amazing effrontery the Italians took him to Rome and feted him in such a way as to make it clear they were rewarding him for his action. Italy's conduct as a member of the Triple Alliance was in the highest degree insulting to her allies, and can be explained only by supposing that for the sake of the Adriatic she was ready to stab them on the first opportunity. It was soon plain that the report of a prepared rising was true. Armed men were concentrating at Shiak on the road to Tirana. The ignorant Moslem inhabitants had been told that the Prince meant to abolish Islam and promote incestuous marriages, and bidden to demand his immediate withdrawal. There were also the mass of refugees from Dibra and Gostivar. They had passed the winter wretchedly enough, and were told that if they would combine and drive out Wied the Serbs would restore to them their lost lands. In vain the American missionaries warned them not to believe this. Dibra was their one hope and desire. A party of armed men, led by one of the Dutch officers, went to parley with the insurgents, and took a machine gun. Unluckily, Captain Saar was ignorant of local customs. He and his party were unduly nervous, for when an Albanian has given his "besa" (peace oath) he keeps it. Alarmed unnecessarily, he ordered his men to fire at a group of three armed men. One escaped, fled to Shiak, and spread the alarm that the Prince had begun to massacre Moslems. A number of people rushed to aid the Shiak men, and a fight took place. How much foreign influence was behind it all it is hard to say. That Italy was not unconcerned in it seems proved by the fact that the Italian representative at Durazzo at once hurried to convince the Prince that he was in imminent danger, and persuaded him to go on board an Italian battleship. The Italians may have believed that the plot, engineered by Essad, was sure of success. Other members of the International Control persuaded the Prince to return to land. But by his flight he had hopelessly compromised his position. That Italy was mixed in the affair appeared a little later. Red signal lights were seen flashing to the insurgents from a house in Durazzo by many persons, among them the British Vice-Consul. Lieutenant Fabius, of the Dutch gendai'merie, entered the house and caught an Italian officer, Colonel Muricchio, red-lamp-handed. Again no trial was allowed. It was pleaded that the Capitulations had not been abrogated! And the officer was released. We may blame Wied for incompetency, but only a man of unusual force of character and intimate knowledge of the land could have made headway against the Powers combined against him. All this I learnt from members of the International Control, from the Dutch officers, from the Albanians, from the American Missionaries, and from some private individuals. That the rising was planned and the ammunition embezzled by Essad and his gang hardly admits of doubt.