is not more truth in this
tale than in that of the brigands who, on a certain Friday, overpowered
and slew a caravan of merchants between Dibra and Prizren. On examining
their spoil they are said to have discovered a large amount of meat,
but, as it was Friday, to have refrained from consuming it. Prenk Bib
Doda was, as a matter of fact, impotent; and his widow, Lucia Bib Doda,
survives him.... One agrees with Monsignor Bumci that the Albanian is
not altogether so blindly a supporter of his Church as we have been
told, and his murderous intentions against a neighbouring tribe will be
not at all diminished if they happen to profess the same religion as
himself.

"Anyone can see," quoth the Monsignor, "that the Government is dear to
us. Men are coming from all over the country, anxious to execute its
wishes and to be enrolled against the Yugoslav."

Yes, we saw numbers of men tramping up to Scutari, from boys to
septuagenarians. They were going to fight--it pleased them enormously.
But if the Tirana Government had ordered them to go back and work on
their fields, if it had asked them to take some precautions against the
ravages of syphilis, if it had expressed the hope that they would no
longer sell their women for an old Martini, or that the village prefects
would pay some regard to sanitary matters--in the whole of Albania, says
Siebertz, there is only one W.C.--then they would have laughed at this
Government which tried to lay a hand on their ancestral liberties.

"The end of it all is," said the Monsignor, "we are Albanians. We demand
the independence of our country."

"As a Latin," writes Professor Katarani,[83] "I was fire and flame for
Albania.... But after a few months I was forced not only to change my
views about them, but to regret all that I had written in the _Mattino_
and the _Tribuna_.... They are not a people, but tribes ... they are
against every principle of public officials, they live the most
primitive lives. I who know Albania from end to end, who have sacrificed
myself for that country, am absolutely convinced that there could be no
greater misfortune than if, in its present state, it were given autonomy
or independence. Otherwise I confess that an Albania free from any
foreign Power would be to the interest of Italy." And he concludes by
saying that the Albanians have done nothing to deserve an independent
State. It is well known that in the Albanian Societies that after May
1913 were engaged a