e race. There is
nothing to show that such a relationship was sexual, but among warriors in
New Caledonia friendships that were undoubtedly homosexual were recognized
and regulated; the fraternity of arms, according to Foley,[20] complicated
with pederasty, was more sacred than uterine fraternity. We have,
moreover, a recent example of the same relationships recognized in a
modern European race--the Albanians.

Hahn, in the course of his _Albanische Studien_ (1854, p. 166),
says that the young men between 16 and 24 lore boys from about 12
to 17. A Gege marries at the age of 24 or 25, and then he
usually, but not always, gives up boy-love. The following passage
is reported by Hahn as the actual language used to him by an
Albanian Gege: "The lover's feeling for the boy is pure as
sunshine. It places the beloved on the same pedestal as a saint.
It is the highest and most exalted passion of which the human
breast is capable. The sight of a beautiful youth awakens
astonishment in the lover, and opens the door of his heart to the
delight which the contemplation of this loveliness affords. Love
takes possession of him so completely that all his thought and
feeling goes out in it. If he finds himself in the presence of
the beloved, he rests absorbed in gazing on him. Absent, he
thinks of nought but him. If the beloved unexpectedly appears, he
falls into confusion, changes color, turns alternately pale and
red. His heart beats faster and impedes his breathing. He has
ears and eyes only for the beloved. He shuns touching him with
the hand, kisses him only on the forehead, sings his praise in
verse, a woman's never." One of these love-poems of an Albanian
Gege runs as follows: "The sun, when it rises in the morning, is
like you, boy, when you are near me. When your dark eye turns
upon me, it drives my reason from my head."

It should be added that Prof. Weigand, who knew the Albanians
well, assured Bethe (_Rheinisches Museum fuer Philologie_, 1907,
p. 475) that the relations described by Hahn are really sexual,
although tempered by idealism. A German scholar who travelled in
Albania some years ago, also, assured Naecke (_Jahrbuch fuer
sexuelle Zwischenstufen_, vol. ix, 1908, p. 327) that he could
fully confirm Hahn's statements, and that, though it was
difficult to speak positively, he doubted whether these