AN EVENING PARTY IN ALBANIA. -- My arrival at Duk¨¢dhes seemed the signal for a sort of universal soiree; and I was to promote the general hilarity by the gift on an unlimited quantity of wine -- an arrangement I willingly acceded to for the sake of witnessing "life in Khim¨¢ra." In an hour or two came in the usual round of table, preceded by napkin and water, precursors of a good dish of hashed mutton, and a plain roast fowl, which, with tolerable wine, made no bad supper.
After the repast is done, a process of sweeping always goes on, a mere form, but never neglected by these people unwilling to incommode me, they swept all round me carefully, and now there was nothing to do but to announce the visitors.
Presently the company came, and queer enough it was! The two Messieurs Zingari, or gipsies, are blacksmiths by profession, and are clad in dark-coloured garments, once white now grey-brown; the contrast between them and the Albanians round them, all of whom nearly have light hair and florid complexions, is very striking. The gipsy, all grin and sharpness, who plays second fiddle, is continually bowing and ducking to me ere he squats down; but the elder, or first performer, is absolutely one of the most remarkable looking creatures I ever beheld; his great black eyes peering below immensely thick arched brows, daughter (a nice looking woman), and two pretty little girls, her grandchildren -- all unveiled, as is the mode in Duk¨¢dhes.
As the musical excitement increased, so did the audience begin to keep time with their bodies, which this people, even when squatted, move with the most curious flexibility. An Albanian, in sitting on the ground, goes plump down in his knees, and then bending back, crosses his legs in a manner wholly impracticable to us who sit on chairs from infancy. While thus seated, he can turn his body half round on each side as if on a pivot, the knees remaining immovable; and of all the gifted people in this way that I ever saw, the gipsy guitarist was pre-eminently endowed with gyratory powers, equal almost to the American owl, which, it is said, continues to look round and round at the fowler as he circles about him, till his head twists off.
Presently, the fun grew fast and furious, and at length the father of song -- the hideous idol-gypsy -- became animated in the grandest degree; he sang and shrieked the strangest minor airs with incredible accompaniments tearing and twangling the guitar with great skill, and energy enough to break it into bits. Everything he sang seemed to delight his audience, which at times was moved to shouts of laughter, at others almost to tears. He bowed backwards and forwards till his head nearly touched the ground, and waved from side to side like a poplar in a gale. He screamed -- he howled -- he went through long recitatives, and spoke prose with inconceivable rapidity and all the while his auditors bowed and rocked to and fro as if participating in every idea and expression.
I never saw a more decided instance of enthusiastic appreciation of song, if song it could be called, where the only melody was a wild repetition of a minor chorus -- except at intervals, when one or two of the Toskidhes' characteristic airs varied the musical treat.
The last performance I can remember to have attended to, appeared to be received as a capo d'opera: each verse ended by spinning itself out into a chain of rapid little Bos, ending in a chorus thus: "Bo, bo-bo-bo, BO! -- bo, bobobo, BO!" -- and every verse was more loudly joined in than its predecessor, till at the conclusion of the last verse, when the unearthly idol-gipsy snatched off and waved his cap in the air -- his shining head was closely shaven, except one glossy raven tress at least three feet in length, the very rafters rang again to the frantic harmony; - Bo, bo-bo-bo, bo-bo-bo, bo-bo-bo, bobobo, BO!" -- the last "BO!" uttered like a pistol-shot, and followed by an unanimous yell.
Fatigue is so good a preparation for rest, that after this savage mirth had gone on for two or three hours, I fell fast asleep, and heard no more that night.
From Lear's Journals in Albania.
Hungarian gypsy music - In search of the real gypsies of Hungary
Pictures of gypsies
Moonstone healing
Foreign retirees in Manchuria
Prejevalsky's Exploration in Mongolia
Was Prejevalsky the father of Stalin?
The Third Asiatic Expedition in Mongolia
Waiting in Ulaan Baatar
My first trip to Tibet
The Expulsion of Count Tolstoi
