ost obscure subject, Finnish grammar.[88] Will it
be believed that in her account of the Balkan tangle Miss Durham does
not quote Sir Charles Eliot, but Mr. Horatio Bottomley? It seems that
Mr. Bottomley has not devoted much attention to the Balkans, since in
November 1920 he poured the vials of his wrath upon the Serbs, who,
according to his "latest reports from Montenegro," had destroyed no less
than 4000 Montenegrin houses in the district of Dibra, a place which
lies some 75 miles by road from the land of the Black Mountain and
probably does not possess more than two or three Montenegrin houses; but
he flings hard words against the Serbs, and that is good enough for Miss
Durham. On the other hand, Sir Charles Eliot, who has travelled largely
in Albania, wrote the simple facts about that people and they are
obnoxious to this lady. "It is not surprising to find that there is no
history of Albania, for there is no union between North and South, or
between the different northern tribes and the different southern Beys,"
said he in 1900, and such a people does not undergo a fundamental change
in twenty years. "Only two names," says Eliot, "those of Skanderbeg and
Ali Pasha of Janina, emerge from the confusion of justly unrecorded
tribal quarrels.... Albania presents nothing but oppositions--North
against South, tribe against tribe, Bey against Bey." (According to Miss
Durham they are all aflame with the desire to form a nation.) "Even
family ties seem to be somewhat weak," says Sir Charles, "for since
European influence has diminished the African slave-trade, Albanians
have taken to selling their female children to supply the want of
negroes." (The Albanians are "enterprising and industrious," says Miss
Durham.) "In many ways," says Eliot, "they are in Europe what the Kurds
are in Asia. Both are wild and lawless tribes who inflict much damage on
decent Turks and Christians alike. Both might be easily brought to
reason by the exhibition of a little firmness.... Albanian patriotism is
not a home product--had they ever been ready to combine against the Turk
there seems to be no reason why they should not have preserved the same
kind of independence as Montenegro; but from the first some of the
tribes and clans endeavoured to secure an advantage over the others by
siding with the invaders--papers and books on the national movement are
written at Bucharest, Brussels and various Italian towns, but they are
not read at Scutari or J