re impressed not
only by the uniform but by the men's conduct. Before going to these
posts--where they were relieved every two or three months--the men were
instructed with regard to Albanian customs, and no case occurred of any
transgression. So rigidly did they enforce the precept that anyone who
tried to violate or carry off a woman was, if he persisted, to be shot,
that last year, at Tropolje in Gashi, when the girl in question was
said to be not unwilling, they pursued the abductors, and in the
subsequent battle there were fatalities on both sides. The Serbian
soldiers, for whose safety the village was responsible, made themselves
so popular that when the Tirana Government appointed one Niman Feriz to
go to those parts as sub-prefect he was chased away by the people headed
by the mayor of the Krasnichi, who is a nephew of Bairam Beg Zur, the
illiterate ex-brigand and ex-Minister of War of the Tirana Government.

Let this system of small Serbian posts be extended over the whole of
northern Albania, that is to say, in those districts where the natives
are willing to receive them. After all, the Serbs understand these
neighbours of theirs. Telephones and roads will be built and eventually
the railway along the Drin. The northern Albanians will then, for the
first time, be on the high-road towards peace and prosperity; and if the
rest of Albania has by then attained to anything like this condition
everybody would be glad to see a free and independent Albania.

Now what prospect is there of the rest of Albania taking any analogous
steps? If the regions which at present submit to Tirana decline to
modify their methods, it would seem that warfare between them and their
kinsmen to the north and north-east must continue, and that the
foundations of a united, free Albania will not yet be laid. One might
presume, from their bellicose attitude, that the Tirana Government
(extending to and including the town of Scutari) is all against a
pacific solution; and if one argues that their attitude would be quite
different without the support they receive from Italy, then the Italians
would doubtless reply that they have as much right to assist the Tirana
Albanians as Yugoslavia has to assist those of the north.

But this is not the case. Between Italy and the Albanians there are no
such ancient political and economic ties as between the Albanians and
the Serbs. The mediaeval connection with Venice has left with many
Albanians a dol