In spite of the diverse elements which compose it, the Greek nationality is one of the most homogeneous in Europe. The Albanians, of Pelasgian descent like the Greeks, do not cede to the latter in patriotism; and it was they—the Suliotes, Hydriotes, Spezziotes—who fought most valiantly for national independence. The eight hundred families of Rumanian or Kutzo-Wallachian Zinzares who pasture their herds in the hills of Acarnania and Ætolia, and are known as Kara-Gunis, or “black cloaks,” speak the two languages, and sometimes marry Greek girls, though they never give their own daughters in marriage to the Greeks. Haughty and free, they are not sufficiently numerous to be of any great importance. To foreigners the Greeks are rather intolerant, and they take no pains to render their stay amongst them agreeable. The Turks—who were numerous formerly in certain parts of the Peloponnesus, in Bœotia, and in the {45} island of Eubœa, and whose presence recalled an unhappy period of servitude—have fled to a man, and only the fez, the narghile, and the slippers remind us of their former presence. The Jews, though met with in every town of the East, whether Slav or Mussulman, dare hardly enter the presence of the Greeks, who are, moreover, their most redoubtable rivals in matters of finance: they are to be found only in the Ionian Islands, where they managed to get a footing during the British Protectorate. In this same Archipelago we likewise meet with the descendants of the ancient Venetian colonists, and with emigrants from all parts of Italy. French and Italian families still form a distinct element of the population of Naxos, Santorin, and Syra. As to the Maltese porters and gardeners at Athens and Corfu, they continue for the most part in subordinate positions, and never associate with the Greeks.
The homogeneous character of the population of Greece does not admit of that country being divided into ethnological provinces, like Turkey or Austro-Hungary, but it consists geographically of four distinct portions. These are (1), continental Hellas, known since the Turkish invasion as Rumelia, in remembrance of the “Roman” empire of Byzantium; (2), the ancient Peloponnesus, now called the Morea, perhaps a transposition of the word “Romea,” or from a Slav word signifying “sea coast,” and applied formerly to Elis; (3), the islands of the Ægean Sea; (4), the Ionian Islands. In describing the various portions of Greece we shall make use, in preference, of the ancient names of mountains, rivers, and towns; for the Hellenes of our own day, proud of the glories of the past, are endeavouring gradually to get rid of names of Slav or Italian origin, which still figure upon the maps of their country.[13]
II.—CONTINENTAL GREECE.
The Pindus, which forms the central chain of Southern Turkey, passes over into Greece, and imparts to it an analogous orographical character. On both sides of this conventional boundary we meet with the same rocks, the same vegetation, the same landscape features, and the same races of people. By dividing the Epirus and handing over Thessaly to the Turks, European diplomacy has paid no attention to natural features. The eastern portion of the boundary is made to follow the line of water parting over the range of the lofty Othrys, commanding the plain of the Sperchius. Westward of the Pindus the boundary {46} crosses transversely the valley of the Achelous, and the hills which separate it from the Gulf of Arta.
Fig. 11.—MOUNT PARNASSUS AND DELPHI.
The isolated summit of Mount Tymphrestus, or Velukhi, which rises where the grand chain of the Othrys branches off from the Pindus, is not the culminating point of continental Greece, but it is a centre from which the principal mountain spurs and rivers radiate. Within its spurs lies hidden the charming valley of Karpenisi, and an elevated ridge joins them, towards the south-east, to the most important mountain mass of modern Greece, viz. the group surmounted by the snow-clad pyramids of the Vardusia and Khiona, whose slopes are covered with dark firs, and to the superb Katavothra, the Œta of the ancients, on which Hercules built his funeral pile. The mountains of Vardusia and Khiona are face to face with the fine mountain masses of Northern Morea, likewise wooded and covered with snow during the greater part of the year.
The mountains of Ætolia, to the west of the Velukhi and the Vardusia, are far less elevated, but they are rugged, and form a veritable chaos of rocks, savage defiles, and thickets, into which only Wallachian herdsmen venture. In Southern Ætolia, on the shores of the lakes and along the rivers, the country is more accessible, but mountains rise there likewise, and by tortuous ridges they are brought into connection with the system of the Pindus. Those on the coast of Acarnania, opposite to the Ionian Islands, are steep, covered with trees and shrubs; they are the mountains of the “Black Continent” mentioned by Ulysses. {47} To the east of the Achelous there is another coast chain, well known to mariners: this is the Zygos, the southern slopes of which, arid and austere, are seen from off Missolonghi. Still further to the east another range comes down to the seashore, and, together with the promontories on the opposite coast of the Morea, forms the narrow entrance to the Gulf of Corinth. Close to this entrance, on the Ætolian side, there rises bold Mount Varassova, a huge block of rock. Local tradition tells us that the Titans endeavoured to throw this rock into the sea, so that it might form a bridge between the two coasts; but the rock proved too heavy, and it was dropped where we now see it.
Towards the Ægean Sea the mountain mass of the Katavothra is continued by a coast range running in a direction parallel to the mountains of the island of Eubœa. This range should be described rather as a series of mountain-groups separated from each other by deep hollows, extensive depressions, and even by river valleys. These mountains, though low and intersected by numerous roads, are nevertheless difficult of access, for their slopes are steep, their promontories abrupt, and their precipices sudden, and in the times of the ancient Greeks a small number of men repeatedly defended them against large armies. At one extremity of this range is the passage of Thermopylæ; at the other, on the eastern foot of the Pentelicus, the famous plain of Marathon.