Travels in Southeastern Europe

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

320 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS. wounded, including three women and the girl herself, who was captured by Suli's men, carried off, and kept prisoner for a month. They were then forced to yield her, and she married the Vlah. This very fourteenth-century affair took place two years ago. It caused such excitement that Suli was captured, tried, and condemned to three and a half years' imprisonment. He had appealed, and the case was to be retried in a higher court. I expressed fear that perhaps he might, after all, escape punishment. 'Oh no,' said my informant. 'You see, in this land things go very slowly. It has already taken much time to appeal and obtain promise of a new trial; the trial itself will take much longer. Meanwhile Suli is in prison. Even if he succeeded in proving himself innocent, and reversing the judgment, he will still have had his three and a half years. It is so with us! ' Berat was swarming with beggars. Some lived in holes in the banks outside the town. Communication with the outer world is difficult and very limited; agriculture is archaic, and if the local crops fail dire want follows. After the drought of I902 numbers of peasants died of starvation, vainly striving to eat leaves and bark, and the place, I was told, had not yet recovered from the losses it then suffered. Berat, when I arrived, had just been asked for ~3,000 tax, and said bitterly, 'It will all go to pay European officers, who are rich already. Europe had better leave the place alone than rob one district to pay for another. If we rise, will England
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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 320
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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"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 May 1, 2025.
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