Greece

We have stated that a small proportion of the in habitants of Greece live scattered through the coun try. Were this circumstance not attended to, the number of large towns mentioned by travellers would lead us to conclude that the country is more pope. loos than it really is. We subjoin the names of some of the most considerable towns, with the estimated population : The towns of Greece contrast strikingly with those of western Europe in their general appearance. Founded rather as places of security, than with a view to commercial advantage, their sites are gene rally elevated and picturesque. Instead of the long and uniform lines of buildings seen in our cities, the houses often stand detached, and appear irregularly scattered over the ground. The tall, airy minarets, also, which break the outline in an agreeable and fanciful manner, and the groups rounding the mosques, which are with the buildings, give them a character of repose and softness, combined with richness, and even magnifi. cence, which has a fine effect in the landscape. On a near inspection, however, their beauty vanishes. The mean buildings, the streets narrow and dark, seldom paved, and covered with offal and filth of every kind, grievously offend both the senses of sight and smell. The houses of the poorer classes are mi. serable hovels, built of mud and straw ; those of the peasants in the country are often formed, like the huts of savages, of wooden poles rudely put together in the shape of a tent, and covered with turf. The houses of the better classes in towns are of wood, sometimes with a foundation of stone. They are pretty generally of two stories ; the upper story sometimes projecting beyond the lower, in the man ner of the old wooden buildings in Edinburgh, and the roof again extending far beyond the face of the upper wall, apparently for the purpose of giving shade and shelter to the streets below. The style of building is extremely uniform. The larger houses are built round a square area; the under story, used as stables and warehouses, has seldom any windows on the side towards the street, or it is shut in on that side by a wall, so as to give the house the appear ance of a jail. The upper story presents, in front, an open gallery, with small windows, latticed with cross bars of wood, and serves chiefly to communicate with the apartments behind. The furniture consists of a very few articles, of a rich, or rather gaudy descrip tion ; a divan or raised seat, from 10 to 15 inches high, stuffed and covered with silk, and cushioned behind for the back, extends round three sides of the room. A handsome carpet covers the rest of the floor. These, with a table of very plain construction, and twn or three large mirrors in the corners, are generally all that a. well-furnished Turkish room contains. The walls are- sometimes wainscotted, and adorned with landscapes, or purely ornamental paintings. The roofs exhibit gilding and carved work. Many of the houses of the rich have gardens attached to them, inclosing fountains. The dwellings of the wealthy Greeks are in no respect different from those of the Turks. There is a total absence, in the Greek towns, of that noise, bustle, and activity which give such an animated character to our cities. There are no wheel-carriages of any kind seen, but loaded camels or horses are passing to and fro, through the dust or mud. • Hawks and storks are flying about the trees, mosques, and houses ; and great numbers of gaunt and half-wild dogs, which have no owners, are prowling about, picking up the offal thrown into the streets. One of the most interesting objects in a Greek town is always the Bazar or market. This consists of one, two, or more streets, filled entirely with shops or wooden booths. The dealers in the same class of articles are all ranged together. One street is occupied by those who deal in jewellery ; another by those who deal in pelisses and shawls ; a third by the retailers of common cotton goods ; a fourth by the dealers in groceries, tobacco, &c. ; a fifth by those who sell pipes, amber, -mouth pieces, &c., and so on. These bazars are often shaded by wooden trelisses in terlaced with vines, or by branches of trees laid across from the roofs of the opposite shops or booths.*' The population of Greece is composed chiefly of three different races, not more distinct in their origin than in their manners and character. These are the Turks, the Greeks, and the Albanians, with whom are intermixed a smaller number of Jews, Armenians, and Wallachians. It is extremely difficult to esti mate, with any accuracy, in what proportions these different races are combined. The scanty informa tion given by travellers on this subject is often ren dered ambiguous by the indiscriminate application of the name of Greeks to persons attached to the Greek church, whether they are of that nation or Albanians. Except in some towns, and very limit ed districts, the Turks nowhere appear to constitute the majority of the population. They are most nu merous in Thessaly, Macedonia, and Negroponte, are thinly diffused through the rest of Greece and Al bania, and are scarcely seen at all in the islands. In the districts of Salonica and Larissa, where they most abound, they scarcely exceed, according to Beaujour, one-third of the inhabitants (180,000 out of 500,000) ; in Athens, according to Dr Holland, they amount to one-fifth ; in the Morea, they form one-twenty-eighth part by Pouqueville's enumera tion ; in Livadia, there are few of them ; in Acarna nia and IEtolia, still fewer. In Janina, they are less numerous than the Greeks ; and throughout Greece generally, except in Thessaly and Macedonia, there are very few Turks among the rural population. With out pretending to accuracy, on a point where accu racy is unattainable, we may, perhaps, estimate the Turks on these grounds at one-third of the inhabit ants in Thessaly and Macedonia, and at one tenth in the other parts of Greece and Albania on an average. The whole number of Turks computed on this principle would be 500,000, which is between one•fifth and one•sixth of the entire population. t It is more difficult to form any satisfactory con clusions as to the respective numbers of the Greeks' and Albanians. Colonies or parties of the latter people have, from time to time, settled in various districts of Greece. Nearly all of these belong to the Greek church. Some of them have preserved their native manners, dress, and language ; others are gradually adopting the language of the Greeks ; and as some of their settlements were formed more than four hundred years ago, and probably much earlier, it may be presumed, that numbers of the Al banian settlers have lost their distinctive character, and become blended with the mass of the Greek po pulation. The whole of the peasantry in Attica, and the eastern part of Bceotia, and one-fifth of the inhabitants of Athens itself, are Albanians. They are found also preserving their peculiar character, and generally employed as shepherds, in some districts of Argolis, Elis, Arcadia, and Laconia. Dr Clarke met with them repeatedly among the rural population of Thessaly and Macedonia, to the extreme limits of the latter country, at Mount Panyeus. And if we might credit an extraordi nary statement of his (Vol. VII.. p. 119), we should conclude that the whole peasantry of Greece were Albanians. But this is irreconcilable with the accounts given by other travellers. Dr Hol land, who was well apprized of the distinction between the Albanians and the Greeks, describes the peasantry of Thessaly as a very different race from the Albanians, and estimates the Greeks in this district at two-thirds of the population. In the countries south of Mount CEta, Doris, Phocis, and part of Bceotia, he thinks they are proportionably more numerous. In the Morea, Pouqueville met with Albanians frequently as shepherds ; but the Greeks there certainly outnumber the other classes in greater proportion than any where else, except in the islands. They are numerous in 2Etolia, and form

almost the entire population of Acarnania. In the capital of Albania they are the largest and most re spectable class of inhabitants ; and in the towns and villages of southern Albania generally they consti tute the basis of the population. Every where the Greeks form a conspicuous part of the population of towns. In some of the large towns of Thessaly and Macedonia the Turks predominate in numbers ; but in all the towns south of Mount CEta, with a very few exceptions, the Greeks form the great majority of the inhabitants. Except, therefore, in Attica, Braotia, and some parts of the Mores, where the Al banians are regularly colonized, we have reason to believe, that when they are met with in other parts of Greece, it is only in small straggling parties, found there, perhaps, during the annual migratory expedi tions of the shepherds with their flocks, or left be hind them. After so many revolutions, what is call ed the Greek population of Greece cannot be un ' mixed. Many of the inhabitants of the mountains may be sprung from Albanians, or from other tribes distinguished in features and character from the in habitants of the plains. And, in fact, Major Leake observes, that the Greeks of the mountain districts closely resemble the Albanians in manners and cha racter. But, in a general view of the country, all those should be considered as Greeks who speak the language, and follow the national mode of worship, if they are not separated by some strongly marked distinction which prevents them from feeling an iden tity of interest with the great body of the Greeks in national questions. Considering the subject in this light, we think it may be assumed, that the Alba nians are not more numerous in the other parts of Greece than the Greeks are in Albania; and making a rough estimate for the whole country, whether the smaller body is held to be one-fourth or one-sixth of the larger, in either case, the result will be nearly, that the Greeks are to the Albanians as three to two. On whatever principle we calculate, the Greeks can scarcely be made to exceed the entire mass of the other inhabitants, Turks, Albanians, Wallachians, Bulgarians, and Jews,* or one-half of a population of 2,700,000 souls. We have no data to authorize even a conjecture as to the number of Greeks in the parts beyond Mount litemus ; but we think it is clear, from what has been stated, that the late Pro. fessor Carlyle proceeded upon a very exaggerated idea of their numbers, when he estimated the Greeks in the whole of European Turkey at 3,500,000.

But in Greece, as in other rude and ignorant countries, the most permanent ties, and the strong est antipathies, are grounded on religious distinc tions. And the strength of the different religious parties is, therefore, a cue to the distribution of po litical interests. The Turks, who are all Mahome tans, have already been estimated at 500,000. The Bulgarians, Wallachians, and Albanian colonists are Christians of the same denomination with the Greeks; and since neither the Jews, nor the Latin Christians, dispersed through the ports on the western coast, and in some of the Cyclades, are of any importance in point of numbers, we have only to estimate the proportion of Mahometans and Christians in Alba nia, to ascertain the total amount of each party in Greece. In southern Albania the native tribes are chiefly Christians; in the north chiefly Mahometans. Major Leake thinks, that the native inhabitants of Albania altogether (exclusive of Greeks) are pretty nearly equally divided between the two religions. On this ground, an addition must be made of 350,000, or 400,000, to the Turkish Mahometans, which will raise the whole number of Mahometans to 900,000. The different nations belonging to the Greek church, who constitute the remainder of the population, must, therefore, amount to nearly 1,800,000, or twice the number of Mahometans. It should be observed, however, that the Albanians were all originally Chris tians ; that the party now professing Mahometanism embraced it only at a recent period, and are so lax in their faith, and so exempt from bigotry, as to be considered no better than infidels by the Turks. Their national temper predominates over their reli gion ; and they hate the Turks much more than their brethren who profess Christianity. The two serve together in the army, and intermarry ; and though the various tribes are often at feud with one another, religious differences are seldom the ground of their quarrels. If circumstances should, therefore, bring the Turks into danger, the tie of religion will be but a feeble bond between them and the Albanian Ma hometans. t The Vlaki, or Wallachians, are next in numbers to the Greeks, Albanians, and Turks. Like the Al banians, they first appear in the history of Greece about the eleventh century. They are a tribe of mountaineers, chiefly employed as shepherds, living permanently on the great ridges of Pindus, and O lympus, and their branches; but, like the Albanians, descending into the plains of Thessaly, Macedonia, and Southern Greece, during the winter, with their flocks. They have a language of their own, which, from the great proportion of Latin words it contains, has led to a belief, that they are the descendants of the Roman colonies, planted in Mcesia and Dacia by the Emperor Trajan and his successors. The rug. ged country they inhabit has kept them unmixed with other tribes, and enabled them to maintain a considerable degree of independence. They are hardy, but less ferocious than the Albanians, sober, industrious, cleanly, and in high repute as shepherds throughout Greece, both for their fidelity and skill. Some of the higher classes go abroad as merchants, and the lower classes furnish some of the best arti zans in Greece and Turkey at large ; but wherever their occupations carry them, a strong national spi rit recall them ultimately to their native mountains.

Within their own country they have considerable °manufactures of coarse woollens. They are of the Greek church, and the men generally speak Romaic, or modern Greek, besides their own language, but the women know only the latter. • The mountainous districts in the north of Mace donia are inhabited by Bulgarians, who occupy the whole region, from these parts to the Danube, and the neighbourhood of Constantinople. They are a people of Sclavonic origin, profess the Christian re ligion, and have a language distinct from that of the other people settled in Greece. They live chiefly by their flocks, are rude and ignorant, but brave. They possess only a small portion of the country at present ; but for a considerable period between the eighth and eleventh centuries, they were masters of nearly the whole of Greece, and have left traces of their establishment there in the language, and in the names of places. t Small bodies of Jews are found in most of the considerable trading towns of Greece, engaged as usual in the lower branches of commerce. There are none in Athens, and this fact is accounted for, as in some other places, by the supposition, that the native Athenians outdo them in their favourite pro fession of usury. There is a considerable number in Janina ; but they are nowhere so numerous as in Salonica, where they have been settled for some cen turies. Their number in this city is estimated at 12,000 ; the pikuliar privileges they enjoy, however, have not raised their character ; for they are pro verbially distinguished throughout Greece for chi canery, dishonesty, and immorality. Considered as a branch of the general population of the country, they are too inconsiderable to be of the least import ance. Armenians are also found in some of the towns, but in a still smaller proportion than the Jews.