For a considerable time the more intelligent Italians had noticed that these two Balkan peoples were disposed to live in amicable terms with one another. Traditions that are so powerful with an illiterate people--under five per thousand of the Albanians who have stayed in their own country can read and write--numerous traditions speak of friendship with the Serbs: Lek, the great legislator, was related to Serbian princes; Skanderbeg was an ally of the Serbs; "Most of the celebrated leaders of northern Albania and Montenegro," says Miss Durham, "seem to have been of mixed Serbian-Albanian blood"; Mustapha Vezir Bushatli strove together with Prince Miloš against the Turks, and the same cause united the Serbian authorities to the famous Vezir Mahmud Begović of Peć. A primitive people like the Albanians admire the warlike attributes beyond all others, and the exploits of the Serbian army in the European War inclined the hearts of the Albanians towards their neighbours. Some of them remembered at this juncture that their great-grandfathers or grandfathers had only become Albanian after having accepted the Muhammedan religion; now the old ikons were taken from their hiding-places. And there was, in fact, between the two Balkan people a spirit of cordiality which gave terrible umbrage to the Italians. So they took the necessary steps: many of the Catholic priests had been in Austria's pay, and these now became the pensioners of Italy. Monsignor Sereggi, the Metropolitan, used to be anti-Turk but, as was evident when in 1911 he negotiated with Montenegro, he is not personally anti-Slav. Yet he must have money for his clergy, for his seminary, and so forth. His friendship would be easily, one fancies, transferred from Rome to Belgrade if the Serbs are willing to provide the cash--and nobody can blame him. Leo Freund, who had been Vienna's secret agent and a great friend of Monsignor Bumçi, the Albanian bishop, was succeeded by an Italian. But, of course, the new almoner did not confine his gifts to those of his own faith. Many of the leading Moslems were in receipt of a monthly salary, and this was not so serious a burden for the Italians as one might suppose, since Albania is a poor country, and with no Austrian competition you found quite prominent personages deigning to accept a rather miserable wage. "And do you think," I asked of Musa Yuka, the courteous mayor of Scutari, "that those mountain tribes are being paid?" "Well," he said, "I think that it is not improbable." ... At the time of the Bosnian annexation crisis the Serbs had as their Minister of Finance the sagacious Patchoù. The War Minister, a General, was strongly in favour of an instant declaration of war, and the Premier suggested that the matter should be discussed. He turned to the Minister of Finance and asked him whether he had sufficient money for such an undertaking. Patchoù shook his head. "But our men are patriots! They