Nations," said the Hon. Aubrey Herbert, M.P., in the
_Morning Post_ of November 29, 1921. And the enthusiastic President of
the Anglo-Albanian Society is modest enough to refrain from telling us
how much she was indebted to his own championship. The evil eye is
feared in Albania more than syphilis or typhus. Siebertz[79] mentions a
favourite remedy, which is to spit at the patient. A ceremonial spitting
is also used by anyone who sees two people engaged in close
conversation; very likely they are plotting against the third party, and
by his timely expectoration their wicked plans will be upset.

Absurd as it may sound, there are not a few Albanian apologists who lay
the entire blame upon the Turks. They assert--and it is true--that
Constantinople left this distant province so completely almost to its
own devices that the suzerain might just as well not have existed. A
few Turkish officials lived in the towns, in the country they showed
themselves when they were furtively travelling through it; and the chief
officials, such as the Vali of Scutari, were wont to be Albanians. And,
being left by the Turks to evolve their own salvation, they turned
Albania into a region of utter darkness--at any rate, they did
practically nothing to shake off the barbarism which they had inherited.
They have certain alluring attributes, such as their unpolluted mediaeval
ideas on the sanctity of guests and the punctilious maintenance of their
honour,[80] their readiness to die for freedom as well as for a quarrel
about a sheep, and their not infrequent personal magnetism. They are
very abstemious, their morals are pure, they have certain mental
qualities, as yet undeveloped, and they are thrifty. But "they are so
devoid of both originality and unity," says Sir Charles Eliot,[81] that
acutest of observers, "that it is vain to seek for anything in politics,
art, religion, literature or customs to which the name Albanian can be
properly applied as denoting something common to the Albanian race."

The apologists, such as Miss Durham, argue that the other Balkan peoples
suffered from a good deal of internal tumult after they had set
themselves up as independent countries. And it is submitted that the
Albanians would gradually develop the same national spirit as their
neighbours. But there are as yet, Miss Durham must acknowledge, very
few signs that this will ever come to pass.

"We are Albanians," said Monsignor Bumci, "we ask for Albania! We d