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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



ous Albanian. But Montenegro found 

 herself dangerously involved in Albanian 

 affairs in disaccord with the diplomacy 

 of Europe and especially of her friend 

 and benefactress, Russia ; and so Monte- 

 negro finally left Albania in the lurch. 

 Despite this fact, however, the Turks 

 were obliged to make with the rebel 

 Malissori a peace which granted such 

 important concessions that immediately 

 complaints began to arise from the Mos- 

 lem population of Scutari, who had not 

 revolted. 



"What ! You grant favors to the 

 rebels," they said, "but we who remained 

 faithful continue under the old burdens." 

 It was like the complaint of the unprodi- 

 gal son. Unfortunately the Turk could 

 not mollify his faithful children as effi- 

 caciously as we imagine did the ancient 

 Hebrew father. As for the Malissori 

 arrangement, it was only a truce, for how 

 long no one could say. 



SCHOOLS ONLY CAN RELILVE THE;m 



The future of Albania depends not 

 only upon the will of Austria, of Italy, 

 of Montenegro backed by Russia, of 

 Greece, and of Turkey itself, each de- 

 termined to have the Albanian part of the 

 interminable Eastern Question settled in 

 its own selfish way ; the future of Al- 

 bania depends largely on the amount of 

 education which can be placed in the land 

 before the fate of the 2 million inhabit- 

 ants is irrevocably settled. With the ex- 

 ception, perhaps, of the intrepid Miss 

 Edith Durham, the English woman to 

 whom the wildest and most dangerous 

 parts of Albania have been a peculiar 

 stamping-ground, no one knows Albania 

 and the Albanians better than Mr. James 

 D. Bourchier, for a generation the special 

 correspondent of the London Times in 

 the Balkan peninsula. His striking arti- 

 cle on Albania in the new edition of the 

 Encyclopedia Britannica, after speaking 

 of the struggles of isolated Albanian 

 groups to agitate for better things in Al- 

 bania, concludes thus: "The growth of a 

 wider patriotic sentiment must depend 

 on the spread of popular education." 

 Once let untrammeled education exist in 

 Albania and the Albanians will look after 

 themselves. 



Many of the Christian Albanians of 

 the city of Scutari have been educated 

 and have become prosperous, thanks to 

 the Austrians or Italians. They fear the 

 fanaticism of their Moslem brothers, and 

 this, too, though in the mountains a few 

 miles away, among the families of ig- 

 norant mountaineers, both the Moslem 

 and Christian religions may be sheltered 

 under the same patriarchal roof, and 

 Moslem and Christian rites may be cele- 

 brated in the one squalid edifice of wor- 

 ship. 



Again and again has the writer of 

 the present article asked educated Mos- 

 lem Albanians interested in the cause of 

 their race why they did not preach to the 

 Moslems of Scutari and elsewhere the 

 brotherhood of Moslem and Christian. 

 Without hesitation, but with shame and 

 with firm-set lips, the answer has come, 

 each time the same : "It is impossible. 

 The Moslems are ignorant. They must 

 first be educated ; then they will under- 

 stand." 



Just before the dissolution of Parlia- 

 ment, in January, 1912, an Albanian dep- 

 uty, one of the chief spokesmen of his 

 race and at present a leader of the rebels, 

 declared, "If the Turks keep on despising 

 the non-Turks, they will bring the coun- 

 try to ruin. I say this because I love 

 the Turks, whose existence is needful to 

 us, and in order to safeguard their ex- 

 istence." The Albanian deputy was 

 speaking for his people. 



THL ALBANL\N DRLADS THE) FUTURE 



The Albanian fears lest, instead of ac- 

 quiring the prayed-for and fought-for 

 liberty, his dear mountains and wild 

 gorges and fertile valleys be divided 

 among the vulture nations, and lest he be 

 absorbed by an alien race. Austria 

 threatening to come down from the 

 north ; Italy, menacing from but a step 

 away on the other shore of the Adriatic — 

 they are two enemies whom, in spite of 

 the schools and hospitals and churches 

 lavishly bestowed in northwestern Al- 

 bania by their representatives, the Alba- 

 nians hate worse than they hate the Turks. 

 The Albanian dreads Austria and Italy 

 just as a prophetic Pole might have 

 dreaded the three despoilers of his native 



