WILD MEN OF EUROPE

Hokitika Guardian, 14 May 1927, Page 4

WILD MEN OF EUROPE

(By G. Ward Price). Albania, that mountainous, rail less, roadless region on the eastern shore cl the Adriatic Sea. is still lar more primitive than many districts in the heart of East Africa. It is tiie last stronghold of the Middle Ages in Europe. and in 1327 its social customs and outlook are precisely what, those of the Highlands of Scotland were in the 13th century.

The Alhanions, tall, gaunt, blackhaired, hook-nosed, licrie-eyed mountaineers, dress rough in a national costume—the most picturesque that still exists—of white frieze trimmed with black braid, and wear a skull cap set on the top of their curiously eggslmped shaven heads. Those in the north are Catholic; their neighbours in the centre arc Maliomliiedaii; and the Albanians ol the south Greek Orthodox. These diftoreuces in religion, combined with the hardship of gaining an honest living among the stony mountains where the.v live, have produced a nation of just under a million people whose main interest in liie is cattle-raiding and mutual assassinatou.

The vendetta is to every healthy minded Albanian what loothall and horse-racing represents to the norma! Englishman. The Albanian mountaineer lives in a great stone tower with no windows below the level ol the second story, and the windows above that are little more than narrow slits for use as Inopholse. He wou.ld no more think of going out to graze his sheep or fetch water from the well without slinging ins rille on his hack than tile Loud nor would venture lurih on a rainy day without umbrella or coat. An English friend of mine who had travelled in that country 'brought away an Albanian youth to act as boo.v servant. He told me that lie lied retained this young fellow's respect until the day when the Albanian discovered that under no circumstances does a revolver form part of the KiigMsiiinan s evening dress. But amid a’l their i hd?orate complications of blood lends which date hack for generations the Albanians retain flie charming and simple virtues of a race of mountaineers. Hospital-

ity is sacred to them. Tic-, will intcrtain their worst eileuiv u l:e appeals t i them in its name, and while he is ill ir guest they would gin chair lives in hi- defence, even t,sough they fully intend to shoot him dead the first time they chance to meet him in the open. Small battles between villages aio o) quite friquem o<i tirrenee. it was once my experience to be present ai

such an encounter. A.!.out 103 men on each side were engaged. They lay

among the rocks, armed with rilles <d widely varying type and calibre, am! ohu: ' away at a rang: of about 300

or 400 yards, with small oiled until ti e side v> liicii t m - onipaiiied retreated as fast as it could run, without the least sense of lost dignity, to the bullet-proof security of its nmiiiitaiii village of thick-walled lowers. Alter the Balkan War of 1012 the Great Bowers /decided that Albania should he independent. Twenty-five minor German princes were candidates for the throne, which fell to l’rince William of Wied. who invented a picturesque musical comedy uniform lor himself in a ramshackle little ‘‘palace" at Durazzo, where j remember being struck by the fact that if anyone emptied the palace bath (the only bath in Albania) the gurgle of the water was plainly to 'he hoard in the throneroom. A burly .swashbuckler (ailed Essnd Pasha, who had murdered more men than lie remembered and at whose house J recall eating an enormous dinner of seventeen courses, was made "Minister of War." lie at once began to intrigue against his Sovereign, who replied by shelling Essad’s house with both the field guns of tile Albanian army. Essad was deported.

His supporters rose and besieged Prince William in Durazzo. out of which tiie “Mprct”—a title specially invented for him—scuttled ignomiu-i-uslv directiv tiie world war broke

During the war Albania was a rockpit of the Italian, French, and Austrian armies. 'lhe Fence Conference re-established it iri nominal independence, and among those whom the Albanians are understood to have contemplated as suitable candidates to whom to offer tin* throne ol Albania are so widely varying a selection as Lord Robert Cecil, the late ex-Prcsi-dent Roosevelt, and Mr Harry Sinclair, owner of the raseliorse Zev.