At the foot of this hill are the ruins of a small church. Big white crosses are painted upon it, and it is considered a very holy spot. Every Christian peasant stops as he passes it and crosses himself, and though all that is left are fragments of the walls, I have been told that a service is still occasionally held in it. The only other relic of past days in the neighbourhood is the fine stone bridge with pointed arches near Messi, about four and a half miles from Skodra across the plain. This is undoubtedly Venetian work. The stream it spans is a raging torrent in the wet season, and has wrought much damage in the town and devastated a large tract of the plain. The rest of this is covered with short turf and bracken fern, and grazed by flocks of sheep and goats. The herdsmen, shaggy in sheepskins and armed with rifles, the strings of country-people and pack-animals slowly tramping to or from market, and the blue range of rugged mountains make up a strange, wild scene. Nor, if you take an Albanian with you to do the talking,--for everyone "wants to know,"--does there appear to me to be any danger in wandering there. Skodra is the capital, but it has no decent road to its port. It is situated on the outlet of the lake, but though a little money and work would make the Bojana River navigable for small steamers, and all the shores of the lake would thus be put in direct communication with the sea, nothing is done, and this, which should be the chief trade route for North Albania and a large part of Montenegro, is of little use. Skodras exports are not enough for Skodra to worry about greatly. Hides, tobacco, some sumach root and bark for dyeing and tanning, some maize and fruit, and a number of tortoises, which the Albanian finds ready-made, form the bulk of the exports of the neighbourhood. Skodra is one of the few capitals which you can leave with the certainty of finding it exactly the same next year. CHAPTER IX SKODRA TO DULCIGNO I have on one point, at any rate, a fellow-feeling with the Albanian. Skodra fascinates me. When I am not there--only then, mind you--I am almost prepared to swear with him that it is the finest city in the world, and a year after my first visit I found myself again on the steamer, hastening Skodra-wards, with the intention of riding thence to Dulcigno. Skodra greeted me warmly as an old friend. That exalted official the Persian beamed upon me and said that for Mademoiselle a passport was not necessary, the customs let me straight through, and I was soon settled comfortably in my old quarters. The Persian, because, so he said, of our long friendship, but really because he was aching with curiosity, called upon me at once in the crumpled and unclean white waistcoat in which he fancies himself, and chatted affably.