l^JOPvLACCIlT. 
^vliich he comoiitted the murder, hung about his neck ; and while he 
continues in that humble posture, one or more of his relations recites 
a panegyric on the dead, which sometimes rekindles the flame of 
revenge, and puts the poor prostrate in no small danger. It is the 
custom in some places dor the offended party to threaten the criminal, 
holding all kinds of arms to his throat, and, after mucli entreaty, to 
consent at last to accept of his ransom. These pacifications cost 
dear in Albania, but the Morlacchi make up matters sometimes at 
a small expense ; and every where the business is concluded with, 
a feast at the offender’s charge. 
The Morlachs, whether they he of the Roman or Greek church, 
have very singular ideas about religion; and the ignorance of their 
teachers daily augment this evil. They are as firmly persuaded of 
the reality of witches, fairies, enchantments, nocturnal apparitions, 
and sortileges, as if they had seen a thousand examples of them. Nor 
do they make the least doubt about the existence of vampyres ; and 
attribute to them, as in Transylvania, the sucking the blood of infants. 
Therefore, when a man dies suspected of becoming a vampyre, or 
vukodlak, as they call it, they cut his hams, and prick his whole 
body with pins, pretending, that after this operation he cannot walk 
about. There are even instances of Morlacchi, who, imagining that 
they may possibly thirst for children’s blood after death, intreat 
their heirs, and sometimes oblige them to promise to treat them as 
vampyres when they die. The boldest Haiduck w'ould fly trembling 
from the apprehension of a spectre, ghost, or phantom, or such like gob- 
lins, as the heated imaginations of credulous and superstitious people 
lead them to think they see. The women are still more timorous, and 
some of them, by often hearing themselves called witches, actually be- 
lieve they are so. 
Great discord reigns in Morlachia between the Latin and Greek 
communions, which their respective priests fail not to foment, by telling 
a thousand little scandalous stories of each other. The churches of 
the Latins are poor, but clean ; those of the Greeks are poor, but 
shamefully ill kept. Our author has seen the curate of a Morlach 
village sitting on the ground in the churchyard to hear the confession 
of women on their knees by his side: a strange posture indeed! 
but a proof of the innocent manners of those good people, who have 
the most profound veneration for tjieir spiritual pastors ; w'ho, on 
their part, frequently make use of a discipline rather military, anfl 
correct the bodies of their offending flock with the cudgel. 
They also impose on the credulity of these poor mountaneers, by 
selling certain superstitious scrolls, called zapiz, on which they write 
sacred names, and sometimes add others very improperly joined. 
The virtues attributed to these zapiz are of the same nature as those which 
the Basilidians attributed to their monstrously cutstones. The Morlac- 
chi carry them sewed in their caps, to cure or prevent diseases, and 
tie them to the horns of their oxen. The composers of the trumpery 
take every method to maintain the credit of their profitable trade, in 
spite of its absurdity, and the frequent proofs of its inutility. And 
so great has their success been, that not only the Morlacchi, but 
even the Turks near the borders, provide themselves plentifully with 
