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THE
ETHNOLOGY OF EUROPE.
THE
ETHNOLOGY OF EUROPE.
BY
R. G. LATHAM, M.D.,
ETC.
[Illustration: colophon]
LONDON:
JOHN VAN VOORST, PATERNOSTER ROW.
M.DCCC.LII.
LONDON:
Printed by SAMUEL BENTLEY and Co.,
Bangor House, Shoe Lane.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Preliminary Observations.--The Physical Peculiarities of
Europe.--General Sketch of its Ethnology.--Statement of Problems.--The
Skipetar, or Albanians.--Their Language, Descent.--The Four Tribes.--How
far a Pure Stock.--Elements of Intermixture......1
CHAPTER II.
Spain and Portugal.--The Euskaldunac, or Basques.--The Iberian
Stock.--The Turdetanian Civilization.--Phœnician, Roman, Vandal, Gothic
Elements.--Keltiberians.--The Original Keltæ Iberians.--The Word
“Keltic” of Iberian Origin.--The Arab Conquest.--Expulsion of the
Arabs.--The Jews of Spain.--Gipsies.--Physical and Moral Characteristics
of the Modern Spaniards.--Portugal......21
CHAPTER III.
France.--Iberian Blood in Gaul as well as the Spanish
Peninsula.--Iberians of Gascony, &c.--Ligurians.--How far
Keltic.--Bodencus.--Intermixture.--Roman, German,
Arab.--Alsatia.--Lorraine.--Franche-Comté.--Burgundy, Southern, Western,
and Northern France.--Character of the Kelts.--The Albigensian
Crusade.--Belgium.--Its Elements.--Keltic, German, and
Roman.--Switzerland.--Helvetia.--Romance, French, and German
Languages......47
CHAPTER IV.
Italy.--Ligurians.--Etruscans.--Venetians and
Liburnians.--Umbrians.--Ausonians.--Latins.--Earliest Populations of
North-Eastern Italy.--South Italians.--Italian Origin of the
Greeks.--Sicilians.--Elements of
Admixture.--Herulian.--Gothic.--Lombard.--Arab.--Norman.--Analytical
Sketch of the Population of Modern Italy......80
CHAPTER V.
Importance of Clearness of Idea respecting the Import of the Word
“Race.”--The Pelasgi.--Area of Homeric Greece.--Acarnania not
Hellenic.--The Dorians.--Egyptian, Semitic, and other
Influences.--Historical Greece.--Macedonians.--Greece under Rome and
Byzantium.--Inroads of Barbarians.--The Slavonic Conquest.--Recent
Elements of Admixture......125
CHAPTER VI.
Russian Populations Sarmatian and Turanian.--Samoeids
Turanian.--Ugrians.--Lapps.--Kwains.--Esthonians.--Liefs.--Permians.
--Siranians.--Votiaks.--Tsheremiss, Tshuvatsh, Morduin.--Lithuanians.
--Malorussians and Muscovites.--Their recent Introduction.--The
Skoloti.--Early Displacements.--Ugrian Glosses.--Indian Affinities
of the Lithuanic.--Russian Poland.--Analytical View of the Present
Populations of Russia.--Arkhangel.--Finland.--Esthonia.--Livonia.
--Perm.--Simbirsk, Penza.--Lithuania.--Volhynia.--Kharkhov.--Kosaks.
--Kherson.--Taurida......146
CHAPTER VII.
Wallachia and Moldavia.--Rumanyos.--Descent from the Daci.--Sarmatian
Origin.--Servia.--Montenegro.....182
CHAPTER VIII.
Frisian, Saxon, Dutch, and Gothic Germans.--Germanized
Kelts.--Germanized Slaves.--Prussia.--Isolation of its Areas.--East and
West Prussia.--Prussian Poland.--Pomerania.--Prussian Silesia.--Prussian
Saxony.--Brandenburg.--Uckermark.--South-Western Portion.--Westphalian
and Rhenish Prussia.--Mecklenburg.--Saxony.--Linones of
Luneburg.--Hanover and Oldenburg.--Holland.--Hesse-Cassel,
Hesse-Darmstadt, Nassau.--Baden.--Wurtemburg.--Weimar.--Rhenish
Bavaria.--Danubian Bavaria......187
CHAPTER IX.
Great Britain.--Denmark.--The Islands.--The
Vithesleth.--Fyen.--Lauenburg.--Holstein.--Sleswick.--Jutland.--Iceland.
--The Feroe Isles.--Norway.--Sweden.--Lapps.--Kwains.--Gothlanders.
--Angermannians.--Theory of the Scandinavian Population......199
CHAPTER X.
Rumelia.--The Turk Stock.--Zones of Conquest.--Early Intrusions of Turk
Populations Westward.--Thracians.--The Ancient Macedonians.--The Pelasgi
of Macedonia.--Bosnia, Herzegovna and Turkish
Croatia.--Bulgaria......221
CHAPTER XI.
Austria.--Bukhovinia, Gallicia, and Lodomiria.--Bohemia and
Moravia.--Austrian
Silesia.--Dalmatia.--Croatia.--Carniola.--Carinthia.--Styria.--Saltzburg,
the Tyrol, the Vorarlberg.--Upper and Lower Austria.--Hungary......238
ERRATUM. (corrected by etext transcriber.)
Page 3, line 6, _for_ greater _read_ less.
ETHNOLOGY OF EUROPE.
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.--THE PHYSICAL PECULIARITIES OF
EUROPE.--GENERAL SKETCH OF ITS ETHNOLOGY.--STATEMENT OF
PROBLEMS.--THE SKIPETAR, OR ALBANIANS.--THEIR LANGUAGE,
DESCENT.--THE FOUR TRIBES.--HOW FAR A PURE STOCK.--ELEMENTS OF
INTERMIXTURE.
The proper introduction to the ethnology of Europe is the following
series of preliminaries:--
1. The physical peculiarities of the quarter of the world so called;
2. A general view of the stocks, families, or races which occupy it;
3. A statement of the chief problems connected with the Natural History
of its populations.
1. The physical conditions of Europe are as remarkable in respect to
their negative as their positive characters; in other words, there is a
great number of points wherein Europe differs from Asia, Africa,
America, and Polynesia, in respect to what it has _not_, as well as in
respect to what it _has_.
These negative points will be treated first.
_a._ No part of Europe lies between the Tropics; so that the luxuriance
of a spontaneous and varied vegetation, with its pernicious tendencies
to incline the habits of its population to idleness, is wanting. The
rank and rapid growth of the plants which serve as food to men and
animals, and which dispense with labour, nowhere occurs.
_b._ No part comes under the class of Steppes; or, at most, but
imperfectly approaches their character. In Asia, the vast table-lands of
the centre, occupied by the Turks and Mongols, have ever been the cradle
of an active, locomotive, hungry, and aggressive population. And these
have seen, with a strong desire to possess, the more favoured areas of
the south; and have conquered them accordingly. The Luneburg Heath, and
parts of Hanover are the nearest resemblances to the great Steppes of
Mongolia, and Independent Tartary; but they are on a small and beggarly
scale. In Russia, where the land is flat and level, the ground is also
fertile, so that agriculture has been practicable, and (being
practicable) has bound the occupant to the soil, instead of mounting him
on fleet horses to wander with his flocks and herds from spot to spot,
to become a shepherd by habit, and a warrior by profession; for in all
countries, shepherds and hunters are marauders on a small, and
conquerors on a large scale.
_c._ Europe is narrowest in its northern parts. This has had the effect
of limiting those populations of the colder climes, whose scanty means
of subsistence at home, incline them to turn their faces southwards,
with the view of conquest, and supply them with numbers to effect their
purpose.
_d._ Its diameter from north to south is less than its diameter from
east to west. This has kept the mass of its population within a similar
climate; or, if not within a similar climate, within a range of
temperature far less wide than that which separates the African, the
American, or the Asiatic of the northern parts of their respective
continents from the Hottentot of the Cape, the Fuegian of Cape Horn, and
the Malay of the Malayan Peninsula. It has given uniformity to its
occupants; since varieties increase as we proceed from south to north,
but not as we go from east to west--or _vice versâ_.
Amongst its positive features the most remarkable are connected with its
mountain-ranges, the extent of its sea-board, and the direction of its
rivers.
_a._ In no country are the great levels more broken by mountains, or the
great mountains more in contiguity to considerable tracts of level
country. The effect of this is to give the different characters of the
Mountaineer and the Lowlander more opportunity of acting and reacting on
each other.
_b._ In no country are the coasts more indented. We may look in vain
for such a sea-board as that of Greece, elsewhere. The effect of this is
to give the different characters of the sailor and landsman, the
producer and the trader, more opportunity of acting and reacting on each
other.
_c._ Its greatest rivers fall into seas navigable throughout the year.
Contrast with this the great rivers of Asia, the Obi, the Lena, the
Yenesey, and others, which for the purposes of navigation are useless;
falling, as they do, into an Arctic sea.
_d._ Our greatest river, the Danube, runs from east to west. This
ensures a homogeneous character for the population along its banks.
Contrast with this the Nile, the Missisippi, and the Yenesey, in all of
which the simple effect of climate creates a difference between the
populations of the source and the embouchure. The great rivers of China
do the same as the Danube; but the Danube differs from them, and from
all other rivers running in a like direction, in emptying itself into an
inland sea; a sea which gives the opportunity of communication not only
with the parts north and south of the rivers which fall into it, but
with those to the east of it also. The Hoang-ho and Kiang-ku empty
themselves into an ocean, that, in these days of steam communication,
leads to America, but which in the infancy of the world led to a
coasting trade only, or, at most, to a large island--Japan. The Baltic
and Mediterranean act, to a certain degree, in the same manner. The one
has Africa, the other Scandinavia, to ensure its being put to the uses
of trade.
In no part of the world do the differences between the varieties of the
human species lie within narrower limits than in Europe. The most
extreme opponents to the doctrine of the unity of our kind have never
made many species out of the European specimens of the genus _Homo_. And
these are by no means of the most satisfactory sort.
They are unsatisfactory for the following reasons. The differences that
are inferred from dissimilarity of language, are neutralised by an
undoubted similarity of physical form. The dissimilarities that are
inferred from peculiarities of physical form are neutralised by
undeniable affinities of speech. Looking to his size and colour, the
Laplander is far, very far, removed from the Fin. Yet the languages
belong to one and the same class. Looking to their tongues, the Basque
of the Pyrenees, and the Skipetar (or Albanian of Albania) are each
isolated populations. Yet their form is but slightly different from
those of the other Europeans.
Now the physical condition of our continent makes the intermixture of
blood, and the diffusion of ideas easy: and, I believe, that the effects
of both are more notable in Europe than elsewhere.
2. The families, stocks, or races, which occupy Europe will be taken in
the order which is most convenient; so that it will be practical rather
than scientific.
_a._ In Malta the language is Arabic, and, of course, to a certain
extent, the blood also. But Malta is European only in respect to its
political relations. Still its population requires notice.
_b._ The Osmanlis, or Turks of Turkey, are Asiatic rather than European;
an intrusive population whose introduction is within its historical
period. I will not say, however, that in the parts between the Dnieper
and Don, members of the same great stock may not have been settled in
the times anterior to history. In the following pages, the Turks of
Europe will be called Osmanlis, or Ottomans: since the word _Turk_ is a
generic name applied to the family to which they, along with the
Independent Tartars, the Uzbeks, the Turcomans, the Turks of Asia Minor,
the Yakuts on the borders of the Icy Sea, and several other great
branches, extending to the frontier of China, and the mouth of the Lena,
belong. The Turk is European, as the New Englander is American; _i.e._,
not strictly so.
_c._ To a certain extent this foreign origin must be attributed to a
member of the next family--the Majiar of Hungary. He conquered his
present occupancy in the tenth century. He differs, however, from the
Turk, in belonging to a class, group, or stock of populations which,
although Asiatic to a great extent, is European as well. This is the
stock which is called--
The Ugrian, a stock which is the only one common to both Europe and
Asia, and contains the Lapps, the Finlanders, the Esthonians, and some
other smaller populations on the European feeders of the Volga. The
particular branch, however, from which the Majiars were derived is
Asiatic.
The next two stocks consist of a single family each, and they are
mentioned together because they are so isolated as to have no known
affinities either with each, or with any other population. These are--
_d._ The Basques of Biscay and Gascony, _i.e._, the Western Pyrenees;
once spread over the whole of the Spanish peninsula, and for that reason
commonly called Iberian--
_e._ The Skipetar, or Albanians of Albania.
I am taking, as aforesaid, the populations in the order of convenience,
and the next is
_f._ The Keltic.[1] This stock was indigenous to the water-systems of
the Loire, the Seine, and the Rhone, in other words, to the whole of
France north of the Garonne; to the south of which river lay the
Iberians. From Gaul it spread to Great Britain. Its present
representatives are the Bretons of Brittany, the Welsh, the Gaels of
Ireland and Scotland, and the Manxmen of the Isle of Man--
_g._ The Gothic or German--
_h._ The Sarmatian, or Slavono-Lithuanic, containing the Slavonians and
Lithuanians of Russia, Poland, Bohemia, Servia, Carinthia, Lithuania,
with other less important areas, and lastly--
_i._ The classical or Greco-Latin stock of Italy and Greece, completing
the list of the European stocks.
These three are more closely allied to each other than any of the
previous ones. They are also nearer the Keltic; so much so, that a
single class has been made out of the four, a class called
Indo-European. The study, however, of the _value_ of classes is in its
infancy. The real fact that they are allied to an extent to which the
others are not, is important.
Such are the _existing_ groups; but when we consider how small is the
number of the Basques, the only present representatives of the great
Iberian class, and that their preservation to the present time is mainly
due to the accidental circumstances of their occupancy of a stronghold
in the Pyrenees, a new series of facts is suggested. The likelihood of
stocks now extinct having once existed, presents itself; and with it, a
fresh question.
The same suggestion arises when we look at the country occupied by the
intrusive families of the Osmanlis and the Majiars of Rumelia and
Hungary. The populations here are comparatively new-comers; yet it was
no uninhabited tracts that they appropriated. Who was there before them?
Perhaps some members of one of the stocks now existing. Perhaps, a
wholly different family now extinct.
Again--the displacements effected by the different European populations,
one with another, have been enormous. See how the Saxons over-ran
England, the Romans Spain and Gaul. How do we know that some small stock
was not annihilated here? History, it may be said, tells us the
contrary. From history we learn that all the ancient Spaniards were
allied to the ancestors of the Basques, all Gaul to those of the
Bretons, all England to those of the Welsh. Granted. But what does
history tell us about Bavaria, Styria, the Valley of the Po, or Ancient
Thrace? In all these parts the present population is known to be recent,
and the older known next to not at all. The reconstruction of the
original populations of such areas as these is one of the highest
problems in ethnology. To what did they belong, an existing stock more
widely extended than now, or a fresh stock altogether?
My own belief is, that the number of European stocks for which there is
an amount of evidence sufficient to make their extinction a reasonable
doctrine, is two--two and no more; and, even with these, the doctrine of
their extinction is only _reasonable_.
_a._ The old Etruscans are the first of these;
_b._ The Pelasgi the second.
Each will be noticed in its proper place.
I have used the word _extinction_. I must now qualify it; reminding the
reader that this very qualification introduces a new and difficult
subject. Extinction often means no more than the abolition of the
outward and visible signs of ethnological difference. A negro marries a
white. In the fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh generation, as the case
may be, his descendant is, to all intents and purposes, a white man. Yet
the negro blood is not extinguished. It exists, though in a small
proportion.
Again--a Cornishman loses his native language and speaks English as his
mother tongue. Many generations before he did this he differed from the
Englishman in speech only. Is his British blood extinguished? No. The
chief sign of it has been lost. That is all.
So that--
Stocks may intermix, and--
Stocks may lose their characteristics.
Now both these phenomena are eminently common in European ethnology; and
this is what we expect from history. Two populations, the Roman and the
German, have more than doubled their original areas. Were all the old
inhabitants, male and female, old and young, in the countries that they
appropriated, put to the sword? We hope and believe the contrary. In
most cases we _know_ they were not. Sometimes there was intermarriage.
This produced intermixture. Sometimes the language, religion, laws, and
habits of the conquerors were adopted by the conquered. This was a loss
of characteristics. So far greater than the influences of all the other
populations of Europe have been those of the Germans and the Romans (to
which, for the eastern part of the continent, we must add the Turks),
that for nearly half Europe, whenever the question will be one of great
intermixture, the basis will be Keltic, Iberic, or Sarmatian as the case
may be, with Romans or Germans for the source of the superadded
elements.
3. The chief problems of the present volume will, for the present, only
be stated; the results being reserved for the conclusion. They are two--
_a._ The extent to which what is commonly called Race is the result of
circumstances, or whether circumstances be the effect of race, _i.e._
whether Race (so called) is a cause or an effect?
_b._ The extent to which differences of what is called race is an
element in national likes and dislikes, predilections or antipathies.
It cannot be denied that each of these is a point of practical as well
as theoretical importance.
* * * * *
The areas with which it is most convenient to begin, are those of the
two isolated stocks, the _Skipetar_ (Albanian), and the
_Iberian_,--Albania and the Spanish peninsula. Of these Albania will be
taken first.
Many writers have considered the Albanian and the Iberic stocks to be
the two oldest in Europe; and there is no want of reasonable grounds for
the doctrine. It is not, however, for this reason that they come first
in the list.
Nor is it because the _Skipetar_ of Albania are the more eastern of the
two that they take precedence of the Iberians; although, in the eyes of
such inquirers as deduce the European populations from Asia, their
position on the frontier of Europe gives good grounds for doing so.
The true reason is practical rather than scientific, arising out of the
line of criticism which will be found necessary for the forthcoming
investigation.
It is so convenient to take Gaul next to the Spanish peninsula, Italy
next to Gaul, and Greece next to Italy, that the necessity for breaking
the continuity of the arrangement when we come to Albania must be
avoided; and this is done by dealing with Albania at the very first, and
getting its ethnology disposed of as a preliminary. It could not be
taken in hand after that of Greece, for reasons which will appear when
we come to that country.
The native name of the Albanians is _Skipetar_, or _Mountaineer_, and
this is of some importance; as will be seen in the sequel. The word
_Albanian_ is, I think, Roman. _Arvanitæ_ is the form found in the
Byzantine writers. This is converted by the Turks into _Arnaout_. It is
unlucky that the word is one which appears elsewhere, _viz._, in
Caucasus, where the ancient name of the modern province of Daghestan is
called _Albania_ in the classical writers. So is Scotland; and so also
part of England; _Albyn_ being the Gaelic name out of which our French
neighbours get their _Albion perfide_, for the purposes of rhetoric and
poetry. It cannot be denied that the occurrence of forms so similar is
strange; and it is against the chances that it should be accidental. The
explanation which suggests itself is as follows. Pliny mentions a
people termed _Albanenses_, as one of the Liburnian tribes; whilst
Ptolemy gives us a town called _Albanopolis_ in the _southern_ part of
Illyricum. Now, as we know that the name is not native, as we seek for
it in vain amongst the early Greek writers, and as the opposite coast of
Italy was occupied by the Cisalpine and Cispadane Gauls, we have reasons
for considering _Albyn_ as applied to Scotland, and _Albyn_ as applied
to the mountainous country on the eastern side of the Adriatic and
Ionian seas, to be one and the same word, referable to one and the same
Keltic group of tongues. Hence, it contains the root _Alp=mountain_, and
translates the native name _Skipetar=mountaineer_, &c.
Like all such coincidences it has done mischief in the way of ethnology.
Though few have derived the Skipetar from Scotland, many have done so
from Caucasus--and that on the strength of the name. Yet it is as little
native in the one locality as the other, since no nation of Daghestan
calls itself _Albanian_, a fact which precludes all arguments in favour
of a real community of origin from the similarity of name _in limine_;
or rather a fact which ought to do so, for the Caucasian origin of the
Skipetar still has its supporters.
Their present area extends from Montenegro to the Gulf of Arta; the
northern frontier being Slavonic, the southern Greek. Eastwards it
reaches the back-bone of Turkey, or the watershed between the small
rivers which empty themselves into the Adriatic, and the larger ones
which fall into the Ægean--a very Switzerland for its ruggedness. Hence,
the Skipetar are a nation of Highlanders, more so than any other
population of Europe, since the Basques of the Pyrenees are
inconsiderable in area, and the Swiss are divided between the Germans,
the French, the Roman, and the Italian families. They lie, too, more to
the south than any other mountaineers, and it is not very fanciful to
imagine that if they were Lowlanders, their skin and hair would approach
that of the Greeks, with some of whom they lie under the same parallel.
If so, their mountain _habitat_ counteracts the effect of their southern
sun, by a species of compensation common in many parts of the world.
The testimony of travellers to their belonging to the fair-complexioned
and grey-eyed populations is pretty general, although Skene gives the
Mirdite tribe a swarthy complexion and black eyes. The evidence, too, as
to their bulk and stature varies; some writers giving them spare, light,
and tall forms, others making them shorter, and more square-built than
the Greek. That the eye has less animation, and the countenance less
vivacity (in other words, that the Albanian is heavy-featured as
compared with his quick-witted neighbours) is certain.
Both the men and women are hardy, and expose their bodies freely to the
atmosphere, accustoming themselves to an out-door life amongst their
flocks and herds, and dwelling, when indoors, in rude huts. Like the
Swiss, they willingly let out their valour and hardihood in military
service; and the best and most unscrupulous soldiers of the sultan are
those recruits, who partly by force, partly by pay, are brought from
Albania. Hence we find Albanians far beyond the pale of Albania; in
Greece, in Thrace, in Asiatic Turkey, in Egypt, and even in Persia. The
tribes, too, amongst themselves indulge in the right of private quarrel,
rarely rising to the dignity of warfare, but more like the old
border-feuds of England and Scotland. With the Slavonians of Montenegro,
different from themselves in blood and political relations, the warfare
is more bitter and serious, and the Albano-Slavonic frontier is the
continual scene of aggression and reprisal and intrigue.
It was only under their famous chieftain, George Castriote, or
Scanderbeg, that the Skipetar played the part of a nation of any
importance in European history, and here their actions were what we
expect beforehand--those of brave mountaineers, to whom war is a habit,
and with whom dependence has always been but nominal. To the
intellectual and moral history of Europe they have contributed nothing.
Their alphabet is the Greek, slightly modified, and their literature
either unwritten, or confined to ecclesiastical subjects.
Creeds sit easy upon them. Before the Ottoman conquest they were
Christians, partly of the Greek, partly of the Roman church. At present
they are divided between the three, the majority being Mahometans.
The Skipetar language has long drawn the attention of philologists; for
it has long been known to be as little like the Greek and Slavonic of
the parts around, as it is to the Turkish. The notion that it was a mere
medley of the three soon disappeared; and when the Albanian became
recognised as a separate substantive language, its remarkable isolation
was a source of great doubt and perplexity. The latest author who has
investigated it, Xylander, considers it to be Indo-European, and in this
Prichard agrees with him. I think, however, that it cannot be placed in
that group without enlarging the extent of the class, _i.e._, without
changing the meaning of the term. _Whatever it may be, it is not
intermediate to the Latin and Greek_, a fact of which the import will be
seen when we come to the ethnology of Greece and Italy.
The Skipetar fall into the following divisions, clans, or tribes.
1. The Gheghides, containing--
_a._ The proper Gheghides, the most northern of the Skipetar,
conterminous with the Slavonic countries of Montenegro, Bosnia, and
Herzegovna, bounded on the south by the river Drin--
_b._ The Mirdites, south of the Drin, in the province of Croia, who like
the Gheghides, are Christians.
The Gheghides, as a class, are dark-skinned and black-eyed.
2. The Toskides of Toskuria, or the country between Croia and the
Vojutza, the least mountainous part of Albania and containing the
valleys of the Sternatza and the Beratina, are more light than dark,
with blue or grey eyes.
3. The Liapides of Liapuria, or the valley and water-shed of the
Deropuli and the parts about Delvinaki, are the worst-looking and most
demoralized of the Skipetar. Such at least is their character.
4. The Dzhami of Dzhamuria are the most agricultural. They extend from
the Liapides on the north, to the Greek frontier southward, Parga and
Suli being two of their towns.
The purity of the Albanian blood is considerable; and I believe that, as
the Skipetar were once spread far wider in every direction than they
are to be found at present,[2] and as their frontier has receded, the
amount of Albanian blood beyond Albania is very great, whereas the
foreign blood within Albania itself is but slight. The dark complexions
of the Gheghides may, or may not, be referable to Slavonic intermixture.
The lighter skins of the Toskides may, or may not, indicate purity. It
is worth remarking, however, that the fair complexion is found in the
parts most removed from the frontier, as well as in the parts where the
intermixture (such as it is) has been the least.
The Taulantii and Parthini are the populations of antiquity, whose
localities coincide with that of the Toskides. The colonies of Epidamnus
and Apollonia suggest the notion of Greek, the Via Egnatia of Roman
intermixture.
The Liapides are in the country of the Orestæ and Atintanes, the Gheghs
in that of the Encheleæ, the Mirdites in that of the Pirustæ. In the
northern part of their area was the colony of Epidaurus, and the
Dalmatian frontier.
Hitherto the opportunities of intermixture have been but slight. With
that part, however, of Albania which coincides with the ancient Epirus,
rather than with Southern Illyria the case is different.
In the time of Pyrrhus it was Hellenized, and at the very earliest dawn
of history its population was modified still more considerably. By whom?
By the inhabitants of the opposite coast of Italy, whoever they were.
This is as much as is necessary to say about the Skipetar of Albania at
present. They are the descendants of the Southern Illyrians and the
ancient Epirots--Chaonians, Thesprotians, Molossians, &c. They are pure
in blood, as compared with nine-tenths of the rest of Europe; but still
more or less mixed, the chief foreign elements being ancient Italian,
Greek, and Roman.