area of the country is about 17,374 square miles, while the population is estimated at 831,877, and divided as follows:

The country is divided into 8 provinces, named after the principal towns which with estimated population, are as follows:-Durazzo, 5,000; Scutari, 32,000; Korytza, 24,000; Elbasan, 13,000; Tirana, the provisional capital, 12,000; Argyrocastro, 12,000; Berat, 8,500; Valona, 6,500.

Religion and Instruction.-About two-thirds of the Albanians are Moslems. Of the remaining one-third the Christians in the north are for the most part Roman Catholics, and the Christians in the south are members of the Orthodox (Greek) Church.

There are 548 primary schools in the country, of which 474 have only one class, while 28 have five classes. There are 854 teachers and about 24,000 pupils. There are, besides, 12 continuation schools, 2 secondary schools (at Scutari and Korytza), and a teachers' training college at Elbasan, opened in 1921. There is also an American technical school in Tirana.

Justice. There is in every province a tribunal of first instance with three judges and a court of cassation, composed of six judges, at Tirana. Finance. The estimated revenue and expenditure for three years is as follows (in gold francs):

·

The national debt is not large; it includes 200,000 dollars lent by the Albanians residing in the United States.

Defence. Military service is compulsory and begins at the age of 18. Liability to service continues to the age of 50. Service in the active army is for 18 months. The peace strength of the army is 7,557. The gendarmerie numbers 3,134.

Production and Industry.-The Albanian economic system is very primitive; each family provides for its own needs. Great tracts of the country remain uncultivated, and the areas at present under cultivation are dealt with in a primitive way. The State owns some 125.000 acres of the est land in the plain between the rivers Shkumbi and Vojussa. The country the greater part is rugged, wild, and mountainous, the exceptions being g the Adriatic littoral and the Korytza Basin, which are fertile. Tobacco,

timber, wool, hides, furs, cheese and dairy products, bitumen, fish, olive oil, corn and cattle are the principal products of the country. Cattlebreeding receives special attention. The wool is made up into coarse and heavy native cloth and exported. There are vast tracts of forest land composed of oak, walnut and chestnut trees, as well as beeches, pines and firs. The mineral wealth of Albania is considerable but undeveloped. The only industries in the country are those connected with agriculture, such as flour milling, olive-pressing and cheese-making.

In 1923 Albania imported from Italy (at present the only country which trades with Albania) sugar to the value of 1,564,741 gold francs; coffee, 784,352 francs; rice, 630,083 francs; cotton goods, 1,380,930 francs; also skins, petroleum, and woollen goods.

Central Albania has no roads, but in the South the Italian administration has constructed military roads extending South via Tepeleni and Argyrocastro, and North and East via Liascoviki and Erzek to Korytza. Northern Albania has one road, connecting Durazzo and Tirana with Alessio and Scutari. Total length of roads, 310 miles. As yet there are no railways in the country. The ports are five in number, viz. San Giovanni di Medua, Durazzo, Valona, Porto Palermo, and Santi Quaranta; but all the ports need to be improved. Two Italian shipping lines maintain communications with the rest of Europe.

The country has no banks and no currency. The unit adopted for public accounts is the gold franc.

Diplomatic Representatives.

1. OF ALBANIA IN GREAT BRITAIN.

Minister and Envoy.—Mehmed Bey Konitza (appointed March 16, 1922 . Consul-General.-Vacant.

2. OF GREAT BRITAIN IN ALBANIA.

Minister and Envoy and Consul-General.-H. C. A. Eyres (appointed January 13, 1922).

Books of Reference.

Acta et Diplomata Res Albaniae Mediae Aetatis illustrantia (by Dr. L. de Thalloc/ C. Jirecek, and E. de Sufflay). Vol. I. Vienna, 1913.

Baldacci (A.), Itinerari Albanesi. Rome, 1917.

Barnes (J.), The future of the Albanian State, in Geographical Journal for July, 1918, Boppe (A.), L'Albanie et Napoléon (1797-1814). Paris, 1913.

Bourcart (J.), L'Albanie et les Albanais. Paris, 1921.

Brailsford (H. N.), Macedonia, its Races and their Future. London, 1906.

Calmès (A.), Economic and Financial Situation of Albania. League of Nations Financial Committee, 1922.

Ceretti (G. D.), L Albania in grigio verde. Florence, 1920.

Chekrezi (Constantine), Albania Past and Present. London, 1919.

Durham (Edith), The Struggle for Scutari. London, 1914.-High Albania. London,

1909.

Georgevitch (Dr. Vladan), Les Albanais et les Grandes Puissances. Paris, 1913.
Gilbert (F.), Les pays de l'Albanie et leur histoire. Paris, 1914.

Godart (Justin), L'Albanie en 1921. Paris, 1922.

Gopcevic (Spiridon), Das Fürstentum Albanien, seine Vergangenheit, ethnographischen Verhältnisse, politische Lage und Aussichten für die Zukunft.

Louis-Jaray (G.), L'Albanie inconnue. Paris, 1913.

Berlin, 1914.

Manek (F.), Pekmezi (G ), and Stotz (A), Albanesische Bibliographie. Vienna, 1909. Peacock (W.), Albania, the foundling State of Europe. London, 1914.

Siebertz (P), Albanien und die Albanesen. Vienna 1910.

Thalloczy (L.), Illyrisch-Albanische Forschungen. Leipzig, 1916.

Wace (A. J. B.), and Thompson (M S.), The Nomads of the Balkans. London, 1914. Woods (H. Charles), The Danger Zone of Europe. London, 1911.

ARABIA.

ARABIA is essentially a desert country comprising an area of roughly 1,000,000 square miles and inhabited for the most part by noma tic Bedouin tribes eking out a pre arious pastoral existence by the breeding of camels, sheep and goats. Bounded on the north by the mandated territories of Iraq, Svria and Trans-Jordan (Palestine), it is enclosed on the other three sides by the sea-th Red Sa on the west, the Indian Ocean on the south and the Persian Gulf on the east. The land-surface of the peninsu a enclosed within these limits slopes down steadily from the elevated mountain barrier, which runs down the whole length of its western side p-rallel with the Red Sea. to sea-level on the Persian Gulf, and the uniformity of this slope is only interrupted in the extreme south-eastern corner of the penins la, where the mountains of the Oman district rear their crests to an elevation of 10,000 feet above sea-level. With the exception of this mountainous district and the similar district of Yemen, which occupies a considerable area in the south-western corner of the peninsula-both of them enjoy a degree of agricultural pro erity which con letely differentiates them physically from the rest of the country of which they form geographical part-Arabia is a barren country consisting of vast tracts of steppe-de-ert, sand waste and mountainous wilderness. It is a country of in-ignificant rainfall (Yemen and Oman excepted) but such rain as falls collects at greater or less depths below th surface in favoured localities and gives rise to cultivation in scattered oises and, here and there, in considerable districts or oasisgops. The Taif district, for instance, in the Hejaz mountains above Mecca. the Qasim and Jabal Shammar provinces in Central Arabia and the Hasa province near the Persian Gulf are among the best examples of such districts, whi'e Madina. Taima, Riyadh, Jauf and Wadi Dawasir are but a few among the many large oases which occur frequently throughout the country. While therefore the denizens of Arabia are essentially nomadic and pastoral, their tendency-apart from an age-long and stady influx into the more fertile provinces of Iraq and Syria beyond their proper borders-is to take advantage of every locality where conditions are reasonably favourable to settle down as tillers of the soil. It is clear from the present constitution of the Arabian population, which consists to a considerable extent of negroes and crossbreeds between them and Arabs, that in former times the less honourable occupation of agriculture was left by the Arab owners of the soil to slaves captured in war or imported from Africa. But agriculture as a profession has steadily made good against original prejudices, and the process of settling down has been going on so long that at the present moment the inhabitants of Arabia are found in every degree of transit on from the purely nomadic life of the Bedouin to the highly developed though simple civic life of the greater towns such as Madina. Anaiza, or Buraida This development has been accompanied by corresponding political changes and the patriarchal, tribal organisation of the Bedouin has wakened steadily before a natural tendency to communal organisation into states and principalities imposed on the people by the development of civic life. The introduction of modern fire-arms and the growth of an Arab nationalist spirit (directed against Turkish domination) in the borderlands of Syria and Iraq tended to encourage this process during the first de ade of the present century, and the rise to power of Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, he presen: Sultan of Nejd, gave it a further impetus. Ibn Saud set to work to organise the unsettled Bedouin into civic communities under cover of a great Wahhabi

revival, and in the spring of 1914 struck the first blow for the Arabs against the Turks by capturing the Hasa province from the latter. The Great War completed and stereotyped (whether permanently or not it is as yet impossible to say) the process of political organisation in Arabia, and the ejection of the Turks from the Hejaz, Asir and Yemen left the Arabs to work out their own salvation uncheck d by foreign control. Internecine warfare not unnaturally followed, and the result of a five years' struggle (not yet comple e) is that a single power (the Sultanate of Nejd) has achieved a paramount position throughout the peninsula beyond the coastal fringe, where the states of the Hejaz, Yemen and Oman are the most important of those which maintain an indepen lent existence together with the lesser principalities of Kuwait and Bahrain, the tru-ial chiefs of the Oman coast, the Hadramaut and the Aden hinterland, all of which enjoy in a greater or less degree the protection of Great Britain. The principality of Asir, reduced in extent to a mere strip of the coast round Hudaida. still (February 1925) maintains a precious independence between Ibu Saud on the one side and the Imam of the Yemen on the other, while the Hejaz is (February 1925) in the throes of a struggle with Ibn Saud, who has occupied a con-iderable portion of its territory including Mecca. The population of Arabia caunot be estimated with any certainty but would seem to be about 10 millions.

1. The Sultanate of Nejd.-At the end of the nineteenth century the Wahhabi state of Nejd formed a part of the dominions of the Amirate of Jabal Shammar, which, in the reign of Muhammad ibn Rashid, had by crushing the rival dynasty of Ibn Saud established itself as the dominant power in Central Arabia. The surviving representatives of the Wa habi dynasty of Ibn Saud were in exile at Kuwait. In 1901, however, Abdul Aziz III ibu Saud, then a youth of 20 and the representative of a cadet branch of the dynasty, recovered the Wahhabi capital of Riyadh from the Rashidite forces by a bold stroke, and by 1908, whe Abdul Aziz ibu Rashid, the successor of Muhammad ibn Rashid, was killed in battle, had largely re-established the position of his dynasty throughout the territory ruled by his grandfather, Faisal ibn Saul, i. e. from the Qasim province in the north to Wadi Dawasir in the sou h, and from the confines of the Hejaz on the west to the confines of the Hisa province (held by the Turks) on the eas In 1910 he initiated at Artawiya the Wahhabi revival, which has sin produced such far-reachir g results, and in the spring of 1914 he wrested t Hasa province from the Turks, thus extending his territories on the east t the Persian Gulf. During the war he like the Grand Sherif of Mecca (sinc 1916 King of the Hejaz), allied himself with Great Britain, but, after a failure against Ibn Ra-hid, who was in alliance with the Turks, in January, 1915, at the battle of Jarrab, at which the British representative at his court (Captain W. H. I. Shakespear) was killed, he played no active part in the war till 1918, when a re ewal of his activities against Ibn Rashid met with no substantial success. At this period his territories were exactly as they were at the outbreak of the Great War, while the oasis of Khurma, on his western frontier, was claimed by King Husein as belonging to the Hejaz. This claim on the part of the Hejaz was destined to precipitate a conflict of far-reaching consequences between the two states, and King Husein enjoyed the advantage of alliance with In Rashid, the Amir of Jabal Shammar, who, apart from the traditional enmity of the Rashid and Saud dynasties, had every reason to desire to avenge himself on Ibn Saud for the latter's activities against him during the Great War. Ibn Saud with characteristic vigour did not allow himself to rest content with mere defence. In 1919 the Arabian war may be deemed to he

in

Money and Currency.-The Kabuli rupee is the usual currency. The gold coin is the amania, equivalent to 15 Kabuli rupees; there are also gold half, two, and nve amania coins. The silver amania = 1 Kabulí rupee.

One Kabuli rupee is equal to about eightpence at the normal rate of exchange between Afghánistán and India.

Diplomatic Representatives.

1. OF AFGHÁNISTÁN IN GREAT BRITAIN.

Envoy and Minister.-Vacant.

Chargé d'Affaires.-Syed Qasim Khan.

There is an Afghán Consul-General at the headquarters of the government in India, and Consuls at Bombay and Karachi.

2. OF GREAT BRITAIN IN AFGHÁNISTÁN..

Envoy and Minister.-Lt. Col. Sir F. H. Humphrys, K. B.E., C.I.E. (appointed January 21, 1922).

Counsellor.-H. A. F. Metcalfe, M. V.O., I.C.S.

Secre ary.-A. W. Fagan, I.C.S.

Military Attaché.—Major C. H. G. H. Harvey-Kelly, D.S.O.

There are consuls at Jálálábád and Kandahár.

Books of Reference.

Imperial Gazetteer of India-Afghánistán and Nepal. 1908.

Accounts relating to the trade by Land of British India with Foreign Countries. Annual. Calcutta.

Parliamentary Papers, Afghánistán, 1873-1899.

Treaty between the British and Afghan Governments. Signed at Kabul, November 22, 1921. (Ratifications exchanged at Kabul, February 6, 1922.) London, 1922. (Treaty Series, No. 19 (1922). Cind. 1786.)

The Second Afghan War, 1878-80. Prepared in the Intelligence Branch of the Indian Army Headquarters. London, 1908.

Bellew (H. W.), Afghanistan and the Afgháns, London, 1879; and The Races of Afghánistán, 1880.

Curzon (Hon. G. N.), Russia in Central Asia. [Contains bibliography.] London, 1889. Daly (Mrs. Kate), Eight Years among the Afghans. London, 1905.

Elphinstone (Hon. M.), An Account of the Kingdom of Cabul and its Dependencies. London, 1815.

Forbes (A.), The Afghan Wars, 1839-42 and 1878-80. London, 1892.
Gray (T.), At the Court of the Ameer. New ed. London, 1901.

Hamilton (Angus), Afghánistan. London, 1906.

Hanna (Col. H. B), The Second Afghan War. Westminster, 1899.

Holdien (Col. Sir T. H.), The Indian Borderland, 1880-1900. London, 1901.
Lacoste (B. de), Around Afghanistan. London, 1909.

MacMahon (A H.), The Southern Borderlands of Afghanistan. London, 1897.

Malleson (G. B.), History of Afgánistan. 2nd edition. 1879.

Martin (F. A.), Under the Absolute Emir. New York and London, 1907.

Noyce (F.), England, India, and Afghánistán. London, 1902.

Pennele (P. L.), Among the Wild Tribes of the Afghan Frontier. London, 1911.
Roberts Field-Marshal Lord), Forty-nine Years in India. London, 1897.
Robertson (Sir G. S.), The Kanr of the Hindu Kush. London, 1896.

Sale (G.), Journal of the Disasters in Afghánistán in 1841-42. London, 1843.

Starr (L. A.), Frontier Folk of the Afghan Border. (An Album of Illustrations.) London, 1921.

Sultan Mahomed Khán (Mir Munshi) (Editor), The Life of Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan. 2 vols. London, 1900.-Constitution and Laws of Afghanistan. London, 1910. Tate (G P.), The Kingdom of Afghanistan. Bombay, 1911.

Thornton (Mr. and Mrs.), Leaves from an Afghan Scrap Book. London, 1910.

Wheeler (E.), The Ameer Abdur Rahman. London, 1895.

Yate (Major C. E.), Northern Afghánistán. London, 1888.