The Greco-Catholic Cult To
Which These Albanians Belong Is A Compromise Between The Orthodox And
Roman; Their Priests May Wear Beards And Marry Wives, They Use Bread
Instead Of The Wafer For Sacramental Purposes, And There Are One Or Two
Other Little Differences Of Grave Import.
Six Albanian settlements lie on these northern slopes of the Sila - San
Giorgio, Vaccarizza, San Cosimo, Macchia, San Demetrio Corone, and Santa
Sofia d' Epiro.
San Demetrio is the largest of them, and thither, after
an undisturbed night's rest at the house of my kind host - the last, I
fear, for many days to come - I drove in the sunlit hours of next
morning. Along the road one can see how thoroughly the Albanians have
done their work; the land is all under cultivation, save for a dark belt
of trees overhead, to remind one of what once it was. Perhaps they have
eradicated the forest over-zealously, for I observe in San Demetrio that
the best drinking water has now to be fetched from a spring at a
considerable distance from the village; it is unlikely that this should
have been the original condition of affairs; deforestation has probably
diminished the water-supply.
It was exhilarating to traverse these middle heights with their aerial
views over the Ionian and down olive-covered hill-sides towards the wide
valley of the Crati and the lofty Pollino range, now swimming in
midsummer haze. The road winds in and out of gullies where rivulets
descend from the mountains; they are clothed in cork-oak, ilex, and
other trees; golden orioles, jays, hoopoes and rollers flash among the
foliage. In winter these hills are swept by boreal blasts from the
Apennines, but at this season it is a delightful tract of land.
XXIII
ALBANIANS AND THEIR COLLEGE
San Demetrio, famous for its Italo-Albanian College, lies on a fertile
incline sprinkled with olives and mulberries and chestnuts, fifteen
hundred feet above sea-level. They tell me that within the memory of
living man no Englishman has ever entered the town. This is quite
possible; I have not yet encountered a single English traveller, during
my frequent wanderings over South Italy. Gone are the days of Keppel
Craven and Swinburne, of Eustace and Brydone and Hoare! You will come
across sporadic Germans immersed in Hohenstaufen records, or searching
after Roman antiquities, butterflies, minerals, or landscapes to
paint - you will meet them in the most unexpected places; but never an
Englishman. The adventurous type of Anglo-Saxon probably thinks the
country too tame; scholars, too trite; ordinary tourists, too dirty. The
accommodation and food in San Demetrio leave much to be desired; its
streets are irregular lanes, ill-paved with cobbles of gneiss and
smothered under dust and refuse. None the less, what noble names have
been given to these alleys - names calculated to fire the ardent
imagination of young Albanian students, and prompt them to valorous and
patriotic deeds! Here are the streets of "Odysseus," of "Salamis" and
"Marathon" and "Thermopylae," telling of the glory that was Greece; "Via
Skanderbeg" and "Hypsilanti" awaken memories of more immediate renown;
"Corso Dante Alighieri" reminds them that their Italian hosts, too, have
done something in their day; the "Piazza Francesco Ferrer" causes their
ultra-liberal breasts to swell with mingled pride and indignation; while
the "Via dell' Industria" hints, not obscurely, at the great truth that
genius, without a capacity for taking pains, is an idle phrase.
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