180 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



I^Bii 



Photograph by Katrice Nicolson 



EMBARKING FOR A VOYAGE ON LAKE SCUTARI I ALBANIA 



Before the World War, Lake Scutari was bisected by the boundary line between 

 Montenegro and Albania. Fringed by mountains, many of which are snow-capped during 

 most of the year, its clear waters dotted with myriad islets, Scutari is one of the most 

 beautiful lakes in Europe, and if railroads and modern hotels should ever make it accessible 

 to tourists, it would be a formidable rival of Lake Como or Geneva. It has an area of 135 

 square miles and is extremely dangerous for native craft during rough weather. 



goes a divided allegiance based upon race, 

 religion, or national policy. 



Trieste, for example, remains as much 

 Italian in spirit as in that far-distant day 

 when the Doges of Venice first set there 

 the strong and enduring mark by which 

 one can still trace the progress of Frank- 

 ish power from the Lido to the Mar- 

 mora. It has been my fortune to traverse 

 the Adriatic — up or down or across — a 

 baker's dozen of times; and always I 

 have found it a sight of impressive sad- 

 ness, those sturdy and . still useful re- 

 mains of the Venetian occupation, which 

 stretched its sway so far and did its work- 

 so well. At its fountain head there now 

 exist no more than the mediocre activities 

 of a second-class city which until the 

 Peace Treaty of St. Germain belonged to 

 a second-class nation. 



These marks of Venetian glory arise 

 on every hand as one journeys eastward. 



Along the Dalmatian coast, at Cattaro, 

 throughout the Ionian Isles, crowning 

 the sheer heights at Corinth, guarding 

 the storm-bound gateway to Crete, and 

 all through the blue iEgean are the 

 frowning battlements with which Venice 

 defended her possessions and which suc- 

 cessive and successful assailants have not 

 despised to make use of to this day. 



For instance, at Cattaro, the Turk, the 

 Montenegrin, and the Austrian have 

 from time to time taken and occupied the 

 massive works of that Gibraltar of the 

 Adriatic; at Corfu the Greek recruits for 

 recent wars have been housed in barracks 

 bearing the lion of St. Mark's, while be- 

 hind the stern barrier of the Lovcen, a 

 hundred miles inland in Montenegro, 

 stands Spuz, a conical mountain, capped 

 with a Venetian fortress whose taking 

 from the Turks a generation ago, during 

 the Russo-Turkish War, was described 



