulars. They -could understand that the earth was curved, for they had seen that the -mountains were not flat, so it would be possible for the earth to be -curved. But were the seas curved also? Would water curve? I said that -it would, that, indeed, it did.</p> - -<p>Had I been upon the great spaces of water and seen that they were -curved?</p> - -<p>I had been upon the seas, I said, and they were curved. They did not -look curved, because the earth was so large and the eye saw so little -of it, but they were curved, for one could go quite around the earth on -them.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span></p> - -<p>They smoked over this for some time. The byraktor rescued his coffee -pot, in deep abstraction. I did not expect them to believe what I -had said. How could they? It must have appeared to them the wildest -of fairy tales (although in all Albania there are no fairies, and -therefore—I suppose that is the reason—there are no Albanian fairy -tales). Men suffered much at the hands of our ancestors for telling -them the monstrous idea that the flat earth is round. I wished I knew -what thoughts were taking shape behind those dark Albanian eyes.</p> - -<p>Then the byraktor looked up. “If the solid earth is round,” he said, -“and if the water lies upon it in a curve, then this earth is moving -very rapidly. For if the earth were standing still the water would fall -off.”</p> - -<p>My astonishment was profound. I felt myself a child beside that mind, -and I thought that a man who could so wrestle with a new fact and -evolve from it an even more amazing conclusion was no man for me to -contend with in a little matter of hiring a mule and getting, somehow, -to Scutari.</p> - -<p>Presently large flocks of sheep and goats were driven through the -room, past the fire, and into the darkness beyond the arched doorway. -Rain-drenched shepherdesses, half clad in rags, followed them, and -having, with much noise of tearing branches, given them their dried oak -boughs to eat during the night, the shepherdesses returned and sat by -the fire, addressing the byraktor in tones of accustomed equality.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span></p> - -<p>There was a constant movement in the room—women coming and going, -nursing their babies and tucking blankets more tightly over the -cradles, undressing the smaller children, who played naked about the -fire until they were taken, unprotesting, to their blankets in other -rooms, and bringing casks of water, and making corn bread.</p> - -<p>One could always amuse the women by asking them about ages; they -guessed mine all the way from sixteen to forty, and there was one of -them, a splendid, smiling woman, good natured and competent, whose -age I guessed to be forty. She laughed aloud, showing all her white, -perfect teeth, and said that she was seventy-two, and that the byraktor -was her daughter’s son.</p> - -<p>“You have been drinking the new water,” she said, wisely, though I had -not mentioned the ache of my breathing. “You have the feeling of knives -here,” and she touched her chest. “But do not worry; it is all right; -it is only the water, and when the rain stops you will not feel them -any more.” And she patted my shoulder comfortingly.</p> - -<p>The question of the mule still hung unsettled. The byraktor seemed -to be thinking deeply; he asked the Shala man many questions about -Rrok Perolli. I caught the name and asked Rexh to listen, for I felt -myself surrounded by web within web of intrigue, but Rexh said that -the Shala man had nothing to tell, except that Perolli was in the -mountains. I wondered whether to tell<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span> the byraktor that Shala had -sworn a <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i> with the Tirana government, and then thought best -not venture into mazes that I did not understand. But the byraktor was -greatly interested on learning that I had been in Montenegro, and all -that I knew about that part of Jugo-Slavia I told him; it was very -little, but he seemed to see more than I did in the robbery of the -Serbian Minister of Finance by Montenegrin bandits.</p> - -<p>“The story was in the newspapers,” I told him. “Some day there will be -newspapers in Albania, and schools in the mountains, and then you will -learn about these things when they happen.”</p> - -<p>“I have heard about the school in Thethis,” he answered. “Schools are -very good, but what my people need is food and clothes. We are very -poor. We have too little land. A school is of no use to a child who is -hungry, for hunger has no brains with which to learn. I do not care -for a school in Shoshi until all my people have enough bread. It is -not right to give the well-fed child a school, too; he has already -more than other children, and the school will only make him wiser and -prouder than the poorer ones. Already the families with fewer children -are stronger than those with many, and that is not right. I do not want -a school; I want land for my people, for food comes from land, and -after food comes the school. There is no hope for the mountain people -while enemies hold our valleys. First the Romans, then the Turks, then -the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span> Austrians and Italians, and always, always the Serbs! And it may -be that the Serbs will be too strong for us and that we shall all die -fighting them.”</p> - -<p>After that he went to the other side of the fire, beside his -grandmother, and he sat for a long time talking to her. “Shkodra,” I -heard, which is the Albanian name of Scutari, and “<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">mooshk</i>” and -I knew he was talking of me and the mule I wanted to hire, but why it -should be such a long and grave discussion I did not understand.</p> - -<p>Then we had dinner, served on several little tables, that all might -eat at the same time, and the men and women ate together, but only the -youngest and most beautiful woman ate at the byraktor’s table, silent -and respectful, dipping her long, aristocratic fingers diffidently in -the dish. I thought she was his wife, but Rexh said no, she was his -son’s bride, still in those six months when she must not speak until -spoken to, nor sit unless asked, and the byraktor liked her very much -and wished to make her feel at home, because she was lonely for her own -tribe.</p> - -<p>After we had all washed our hands for the second time, and the men had -had an after-dinner smoke—I still turned my head from the proffered -cigarettes—the byraktor said that he would himself escort me to-morrow -on the road to Scutari. I should ride his mule, and it was arranged -that we should start at four o’clock.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0">A NIGHT BY THE BYRAKTOR’S FIRE—THE BYRAKTOR CALLS A COUNCIL—REXH TO -THE RESCUE—THE BYRAKTOR’S GENDARME TEARS A PONCHO—MOONLIGHT ON THE -SCUTARI PLAIN.</p> -</div> - - -<p>Then his grandmother made three beds, on three sides of the fire. She -brought a two-inch-thick mat of woven straw and laid it on the floor; -over it she spread a handsome blanket of goats’ hair dyed in stripes -of magenta and purple; under one end of the mat she put a triangular -piece of wood to serve as pillow, and when I lay down she tucked other -blankets over me. Rexh and the Shala man had the other mats, and all -the byraktor’s family went to their own places, leaving the big room -and the dying fire to us three guests.</p> - -<p>At four in the morning the house was astir. Out of the darkness yawning -men came to stir the slumbering fire; the byraktor appeared without his -turban, a weird figure with his shaven, skin-white head and long black -scalplock, and began to make the morning coffee; the sheep and goats -were driven out into the rain by the ragged shepherdesses. I sat up and -put on my opangi, and the sleepy Rexh, still streaked with red dye from -his fez, rolled out of his blankets.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span></p> - -<p>“To-day,” I said, “we get to Scutari.” For the pains in my lungs had -returned and I had lain all night half waking, haunted by fever visions -and voices.</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes,” said the Shala man. “I swear it! To-day we get to Scutari!” -But the byraktor looked at him, saying nothing, a quizzical look in his -dark eyes, and leisurely went on with his coffee making.</p> - -<p>“Rexh,” I said at five o’clock, “why don’t they start?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know, Mrs. Lane,” he replied, earnestly. “They will not tell.” -He sat listening to every casual word, and thinking deeply. A dozen -times I had suggested that we should be starting.</p> - -<p>“Tell the byraktor we must go!” I said at six o’clock, impatient in the -doorway. For a long time all the world had been a clear gray, shadowed -only by the falling rain. “I pay a hundred kronen for his mule only -because it gets me to Scutari to-night.”</p> - -<p>Rexh announced this firmly to the byraktor; the byraktor, listening -attentively, assented with a shake of his head.</p> - -<p>At seven o’clock I walked madly up and down the small stone porch. The -byraktor’s gendarme had arrived; he stood washing his face in a stone -basin filled with rain water; at every splash in it he raised his head -and solemnly crossed himself and made the sign of the cross toward the -dawn. Inside the house, the byraktor was deep in conversation with his -grandmother.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span></p> - -<p>“They are talking politics, Mrs. Lane,” Rexh reported. “I do not yet -quite understand, but I think that you will not get to Scutari to-day.”</p> - -<p>“Rexh,” I said, “listen to me. I shall get to Scutari to-day. In ten -minutes by my watch I shall start to walk to Scutari, without the mule. -I have waited long enough. Tell that to the byraktor.”</p> - -<p>The byraktor came to the door and looked at me kindly. He had put on -his turban; he was a figure of rather awe-inspiring dignity. “Slowly -slowly, little by little,” said he, indulgently, and went back into the -house.</p> - -<p>When eight minutes had passed his grandmother came out—I was now -walking restlessly up and down the soaked, corn-stalk-strewn yard—and -led out of the lower part of the house the mule. The mule was the -very smallest donkey I have ever seen, the most bedraggled, the most -violently antagonistic to all the world. The woman tied him to the -wicker fence and brought out a measure of corn. “Slowly, slowly,” said -she to me, triumphantly. “One cannot start until the mule has eaten.” -Then she went back to her talk with her grandson, the byraktor.</p> - -<p>A moment later I interrupted them by the most courteous of farewells. -I blessed them and their house and their past and their future, their -families, their tribe, their hospitality, and their mule, and then I -left. The Shala man followed me, protesting; Rexh trudged beside me, -saying nothing, but very disapproving.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span></p> - -<p>“You cannot do such a thing to the byraktor of Shoshi!” said the Shala -man.</p> - -<p>“I have done it to the byraktor of Shoshi,” said I, violently, gasping -on the trail. I kept my knees stiff with sheer rage, but on the first -terrace above the byraktor’s house not even that could keep me going, -and I sat down in a heap on the trail to rest.</p> - -<p>The sun had not yet cleared the top of the stupendous sweep of striped -rock that soared above the chasm; it could hardly do so before noon. -The cañon was filled with silver light; the rain itself seemed silver; -the rose and blue and white of that great cliff glowed softly through -it, and the greens of the little fields below were soft as mist. I sat -looking at this, and insensibly realizing why time was so little to -these people, and how unimportant, really, all our little hastes are.</p> - -<p>Then, coming leisurely across the green, like little toys on a carpet, -appeared the byraktor, his gendarme, and the minute mule. In half an -hour they reached us, calm and unperturbed. The donkey bore a wooden -saddle quite as large as himself; they placed me on this and leisurely -began to climb.</p> - -<p>“To-night,” said I, firmly, “I shall be in Scutari.”</p> - -<p>Rexh translated this to the byraktor, but the byraktor said nothing.</p> - -<p>We proceeded slowly over the mountains. This was wilder going than I -had yet seen, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span> again the simplicity of these people was borne in -upon me. Coming to places that, to any European understanding, would -be absolutely impassable, the byraktor’s action was simple and direct. -He wrapped around his wrist the steel chain that held the mule by the -neck, and easily, without haste, he went on. The mule came, too; it -could not do otherwise, and when it would have fallen the steel chain -and the gendarme’s firm grip on its tail kept it going until its feet -got their grip again. I was, of course, on the mule’s back, and where -it went I went, too.</p> - -<p>The byraktor and the gendarme thought nothing of thus casually carrying -between them a mule with me on its back, and very shortly—so adaptable -is the human mind—I thought little of it myself. I recall sitting -there, comfortable in that armchair of a saddle, taking my smoked -glasses out of my pocket and polishing them; the sun was piercing -through the clouds, and the glare on the snow above was blinding to my -eyes. We were passing along a trail really too narrow for the mule; -my knees grazed a cliff; a glance over my shoulder went straight down -into depths where pine-tree tops looked like a lawn; at every second -the mule’s tiny hoofs slipped and rocks showered downward, the chain -tightened around the byraktor’s wrist and the muscles of his shoulders -knotted as the mule’s weight bore on them. It crossed my mind, as I -settled the smoked glasses on my nose, that two weeks earlier my heart -would have stopped at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span> very sight of that trail, and then, as it dipped -downward and I heard the gendarme bracing his feet and felt the mule’s -weight sag against the strength of that useful tail, I looked up and -forgot everything else in the magnificence of shadow and sunshine on -the snow-piled heights.</p> - -<p>I do not mean that I am at all unusual in my attitude to danger. I’m -not, and the prospect of sudden death scares me stiff, as it does -everyone else. I mean that human beings are all chameleons. The stuff -of humanity is always the same, it merely takes on different colors -from its environment; in Albania there is not one of us who will not -become Albanian. There are many morals to be drawn from this; you may -apply the idea to education, or to your attitude toward immigrants or -capitalists or criminals or even to your next-door neighbor; it would -be useful also in considering international politics or religions that -are not yours, or the actions of men in war, but I did not draw any -morals, being immediately engaged in crossing the foot of the largest -waterfall I had yet encountered.</p> - -<p>It was so large that the men unsaddled the mule, stripped themselves, -and wrapped their clothes in several bundles before attempting to cross -it. Then they made a living chain of themselves; the byraktor, at its -head, advanced to a water-worn bowlder in the center of the current, -braced himself firmly, and became the pivot on which the chain moved. -The end man carried over the clothes, bundle by bundle, wrapped in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span> -my poncho; then he carried me across—I was soaked in spray, but that -did not matter. Then he put one arm around the donkey and supported it -across, and then the saddle, and then he went back once more and took -the protesting Rexh and brought him over. The water was above their -waists; their white bodies slanted in the glassy current; three yards -below them the water poured in a crystal mass over the edge of the -pool, a second waterfall that struck in roaring foam fifty feet below.</p> - -<p>The worst of the current was between me and the central rock where the -byraktor was braced; several times the end man’s feet slipped there, -notably when he crossed with the donkey, which I gave up for lost, but -each time the chain of hands held firm.</p> - -<p>Their bodies came blue from the icy water, but they put on only their -cotton underdrawers, for they said we would next go through the snow, -and they did not want to get their beautifully embroidered trousers -wet; for the same reason they left their purple, gold-embroidered socks -and rawhide opangi in the packs, and went on barefoot.</p> - -<p>“Good! If we’re crossing the snow fields already, we’ll surely be in -Scutari by to-night,” I said. But I was joyful too soon, for when we -reached the first of the snow the party stopped. The byraktor sat down -on a rock and lighted a cigarette; the gendarme, without a word, began -to climb a tall cliff that overhung the trail.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span> What did it mean? Rexh -did not know, and I sat impatiently on the mule, which began nosing -through the snow for some bite to eat.</p> - -<p>Then overhead the high, keen telephone call rang out, answered by far, -thin voices that sounded as though the crystal air itself had been -tapped, far away, by a giant finger. Even while the voices called and -answered in the sky, silent men began to appear, suddenly, without -my having noticed their approach. It was startling to see a strange, -turbaned head beside my elbow, to find that between two glances a -dignified, half-naked man was sitting on the rock beside the byraktor.</p> - -<p>Rexh came and led the mule to a little distance. The figure of the -gendarme, against the sky, raised its rifle, and I put my hands over my -ears just in time to dull the echo crash. “It is polite to go away for -a little distance, Mrs. Lane,” said Rexh. “The byraktor has called a -council of all chiefs of Shoshi.”</p> - -<p>In half an hour twenty men surrounded the byraktor. They were all, like -the byraktor and his gendarme, in cotton underdrawers, barefooted, -and naked above the waist, many of them wearing on their heads only -the tiny round white cap that covered their scalplocks. Each of them -carried his rifle on a woven strap slung over his shoulder, and all had -an arsenal in their sashes. They sat on small rocks, on the snow-filmed -ground, in a group about the byraktor’s bowlder.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span></p> - -<p>We were at the mouth of the highest pass. All around the little open -space towered cliffs heavy with snow, only to the east the mountain -ranges fell away, one beyond the other, to the just-suggested chasm -of the Lumi Shala Valley, and beyond it they rose again, purple and -blue and gray, to the foot of the great wave of snow that touched the -sky—the wave that Alex and Frances and Perolli were climbing, if they -had left Shala. A black cloud hanging over the pass they were to take -told that they were traveling in a storm.</p> - -<p>The council lasted half an hour, three quarters of an hour, an hour. -It concerned grave matters; the earnestness of those intent bodies and -keen faces said that. Meantime Rexh and I talked in low tones.</p> - -<p>“I am not paying the byraktor a hundred kronen to sit here while he -holds a council,” said I. “Do you think he intends to get me to Scutari -to-night?”</p> - -<p>“I do not think so, Mrs. Lane. But if you want to get there, it shall -be done. We must consider many things.” Rexh used his fingers to check -them off. “First, the byraktor must be thinking a great deal about the -new Tirana government. You remember that he asked the Shala man about -Rrok Perolli. Also he talked a long time with his mother’s mother, -and that was about politics. Second, the byraktor holds a council. -Therefore he is going to do something that concerns the tribe. The -byraktor, you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span> know, is the war chief; he is the one who leads the -tribe to war. Shoshi is in blood with Shala, and Shala has sworn a -<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i> with the Tirana government. We must think of all these -things. Now I think that the byraktor is also in blood with some of the -tribes along the Kiri River, between here and Scutari. I think that he -has hired you the mule so that he can travel in safety with you through -those tribes and get to Scutari, where he will inquire about the Tirana -government and whether it intends to join Shala in war against Shoshi. -That is what I think.”</p> - -<p>I looked at that twelve-year-old lad in amazement and admiration. -“Well, Rexh,” I said, humbly, “I must leave it to you to get me to -Scutari to-night, somehow. You think the byraktor intends to stop along -the way?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mrs. Lane. Also I think that the Shala man does not want to reach -Scutari to-night. He swears earnestly, but I think he is a serpent with -a forked tongue.”</p> - -<p>I sat there on the donkey, appalled. “But, Rexh, you know that I must -get to Scutari to-night. Tell them I have said it. I am of the American -tribe, and what Americans say they will do, they do. To-night I get to -Scutari!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mrs. Lane. But one must not tell all one thinks. We will say -nothing. We will see.”</p> - -<p>When the council was ended we went on leisurely through the pass, and -down into valleys, and up again over other mountains. At two o’clock we -left behind the last glimpse of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span> wall of snow to the east, the last -sight of the interior mountains of northern Albania, the most beautiful -mountain country in the world. At three o’clock we saw, glimmering on -the far-western horizon, the silvery edge of Lake Scutari, and far to -the right, deep between two ranges, the valley of the tribe of Pultit, -and the white house of the bishop, the tiniest of specks to my eyes; -but the Albanians saw it plainly, and distinguished it from any other.</p> - -<p>At four o’clock we began the tremendous descent into the Kiri Valley -and I was obliged to dismount. “The gendarme says he cannot hold the -donkey by the tail here, Mrs. Lane. He is afraid the tail will break.”</p> - -<p>And for two miles we swung downward bowlder by bowlder, exhausting -travel to the arms and shoulders; but the mountain women came up that -way with cradles on their backs. The mule made it by little leaps.</p> - -<p>“Now the road is good,” said the Shala man, and, indeed, the two-foot -path, no steeper anywhere than the steep trails on Tamalpais, seemed -a boulevard to me. Only twenty miles more to Scutari! And I thought -of getting off the clothes in which I had slept for three nights, and -a shampoo shone before me like a bright star. Rexh had been borrowing -trouble, I thought; there was still light on the western slopes and -twenty miles was nothing to these people. And just as I was thinking -this the byraktor halted.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span></p> - -<p>“We will go this way, now,” he said, “to the village where we stay -to-night.”</p> - -<p>Why was it so necessary that I reach Scutari before I slept? I do not -know. But the idea had become fixed, an obsession; I was irrational, -for the moment a monomaniac. There was nothing I would not have -sacrificed to satisfy that imperious desire.</p> - -<p>“Tell the byraktor that I must get on to Scutari,” I said. “I am -sick and must get quickly to a doctor. I cannot stay in any village -to-night; I must be with my own people.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mrs. Lane,” said Rexh, and, having talked for some time, he -explained, “I have told him that you have had word from your father, -who is the chief of your tribe, and that the word said you must go to -Durazzo and take a boat to your own country.”</p> - -<p>“Very well. What does he say?”</p> - -<p>“He says that you stop in this village to-night. It is a good village, -and you will be rested in the morning.”</p> - -<p>“I will be in Scutari in the morning,” I said. “Tell him again that I -must go to Scutari. If he cannot go himself, will he let me take the -mule?”</p> - -<p>“But he says the roads are dangerous and it will be dark.”</p> - -<p>“Tell him I am American and there is no danger that stops an American.”</p> - -<p>The byraktor looked at me, puzzled, but with a little humor in the -depths of his dark eyes.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span> He had put on his turban; below its white -folds the silver chain dangled on his bare breast; above it the muzzle -of his rifle caught a glint of the western sunlight.</p> - -<p>“He says it is not a question of your safety; it is a question of his -honor. I was right, Mrs. Lane; he says that he is in blood with the -tribes through which one goes to Scutari. If he travels through them -by night he will be killed, and in the darkness no one will know who -has done it. He does not mind being killed, but to be killed by some -one his tribe cannot know and kill afterward would be black dishonor to -him. It is true, Mrs. Lane, and he is a great byraktor—the byraktor of -five hundred houses.”</p> - -<p>“But he need not go with me. You and the Shala man will go with me. I -only want his mule. Is he afraid for his mule? I will give him a paper, -and if I am killed and the mule is stolen he can get another mule from -the Red Cross house in Scutari.”</p> - -<p>I said this quite innocently, but the words taught me what blazing eyes -are. One hears of them; one seldom sees them. But the byraktor’s eyes -seemed actually to kindle into flame, and involuntarily I shrank back -when he turned them on me.</p> - -<p>“He does not think of the mule, Mrs. Lane. He thinks only of his honor. -You must not say such things. He says you cannot go on without him; -you are traveling under his protection, and it is his honor that is -concerned if anything happens to you.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span></p> - -<p>I looked at the ring of utterly savage-looking men, half naked, with -shaven heads and scalplocks, surrounding me in those wild mountains, -and suddenly I struggled not to laugh. If a magic vision could have -shown me then to my friends at home, how they would have prayed that I -escape alive, while the real difficulty was that these savages wanted -only too embarrassingly to protect me.</p> - -<p>“But, Rexh, it is absurd. I did not ask for his protection; I simply -hired his mule. Tell him that he has brought me so far safely, so far -I have traveled under his protection. I thank him, I thank him deeply, -I am most grateful with my whole heart, but now I will leave his -protection and travel onward.” And to Rexh’s words, with my hand on my -heart, I added in Albanian, “I thank you from my heart.”</p> - -<p>The byraktor made a gesture, only a little gesture with his hand, but -the violence of its fury I cannot describe. “You thank me! You have -broken my honor!” he said, and even without Rexh’s murmured translation -I would have felt the menace of the silence that followed.</p> - -<p>“But,” I said, bewildered, “I am traveling with the Shala man. Isn’t -the Shala man protection? Besides, tell him I don’t need protection. I -am protected even here by the power of my own tribe.”</p> - -<p>“The Shala man shall take you in, Mrs. Lane,” said Rexh. That -too-handsome youth had hung back from the conversation, but Rexh’s -stern<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span> eye brought him into it. And then there was such a battle of -words that the very rocks joined it. The byraktor stood listening, -bending down a little, intent; Rexh—short, pudgy Rexh in his -flannelette pajamas—drove home with fist on chubby fist his earnest -words, and the Shala man called Heaven and the cliffs to witness his -clamor. The byraktor turned his eyes from Rexh to the Shala man, from -the Shala man to Rexh, and thoughtfully stroked his chin. Around us the -other men stood attentive.</p> - -<p>Then the Shala man turned and, lifting me from the trail to which I had -dismounted, swung me again into the saddle. He pounded the saddle with -his fist and exclaimed violently, his face congested with dark blood.</p> - -<p>“It is all right, Mrs. Lane,” said Rexh, grimly. “He will take you -in. He has told the byraktor why he cannot take you to Scutari; it is -because the gendarmes are looking for him to kill him. But he will take -you in. After that the gendarmes can have him; he is of no use.”</p> - -<p>Even my fixed idea was shaken by those astounding, calm words.</p> - -<p>“But, Rexh,” I said, in horror, “I can’t kill a man, even to get to -Scutari to-night. Do you think the gendarmes will really kill him if -he takes me in?” But one glance at the violently miserable Shala man -answered the question.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mrs. Lane,” said Rexh. “They will kill him by law, because he has -killed some men. But, Mrs. Lane, he said he would take you to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span> Scutari -and he must take you to Scutari. The byraktor will tell you so.”</p> - -<p>“<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">Po, po</i>,” said the byraktor, agreeing, and, “<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">Po, po</i>,” -said the others; and looking at the Shala man, I had no doubt that if -he faltered on the way Rexh’s tongue had barbs to drive him onward.</p> - -<p>“But explain to the byraktor that it is not American custom—that I -can’t take a man to be killed, Rexh. I’m sorry,” said I, for it did -seem a pity to disappoint Rexh so, when he had so nicely arranged -everything. I leaned from the saddle and spoke earnestly to the -byraktor myself, Rexh’s murmured translation for his ears while I -held his eyes: “I must get to Scutari to-night. It is necessary. But -I do not want to risk any man’s life. I take my own life in my hands -and go with it on the trail. No one else can carry it for me. That is -American custom. It is American custom that I thank you now, and give -back to you your protection, and go on alone. If it is not your custom, -I am sorry, but by all American custom your honor is safe, and I am -American, and Albanian law does not apply to me.”</p> - -<p>“You speak with a tongue of great learning,” said the byraktor, but -this time his manner was sympathetic. “However, my honor is my honor, -and my protection goes with you all the way to your own tribe. I will -go with you to Scutari.”</p> - -<p>“But I don’t want the byraktor to be killed, either!” I wailed; and -then the byraktor’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span> gendarme came forward. He was a low-browed, -rascally-looking fellow, a man with bad eyes like those of an -untrustworthy horse, and a charming smile. He was naked except for the -wide scarlet sash around his loins and the tiny white cap over his -scalplock.</p> - -<p>“The honor of my byraktor is my honor,” he said. “My byraktor is a good -byraktor and a great byraktor. He is byraktor of five hundred houses. -If he is killed, all the valley mourns. If he is killed in the dark -and we never know who killed him so that we can kill that man, that is -black dishonor for all the tribe of Shoshi. I am only one man, and if I -am killed it does not matter. I will go with you to Scutari.”</p> - -<p>“Glory to your lips!” said the others. “Good! It is decided.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” I thought, “all this is beautiful rhetoric, but no one will -kill him while I am with him.” As for the danger in the darkness, I did -not believe it for a moment. Who would shoot a person he could not see? -So I said good-by to the byraktor—all our long and flowery speeches -consumed another quarter of an hour, and the sunlight was climbing -away over the mountains so rapidly that we could see it go—and I said -good-by to all the others, and promised the frantic Shala man that -indeed he should be paid what had been promised; I would send him -the money by the gendarme, and I would send the mule and the hundred -kronen to the byraktor—and then another difficulty arose. If I left -the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span> Shala man unprotected here, in the midst of the Shoshi men who -had traveled amiably with him all that day—but he had never wandered -beyond eyeshot of me—his life would be no safer than in the hands of -the gendarmes of Scutari.</p> - -<p>I actually felt despair when Rexh pointed this out. “Well, but he has -to get back through the tribe of Shoshi somehow, anyway, hasn’t he? Why -on earth did he ever start this idiotic trip?”</p> - -<p>“He wanted the money, Mrs. Lane, and he cannot think ahead. He came -through Shoshi only for a joke. If he can get away alive from these men -he can go back through Pultit.”</p> - -<p>“Well, ask the byraktor if he will give me this Shala man’s worthless -life. Ask him not to let his men shoot him until after to-morrow -night. Ask him if the Shala man may stay safely under the byraktor’s -protection until the gendarme gets back with his money, and then go in -peace.”</p> - -<p>So this was arranged, and the Shala man, turning his beautiful eyes -most languishingly to mine, fervently kissed my hands in Italian -fashion; and again I said good-by to the byraktor, and at last, just as -the last sunlight left the mountains, Rexh, the gendarme, the mule, and -I continued our way toward Scutari.</p> - -<p>We followed the winding trail along the banks of the Kiri River. -Twilight was over the rushing waters and the cliffs; all along the way -the trees were misty green with the youngest of new leaves, and the air -was very pure and still. It was all peaceful and very beautiful, and, -lulled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span> into dreaminess, I leaned back in the wooden saddle, watching -the first stars pricking through the sky. The only sounds were the -little tinkling of the donkey’s steel-plated hoofs upon the rocks, and -the pouring, rushing noise of the Kiri. Mile after mile we went, the -narrow cañon opening fresh vistas before us at every turn of the trail -around the cliffs, and the twilight grew grayer, the stars brighter.</p> - -<p>But we were coming down the river, out of the mountains, and a sudden -shaft of pale sunlight striking a green hill on the other bank -surprised me by announcing that the sun had not yet set on the Scutari -plain. It was like coming into a new day. I sat up.</p> - -<p>“Tired, Rexh?”</p> - -<p>“No, Mrs. Lane.”</p> - -<p>“But you’ve been walking twelve hours! Sure you don’t want to ride?”</p> - -<p>“No, thank you, Mrs. Lane. I am truly not tired.”</p> - -<p>“I think I’ll walk awhile,” said I, sliding down from the saddle. Even -then he would not ride, but it was good to stretch tired muscles again, -and, hand in hand, Rexh and I ran for some time along the almost level, -winding trail, splashing through the little streams that crossed it, -until suddenly Rexh stopped.</p> - -<p>“We must not leave the gendarme behind, Mrs. Lane. Some one will shoot -him.”</p> - -<p>“So they will!” said I. “Well, let’s wait for him.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</span></p> - -<p>He overtook us, hurrying the mule with blows, and we fell in behind -him, speculating now and then around which turn of the cliffs we would -first see the Kiri bridge, that lovely succession of old stone arches, -built long ago in the Italian style, and wondering what the girls in -the Red Cross house would say when we so unexpectedly arrived.</p> - -<p>The crash of the thing that happened was like an explosion—over before -one had time to comprehend it. I happened to be looking toward the -gendarme, a couple of yards ahead of me, walking at the donkey’s head; -I had just taken my eyes from the creamy blue river and I saw him reach -for his rifle. A misty rain was falling; he had thrown my poncho over -his shoulders; the strap that held his rifle ran under it. His gesture -was quick and desperate, some part of the rifle caught on a rent in the -poncho and the heavy oilcloth ripped apart with a loud tearing sound. -The broken, frantic, struggling movement was printed on my eyeballs, -and then with headlong leaps I had reached him; we stood beside a -bowlder that had blocked my view of the trail, and in front of us were -two rifles, pointed straight at us.</p> - -<p>There were two men behind the rifles, but I swear that I saw only the -rifles. I flung out my hand and heard the most fluting feminine voice -I have ever commanded crying, “Long life to you!” And then the rifles -fired.</p> - -<p>I have tried to give the effect of the thing as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</span> it happened; I may -now say at once that I was not killed, though I shouldn’t have been -at all surprised if I had next realized that I was dead. Instead, I -saw two very haughty and displeased Albanians advancing up the trail. -“And to you long life!” they said, stiffly, and turned their heads -from the gendarme as they passed him. When they were quite gone I was -startled to find myself in a heap on the trail, weeping aloud like a -six-year-old. It’s odd how such things take you; I suppose it was the -surprise of it.</p> - -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img013"> - <img src="images/013.jpg" class="w75" alt="THE KIRI BRIDGE" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p0 caption">THE KIRI BRIDGE</p> - -<p>The gendarme did not seem unduly excited. He said he had killed the -cousin of one of those men not long before, and had been a little -afraid of meeting him on this road. He said they had lifted their -rifles when they saw me, and the bullets had gone over our heads. He -said that from now on, if I did not mind, he would wear my hat as a -disguise, because there were more of that man’s relatives about. And -would I mind walking beside him until we passed the Kiri bridge? He -would then be out of the dangerous territory. As for my poncho, he was -very sorry that he had torn it. I assured him that it did not matter.</p> - -<p>I walked beside him all the way to the Kiri bridge, and then got on the -wooden saddle again and leaned back and rested. There was still an hour -of traveling across the Scutari plain.</p> - -<p>The sunlight faded from the silvering western sky, the western -mountains were low dark shapes blotting out the stars. Far away a -light twinkled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span> on the citadel of Scutari. For a long time it was the -only light in a vast darkness, and then the moon rose slowly above -the snow peaks of the eastern mountains. The sky was the pale blue -of a turquoise, flooded with creamy light, the lake of Scutari was a -silver glimmer, like quicksilver spilled far out on the plain. All -around us the tall spikes of yucca blossoms stood vaguely creamy in the -moonlight. We traveled over the silent land like silent ghosts, our -shadows wavering uncertainly beside us.</p> - -<p>The donkey walked with little, quick, indefatigable steps; the gendarme -swung along easily, his rifle on his back; Rexh trudged beside me with -his hand on the saddle. The soft earth let us pass without a sound.</p> - -<p>“Tired, Rexh?”</p> - -<p>“No, Mrs. Lane.”</p> - -<p>“What is the matter?”</p> - -<p>“I am thinking that you will go away to your own country and forget us. -You say you will come back to Albania, but you never will. It is easy -to forget when one is far away; the mind changes. A mind is like the -water in a river. We will forget you, too. But I would like to keep -this night, because it is a very beautiful night.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Rexh, so would I.”</p> - -<p>The lights of Scutari were like scattered glow-worms among the trees. -How strange it would be to come back into the twentieth century again! -Scutari, Tirana, Salonica—Constantinople?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span> No, not Constantinople. -I would go back to Paris. It was not so much that I was tired of -traveling as that I was filled with it. One must go across the -centuries and back, across a great deal of the world and back, perhaps, -to know all the strange things that are at home, all the romances and -surprises in one’s own self.</p> - -<p>The lights of Scutari were coming nearer. Scutari, Tirana, Durazzo, -the Adriatic, Trieste, and Venice, and then Paris—perhaps ten days -to Paris, the center of all Europe’s intrigues. For a weary instant I -felt again the pressure of all those currents which bewilder, crush, -and smother the struggling individual—movements of peoples, marching -of armies, alliances of nations, the tides of poverty and disease, the -tremendous impersonal economic conflicts. Silicia’s coal, Galicia’s -oil, England’s unemployed millions, Ireland, Egypt, India—my mind slid -away from them all. I was too pleasantly tired, too much under the -spell of the Albanian moon—perhaps, now, a little too old—to care -tremendously again for movements. They seemed at once too inevitable -and too unpredictable to be concerned about.</p> - -<p>The three of us were so small on that vast plain, the sweep of the -moon-filled sky and the bulk of the blue-black mountains were too -vast; simple as an Albanian, I thought of the world as made of little -individuals like ourselves, each lonely, surrounded by the unknown, -each a little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span> world in himself. That little world was the real world. -Externals did not matter. If each of us could only make our own little -world clean and kind and peaceful——</p> - -<p>“Tired, Mrs. Lane?” Rexh said, softly.</p> - -<p>“No, Rexh. Just thinking.”</p> - -<p>“Slowly, slowly, little by little,” said the byraktor’s gendarme.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="POSTSCRIPT">POSTSCRIPT</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="p0">IN WHICH IS RELATED WHAT MAY BE FOUND BEHIND THE CURTAIN OF SILENCE -WHICH HIDES ALBANIA, ALSO HOW THE MEN OF DIBRA CAME WITH THEIR RIFLES -TO TIRANA, AND HOW AHMET, THE HAWK, CHIEF OF THE MATI AND PRESENT -PRIME MINISTER OF ALBANIA, SAVED THE BALKAN EQUILIBRIUM.</p> -</div> - - -<p>For me, there has been a sequel to this tale of my first adventures -in the Albanian mountains. And if I have transmitted, through the -little clickings of my typewriter, something of the interest and charm -those adventures had for me, perhaps there will be interest in the few -additional things I have learned about the Albanians.</p> - -<p>Just a year from the day on which I parted with the byraktor of -Shoshi, I came with a friend, Annette Marquis, down the Adriatic -on a Lloyd-Triestino boat to Durazzo. As always, a flock of little -boats came out to meet the steamer. Dingy, unpainted, rowed by -villainous-looking, swarthy men in rags, they seemed indeed the -emissaries of a nation of brigands. The nice girl from Boston, who was -traveling from Venice to Athens chaperoned by two aunts, looked at us -with horrified eyes.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span></p> - -<p>“You aren’t really going into Albania—all alone?” she gasped. -“Why—won’t you be killed?” The shipload of passengers crowded the -rail to watch us descend the swaying ladder, and gazed as the safe -crowd watches the lion tamer, divided between admiration for daring -and contempt for such senseless waste of courage. The weight of this -mass opinion swayed even my friend, who said, nervously, as we went -bobbing across waves of green water: “I wish I hadn’t listened to you -in Budapest. I wish I’d brought the gun they told us to bring.”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense!” I said, firmly—and would have believed no fortune teller -who had told me I was lying—“we’ll be safer in Albania than in New -York.” And with irrational, vicarious pride I pointed out to her the -many masts of sunken ships around us—remains of Austrian and Italian -cruisers impartially sunk by Albanians during the Great War.</p> - -<p>As the boat came nearer to the yellow walls of Durazzo I gazed with -complacency on the ruins of the palace of the Prince of Wied, the -German king forced on Albania by the European Powers just before -the Powers themselves leaped at one another’s throats. In 1914 the -Albanians rose and drove him out with their rifles; his palace is a -ruin now, and the palace grounds are a public park. But all Durazzo is -built upon ruins, for it was an ancient city when the Romans built the -towers and walls that still surround it, and there are still cafés on -the sites of the cafés where<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span> Cicero sat with parchment and stylus, -writing home to Rome for money to pay his way back—because, as he -admitted with some chagrin, he had wasted all his substance in that -merry and wicked city. Even for Cicero Durazzo had, in addition to its -living charms, the flavor of antiquity, for the Roman city was built on -the ruins of the older Albanian seaport.</p> - -<p>A year earlier there had been no automobiles in Albania, but now, to -our surprise, we found a valiant small Ford waiting at the pier, and -engaged it at once to take us to Tirana, forty miles away. Our baggage -was a problem until the chauffeur of a government truck, addressing -us in French, volunteered on his own responsibility to take it to -the capital for us. “Pay? <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Mais, non!</i>” said he, hurt. “You are -Americans, and the stranger in Albania is our guest.”</p> - -<p>The road from Durazzo to Tirana crossed the low mountains that, from -Trieste to Valona, make the endless monotonous eastern wall of the -Adriatic. When you come over the crest of them you see lying before you -the green low central valley and the farther blue peaks of the lands of -the hidden tribes. And everything accustomed, everything commonplace, -everything that reflects ourselves to us, is left behind. Gray water -buffalo, flat-nosed, curly-horned, monstrous beasts that seem risen -from depths of primeval slime, plod down the road drawing high, narrow -wagons of wickerwork on huge wooden wheels. Shaggy, small donkeys carry -picturesque folk down the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span> winding road to Shijak, the village by the -river where the bridge begins and ends in willow groves.</p> - -<p>Beyond Shijak the road goes over the last low hill, and twenty miles -of plain lie before it, most sparsely dotted with the great white -houses of the beys of central Albania. Against the eastern sky the -towering mountains, with their eternal smoke of clouds, catch the last -rays of the sun and make magic with it. For an hour the colors shift -and change, plum purple, orange gold, mauve and violet and sea green, -until at last only a pale gold moon and a silvery star shine in a -lemon-yellow sky. And the seven white minarets of Tirana lift above the -green of trees.</p> - -<p>Dusk was on the plain, and lights were glimmering through little houses -here and there, when we came to Tirana. No, the lights do not glimmer -through windows; these houses of peasants on the great estates have no -windows, as they have no chimneys. The light of the evening fire, built -on the earthen floor, shines through walls woven of willow withes, and -the smoke seeps through thatched roofs.</p> - -<p>Before us twinkled the street lamps of Tirana. These are literally -lamps, filled every day with kerosene and set on their poles, to -be lighted with a match after the evening call to prayer from the -minarets. Our little car passed between low, ghostly white walls, and -stopped before the gendarmerie. An officer came out, lifted one of the -street lamps from its pole and held it over the car door, the better to -see us.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span></p> - -<p>“Long may you live, <i>zonyas</i>!” said he, and, after he had glanced -at our passports: “All honor to you. Go on a smooth trail!” And the -words rekindled an old hearth fire in my heart. After a year of the -bleakness of Europe, I was at home again.</p> - -<p>Three days later rifles were crackling, machine guns were ripping out -their staccato shots, and we were under fire in the streets of Tirana. -It was the rebellion of March, 1922—a strange affair, which I am -about to relate. But before it can be understood, Albania itself must -be understood, for that crisis and its outcome are incomprehensible, -incredible, without their background.</p> - -<p>It would be useless, even though it were not dishonest, to claim that I -see Albania with impartial eyes. But this should be said: if I feel a -fondness for the little country which perhaps obscures clear judgment, -that fondness was created by knowing Albania. I came into it, as I have -said, rather prejudiced against it than otherwise. I did not intend -to stop there; I was persuaded to stay two weeks; and I have twice -returned to Albania and will go there again.</p> - -<p>Yes, I have become a special pleader for Albania. But I know the -country, I speak the language, I have traveled along the northwestern -frontier from Lake Scutari to the Dibra, I have spent months with the -people of tribes never before visited by a foreigner. And I have yet -to read in any American publication a reference to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span> Albania which -is accurate. When a writer so well informed as <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Lathrop Stoddard -refers to Albania as a “land of rugged mountains and equally rugged -mountaineers which raises nothing but trouble,” and thinks that its -importance in the Balkan problem is due to Italy’s exaggeration of -Valona’s military importance; when all American consuls in Europe -warn travelers not to go to Albania, a land of brigands; when Albania -appears in the newspapers only as a joke or as the scene of another -lawless revolution—the few Americans who know Albania do become -special pleaders.</p> - -<p>There are good reasons for these misconceptions of Albania. For six -centuries the Albanians were one of the buried Christian minorities -of the Turkish Empire in Europe. Their great men who rose to places -of power in the Near East were not known to the outside world as -Albanians. Ismail Kemal Bey, Grand Vizier of Turkey, who raised the -flag of Albanian independence in 1912; Mehmet Ali, who led the struggle -for Egyptian independence in 1811 and founded the dynasty of the -Khedives of Egypt; Crispi, the great Italian statesman—these are a few -of the Albanians who, having lost their own country, have fought under -other banners. When the Albanians of Sicily rose behind Garibaldi and -fought for a free and united Italy, they were thought to be Italians. -When the Albanians of Epirus fought for the freedom of Greece, they -were thought to be Greek. When they fight for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span> freedom of Turkey, -they are thought to be Turks. And—this is of greater importance—when -the Albanians rose to fight for the freedom of Albania, they fought -behind a curtain of impenetrable silence.</p> - -<p>They were surrounded by a battle line. The Slavs were north and east; -the Greeks were south; the Italians were west. Albania was cut off from -the outside world in 1910; for thirteen years she has been cut off from -the world. No telegraph or telephone lines ran from Albania to Europe; -no mail got through without censorship, no traveler without passport -visé from enemies. Letters for Europe must still go by messenger -through Jugo-Slavia, or by Italian steamer to Italian ports. During -May and June, 1922, while I was in Tirana, Albania’s communication -with Europe was completely closed by the Italians, in retaliation for -Albania’s protest against the establishing of Italian post offices in -Albanian cities.</p> - -<p>Behind this veil of silence, the truth about Albania lies hidden. -Only one newspaper correspondent, to my knowledge, has visited -Albania in recent years—<abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Maurer of the Chicago <i>Post</i>. <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> -Kenneth Roberts of the <i>Saturday Evening Post</i> lay for ten days -ill in Tirana, left with all haste for Montenegro, and later wrote -of Albania—entertainingly. News of Albania bears the date lines of -Belgrade, Rome, Athens. Since 1910 it has been as accurate as news of -France bearing a Berlin date line. This is only<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</span> human, for few of -us are accurately just to our enemies, and the Hungarian, Austrian, -Serbian, Italian, and Greek soldiers who have campaigned in Albania -have returned to describe the country as hell with variations. The -one European who has spoken to me of the Albanians without horror is -a doctor in Budapest. He had worked in Serbia during the war, and -there had encountered a terribly wounded Albanian still alive on a -battlefield. The doctor bent over him to examine his wounds, and the -Albanian bit off the doctor’s little finger.</p> - -<p>“I cannot think of that man without admiration,” said the doctor, -looking thoughtfully at his mutilated hand. “I can’t blame him for -this; I had not spoken to him, and he thought I was an enemy. He was a -splendid fellow—stood the most frightful agony without a murmur, and -kept his spirit like a lion. I did what I could for him—had no hope of -saving him—and that night, wounded as he was, he got away. I hope he -reached home alive. Some day I’m going to see Albania.”</p> - -<p>I spoke of Albanians as a Christian minority in the old Turkish Empire. -One of the most frequent errors about Albania is the belief that it -is Mohammedan; this report has been used for political propaganda. -The Albanians became Christians before the Roman conquest, and were -Christians when they were subjugated by Turkey. They remained Christian -without exception until after the death of George Kastriotes—known<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span> in -European history by his Turkish name of Iskander Bey Scanderbeg—who -successfully revolted against Turkey and maintained Albanian -independence for twenty-five years, defeating the Turks in thirteen -great battles and innumerable small ones. After his death in 1467 -some of the chiefs of the central mountain tribes, exhausted by a -quarter century of war and confronting fresh Turkish armies, purchased -their actual independence by a verbal submission and became nominally -Mohammedan. When the Bechtaski sect—which may roughly be said to -bear the relation to Islam that the Methodist bears to the Church of -Rome—rose in Turkey, it found its most fertile ground among these -Mohammedan Albanians. The northern mountain tribes have always remained -Roman Catholic, and southern Albania Greek Catholic.</p> - -<p>None of these creeds, however, have affected national unity—Albania -is the only Balkan country in which religion and nationality are not -synonymous—and all of them are rooted shallowly above the old religion -of Albanians, which is the formless belief in a Great Unknown from -which sprang the gods and mythology of ancient Greece. In southern -Albania you will still hear the people taking oath <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">per kete djelle -eghe per kete hene</i> (by the power of the sun and the moon). You -will still hear them calling upon Zeus—Zaa or Zee, the Voice—and -upon Athena—E Thana, The Intelligence. In the north, the Catholic -mountaineer greets the rising sun with the sign<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</span> of the cross, and -hears in his forests the voices of the ora. This vague religion is -unconscious. The Albanian himself does not recognize it, but it is -the resisting subsoil which has prevented acknowledged religions -from taking deep root. Families of all religions freely intermarry; -Mohammedan women are unveiled, or Catholic women veiled, according -to the fashion of their town; in the mountains neither are veiled. -In Guri-Bardhe, a village of the Mati known as being fanatically -Mohammedan, the women were quite willing to pose for photographs, and -Limoni, the chief, was defying the local <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">hodji</i> by demanding -a modern school; the <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">hodji</i> taught the children nothing worth -while, he said. In the spring religious festivals—the two Easters and -the fast of Ramazan—all Albanians in Tirana took part, and Mohammedan -fezzes were thick in the midnight processions carrying Easter candles.</p> - -<p>There has never been friction along the frontiers of the three -religions. All Albanians united to resist the Romanizing and -Germanizing influence of Catholicism, the attempt of Shiek ul Islam to -cripple the Albanian language by a Turkish alphabet (a revolution was -fought, and won, for the Latin alphabet in 1910), and the Hellenizing -propaganda of certain Orthodox Churchmen.</p> - -<p>But there is a real division in Albania. It lies between the Toshks, or -southerners, and the Ghegs, who are the mountaineers. Men who have held -their mountain fastnesses and maintained<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span> their independence for six -centuries within the Turkish Empire look with distrust and contempt on -the Toshks whose valleys have been flooded by every wave of invaders. -The Toshks, who are the educated men of Albania, and the travelers, -are equally contemptuous of the Ghegs, ignorant men unable to read -or write. Nor do the Toshks admit that they cannot fight as well as -the Ghegs. It was the Toshks in Sicily who fought with Garibaldi, the -Toshks of Egypt who fought with Mehmet Ali; the Albanian soldiers in -Russia and Rumania and Turkey are Toshk; the 50,000 Albanians in the -United States are Toshk, and fought well with the Americans in France. -Hundreds of them have returned to spread American ideas through the -south; there are Toshk villages in which American English is spoken by -nearly every child. Men from these villagers led the forces that drove -the Italians from Valona in 1920. Indeed, say the Toshks, they can -fight as well as Ghegs. But it is not fighting that Albania needs.</p> - -<p>One of the errors about Albania, to which I fear my descriptions may -contribute is the belief that the country is entirely mountainous. -This is true of the northern part, adjoining Montenegro. Farther south -the ranges are like the partitions in a house; steep, high, almost -impassable, they surround valleys and plateaus of rich level land, much -of it irrigated. The climate of the valleys is semitropical; rice, -cotton, tobacco, citrus fruits, figs, and pomegranates<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span> flourish. The -southern plains, before the war, exported fine horses in considerable -numbers. Properly developed, Albania would be a rich agricultural -country, even without the fertile valleys of Kossova and Epirus.</p> - -<p>The mineral resources of Albania are unknown. During the Austrian -occupation, a survey was made, looking toward the development of copper -mines during the war; the results of the survey have vanished into the -archives of the Austrian War Department. However, even the untrained -eye perceives that there are copper and lead in the mountains. English -mining engineers have told me that there are probably also silver and -gold. I have seen veins of coal projecting on mountain sides; the -mountaineers chip it off with hatchets or pry it loose with levers, and -use it as fuel to a small extent. There are millions of feet of pine, -oak, birch, and beech timber; unlimited water power. There are oil -fields near Valona; producing oil wells were sunk, and later destroyed, -by the Italians. Valona’s military importance is not the only reason -that Albanians are not left in peace.</p> - -<p>There is also the political background. For twenty centuries the -Albanians have been a beleaguered remnant of the first Aryan race in -Europe. By character, temperament, and choice they belong with the -peoples of the west, not with their Slav neighbors in the Balkans. But -they have had no friends, either in west or east; their whole history -has been a struggle for existence.</p> - - -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img014"> - <img src="images/014.jpg" class="w50" alt="A TOSHK" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p0 caption">A TOSHK<br />In his native costume of southern Albania.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span> They were never entirely -subjugated by Rome; they were not destroyed or assimilated by the Slavs -who have been pushing them southward for sixteen hundred years; they -never ceased their resistance to Turkey. Since 169 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, when -the Romans drove them into the mountains, they have been fighting for a -free Albania, and giving the Balkans no peace.</p> - -<p>They fight with rifles and with diplomacy. They have had no friends, -but they profit by the quarrels of their enemies. Wherever there was a -weak place in Asia Minor or Central Europe, there the Albanians have -tried to strike a blow for Albania. The opportunity of their hero, -Scanderbeg, came in the fifteenth century, when the Sultan of Turkey -was killed on the battlefield he had won in Kossova. Scanderbeg, whose -childhood and youth had been spent in the Sultan’s court, was left -second in command of the Sultan’s victorious forces. He profited by -the confusion attending the Sultan’s death to get an order giving him -command of the fortress of Kruja, built by his father on a mountain -overlooking Tirana. The song says that he killed seven horses in -reaching Kruja, leaving his escort far behind in the Mati mountains. -When he reached the fortress, he at once proclaimed Albanian freedom, -and maintained it for twenty-five years of warfare, during which he -built citadels and roads and established laws which still exist. After -his death, his people waited four hundred years for another chance -to strike.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span> Then the Young Turk movement rose. Albanians seized upon -it, precipitated the revolution at Uskub in Kossova, and were the -deciding factor in terrifying the Sultan and winning the Constitution -which promised to respect the languages and laws of subject peoples in -Turkey. When these promises were broken, when Montenegro and Serbia -invaded Albania, the chiefs raised the flag of Scanderbeg and wrote -their own Constitution of Lushnija. The Six Powers, in an effort to -maintain the Balkan equilibrium, gave Albania a German king. As soon -as the Powers were engaged in the Great War, Albania drove him out. -During the war she impartially fought both sides whenever they invaded -Albanian territory. When the war ended, when Jugo-Slavia replaced -Austria as Italy’s rival on the Adriatic, and England and France -quarreled, Albania played a shrewd game at Versailles and Geneva and -became officially an independent republic.</p> - -<p>Still blockaded after ten years of war and blockade, still fighting -invaders in the Mati and the Dibra, she became an independent republic. -Her people, from Hoti and Gruda to Corfu, from the Merdite to the -Adriatic, were refugees. Her flocks had been killed, her villages -burned, her orchards hacked down, her irrigation systems destroyed. -She had a provisional government, hardly strong enough to hold -itself together. She could not have a permanent government until her -boundaries were fixed by the League of Nations.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span></p> - -<p>She had great natural wealth and no debts, but she had no currency of -her own, no banks, no credit system. She had hides, wool, and olive -oil to export, but all her frontiers were closed by enemies. She had -minerals, forests, water power, oil, harbors, but no machines of any -kind, no trained men, no commercial organization. She had the strongest -men, the bravest fighters, the most indomitable national spirit in -Europe, but few of her people could read or write. Certainly more than -half the population was ill from malnutrition and malaria, and she had -probably the highest infantile mortality rate in Europe.</p> - -<p>This was the new Albania which must somehow maintain itself. And if -the curtain of silence behind which this Balkan drama is played were a -stone wall shutting out her neighbors, the situation would not be so -difficult. But Italy—promised southern Albania by the secret Treaty of -London in 1915 which induced her to join the Allies against Germany, -and cheated of her payment—has authority from the League of Nations -to occupy Albania again if the Albanians fail to maintain a stable -government. Serbia is still intriguing to push farther south and west -the boundary lines not yet entirely fixed by the League of Nations.</p> - -<p>There were other difficulties. Because the Toshks are the Albanians -who can read and write, the weak provisional government was Toshk. -Around the fires in their mountain houses, the Ghegs were saying that -only cowardly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</span> Toshks would allow free Albania to bow to a League of -Nations—a League of the very Powers who were her enemies. The Ghegs, -they said, were no such shameful trucklers. And every fire had its -refugee guests who had fled from burning villages, leaving terror -and death behind them. These refugees cried to their brother Ghegs -for vengeance. Did the Ghegs call themselves men and Albanians? they -demanded. “Our teeth in the throats of the Serbs!” the Ghegs replied.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile in Tirana the Toshks were talking softly of patience, and -of more patience, of waiting month after month for a commission and -yet another commission from the League of Nations. The Toshks—with -that threat of Italian invasion over them—were demanding peace, peace -at any cost. Albania must wait for the League of Nations to fix the -boundaries, must acquiesce in any boundaries fixed, must be quiet, must -wait.</p> - -<p>While they waited, the people starved. Prices in Albania are higher -than in the United States—higher in dollars. The homespun garments -have worn out; there is nothing to replace them. Fields have -been devastated, and no men left alive to till them. Flocks have -disappeared, horses and mules are gone. And as the boundaries have -been fixed, mile by mile upon a map, Dibra and Mati have lost their -market cities, Dukaghini and Merdite have lost their grazing lands, the -tribes of Hoti and Gruda and Castrati have been cut in two. Still, the -Albanian government<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</span> spoke of peace, demanded peace, and—determined -to have peace—set about disarming the Ghegs in the very face of their -enemies.</p> - -<p>This was the Albania into whose capital I blithely rode, in the -rattling little Ford, on that spring night of 1922. I pass over all -the minor political disputes, the ambitions of selfish men, the -mistakes of foolish ones, the bitter rivalry between Elbassan, to the -south, Scutari, to the north, and Tirana, in the center, for the honor -and profit of being Albania’s capital. Tirana was, tentatively, the -capital; made so because it was everywhere conceded to be the least -progressive, the most hopelessly Mohammedan, the most dangerously -un-Albanian city in the country. The government had made Tirana the -capital for the same reason that the teacher puts the worst boy of the -class in the front seat. But this was no solace to Scutari or Elbassan.</p> - -<p>Tirana, the white, low town, drowsed in the sun; water rippled in -the gutters of the winding, walled streets; donkeys laden with cedar -boughs, the brooms of Tirana, carefully picked their footing on the -uneven cobbles; women with gayly painted cradles on their backs trudged -behind the donkeys. Men in rags of their homespun white garments and -Scanderbeg jackets and colored sashes sat all day on the low walls -around the mosques. The fez makers, amid their piles of raw wool and -mixing bowls and heating irons, were talking politics, and so were -the men in the street of the coppersmiths, which is musical from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span> day -to sunset with the sound of little hammers beating glowing sheets of -metal. At noon the <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">hodjis</i> droned their long prayers to Allah -from the minarets. At sunset their voices wailed again, above the sound -of clattering hoofs and tinkling bells as the flocks came home to the -courtyards. Then the sunset left a yellow sky behind the dark blue -mountains. The air was so still that the bells of a mule train, winding -down to Tirana on the far-off foothill trails, chimed with the sound of -running water in the gutters beside the courtyards’ mud-brick walls. -And the Cabinet Ministers of Albania came out to walk.</p> - -<p>They walked in a row, sedately, hands behind their backs, and after -them marched their escort, a single row of soldiers. They walked -down from Government House, the square two-storied building behind a -half-ruined wall; they walked past the Tirana Vocational School and, -turning in front of the painted mosque, by the two Cypresses of the -Dead, they went past the block of little shops that is Main Street, -past the cemetery filled with toppling turbaned stones, past the large -white barracks where soldiers sang of Lec i Madhe, and out on the -Durazzo road. Then they came slowly back, and slowly went out again. -With them on this same way walked all the men of Tirana, for this is -the custom at the sunset hour. And we walked, too, saying at intervals: -“Long may you live! Long may you live!”</p> - - -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img015"> - <img src="images/015.jpg" class="w75" alt="THE PAINTED MOSQUE IN TIRANA" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p0 caption">THE PAINTED MOSQUE IN TIRANA, AND THE LOW WALL ON WHICH, -ALL DAY LONG, MEN SIT AND DISCUSS POLITICS</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span></p> - -<p>It was on the second evening of our walking that, counting Their -Excellencies as they came toward us, I said: “Where is the other -one? Who is he?” For we had met them all except the Minister of the -Interior, and suddenly I realized that he was unknown to us. And Rrok -Perolli, who, strangely, was no longer with the government, nor talking -much of politics, but living quietly upon an inherited income in -Tirana, replied, “He is Ahmet Bey Mati.”</p> - -<p>The name awakened a thin, faint echo in my mind, an echo mixed with a -remembered sound of rain. But, “Long may you live!” I said to Their -Excellencies, and for a moment we stood talking in French.</p> - -<p>“The disarming is going well in the mountains, Your Excellency?”</p> - -<p>“Very well, very well. No trouble at all. <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Tout est tranquil, -madame.</i>”</p> - -<p>I did not believe this, knowing that to a Gheg his rifle was his honor, -and either dearer than life. But there is a convention which exempts -the words of statesmen from measurement by the Decalogue.</p> - -<p>“Then we can soon be starting for the mountains?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, certainly, madame. As soon as we can find proper guides and -horses for you.”</p> - -<p>We thanked them and, refusing a coffee, walked slowly on in the summer -evening. Nothing could have been more tranquil than the low white town, -with its cobbled winding streets,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span> its stream murmuring beneath a stone -bridge, its minarets, its plane trees. The crowds went slowly up and -down, sauntering past the mosque’s naïvely pictured walls, past the -white-arcaded street of little shops whose owners sat crosslegged among -their goods, past the cemetery of toppling turbaned gravestones, past -the lighted windows of the cafés where men were singing the strange -Albanian melodies. It is a town to be happy in, Tirana.</p> - -<p>But the water rippling in the gutters stirred uneasiness in my mind, a -vague uneasy effort, out of which came a name. “Ahmet Bey Mati! What -have I heard about him, Rexh?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know all you can have heard about him, Mrs. Lane. But you -remember the <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">comitadj</i>, in the cave above the Lumi Shala on the -trail from Thethis? The one that sang us the songs? He told you first -about Ahmet Bey and how they went to Valona.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Rexh, sure enough! Doesn’t it seem a long time ago? And how you -have grown, and how much you have learned, since then!”</p> - -<p>For the little boy who trudged beside the donkey through that moonlit -night on the plains of Scutari was gone. The red fez, the flannelette -pajamas, were memories. It was a youth with a quick smile and earnest -eyes who walked beside me in Tirana, a student in the Vocational -School, learned in baseball and college yells and geometry, modest -still, and thinking more than he spoke, but no longer a child. It was -Frances—now in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span> France—who had got Rexh into the American school, -handicapped though he was with lack of schooling and with his Gheg -tongue, and he had worked hard to justify her commendation.</p> - -<p>“I do my best, Mrs. Lane. At first I was very stupid, for I could not -understand the Toshk boys, and I could not understand the teachers when -they asked me questions, and I was two years behind with the books. But -now they speak English, and I have learned Toshk. So I am happy, and -my report card is very good. I would like to show you my next one. Now -that you have come, I have some one to show it to. It is a joke on me, -because, though you said you would come back, I did not think you ever -would. And aren’t you happy to find the school really here?”</p> - -<p>For we had talked a great deal about the school, a year before when it -was only a plan and a hope. Of all the work done by American children -in Europe, this school is most beautiful to me. It was not much the -Junior Red Cross did in Albania—only a few months of Frances Hardy’s -house for refugee children in Scutari, only a little medical work that -stopped too soon—but it did build the Vocational School, and Albania -will never forget it. Half of the country’s little income goes for the -1,100 schools started since 1912, but none of them can be equipped -or staffed like the Vocational School. It opened in July, with sixty -boys to learn English. For there are no technical books written<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span> in -Albanian, and Albanian was the only language the boys knew. Three -months later they were speaking, reading, and writing English, and the -first school year began. In March, when we came to Tirana, they were -the finest upstanding lot of youngsters that ever made a teacher proud, -and our arrival was celebrated by an evening’s entertainment, for which -the boys extemporised little plays in English, political parodies so -witty that they brought tears of mirth to the eyes. I do not think the -record of those boys is equaled anywhere, and to find Rexh among them -was the happy ending to the story.</p> - -<p>“And now Ahmet Bey is Minister of the Interior! Who is chief of the -Mati, then?”</p> - -<p>“His mother is chief when he is away, Mrs. Lane.”</p> - -<p>“Is he a good Minister of the Interior?”</p> - -<p>“He works very hard. I think he did not have much schooling. He came -from the court of Abdul Hamid when he was sixteen—you remember the -<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">comitadj</i> told you—and he has been fighting ever since. He came -to Tirana last December when there was the strike.”</p> - -<p>“No, Rexh! A strike? In Tirana?”</p> - -<p>“It is a long story, Mrs. Lane. If you would have a coffee with me, I -would tell it all.”</p> - -<p>We left the others wandering down the Durazzo road and back, and sat -at a little table beneath a plane tree by the white arches of the -café. A waiter brought us cups of Turkish coffee, and while the crowd -went slowly past us<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span> and bursts of Albanian song came through the open -windows and a great yellow moon rose behind the white minaret, Rexh -told the tale of the first strike in Albanian history.</p> - -<p>“It was at the time of the Merdite trouble. I do not know what you have -heard of the Republic of the Merdite; it was a Serbian plan to get the -Merdite country. The people were starving, and the Serbs promised them -corn, and I think there was money for the Merdite chiefs, because some -of them signed a paper that said there was a Republic of the Merdite -and the Serbs sent that paper to Europe. Then other chiefs fought -these chiefs that signed it, and the Serbs came in, and Ahmet Bey Mati -was sent with our soldiers to fight the Serbs. It is five days to the -Merdite, when the trails are good.</p> - -<p>“You know, Mrs. Lane, Albania has no king. We have four regents, -that we call quarter-kings. We laugh when we say it. ‘There goes a -quarter-king,’ we say. There are the Ministers elected by Parliament, -and their chief, the Prime Minister; they are the real kings. They do -things, and then afterward the quarter-kings have to say, ‘Yes,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</span> that -is what we would have done.’</p> - -<p>“While Ahmet Bey was gone to the Merdite with all our soldiers, there -were only three quarter-kings in Tirana. One was gone to Geneva; he -was a good one. One that was here was a good one. One was a friend of -Castoldi, the Italian. No good Albanian, Mrs. Lane, is a friend of -Italy. And the last quarter-king, he was from Dibra, and wanted to -fight the Serbs.</p> - -<p>“And while there were no soldiers here, secretly at midnight thirty -men with rifles came into Tirana, and went to the house of Pandeli -Evangeli, the Prime Minister. They went in over the walls and through -the windows. They pointed their rifles at Pandeli and said, ‘Resign.’ -So he resigned. Then he called for a horse and went home to Valona.</p> - -<p>“In the morning there was no Prime Minister. And Parliament was not in -session. Do you understand, Mrs. Lane?”</p> - -<p>I understood. Thus easily—if surmise could be believed—Italy had -captured the Albanian government. Two of the three quarter-kings -controlled the situation, and one of them was a Gheg. If he were given -his head, Italy had only to await the outbreak of violence between the -chiefs who wanted war on Serbia and those who were clamoring for peace, -and then march in with her authority from the League of Nations to -bring law and order into lawless Albania. “What happened, Rexh?”</p> - -<p>“But you have guessed it. The one good quarter-king could do nothing, -and resigned. The other two made a government to fight Serbia. Hassan -Prishtini of Kossova was the new Prime Minister. Then all Albania was -like a nest of hornets stirred with a stick. The men of Parliament went -riding from their villages to Elbassan, and Prishtini sent word to -Elbassan to kill them. Then all the men of Korcha went with rifles to -Elbassan to fight for Parliament. Troops with machine guns were coming -from Scutari to fight Prishtini. And, Mrs. Lane, there was an Italian -gunboat at Durazzo. Everywhere all men, Toshks and Ghegs, were saying, -what could they do to save the Constitution? But no one knew how to do -it.</p> - -<p>“Hassan Prishtini said, ‘The Constitution does not make Albania free; -we will make Albania really free. Albanians are not cowards and will -not be ruled by cowards,’ Hassan Prishtini said. ‘We have nothing to do -with Leagues of Nations that have sold us. We will fight the Serbs and -make Kossova free; we will take back our lands of Hoti and Gruda and -Castrati. The Italians do not dare touch us. We drove them once from -Valona; we can do it twice.’ That was what Hassan Prishtini said.</p> - -<p>“‘I think this will be a good year for pears,’ said the bear. ‘Why?’ -said the other bear. And the first bear replied, ‘Because I like them.’</p> - -<p>“I forgot, Mrs. Lane, that people do not talk that way in English. I -forgot I was not talking in Albanian. In English you would say it: -Hassan Prishtini thought that he could do what he wanted to do because -he wanted to do it. But that is not thinking.</p> - -<p>“That very first morning, there was the strike. The two men that can -make the telephone work, and the man that clicks the telegraph, and -the chauffeur of the government automobile, and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</span> cook and the -coffee maker of Government House, and the guard at the door, and -all the secretaries of all the Ministers—they all went to the Café -International, and had a meeting. Then they walked from the café to -Government House and back, singing the song of free Albania. After that -they did nothing. They sat and drank coffee. I do not know if you have -ever seen a strike, but that is what it is. They did not do anything, -and there was no telephone, no telegraph, no messenger, no coffee, -nothing at all, for the new government.</p> - -<p>“And Hassan Prishtini could not do anything. The new government sat in -Government House. Everybody else sat in the cafés. Elbassan did not -fight Parliament, because it could not get Tirana on the telephone. -Hassan Prishtini’s men in the mountains did not march anywhere, because -no orders came. All Albania thought something terrible was happening in -Tirana, and wasn’t it funny? Because nothing at all was happening.</p> - -<p>“On the third day, Ahmet Bey came with twelve hundred fighting men of -the Mati—Catholics, from northern Mati. They came in, and they did not -do anything. But there were no other fighting men in Tirana. So Hassan -Prishtini resigned, and when the Parliament came to Tirana it made a -new government, and Ahmet Bey Mati was Minister of the Interior. And -that was the end of the strike. There are songs about it, Mrs. Lane, if -you want me to get them for you.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</span></p> - -<p>It seemed to me the most remarkable tale of a political crisis that I -had ever heard, and for some time I considered it in silence, getting -the full delightful flavor of it. The moon and the minaret were a -Japanese print against the turquoise sky, and somewhere a mandolin -tinkled and a voice sang the “Mountain Song”:</p> - -<p class="poetry p0"> -“How beautiful is the month of May,<br /> -When we go with the flocks to the mountains!”<br /> -</p> - -<p>Then a discrepancy in Rexh’s story struck me. “If the Merdite is five -days from Tirana, and Ahmet was fighting the Serbs there, how did he -come to Tirana in three days? How did he know there was trouble in -Tirana?”</p> - -<p>“Ahmet is a Gheg, Mrs. Lane. A Gheg always expects trouble. When he -went into the mountains he left behind him men he could trust, hidden -in the woods by the telephone wires. There is a small round black -thing that can hear on a telephone wire—I do not know what you call -it. It is small, and has a wire that goes over the telephone wire; you -put it to your ear. Ahmet had got some of those from Vienna, and some -little mirrors, for the men he left behind him. In the morning after -Pandeli resigned, word went over the telephone to Elbassan to kill the -Parliament, and to some of Hassan Prishtini’s men to stay on the trails -to the Merdite and not let Ahmet get back to Tirana. Ahmet’s men heard -this, and with the little mirrors in the sunshine they telegraphed it -to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</span> mountains, and other men telephoned it with their voices to -Ahmet. So he came secretly around Prishtini’s men, and came walking day -and night to Tirana. He left his men in the Merdite to hold the Serbs, -and took the twelve hundred fresh men from the Catholic part of the -Mati.”</p> - -<p>“Ahmet is Mohammedan?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Mrs. Lane. His family has been Mohammedan since Scanderbeg died.”</p> - -<p>“In the morning I shall go to see Ahmet. He must be a remarkable man.”</p> - -<p>Rexh considered this statement. “He is a good man, yes. We have a -saying in the mountains, Mrs. Lane. ‘Ask a thousand men, then follow -your own advice.’ I think that is what Ahmet does.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>I had interviewed, without exceptional enthusiasm, each member of the -Albanian Cabinet save Ahmet, the Hawk, chief of the Mati. But I am not, -in general, enthusiastic about the Ministers or members of Parliament -that I have met in any country. In democratic countries their -profession gives their minds a remarkable agility, like that of the -elephant on the rolling ball. The muscular development of the elephant -a-pilin’ teak in the slushy mushy creek has more interest for me. -This is a matter of personal taste. However, I am about to become so -enthusiastic about Ahmet Bey Mati that it seems well to mention that my -enthusiasms are few, and not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</span> excited either by statesmen or soldiers. -Perhaps six scientists and business men are my heroes. Why, then, after -three minutes of talk with Ahmet Bey Mati, did I add to that short list -this mountain chief of semisavage tribes, who certainly knew nothing -either of science or of modern business?</p> - -<p>Government House in Tirana is an old residence, hurriedly converted -into offices. It stands at the end of a street, in a courtyard -surrounded by a high mud-brick wall rather badly broken at intervals. -A mountain man with a rifle sits at the big gate. Another guard, even -more gorgeous in white wool, scarlet jacket, and gold embroidery, -stands on the wooden porch. Inside, the bare wooden floors, partitions, -and stairways suggest a Middle Western American barn. Parliament Hall -is furnished with school desks for the members, and a red-covered -dais for the President, with the Scanderbeg flag above it, are bright -colors against whitewashed walls. The offices are nondescript with -overstuffed Italian furniture and fine Albanian rugs. Cigarettes are -on the desks, coffee is served to callers, and my feminine experience -of interviews was that facts must be fought for against a barrage of -French compliments.</p> - -<p>We had been in Tirana two days and could not put a finger on any fact -to account for the distinct uneasiness we felt. We were tormented by -a wholly irrational feeling that, somehow, somewhere, something was -wrong. Everything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</span> we could see appeared to be all right, everyone -assured us that everything was all right. I went into Ahmet Bey’s -office prepared to exchange the elaborate forms of mountain courtesy -and to look at Ahmet, no more.</p> - -<p>The office was bare. No overstuffed furniture, no rugs. Bare floor, -bare walls, an unpainted wooden table, and Ahmet. He was keen, -self-controlled, hard willed. That was the first impression. The second -was that he was the best-dressed man, in a European sense, that I had -seen for a long time. He was dressed like the successful American -business man who gives <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">carte blanche</i> to a very good tailor and -forgets clothes. He rose, said, “<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">Tu njet jeta</i>” (“I am glad you -have come”), and while he said it he looked at me as a scientist looks -at a microscope slide. Then he offered me a chair, sat down, and added, -“Can I be of service to you, madame?”</p> - -<p>The shock was such that my mind blinked. Then I said that I wished -to visit Mati and the Merdite, and had come to the Ministry of the -Interior to arrange for the trip. Ahmet offered me a cigarette, and -lighted it, and my mind waked to alertness, for I saw that he was -making time in which to choose his reply. There <em>was</em> something -wrong; our feeling was right! I would trip him into giving me a clew.</p> - -<p>Our eyes met as I thanked him for the cigarette, and I saw that he saw -that I knew he had been hesitating. Idiot that I was, to betray it, I -thought. And he said, “This is a difficult time<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</span> in Albania, madame. I -cannot tell you whether you can go to the mountains or not. I cannot -discuss our difficulties with you to-day. In ten days’ time they will -be ended. I must ask you to wait ten days, perhaps less, certainly no -more. Then if you can come to see me again, I will tell you anything -you want to know. If it is possible for you to go into the mountains, -of course you will go as guest of the Albanian government.”</p> - -<p>Everything had been said. He accompanied me to the door, said: -“Long may you live! Go on a smooth trail!” and held the door open, -simultaneously for me to go out and for the next caller to come in. The -door shut. And I said, “That is one of the few great men I have met.”</p> - -<p>All that day, at intervals, I recalled that interview and marveled. How -had that man come from his background? From the leisurely, evasive, -allusive talks of the mountains, from the intricate subtleties of Abdul -Hamid’s court, where had he got that incisiveness, that direct, driving -force? It was genius, I said; nothing less. I went about asking, “Is -Ahmet Bey a patriot?” For if he were not, certainly he was one of the -most dangerous men in Albania.</p> - -<p>I was told that he was a nephew of Essad Pasha, who sold Albania to -Serbia for the title of its king, and was assassinated by Albanians -in Paris. I was told that Ahmet had sold timber rights in the Mati to -Italians, but had later revoked the sale. I was told that he was a very -rich man, and that he held the forty thousand<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</span> fighting men of the Mati -in his hand. I was told that the Serbs, in one of their 1921 raids, had -burned the Great House in the Mati, the house in which his family had -lived for five centuries. Nothing else, apparently, was known about him.</p> - -<p>Walking that night at sunset time with all Tirana, we were surprised to -observe that the soldiers lounging around the fires in the courtyard of -their barracks were not the same soldiers who had been there the night -before. These were new men, recruits, and—by the pattern of their -trousers—men from the plains of the south. Raw peasant youths, they -looked. None of them carried rifles on their backs, and the few rifles -we saw were held awkwardly, as by unpracticed hands. Of course there -is a constant flow of recruits through Tirana, for as the government -disarms the mountaineers it endeavors to build up a trained citizen -army, on the Swiss plan. But we guessed, by the absence of the seasoned -soldiers, that there was battle, or danger of battle, somewhere else in -Albania.</p> - -<p>Incredible, as we walked homeward under the white moon, that on this -spring night men could be killing one another. Incredible, in this -magic of moon and rippling water and a little owl calling love notes -from the dark cypress, that anywhere there was anything but peace. The -tall carved wooden gate of our courtyard was romantic in the shadow of -Government House; our little house was picturesque with black shadows -on white plaster; there was glamour everywhere.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</span></p> - -<p>“What’s that? Is that a mouse?” said Annette, through the darkness in -which we lay awake, watching the moonlight on the walls and breathing -the sweet spring air. We listened. Nothing. “I thought I heard -something—a sort of little crackling sound.”</p> - -<p>“Listen,” I said, half an hour later. “What is that throbbing?”</p> - -<p>Curiosity’s nagging at last got us from our beds. Kimono clad and in -slippers we went out into our courtyard. The throbbing came from an -engine; the engine that feeds the dynamo of Government House. Every -window blazed electric light. We looked at them in amazement; we looked -at our wrist watches under the moon. Ten o’clock. And we started when -the shadow of the wall beside us moved and spoke. “Long may you live, -<i>zonyas</i>! It will be very good if you go into your house.”</p> - -<p>“<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">Por hene asht shum i mire</i>” (“But the moonlight is very good, -too”), I objected, and saw the moonlight glint on a rifle barrel. “Why -is Government House lighted? And why are you in our courtyard?”</p> - -<p>“There are orders,” the man replied. “Ahmet Bey Mati has spoken. The -American <i>zonyas</i> will go into their house.”</p> - -<p>He would say nothing more, and there seemed indeed nothing else to do, -so we went. The sound that lifted us from our pillows once more was -one that I shall not forget, nor willingly hear again. It came through -the night like a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</span> supernatural thing of hate and fury and irresistible -power. We did not know what it was; we had no power to wonder what it -was; we heard it with an agony of fear, involuntary, uncontrollable as -the pain of a stripped nerve. I remember now that instant and eternity -of time, and cannot bear the memory. I had not known that even in -nightmare one could drop into such abysses of the human spirit. Then -Tirana seemed to explode like a bunch of giant firecrackers, and with -such relief as I cannot describe I cried: “Rifles! They’re taking -Tirana!” And we tumbled out of our beds and grasped wildly in the -darkness for our clothes.</p> - -<p>Rifles are human possessions; rifles are solid things that at worst -can only kill. The sound of the rifles, multiplied a thousand times -by echoing courtyard walls, muffled and enabled us to bear that other -sound, still faintly heard through the uproar. “It’s only their war -cry,” we babbled to each other. “It’s the mountain men fighting. That’s -all it is.” Coherence came back to our minds. “It’s the Dibra,” I said. -“Dibra and the refugee Kossova men, come to take the government away -from the Toshks.” And we ran out into the courtyard.</p> - -<p>The rest of that night was anticlimax. Bafflement. Weary and chilly, we -came back to our house at three o’clock. We had explored the courtyard, -finding only that the shadows were full of silent, waiting men. They -spoke little; they said, in reply to our questions, that they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</span> did -not know what was happening. We had ventured out of the courtyard -into Tirana, that low white town that, to the eye, seemed sleeping -in the moonlight, and to the ear was bedlam. Bullets were whizzing, -scattering white plaster, smashing tiles. But mosques and minarets, -arcaded streets, arched stone bridge, rippling water, were peaceful in -the moonlight. No human being seemed to be abroad, save us two, who -wandered like forsaken ghosts through the incredible clamor.</p> - -<p>The windows of the Vocational School were alight, the American flag -was over the gate. We found the Americans making ready a midnight -luncheon in the kitchen, whose windows were barricaded against bullets. -Great Scott! they said, why hadn’t we stayed in bed? Have some baked -beans? We ate the beans and explained that we wanted to know what was -happening. Who knew what was happening, in Albania? said they, yawning. -Better go home to bed; time enough to find out in the morning what was -happening. So, weary and chilly, we went home to bed. The rifles were -still crackling like madly popping corn, tiles were still crashing from -roofs and plaster from walls, but the war cries were still. We slept -fitfully.</p> - -<p>A tapping on our window sill roused us again. The moonlight was gone -from our wall, the open window was a square of paler darkness in the -darkness. “I beg your pardon, I sincerely beg your pardon,” said a -voice in French. “This is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</span> most unconventional, I know. But if you will -pardon the lateness of the hour, may I ask you to permit us to call?” -It was the voice of His Excellency Spiro Koleka, Minister of Public -Works.</p> - -<p>He came in, accompanied by the secretary of the Prime Minister. We sat -up in our beds, coats around our shoulders, and told them where to find -chairs and cigarettes. They said that if we did not mind they would not -light the lamp. We asked what had occurred.</p> - -<p>“<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Rien, rien du tout, mesdames</i>,” said the Minister of Public -Works. “<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Tout est tranquil.</i>”</p> - -<p>“The ancient Greeks had a saying,” began the secretary, gave us -that saying in Greek, and continued to speak for some time, not -uninterestingly, of Greek and other philosophers. The social tone of -that early morning call was impeccable. Good breeding required that -we maintain it. We sat exasperated in the dark, saying to ourselves -that we would gladly murder these two uncommunicative men. But we felt -that to ask them to leave the shelter of our house would be murder, in -cold fact. In the wan daylight of six o’clock they thanked us for our -hospitality, and went.</p> - -<p>Tirana was peaceful in the morning sunlight. Donkeys laden with cedar -boughs picked their footing on the uneven cobbles; women with gayly -painted cradles on their backs trudged behind the donkeys. Ducks were -swimming in the brimming gutters. Rrok Perolli stood in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</span> doorway of -the Hotel Europa, enjoying the spring air.</p> - -<p>Elez Jusuf, chief of the Dibra, with five hundred men, had fought -his way into Tirana, he said. The Albanian government had—well, had -gone to Elbassan. Elez Jusuf was intrenched in the quarter beyond the -mosque, a maze of houses and walled yards entered by only two streets. -For reasons unknown, he had not walked on into Government House.</p> - -<p>“Ahmet has gone to Elbassan?” The dismay of my voice surprised me.</p> - -<p>No, he was still in Tirana. He was legally, in fact, the government; -by law, when a Minister was out of town his duties fell to one of -the Ministers remaining. Ahmet was the only one left, except the -necessarily idle Minister of Public Works. But what could he do? Elez -Jusuf was in the capital, with five hundred fighting men of the Dibra. -Ahmet had less than two hundred men, raw recruits from the peasant -village of the south. And more information came now from the open door -of reticence. Two days before, Byram Gjuri, an Albanian Gheg chief of -tribes in Montenegro, who had been supplied with arms from D’Annunzio -in Fiume, had marched on Scutari. Scutari had sent him word that it -would fight, and had frantically appealed to Tirana for help. That was -where the regular troops of Tirana had gone. The telephone line to -Scutari was cut. There had been an attack from the Dibra on Elbassan; -the fighting men<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</span> of Elbassan had beaten it off, but they were staying -in Elbassan through this trouble.</p> - -<p>On the face of it, the thing was organized—organized, and supplied -with arms and money from outside Albania. Obviously, the capital -was lost. The government had fled. The telephone lines were cut. -Albania had been broken into its diverse tribes again, disintegrated -into particles held together only by a common spirit which could no -longer express itself coherently. After all the years of fighting and -blockade, all the desperate triumphs of diplomacy in Versailles and -Geneva, here was chaos again, and fresh invaders.</p> - -<p>This tragedy was behind the curtain of silence that isolates Albania -from the world. It went on in darkness, unknown. It meant another -war in the Balkans, the kindler of wars in Europe. All along a -thousand miles of new frontier and ancient hatred any outbreak in -the Balkans would spread. Italy would cross the Adriatic again; what -would Jugo-Slavia say to that? Serbia would come down in force from -the north; would Croatia, Bosnia, Dalmatia, Montenegro, not seize -the opportunity to strike at Serbia, the hated new master? Could -Jugo-Slavia turn her back on Hungary, in safety? All the Balkans and -Central Europe are tinder to any spark, to-day. As they were in 1914.</p> - -<p>But at that moment I was caring for Albania, for the Albanians who had -sheltered me by their fires and divided with me their corn bread and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</span> -goat’s-milk cheese. It was insupportable to me that war was going again -like a flame over those mountain villages, that the last of their men -must fight again on the edge of precipices, and the last of their women -and children die on the trails. There was desperation in the hope, the -irrational faith, which I placed in Ahmet, the Hawk, chief of the Mati. -“Ahmet will do something,” I said.</p> - -<p>“How can he? The Dibra men are in Tirana, and he has no soldiers.”</p> - -<p>“He will do something,” I said, “because he must.”</p> - -<p>“‘I think this will be a good year for pears,’ said the bear. ‘Why?’ -said the other bear. And the first bear replied, ‘Because I like them.’”</p> - -<p>“And who knows,” said I with violence, “that it isn’t a good year for -pears?”</p> - -<p>Thus we talked in the cafés, drinking coffee and looking out through -white arches at the plane trees and the donkeys patiently trudging -by. There was nothing else to do. Elez Jusuf was in Tirana, behind -enigmatic walls. Why did he not come out? We did not know. Ahmet was -alone in Government House. The sunshine was warm on white Tirana, the -water rippled in the gutters, the plane trees unfolded their tiny -leaves. The men of Tirana, that lukewarm, Mohammedan, un-Albanian city, -did nothing. They waited to see what would happen. We all waited. The -morning went by.</p> - -<p>The morning went very slowly by, and at noon an automobile came -roaring and shaking down<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</span> the cobbled street. It brought Harry Charles -Augustus Eyres, British minister to Albania. We lunched with him at -the Red Cross house. Lean, dry, humorous eyed, gray haired, wholly the -Englishman, he talked of the psychology of Eastern peoples. He had -been forty years a diplomat in the Near East, and knew his subject. -I was perhaps wrong in connecting his official presence in Albania -with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company’s negotiations for the Valona oil -fields. He lived in Durazzo, and had that morning received a telephone -message—not from Ahmet—advising him of the situation in Tirana.</p> - -<p>“I must go and see my old friend Elez,” he said. It was his only -reference to the immediate situation. “Elez is a fine old chap, you -know. Patriotic Albanian. He had five thousand Dibra men ready to go -into Serbia last year. Bit of a job I had, too, persuading him that it -wasn’t done, really.”</p> - -<p>After luncheon he departed, to see his old friend Elez. Later he was -seen riding to Government House. At dinner he said that negotiations -were opened. One inferred that this little matter was practically -settled.</p> - -<p>“Queer thing, you know, this tale of Elez Jusuf’s,” he further -remarked. Elez Jusuf, it appeared, said that he was astounded to find -himself in the position of a rebel against the Albanian government. -With the mildest intentions, he had been coming down to Tirana to speak -with that government. Parliament had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</span> been elected when the Serbs were -holding all of Dibra; the Dibra representatives had been elected by -refugees, and Parliament had recently unseated them on the ground that -they were not properly elected. This left Dibra without representation -in the council of chiefs, said Elez. Surely it was proper that the -chief of the Dibra should come to Tirana to speak for Dibra to the -government. He traveled with an armed escort, of course, as a chief -should. On the trail he met his friends Zija Dibra and Mustapha Kruja, -with their escorts. They came on together. An hour from Tirana, on the -previous evening, they had met a body of government soldiers, sixty in -number. These soldiers had treacherously fired upon him. His men had -naturally returned the fire. The captain of the soldiers was killed, -the second in command, Sied Bey, fell down a cliff when his horse was -shot beneath him, and Elez Jusuf, very much surprised and perturbed, -came on to Tirana. He said he did not know what else to do. Just before -reaching Tirana, he had met a machine gun or two, and had taken them -along with him, after some incidental fighting. Why was the government -attacking him with machine guns? he demanded. He was not moving against -the government, with five hundred men. When the Dibra moved, it put -five thousand fighting men on the trails.</p> - -<p>“A queer tale,” said <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Eyres. “I don’t know what to make of it. On my -life, I believe the old fellow’s sincere.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</span></p> - -<p>The Albanians, he said, were a surprising people. Take Ahmet, now. That -afternoon Ahmet had said to him, “You recall the words of Aristides?” -<abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Eyres, supposing the reference was to some Albanian unknown to him, -had inquired, “Who is Aristides?” And, by Jove! the chap meant the -Greek! Fancy an Albanian knowing about Aristides!</p> - -<p>We slept upon these meager developments. Elez Jusuf was still in -Tirana; Ahmet still in Government House. The dynamo ran all night.</p> - -<p>Next morning, more news in the cafés. Ahmet was demanding that Elez -Jusuf give up his arms and surrender himself, Mustapha Kruja, and Zija -Dibra for trial. Elez Jusuf replied that it was an insult to suggest -that any Dibra man gave up his rifle while he lived. If Mati thought it -could bring that shame upon the Dibra, the rifles of Dibra would finish -the talking. Mustapha Kruja had disappeared in the night; his men were -left leaderless with Elez behind the barricades. Zija Dibra was still -there. Mustapha Kruja and Zija Dibra were in the pay of Italy; Elez -Jusuf had been misled, tricked, by them. This was the talk in the cafés.</p> - -<p class="center p0 p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img016"> - <img src="images/016.jpg" class="w75" alt="THE FIGHTING MEN FROM THE MOUNTAINS" /> -</span></p> -<p class="center p0 caption">THE FIGHTING MEN FROM THE MOUNTAINS WHO CAME INTO TIRANA -TO DEFEND THE GOVERNMENT WHILE ELEZ JUSUF WAS IN TIRANA<br />In this group are men from seven tribes, distinguishable by the pattern -of their trousers.</p> - - -<p>Nearly noon, and talk stopping in the cafés. Shops closing, quietly, -one by one. A tightening, an apprehension, in the air. New faces, new -costumes, in the streets. Slowly, slowly, little by little, Tirana was -filling with tall, keen-eyed, weather-bitten men. Men in the tight -white trousers and rawhide opangi of the northern <span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</span> Tirana mountains. Men in the fuller white -trousers and embroidered socks of the central mountains. Men in the -very full brown trousers and curve-toed moccasins of more southern -tribes. Mountain men, all of them. They sat on the low walls around the -mosques, talking. They lounged on the curbstones, they sauntered on -the streets. More and more of them. Impossible to estimate how many. A -thin little trickle going steadily in and out of Government House. And -it was strange how a sense of Government House, a sense of the one man -alone behind those broken walls, grew upon Tirana. It was as though -Government House were a huge, mysterious, living thing. Men walking in -the streets glanced at it furtively, as if it might be watching them. -Groups stood and stared at it. There it was, quite still. Still, like a -crouching animal. What would it do?</p> - -<p>Three o’clock, and suddenly the answer. A gust of rifle shots, a growl -of machine guns, and the storm was on us. The streets were swept clean -of people in one quick scurry; windows barred, doors bolted. And we -were running through a swarm of bullets that sang like mosquitoes. -Running, we cried to each other, “Tricked the British Empire, by Jove!” -For the very sound of the guns said that this was grim earnest, this -was the end. Ahmet had gained time enough to bring in the mountain men. -Now he was fighting.</p> - -<p>At seven o’clock the next morning he was still<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</span> fighting. Fifteen -hours, without a break, and Elez Jusuf was still alive and still in -Tirana. When the firing died in the bright morning we went picking -our way through wreckage of mud-brick walls, around bloody cobbles, -past plaster houses ripped to tatters by bullets. In the heart of the -wreckage Elez Jusuf was still holding out.</p> - -<p>At ten o’clock a drum beat in the street before the mosque where the -dead men lay, and a crowd listened to the singsong of the government -crier of news. He cried that at twelve o’clock Ahmet Bey would burn the -quarter that sheltered Elez Jusuf. Citizens whose homes were there had -two hours to take out their movable property. Passports to enter and -leave the quarter, obtainable at the post office. Machine guns surround -the quarter. Listen well! At twelve o’clock the machine guns will start -and the quarter will burn. After twelve o’clock no man leaves it alive. -By order of Ahmet Bey Mati.</p> - -<p>It is impossible to describe the feeling that day in Tirana. It was as -though a giant hand closed upon the heart, slowly, inexorably. Death. -At twelve o’clock the machine guns will start and the quarter will -burn. No man will leave it alive. Five hundred men. And this was true. -It was not a dream nor a tale in a book. It was reality. We asked, -“Will Ahmet do it?” as one struggles to awaken from nightmare. We were -always answered, quietly, “Yes.” Men were not speaking much, that day; -they simply said, “Yes.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</span></p> - -<p>The procession began. Women bowed under loads of things, blankets, -rugs, chairs, a frying pan, a child’s toy. Children going before them -lugging the spinning-wheel, the hand loom. Smaller children stumbling -and holding on to skirts. Veiled women, sobbing behind the veils, -walking pigeon toed and pitifully on high heels, in hampering trousers, -carrying boxes too heavy, so that they must stop to rest. One little -donkey, going back and forth, back and forth, bringing out trunks and -bedsteads and house doors. And for some time a frantic woman, veiled, -hysterical, clung to us, clung to our skirts on hands and knees, -talking a language we could not understand, pleading, begging as if -for her life, holding up five fingers, measuring five distances from -the ground. Maddening, our inability to understand her. Why the five -fingers? Five what? How could we do what she wanted? A stranger who -spoke French at last translated her words for us. She was a Turkish -woman, her husband was in Constantinople; her five children—little, -little children—were in the quarter. She had been visiting a friend -when Elez Jusuf came in. For two days she had not been able to get -back to the children, and now she saw that other people were bringing -out things, and the soldiers would not let her in to get her children. -We took her to the post office and got her the permit to pass the -soldiers. That was that.</p> - -<p>At eleven o’clock we met a teacher in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</span> Vocational School. He said: -“I have come out for a minute, between classes. It—— I wanted to get -away from the boys. We have three grandsons of Elez Jusuf, you know.” -We had not known, and, knowing, what could one say? The teacher seemed -to feel that speaking about it would make it easier to go back to them. -“We couldn’t keep the news out. All these boys know Albanian politics -so well. Damn it! the finest boys God ever made.” There were tears in -his eyes and his words were not profane. “Not one of them missed one -recitation since this thing started. We moved the desks and barricaded -the windows; classes going right on. Boys said to me this morning, they -can’t fight for Albania, but they can study for her. Breaks you all -up, somehow,” he said, apologetically, and blew his nose. “Damn it!” -he said again. “I—— That young boy from the Dibra got up to answer -a question just now, and forgot the question. I said, ‘Never mind.’ I -was going to pass it over. He said: ‘No, please ask it again, sir. I -won’t be much longer in class.’ I thought he was going to break down, -on that, but he answered the question. Answered it right. Goes straight -on, with his head up. Their father’s in that hell hole, too. The boy’ll -have to go back and be chief of the Dibra.”</p> - -<p>It was impossible to say anything. We shook his hand and he went back -to the class. <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Eyres and his secretary went back and forth, from -Elez to Ahmet, from Ahmet to Elez, hastening,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</span> followed by the eyes of -us all. Their faces were not encouraging.</p> - -<p>Ten minutes to twelve. The last machine gun chuckling over the cobbles. -Six minutes to twelve. Files of men, with oil cans, going through the -streets. Four minutes to twelve, and the streets emptied save for the -last frantic stragglers coming with last armfuls of things. Three -minutes to twelve—and the drum beating! The open space before the -mosque was a mass of bodies, a suffocation of held breaths. Listen -well, people of Tirana! Elez Jusuf asks for time. A council is talking. -At two o’clock the machine guns will start, and the quarter will burn. -At two o’clock. By order of Ahmet Bey Mati.</p> - -<p>It would seem that the pressure of that giant hand would ease, but it -continued to tighten slowly, minute by minute. It continued to tighten, -even when at four minutes to two o’clock the crier called that the -council was still talking. Four o’clock, the third, last order. At six -minutes to four o’clock men were going with lighted torches; the oil -had been spread and wooden sprayers had thrown it over the roofs. At -five minutes to four o’clock the roar of an automobile in the streets, -and Elez Jusuf appeared, riding to Government House in the English car, -<abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Eyres beside him. Tirana followed them to the gate in a wave of -men, a wave that slowed, eddied before the gate, and stopped. It seemed -that time stopped with it.</p> - -<p>Out of the gate a rider, lashing a galloping<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</span> horse. Clatter of -spark-scattering hoofs on the cobbles, swish of the whip, and a swirl -of wind following. Four o’clock, and the ripping sound of one machine -gun, stopped abruptly. No more.</p> - -<p>Ten minutes after four o’clock, and Elez Jusuf and <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Eyres riding -out of the gate. Elez Jusuf sat straight and proudly; a fine old -mountaineer in his Scanderbeg jacket and silver chains, overlooking the -crowd as though it were not there. Only a glimpse of black Scanderbeg -jacket, silver chains, gray hair, profile of firm lines, and Elez Jusuf -had made entrance and exit.</p> - -<p>Immediately after the automobile, while the gate of Government House -still fascinated, two riders came through it. They were Austrian -engineers, in khaki riding clothes and puttees. They rode pack mules, -and camping outfit complete with tent was roped to the wooden saddles. -We knew them slightly, and stopped them as they came leisurely by, to -ask what they knew.</p> - -<p>Nothing, they said. Ahmet had sent for them that morning—they were -engineers employed by the government—and had asked them to make ready -to go out toward Dibra, to investigate and report on the possibility of -lighting Tirana with electricity from a waterfall twenty miles away. -They had been ready at one o’clock, and Ahmet had sent asking them to -wait, ready, in the courtyard of Government House until he gave them -the word to start. Word had that moment come, and they were starting.</p> - -<p>They stirred the smallest of interest as they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</span> rode on through Tirana. -Tirana was relaxing, as a tired man sighs. Men sat on the curbs, on -the low walls, on the ground. There was a crowd in the cafés, but no -singing, and little talking. The sunset hour was beginning, but no one -walked.</p> - -<p>In the whitewashed dining room of the Vocational School we sat drinking -tea. <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Eyres disclaimed the tiredness of his eyes. It had been most -interesting, he said. An interview he would not forget, that between -old Elez and Ahmet. “A strong man, Ahmet. Perhaps a little young, -just twenty-six, they tell me. Well, time will remedy that.” Elez -had been persuaded to go to Government House to meet and talk with -Ahmet. “Really a remarkable man, old Elez. He’d never before seen an -automobile, you know. Walked right up to it, sat in it, as though he -had ridden in one all his life; never turned a hair, coming or going. -Must have been a bit of a strain, after all he’d gone through.” He said -to Ahmet that he had talked with his men. They would not give up their -rifles. If it were required that they give up their rifles, Elez would -go back to his men and they would die fighting. Ahmet said, “Mustapha -Kruja will be hanged when we find him. Zija Dibra must leave Albania -forever. Give me a <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i> of peace and go back to the Dibra with -your rifles.”</p> - -<p>Elez was silent a moment, and then gave the <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i>. The Dibra, -he said, would be loyal to the Constitutional Government of Albania -as long<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</span> as he lived, and as long as his son’s sons ruled the Dibra. -He saluted, Ahmet saluted; the official interview was ended. And the -messenger left to countermand the orders given. “Something rather -dramatic about these chaps, really. Done just like that. No palavering, -no signing of papers. Not necessary, and Ahmet knows it. Elez would be -cut into bits before he’d break a <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i>. They’re admirable, in -their way, these men.”</p> - -<p>Elez, turning to go, had turned back to speak again to Ahmet. The -Dibra and the Mati had long been enemies, he said. There had been no -friendship between them since the days of Scanderbeg. Was this not -a time to forget that old enmity? In their mountains, Dibra had not -understood the Tirana government. During those three days in Tirana, -Elez said, he had learned many new things. He believed now that Ahmet -Mati was fighting for Albania. Would Ahmet join him in a <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i> of -peace between Mati and Dibra?</p> - -<p>This had been entirely unexpected, <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Eyres said. However, Ahmet did -not turn a hair. He and Elez made the <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i> of peace, and then -Elez added another thing. “I have heard,” he said to Ahmet, “that you -intend to disarm the men of Dibra. You have not expected to do that -without fighting. Now I, Elez Jusuf, chief of the Dibra, say this: The -Serbs hold our city of Dibra. The Serbs are on the lands of my people. -Twice in this year the Serbs have come<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</span> to kill our men and burn our -villages. Only our rifles stand between us and the Serbs. But you are -the chief of Albania and you are a wise chief. When you think it is -time to come to the Dibra to take away the rifles of the Dibra, I will -give you every rifle. There will be no trouble. I say this, on the -honor of Dibra.”</p> - -<p>Even this, to <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Eyres’s deeper astonishment, did not cause Ahmet -to turn that hair. He said merely, “That is well.” The interview was -ended. On the way back to his men, Elez suggested to <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Eyres that -he leave his son as hostage to insure that he had spoken the truth. -If he broke the <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">besa</i>, he said, in a matter-of-fact manner, <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> -Eyres might kill his son. Misunderstanding <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Eyres’s reaction to this -offer, he added that his son would be glad to make his life a forfeit -for the honor of Dibra. “But what on earth would I do with the chap?” -said <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Eyres to us. “Bless my soul, I know old Elez will keep his -word! Well, rather! I told the old man to jolly well take his son along -with him. By the way, the young Elez has two lads of his own here in -this school. Asked me to give them greeting from him, said he was sorry -he couldn’t stop to see them. Elez’s riding out on the Dibra trail by -this time, I expect.”</p> - -<p>The young secretary of the absent Prime Minister came at that moment -to confirm this conjecture. The crisis was over. Albania, we said, was -saved once more. If the uprising had been—who could say?—an Italian -plot, Italy was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</span> checkmated again. There would be no new outbreak in -the Balkans this time, and that precarious balance in all European -politics, the Balkan equilibrium, was unchanged. We were saying this, -and I was thinking of the two Austrian engineers riding behind the -retreating Dibra men on their quest for electric lights for Tirana, -when the second blow fell upon us.</p> - -<p>The Red Cross mail car, gone that morning to meet the Italian steamer -at Durazzo, returned with the news that Hamid Bey Toptani, brother of -Essad Pasha, had taken Durazzo. He was an hour from Tirana, coming on -the Durazzo road, with at least six hundred armed men. How many more -were hidden in the hills when the automobile passed, no one could -guess. Under the American flag, the car had gone and come through the -lines, and no secret had been made of the fact that Tirana would be -attacked that night.</p> - -<p>There is a point at which human nerves cease to report emotion. For -three days and nights we had felt all that we are capable of feeling. -We heard this news blankly, understanding it, thinking about it, and -hardly caring. There was no resilience left in us with which to care. -It was like beginning again a story we had once read.</p> - -<p>“Where did Hamid Bey Toptani get his arms?” I asked. For the Toptani -family are not mountaineers, nor chiefs of mountaineers. The peasants -on the great estates of the plains do not carry rifles.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</span></p> - -<p>“There is an Italian gunboat in the harbor of Durazzo, and another at -San Giovanni,” said the American who had gone with the mail.</p> - -<p>“It does look like a well-organized plan,” we said. Scutari attacked, -Elbassan attacked, Durazzo taken, Tirana attacked from the west and -from the east. A plot, in which only one small thing had gone wrong. -Had old Elez Jusuf, tricked by his two friends into involving the -Dibra, come too early to Tirana? Had Mustapha Kruja and Zija Dibra -intended to bring the Dibra men from the east when Hamid Bey Toptani -came from the west? Was it because the plan miscarried that they had -urged Elez Jusuf to sit intrenched in Tirana, while they hoped that -Toptani would come in time to help them take Government House? Or had -the Dibra men come on time, and Toptani purposely delayed, to leave the -hard fighting in Tirana to the Dibra men?</p> - -<p>Futile questions, for we could not know the answers. And our thoughts -settled upon Ahmet, three days and nights without sleep or rest, the -one man who was the government, sitting alone in Government House with -the checkerboard of this situation before him. How well he had moved -the pieces! Bringing in the British minister, to give him time to bring -in his fighting men. Settled, in his mind, that to-day must remove Elez -Jusuf, though he burned half Tirana to do it. And sending out, ten -minutes behind Elez, those two engineers to plan electric lights<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</span> for -the capital! To plan electric lights for the city that—surely he knew -it—Hamid Bey Toptani would attack that night. Ahmet, the Hawk, chief -of the Mati, come from the court of Abdul Hamid when sixteen years old, -to fight the Serbs in the mountains. The chiefs of the Mati must lace -his opangi before every battle, because he did not know how to lace -opangi. But the chiefs of the Mati loved him.</p> - -<p>Two horses went cantering past the windows of the Red Cross dining -room, and because the clatter of horse’s hoofs is rare in Tirana they -must be bringing news. From the gateway of the courtyard we watched -them—a rider in the Mati costume, leading a lean, eager bay horse. -They went through the gate to Government House. In a moment they -reappeared, Ahmet Bey Mati riding the bay. He still wore the clothes -in which I had seen him; rumpled a little, they spoke of the sleepless -nights, and his face was white with fatigue. On his head an astrakan -fez; over his shoulder the strap that held a rifle; around his waist -the cartridge belt, and a belt holding silver-hilted revolver and -knives. A strange figure, in tailored business suit, riding the lean -bay through the streets of Tirana. Behind him, coming with the long -swinging walk of the mountaineers, perhaps sixty Mati men.</p> - -<p>“Long may you live, <i>zonya</i>!” said he, touching the astrakan fez -in salute.</p> - -<p>“Long may you live, Ahmet Mati!”</p> - -<p>They rode past the pictured mosque, down the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</span> street of little shops -and cafés, closed now, past the cemetery with its toppling turbaned -gravestones. At the barracks they stopped. For a moment Ahmet spoke -with the chiefs who gathered around his horse. Then he rode on, out on -the road to Durazzo, and behind him went his hundreds upon hundreds of -fighting men. It was the sunset hour; the mountains and the sky were -beautiful, and the little owl was beginning to call from the Cypress of -the Dead. The prayers of the <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">hodjis</i> rose to Allah from the tops -of the white minarets.</p> - -<p>The moon was late that night, and mountains and plains were covered -with darkness when the rifles began to crackle on the hills. Little -flames of rifle fire ran along the tops of the hills like flickering -lightning. It was as though the hills were crackling with electricity.</p> - -<p>We stood in the courtyard of our house, watching them. Government House -was dark; the engine was no longer running. The little owl called from -the Cypress of the Dead. Sied Bey came through the gate and said to us -in French that he feared there would be trouble again in Tirana that -night; might the women and children of his family stay in the Red Cross -house? There was his old mother, who was ill; his sister, and many -children of his brothers and his cousins, little children. They had -come in that day from his estate, where the fighting was. Did we think -the Red Cross would give them shelter till morning, under the American -flag?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</span></p> - -<p>They came behind him, through the darkness, and we said we would -take them to the Vocational School. Sied Bey could not leave his -post at Government House. There were the two veiled women, and nine -women servants carrying rolls of bedding, and so many little girls in -voluminous trousers, with chains of gold coins on foreheads and necks, -and so many very small boys in Turkish trousers and Scanderbeg jackets, -that we never counted them. We got them all into the Red Cross dining -room, where there was space for them to sleep on the floor, and we -offered them cigarettes and coffee. Within the dining room the sound of -the rifle fire was no louder than the soft crackling of burning wood.</p> - -<p>The older woman, worn and wrinkled and pale with illness, sat on the -cushions arranged for her by a servant, accepted the cigarette which -another servant had put in a long jeweled holder, and smoked silently. -But the younger one, throwing back her veil with a violent movement, -startled us by the revelation of a strong, beautiful face and eyes -full of anger. She spurned the cushions, she walked up and down like a -furious animal in a cage.</p> - -<p>“Pardon me,” she said, suddenly, in perfect English. “Forgive me. -You are good to shelter my mother. But I—but I am not made to stay -here, to stay here in a house, when there is fighting. Do you hear the -rifles?” She struck her clenched hand against the edge of the table, -and blood came on the knuckles. She walked up and down.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</span></p> - -<p>“Do you think I cannot fight?” she said. “Ask my brother. Ask the -Serbs if I can fight. There is not a man in Albania who knows a rifle -better than I. They did not keep me in a house when the Serbs came! I -was out on the hills with the men when the Serbs came. And now—now -when traitors, when men who sell their honor for money, are murdering -Albania, I must sit in a house! I must sit on a cushion!” She stamped -on the cushion. “I, who have killed nineteen Serbs with these hands! -I must stay with my mother, because she is ill. Let Sied stay with my -mother. I have a rifle; I want to fight! Do you hear the rifles?”</p> - -<p>We were appalled. We were speechless before that infuriated woman who -had killed nineteen Serbs with her hands. We went away, leaving her -walking up and down, while her mother silently smoked and the children -watched from their heaps of rugs.</p> - -<p>In the street by the gate of Government House Sied Bey was watching the -sky to the northwest. Five red flares were there now, and the rifle -fire was running like flickering lightning over the western hills.</p> - -<p>“It is too bad my sister is not there,” he said. He was proud of her. -“My sister was a lion when the Serbs came in. There is no man better -than my sister in a battle.”</p> - -<p>He had not taken his gaze from the red flares. “Five villages,” he said -as though to himself. “This morning I was <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">seigneur</i> of those -five<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</span> villages, and to-night they are burning. <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Eh bien</i>,” he -said. “They were rebels, then, my peasants. They were sheltering Hamid -Bey. Their villages must be burned.”</p> - -<p>The rifle fire went away over the hills. It wrote on the darkness as it -went that Hamid Bey Toptani was retreating. Then the moon rose over the -eastern mountains, and Tirana was white in the moonlight, and there was -no sound except the flowing of water in the gutters and the calling of -the little owl in the cypress.</p> - -<p>In the morning, all Tirana gathered silently about the strangest sight -ever known in that youngest city of Albania, which remembers only -three hundred years. Workmen were in the cemeteries. Groups of ragged -workmen walked upon the graves, loading the turbaned gravestones on -wheelbarrows, wheeling them away and dumping them beside the Durazzo -road. There were wooden plows, drawn by oxen, going over the Mohammedan -graves, plowing down the weeds. Ahmet Bey had given orders, before he -left Tirana, that all the old sacred cemeteries be made into public -parks. The sensation was profound. All day long a mass of fezzes -surrounded each cemetery. Their wearers said nothing, said not one -word; they stood and watched, silently. The workmen worked silently. -The only sound was the grating of levers on tombstones, the crunching -sound of the plow on the graves.</p> - -<p>There was no news from Durazzo.</p> - -<p>In the afternoon, another surprise for the citizens<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</span> of Tirana. Three -hundred men were working on the Durazzo road. They began where the -road turns, beyond the barracks. With plows they went up and down the -road, many times. Ahmet had said that the road must be plowed deeply. -Ahmet had said that the road must be made slightly rounded, broad, with -ditches on either side. Men were digging the ditches. And two by two, -along the road, men were sitting facing each other, a hard rock between -their knees and hammers in their hands. Rhythmically striking, they -were breaking into little fragments the old turbaned gravestones from -the cemeteries. Heaps of the broken rock grew around them. Farther down -the Durazzo road more rocks were being piled ready for them to break. -Donkeys were carrying these rocks from the river bed east of Tirana.</p> - -<p>At sunset Tirana went out to walk, and there was that sight. No longer -a road to walk upon, but havoc of plowed ground and broken stones. -Ahmet Bey Mati had said that there must be a stone road from Tirana to -Durazzo, forty miles. The road was following him on the way he had gone -to fight Hamid Bey Toptani. There was still no news from that fight.</p> - -<p>The people said, “Ahmet Bey Mati,” in a strange tone. Partly amazed, -partly awed, partly colorless shock. They said, “Ahmet Bey Mati,” but -the placards that men were tacking to the Cypress of the Dead were -signed simply, Ahmet Zogu. He no longer called himself a bey;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</span> he no -longer used even the Turkish title given his family when Scanderbeg -was dead and the family became Mohammedan, the title which changed the -old name, Zogu, to Zogolli. The placards said that Tirana was under -military law; all shops and cafés would be closed, and no one walk on -the streets, after nine o’clock. Signed, Ahmet Zogu.</p> - -<p>At nine o’clock not a light showed on the streets and no footsteps were -heard on the cobbles. Ahmet Bey Mati had become an awful invisible -figure, a sort of limitless and incomprehensible power, in the darkness -over Tirana. There was still no news from Durazzo.</p> - -<p>Next morning the telegraph wire from Durazzo began again to click the -instrument in the room above the post office. Orders were coming from -Ahmet Bey Mati. Among them, orders that we should have guides, horses, -and interpreters for our trip to the mountains; a message to us that -the chiefs of Mati and Merdite, and the prefect of Scutari, had been -advised of our coming and would give us all facilities. On the wire the -operators talked, and travel was again open on the Durazzo road. News -poured upon us.</p> - -<p>Hamid Bey’s forces had been routed and scattered; Hamid Bey’s family -had escaped on an Italian gunboat; Hamid Bey had been pursued, turned -back on the very shore where a boat waited for him, was being hunted -northward through the mountains. Three men had been hanged at Shijak, -and the <i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">han</i> there, which had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</span> been Hamid Bey’s headquarters, -was burned. Durazzo had made no resistance to Ahmet. Ahmet had fined -Durazzo five thousand napoleons—twenty thousand dollars—to punish it -for not resisting Hamid Bey. Tirana was fined five thousand napoleons -for not helping the government when the Dibra men came in. Ahmet -Bey had arrested twenty-nine men, who would be tried in court for -treason. Five villages on Sied Bey’s estate were ashes, the families -homeless. Hamid Bey’s property was confiscated; his country house would -be burned. Byram Gjuri had fled to Belgrade. Scutari had not been -attacked. Zija Dibra would be taken to-morrow to Durazzo, to be put on -a steamer for Constantinople. All Albania was quiet.</p> - -<p>That day I met on the street His Excellency Spiro Koleka, Minister of -Public Works, who had called upon us in the night when the government -was fleeing from Tirana. “<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Vous voyez, madame</i>,” said he, -triumphantly, “<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">Je vous ai dit la vérité. Tout est tranquil.</i>”</p> - -<p>There is no more to this tale. This was the end of the March rebellion -of 1922, which for a week was one of the lighted fuses to the powder -magazine of Europe. It was lighted—I can only guess by whom—and was -stamped out by a chief of the Mati mountaineers, in Albania. A little -country, which no one knows. Albania—somewhere in the Balkans, isn’t -it? Or is it in the Caucasus? One of those places that are always -having revolutions, people fighting among themselves.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</span> Ought to have -sense enough to settle down and go to work.</p> - -<p>There is no more to this tale. Our trip to the mountains is not part of -it. Only a few more pictures come into my mind, when I remember those -days in Tirana.</p> - -<p>Picture of Ahmet Zogu, riding back from Durazzo. Riding the tired bay -horse, at the head of his Mati men. Riding through a silent crowd -which silently parted to let him pass. Rifle and revolver, knives and -cartridge belt, gone. The gray business suit cleaned and pressed. A -white face, and darkness under the eyes, and eyes that see straight to -the end of things. Soft tramping of feet in rawhide opangi behind him, -and the Mati men in dingy black-braided trousers and colored sashes and -Scanderbeg jackets, rifles all-angled above their kerchiefed heads, -pouring down the narrow street. Then lumbering behind them, dust filmed -and mud splashed, the empty automobile of the Albanian government, -gone forty miles to Durazzo to fetch Ahmet and come back empty because -he would ride at the head of his men. It goes last through the gates -of Government House, and the crowd can gaze only at the gate and its -solitary guard.</p> - -<p>Picture of Ahmet in his house. He sits in a gilded Louis Seize chair, -under a painted Turkish ceiling. Half a hundred rifles, museum pieces -he has chosen from the long mule trains of rifles brought down to -Tirana as the mountain tribes are disarmed, are stacked behind his -chair. A<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</span> box telephone on the wall, an English grammar on the table, -a Mati man lying on the threshold of the door. Ahmet saying: “Albania -needs men, needs trained men. What am I, with power in my hands that I -cannot use because I am ignorant? I do not know Europe, America. Tirana -needs factories, Albania needs industries. The people are starving -and ragged; they walk with bare feet over the earth that covers their -fortunes. We need capitalistic development, not a hundred years from -now, but to-day. I am no good for that. How can we handle this? You -are from America. Can you tell us? Oil, mines, forests, water power, -land—what can Albania do with them, without trained men?”</p> - -<p>Another picture, a little one. Ahmet smiling. “Ah, but you wouldn’t -have been surprised if you had known, as I did, the men who were the -rebels. They were rich men. I thought, ‘Not all will be killed in the -fighting; we will capture some, arrest others. Why try them and hang -them? Their money will be more useful than their bodies. We will try -them and fine them.’ I thought how much money they had, and decided -there was enough money there to pay for electric lights for Tirana, so -naturally I sent for engineers to go out as soon as the Dibra trail was -clear.”</p> - -<p>“You had no doubt that you’d clear the trail?”</p> - -<p>“I had no time to doubt. I was busy clearing it.”</p> - -<p>And a last picture, always to be remembered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</span> by those who know Tirana. -It is the sunset hour, and all Tirana goes walking in the colored -evening air. Tirana goes walking down the smooth Durazzo road, the -road that is white and firm beneath the feet, from the turn beyond -the barracks all the way to the sea. The Cabinet Ministers of Albania -go walking in a row, sedately, their hands behind their backs, and in -the middle walks Ahmet Zogu, elected by Parliament Prime Minister of -Albania. Six even paces behind them marches their escort, a single row -of soldiers.</p> - -<p>The eastern mountains are catching the last light of the sun and making -magic with it. Plum purple, orange gold, mauve and violet and blue, the -colors shift and change, and the air is faintly golden over the green -plains where the mountain men are gathering as they used to gather in -the evenings long before Athens was built. Holding hands in long lines, -moving in a stamping circle, they are singing songs improvised by their -leader, who, with a handkerchief in his hand, acts in pantomime the -verses he creates. The strange, wild song in which they have clothed -and preserved the tales of all their heroes of two thousand years is -heard far over the green plains, where flocks of sheep are coming home -with little tinkling of bells.</p> - -<p class="poetry p0"> -“Ahmet Bey, the Beautiful! O! O! Ahmet Bey! [they sing].<br /> -Ahmet, the Son of the Mountain Eagle!<br /> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</span>His wings spread out and cover us,<br /> -The shadow of his wings is over us,<br /> -His claws are terrible to our foes.<br /> -Ahmet Bey, the Beautiful! O! O! Ahmet Bey!<br /> -The men of Dibra came with their rifles,<br /> -Elez Jusuf, the chief of the Dibra,<br /> -Mustapha Kruja and Zija Dibra,<br /> -The Toptani family, curse of Albania,<br /> -Hamid Toptani, with nine hundred soldiers,<br /> -Nine hundred soldiers armed by Italians,<br /> -Came from Durazzo to murder Albania.<br /> -Ahmet Bey, the Beautiful! O! O! Ahmet Bey!<br /> -<br /> -“Elez Jusuf goes back to the Dibra,<br /> -<i xml:lang="sq" lang="sq">Besa</i> of peace he has given to Ahmet.<br /> -Hamid Toptani flees through the mountains,<br /> -Cursed be the trees that give him hiding.<br /> -Zija Dibra is sent to Stamboul,<br /> -Zija Dibra, exiled from Dibra.<br /> -Five thousand napoleons, fine of Durazzo,<br /> -Five thousand napoleons, fine of Tirana.<br /> -Five villages burned. Let the market place tell<br /> -Names of the men who were hanged there at dawn.<br /> -<br /> -“Ahmet Bey, the Beautiful! O! O! Ahmet Bey!<br /> -He set three hundred men to work on the roads,<br /> -He built a good road from Tirana to Durazzo,<br /> -He makes electric lights in the capital of Albania.<br /> -O! O! Ahmet Bey, the Beautiful! O! Ahmet Bey!” -</p> - - -<p class="center p0 p4 big">THE END</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" /> - -<div class="chapter transnote"> -<h2>Transcriber’s Notes</h2> - -<p>The cover has been modified slightly and is placed in the public domain.</p> - -<p>In a few cases, obvious errors or omissions in punctuation have been -corrected.</p> - -<p><a href="#Page_43">Page 43</a>: “kept out bodies warm” changed to “kept our bodies warm”</p> - -<p><a href="#Page_119">Page 119</a>: “a freize of living bodies” changed to “a frieze of living -bodies”</p> - -<p><a href="#Page_340">Page 340</a>: “blood ame on the knuckles” changed to “blood came on the -knuckles”</p> - -<p>The spelling of Spiro Koleka’s last name has been corrected.</p> - -</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEAKS OF SHALA ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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