Hellespont must have been much narrower in former times than it is
now. At Abydos—the modern Naghara—the width is said to have amounted
to seven stadia, or less than a mile, anciently, whilst at the present
time it is 6,500 feet. It was here Xerxes constructed his double bridge
of boats. The strait is deep at that spot, and its current strong, but
no wooden ship could hope to force a passage if covered by the guns
in the batteries on both coasts. The Hellespont, like the Bosphorus,
has two {106} currents flowing through it. In winter, when the rivers
which flow into the Black Sea are frozen up, and the Sea of Marmara
is no longer fed by the waters of the Bosphorus, a highly saline
under-current penetrates from the Ægean Sea into the Dardanelles,
whilst a feebler current of comparatively fresh water flows in a
contrary direction on the surface.[29]
Gallipoli, the Constantinople of the Hellespont, stands near the
western extremity of the Sea of Marmara. It is the first city which the
Turks captured upon the soil of Europe; but though they settled down
there nearly a hundred years earlier than they did at Constantinople,
they are no more in the majority here than they are in the capital.
Gallipoli, like Rodosto and other towns on the Sea of Marmara, is
inhabited by Mohammedans of various races, by Greeks, Armenians, and
Jews, forming separate communities dwelling within the walls of the
same town. The country population consists almost exclusively of
Greeks, who are the proprietors and cultivators of the land; and in
sight of the coasts of Asia, and within that portion of the Balkan
peninsula which has been longest under the rule of the Turk, the Greek
is stronger numerically than anywhere else to the north of Mount
Pindus. He does not there confine himself to the coast, and, if we
except a few Bulgarian villages and the larger towns, the whole of
Eastern Thracia belongs to him.
The lowlands of this region form a vast triangular plain, bounded by
the Tekir Dagh and the coast range on the south, by offshoots from the
Rhodope on the west, and by the granitic mountains of Stranja on the
east. This is one of the dreariest districts of all Turkey. Swampy
depressions and untilled land recall the steppes of Russia; and in
summer, when the wind raises clouds of dust, we can imagine ourselves
in the midst of a desert. The dreary monotony of this plain is relieved
only by the pale contours of distant mountains, and by innumerable
artificial mounds of unknown origin. So numerous are these tumuli that
they form an essential feature of the landscape, and no artist could
convey a just idea of it without introducing into his picture one or
more of them.
Near the northern extremity of this unattractive plain, at the
confluence of Maritza and Tunja, lies the city of Adrianople, enveloped
in trees, whose sight delights the eye of the weary traveller.
Adrianople, in reality, consists of a number of villages, separated
from each other by orchards, poplars, and cypresses, above which peep
out the minarets of some hundred and fifty mosques. The sparkling
waters of the Maritza and Tunja, of rivulets and of aqueducts, lend
animation to the picture, and render Adrianople one of the most
delightful places. But it is more than this. It is the great centre of
population in the interior of Turkey, and its favourable geographical
position has always secured to the city a certain amount of importance.
The ancient city of Orestis, the capital of the Kings of Thracia,
stood on this site, and was succeeded by the Hadrianopolis of the
Romans, which the Turks changed into Edirneh, and made their capital
until Constantinople fell into their power. The old palace of the
Sultan, built in the {107} Persian style towards the close of the
fourteenth century, still remains, though in a dilapidated condition.
But here, likewise, the Osmanli are in the minority. The Greeks are
their equals in numbers, and far surpass them in intelligence, whilst
the Bulgarians, too, muster strongly, and, as in other towns of the
East, we meet with a strange mixture of races, from Persian merchants
down to gipsy musicians. The Jews are proportionately more numerous in
Adrianople than in any other town of Turkey, and, strange to relate,
they differ from their co-religionists in every other part of the world
by a lack of smartness in business transactions. A local proverb says
that “it requires _ten_ Jews to hold their own against _one_ Greek;”
and not Greeks alone, for Wallachians, and even Bulgarians, are able to
impose upon the poor Israelite at Adrianople.
The communications between Adrianople and Midea, the ancient Greek
colony, famous for its subterranean temples, and with other cities
on the Black Sea, are difficult. Its natural outlets are towards the
south—on the one hand to Rodosto, on the Sea of Marmara; on the other,
down the Maritza valley to the Gulf of Saros. The railway follows the
latter, and the Rumelian Railway Company has constructed an artificial
harbour at Dede Aghach, enabling merchantmen to lie alongside a pier.
The allurements of commerce, however, have not hitherto induced the
inhabitants of Enos to exchange their walled and turreted acropolis for
the marshy tract on the Lower Maritza, with its deadly atmosphere.
The zone occupied by the Greeks grows narrower as we go west of the
Maritza, where the Rhodope Mountains form a kind of international
barrier. Only the coast is occupied there by Greek mariners and
fishermen, whilst the hills in sight of it are held almost exclusively
by Turkish and Bulgarian peasants and herdsmen. The marshy littoral
districts, the small valleys on the southern slopes of the mountains,
and a few isolated hills of volcanic or crystalline formation
constitute a narrow band which connects the Greeks of Thracia
with their compatriots of Chalcidice and Thessaly. The Yuruks, or
“Wanderers,” a Turkish tribe which has retained its nomadic habits
down to the present day, sometimes even extend their excursions to the
sea-coast. Their principal seat is in the Pilav Tepe, a mountain mass
to the north-west of Thasos, famous in the time of the Macedonian kings
for its mines of gold and silver. A wide plain extends immediately to
the west of these mountains, watered by the Strymon, or Karasu, and
is of marvellous fertility. Seres, a considerable city, occupies its
centre, and hundreds of villages, surrounded by orchards, rice, and
cotton fields are scattered over it. Looked at from the heights of
the Rhodope, this plain assumes the appearance of a huge garden-city.
Unfortunately many parts of it are very insalubrious.
The triple peninsula of Chalcidice has no connection whatever with
the Rhodope, and is attached to the mainland by an isthmus covered
with lakes, swamps, and alluvial plains. It extends far into the sea
like a huge hand spread out upon the waters. Chalcidice is a Greece
in miniature, with coasts of fantastic contours, deep bays, bold
promontories, and mountains rising in the midst of plains, like islands
in an archipelago. One of these mountain masses rises in the trunk of
the peninsula, and culminates in Mount Kortach, whilst each of its
three {108} ramifications possesses its own system of scarped hills.
Greek in aspect, this curious appendage to the continent is Greek, too,
in its population; and, a rare thing in Turkey, all its inhabitants are
of the same race, if we except the Turks in the town of Nisvoro and the
Slav monks of Mount Athos.
[Illustration: Fig. 33.—THE PENINSULA OF MOUNT ATHOS.
Scale 1 : 1,020,000.]
The easternmost of the three tongues of land of Chalcidice, which jut
out far into the waters of the Ægean, is almost entirely detached. Only
a low and narrow neck of land connects it with the mainland, and it
was across this isthmus that Xerxes dug a canal, 3,950 feet in length,
either to enable his fleet to avoid the dangerous promontory of Mount
Athos, or to give the awe-struck inhabitants a proof of his power. This
is the peninsula of Hagion Oros, the Monte Santo of the Italians. At
its extremity rises a limestone mountain, one of the most beautiful
in the Eastern Mediterranean. This is the famous Mount Athos, which
an ancient sculptor proposed to convert into a statue of Alexander,
holding a city in one hand and a spring in the other, and which Eastern
legends point out as the “exceeding high mountain” to which the devil
took Jesus, to show him “all the kingdoms of the world.” But whatever
old legends may say, the panorama is not as vast as this, though the
shores of Chalcidice, Macedonia, and Thracia lie spread out beneath our
feet, and the eye can range across the blue waters of the Ægean Sea
from Mount Olympus, in Thessaly, to Mount Ida, in Asia Minor. The bold
outlines of the fortified monasteries which appear here and there, in
the midst of chestnuts, oaks, or pines, on the slope of the mountain,
contrast most happily with the faint outline of the coasts on the
distant horizon.[30]
This peninsula, which a traveller has compared to a sphinx crouching
upon the bosom of the sea, is the property of a republic of monks,
who govern {109} themselves according to their own fancy. In return
for a tribute, which they pay to the Porte, they alone have the right
to live there, and strangers require their permission before they are
allowed to enter. A company of Christian soldiers is stationed at the
neck of the peninsula to prevent the sacred soil being desecrated
by the footsteps of a woman. Even the Turkish governor cannot gain
admittance without leaving his harem behind him. For fourteen hundred
years, we are told in the chronicles of Mount Athos, no female has
set foot upon this sacred soil, and this prohibition extends to
animals as well as to human beings. Even the presence of poultry would
profane the monasteries, and the eggs eaten by the monks are imported
from Lemnos. With the exception of a few purveyors, who reside at
the village of Karyes, the 6,000 inhabitants of the peninsula are
monks, or their servants, and they live in the monasteries, or in the
hermitages attached to the 935 churches and chapels. Nearly all the
monks are Greeks, but amongst the twenty large monasteries there are
two which were built by the ancient sovereigns of Servia, and one which
was founded by Russia. Most of these edifices occupy promontories,
and, with their high walls and strong towers, they are exceedingly
picturesque. One amongst them, that of Simopetra, appears to be almost
inaccessible. It is in these retreats the good fathers of the order of
St. Basil spend their lives in contemplative inaction. They are bound
to pray eight hours in the day and two in the night, and during the
whole of that time they are not allowed to sit. They have, therefore,
neither time nor strength for study or manual labour. The books in
their libraries are incomprehensible mysteries to them, and, in spite
of their sobriety, they might die of starvation if there were not
lay-brothers to work for them, and numerous farms on the mainland which
are their property. A few shiploads of hazel nuts is all this fertile
peninsula produces.
The ancient cities of Olynthus and Potidæa, on the neck of the western
peninsula of Chalcidice, have dwindled down into insignificant
villages; but the city of Therma, called afterwards Thessalonica, and
now known as Saloniki, still exists, for its geographical position is
most favourable, and after every siege and every conflagration it again
rose from its ashes. Vestiges of every epoch of history may still be
seen there: Cyclopean and Hellenic walls, triumphal arches, and remains
of Roman temples, Byzantine structures, and Venetian castles. Its
harbour is excellent, its roadstead well sheltered; and the high-roads
into Upper Macedonia and Epirus lead from it along the valleys of
the Vardar and Inje Karasu. These favourable circumstances have not
been without their influence, and Saloniki, next to Constantinople
and Adrianople, is the most important city of European Turkey. Its
population is mixed, like that of other cities in the East, and Jews
are exceptionally numerous. Most of them are the descendants of Spanish
Jews, expelled by the Inquisition, and they still talk Spanish. Many
have outwardly embraced Mohammedanism to escape persecution, but the
true Mussulman spurns these converts with disdain. They are generally
known as “Mamins.”
The commerce of Saloniki is important even now, but greater things
are {110} expected of the future. Like Marseilles, Trieste, and
Brindisi, Saloniki aspires to become a connecting link in the trade
between England and the East. It actually lies on the most direct
road between the Channel and the Suez Canal, and once connected by
railways with the rest of Europe, it is sure to take a large share
in the world’s commerce. This emporium of Macedonia is interesting,
too, from an ethnological point of view, for, with the exception of
Burgaz, on the Black Sea, it is the only place where the Bulgarians,
the most numerous race of European Turkey, have reached the sea-coast.
Everywhere else they are cut off from it by alien races, but Saloniki
brings them into direct contact with the remainder of Europe. Saloniki,
however, not only suffers from bad government, but also from the
marshes which surround it, and in summer many of its inhabitants flock
to the healthier town of Kalameria, to the west. Miasmatic swamps
unfortunately occupy a large portion of the northern coast of the
Ægean, and they separate the interior of Macedonia more effectively
from the coast than do its mountains. There is hardly any commerce
except at Saloniki.
[Illustration: Fig. 34.—MOUNT OLYMPUS.]
* * * * *
On the western shores of the Gulf of Saloniki, beyond the ever-changing
mouths of the Vardar and the briny waters of the Inje Karasu, or
Haliacmon, the land gradually rises. Hills are succeeded by mountains,
until bold precipices {111} approach close to the coast, and summit
rises beyond summit, up to the triple peak of Mount Olympus. Amongst
the many mountains which have borne this name, this is the highest and
the most beautiful, and the Greeks placed upon it the court of Jupiter
and the residence of the gods. It was in the plains of Thessaly, in the
shadow of this famous mountain, that the Greeks lived in the springtide
of their history, and their most cherished traditions attach themselves
to this beautiful country. The mountains which had sheltered the cradle
of their race remained to them for ever afterwards the seat of their
protecting deities. But Jupiter, Bacchus, and the other great gods of
antiquity have disappeared now, and monasteries have been built in the
woods which witnessed the revels of the Bacchantes.
[Illustration: Fig. 35.—MOUNT OLYMPUS AND THE VALLEY OF TEMPE.]
Until recently the upper valleys of Mount Olympus were inhabited only
by monks, and by klephtes, or bandits, who sought shelter there from
the Arnaut soldiers sent in their pursuit. The mountain, in fact,
constitutes a world apart, surrounded on all sides by formidable
declivities. Forty-two peaks form the battlements of this mountain
citadel, fifty-two springs rise within it, and the bold klepht is
secure within its fastnesses from the abhorred Turk. Magnificent
forests of laurel-trees, planes, and oaks cover its lower maritime
slopes, and in times of trouble they have served as a refuge to entire
populations. But Italian {112} speculators have purchased these
forests, and the time is not, perhaps, very distant when Mount Olympus,
deprived of its verdure, will be reduced to a barren mass of rock,
like most of the mountains of the Archipelago. Wild cats abound on the
lower slopes of Olympus, chamois still climb its rugged pinnacles, but
bears are no longer met with: St. Denys, who dwelt upon the mountain,
required beasts to ride upon, and changed them into horses !
Xenagoras, an ancient geometrician, was the first to measure the height
of Mount Olympus, but his result, 6,200 feet, is far from the truth,
for the highest summit attains an elevation of 9,750 feet.[31] It
may possibly be the culminating point of the Balkan peninsula. Snow
remains in some of its crevices throughout the year, and no human
being hitherto appears to have succeeded in ascending its highest
pinnacle. According to the Greek legend, even Pelion heaped upon Ossa
did not enable the Titans to reach the abode of the gods, and, in
reality, the combined height of these two mountains hardly exceeds
that of Olympus. But, in spite of this inferior height, “pointed”
Ossa and “long-stretched” Pelion, known to us moderns as Kisovo and
Zagora, impress the beholder, because of their savage valleys, their
precipitous walls of rock, and cliffy promontories.
These mountains continue southward through the hook-shaped peninsula
of Magnesia, and terminate opposite the island of Eubœa. They formed
a strong bulwark of defence in the time of ancient Greece. The hordes
of the barbarians stopped in front of this insurmountable barrier.
They were compelled to seek a practicable road to the west of it,
through the valley of the Peneus, which is rightly looked upon as the
natural frontier of Hellas. Hence the great strategical importance
of Pharsalus, in Southern Thessaly, which protects the gorges of the
Othrys and the only access to the plains of the Sperchius. The pass of
Petra, at the northern extremity of Olympus, was carefully guarded for
similar reasons.
A large portion of the area bounded by the crystalline rocks of
Olympus and Ossa, and by the cretaceous range of the Pindus, running
parallel with the former, consists of plains originally covered by
vast lakes. The Gulf of Volo approaches close to the shrunken remains
of one of these lakes—that of Karla, or Bœbeis—into which the waters
of the swampy plain of Larissa discharge themselves. The dwellers on
the shores of this lake say that a dull rumbling noise may now and
then be heard at its bottom, which they ascribe to the bellowing of
some invisible animal, but which is more probably the gurgling sound
of the water penetrating into a sink-hole. Other lake basins are met
with at the foot of Olympus towards the west and north-west, and some
of the valleys of the upper tributaries of the Peneus are covered with
alluvium left behind by the receding waters. Hercules, according to
some—Neptune, according to others—drained all these lakes of Thessaly
into the Ægean, by opening the narrow gorge between Olympus and Ossa,
known to the ancients as the Valley of Tempe. This narrow valley is
due, no doubt, to the slow erosive action of water. To the Hellenes it
realised their ideals of refreshing coolness and beauty, and once every
nine years an embassy arrived from Delphi to pluck the laurel-leaves
destined for the victors in the Pythian games. The {113} Valley of
Tempe is indeed most beautiful; the transparent and rapid waters of the
Peneus, the foliage of the planes, the shrubberies of laurel-roses, and
the red-hued cliffs—these combine frequently, and form pictures which
delight the senses and impress the mind. But, taken as a whole, this
narrow and sombre valley fairly deserves its modern name of Lykostomo,
or “wolf’s gorge.” Even in Thessaly, and, above all, in the Pindus,
there are localities more smiling and more beautiful than this famous
Valley of Tempe.
The upper valleys of the Peneus, or Salembria, abound in natural
curiosities, such as defiles, sinks, and caverns. To the north-west of
Mount Olympus, the turbid Titaresius flows through the narrow gorge of
Saranta Poros, or of the Four Fords, which was looked upon in former
times as one of the gates of hell.
To the west, on the Upper Peneus, are the limestone hills of Khassia,
rising to a height of 5,000 feet, and the elevated spurs of Mount
Pindus, which have become celebrated through the “works of the gods,”
or _theoktista_, which surmount them. These “works” consist of isolated
towers, crags, and pillars, the most famous amongst them being those
on the banks of the Peneus, not far from Trikala. Zealous followers of
Simeon the Stylite conceived the idea of building their monasteries on
the tops of some of the larger of these natural columns or pedestals.
Perched on these heights, and condemned never to leave them, they
receive their provisions and visitors in a basket attached to the end
of a long rope, and hoisted aloft by means of a windlass. An aërial
voyage of no less than 220 feet has to be performed in order to reach
in this manner the monastery of Barlaam, and visitors are at liberty
to effect this ascent by means of ladders fastened against the rocky
precipices. The religious zeal, however, which led monks to select
these eyries for their habitations is gradually dying out. Out of
twenty monasteries which existed formerly, there remain now but seven,
and only one of these, that of Meteora, is inhabited by as many as
twenty monks.
Of all the Greek countries which still remain under the dominion of
the Turks, there is none which has so frequently sought to regain its
independence, none which is claimed by the Hellenes with equal ardour
as a portion of their common fatherland and the cradle of their race.
Thessaly is, in truth, a portion of Greece, as far as the traditions
of the past, a common language, and the general aspects of the country
can make it so. But it is a more fertile country, its vegetation is
more luxuriant, its landscapes are more smiling and delightful. We
may not frequently meet with the deep blue sky which calls forth our
admiration in Southern Greece, for the vapours rising from the Ægean
Sea are attracted by Olympus and other mountains; but this moisture
imparts a charm to distant views, and, by protecting the earth against
the scorching rays of the sun in summer, it contributes largely towards
the fertility of the soil.
The Greek population of Thessaly is strongly mixed with foreign
elements, which it has gradually assimilated. Neither Serbs nor
Bulgarians remain now in the country, although the Upper Titaresius
is known as Vurgari, or “river of the Bulgarians.” The Zinzares, or
Macedo-Walakhs, who were so numerous in the Middle Ages, now only
occupy a few villages. Though proud of their Roman {114} descent, they
gradually become Hellenized. Most of the words by which they designate
objects of civilised life are Greek, their priests and schoolmasters
preach or teach in Greek, and they themselves speak Greek in addition
to their native language. They lose ground, moreover, through an
excessive emigration. Even the cultivators of the soil amongst them
have not quite given up their nomadic habits, and the roving life of
a herdsman or of a pedlar exercises an irresistible attraction upon
them. The Turks inhabit in compact masses the lowlands around Larissa,
and that town itself is Mussulman to a large extent. The hilly tracts
to the north, between the Inje Karasu and the Lakes of Kastoria and
Ostrovo, are likewise inhabited by Turks, who differ from the Osmanli
of the rest of the empire, and are known as Koniarides. Turks also
occupy a portion of Mount Ossa. It is easy to tell from a distance
whether a village is inhabited by Turks or by Greeks. M. Mézières
has observed that “the Turks plant trees for the sake of shade, the
Greeks for the sake of profit.” Near the villages of the former we
find cypresses and plane-trees, near those of the latter orchards
and vineyards. The Koniarides are believed by some authors to have
come to Thessaly and Macedonia as colonists in the eleventh century,
by invitation of the Eastern emperor. They govern themselves through
democratic representative bodies, and are respected by all, because of
their probity, their hospitality, and their rustic virtues.