the way of recruiting for Albania, when, in the recent cases of Cuba and
Greece, the despatch of volunteers was actually encouraged by the
government? "Legality has ceased to exist here; we Albanians are watched
and suspected exactly as our compatriots now are by the Turks. . . .
They sequestrate our manifestos, they forbid meetings and conferences,
they pry into our postal correspondence. . . . Civil and military
authorities have conspired to prevent a single voice of help and comfort
reaching our brothers, who call to us from over the sea." A hard case,
indeed. But Vienna and Cettinje might be able to throw some light upon
it. [Footnote: This was written before the outbreak of the Balkan war.]

The Albanian women, here as elsewhere, are the veriest beasts of burden;
unlike the Italians, they carry everything (babies, and wood, and water)
on their backs. Their crudely tinted costumes would be called more
strange than beautiful under any but a bright sunshiny sky. The fine
native dresses of the men have disappeared long ago; they even adopted,
in days past, the high-peaked Calabrian hat which is now only worn by
the older generation. Genuine Calabrians often settle in these foreign
villages, in order to profit by their anti-feudal institutions. For even
now the Italian cultivator is supposed to make, and actually does make,
"voluntary" presents to his landlord at certain seasons; gifts which are
always a source of irritation and, in bad years, a real hardship. The
Albanians opposed themselves from the very beginning against these
mediaeval practices. "They do not build houses," says an old writer, "so
as not to be subject to barons, dukes, princes, or other lords. And if
the owner of the land they inhabit ill-treats them, they set fire to
their huts and go elsewhere." An admirable system, even nowadays.

One would like to be here at Easter time to see the _rusalet--_those
Pyrrhic dances where the young men group themselves in martial array,