Here there was a charming old Albanian Mutasarrif, who did all he could to make my visit pleasant and begged me to send many English visitors. He had been Governor of Tripoli (now taken by Italy), and told me that on returning home to Albania after very many years' foreign service he was horrified to find his native land worse used than any other part of the Turkish Empire with which he was acquainted. He was hot on the school question, and declared his intention of having Albanian taught. As for our books we might sell as many as we pleased, the more the better. The little boys of the Moslem school flocked to buy them, and we sold, too, to several Albanians who wore the uniform of Turkish officers. The Albanian periodical, published in London by Faik Bey, was known here. A definite effort was being made at Elbasan to break with the Greek Church. An Albanian priest had visited Rome, and there asked leave to establish at Elbasan a Uniate Church. He was the son of a rich man, and having obtained the assent of Rome returned with the intention of building the church himself, and had even bought a piece of land for it. But leave to erect a church had to be first obtained from the Turkish Government. This he was hoping to receive soon. The Turkish Government, aware that this was part of the Nationalist movement, never granted the permit, though characteristically it kept the question open for a long while. The mountains of Spata near Elbasan are inhabited by a mountain folk in many ways resembling the Maltsors of the north, who preserved a sort of semi-independence. They were classed by the Christians as crypto-Christians. I saw neither church nor mosque in the district I visited. As for religion, each had two names. To a Moslem enquirer he said he was Suliman; to a Christian that he was Constantino. When called on to pay tax, as Christians in place of giving military service, the inhabitants declined on the grounds that they all had Moslem names and had no church. When on the other hand they were summoned for military service they protested they were Christians. And the Turks mostly left them alone. But they were Nationalists, and when the proposal for a Uniate Church was mooted, declared they would adhere to Rome. The news of this having spread, upset the Orthodox Powers to such an extent that a Russian Vice-Consul was sent hurriedly to the spot. The Spata men, however, who were vague enough about religious doctrines, were very certain that they did not want anything Russian, and the Russian who had been instructed to buy them with gold if necessary had to depart in a hurry. It was a district scarcely ever visited by strangers, and my visit gave extraordinary delight.