The coffin—A pasha's death—Horse-dealing—The postman—Brigands—
An hotel bill—Down the Bojana—Dulcigno—Pirates—Farewell.
We spent these last three days in purchasing arms and other curiosities. Between us we collected a very arsenal of strange weapons of every kind. A carpenter at the bazaar constructed a box for us in which to pack them. This box was about six feet in length, and somewhat more than two feet in breadth. It looked uncommonly like a coffin. The ever-ingenious Robinson, when it arrived at Toshli's spent a whole evening in painting a ghastly-looking mummy on the cover, and other horrible ornaments on its sides. As may be imagined, it created some interest on our journey.
The day after our return to Scutari the pasha very suddenly died, whereupon the whole city rejoiced much and openly, and indulged in more raki than was good for it.
The doctors attributed his decease to apoplexy. It seems he had drunk a cup of coffee, when suddenly he complained of intense pain, and vomited. In ten minutes he was no more. Turkish pashas are strangely subject to this curious and fatal illness, which, in nearly all cases, follows the drinking of a cup of coffee or sherbet.
Perhaps it is in consequence of the well-known antipathy between these beverages and the pashaic stomach that so many of these distinguished men have taken to Veuve Cliquot, notwithstanding the Koran's strict ordinance. No one in Scutari for a moment doubted that poison was the true cause of the mysterious complaint. Of course there was no post-mortem. The Mussulman has a superstitious objection to any mutilation of the human body, in life or death.
Our faithful companions, Rosso and Effendi, had next to be sold. We marched them up and down the bazaar day after day, Marco loudly dilating on their many virtues. No one seemed very anxious to purchase at our price. The dealer who had sold us Rosso offered us one-fifth of the sum we had paid for him originally. Yet we had decidedly improved the animal's condition.
At last we managed to sell Effendi to the Austrian consul. But Rosso hung on our hands to the very morning of our departure. No one would have him at any price, even his original owner retracted his offer. Should we be obliged to leave the poor animal a homeless vagabond, to wander about the streets of Scutari in search of a master, begging for crusts to keep life within those pathetic ribs? It seemed like it.
Brown, in despair, wandered through the alleys of the bazaar, eagerly informing the merchants that he had a red horse for sale.
"Rosso Vendetta," as he expressed it, which, if it means anything, means a sanguinary blood-feud. The quiet Christian merchants must have imagined that the Englishman was running amuck, and was about to slaughter them all.
At the last moment the khanji of the khan where Rosso was lodged and fed came to us, and offered us 200 piastres—about 30 s. —for our noble steed. We had to accept it, for the animal was hardly worth taking to England with us.
It was a bright sunny morning when we bid a final adieu to our numerous friends at Scutari, and started for the coast. We had sent the coffin and our other baggage on in advance, on the backs of the mules of the British consulate postman. There is no post-office or postal service of any kind in North Albania, so letters are sent to the coast in this way, to be taken up by the passing steamers.
The office of letter-carrier is of some importance in this country, for it is in the gift of the government, the carriers having the monopoly of the transport of all goods from town to town. As there are no roads, and hence no carts in North Albania, everything has to be carried on the backs of horses or mules; this of course accounts for the very high prices of all imported goods.
Each carrier owns some twenty horses, and his calling would be an exceedingly lucrative one were it not for the heavy black-mail levied on him by the brigands.
The carrier to Dulcigno to whom we had entrusted our baggage, had, we were told, been stopped on his road three times within the last few months.
The whole business is managed very quietly. On some lonely portion of the way, a picturesque gentleman, armed to the teeth, suddenly appears, and in few words persuades the drivers to deliver up their charge. These in a philosophically resigned manner accept their ill-luck; discussion they know would be useless, as the muzzles of several long Albanian guns peep ominously from the rocks above.
We paid Toshli's bill, which was quite a curiosity in its way.
Our landlord had been to some conventual school in his youth, and had acquired the rudiments of the classic tongues. He now utilized his knowledge, by setting down the many items of his account in what he imagined was Latin.
Occasionally, where his memory of that language failed him, he would put down the name of some comestible in Greek.
He must have taken great trouble in the composition of this document; he came up with it smiling, evidently very proud of it, and remarked that as we did not understand Albanian, he had done his best to make it intelligible for us.
The total looked enormous, calculated as it was in piastres, more like a national debt than an hotel bill. We shuddered as we contemplated the four figures of the total. However, a little calculation showed us that we were not about to be burdened with an impossible debt, which might keep us here in pawn for the rest of our days.
The port of Dulcigno is situated half a day's march north of the mouth of the Bojana, the river that takes off the waters of the Lake of Scutari to the sea.
The pleasantest way of making the journey, we were told, was to descend the river by boat to a certain bend near the sea, and thence go on on foot.
We accordingly hired a londra which lay alongside the quay by the bazaar.
Our landlords, the Boulem-Bashi of Klementi, and some of our other friends, came to see us off. After a good deal of hand shaking the four Englishmen, Marco, Dick Deadeye, and two Albanian boatmen, embarked, and we were soon descending the river on the top of a strong current.
It would be a very good speculation to run a small steamer to Scutari.
The navigation of the Bojana is easy, and the imports into Scutari from abroad are considerable. But I suppose this would be an infringement of the monopoly granted to the carriers; and it will be long ere the authorities perceive the advantages of this mode of transport over the slow, expensive, and dangerous carriage on the backs of mules and horses, across a land unprovided with roads.
Dick Deadeye was in a very melancholy state of mind during this voyage. He lost his appetite, and grumbled to himself a good deal.
He had before this descended the Bojana with Frankish friends, and knew that there was a great water further on, associated in his mind with partings and sorrow; for whenever his companions reached its shores, they would go away from him in a big londra, never to return.
He looked very plaintively at us all the day, for he knew that the cruel old story was to be repeated.
Early in the afternoon we reached the bend in the river that had been described to us, so once more shouldered our guns and commenced our march. Our way lay across a flat country covered with a dense jungle of thorn. The road was if possible more abominable than any other we had met with during our whole journey.
It was not till late at night that we reached Dulcigno, and took up our quarters in a dirty little khan, for this port possesses no such thing as an hotel. We cooked some beef, and after a good supper retired to a hay-loft, where we were able to make ourselves very comfortable for the night.
The next morning we were able to inspect Dulcigno. A very picturesque little place it is, built at the foot of a fine valley, which opens on the sea. There is no harbour, properly speaking—merely an unprotected roadstead. We were told that the Austrian Lloyd's steamers did not touch here now, but anchored off a valley some two hours further north, where there was better shelter. When the wind blows strong on shore, the steamer cannot touch even there.
Dulcigno is a town of about 6000 inhabitants. These are for the most part Mussulmen. They have a peculiarly ferocious look, and seem to have little occupation.
Dulcigno was once a prosperous place, for many a ship was here launched and equipped for piratical purposes. Her sailors were renowned as being the bravest and most ferocious buccaneers of the Mediterranean. We have now come to look upon piracy as such an extinct profession, in the Mediterranean at least, that it seems strange to remember that it is, after all, but a few years since this was the ostensible occupation of the whole population of this coast. Many of the discontented, wild-looking fishermen we saw mending their nets on the shingle beach well remembered the good old times, and had themselves taken a part in seizing some stately Italian schooner, or bright-coloured Dalmatian felucca. We found the carrier and his string of horses just starting for the spot off which the Austrian Lloyd anchors, to unload or take on board goods for and from Scutari. As several of the horses were without burdens, we were able to ride. The road from Dulcigno to the little bay to which we were bound was across the most fertile and cultivated country we had yet seen in Albania. We passed through very forests of olives; groves of oranges covered the steep hills that sloped down to the calm Adriatic; pretty white houses, built in the Italian style, were seen rising from the groves; and the people we met on the way had a prosperous look about them, which astonished us, and reminded us that we were approaching civilization.
At last we came on a valley whose slopes were entirely covered with olives. At the foot of this valley, the two hills that formed it projected into the sea, terminating in precipitous cliffs, thus forming a little shingle-fringed bay. This was our destination. By the shore were pitched three or four tents, where were encamped a body of soldiers—I presume, on coast-guard duty; for their officer had rather a queer discussion with Marco as to the contents of our coffin. He wished to have it opened. Marco indignantly refused to allow anything of the sort to be done. "They are Englishmen," he said. This, he thought, was a sufficient explanation. The good fellow had one definite and fixed idea, at any rate, on the subject of Englishmen. He considered that they were a worthy and eccentric people, who had no country of their own, but who, by divine right, were entitled to do exactly what they liked in any country, not being subject to any laws whatever. This idea, I have found, is shared with him by many of my travelling countrymen.
There was a shrill whistle, and the steamer suddenly appeared round the southern point.
We placed our baggage in a boat, bid adieu to Marco, who kissed our hands over and over again, and wept to see us go; enjoined him to see Dick Deadeye safely back to Scutari—and embarked. Poor Dick Deadeye was inconsolable. It required Marco and two soldiers to hold him back from jumping into the boat after us. The wailings of the poor old dog were most pathetic.
I suppose that he is now vagabondizing about the capital once more, philosophizing on the inconstancy of human friendship. By this time, probably, he has re-attached himself to his old friends the frontier commissioners, who, I believe, were to renew their labours this May.
Our general appearance, our baggage, especially the coffin with its painted lid, caused some amusement on the steamer.
I will not enter into the incidents of our return journey. For seven days we steamed along the wild coast, and among the rocky islands, till we reached Trieste, whence we took train for Calais, and so back to London. It was just after that heavy snowstorm that extended over nearly half of Europe.
From Trieste to London the whole country was deeply buried. At Venice the snow was two feet deep. In Paris all traffic had been stopped. London was little better.
And now I must bid farewell to those that have followed me thus far; and to those that seek a tourist-unexplored, not over-inaccessible country, for a summer tour, let me strongly recommend these interesting lands of ancient Illyria.
FINIS.
LONDON: GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE.
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