None The Less, There Has Been A Good Deal Of Clandestine
Recruiting, And Bitter Recriminations Against This Turcophile Attitude
On
The part of Italy - this "reactionary rigorism against every
manifestation of sympathy for the Albanian cause." Patriotic
pamphleteers ask, rightly
Enough, why difficulties should be placed in
the way of recruiting for Albania, when, in the recent cases of Cuba and
Greece, the despatch of volunteers was actually encouraged by the
government? "Legality has ceased to exist here; we Albanians are watched
and suspected exactly as our compatriots now are by the Turks. . . .
They sequestrate our manifestos, they forbid meetings and conferences,
they pry into our postal correspondence. . . . Civil and military
authorities have conspired to prevent a single voice of help and comfort
reaching our brothers, who call to us from over the sea." A hard case,
indeed. But Vienna and Cettinje might be able to throw some light upon
it. [Footnote: This was written before the outbreak of the Balkan war.]
The Albanian women, here as elsewhere, are the veriest beasts of burden;
unlike the Italians, they carry everything (babies, and wood, and water)
on their backs. Their crudely tinted costumes would be called more
strange than beautiful under any but a bright sunshiny sky. The fine
native dresses of the men have disappeared long ago; they even adopted,
in days past, the high-peaked Calabrian hat which is now only worn by
the older generation. Genuine Calabrians often settle in these foreign
villages, in order to profit by their anti-feudal institutions.
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