THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



93 



Photograph from Gen. George P. Scriven 



IRON-SHOD WAR HAS CROSSED AND CRUSHED THIS ANCIENT BRIDGE OVER THE 

 RIVER VIOSA AT KEISURA : ALBANIA 



Albania's rivers will never help to solve the country's major problem of transportation, 

 for none of them is navigable save the Boyana, which flows for 14 miles from Lake Scutari 

 to the sea. 



of the French and Italian armies. The 

 change is especially conspicuous in that 

 part of Albania which is under Italian ad- 

 ministration. There the children are sent 

 to school ; the natives are paid more than 

 a living wage for work which often is for 

 the benefit of the people themselves ; the 

 country is effectively policed by the sol- 

 diers ; and not an armed native, except of 

 the Bandes, is seen from one end of the 

 occupied territory to the other. 



If feuds still exist they are unfulfilled 

 and secret, for the arms of the moun- 

 taineers have been taken from them by 

 the troops, and among themselves the Al- 

 banians are practically at peace. The old 

 conditions will probably never return. 

 Light is coming to Albania ! 



It seems probable that with political 

 changes will come religious changes also, 

 for, together with the Turks, many of the 

 Moslem natives were driven from Al- 

 bania ; and with the coming of Italian 



schools and churches much increase in 

 the influence of the Roman Catholic 

 Church must naturally be felt. 



Under the Turks the great majority of 

 the Albanians, probably more than three- 

 fifths, were Moslems. The conversion of 

 the Christian population to Islam appears 

 to have taken place during the sixteenth 

 and seventeenth centuries. Of the Chris- 

 tians about a sixth are Roman Catholics, 

 the remainder Orthodox, or followers of 

 the Greek Church. In deference to pop- 

 ular prejudices, the bishops and priests of 

 the Catholic Church wear the moustache 

 and are typical specimens of the church 

 militant. 



Before the Italian occupation, educa- 

 tion was almost non-existent in Albania ; 

 both Christian and Moslem were, and the 

 adults still are, totally illiterate. Under 

 Turkish control, instruction in the Alba- 

 nian languag was prohibited for political 

 reasons. A single exception was made in 



