High Albania.
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All Rights Reserved
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DEDICATED
TOMY SISTER NELLIE
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"
Oh we're back in the Balkans again, Back to the joy and the pain
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What if it burns or it blows or it snows?We're back to the Balkans again. Back, where to-morrow the quick may be dead,With a hole in his heart or a ball in his head
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Back, where the passions are rapid and red
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Oh, we're back to the Balkans again!
"
—
SONG OF THE BALKAN PENINSULA.
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PREFACE
IF a book cannot speak for itself, it is idle to speak for it. I will waste but few words on a Preface. In mytwo previous Balkan books I strove to give the national points of view, the aims and aspirations, themanners and customs, of the Serbs and of the mixed population of Macedonia.I would now do the same for the people of High Albania.From the mass of material accumulated in an eight months' tour, together with that collected on previousvisits to Albania, it is hard to know what to select, and want of space has forced me to omit almost asmuch as I have put in, of folklore, custom, and tradition.The land is one so little known to English travellers that I have given rather a comprehensive view of itas a whole than details of any special branch of study, and have reported what the people themselvessaid rather than put forward views of my own
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which are but those of an outsider. Of outsiders' views on
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/durham/albania/albania.html (2 of 219) [1/19/2009 4:43:33 AM]
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