e against house; sometimes rebelling against the government their
sanjaks; sometimes in league with these against the sultan; they never
rested from combat except in an armed peace. Each tribe had its military
organisation, each family its fortified stronghold, each man his gun
on his shoulder. When they had nothing better to do, they tilled their
fields, or mowed their neighbours', carrying off, it should be noted,
the crop; or pastured their flocks, watching the opportunity to trespass
over pasture limits. This was the normal and regular life of the
population of Epirus, Thesprotia, Thessaly, and Upper Albania. Lower
Albania, less strong, was also less active and bold; and there, as
in many other parts of Turkey, the dalesman was often the prey of the
mountaineer. It was in the mountain districts where were preserved the
recollections of Scander Beg, and where the manners of ancient Laconia
prevailed, the deeds of the brave soldier were sung on the lyre, and the
skilful robber quoted as an example to the children by the father of the
family. Village feasts were held on the booty taken from strangers; and
the favourite dish was always a stolen sheep. Every man was esteemed
in proportion to his skill and courage, and a man's chances of making
a good match were greatly enhanced when he acquired the reputation of
being an agile mountaineer and a good bandit.

The Albanians proudly called this anarchy liberty, and religiously
guarded a state of disorder bequeathed by their ancestors, which always
assured the first place to the most valiant.

It was amidst men and manners such as these that Ali Tepeleni was
born. He boasted that he belonged to the conquering race, and that
he descended from an ancient Anatolian family which had crossed into
Albania with the troops of Bajazet Ilderim. But it is made certain by
the learned researches of M. de Pouqueville that he sprang from a native
stock, and not an Asiatic one, as he pretended. His ancestors were
Christian Skipetars, who became Mussulmans after the Turkish invasion,
and his ancestry certainly cannot be traced farther back than the end of
the sixteenth century.

Mouktar Tepeleni, his grandfather, perished in the Turkish expedition
against Corfu, in 1716. Marshal Schullemburg, who defended the island,
having repulsed the enemy with loss, took Mouktar prisoner on Mount
San Salvador, where he was in charge of a signalling party, and with a
barbarity worthy of his adversaries,