Travels in Southeastern Europe

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

330 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS. as I liked. In the town it was quite safe; outside he would rather send someone with me. The village people were as tame as sheep in the bazar, but in their own villages they were a little wild, he said merrily. Elbasan took its cue from the Muttasarif, and was extraordinarily kind, from the soldier who, when asked to show the way, came along and took me and my travelling companion for a walk, and flatly refused a backshish on the grounds that we were friends, to the Begs, who are the big landowners. Upon these I was told it was my duty to call. I had my doubts myself about it, but was assured that it was not etiquette for them to call on me, and that it would please them extremely to see the only Englishwoman who had been to Elbasan, as far as anyone knew. It was correct to begin at the wealthiest and to -proceed afterwards to the less rich. They were all, of course, amazed to see me, but exceedingly polite, and made me very welcome. All but one had succeeded in looking quite European. He had spoilt the effect with quite the most killing waistcoat the mind can imagine. A tall, soldierly, fair man was so like an Englishman that I should have taken him for one at first sight had I come across him in a foreign hotel. Their houses strove all to be European, and I saw with regret that European carpets and walls badly frescoed by foreign workmen were more a la mode than the panelled walls and native rugs that I had admired in humbler dwellings.
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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 330
Publication
London :: Nelson,
[1905]
Subject terms
Eastern question (Balkan)
Balkan Peninsula -- Description and travel.

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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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