Travels in Southeastern Europe

The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.

OCHRIDA. no particular custom as to where a wedding-ring should be worn. Marriage is apt to be a vague and floating sort of affair. Many women had not heard of their husbands for years, the gentlemen in question having gone to Roumania or Bulgaria in search of work. It was taken for granted that they had all married again, and would never come back. Their wives, however, were unable to follow their example, as divorces are not sold to women. The women employed as servants in the hospital were all in this unpleasant predicament, and, on the strength of it, asked me almost every day to make them presents with the frankness and pertinacity of young children. Their very rudimentary minds were an odd compound of childish simplicity and animal craftiness, but a craftiness that was apt to fail because there was no intelligence behind it. The study of it amused me exceedingly. If I dropped in at an unexpected hour, I almost always had to 'tell them they must not.' Then they said, first, that they had not been doing it; secondly, that it was what they always did; thirdly, that tlhe doctor had told them to; fourthly, that they did not know what had been ordered; and, lastly, that they had been just about to carry out the orders when I had arrived. Then we all laughed, for they did not in the least mind being found out, and the original order was fulfilled in the end. Their inability to learn was noteworthy. The doctor used an ordinary douche that had an indiarubber tube with a tap at the end. It was used every day
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About this Item

Title
The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.
Author
Durham, Mary Edith, 1863-1944.
Canvas
Page 183
Publication
London :: Nelson,
[1905]
Subject terms
Eastern question (Balkan)
Balkan Peninsula -- Description and travel.

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https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ans3900.0001.001
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https://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/bosnia/ans3900.0001.001/190

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"The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham." In the digital collection Travels in Southeastern Europe. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ans3900.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 30, 2025.
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