Travels in Southeastern Europe

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

MIRDITA. 369 appointed to Mirdita, but has to live without its frontiers. The Mirdites having lost their leader, the Turks thought it as well to leave them alone, and for twenty-five years they have lived ungoverned and leaderless. The fate of some of the other mountain tribes has been similar. Europe has treated them scurvily, and the Turk has made scapegoats of them. The aged Princess and her daugh er the Princess Davidica received me wit the greatest kindness at her house in Skodra. She wore native dress and spoke only Albanian. Dark, dignified, and with an eternal sadness in her eyes, she is a mother eagle, mourning always for her captured son, and her heart is up in the highlands with the wild men of her dead husband's tribe. She and her daughter, whose personality is as marked as her mother's, kindly offered at once to send me up the country with their own men, and with an introduction to Monsignor the Abbot of the Mirdites. If I would only tell England about them, that was all she asked. It will be long before I forget the aged Princess, when she begged me to ask the help of England, that loves freedom, for her exiled son and his friendless people. My travelling companion had come to his journey's end at Skodra, and had only to do his business and return, and my former guide, Dutsi, was now in service, so I hired one Jin to come up with me to Oroshi, for the Princess's men spoke Albanian only. Jin was rather a dear old thing: had been kavas
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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 369
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/ans3900.0001.001/376

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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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