i 4 o BIRD-HUNTING 



And it is so still. When on the frontier this 

 year, only a few months ago, the ' capitan ' of the 

 little village I was in told me that within the last 

 three years thirty men had been shot in his district 

 alone. He described to me how one morning, 

 riding through the forest, he came on five dead 

 bodies lying around a pool of blood. The Albanians 

 of Northern Albania are not only more fanatical 

 and savage than they are in other parts, but the race 

 hatred between them and the Montenegrins is as 

 old as the hills, and is kept at fever heat by constant 

 bickerings and bloodshed. 



The frontier is in a constant state of turmoil and 

 unrest, and both sides are ever on the watch. At 

 present the Bojana river and the Lake of Scutari 

 form a boundary between these ancient enemies, 

 but only thirty years ago Turkish territory em- 

 braced the strip of coast, and included the town 

 of Dulcigno and the port of Antivari, shutting 

 off Montenegro entirely from the sea. 



Travelling here one has to be always armed and 

 ready for emergencies — almost to ride rifle in hand 

 with the finger on the trigger, and across the border 

 a man may be killed for the sake of the cartridges 

 in his bandolier ! 



We had not proceeded very far before we dis- 

 covered that one of the pack-horses was not up to 

 the weight he carried. Coming down a steep arid 



