The Photo Collection of Edith Durham

Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo, 1903 - 1913

ED020_RAI 400.13238 Albania. A dugout lashed together to transport horses across the Drin river (Photo: Edith Durham, 1908). “The trapa, two very rough dug-outs lashed together with withies, and propelled with the rudest wooden ladles, was under the lee of a rocky promontory; the stream was swift and strong. Stark naked men with inflated sheepskins bound before them, pranced about the shore, and played like kittens. One started with our two horses, creeping out to the tip of the promontory, and then whirling away down stream, striking out violently, yelling to the horses, steering and guiding them. They got over safely a long way down, and it was our turn next. I said good-bye to the Padre, nor could I thank him enough, for, as Marko truly said: “If we were the King of England he could not have done more for us.” The crazy contraption was half full of water. We piled ourselves and the saddles on the centre plank. Three men – one stark naked – guided the affair to the end of the promontory; there the current caught us, whirled us round like a straw, and spun us along, the water slopping over the gunwales. The men paddled madly; we sloped across the stream, and cannoned against a lot of boulders – two of the crew leapt out, hung on to a rope that was a long, dried trail of vine, swam in with it, hauled–the trapa swung round, grounded in a shallow, and we scrambled ashore.” (Edith Durham, High Albania, 1909).