236 BIRD-HUNTING 



The Albanians are a fine people, with many good 

 qualities, and I never felt more comfortable and 

 thoroughly at home in my life than while living 

 with them and sharing in their usual mode of life. 

 Hospitality is their chief virtue, and the person of a 

 guest is sacred. They are tall men, good-looking, 

 with piercing eyes and with remarkably small and 

 well-shaped hands and feet. Always accustomed to 

 carry arms and to use them, they have a free and 

 independent carriage, and look a much superior race 

 to the Turk. I would back an Albanian mountaineer 

 to account for three Turkish soldiers any day. I 

 cannot account for the reputation which the Turkish 

 soldier undoubtedly has as a fighter. All I have 

 seen in Albania were miserable specimens of 

 humanity, in ragged uniforms, in down-at-heel boots, 

 or else in top-boots, which would assuredly be left 

 behind if they marched a mile over an average 

 Albanian road, with sullen, brutal, stupid faces with 

 no redeeming feature or sign of any life, or anima- 

 tion, or self-respect. If it were not for the Albanians 

 being divided by three religions, each one jealous 

 of the other two, I believe they could sweep the 

 Turk from their country to-morrow, if they could be 

 properly disciplined under a good leader of their 

 own race — rather a big 'if,' I admit. Still, they 

 have done it once, four hundred years ago, and they 

 still remember and mourn for Scanderbeg, their 



