The only other Arabic dependency of Great Britain is Aden.[8]
The Ionian Islands.—The reader may have remarked the peculiar character of European ethnology. It consists chiefly in the analysis of the component parts of particular populations; and this it investigates so exclusively as to leave no room for the description of manners, customs, physiognomy, and the like—paramount in importance as these matters are when we come to the other quarters of the world. There are two reasons for this difference. First—the peculiarities of the European nations are by no means of the same extent and character with those of the ruder families of mankind. A similar civilization, and a similar religion, have effected a remarkable amount of uniformity; and, hence, the differences are those that the historian deals with more appropriately than the ethnologist. Secondly—such external and palpable differences as exist are generally known and appreciated. The analysis[28] of blood, or stock, which, partially, accounts for them, is less completely understood.
Hence, in treating of the Maltese, there was no description of the Arabic stock at all. All that was stated was a reason for believing that the Maltese belonged to it. Such also, to a great degree, was the case with the Gibraltar population, and the Heligolanders. And such will be the case with the Ionian Islanders. It will not be thought necessary to enlarge upon the Greeks; it will only be requisite to ask how far the group in question is Grecian.
The very oldest population of the Ionian Islands I believe to have been barbarous—a term which, in the present classical localities, is convenient.
In the smaller islands, such as Ithaca and Zacynthus, the population had become Hellenized at the time of the composition of the Homeric poems. In Corcyra, on the other hand, the original barbarism lasted longer. Such, at least, is the way in which I interpret the passages in the Odyssey concerning the Phæacians (who were certainly not Greek), and the later language of Thucydides respecting the relations of the Corinthian colonies of Epidamnus, and Corcyra. The whole context leads to the belief that, originally, the ἄποικοι were Greeks in contact with a population which was not Greek.
In respect to the stock to which these early[29] and ante-Hellenic islanders belonged, the presumption is in favour of its having been the Illyrian; a stock known only in its probable remains—the Skipitar (Albanians, or Arnaouts) of Albania.
Time, however, made them all equally Hellenic, a result which was, probably, completed before the decline of Greek independence; since which epoch there have been the following elements of intermixture:—
1. Albanian blood, from the opposite coast.
2. Slavonic, from Dalmatia.
3. Italian, from Italy.