been cultivated and, idealized as a military virtue, partly because it counteracts the longing for the softening feminine influences of the home and partly because it seems to have an inspiring influence in promoting heroism and heightening esprit de corps.  In the lament of David over Jonathan we have a picture of intimate friendship—­“passing the love of women”—­between comrades in arms among a barbarous, warlike race.  There is nothing to show that such a relationship was sexual, but among warriors in New Caledonia friendships that were undoubtedly homosexual were recognized and regulated; the fraternity of arms, according to Foley,[20] complicated with pederasty, was more sacred than uterine fraternity.  We have, moreover, a recent example of the same relationships recognized in a modern European race—­the Albanians.

Hahn, in the course of his Albanische Studien (1854, p. 166), says that the young men between 16 and 24 lore boys from about 12 to 17.  A Gege marries at the age of 24 or 25, and then he usually, but not always, gives up boy-love.  The following passage is reported by Hahn as the actual language used to him by an Albanian Gege:  “The lover’s feeling for the boy is pure as sunshine.  It places the beloved on the same pedestal as a saint.  It is the highest and most exalted passion of which the human breast is capable.  The sight of a beautiful youth awakens astonishment in the lover, and opens the door of his heart to the delight which the contemplation of this loveliness affords.  Love takes possession of him so completely that all his thought and feeling goes out in it.  If he finds himself in the presence of the beloved, he rests absorbed in gazing on him.  Absent, he thinks of nought but him.  If the beloved unexpectedly appears, he falls into confusion, changes color, turns alternately pale and red.  His heart beats faster and impedes his breathing.  He has ears and eyes only for the beloved.  He shuns touching him with the hand, kisses him only on the forehead, sings his praise in verse, a woman’s never.”  One of these love-poems of an Albanian Gege runs as follows:  “The sun, when it rises in the morning, is like you, boy, when you are near me.  When your dark eye turns upon me, it drives my reason from my head.”

It should be added that Prof.  Weigand, who knew the Albanians well, assured Bethe (Rheinisches Museum fuer Philologie, 1907, p. 475) that the relations described by Hahn are really sexual, although tempered by idealism.  A German scholar who travelled in Albania some years ago, also, assured Naecke (Jahrbuch fuer sexuelle Zwischenstufen, vol. ix, 1908, p. 327) that he could fully confirm Hahn’s statements, and that, though it was difficult to speak positively, he doubted whether these relationships were purely ideal.  While most prevalent among the Moslems, they are also found among the Christians, and receive the blessing of the priest in church.