STRANGE ALBANIA

Evening Star, Issue 22514, 5 December 1936, Page 25

STRANGE ALBANIA

RELIC OF ANCIENT GREECE Albania is all that is left of tbe once great and powerful Illyria* famous before the rise of ancient Greece and Rome. Swept by successive hordes of conquerors, the' Illyrians shrank in numbers as their country shrank in size, until finally they made_ a last stand in the mountains of Albania (says a writer in an English paper). , Although Romans* Goths, and other nations swept over the country, and for over 400 years Albania was nominally in subjection to the. Turks, yet none of these ever really succeeded in penetrating the heart of the great mountain region in the north. The great passes, 5,000 ft or 6,000 ft up of sheer rock, and blocked for many months of the year with snow, daunted even the hardy Roman Legions, and it is here that you will find the purestblooded and most ancient tribes in Europe. . . Handsome, often fair-haired and iairskinned, graceful, lean, lithe as panthers, it would be hard to find the equal in appearance of these voung mountaineers in looks, and their characters and manners become them equally Well. ; . . -'LI They are men of integrity, hospitable, courageous, with a fierce love of liberty. Life is not easy in Albania, and the women have to work equally hard with the men. The various tribes, both men and women, have their own distinguishing costumes,, and their dress tells from which village they come. GOATS AND SHEEP. Large flocks of goats and sheep feed on the mountain sides amongst the blazing patches of flowers, and wherever a bit of land can possibly be cultivated there you will see, in spring, the farmer with his ancient wooden plough, often merely a sharply pointed stake, and his pair of white oxen or, grey buffaloes, plodding patiently up and down. I came to the Shosh valley one evening after a somewhat gruelling day’s trek, in time to hear the unforgettable sound of an Albanian mountain keening. A young lad of Shosh had gone from the village away to Elbasen to undergo his compulsory, military training. Whether the confined barrack life, after roaming the mountains, free as air, all his 21 years, ruined his health or not, wbo can say, but in a month he was dead. The body was sent to Scutari, 25 miles away, and then 23 of his friends went down there and brought their comrade home on their shoulders.

Five thousand feet up that awful pass they carried the dead boy. Often on their knees, slipping and staggering with their burden, sweating and scrambling up the rocks and over the great boulders hour after hour, they gained the top of the pass, and then down, where even the sure-footed mountain ponies cannot he ridden, into the valley, and homo. They waited till sundown, and then the priest who had baptised him as a baby, and taught him his catechism later on, read the burial service over

him in the little graveyard down in the valley, with his mother and his sisters and all the old people of the village standing round, but the young men climbed the mountain peaks once more.

In two bands they went up on opposite sides of the valley, and there, as soon as the service was ended, they cried with a great cry, the lament for the dead, one band answering the other across the intervening space. After the call, the two parties descended to a lower level, where the heart-rending cry was repeated, _ and this was kept up at intervals till it was quite dark, when the two parties finally met and gave a last call together over the newly-made grave. Albania is a land of complete religious freedom. The north is mainly Catholic, the people claiming to have been converted originally by St. Paul himself. Turkish influence has made itself felt in the south, and there the Moslem faith, predominates, but there are several thousand adherents also of the Orthodox Church. MANY MORE MOSLEMS.

Considerably more than half the people, however, are Moslems, and from an {esthetic point of view, _ the lovely slender minarets add considerably to the charm of the landscape. No article on Albania can be complete without mentioning Kruja. The town is watched over by a gaunt ruined tower, one of the most revered in Albania. It is all that is left of the Fortress of Skanderbej, the great national hero who died in 1467, and for whom the Albanians still wear mourning. A certain great Albanian chieftain named George Castriota was forced to make his submission to the Sultan, and as a surety for his good behaviour, the latter carried off the chieftain’s four young sons as hostages to Constantinople. LAND CHANGED.

The Sultan apparently did not care much for the three elder lads, and had them all poisoned, but the youngest, who had been christened George after his father, found favour in the Royal eyes, and on condition that he abjured the Christian fatih and embraced the Moslem, his life was spared and the Sultan adopted him as his nephew. His name was changed, and he was given the title of Bey, being known henceforth as Prince Alexander, or Alexander Bey, afterwards contracted into Skanderbej He was also made a captain in the Turkish army. _ News came through from Albania that old George Castriota was dead, and Skanderbej asked leave c. • ■■ Sultan to return home and c .uu Ins rightful position as his ia—iors heir. The Sultan refused on the Grounds that he could not spare him, but Skanderbej did not give up hope. A chance came at last. The Turkish army, fighting against the Tartars, were overcome, and pressed hack by them over the border into Albania. Skanderbej saw that they were near his old home, and obtained from the unsuspecting Sultain’s secretary, an order to the Turkish commander of Kruja to hand over the fortress to the Sultan’s “ nephew.” Taking with him some three or four hundred Albanian soldiers from the Turkish army, Skanderbej took possession of his rightful home, and kept it until his death some 40 years later.’