rd before.

Until its occupation by the Italians in 1917 Albania was not only the
least-known region in Europe; it was one of the least-known regions in
the world. Within sight of Italy, it was less known than many portions
of Central Asia or Equatorial Africa. And it is still a savage country;
a land but little changed since the days of Constantine and Diocletian;
a land that for more than twenty centuries has acknowledged no master
and, until the coming of the Italians, had known no law. Prior to the
Italian occupation there was no government in Albania in the sense in
which that word is generally used, there being, in fact, no civil
government now, the tribal organization which takes its place being
comparable to that which existed in Scotland under the Stuart Kings.

The term Albanian would probably pass unrecognized by the great majority
of the inhabitants, who speak of themselves as _Skipetars_ and of their
country as _Sccupnj_. They are, most ethnologists agree, probably the
most ancient race in Europe, there being every reason to believe that
they are the lineal descendants of those adventurous Aryans who, leaving
the ancestral home on the shores of the Caspian, crossed the Caucasus
and entered Europe in the earliest dawn of history. One of the tribes of
this migrating host, straying into these lonely valleys, settled there
with their flocks and herds, living the same life, speaking the same
tongue, following the same customs as their Aryan ancestors, quite
indifferent to the great changes which were taking place in the world
without their mountain wall. Certain it is that Albania was already an
ancient nation when Greek history began. Unlike the other primitive
populations of the Balkan peninsula, which became in time either
Hellenized, Latinized or Slavonicized, the Albanians have remained
almost unaffected by foreign influences. It strikes me as a strange
thing that the courage and determination with which this remarkable race
has maintained itself in its mountain stronghold all down the ages, and
the grim and unyielding front which it has shown to innumerable
invaders, have evoked so little appreciation and admiration in the
outside world. History contains no such epic as that of the Albanian
national hero, George Castriota, better known as Scanderbeg, who, with
his ill-armed mountaineers, overwhelmed twenty-three Ottoman armies, one
after another.[A]

Picture, if you please, a country remarkably similar i