.

Essad, known through the land as "the tyrant of Tirana," had till
recently commanded gendarmerie at Janina. By his unscrupulous
extortions and his quarrels he had made the place too hot to hold
him, and had been transferred to Scutari, where he was very
unpopular. The tale current about him was that he had married a
second wife because his first had not borne him a son; that he lived
in terror of being poisoned by the discarded lady, and Scutari
cheerfully wished her speedy success.

Head of the family of Toptani of Tirana, he was known to be very
ambitious, and was therefore employed by the Turkish Government, who
thought it safer to make a friend than a foe of him. His elder
brother, Gani Bey, had been murdered in Constantinople some years
earlier, by a son of the Grand Vezir by order, it was said, of Abdul
Hamid. The murder had been dramatically avenged by Gjujo Fais, one
of Gani's serving men, who shot the assassin in broad daylight on
the Galata bridge. A spirited ballad, one of the most popular in the
land, describes this feat. Gjujo's life was spared, but 'in 1908 he
was still in prison, and Essad was despised for having left his
brother to be avenged by a servant. Essad took vengeance later, as
we shall see.

In the Albanian mountains, as in Bosnia, it was impossible not to
wonder at the great work done by Austria. Every Catholic tribe had
its neat and usually well-caredfor church, whose priest lived hard
by in a house rough, it is true, but superior in its arrangements to
the average native dwelling.

Europe had entrusted Austria with the care of the Catholics of North
Albania. She had trained priests, built and maintained churches and
hospices, had built the Cathedral of Scutari, and established and
protected the first Albanian schools of the North. Austria had
carried out Europe's behest well.

With but few exceptions all the mountain priests were Albanians, and
almost all had had part of their training in Austria. In knowledge
and intelligence they were much ahead of the almost untrained
"popas" of Montenegro, who had never been beyond their own borders.
In the case of the higher ecclesiastical orders the difference was
even more marked, for they included many very cultivated and able
men.

The Catholic quarter of Scutari had greatly advanced since my first
visit in 1901. New shops and businesses had been opened, and the
streets repaved. I made the acquaintance of many of the townsfolk,
and was