The Arvanitakis brothers were, as we saw, very probably of that Greek family of nomad shepherds called Sarakatsans. The prisoners, finally reduced to fifty in number, were tried in five batches, according to their places of origin. These villages are unusual in that Albanian and Macedonian both compete with Vlach in them. Both these former languages are taught in school, whereas Vlach is not. Lower Belica is only six miles from Struga along a good road to the prosperous Slav village of Vevcani four miles away.
Buses go through the village every two hours.
The survival of Vlach in these circumstances seems something of a miracle, and yet I was assured that almost half the village still spoke Vlach. In previous years the proportion had been higher, but there had been much movement to Belgrade and Skopje, and I spoke to a number of inhabitants who had worked in Germany. The village looked thriving with small, quite old farmsteads behind high pallisades and some new houses. Chickens, cows and vegetables seemed everywhere, but I saw no sheep. I might have seen some if I had penetrated to Upper Belica some six miles up the slope of the Jablanica mountain range which divides Yugoslavia from Albania, but I gathered that this was almost deserted, though once a fine village.