nube and the Save under the
leadership of the Patriarch of Pe['c], Arsenius [vC]arnoevi['c]. An
oleograph of a picture illustrating this event is found in almost
every Serbian house, be it private house or Government building. These
refugees settled in Syrmia, Slavonia, the Banat and Ba[vc]ka, and
received from the Emperor certain rights, such as that of electing
their voivoda (duke), of owning land, and so forth; their privileges
were not always respected, but the Serbian immigrants remained
faithful to Austria.... The land of Pe['c], from which the Patriarch
fled, with the neighbouring Djakovica and Prizren, became Muhammedan
Albanian territories.

[Mr. Brailsford[30] in 1903 found that in these parts the Albanian was
overwhelmingly predominant, and that he refused to tolerate the claims
of the Serbian minority. Saying that his race, descended from the
Illyrians, was the most ancient in the Peninsula, he objected to this
particular region being called Old Serbia simply because it was once
upon a time conquered by Du[vs]an. In 1903 the Serbs of the district
of Prizren and Pe['c] numbered 5000 householders against 20,000 to
25,000 Albanians. As for the towns: "In Prizren," said an Albanian,
"there are two European families, while the soil of Djakovica is still
clean."[31] The life which these people led was one of misery--tribute
in some form or other had to be given to an Albanian bravo, who made
himself that family's protector, and, in spite of that, the holding of
any property, house or land or chattels, seems to have depended on
Albanian caprice, and the physical state of the Serbs was wretched,
through lack of nourishment and disease. Various efforts had been made
to render the land more endurable for those who were not Muhammedan
Albanians; for example, a Christian _gendarmerie_ was introduced, but
as they were not allowed to carry arms they spent their useless days
in the police stations. They filled the Albanians with scorn, and made
them shout more vociferously their cry of "Albania for the Albanian
tribes!" Under these conditions it says much for the stamina of the
Serbs that they persisted in their old faith; a certain number--Mr.
Brailsford came across some of them in the district of Gora, near
Prizren--have been converted to Islam, but in secret observe their old
religion.]

A Serbian historian, Mr. Tomi['c] of the Belgrade National Library,
has now discovered that these uncompromising Muhammedan Albanian