and
would not have been continued by their sons even if the Serbs had not
appeared. Let them, before proclaiming the modern reasonableness of the
Albanians, recollect that in 1919 the Moslem Bosniak ex-prisoners
required on the average three months in order to traverse central
Albania, the country of their co-religionists. From village to village
the Bosniaks made their way, earning a little and then being plundered
at the next place. Eighty per cent. of this population believe, in their
fanaticism, that the Sultan will again unfurl over them his flag and
that the world will ultimately be converted to Muhammed. And if,
entertaining such ideas, they are so rigorous towards their
fellow-Moslems, what prospect is there that this 80 per cent. will
assist the Orthodox and Catholic Albanians in building up a State? Their
ferocity, in fact, is so profound that it thrives on a diet which is
chiefly of milk.... Perhaps a day will come when the Albanian will
submit to be ruled by a member of another tribe, when local politics
will engage his attention less than the silver, iron, copper, arsenic
and water-power of his country. Perhaps the day will come. Midway
between Djakovica and the monastery of De[vc]ani there stand two large
houses side by side. In 1909 a man belonging to one of them slew four
men of the other house, and on account of this he fled beyond the Drin,
together with thirteen other men of his family. There is no knowing how
long these refugees would have stayed away if that part of the country
had not come under Serbian rule, but in 1919 negotiations were set on
foot which--to the satisfaction of the members of the other house--would
enable the thirteen innocent refugees to return, while the criminal
would be arrested.

As evidence of the cordiality now prevailing between Albanian and Serb
in Yugoslavia, one may mention those cases where the Albanians in 1919
entered into a bond that for six months they would exact no
blood-vengeance from their fellow-countrymen; the number of these debts
which hitherto had been regarded as debts of honour was very
considerable, for they were not only incurred by assassination but could
also be in payment of a mere scowl or of your wife, from within the
house, having heard the voice of another man raised in song. The Serbian
authorities are hoping confidently that the Albanians who have thus for
a season placed themselves under the law will be ready in the future to
pledge themse