e had been an hour in the
quarters assigned to us, officers began to arrive with safeguards of one
sort or another. One brought screens for all the windows; another
provided mosquito-bars for the beds; a third presented us with
disinfectant cubes, which we were to burn in our rooms several times
each day; a fourth made us a gift of quinine pills, two of which we were
to take hourly; still another of our hosts appeared with a dozen bottles
of _acqua minerale_ and warned us not to drink the local water, and,
finally, to ensure us against molestation by prowling natives, a couple
of sentries were posted beneath our windows.

[Illustration: TWO CONSPIRATORS OF ANTIVARI

They stood lost in conversation, heads close together, exactly like the
plotters in a motion picture play]

"Valona isn't a particularly healthy place to live in, I gather?" I
remarked, by way of making conversation, to the officer who was our host
at dinner that evening. His face was as yellow as old parchment and he
was shaking with fever.

"Well," he reluctantly admitted, "you must be careful not to be bitten
by a mosquito or you will get malaria. And don't drink the water or you
will contract typhoid. And keep away from the native quarter, for there
is always more or less smallpox in the bazaars. And don't go wandering
around the town after nightfall, for there's always a chance of some
fanatic putting a knife between your shoulders. Otherwise, there isn't
a healthier place in the world than Valona."

Across the street from the building in which we were quartered was a
large mosque, which, judging from the scaffoldings around it, was under
repair. But though it seemed to be a large and important mosque, there
was no work going forward on it. I commented upon this one day to an
officer with whom I was walking.

"Do you see those storks up there?" he asked, pointing to a pair of
long-legged birds standing beside their nest on the dome of the mosque.
"The stork is the sacred bird of Albania and if it makes its nest on a
building which is in course of construction all work on that building
ceases as long as the stork remains. A barracks we were erecting was
held up for several months because a stork decided to make its nest in
the rafters, whereupon the native workmen threw down their tools and
quit."

"In my country it is just the opposite," I observed. "There, when the
stork comes, instead of stopping work they usually begin building a
nursery."