1 father having exhausted the endurance of the Epirotes, by his incessant wars, was most justly driven from the throne, and Pyrrhus, then an infant, was placed for protection by his friends under Glaucus, King of Illyricum. Affected by the infantile blandishments of the boy, Glaucus not only adopted him, but aided in restoring to him the throne of Epirus. The lawless depredations of Teuta, Queen of Illyricum, have already been mentioned. Her country was among the first to be initiated into the doctrines of genuine Christianity, by St. Paul himself, as is recorded in his Epistle to the Romans. Of much later times, the personage who chiefly attracted public attention to the eastern shores of the Adriatic, was George Castriot, best known by the appellation Scanderbeg. This extraordinary man was neither indeed a native, nor a chief, nor the sovereign of the Montenegro: but his dominions were a prolongation of that mountainous region, and the inhabitants were people of a similar character, spirit, and habits of life. To read, therefore, the history of the Albanians, and Epirotes of Scanderbeg, is in some measure, mutatis mutandis, to read the history of the Montenegrines. In The language of the Montenegro is a dialect of the antique Sclavonian, (properly Slavonian,) which for copiousness and force of expression, and for the extent of countries in which it is spoken, is without a fellow in Europe. For the Sclavonian is the mother of the various tongues employed in Bohemia, Poland, Russia, Hungary, Turkey in Europe, &c. its genius, this language resembles others of the greatest antiquity. In speaking to a single person, the plural number is never employed, nor are titles of honour; nothing but thou and thee. Hence were Cæsar and Pompey, Cicero and Ovid, to revisit Dalmatia, they would still find themselves addressed by their proper names, and in the singular number, as in the best days of the Roman state. Of all the nations who still employ the Sclavonian tongue, the Muscovites are reckoned to have preserved it in the greatest purity. For, in the first place, they have succeeded to the Sarmatians, who originally spoke that language, and in the second place, the Muscovites have been but very little intermingled with foreign nations possessing a different dialect. For reasons of the same kind, and nearly of equal force, the Montenegrines and the other inhabitants of the mountainous regions which border the eastern shores of the Adriatic, are believed to possess the Scla vonian in great purity. This remark is not however strictly applicable to the inhabitants of the coast-towns, such as Cattaro, Ragusa, &c. where the native dialect is necessarily more or less corrupted by the introduction of the Italian. So much is this now the case, that Italian terms are employed, not only to express conceptions and objects formerly unknown to the Sclavonians, but also to denote ideas and things for which appropriate terms do actually exist in the old tongue. It was already observed, that an absurd pronunciation has long prevailed relative to the name of the Sclavonian nations. The name is formed from slava, a term signifying glorious, adopted by the people themselves, in allusion to some signal but now unknown success in battle. Hence many proper names, in countries where the Sclavonian is spoken, contain the term. Thus Stanislavus, corrupted into Stanislaus, denotes a person who stands firm for glory; Radoslavus, one who labours for glory; Vladislavus, one who reigns with glory. From this circumstance it has been inferred, that the proper name of the nation was Slava; and if we sometimes meet with Slova and Slovinska, the variation arises from the practice of certain districts, where o is substituted for a in many other words. Besides these names having peculiar meanings, many others are found in Russia, Poland, &c. formed from terms significant in Sclavonian. Thus we find Radimir, the maker of peace; Zuonimir, the herald of peace; Cascimir, improperly Casimir, the declarer of peace; Budimir, the imposer of peace. In the modern history of the countries adjoining to Montenegro, frequent mention is made of several classes of men whose names, in general not understood, are significant in Sclavonian. The hayducs (or, as it ought to be written and pronounced without an aspiration, aïducs) have latterly been considered as a race of desperate robbers and murderers. In this way they were distinguished from the lupexi, or petty thieves, who carry on their depredations by private stealth. The aïducs glory in being men of heroic valour, who look on the lupexi with equal hatred and contempt. The aïducs are bold, valorous, enterprising, ready to encounter every danger, and to engage in the most desperate, however iniquitous, adventures. They usually commence their career by expeditions against their Turkish neighbours, but too often end it by becoming a pest and a terror to their own people. Their object is not to carry off cattle and sheep, a species of plunder which they leave to the dastardly lupexi, but to seize money, silks, spiceries, and other articles of value easily transported. Their usual course, therefore, is to way-lay caravans or companies of Turkish merchants on their way to or from the towns on the coast. Much resistance is seldom made by the merchants, even when in force. Quite unfit to cope with the aïducs, they usually discharge their pieces and make their escape, leaving their goods and cattle to the assailants. The aïducs do not always confine their operations to public robbery. In the year 1775, the renowned chief Bussich, with a party of twenty heroes, broke into the Turkish territory, and, making a circuit of many miles, compelled the people to furnish the haraich, or capitation-tax, as if they had been really Turkish officers appointed for its collection. For the adoption of such a mode of life various causes have been assigned. Their situation, amidst almost impassable mountains, abounding in forests, caverns, and other secret recesses, in some measure invite the inhabitants to rank themselves among the aïducs. The same character of the people was given by the Roman historian, Florus." The Dalmatians," says he, "generally dwell in the forests, and thence are extremely addicted to robbery." From this circumstance arises the saying common among the mountaineers on the north of the Montenegro: lurvev dancé, Aïducki sastance: "Oh for St. George's day, and the meeting of the Aïducs!" For at that time the woods begin to be so clothed with foliage as to afford shelter to the adventurers. It is not, however, to be supposed that this or any other single reason induces men to engage in such a trade. Some are criminals who have escaped from justice; some have failed in lawful business; many are driven to desperate courses by the vexations and extortions of the collectors of the public revenue; many are instigated by a restless disposition that disdains all controul. An aidue was apprehended by the officers of justice, or rather the soldiers of the police, in the Austrian and Venetian dominions; being asked by the magistrate why he had entered on the life of a robber and murderer? "Why have you," answered he, "chosen to become a magistrate?" Those police-soldiers are styled bandours, a name commonly corrupted into pandours, a class of troops often mentioned in the history of Austrian campaigns. Attempts have been made, but always in vain, by the Austrian and Venetian governments to restrain, if they could not suppress, those lawless depredations: but both have, perhaps, been secretly pleased to observe the maintenance of a spirit of invincible hatred against the Turks, in those natural boundaries of their several states. a Another class of Dalmatian mountaineers are the uscocs, term denoting originally foreigners or emigrees, but latterly applied as a name of reproach. The term was first given to persons who, fleeing from the oppression of their masters, particularly from Turkey, withdrew into the neighbouring countries. Having little or no property of their own, many ́of them resorted to theft and robbery for subsistence; hence a VOYAGES and TRAVELS, No. 3. Vol. IV. P foreigner or emigree, (uscoc) and a robber came to be nearly synonymous terms. That aïducs and uscocs, as well as lupexi, formerly might, and perhaps still may be discovered in the Montenegro, it would be rash in me to deny : I can only say, I heard nothing of them; nor would it have been either prudent or civil in me, whatever might be my curiosity or my suspicions on that head, to make enquiries on the subject. in The following lines are literally translated from a song general use in the Montenegro. It is the complaint of a young damsel, who in one day lost both her father and her lover; and expresses, with characteristic simplicity, the anguish of a heart for ever closed against all hope of happiness. Unable to enjoy repose she wandered about in the night; and arriving at the summit of a mountain, accompanied by a female friend, at the moment when the morning began to break forth, she thus addressed her : MONTENEGRO SONG. Hearest thou the warbling, They taste, each in his turn, Of kindest warmth The moving proof displays. Through nature's wide domain, Th' enchanting concert forms, His homage each pours forth. The morning in her prime, 1 From whom its shades proceed. Alas! of such delight The source has ceased to flow! In translating this piece, I have studied as much as possible to give a correct imitation of the original. The following lines are a specimen of the language, in a stanza frequently annexed to the warlike songs of the mountaineers, alluding to the exploits of a famous warrior, Mark Kraglievich, to whom the most extravagant actions are ascribed : Jasce kogna Marco Kraglievichiu: IN ENGLISH. "Mark Kraglievich," (i. e. Mark, the son of kings,)" rides on his charger: one viper in his hand serves him for a bridle; another serves for a spur and a whip." The adventures of George Castriot, or Scanderbeg, employed, as might naturally be expected, the pens of the most eminent historians of his age, Volaterranus, Eneas, Silvius, Piccolomini, Pope, under the title of Pius II., Paulus Jovius, &c. But the most complete and interesting account of the modern heroes of Epirus, was composed by Marinus Barletius, a Roman or Latin priest of Scutari, and afterwards a professor in the university of Brescia in Italy. His work de vita moribus ac rebus, præcipue adversus Turcas, gestis. Georgii Castrioti clarissimi Epirotarum principis, qui Scanderbegus, hoc est. Alexander Dominus sive Magnus, cognominatus fuit, was first published at Strasburgh, in folio, in 1537. The work of Barletius is little known; consequently, the history of Scanderbeg has been chiefly collected from a compilation in French, by Jaques de Laverdin, seigneur du Plessis, dedicated to the noble Henry IV. of France, in 1597, but not printed till 1604. The principal families of the northern part of Epirus, now a portion of Albania, extending from the river Drino, southwards to Corfu, were three in number, of which the second was that of Castriot. John of Dibra, the chief of this family, whose principal residence was in Croia, a strong position in the mountains twenty miles eastward from Durazzo, having been defeated by Amurath (father of Mahomet II. the conqueror of Constantinople) in the early part of the fifteenth century, surrendered his three sons as hostages for his submission. Being carried to Adrianople the youths were, in violation of the |