Where East Meets West 



33 



a separate occupation, one to the bakers, 

 one to the butchers, a third to the gun- 

 smiths, a popular booth, especially with 

 the mountain men. Petticoat lane displays 

 the discarded finery of the harem, some- 

 times, too, fine embroideries and rharvel- 

 ously tinted brocades. The harness shops 

 are gay with all sorts of colored leather 

 trappings and bead headstalls with amu- 

 lets to keep the evil eye from the pack 

 ponies. Crude red and green cradles and 

 gaudily painted chests for the ladies, in 

 which to keep their finery, are sold at the 

 carpenter's. The tinsmiths ply a busy 

 trade in curiously wrought metal belts, 

 while busier and more popular than all is 

 the inevitable coffee booth. 



MEDIEVAL COSTUMES AT SCODRA 



And the motley crowd who jostle each 

 other in and out of the narrow ways ! A 

 Mohammedan Beg swaggers by in the 

 cumberous fustinella, the plaited white 

 shirt worn by the Greeks, but seen in 

 its greatest glory on the Albanians. 

 Here a group of wild men and women 

 from the mountains, the former stalking 

 stealthily in front, their ever-searching 

 eyes on the lookout for the enemy who 

 may be in hiding, the latter carrying 

 heavy loads on their shoulders, possihiv 

 for a walk of ten hours ! 



Their costume is one of the most 

 curious in existence. That of the men 

 consists of white homespun, medieval- 

 looking leg gear, heavily striped and 

 braided in black ; an open vest, the front 

 braided and cut in zigzags, and over this 

 a black sleeveless wool jacket with a 

 square fringed collar, the whole topped 

 by a white fez. This black jacket is worn 

 for George Kastoriot or Skenderbeg, one 

 of the few great men the country has pro- 

 duced. He gathered the tribes together 

 and held all the land against the Turks 

 till he was killed, in 1467, and his people 

 still cherish his memory so dearly that 

 they wear mourning for him. The women 

 wear short, very stiff skirts of the same 

 homespun, white and black alternating in 

 the stripes, waistcoat and long white 

 coats of the same material ornamented 

 in red and blue. 



But older still is the dress of the town 

 men and boys of the poorer classes — a 

 white tunic and drawers tied about the 

 waist with a red sash and topped with a 

 fez. This without the fez is the costume 

 of the barbarians on the Greek and 

 Roman vases. If this is the oldest, the 

 palm for the ugliest is easily borne off by 

 the well-to-do Christian women. The 

 wearer is hardly able to get along at all 

 in her high-heeled shoes and with the 

 enormous weight of the material used in 

 her trousers, which she has to hold up 

 with both hands, and then is only able to 

 waddle. These women go veiled in the 

 streets and swathe themselves in a shape- 

 less scarlet coat with a square collar 

 pinned up to the head, the whole braided 

 in black. Their husbands and sons affect 

 jaunty jackets of dark red so heavily em- 

 broidered as to appear black, but then 

 everybody of importance is brave with 

 embroidery in Scodra and wears garments 

 that are marvels of the art of needle- 

 work, with the comforting conviction 

 that the fashions will never change and 

 that clothes will last a lifetime and can 

 then be passed on to the servants and de- 

 pendents of the family. 



At night Scodra was uncanny ; it is un- 

 safe even for the natives to venture out 

 after dark. Few houses showed a light, 

 and all was silent and mysterious. The 

 last night of our stay we were aroused 

 towards dawn by hearing a stray shot or 

 two, which soon grew into a perfect 

 fusillade, a bell tolled, and as the sun 

 rose the Sultan's unkempt troops turned 

 out, each munching his ration of dry 

 bread as he rode (all hunched up on the 

 small pony) after the possible malefac- 

 tors. We thought the massacre of which 

 the town lives in ever present dread had 

 really begun, and we were greatly re- 

 lieved to learn that the commotion was 

 only caused by robbers in the ward. 



We tore ourselves regretfully from bar- 

 baric Scodra, so brilliant by day, so de- 

 pressing by night, for much still lay 

 before us, so back across the lake we 

 went, and were welcomed by our friends 

 in Cettinje as if from out of the lion's 

 den. With many promises to return 



