After That I Fell Asleep In Good Earnest, Nor Did I Wake Up Again Till
The Sun Was Peering Over The Eastern Hills.
We were climbing up a long
slope; the Albanian settlements of Vaccarizza and San Giorgio lay before
us and, looking back, I still saw Spezzano on its ridge; it seemed so
close that a gunshot could have reached it.
These non-Italian villages date from the centuries that followed the
death of Scanderbeg, when the Grand Signior consolidated his power. The
refugees arrived in flocks from over the sea, and were granted tracts of
wild land whereon to settle - some of them on this incline of the Sila,
which was accordingly called "Greek" Sila, the native confusing these
foreigners with the Byzantines whose dwellings, as regards Calabria, are
now almost exclusively confined to the distant region of Aspromonte.
Colonies of Albanians are scattered all over South Italy, chiefly in
Apulia, Calabria, Basilicata, and Sicily; a few are in the north and
centre - there is one on the Po, for instance, now reduced to 200
inhabitants; most of these latter have become absorbed into the
surrounding Italian element. Angelo Masci (reprinted 1846) says there
are 59 villages of them, containing altogether 83,000 inhabitants -
exclusive of Sicily; Morelli (1842) gives their total population
for Italy and Sicily as 103,466. If these figures are correct,
the race must have multiplied latterly, for I am told there are
now some 200,000 Albanians in the kingdom, living in about 80 villages.
This gives approximately 2500 for each settlement - a likely number, if
it includes those who are at present emigrants in America.
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