ALBANIA.

Mataura Ensign, 2 July 1914, Page 4

ALBANIA.

EUROPE'S NEW STATE.

Interesting descriptions of Albania s'' Europe's ik'iv sState, which is in. the ' ■ throes of civil war, and to which to-At fcroiieo is made in.to-day's cables, wantrtruer, in a loiter from Trieste pub'ishedly not long ago in the 'New York Sun.' ff Darazzo seen from the Adriatic makes ' i ' an imposing appearance. The town lies '' on an island connected with the raamland by ttvo narrow str,i;s of roadway '■ across nuu>hcs and swamps. An old ' ' castle crowns the highest point of tdio Aland's ridge of rocks vyhiie clustering around this ancient ouilditig covering (he. descent are closely packed plaster « and stone walled houses with heavy died roofs which glisten in the southern .sun and ;he clear, bright air of tb* Adriatic coast.

T'ho old castle that has been turned into a .Royal palace, is very old and is fast crumbling into ruins. It has been used partly as a barracks and partly as a court of'justice, and no repairs ever seem to have been made on it sinco the day it was turned over to the Turks by t'ho original bmiders. There are perhaps 1000 houses lining ihe narrow dark streets of Durazzo which have been .permitted, like tho old castle, to fall into a; sad state of decay and grow dirty and grimy from centimes oi use by man and beast with practically no cleaning or repairing. The more pretentious shops and warehouses serve the needs of uio merchants and shippers who handle tho trade ot central Albania, 'bringing to the town the, wares of the outsido world; and' carrying away the products of the interior. An old khan, the shelter of generations of caravan traders, with low, projecting walls and .a great open court for beasts of burden, is ono of the largest of the buildings in tho publio square. 'This square, has a central fountain and rows of email buildings l which servo the most part as offices for tho transaction of public business. 'Die ono building in the town with a ibig smokestack which gives the impression of a manufacturing plant is tho Government works for reducing to salt the waters of the low, fcwamny land behind tho town. Tile Turks have endeavored at intervals to do something for the town in, tho wav of improvement, 'but their efforts have boon typically Turkish. They builtl a road aroundl tho point of the harbor and repaired some of the worst breako ; n the harbor walls. To do this thev drew nron and .practically exhausted the wealth of ancient Greek and Roman remains with which the town and neighborhood abounded. They broke up pillars of great archaeological value, baths, sarcophagi and tombstones, to build this highway and to' stop the hole* in the wills. Even before this they tore down, in order to pave tne streets, build the castle and erect houses for tho soldiers, most of tho remains of the golden ago of Durazzo, when it was t'he great port of; the. Via Agncti along the ancient »«A horn Rome and Brindisi, -across yfl<B "riiinia, Macedonia and Thrace to j£x>n-fl stantinople. So it is that such as Durazzo might have gained by these works of antiquity is entirely lost. There remain only tho fqualor and decay of a neglected, ravished Turkish town. The harbor is so. badly silted that passage to tho wharves is impossible. The Albanians, recalling the greatnesa' of the ,porl in Roman days, when the harbor swarmed with ships front the Mediterranean and the Adriatic, declare that the Turks filled the roadstead with rocks with the purpose of ruining it and thus deprive the Albanian* of a sea port. Another explanation, less biassed, perha-ps, is that the reguiremenrs of the gallery of the ancient were far different from those of the modern wart-'hip or merchantman. The five fathom line, w!i,ich winds tortuously around' the Dura/zo bank, and the Talbot Shoals, the two principal otetfUO-, tions to shipping, extendi no nearer, to the landing*than about a mile. From; hero the entire trade is of necessity entrusted to row boats, or if, as is frequently the case, a strong south or southwest wind is lashing tho waters, to small orange sailed craft which dart in and out among the rocks and easily negotiate the shoals and shifting sands of the b.Mik.

THE BLOOD FEUD.

These are some of the things that exist in the new kingdom (states the London eoiTCKumuU'iit of the 'Sun'): In Central Albania, as among all Pathans, the land' it* :o completely throttled by the- blood feud that ordinary human intercourse is almost impossible.

The houses are lortrcsH'f, tho only windows of which are loophole* for -.iiii t»:i!: In these orisons families, sometimes of JOO people, lead self-cen-tred lives.

I here, are no villages, only houses dotted l at intervals and nearly a' mile, high up round wide valleys. Every one has killed, ant', all have enemies who seek their Wood. Many men have not left their house* for years, and food has to be. brought in to them hv their friends. Others, again, have taken to flight after kill- 4 ing their enemy, and unaihle to sleep in J their homes or to till their fields exist by brigandage. Agriculture Is Despised.

Niere is no dishonor whatever attached to brigandage, and to this day there continues in Albania that primitive society in which the lifc'of the fighter, the freebooter and the shepherd, is held 111 honor, while, agriculture is despised. «o:net:<mcs a truce is granted to * man who has been hiding for years will a«k h:s enemy for ],3 daw reunite in which to visit his fricndi "or imdertata a. journey, but delay in vengeance is held dishonorable, and the man who 'eta years pass without killing; his enemy becomes hiimolf an outcast.

J-or a. stranger jt is oulv possible to pass under the protection of the men of the district who conduct, him to "blood friends;" lint if ho meet the enemies of hi-> friends lie is himself 0011 ntod as an enemy, and to kill him is to avenge an old murder. On the other 'hand the .murder of II stninwr ijuts the hitter's protectors under tie unusual obligation of killing not one hut seven of the/murdererVfamily, P.ich In Natural Resouroes.

In some districts there are lane* lika Kr.KJand; the hedges thick with blackberries and sWs. bins and haws, capo gooseberries and wild strawberries; Muntedwillows fruiga the river bed*; atove there are oak, walnut and beech trees and sometimes stately avenues of l'onlar.

Maize and niehm. s vines, nenpprs and marrows «w,v in the fields; but the cultivation H poor, for the mountaineers carrying the pun and the work is for the most part left to the >w<>mcu Also Hie men cannot work i-afelv in the beds, whereas the women can; for the Albanians- do not kill women and the blend tend them !l-v. Then- in plenty of surface real, but no one burns it. There is iron, too, but no one mined it.

Herdsmen bmtline with weanons are almost the only human beings to bo met with. Save for their arms, they make a perfect Homeric niefure. teml•"o; their flock* of sheen and j-oats with beiee barking dogs.