nst them.

South of Montenegro and north of Greece lies another country of
instinctive fighters. It is similar in physical aspect, but very
different in its population. This is the land of the Albanians,
whom the Turks conquered by force of arms, like all the rest of
the Balkan peninsula. They are a distinct race by themselves; it
is supposed that they are the descendants of the ancient Illyrians,
those wild tribes of whom the ancient Greeks wrote. Nor is this
unlikely, for in such a country as theirs the inhabitants are most
likely to remain pure from generation to generation.

Returning for a few moments to Belgrade, we now may resume our
course down the ancient highway toward Saloniki. Down the Morava
Valley passes the railroad, after which it passes within a few
miles of the Bulgarian frontier, near Kustendil; dangerously near
the frontier of a possible enemy, but especially perilous in this
war in which the Serbians would naturally endeavor to retreat toward
her ally, Greece.

Just below Vranya the railroad enters what was, before the two
Balkan Wars, the Turkish territory of Macedonia. This region down
to within sixty miles of Saloniki was reconquered from the Turks by
the Serbs, having been Serb inhabited since early in the Christian
era as shown by historical record. As early as 950 Constantin
Porphyrogenitus writes of its inhabitants as Serbs, from whom,
he says, the town of Serbia on the Bistritza River near Saloniki
took its name. Throughout this region there are so many mountain
ranges that it would be impossible to name them all. Nowhere has
blood been more continuously shed than here, and nowhere in Europe
is the scenery more beautiful.

Especially impressive is that section around Monastir, toward the
frontier of Albania and away from the main line of the railroad.
Here, not more than a day's walk from the city of Monastir, or
Bitolia, as its Slavic inhabitants call it, is Lake Prespa, a small
sheet of crystal-clear water in which are reflected the peaks and
the rugged crags of the surrounding mountains. Through a subterranean
passage the waters of this mountain lake pass under the range that
separates it from the much larger lake, Ochrida, the source of
the bloody Drina.

The people of these mountains are Serbs, almost to Saloniki. Uskub,
whose ancient Serb name is Skoplya, was the old Serb capital, and
there the Serb ruler Doushan was crowned emperor in 1346.

For the past five hundred years th