CHAPTER XIV GENERAL GEOGRAPHY From the dark barriers of that rugged clime, Childe Harold passed o'er many a mount sublime, To match some spots that lurk within this lowering coast. "Childe Harold," Canto II, Stanza XLVI. I. AREA AND FRONTIERS THE term "Albania" has been geographically used with very varying signification, which has been expanded or restricted in its meaning according to political exigencies. The Turkish Government always avoided paying any attention to the natural or ethnical frontiers of Albania in the administrative division of its European provinces. Some thirty years ago, the Greek Consul at Scutari, M. Mavromatis, in a statement published in the newspaper Akropolis of Athens, made the pertinent remark that the word "Albania" is more comprehensive in its ethnographical than in its geographical meaning. In fact, the Greek Consul proceeded to indicate five ethnographical zones, to-wit: 1. Southern Albania, from the Greek boundary (as it stood before the Balkan war of 1912) to the river Shkumbi. 2. Central Albania, from Shkumbi to the River Mati. 3. Northern Albania, from Mati to the frontier of Montenegro before 1912. 4. Northeastern Albania, which includes NoviBazar, Prisrend, Prishtina, etc., etc. 5. Macedonian Albania, from the lakes of Orchida and Prespa to Prilep and Monastir.1 To these must also be added the important Albanian colonies in Greece, Italy, Montenegro, etc. The first attempt to delimit the Albanian territory was made, as we have already seen, at the close of the Albanian insurrection of 1912, when the Turkish Government recognized that the frontiers of the administratively autonomous Albania extended to the four western European vilayets, namely, the vilayets of Scutari, Kossova, Monastir and Janina. This delimitation corresponds to a very great extent to the five zones of M. Mavromatis. The region inhabited by a compact and mostly homogeneous Albanian population may be roughly marked out by a line drawn from the Montenegrin frontier at Berana (before 1912) to Mitrovitza and the Serbian frontier (again before 1912) near Vrania; thence to Uskub, Prilep, Monastir, Florina, Kastoria, Janina and Parga.2 Serving as natural boundaries, there are, in the northeast, the mountains of Shar Dag-though they cut off compact Albanian populations, in the east and southeast the 1 F. Gibert, "Les Pays d'Albanie," p. 120. 2 J. D. Bourchier in the Encyclopedia Britannica: Albania. mountains Grammos and Pindus, and in the west the Adriatic Sea. But the Conference of Ambassadors took into consideration neither the delimitation made by M. Mavromatis, nor that which the Albanians won at the point of the bayonet in 1912, nor the line indicated by Mr. Bourchier, nor even the most restricted and most expedient of all, the boundary indicated by nature itself. The net result of the artificial delimitation which was adopted by the Conference was to abandon to the Slavs and Greeks about a half of the Albanian territory, and to thus leave the new State a miserable wreck which became the plaything of circumstances. Another point of interest in the matter of the frontiers is that the Government of Athens reversed the statement of its consul, M. Mavromatis, by claiming as a Greek territory the country which he had included in the first zone, i. e., Southern Albania to the River Shkumbi, which Greece has been claiming under the whimsical brand-new names of "Northern Epirus" to the Viosa River, and "Northernmost Epirus" to the Shkumbi River. The present area of official Albania is estimated to be about 11,000 square miles, although the Albanian race covers a territory more than double that size. II. PHYSICAL FEATURES Taken as a whole, Albania is rather a mountainous country. But her mountains are of the "sublime" nature, intercepted by "vales" and "lovely dales" similar to those which that connoisseur of natural beauties, Lord Byron, had seen only in a small portion of Albania, the southern. He missed the spectacle of the valleys of Central Albania and of the northern graphic ranges of mountains, which proudly compare in beauty and picturesqueness with the landscapes of Switzerland. Physically, the territory of Albania seems to be divided by nature into three regions: 1. The northern region is very mountainous, with occasional lowlands. Its mountains form a part of the Dinaric Alpine system of Dalmatia and Bosnia. It is richly covered by fine forests, the "virgin" forests of Albania. The summits of Shar Dag (the Argentar Mountain) reach a height of about 3,000 meters, and those of Liuma are nearly as high. 2. The central region, which lies between the rivers Mati and Viosa, is fairly open, especially in the direction of the seacoast. It includes the two large and fertile plains, those of Kavaja and Muzakia. The eternally snow-covered Mount Tomori stands in the middle like a giganic marble-white statue, clearly visible to those who navigate the Adriatic Sea. Its summit, Tomoritsa, reaches the height of 2,500 meters; from its sources flow the crystal waters of the region round about. 3. The southern region is again more or less mountainous, and it is this part which Byron describes in the stanza reproduced at the head of this chapter. It is intercepted by plains and valleys, and traversed by beautiful rivers. The modest Acroceraunian Mountains, which stand as a sentinel over the narrow Strait of Otranto, are hardly 1,500 in height, but the mountains of Chimara, which face southwardly the fair island of Corfou, reach 2,000. |