An Observer in the Near East

As I strolled through the narrow lanes of the Christian quarter towards the Cathedral, and the gaily-dressed chattering women in groups hurried forward to get a place within, I was struck with their neat and clean appearance. Their finery was in no way dingy or dusty, and yet many of them had been a whole week on a journey through perhaps the roughest region in the whole East.

How different was the festà to that I had known in the Italian towns!

About the Cathedral there is nothing unusually attractive—a big bare edifice with high square campanile in modern Italian style. It stands in the centre of an open space, surrounded by great high, fortress-like walls, entered by a strong gate with huge iron bars—significant that one day ere long it will be held against the Turks. No Mohammedan ever passes those gates. Even the military patrol lounge outside, leaning on their rifles.

Within the enclosure I found a great crowd of peasant women; females of the town, veiled with gauze so fine that one could almost see their faces; Scutarine men in their best jackets and baggy trousers; and the swaggering, white-capped warriors from the mountains, men of the Miriditi,—so dreaded by the Turks that they are allowed to carry their rifles with them,—of the fierce Skreli, the Hoti, and the Kastrati.

The Skreli, with the Miriditi, are allowed to carry their rifles because the Turks hold them in fear. The authorities know full well that to arouse their ire would be to bring destruction upon the whole vilayet, for they hold the communications, and if the tribes revolted, as they no doubt would, then the army of the Sultan would have a very hard task to suppress the rebellion.

So while the Kastrati and the Hoti—also dwellers in the Mountains of the Accursed—the Klementi, the Shiala of the foot-hills, and the others are compelled to leave their rifles at the entrance to the town, the Skreli and the Miriditi stalk along in armed bands of twenty or thirty through the streets to the church, grinning defiance at the Turks, who are supposed by Europe to be their masters.

Under the trees around the Cathedral the wild, fierce men, who would hold the traveller to ransom or shoot him with less compunction than they would kill a shepherd-dog, were squatting in rings with their rifles before them, gossiping. Every man wore a belt full of cartridges and a bandolier across his shoulders—sometimes even two. War and religion are strangely mixed in Skodra.

Into the dimly-lit Cathedral I managed to squeeze, and there, kneeling on the stones and filling the whole place right out into the grass enclosure, were men of all grades, from the peaceful Scutarine merchant to the wild tribesman, and women with their faces uncovered bowed towards the brilliantly lit altar, where the thin-faced Italian priest mumbled the prayers.

The sight was strangely impressive; the silence unbroken save for the low voice of the priest and now and then the clank of arms.

For two days in the year, to celebrate the Christian festival, the brigand tribes from the mountains come down, notwithstanding that upon the heads of many of those sinister-looking men before me the Turks had long ago set a price. I stood gazing at that kneeling throng, to whom, though devout and humble in God’s house, murder was deemed no wrong.

The service ended, a great procession was formed, and headed by four fine stalwart men of the Skreli with loaded rifles, made a slow tour from the altar outside and round the enclosure, while an orchestra in a band-stand opposite played selections. The sight was curious—those armed men ready to protect their priests in case of sudden onslaught by the Turks.

During the whole morning I took many photographs, and in the afternoon, when I returned, I found the orchestra playing operatic music, which was being listened to by the tribesmen with marked attention. They are, I afterwards found, devoted to music. The programme ranged from selections from La Bohème and Carmen to the “Segovia” valse and our old melodious friend, “The Honeysuckle and the Bee.” The latter air quickly became popular among the tribesmen, who picked it up and began at once to whistle it.

Slowly fell the mystic twilight of the East. The glorious afterglow had deepened into grey, and night was creeping on quickly when fire balloons were sent up, and then gradually the whole Cathedral became outlined in fairy lamps against the steely sky, even to the utmost point of the high square tower. Men and women gazed upward, and crossed themselves.

Later, while walking back with Palok, we encountered a group of armed tribesmen talking excitedly, shaking their fists, and apparently quarrelling. Palok joined the crowd, and inquired what had happened. Then, turning to me, he said—

“Oh, it is nothing, signore. The town of Kroia has revolted. The Turks sent soldiers yesterday, but they were Albanians, and would not fire on the people. To-day some artillery arrived, and thirty people have been killed—mostly women. A man has just ridden in with the news. It is nothing. We are always fighting the Turks at Kroia. There will probably be a massacre to-night.” And he deftly rolled a cigarette as he spat in defiance of the hated Mussulman.

Later that night I was awakened from sleep by a shot below, and, taking my revolver, went to the window. The night was black, and I could discern nothing.

I heard men’s voices raised in the street below, and suddenly saw the red flash of firearms and heard a second report.

Then all was quiet, except receding footsteps.

The shots disturbed nobody, or if they did, nobody opened door or window. The town was asleep, and by the distant sound of a tom-tom I knew that the hour was half-past three; for the music was calling upon the Faithful to eat, preparatory to the day’s fast.

What had happened? All was silent, therefore I closed my window and slept again.

In the morning I was told that it was “nothing.” Two men of the Shiala had been found dead outside.

Was it the blood-feud? I asked.

Palok only raised his shoulders and exhibited his palms.

“It was nothing, signore—really nothing.”

Vatt Marashi, chief of the Skreli tribe, invites me to become his guest—Our start for the Accursed Mountains—Rok, our guide—Independence of the Skreli—Brigandage and the bessa—A night under a rock—My meeting with Vatt Marashi and his band—The Skreli welcome—How they treat the Turks—Vatt’s admissions—I become the guest of brigands—A chat in the moonlight.

While seated on the box in Salko’s dark little stall in the bazaar he introduced his friend Rok to me.

A middle-aged tribesman in the regulation costume of tight white woollen trousers heavily striped with black, black bolero with deep woollen fringe, and a felt skullcap, once white, but now not overclean, he squatted opposite me and touched chin and brow in salute. His loaded rifle lay before him on the ground.

He eyed me critically up and down, my pigskin gaiters apparently receiving his admiration.

“Rok, here, is of the Skreli, a fearless fighter of the Turks and one of my best friends,” Salko went on to explain. “I have told him of your earnest desire to go and see our country; that you are neither Austrian nor Italian, but English and not a spy. Our friend is returning to-day, and has promised to speak to Vatt Marashi, our chief, on your behalf.”

“Tell the honourable Englishman that if he comes to us he must be prepared for a rough life. We live in the mountains,” Rok said through the interpreter, laughing pleasantly as he lit the cigarette he took from my case.

Coffee was brought, and we sealed our compact of friendliness.

If Vatt Marashi, the renowned chieftain who so often held travellers to ransom, and whose influence was so dreaded by the Turks, consented to allow me to visit him, then Rok would return, he promised, and be my guide.

For half an hour we chatted and smoked. Then the burly mountaineer rose, slung his rifle over his shoulder, touched chin and brow again, grasped my hand warmly, and stalked out on his three days’ tramp to the wild region in the mountain mists that was his home.

I waited on in Skodra, and, to my great delight, he one morning reappeared with a message from his chief that, providing I took only Palok, and had no escort, he would be pleased to welcome me and show me all the hospitality in his power. I need fear nothing, it was added. I was to be guest of Vatt Marashi, chief of the Skreli. He had issued the order to the tribe. Any who dared to insult or injure me should pay for it with their life. Therefore I should be given safe-conduct, and need not have a moment’s anxiety.

By this, Palok, who had been entirely opposed to the attempt, became reassured, and soon after noon, with a mule packed with my lightest baggage, we set our faces out across the great rolling plain that lies between the town and the high wall of blue distant mountains—the wildest corner of all Europe. They are a series of fastnesses, in which any small army would at once be massacred and where a large one would starve.

We were a merry trio as we marched forward in the bright autumn sunlight, but about a kilometre beyond the town the road ended in a ford, where we crossed a wide shallow river, and then straight across the plain and past several tumuli to where a defile showed in the mountains. The ancient Bridge of Messi, built under the Venetian dominion, was crossed, and then we had our first experience of the road in Albania—a rough, narrow way gradually ascending, almost too bad even for mules.

Nobody who has not visited Northern Albania can have any idea of the wildness of those bare grey rocks, of the roughness of the tracks, or the savagery of life there. Northern Albania is to-day just as it was under the Roman Empire. The might of Rome has waned, the Servian has come and gone, the Venetian has been swept away, and the Turk is now nominally master. But the country has never, through all the centuries, been annexed, and those wild tribes, descendants of the savage people who inhabited those fastnesses before the days of Greek dominion, have never been tamed. The Northern Albanian is the last survivor of mediæval days. He has no written language—indeed, his alphabet, with its many soft and hard “ssh” sounds, has never yet been determined—therefore he has no literature and no newspaper. Thin, wiry, and muscular, he wears raw-hide slippers, in which he moves with cat-like, stealthy tread—a habit survived from prehistoric days—while his very dress is protective, rendering him at a short distance difficult to discern, so like is he in colour to the rocky background. He looks as though he had just stepped down from a mediæval Florentine fresco, with his head half-shaven, hair long at the back and cut square across the shoulders.

He is entirely unchanged ever since the Turk found him, except that of late he has adopted the breech-loading rifle and a particularly heavy pattern of revolver. The black furry bolero which he wears, without exception, is the sign of mourning for his great prince, Skender Beg, who died in 1467, after being at war with the Turks for over twenty years; therefore with him fashions do not easily change, and “latest novelties” in dress are unknown. Great are the changes that have come over the world during the past thousand years or so, but Northern Albania has remained unaffected by them, and is still in a measure in the lowest depths of barbarism. The Turk does not rule. The wild, inaccessible country is under the various independent tribes, ruled by a chieftain according to unwritten laws which have been handed down orally from remote ages, and one of the fiercest and most independent of these chiefs was Vatt Marashi, the man whose guest I now was to be.

Compared with the tribesmen, the Albanian Christian of Skodra is a puny person. The mountaineers are a barbaric, lawless people, without any education save the schools established by Italian and Austrian monks as part of the political propaganda; for, truth to tell, both countries have recently conceived the idea of turning Northern Albania to account for their own purposes on the day of the downfall of the Turk. Therefore both Powers are frantically exerting every effort to curry favour with the people, a fact which is glaringly apparent even to the rough, uneducated tribesmen themselves.

The Northern Albanian may be entirely uneducated and a barbarian, but he is at heart a brigand, and is certainly no fool.

My friend Rok was particularly intelligent, and as we toiled along over those rough, rock-strewn paths he gave me much information about his country, and declared that both Austria and Italy were equally their enemy.

After sundown we rested at a point high up above a dark gloomy defile, where a stream wound away towards the plain, and there ate some slices of cold mutton and black bread with a glass of rakhi, our three rifles lying at hand in case of sudden emergency.

I had noticed the queer, sinuous, almost uncanny way in which Rok walked. His movements, at even pace whatever might be the state of the path, were stealthy. Indeed, he almost crept along, for his feet fell in silence, and with his rifle ever ready, his keen black eyes were searching on every side for the enemy which he appeared to expect to meet at every turn.

Sometimes as he walked in front he would halt, and closely scan a mass of tumbled rocks, as though he had suspicion of a lurking enemy, then thoroughly satisfying himself, he would go forward again without glancing back. He was certain that no enemy was in his rear.

From his movements and natural caution I could plainly see that we were traversing a country not altogether friendly, and when, as we sat over our evening meal, I asked Palok, his reply was—

“The Shiala are not on very friendly terms with the Skreli just now. But it is nothing, signore—nothing.”

We went forward until darkness closed in, and then lay down to sleep under an overhanging rock almost on the face of a sheer precipice, a place in which Rok told us he often stayed on his way down to Skodra. He humorously called it his han, or hotel.

To light a fire would be to attract hostile attention, and the cold up there was intense. I tried to sleep, but was unable, therefore I rose and sat outside in the bright, glorious moonlight and kept watch, while Rok curled himself up like a dog and snored soundly in chorus with Palok.

There, in the East, the full moon seems to shine with greater brilliance than in Europe, and beneath its white rays those bare, rugged mountains looked like a veritable fairyland. Only the cry of a night-bird and the low music of the stream far below broke the stillness of the Oriental night, and as I sat there I reflected that I was the first Englishman who had ever been the guest of the redoubtable chieftain, Vatt Marashi, the man whom the Turks so hate—the man of whom blood-curdling tales had been told me both in Montenegro and in Skodra, and whose fame as a leader of a wild band had not long before been proclaimed by the London newspapers.

For hours I sat thinking, sometimes of my good fortune, at others of my perilous position alone in the hands of such a people. But I had heard that, notwithstanding their barbaric customs, an Albanian’s word was his bond. Therefore I reassured myself that I should not be the victim of treachery, and reported to Constantinople as “missing.”

Slowly at last the moon paled, and I grew sleepy. That terrible road had worn me out. Therefore I woke Palok to mount guard, and flung myself down in his place and slept till the sun, shining in my face, awakened me.

Through the whole day we went forward again, over a path so bad that I often had to scramble with difficulty. I tried to ride the mule, but it was out of the question, so I walked and stumbled and was helped over the rough boulders by my companions. The Skreli country was surely an unapproachable region.

That night we slept again in the open, but in a spot less sheltered. Then forward again with the first grey of dawn until, just before noon, Rok halted in the narrow track which wound round the face of the bare grey mountain, and, drawing his revolver, fired three times in the air.

The shots reverberated in a series of echoes. It was a signal, and almost ere they had died away came three answering shots from no great distance, and I was told that we were now in the Skreli region, and there was nothing more to fear.

In Podgoritza, in Cettinje, in Skodra, and in Djakova I had heard terrible stories of this fighting race, and of Vatt’s fierce hatred of the Turks. Yet everyone had told me that, the chief having invited me, I need have not a moment’s apprehension of my personal safety.

So I went forward, reassured, to meet my host.

Half an hour later I came face to face with real brigands—brigands who looked like an illustration out of a boy’s story-book—the men who had so often held up travellers and compelled the Turkish Government to pay heavy ransoms.

They were about twenty, certainly the fiercest and most bloodthirsty gang I have ever set my eyes upon. Dressed in the usual skin-tight white woollen trousers with broad black bands running down the legs, a short white jacket, also black-braided, the sleeveless woolly bolero of mourning, hide shoes with uppers consisting of a network of string, and small white skullcaps, each man carried in his belt a great silver-mounted pistol of antique type and a silver-sheathed curved knife, while around both shoulders were well-filled bandoliers, and in the hand of each a rifle. Like Rok, the heads of all were shaved, leaving a long tuft at the back in the mediæval Florentine style.

With one accord they all raised their rifles aloft and shouted me welcome, whereupon one man stepped forward—a big, muscular fellow with handsome face and proud gait—the great chief Vatt Marashi himself.

Attired very much as his followers, his dress was richer, the jacket being ornamented with gold braid. The silver hilt of his pistol was studded with coral and green stones, probably emeralds, but he carried no rifle. Jauntily, and laughing merrily, he approached me and bent until his forehead touched mine—the Skreli sign of welcome.

And all this in Europe in the twentieth century!

Was I dreaming? Was it real? I was the guest of actual brigands, those men about whom I had read in story-books ever since those long-ago days when the weekly Boys of England formed my chief literature.

Vatt Marashi, holding my hand the while, addressed me. What he said was interpreted into Italian by Palok as—

“You are welcome here to my country—very welcome. And you are an Englishman, and have travelled so far to see us! It is wonderful—wonderful! You live so far away—farther than Constantinople, they say. Well, I cannot give you much here or make you very comfortable—not so comfortable as you have been down in Skodra. But I will do my best. Come—let us eat.”

I returned his greeting, whereupon the whole crowd of us walked along to a spot where a cauldron was standing upon a wood fire, and out of it my host, myself, and Palok had pieces of boiled chicken and rice, which had specially been prepared for my coming.

The object of this meal, I afterwards learnt, was to cement our friendship. The Albanian code of honour is astounding, even to our Western ideas. A word once given by those savage tribes is never broken, and if the stranger eats the food of the Skreli, even though he may be an enemy, his person is sacred for twenty-four hours afterwards. While the food remains undigested he may not be injured or captured.

And so while I ate with this wild chieftain, his band squatted round, apparently discussing me.

It was probably the first time they had seen an Englishman, Palok explained, and they were at first inclined to regard me as a secret agent of the Government, until later that afternoon their chief assured them to the contrary.

Then that wild horde became, to a man, my devoted servants.

Vatt, the Baryaktar (from the Turkish bairakdar, or standard-bearer), unlike most Albanians, is fair-haired, above the average height, extremely muscular, with a constant smile of hearty good-fellowship. His eyes are fierce and barbaric; nevertheless he is pleasant of countenance, and I certainly found him, from first to last, a staunch and excellent friend.

Lord of those wild, rugged mountains, his word was obeyed with a precision that amazed me. A striking figure he presented as, with me, he marched at head of his bodyguard, his chest thrown out proudly, his head up, his keen eyes ever searching forward like every Albanian of the hills, one of the wildest rulers of wildest Europe.

On every side, as we went forward to the tiny cluster of little houses that formed the village where I was to be quartered, were bare grey limestone rocks without a single blade of grass, a desolate mountain region into which no foreigner had penetrated save when captured and held to ransom. Through centuries have that same tribe ruled that barren land, and no conqueror of Albania has ever succeeded in ousting them.

“You have, no doubt, heard down in Skodra terrible things about me,” he said, laughing, as, later on, we walked together. He had rolled me a cigarette and given it to me unstuck. “I expect you feared to come and see me—eh?”

I admitted that I had heard things of him not altogether satisfactory.

“Ah!” he laughed, “that is because the Turks do not like us. Whenever a Turkish soldier puts his foot a kilometre outside Skodra, we either take away his Mauser and send him back, or else—well, we shoot him first.”

“But they say that your men capture travellers.”

“And why not?” he asked. “We are Christians. Is it not permissible for us to do everything to annoy those devils of Turks? But,” he added, “if they say that I treat my prisoners badly, they lie. Why, they get plenty of food and are well treated. I give them some shooting if they like—and they generally enjoy themselves. But I know. I too have been told that the Turks say I once cut off a man’s ears. Bah! all Turks are liars.”

“Then it is only to annoy the Turks that your men commit acts of brigandage?”

“Of course. The ransom is useful to us, I admit, but we live by our flocks, and our wants are few. We are not like the people down in Skodra. We are better, I hope.”

“And do you always watch the roads on the other side of the mountains yonder?”

“Always. Our men are there now, all along the route between Ipek and Prisrend. Who knows who may not pass along—a rich Pasha perhaps.” And his face relaxed into a humorous smile at thought of such a prize.

And then I marched along, my rifle over my shoulder—a brigand for the nonce like my host.

Surely it was one of the quaintest experiences of a varied and adventurous life.

The tiny house in which I was given quarters had an earthen floor and consisted of two rooms, the ceilings and walls of which were blackened by the smoke of years. The owner was an old man with his wife and daughter, the latter being a pretty young woman of about nineteen, dressed in the gorgeous gala costume with golden sequins, the same that I had seen down at Skodra during the festà. She had on her best in my honour, I suppose, and her husband, a good-looking young fellow five years her senior, seemed justly proud of her. His name was Lûk. I named him Lucky, but he did not appreciate the wit. He was, I found, one of the chief’s bodyguard who had come to greet me at the confines of the Skreli territory, and proved a most sociable fellow, ever ready to render me a service.

“These good people will look after you and make you as comfortable as they can,” my host said, when he had introduced me to them. “I have to go along the ravine, but will return in time to eat with you this evening. You like good cigarettes? I will send you some.” And he shook my hands, and turning, went out, stalking again at the head of his ferocious-looking band.

The bedroom, occupied in common by the family, was given over to me. My bed on the floor was a big sack filled with dried maize-leaves. It was not inviting, but Palok, having examined it critically, declared it to be “cosi cosi,” and having slept out a couple of nights, I was compelled to accept his verdict.

The girl in the sequins boiled us coffee over the fire, and with her father and husband I sat outside the house in the golden sunset, smoking and chatting. Both were full of curiosity. England was to them a mere legendary land, and they had never heard of London. When I mentioned it they declared that it could not possibly be so large as Skodra.

I told them of Cettinje and other towns in Montenegro I had visited, but they held all Montenegro in contempt, for were they not always raiding over the frontier? Lûk declared that he had walked in Podgoritza openly, and in the marketplace shot a man with whom he was in gyak, or blood-feud.

“I walked out again, and no one dared to stop me,” he added, with pride. “It would have been worse for them if they had.”

“But the Montenegrins are no cowards,” I ventured to remark.

“Certainly not. They are very brave, but they dare not follow us here. They always get lost in the mountains, and once they lose their way they lose their lives,” he added, with a grin. “Our men killed four over yonder mountain a few days ago.”

“The blood-feud?”

“Of course. It arose out of that.”

From the half-dozen other poor mountain homes came forth men, women, and children, who grouped around us, watching in curiosity. According to Palok, rumour had at first gone round that I was a prisoner, therefore they had refrained from coming forth to see me. Now, however, they knew the truth, they welcomed me as their guest.

Just before it grew dark the Baryaktar returned, followed by the bodyguard, without whom he never seemed to move. They did his bidding, executed his orders, and were ever at his beck and call—the picked men of the tribe.

While Vatt squatted on the floor I sat upon my suit-case, and together we ate a kind of mutton stew, rather rich, but not unpalatable. There was an absence of table cutlery, therefore we ate with the aid of our pocket-knives and fingers. Now and then the old woman would pick a tit-bit out of the pot and hand it to me with her fingers. I was compelled to accept the well-meant hospitality, even though her hands were not particularly clean.

The hot dish was tasty, but I could not manage the sour black bread, for it was mouldy, and gritty into the bargain.

It was a weird picture, the interior of that lowly hut, lit by the dim oil lamp of almost the same type as used by the early Greeks. The uncertain firelight glinted upon the gold of the dresses of the chieftain and of Lûk’s pretty wife, and threw, now and then, into relief those strangely unfamiliar faces, the barbarians of an age bygone and forgotten. The very language they were speaking was, as an unwritten one, utterly incomprehensible and unintelligible to any but the born Albanian.

I rubbed my eyes—on account of the smoke—wondering if it were really only a very few weeks ago that I had driven a motor from London down to Windsor, that I had seen The Catch of the Season, and trod the red carpet of the Savoy afterwards.

And to-night I was actually having supper with real live brigands of the mountains!

Lûk produced a bottle of rakhi, and Vatt Marashi lifted his tin mug to me. I took a little of the potent spirit in the bottom of my own drinking-cup, and tossed it off. It was not half as bad as I expected.

Then the chief took me outside the house, and in the clear moonlight we sat down with Palok upon a big rock to chat.

He rolled me a cigarette of most excellent Turkish tobacco—of his own growing, he told me—lit one himself, and we sipped the coffee brought to us by Lûk’s wife.

The scene spread before us was superb—a magnificent panorama of mountains, some tipped with snow, white and brilliant under the moonbeams. Below us, the valley was a great chasm of unfathomable blackness.

With my strange host I chatted upon many subjects, and found him far more intelligent than I had believed. Keen-witted, quick of perception, just in his judgment, and yet filled with an intense hatred of both Turk and Montenegrin alike, he explained to me many things of great interest.

He told me of the glorious traditions of his sturdy race and of the prince of the Skender Beg family, who, they hoped, would one day come back to rule them.

“We, the chieftains, hold authority from him,” he declared. “Oh yes, he will come some day. Of that we are quite certain.”

“Englishmen have never dared to come here, have they?” I asked, with some curiosity.

“Only once—a year or two ago. I discovered three of your compatriots poking about in the rocks and chipping little pieces off. I had them captured, and brought to me. At first I thought I would hold them to ransom and make the Turks pay. But they were evidently poor fellows, for their clothes were worn almost to rags, and they had very little money. So I gave them their money back and sent them with an escort down to the plain, forbidding them to enter our country again. I wonder why they came, and why they were chipping the rocks?”

I told him that they were evidently mining prospectors; that Englishmen travelled all over the world to discover minerals; and that a mine in his country would be a source of great wealth. But my explanation did not appeal to him. He could not see why they were chipping off those pieces of rock. It was not flint, otherwise they might have wanted them for gun-locks. No, the trio were distinctly suspicious characters, and he was glad that he had expelled them.

“Have you ever held Englishmen to ransom?” I inquired.

“One. Five years ago. He came here shooting—after bears, I think. He was evidently a great gentleman, for his guns were beautiful. The Turks paid promptly.”

“Because he was an Englishman—eh?”

“Most probably,” he laughed. “Are they afraid of you English as they are afraid of us?”

And soon afterwards he bade me good-night, and left me to throw myself down upon my mattress of leaves and listen to the snoring of Palok and the assembled family in the adjoining room.

I had thought Skodra barbaric, but here I was in an utterly unknown corner of the earth, in an absolutely savage land—a land that knows no law and acknowledges no master; a land that is the same to-day as it was in the days of Diocletian and of Constantine the Great—Albania the Unchanging.

The Skreli a lawless tribe—No man’s life safe unless the chief gives his word—Vatt prophesies a rising against the Turks—Our walks and talks—Our meeting with our neighbours the Kastrati, and with Dêd Presci their chief—A woman who avenged her husband’s death—The significant story of Kol—Manners and customs of the wild tribes—Farewell to my good friend Dêd—An incident a fortnight later.

The bright sunny days I remained with the Skreli were full of interest.

On every hand, from Vatt himself down to the humblest of his tribe, I received only the greatest kindness and hospitality. If I went out in Vatt’s absence, a dozen armed banditti followed me, mounting guard over me; for, as they told me, one never knew what little “accident” might happen. With the tribes of the Shiala and the Pulati they were not just then on particularly friendly terms, and there had been a series of sharp encounters a week ago. Having given their word to be responsible for my safety, it behoved them to take precautions.

I walked with Vatt Marashi every day, making long excursions through the mountains by the secret paths known only to the tribe.

Would I care for some sport? If I cared to come next year and bring a friend, or even two, he would let me shoot. My friends would always be welcome, and I could assure them of their safety. There was plenty of game, and lots of bears, lynx, and wolves. I should tell my friends in England, and come back for a month or two. I promised that I would, for in our walks I saw quantities of game. My friend shot several eagles, but I was not successful in bagging one.

As he was stalking at my side one afternoon, his argus eyes everywhere and a cigarette in his mouth, I returned to the subject of the Turks and their “occupation” of Albania.

“Bah!” he exclaimed, with a sneering curl of the lip. “They dare not come here. We, with the Kastrati, the Hoti, the Klementi, the Pulati, and the Shiala, are masters here. We have held the land always, and shall hold it still. We acknowledge no law except our own, and pay no taxes to anybody. The Turks, when they conquered Northern Albania, thought they could crush us. They tried to, but soon discovered their mistake. So ever since that they have left us severely alone, and retired into Skodra. They know full well that when we unite with our brothers, the Miriditi, in the south, then Skodra will be at our mercy.”

“And if the Sultan sends his soldiers here?”

“Well, and what then?” he asked, with a flash in his eyes. “Do you think we fear them? Many of them are Albanians, and would not fight us. Again, you have experienced the road here. What would an army do here? We should pick them off as fast as they came up. There are forty thousand of us Skreli alone, remember, without all the other tribes. If a Turkish army came in here, depend upon it, it would never get out again.”

“And is there likely to be a rising against the Turks?” I inquired, much interested.

“Why, of course. The revolt will come one day ere long—when we are ready. We can, however, afford to wait at present. Turkey will soon have her hands full with Bulgaria and Macedonia, and then—well, we shall help Bulgaria, and in a week there won’t be a Turk in Skodra.”

“You mean there will be a massacre?”

For answer he shrugged his shoulders.

“And after the revolution?”

“After we have driven out the Turk we hope to obtain our independence under either France or some other far-off country—England, for instance. Austria and Italy are, through their priests, conducting a strenuous propaganda all through Northern Albania—so strenuous as to be ridiculous. They foolishly think that we are like children, and that we do not discern their ulterior motives. Oh, it is very amusing, I can tell you! We accept their schools and their money, and put our fingers in our cheeks, for we don’t intend to have anything to do with either Power when the rising comes. We will help Servia or Bulgaria, or even Montenegro, to drive the Turk from Albania, but we will not lift a finger for either Italy or Austria. The secret agents of both Powers are always endeavouring to penetrate here among us and carry on their propaganda. But we do not want them, and will not have them. More than one has of late—disappeared.”

“Shot?”

He smiled in the affirmative.

“It is true,” he said, “that we kill—and kill often—for the vendetta—for espionage—and in the frontier disputes with Montenegro. Alas! we have here but little of the bessa (truce). But you must remember we are not like you English. The people have no government, except myself. I make the law, and they obey. We are Christians. We believe in God and in the Virgin, and soon we will drive the Mohammedan fanatics from our land.”

He spoke with an air of conviction, and, judging from my observations while I was guest of his tribe, I believe that when war between Turkey and Bulgaria comes—as it must come one day before long—these wild people will sweep down upon the Turks and play frightful havoc with them.

Skodra is often alarmed, and the people retire into their houses and bar their doors because the tribes are believed to be coming. One day they will come, and when they do those open drains in the streets will run with blood. The sign of the cross upon the Christian houses is in preparation for the day of vengeance.

My walks with Vatt Marashi, though often very fatiguing, were full of interest. He was never tired of making inquiries regarding England and England’s power. Did the Sultan recognise England as an independent state, and did we send an Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, like Austria and Germany? He knew that England once had a Vice-Consul in Skodra—but he committed suicide, it was said, poor fellow.

Nothing very extraordinary, I remarked inwardly. Doomed to live in such an out-of-the-world place as Skodra would be sufficient to drive any European to take his life. Of brigandage, Vatt Marashi told me that they held up but few travellers nowadays, and only, indeed, when there was necessity. Yet a year or two ago they held the worst reputation of any of the tribes.

One day while we were climbing the rocks—for Vatt and his bodyguard thought that they might get a shot at a bear—there was a sudden alarm. The hawk’s eyes of my companions espied strangers, and a sudden halt was called. In a moment we were all under cover of the rocks. Every man unslung his rifle, and Vatt himself, with knit brows, drew his big pistol with silver butt, while I crouched behind a rock with my rifle ready, expecting something to happen.

Nothing, however, did happen, for a few moments later there were shouts from the opposite side of the defile, answered by my companions, who came forth and waved their rifles over their heads as sign of greeting.

Vatt, replacing his pistol in his belt, spoke in a loud, sharp voice, and received an answer. Those mountaineers can throw their voices long distances, and be heard distinctly, a fact I often noticed.

Then Palok told me that the strangers were of the neighbouring tribe, the Kastrati, and that their chief, Dêd Presci, had come to pay Vatt a visit.

For me this was fortunate, for it gave me an opportunity of meeting the other ruler of Northern Albania; for next to the Skreli the Kastrati are most powerful in the Accursed Mountains.

Half an hour later we met our visitors. Dressed very similarly to my companions, they wore white tassel-less fezes instead of the little white skullcap, and the black stripes down their trousers were somewhat different. The two chieftains touched foreheads, and I was afterwards introduced. Dêd Presci, a round-faced, pleasant man, rather stout and burly, his hair cut in mediæval style, gripped me warmly by the hand, saying—

“I heard that you were in Skodra during the festà. Some of my men told me there was an Englishman. But I never expected to meet you. Perhaps you are coming across to see me—eh? If so, you are quite welcome.”

“I may come next year to shoot, with a couple of English friends. May I visit you then?”

“Most certainly. You have only to warn me of your coming through one of our men down in Skodra, and I will give you safe escort,” was his reply. “If you are fond of sport, you will find plenty with us. Only bring a tent, and perhaps some provisions; for our food is not what you foreigners are used to.”

“Then I shall return one day before long,” I promised.

“Do. You need fear nothing, you know. We never betray a friend.”

“Or forgive an enemy,” added Vatt, laughing.

“Especially if he be a Turk,” I remarked; whereat both chiefs laughed in chorus.

That evening I ate with the pair in a small lonely house on the mountainside, and the moon had long risen before Palok and I returned to Lûk’s.

My photographic camera was, from the first, regarded with a good deal of suspicion, and it was with very great difficulty I persuaded anybody to have his picture taken. Many surreptitious snap-shots I took with a small “Brownie” camera, for unfortunately I had run out of films for my own larger Kodak. But I was able to secure some photographs, which now appear in this volume.

Early one morning, soon after sunrise, I was walking with Lûk and Palok when a young woman passed us.

“That is Mrika Kol Marashut,” Lûk remarked.

“And who is she?” I asked.

“Mrika—the woman who carried on the blood-feud,” was his answer. “Two years ago she was the most beautiful girl of our tribe, and had a dozen men ready to marry her. She married Lez, a smart young man from the Pulati side, and one of the Baryaktar’s bodyguard, like myself. A month after their marriage Lez was treacherously killed by his brother, who lived down by the White Drin, and was violently in love with her. When she received the news she became half demented by grief. But, by slow degrees, she formed her plans for the blood-feud, and having no male relatives, resolved to take it on herself. She therefore left us and was absent nearly a year, during which time she persistently followed her brother-in-law first to Ochrida, in Macedonia, then to Skopia, Prisrend, and many other places, always awaiting her opportunity to strike the blow. This came one afternoon when her husband’s assassin was walking in the main street in Skodra, and she took Lez’s pistol from her belt and blew his face away. It was valiant of a woman—was it not? But not only that,” he went on. “Having killed the murderer, she went straight to his parents’ house, three days’ journey, and shot them both dead. Since then she has been back with us, for poor Lez’s death has been avenged. I was sorry he died,” he added regretfully, “for he was one of my dearest friends.”

Murder is hardly a crime in Albania, for life is cheap—very cheap. An enemy or a stranger is shot like a dog, and left at the roadside.

Palok told me of an incident which truly illustrates the utter disregard the Albanian has for other people’s lives. He was once with a man of the Hoti—on the Montenegrin frontier—who had just obtained a new rifle, probably from a murdered Turkish soldier. While he was inspecting it a man passed close by, a stranger, whereupon the man with the new gun raised it to his shoulder, took aim, and fired. The stranger fell dead. Palok remonstrated, but his companion merely said that he was testing his gun’s accuracy. Was it not better, he asked, to test it that way, instead of waiting till face to face with an enemy?

The assassin is never punished, except by those who take up the blood-feud. If the murder takes place in a town the guilty one escapes to the mountains, or gets away into Macedonia, or into Servia, where he earns his living by sawing firewood. Every few years the Sultan issues an irade “for the pacification of the blood,” as it is put, and the murderer then returns. He pays a small tax to the Turkish Government, after which he cannot be arrested; and if he pays about three hundred crowns to the relatives of his victim, the blood-feud is at an end.

This, of course, does not apply to the mountain tribes. They care not a jot for the Sultan or for his irades. There is no law—save that of the blood-feud, the vendetta falling upon the murderer and upon his next male relative. Many were the curious facts regarding the blood-feud and the Albanian laws of hospitality told to me.

A case in point was that of a young man named Kol, a friend of Lûk’s, a tall, wiry youth, of somewhat sinister expression—a typical bandit out of a book-illustration.

I was talking to Lûk about the hospitality extended by the various tribes to each other when Kol passed, and he beckoned him, saying—

“He has just had a curious experience in the Klementi country. Let him relate it to you.”

So at Palok’s invitation the young fellow accepted one of my cigarettes, placed his rifle against the wall, and flung himself down upon a small boulder near us.

He blew a cloud of smoke from his lips, stroked his knees with his hands, and looked at me with considerable curiosity, wondering why I should want to know his story.

“The stranger is interested in your adventures with the Klementi. Tell him all about them.”

“Bah!” he said, with a slight shrug of the shoulders. “It was nothing—mere chance—luck, if you like to call it so. There is nothing to tell.”

“But what there is interests the Englishman. He is the Baryaktar’s guest, remember,” Lûk remarked.

“Well,” said the young man reluctantly, “I was in blood-feud with a man of the Klementi, and went over there to kill him. I laid in wait one evening, and as he drove home his sheep I shot him from behind a rock. He had killed my father, therefore I had a just right to avenge his blood. My shot, however, aroused the whole valley, and I knew that I, the only stranger, would be suspected and killed. Therefore I sped away down the valley in the darkness till I reached a poor little house. An old woman was there, and I craved food and shelter for the night. She gave me food at once—for, like ourselves, the Klementi never send a stranger empty away. I was hungry, for I had crossed into the Klementi region in secret, and dared not seek food lest my presence became known to the man I intended to kill.

“Scarcely had I eaten the meat the old woman had given me when there came the sound of voices outside, and to my horror I saw four men carrying the body of my victim.

“‘See!’ they cried to the woman who was befriending me. ‘One of the Skreli has killed your son!’

“Then I knew that it was the murdered man’s mother who had given me shelter. A moment later the men, among whom was the elder brother of the victim, discovered me.

“‘See!’ they cried. ‘There is your son’s murderer. We will kill him!’

“I stood with my back to the wall, knowing well that my last moment had come. The dead man’s brother raised his rifle while I drew my pistol, prepared at least to fire once more before I died. I was caught like a rat in a trap!

“The old woman, however, seeing my position and my helplessness, cried—

“‘No. Though he has killed your brother, you may not touch him. He is beneath our roof; he has eaten our bread, and our protection must remain over him till to-morrow’s sunset. Remember, my son. It is our law.’

“The man dropped his rifle, and his friends drew back at the old woman’s reproof.

“‘Go!’ she said to me, after glancing at her son’s body. ‘You have eaten our bread, and therefore you cannot be harmed.’

“‘Yes, go,’ added my victim’s brother. ‘Till to-morrow’s sundown I will not follow. But after that, I shall track you down, and, before Heaven, I will kill you.’

“Need I say that I took up my rifle, and leaving the house travelled quickly all night and all next day, until I returned here? But,” added Kol, with a slight sigh, “we shall meet one day—and he will most certainly kill me.”

Is there any other country in the world where such a code of honour exists? I am inclined to think not.

Had I been in the midst of a highly civilised people—a foreigner wandering in the wilds of Yorkshire, for example—I certainly should never have received the many charming kindnesses that I did at the hands of those rough, uncivilised tribes. Climbing like cats up the mountainsides as they did, I was often compelled to lag behind, being unused to such walking. But, laughing merrily, those armed banditti would take me by the arms and help me up the steeper places; they would roll cigarettes for me, carry my rifle when I grew fagged, and fetch and carry for me like children.

My neat Smith-Wesson hammerless revolver was constantly admired, as being a much more handy and serviceable weapon than their own big pistols—Austrian-made revolvers fitted to antique silver butts that had once done service to flintlocks. My Browning repeating revolver, with its magazine holding eight cartridges, was declared a marvel of ingenuity, and on many occasions Vatt and his men amused themselves by firing with it at targets.

Once he remarked, with a grim smile, that it would be a handy weapon against the Turks. Where could he get one? Was it costly?

And when I promised to send him one through our mutual friend in the bazaar down in Skodra, as souvenir of my visit, his joy knew no bounds.

A month later I fulfilled my promise, sending it across from Sofia, and have since received an acknowledgment of its safe receipt.

I wonder whether he has yet used it against the hated Turk? Whether or not, he no doubt struts about with it in his belt, a greater chief than all the others, because he possesses the very latest and deadliest of weapons.

When one evening I told my host that I had still a long way to go—through Bosnia, Herzegovina, Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania, and Macedonia—and that I must bid him farewell, his face fell. He seemed to genuinely regret.

“But you will return soon,” he urged. “You will redeem your promise, and bring your friends to shoot. Bring that friend you told me about who shoots tigers in India. I want to see what sort of shot he is. And the friend who shoots partridges and pheasants.”

I promised that I would go back to him before long.

“Remember, there will be no danger—none. Tell your friends that Vatt invites them, and that they are free to go anywhere—anywhere,” he said, waving his hand over the wild panorama of mountain and valley that is his indisputable domain.

Next day I rose, packed my small belongings, and with a little present to Lûk and to his pretty wife prepared to leave, when, judge my amazement to find Vatt and his bodyguard outside, and to hear that the chief had decided to accompany me right down to Skodra!

This indeed he did, and when we arrived in the town held by the Turks he strutted down the main street with me, apparently proud of his guest, and in open defiance of the scowling ragged soldiers in dirty red fezes.

Though a deadly enemy of the Turks, he openly defied them. As we walked along the streets there came close behind us twenty of his faithful followers, armed to the teeth and carrying their rifles ready loaded in case of trouble.

But there was no trouble. The Turks of Skodra are wise enough to let the Skreli severely alone.

Trouble will, however, come one day before long, and then alas for the subjects of the Sultan. The Albanians will avenge the blood of the Christians now spilt daily in Macedonia, and the Turk will be driven back southward—or at least what is left of him.