Through the lands of the Serb,

SKODRA 99 oddly familiar; three or four hundred years ago, they or something very like them were part of one's daily life. In the bazaar down by the river, with its maze of narrow crooked streets, its crazy wooden booths and its vile pavement, life goes on much as it did with us ages ago. Each trade has its own quarter, as in all Eastern bazaars. And narrow ways, called Mercery Street, Butchers' Row, Goldsmiths' Alley, in many an English town, still tell of the time when so it was in England, in days when timber was as cheap, streets as crooked and narrow, and pavement as bad as they are now in Skodra. And then in England, as now in Skodra, people wore colours-red, blue, green, yellow -and those that could afford it were brave with embroideries. Their wants were few, luxuries there were few to be purchased, and they showed all their worldly goods upon their persons in a blaze of gold and finery on high days and holidays. Skodra does so still, and so does every peasant and many a nobleman in the oldworld Balkan peninsula of to-day. Gorgeous garments solidly made they are, for they will not go out of fashion next season, nor the season after, never indeed until Albania is " civilised," and when will that be? So the finery is made to last, and is worn and worn till it descends to " Petticoat Lane" and is bought by the very poor. And when the stitchery is all rubbed off by the friction of years, still the garment hangs together, and is worn until it finally drops off piecemeal in squalid rags. All these garments, however gorgeous without, are lined with coarse materials, often pieces that do not match patched together, for the Albanian ideas of dressmaking are old-world. The modern modiste

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Title: Through the lands of the Serb,
Author: Durham, Mary E.
Canvas: Page 99
Publication: London,: E. Arnold,; 1904.
Subject terms: Montenegro -- Description and travel; Serbia -- Description and travel.

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Collection: Travels in Southeastern Europe
Link to this Item: https://name.umdl.umich.edu/afg3925.0001.001
Link to this scan: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/bosnia/afg3925.0001.001/133

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Manifest: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/api/manifest/bosnia:afg3925.0001.001

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Full citation: "Through the lands of the Serb,." In the digital collection Travels in Southeastern Europe. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/afg3925.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 28, 2025.

Through the lands of the Serb,

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