DURAZZO—DIRTY, AND ILL-SMELLING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18579, 29 September 1928, Page 19 (Supplement)

DURAZZO—DIRTY, AND ILL-SMELLING.

Albania May Have New King, But Is Not Up-to-aate.

IN a recent issue a letter from Greece to a member of the staff of the “ Star ” was published. To-day, one from Albania is printed. It is as follows: DURAZZO. Dear Bill, —I languished in the beau tiful “waggons lit’’ (sleeping cars) all the way up to Trieste, and then by steamer all the way back again dow ? n the Adriatic to this joint. The trip through the Corinth canal was pretty dull, being like a journey through a rather prolonged railway cutting, and stiflingly hot. The was not of the most comfortable, but the conveyance kindly provided by the company with the awe-inspiring name of the Consulich Societa Triestina di Navagazione, that brought me here, was as good as any on the Tasman run. In fact, I almost thought I was on the Marama. I'm sorry I can’t dig back through all the .murky past of all the places I've just dashed through. All these little Italian seaports are very much alike, most picturesque and enticing from a distance, but inordinately dirty and smelly at close quarters. Durazzo, I was going tp say, was no exception, but its effluvium is unique and overpowering. From the sea. Durazzo’s white walls and brownish-red roofs all interspangled (that’s a good word) with the dark green of the olive trees, and the lofty ruined castle, looks almost the best I’ve seen yet. The ship takes a wide turn round a big heaaland into a very fine natural harbour, and the wooded hills at the back form a wonderful background. The port itself is very primitive, though it was considerably improved during the war, when the Italians landed large numbers of troops there, bln it is all very rough.

There is a rather wonderful causeway—must have- been built hundreds of years ago—across the swamp and stuff that separates the port from the town proper. The town is full of all sorts of ruins, and the remains of the old citadel, that clearly show the semi Moorish touch of the Byzantine architects, dominate the whole position. I reem to be taking quite an interest in -his old stuff all -at once.

Ihe modern town is like all these places, narrow dirty, smelly streets. *.hite plaster houses with impossible little cast-iron balconies, or the upper stories jutting out into the street. A thing that is impossi le to miss is the anuary system, or rather insanitary system, which has not progressed beyond emptying the slop-pail through the upstairs window! They ve got a railway, but only just, and it goes to Tirana, the capital, about twenty-five miles. There’s another they tell me, in the north, from the port San Giovanni di Medua to Scutari, and there is a road from Tirana to Scutari. There a ew motor-cars.

You’ve seen these pictures of ruffianly Johnnies wearing kilts, wonderful waistcoats and nondescript unmen tionables—well, they wear ’em. One cynical ~ent on the ship perpetrated this excellent bon mot, which I hope you will pass on to all S ottish friends “The Albanians wear their clothes til! they fall off in rags. They never allow water to touch their skin, and they are born thieves, like all Highlanders.’’ I nearly forgot to tell you the only xcitement of the trip. We—you don’t know the other bloke —went into a very ow-looking pub to sample the wine of he country. We always do tha tc et away from the beaten track and all that. It was a dark place, and built of stone, in some old ruin, I suppose Where the sun shene through a hole the wall must have been 3ft thick Speaking in Italian, we ordered some thing to .eat —goat, of course -and a flagon of the sparkling Falmernian wine, so to speak. As a matter of fact it was “ vino nero,” the ordinary red wine of the place, just drinkable half and half with water. Well, two toughs

age. which was an extremely narrow one and had very little sympathy with anything outside its own immediate in terests.. His longer poems, on which he himself based his hopes of lasting fame are now quite forgotten, and it is only a few of his shorter poems. notably “The Holly Tree,” “The Battle of Blen heim.” and “The Well of St Keyne that are in 'any way familiar to the present age. His justly-celebrated “Life of Nelson, which was first published in ISI3. grew but of an. article which he had written five years earlier for the “Quarterly Re-, view,” to which he was a regular contributor. It proved an instantaneous and universal success, and has ever since been recognised as the standard biography of the greatest of Britain s naval heroes. Its great merit lies in the clearness and beautiful simplicity of its style, and its lucid arrangements of facts, in which everything that is unimportant and strictly technical has been carefully omitted. Southey performed his literary work with all the regularity and method of the modern business man, and every day was mapped out in advance for the fulfilment of certain tasks, which were punctually and energetically carried out. He was born in 1774 in the seaport town of Bristol, where his father was in business as a linen draper, and at the age of fourteen he was, through the generosity of an uncle, sent to Westminster School, from which he was expelled four years later for publishing an article against flogging in the school magazine. He completed his education at Oxford University, and in 1795 he married his first wife and thus became the brother-in-law of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. At that time the two poets had, serious thoughts of emigrating to America and establishing there a pantisocracy, or communal republic, but the scheme fell through, and Southey, after visiting Spain and Portugal, settled in London to study l&w, but soon abandoned it and devoted his life to literature. His earliest published work, a tragedy “The Fall of Robespierre,” written in conjunction with Coleridge,

came over from the other side of the joint and started jabbering at us in their own tongue, a mixture of Greek, Turkish, ancient Latin, Slav, Bosnian, Italian and a few others I’ve forgotten. Except that they were definitely hostile we didn’t know what they meant, till/ someone said in French that we were Italian, and things began to look awkward. My cobber wasn’t much of a fighting man, and all these coves had most unpleasant-looking knives and other assorted weapons. I kept insinuating that 1 was “ Anglais ” and “ Inglese,” but that had no effect, and just when things were most uncomfortable

I had a wonderful brain wave. The only foreigners they see come in ships, tokers and sailors and the like, so I lifted my voice and spake unto them in good, solid Australian. The effect was marvellous. I ordered a couple of litres of wine, and we had a splendid party. At the same time, Bill, I had the wind up good and hard for a bit. All the time the business was on, T was wishing I had had Allan with me By the way, how is he? He never writes. You remember how he used tc go round looking for stoush. He’d hav enjoyed a rumpus there, but I think i that fiery young Scot had been ther< we would both have been full of knife holes by now. You can’t miss the Italian influence here. All the progressive work has beer, done by them. They control the bank ind it seems that this new king of theirs, Ahmed Zogu, is well under Mussolini’s thumb. It is only a few years since he was shot at and wounded in their Parliament of sorts in Tirana, and had to go for his life. However, a couple of years ago he reappeared, and since then has been violently pro-Ital-ian, which he wasn’t before, and sudden access of zeal and industry W said to be entirely due to the power behind the throne. Must admit, you know, that he is gingering things up. T n two vears he has established somehing like 500 schools, and roads and -ailways. and electrics are going ahead. As for the people, care nothing •lbout Governments. All they want is to be left severely alone. Each farm is quite self-supporting as regards food

nd clothes, the only thing that they have to buy being ammunition. They don’t see the object of all this feverish business of work, particularly for someone else. They are all quite contented, and want to be left alone.

There are a lot of things I could say ibout this place but I must stop somewhere. The trees are the most beautiful things of all. Old ruins leave me •omparatively cold, but an oak forest is a ' hing that I could rhapsodise on for i s. Huge oak forests grow all over t country quite naturally. They "ire not the same as the oak we know, * ut that does not matter to me.

I was disappointed in the Adriatic, t’s just like any other sea. You push ff from Trieste and all there is to see s water. They say that when it is - ery clear you can see the Dinaric Alps, but we saw nothing except one little island.

appeared in 1794, and was followed by -wo or three volumes of poems and letters written by him while residing in che Spanish Peninsula. After again visiting Portugal to gather material for his history of that country he returned to England in 1801. He then visited Wordsworth and Coleridge in the Lake District, and this visit led to his making his permanent residence there two years later. At Greta Hall in Keswick, which he shared with Coleridge, he accumulated a library of 14,000 volumes and a valuabb collection of manuscripts. In 1813 he was appointed Poet-Laureate, and he continued his prodigious literary output until 1840, when his brain gave way as a result of overwork and domestic bereavements. He died in 1843, at the age of sixty-nine, leaving behind him an enviable record of devotion to duty and unselfish benevolence. (Copyrighted).