kish Government. This he was hoping to receive
soon. The Turkish Government, aware that this was part of the
Nationalist movement, never granted the permit, though characteristically
it kept the question open for a long while. The mountains of Spata
near Elbasan are inhabited by a mountain folk in many ways
resembling the Maltsors of the north, who preserved a sort of
semi-independence. They were classed by the Christians as
crypto-Christians. I saw neither church nor mosque in the district I
visited. As for religion, each had two names. To a Moslem enquirer
he said he was Suliman; to a Christian that he was Constantino. When
called on to pay tax, as Christians in place of giving military
service, the inhabitants declined on the grounds that they all had
Moslem names and had no church. When on the other hand they were
summoned for military service they protested they were Christians.
And the Turks mostly left them alone. But they were Nationalists,
and when the proposal for a Uniate Church was mooted, declared they
would adhere to Rome. The news of this having spread, upset the
Orthodox Powers to such an extent that a Russian Vice-Consul was
sent hurriedly to the spot. The Spata men, however, who were vague
enough about religious doctrines, were very certain that they did
not want anything Russian, and the Russian who had been instructed
to buy them with gold if necessary had to depart in a hurry.

It was a district scarcely ever visited by strangers, and my visit
gave extraordinary delight.

So through Pekinj, Kavaia, Durazzo Tirana and Croia, the city of
Skenderbeg and the stronghold now of Bektashism, I arrived at last
at Scutari, and was welcomed by Mr. Summa, himself a descendant of
one of the mountain clans, formerly dragoman to the Consulate, and
now acting Vice-Consul. He was delighted about my journey, and told
me he could pass me up into the mountains wherever I pleased. He
explained to me that on my former visit, Mr. Prendergast being new
to the country had consulted the Austrian Consulate as to the
possibility of my travelling in the interior, and that the Austrians
who wished to keep foreigners out of the mountains, though they sent
plenty of their own tourists there, had given him such an alarming
account of the dangers as had caused him to tell me it was
impossible. He arranged at once for me to visit Mirdita.

The Abbot of the Mirdites, Premi Dochl, was a man of remarkable
capacity. Exiled from Alban