o
regret--for example, the person whom they sent to Pe['c], when they
wanted the land to be distributed, was King Peter's Master of the Horse.
He was thoroughly unsuitable, and caused a great deal of
dissatisfaction.

There was a time at the rather gloomy town of Djakovica, when, owing to
the blood-vengeance, the Merturi were unable for eight years to enter
the place; now they come in, merely to gaze at the Serbian major who is
in command. Halim Beg Derala, the aristocratic and wealthy ex-mayor, who
as a pastime used to plan an occasional robbery in Turkish days, told
me--he speaks a little French, in addition to Albanian, Turkish, Serbian
and Greek--that citizens were often unable to leave their houses for two
months at a time,[86] and although every house was provisioned for a
siege, yet one frequently had to manage without bread. Now the
candid-eyed, fair-bearded priest rides out with Ljuba Kujundji['c], the
erstwhile leader of komitadji, in order to negotiate with the Albanian
Zeph Voglia, at that personage's own request, for his surrender to the
Serb authorities. Zeph has written from a forest that he feels uneasy,
because he owes sixteen blood-vengeances. He asks that his affairs may
be settled by the law, and those sixteen pursuing countrymen of his have
signified that this will meet their views, since in the first place the
Serbs are disinterested in the matters between them, and, secondly, the
Serbian penalties are not so mild as theirs, not permitting that a
murder shall be expiated by the payment of a moderate sum or that a
guilty party may absent himself for three years and suffer no further
loss than the devastation of his house. Another sphere in which the
Serbs have gained Albanian sympathies is with regard to the disputed
ownership of land. Even as the Moors have been in the habit of handing
down, from father to son, the key of some Sevillan house that vanished
centuries ago, the Montenegrins, more fortunate, have been appearing
with the ancient title-deeds of lands that now are in Albanian
possession. According to Serbian law it is the oldest document which
prevails. And the Albanians are generously compensated.... Those who,
with the highest motives, advocate "Albania for the Albanians," may
argue that the mediaeval activities of Riza Beg and Bairam Beg Zur--whose
adherents started shooting at each other every evening after six o'clock
in the refuse-laden streets of Djakovica--would have been concluded