UNIT I: GREEK GEOGRAPHY AND STATISTICS

Part 1. Greek Geography and Statistics

GREECE is a European kingdom, occupying the southern end portion of the most easterly of the three peninsulas which Europe projects into the Mediterranean. By its own inhabitants it is called Hellas, as it was also in antiquity, and the name Greece, by which in one form or other it is known in most European languages, was given to it by the Romans, and was not used by any Greek writer, so far as ' we know, before Aristotle. Why the Romans called it so > is an obscure point, but the most probable and usually accepted explanation is that they gained their first knowledge of the country from a tribe in the north-west of Greece who were called Graeci (TpatKo!.), and that they accordingly gave the nam? of that tribe to the whole country. The name Greece or Hellas has been applied at different times to territory of widely different extent. At first Hellas denoted nothing but the spot in Thessaly where the tribe of Extento Hellenes dwelt, and in later times, after Philip of Macedon ancient obtained a seat at the Amphictyonic council, it meant the p[^ej whole peninsula south of the Balkan mountains (Hsemus) including Macedonia and Thrace ; but at the period of its greatest distinction it excluded these two regions, and was restricted to the part of the peninsula to the south of the Cambunian range and the islands of the surrounding seas. Its ancient limits, however, cannot be rigidly defined, for (1) its northern frontier seems never to have been precisely settled, some writers excluding Thessaly which was generally taken in, and others including part of Epirus which was generally left out; and (2) the name Hellas expressed not so much a geographical as an ethnological unity. It was the country of the Hellenes, Wherever Greeks settled there was Hellas, and a Greek colony in Sicily or Africa was thought to participate as essentially in all that constituted Hellas as either Attica or Lacedeemon. Still the name was usually applied to the land which formed the geographical centre of the race, of which the greatest length was 250 miles and the greatest breadth 180, and which had an area, exclusive of Epirus (4690 square miles) but including Eubcea (1410 square miles), of 21.121 square miles. This territory comprised (1) Northern Greece, all north of the Maliac (Zeitoum) and Ambracian (Arta) Gulfs ; (2) Central Greece, extending from these gulfs to the isthmus of Corinth; (3) the peninsula of the Peloponnesus (Morea) to the south of the isthmus ; (4) the following islands,—Eubcea (Negropont) in the east, the Ionian Islands in the Ionian Sea on the west, Crete and Cyprus in the south, and the Cyclades and Sporades across the mouth of the yEgean from the south-east headlands of Attica and Eubcea. Continental Greece—i.e., all the country now specified, exclusive of the islands—consists of a series of natural cantons, hedged from one another and from the outer world by mountain ranges from 5000 to 8000 feet high, and so was almost by a physical necessity occupied in the times of its ancient political independence by seven-teen separate states, none of which was larger than an ordinary English county. The whole eight states of the Peloponnesus covered less area than York and Lancaster together; and Attica, the most celebrated state of antiquity, was less than Cornwall. These states, which are noticed separately under the special headings, were—Thessaly in North Greece; Acarnania, ^Etolia, Locris, Doris, Phocis, Megaris, Bceotia, and Attica in Central Greece; and Corinthia, Sicyonia, Achaia, Elis, Messenia, Laconia, Argolis, and Arcadia in the Peloponnesus. Extent of Modern Greece is of smaller extent, and its limits are modern strictly determined by the arrangement between Great Platen Britain, France, Russia, and Turkey, concluded at Con-stantinople on the 21st [9th] July 1832, which finally settled the question of frontier between Greece and Turkey. It left to Turkey the fertile Greek-speaking province of Thessaly and part of Acarnania, and fixed the northern boundary of Greece at a line running from the Gulf of Arta (Sinus Ambracius) to the Gulf of Volo (S. Pagasseus), keep-ing along the crest of the Othrys mountain range. The pass of Khlomo was to belong entirely to Greece, and the fort of Punta (Actium) at the southern head of the Gulf of Arta was to continue to belong to Turkey, though Greek vessels were required to have free entry into the gulf. The Ionian islands, consisting of Corfu (Corcyra), Paxo (Paxos), Santa Maura (Leucas), Cephalonia, Thiake (Ithaca), and Zante (Zacynthus) on the west coast of Greece, and Cerigo (Cythera) on the south, which had remained under British protectorate for 50 years, were voluntarily ceded by Britain to Greece in 1864, after the accession of king George. Modern Greece is not more than two-thirds the size of Scotland ; it is 200 miles long from north to south, and 180 broad from east to west, and has an entire area of 19,353 square miles, of which 8288 square miles are in the Morea, 7558 in the northern part of continental Greece, 2500 in the islands of the ^Egean, and 1007 in the Ionian Islands. General Its most obvious geographical peculiarity is its remark-physical able richness in mountains, bays, and islands, which give features. ^ unexampled natural defences, unusual maritime facili-ties, and quite a peculiar variety of climate, vegetation, and scenery. In this respect it but gathers into a smaller page and expresses in distincter type the structural peculiarities of the continent to which it belongs. In the complexity of its make and the variety of its natural features Greece excels every country of Europe, as Europe excels every continent of the world. No part of Greece is 40 miles from the sea or 10 from the hills. Though not much more than half the size of Portugal, it has a coast-line greater than that of Spain and Portugal together, and that coast-line is broken everywhere into all manner of gulfs, and bays, and inlets, affording a rich supply of good natural harbours. The country is divided by its mountain chains into a num ber of independent parts, the capture of one of which by an enemy is but a single step towards possession of the whole. The small basins of arable land between these hills maintained comparatively isolated populations, on ac-count of the difficulty of inland intercommunication, and naturally developed that individuality of character, that local patriotism, and that political independence, which marked the ancient Greek communities. And the great variety of pursuit, interest, and stimulus which the geographical fea-tures of the country created could not fail to conduce to the uncommon mental vigour, quickness, and versatility which the people exhibited. The Greeks therefore owed their great-ness largely to the country it was their fortune to dwell in.

Mountains. The ruling feature in the mountain system of ancient Greece—and, to a certain extent, in modern Greece also—is the great chain of Pindus, which takes its rise in the Balkans (Haemus), and runs like a backbone through the entire length of the northern half of the peninsula, throwing out various branches to the east and the west on its way. At about 40° N. lat. the Cambunians leave it and go east, forming the boundary between Macedonia (Roumelia) and Thessaly, and as they approach the coast they turn in a southerly direction at the lofty and famous Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in ancient Greece, and are continued at intervals, on the other side of the vale of Tempe, by Ossa (Kissovo), Pelion (Zagora), and the hills of Euboea. At 39° the Othrys chain (Helloro), whose chief elevation is the conical Mount Veluchi (Tymphrestus), is sent out also to the east, and forms the northern bulwark of the present kingdom. A little further south the Gita range (Katavothra) goes in the same direction, and reaches the Gulf of Zeitoum (Maliac Gulf) at the celebrated pass of Thermopylse. The Cambunian chain intersects Pindus at Mount Lacmon (Zygo), and thence westward the chain passes under the name of Taenarus and the Ceraunian Hills (Montes Acroceraunii) till it enters the sea at the Acro-ceraunian promontory (Cape Linguetta). From the point of junction with the Othrys, the Pindus chain is con-tinued southwards in a series of separate peaks—Parnassus (Liakura), Helicon, Cithaeron, Parnes,*nd Hymettus, on to the promontory of Sunium (Cape Colonna) in the south east of Attica. Panies divides Attica from Bceotia. The mountains of the Morea have no connexion with the mountain system of Northern Greece ; they do not run in chains, but rather cluster in knots. The most important of these are Ziria (Cyllene), Khelmos, Olonos, and the range of Pentedaktylon (Taygetus), which stretches from the centre of Arcadia through the length of Laconia to Cape Matapan (Taenarum), and is the most imposing of all the mountains of Greece. The hegemony of Sparta in the Peloponnesus is attributed by some to it» possessing both sides of this chain. Its highest poini, is Mount St Elias, called, like several other Greek mountains, after the prophet Elijah. None of the mountains of Greece is within the line of perpetual snow, though the tops of several are white for some months in the year. What is peculiar to Greece is not the presence of any one hill of pre-eminent height, but the great number it pos sesses of considerable and nearly equal elevation. Modern Greece has no summit so high as Olympus (9754 feet), but within its narrow area it has twenty-six hills above 3000 feet, of which eight are above 7000 feet, viz., Parnassus (8068), Taygetus (7904), Tymphrestus (7610), CEta (7071), the three summits of Cyllene in Arcadia (7788), and Corax in iEtolia. The noted fortified hills of Greece were Acrocorinthus (1686 feet) which guards the isthmus, Ithome (2631 feet) at Messene, Larissa (900 feet) at Argos, and the Acropolis (150) at Athens. Rivers. Greece has few rivers, and these small, rapid, and, as a rule, turbid, as they could not help being in a country where they rise in high mountains and have no space to grow in before they reach the sea. They are either peren-nial rivers or torrents, the white beds of the latter being dry in summer, and only filled with water after the autumn rains. The chief rivers (none of which are navigable) are the Hellada (Sperchius) in Phthiotis, the Aspro Potamo (Achelous) in iEtolia, and the Pioufia (Alpheus) and Vasiliko (Eurotas) in the Morea. Of the famous rivers of Athens, the one, the Ilissus, is only a chain of pools all summer, and the other, the Cephissus, though never absolutely dry, does not reach the sea, but is drawn off in numerous artificial channels to irrigate the neighbouring olive groves. The waters of both are clear and delicious to the taste. A frequent peculiarity of the Greek rivers is their sudden disappearance in subterranean chasms and reappearance on the surface again, such as gave rise to the fabled course of the Alpheus under the sea, and its emergence again in the fountain of Arethusa in Syracuse. Some of these chasms—" Katarethras "—are merely sieves with herbage and gravel in the bottom, but others are large caverns through which the course of the river may be easily followed. Floods are frequent, especially in autumn, and natural fountains abound and gush out even from the tops of the hi3JS. Aganippe rises high up among the peaks of Helicon, and Peirene flows from the summit of Acro-corinth'is. It is surprising that there are no waterfalls in Greece, the only one worth mentioning being the famous Sty^ in Arcadia, which has a fall of 500 feet. During part of the year it is lost in the snow, and it is at all times almost inaccessible. Lakes are numerous, but few are of any size, and many merely marshes in summer. The largest are Trichonis in iEtolia, Copais in Boeotia, and Stymphalus in Arcadia. Plains. The valleys are generally narrow, and the plains small in extent, deep basins walled in among the hills or more free at the mouths of the rivers. The principal plains are those of Thessaly (which is not in modern Greece), Boeotia, Messenia, Argos, and Marathon. The bottom of these plains consists of an alluvial soil, the most fertile in Greece. In some of the mountainous regions, especially in the Morea, are extensive table-lands. The plain of Mantinea is 2000 feet high, and the upland district of Sciritis, between Sparta and Tegea, is in some parts 3000 feet.

Coast. Strabo said that the guiding thing in the geography of Greece was the sea, which presses in upon it at all parts with a thousand arms. From the Gulf of Arta on the one side to the Gulf of Volo on the other the coast is indented with a succession of natural bays and gulfs. The most important are the Gulfs of yEgina (Saronicus) and Lepanto (Gorinthiacus), which come in between the Morea and the northern mainland of Greece,—the first from the iEgean, the second from the Ionian Sea,—and are only prevented from joining their waters by the high land of the narrow isthmus of Corinth (3| miles wide). The outer portion of the Gulf of Lepanto is called the Gulf of Patras, and the inner part the Bay of Corinth, and a narrow bay on the north side of the same gulf, called the Bay of Salona, penetrates northwards into Phocis so far that it is within .!4 geographical miles of the Gulf of Zeitoum on the north-oast coast of Greece. The width of the entrance to the gulf of Lepanto is subject to singular changes, which are ascribed to the formation of alluvial deposits by certain marine currents, and their removal again by others. At the time of the Peloponnesian war this channel was 1200 yards broad ; in the time of Strabo it was only 850; and in our own day it has again increased to 2200. On the coast of the Morea there are several large gulfs, that of Arcadia (Cyparissus) on the west, Kalamatia (Messeniacus) and Kolokythia (Laconicus) on the south, and Nauplia (Argolicus) on the east. Then between Euboea and the mainland lie the channel of Talanti (Euboicum Mare) and the channel of Egripo, which are connected by the strait of Egripo (Euripus). This strait, which is spanned by a bridge, is 120 feet wide, and is remarkable for the unex-plained eccentricity of its tide, which has puzzled ancients and moderns alike. The current runs at the rate of 8 miles an hour, but continues only for a short time in one direction, changing its course, it is said, ten or twelve times in a day.

Volcanic action. There are no volcanoes on the mainland of Greece, but everywhere traces of volcanic action and frequently visitations of earthquakes, for it lies near a centre of volcanic agency, the island of Santorin, which has been within recent years in a state of eruption. There is an extinct crater at Mount Laphystium in Boeotia. The mountain of Methane, on the coast of Argolis, was produced by a volcanic eruption in 282 B.C. An earthquake laid Thebes in ruins in 1853, another destroyed every house in Corinth in 1858, and a third filled up the Castalian spring in 1870. There are hot springs at Thermopylas and other places, which are used for sanitary purposes. Various parts of the coast exhibit indications of upheaval within historical times. On the coast of Elis four rocky inlets are new joined to the land, which were separate from it in the days of ancient Greece. There are traces of earlier sea-beaches at Corinth, and on the coast of the Morea, and at the mouth of the Hellada. The land has gained so much that the pass of Thermopylae, which was extremely narrow in the time of Leonidas and his three hundred, is now wide enough for the motions of a whole army.

Geology. The whole chain of the Pindus and some of the mountains of the Morea are composed of Primitive rocks,— granite, serpentine, porphyry, mica, and other schists,—but greater part of the country consists of Secondary forma-tions, especially of a compact grey limestone, which hardens often into the purest marble. All Parnassus and Helicon consist of this rock. In the vicinity of Athens the lime-stone rests on mica schist, which prevails also in other parts of Attica, and in Eubcea, Laconia, and the Cyclades. Clay slate is found in some districts, and coal, equal to two-thirds of an equal weight of Newcastle coal, is found at Kumi in Eubcea, and of an inferior quality at Marco-poneo in Boeotia. Greece is not rich in minerals. Gold exists, but not in sufficient quantity to cover the expense of working. Copper is abundant, and silver, lead, iron, J emery, antimony, cobalt, manganese, sulphur, and salt are found. Gypsum and porphyry are quarried. Marble is abundant, the chief kinds being the white marble of Pentelicus, of which the Parthenon was made, the blue marble of Hymettus, the green and red marble of the Morea, and the green and white of Caryste. In Mount Taygetus are beds of verd-antique jasper.

Scenery. The scenery of Greece excites the warmest admiration of all travellers, mainly from three causes:—(1) its unusually rich variety; (2) its exquisite sensibility to every modification of the light of the sky; and (3) the graceful and almost severely classical outline of its hills.

The vegetation of Greece may be described as belonging to four distinct zones. (1) Up to 500 feet above the sea is a region growing corn, vines, olives, oranges, melons, pomegranates, and other fruits ; (2) from 1500 feet to 3500 feet is the region of the oak ; (3) from 3500 feet to 5000 feet is the regi' n of the beech and pine, interspersed still with a few corn fields ; (4) above I 5000 feet is a sub-alpine region yielding only a few wild plants

Most travellers are struck with the comparative scarcity of wood in Greece. But though most of the ancient forests have disappeared, more of the surface still remains woodland than travellers realize. Close on 15 per cent, of it was under forest in 1860, which is only 1 per cent, less than in Spain, and is 12 per cent, more than in Britain. The most common tree is the pine, but the oak, plane, walnut, chestnut, and olive are also abundant. The beech is said to be a modern invader from the north, where it covers the whole of the Pindus range, and in some places, as on Mount Pelion, which were covered with other kinds of trees in historical times, the beech seems now to have driven them entirely out. The palm thrives in Messenia, and finds a home even in Attica. Myrtles flourish in the west, and oleanders brighten the river beds.

Animals. The wild animals still to be found occasionally in Greeee are the boar, wolf, bear, lynx, wild cat, jackal, and fox. The wild goat, which has disappeared from the rest of Europe, finds a last asylum in some of the islands of the Greek archipelago. Game is abund-ant,—red deer, fallow deer, roe, hares, rabbits. It is said that hares and rabbits never occupy the same island, except in the case of Andros, where the hares are found in the north and the rabbits in the south. The birds are the eagle, vulture, hawk, owl, hoopoe, egret, pelican, pheasant, bustard, partridge, woodcock, nightingale, &c. Quails come in April. The domestic animals are the horse, ox, ass, mule, sheep, goat, pig, dog, and poultry. Poisonous snakes are only found in some few places, but mosquitos and gnats are everywhere sources of annoyance.

Climate. The climate of Greece, which ancient writers praised for its equableness, presents to modern observers two peculiarities which do not possess that character. One is a greater intensity of heat in summer and of cold in winter than obtains in Spain, Italy, and other countries which lie within the same latitudes, and are even less open to the tempering influences of the sea. This peculiarity is due to the exposure of the country to the cold winds from the snow hills in close proximity to it on the north, and to the exhaust-ing sirocco from the sands of Africa on the south. The other peculiarity is the remarkable local contrasts and rapid transitions which the climate manifests, and which are a natural effect of the diversity of the geographical configuration. The remark of Gell is often quoted, that in travelling through the Morea in March he found summer in Messenia, spring in Laconia, and winter in Arcadia, without moving beyond a radius of 50 miles. There is great diver-sity in the rainfall in different parts of Greece. As a rule, rain is more prevalent in the west than in the east, which accounts for the fertile look of the hills of Elis and the barren aspect of those of Argolis. Attica is the driest part of Greece, and Bceotia has still the same heavy moist atmosphere it had of old ; and, what is re-markable, the old contrast between the people of those two provinces, which was proverbial when both were Greek by blood, still holds good when they are both certainly Albanian, the Atticans of the present day being still quick and lively, and the Boeotians dull and phlegmatic. According to statistics kept by Julius Schmidt, director of the observatory of Athens, and pub-lished in his Beitrage zur physikalischen Geographie von Griechenland (1864-70), there were in 1859 only twenty-five days on which enough rain fell at Athens to be measured by the rain gauge. The mean annual temperature of Greece is 64° Fahr. The coldest months of the year are January and February. Snow seldom falls in Athens. The corn is a considerable height in March, and is cut in May. Vines and olives bud in March, and almonds are then in blossom. Winters are, however, severe on the table-lands, and in some of the plains of the interior which are shaded from sun and sea by high hills. Dr Clarke was informed that the peasants at the foot of Cithseron, in Bceotia, were confined to their houses sometimes for several weeks by snow. Erase says the north wind blows ten months of the year, but Schmidt's statistics show this to be an error ; there are really both northerly and southerly winds every month, though now the one is more prevalent and now the other. The bird winds (so called because they bring the birds of passage) are a periodical variety of the south-west, and blow thirty days from the end of April. The Etesian winds are periodi-cal winds from the north-east, which blow regularly about the time of the dog days, and temper the heat of that season in the whole region of the Archipelago. Columella says they begin on the 1st August and continue till the 30th ; and Kruse, on the other hand, says they begin in July and blow for fifty-five days {Hellas, i. 265) ; but neither of these statements is borne out by Schmidt's figures. In 1862 the only winds which blew at Athens during July and August were north-east and south-west, and out of the sixty-two days the north-east blew for thirty-four, and the south-west for twenty-eight,—the north-east blowing twenty-two days in July and twelve in August, and the south-west nine in July and nine-teen in August. Malaria prevails largely from the neglect of drainage and the consequent creation of marshes in many parts, and the malaria causes fever, which is very fatal among chil-dren, and leaves debilitating effects in the adults, and altogether imposes a very serious check on the growth of the population of the country.

Inhabitants. The modern Greeks are of very composite origin, yet are an extremely compact and homogeneous people. Out of the million and a half which constitute the present popula- ' . tion of the country, only 67,941 speak any other language than Greek, and only 16,084 profess any other religion than the Orthodox ; and all draw well together, glorying with one another in the same memories of a common deliverance, and sharing in the same ambition of a great future. There are in the narrow bounds of Greece three distinct races, speaking different languages, wearing different costumes, observing different customs, and holding little social intercourse with one another. These races are the Greek, the Albanian, and the Wallachian. All three are probably much mixed in blood, and, in fact, the descent of each of them has been a very vexed problem in ethnology. But, on the whole, the suggestion of Freeman seems the most likely account of the matter,—that, taking them all in all, these three races are the direct representatives of the three races which occupied Greek territory at the time of its conquest by the Romans. Since that time their blood has certainly been mingled with other elements, but still sub-stantially the base of the modern Greek is the ancient Greek, the base of the modern Albanian is the ancient Illyrian, and the base of the modern Wallachian is the ancient Thracian.





Of these races the least numerous in Greece is the Wallachian or Roumanian. They are found chiefly in the mountainous regions in the northern parts of Greece, on the slopes of Othrys, in the neighbourhood of Zeitoum, on the hills of Acarnania and iEtolia, and even so far south as the banks of the Boeotian Cephissus. They pursue a nomadic shepherd life, wear black shaggy capotes made to imitate sheep-skin, and speak Roumanian,—a modified Latin, —the language of their race, and also Greek, the language of the country. They belong to the Greek Church, and sometimes marry Greek girls, but almost never give their own daughters in marriage to Greeks. In 1851 Finlay says there were 50,000 Wallachians in the modern kingdom of Greece; but they are rapidly becoming completely Hel-lenized, and in 1870 there were only 1217 Wallachians in Greece who did not speak Greek. Most of the brigands that used to infest Greece were Wallachians.

The Albanians, Skipetars (i.e.,Highlanders),or Arnaouts, occupy at present more than a fourth of modern Greece,— all Attica and Megaris (except the capitals), most part of Bceotia and part of Locris, the southern half of Eubcea, part of iEgina and Andros, the whole of the islands of Salamis, Poros, Hydra, and Spezzia, and considerable districts in Argolis, Sicyonia, Arcadia, Laconia, Messenia, and Elis. They speak a language of their own, which certainly belongs to the Aryan family, but philologists are at a loss whether to count it an independent member of the family, or merely a corruption of one of the better known branches. In districts where they exist in small bodies they are losing their own tongue and adopting Greek; but in places like Attica and Hydra, where they exist in larger numbers, they still keep it up, and if the men understand Greek the women do not. In 1851 Finlay states there were 200,000 Albanians in Greece, and in 1870 there were only 37,598 left who did not speak Greek. The Albanians who dwell in Greece all belong to the Greek Church. They are mostly agriculturists, and seem to care little for political or professional life. They wear a peculiar dress, which was adopted by them mostly from the Slavs, and was regarded as the national costume of Greece after the Revolution,— a red fez, a silk jacket embroidered with gold, a white fustanella or petticoat, and gaiters.

The rest of the population, comprising the great bulk of it, are Greeks,—a people speaking the Greek language, practising the Greek rite, and claiming descent from the ancient Greek race. This claim, which seems to rest naturally on the obvious evidence of language and feature, was warmly contested on historical grounds by Fallmerayer, who held that during the Slavonic occupation of the country the ancient Greeks were completely extirpated, _ind that the present inhabitants are merely Slavonians Byzantinized. But his arguments have been conclusively confuted by Hopf, Finlay, and others, and it may be said to be now universally admitted that, while the blood of the population contains a considerable Slav admixture, its base is still that of the ancient race of Hellas.

It is curious that the two sections of the population of Greece whom Fallmerayer credited with the purest Greek descent—the Mainotes and the Tshakones, who inhabit the two mountain ranges of Laconia—are thought by Hopf to be the only two remnants of the Slavs that still exist. The Tshakones, whose name is commonly supposed, contrary to all etymological analogy, to be a corruption of Lacones, speak a peculiar dialect of Greek, and still live very much by themselves. They now occupy only seven villages, and number 1500 families, The Mainotes, celebrated by Byron, live in Maina, on the western mountain chain of Laconia. They also speak a particular dialect, and are remarkable for their personal beauty and independent spirit. Their houses are fortified keeps, and they were never subdued by the Turks. They practise the vendetta, but are simple and truthful above their neighbours.

Other nationalities are represented in Greece, but so slightly as hardly to be worth mentioning. They num-bered only 29,126 in all in 1870. The Jews, who were never favoured by the Greeks, are found only in the Ionian Islands, where they obtained a footing during the British protectorate, and numbered, in 1870, 2528. Important remains of the old Venetian colonists still exist in the Ionian and some of the other islands.

In physique, the Greeks are generally tall and well made, if perhaps rather meagre, with oval face, long and arched nose, fine teeth, and eyes full of animation. Obesity is unknown, and their form is supple, graceful in its movements, and remains erect and elastic till past the age of 70. The best physical types are to be found in the islands and in some parts of the Morea, and there, many travellers remark, you may meet every day in the streets or highways women and boys who might have formed the models of Phidias.

National character. The national character of the Greeks is a matter upon which authorities take very contrary views, some idealizing them foolishly, and others depreciating them most unjustly. They seem to have the faults and the excellences of their famous ancestors. They have their quickness of parts and their moderation of character. They are inquisitive, full of mental activity, fond of excitement, as keen for discus-sion as in the days of Plato, and as eager after novelty as in those of Paul. Their thirst for knowledge is indeed quite remarkable, as well as their aptness to learn. Boys will put themselves to any discomfort in order to get to school; students at the university never missed a day from their classes during the Revolution of 1863, but regularly attended the lectures with the arms of the national guard in their hands ; and domestic servants are often found in spare hours learning their letters or doing their sums. They excel in tact, in astuteness, in—what Tuckerman calls the most distinctive thing about them _—finesse, which degenerates often into cunning, that weapon of the weak which could not fail to be forged under their long Turkish oppression. They are courteous and very sunny in disposition, and entirely strangers to melancholy, so that both suicide and insanity are unknown among them. They are the most temperate of Christian nations, and the chastest. Though they make a good deal of strong wine, they drink little, and they eat as sparingly as they drink. The common people live on one meal a day, and the richer on two, and an English labourer will consume at one meal what would serve a Greek family of six for the day. A little maize and vegetables steeped in oil make the st iple fare. Their rate of illegitimacy is lower than that of auy other European country, which may perhaps be ascribed to the fact that Greece is the only country in Europe where the males outnumber the females, and that this circumstance com-bines with the frugal habits of living of the people to en-courage early marriages. In other countries from 3 to 22 per cent, of the births are illegitimate, in Greece only 1 -40 per cent, are so. Two striking characteristics of the Greeks are their patriotism,—their local attachment to their country, which stands out in the stronger relief because it is a quality in which their neighbours the Turks are entirely wanting,—and their love not only of liberty but specially of equality. They are in spirit the most democratic European nation. They have no nobility—as of old, to be a Greek is itself to be noble; and Mahaffy says that " every common mule-boy is a gentleman (xvpios) and fully your equal, sitting in the room at meals, and joining in ! the conversation at dinner;" and such is their jealousy of social superiorities that he was often told by Greeks i that the only reason why they tolerated a foreign king was that they could not endure to be under one of them-selves. It is the same temper as ostracized Aristides, and doubtless it springs largely from their vanity and egotism, which even the most favourable witnesses own to be among their prominent faults. They have a deep belief, which they take no pains to conceal, in their own superiority over other nations ; and the point in which they conceive their superiority more especially to dwell is in their intellectual gifts. There are two other qualities in which the Greeks are strong, and which, though they are often abused, are yet main agents in human advancement,—ambition and the love of money. These have given a stimulus to their commerce, and made them thrifty and saving. The faults of which the Greeks are oftenest accused are cowardice and dishonesty, and both charges are equally unwarranted. Their bravery was proved on many a field during the War of Independence. Dishonesty is not a national vice, though it seems certainly to be characteristic of the classes of Greeks who more than the rest are thrown under the observation of foreigners, particularly the low mongrel Greeks of the Levant ports and the venal public officials of Greece, who have consequently helped to blacken the reputation of their countrymen in general.

Customs. The Greeks have few peculiar customs worth noting. Their national costume is now giving place almost univer-sally to the less picturesque dress of the Franks. They still adhere to the unreformed calendar, and their dates are accordingly calculated according to old style. They marry early,—young women from thirteen years of age to fifteen, and young men from sixteen to twenty. The marriage is arranged by the parents of the parties, is in all cases a religious ceremony, and may be severed by legal divorce. One is allowed to marry three times, but a fourth marriage is forbidden. The bride brings a dowry —houses, furniture, or money—and many unmarried girls wear their whole dowry in pieces of money as a head-dress. The prohibited degrees are those of canon law.

Population. The population of Greece in 1879, when the last census was taken, was 1,679,775, or an average of 84 persons the square mile. The islands are the most densely peopled portions of the kingdom, especially the Ionian Islands, which have a population of 231,174, or 229 to the square j mile. In continental Greece the rate is only 59 per square i mile, and in the Morea 89. Greece is more thinly peopled than any country of Europe, except Russia and Sweden. The population has doubled since 1832. It was then (exclusive of the Ionian Islands) only 612,608, and it is now (also excluding the Ionian Islands) 1,448,601. The males outnumber the females in Greece by 82,385. The only reason we have seen assigned for this is that large numbers of the women go out of the country as domestic servants, and are not counted in the census, while sailors, who are also at work out of the country, are counted. But this seems an inadequate explanation, for in 1370 the number of sailors not present in the country was only 5180. The disproportion between men and women appears, too, to be increasing, for there were 50,468 more men than women in Greece in 1870, when the whole population was 220,000 less than it was in 1879. The average birth-rate for the four years 1870-73 was 1 iti 34 ; the average death-rate for the same period was 1 in 45. The largest towns in Greece are—Athens, with a population in 1870 of 59,000 ; Patras, with 26,000 ; Corfu, with 24,000; Hermopolis or Syra, 21,000; Zante, with 20,500 ; Chalcis, 11,000 ; Sparta, with 10,700 ; and Argos, with 10,600.

The kingdom of Greece is an hereditary constitutional monarchy, descending by primogeniture from male to male, female succession being only allowed in the event of the absolute failure of legitimate heirs male. The title of the sovereign at first (according to the convention of London, May 1832) was king of Greece, but it was altered by the conference of London, August 1863, to king of the Hellenes. The king attains his majority at eighteen years of age. Both he and the heir-apparent are required to belong to the Greek orthodox church, but a special excep-tion is made for the present king, who is a Lutheran. The king receives an annual income of ¿£52,179, of which £40,179 comes from the civil list, and £12,000 from personal donations of £4,000 from each of the three pro-tecting powers. He has a palace in Athens—built by Otho at a cost of £500,000—and a summer residence at Corfu. _ The legislative power is shared by the king with a single chamber called the boule,—a house of repre-sentatives which is elected for four years by the people; its numbers cannot fall below 150, and amounted in 1872 to 188. The election is by universal (manhood) suffrage, protected by the ballot. The boule elects its own president, and its members are paid £9 a month during the session. The executive is vested in the king, who, however, is personally irresponsible, and rules by ministers chosen by himself and responsible to the legislature, in whose deliberations they also take part. They are seven in number, and their several departments of administation are—foreign affairs, home affairs, justice, finance, education and worship, army, and navy. A minister's salary is £428 a year. The king appoints all public officials,— civil, naval, and military,—sanctions and proclaims laws, calls and prorogues parliament, grants pardon or amnesty, coins money, and confers decorations. There are 18,860 public offices in the patronage of the ministry, and, as in America, % large number of them change hands with every change of administration. The effect of this in a country where politics is an open profession, and where there is a plethora of well-educated men who can find nothing to do, has been to poison political life to an unusual degree with the vice of place-hunting,—to create several active political parties in the state, which, iustead of being the representatives of any policy or cause, tend too much to degenerate into mere rings of post-mongers, and conduce, by their constant strife, to an excessive frequency of minis-terial crises which greatly checks the national progress of the country.

For purposes of local government Greece is divided into
13 nomarchies, under officers called nomarchs, whose duties correspond with those of the French prefects ; the nomarchies are subdivided into 59 eparchies under eparchs, corresponding to French sub-prefects ; and the eparchies are further subdivided into 351 demarchies, under demarchs or mayors. The following is a list of the nomarchies, with their areas, populations, and capitals :—

Sq. Miles. Pop. in 1870. Capitals.
A. In Northern Greece—
1. Attica and Bceotia....
3. Phthiotis and Phocis
4. Acarnania and iEtolia
B. In Morea—
5. Achaia and Elis
6. Arcadia
7. Laconia
8. Messenia
9. Argolis and Corinthia
C. In the Islands—
10. Cyclades
11. Corfu
12. Cephalonia
13. Zante 2481 1574 2053 3025
190S 2028 1678 1226 1448
926 427 302 277 185,364 95,136 128,440 138,444
181,632 148,905 121,116 155,760 136,081
132,020 106,109 80,543 44,522 Athens. Chalcis. Lamia. Mesolonghi.
Patras.
Tripolitza.
Sparta.
Kalamata.
Nauplia.
Syra. Corfu. Argostoli. Zante.

The demarchs are elected by the people for four years ; the nomarchs and eparchs are elected by the Government without fixed terms. The nomarchs are assisted in the administration of the province by a council elected by universal secret suffrage for four years, which manages the police, roads, and other local business, and imposes the assessments. The local accounts must be sent once a year to Athens to be audited by a court of Government officials. The demarchies vary in size, but, in 1861, out of 280 that then existed, only 57 were under 2000 in population, and only 7 above 10,000.

Judicial system. Greece has an admirable legal system, which is the one good thing it has got from the Bavarians. It is based on the old Roman law, with modifications drawn from the Bavarian and French. Liberty of person and domicile is inviolate; no one can be apprehended, no house can be entered, and no letter can be opened without a judicial warrant. Criminal and political offences and delinquencies of the press are tried by jury. The commercial code is identical with that of France. The civil law is administered by a supreme court of cassation (the Areopagus); 4 courts of appeal; 17 courts of first instance, with jurisdiction up to 500 drachmas; 191 judges of the peace, with jurisdic-tion up to 30 drachmas, or, with an appeal, to 300 drach-mas ; and 4 commercial courts (at Syra, Nauplia, Patras, and Corfu), with jurisdiction up to 800 drachmas. To be a judge, it is necessary to have graduated as doctor of laws at Athens or some other European university; a judge cannot hold any other salaried appointment at the same time except that of professor in the university. Judges are appointed by the crown, and are as yet removable. Criminal courts are held in connexion with those of the peace, of first instance, and of appeal ; in the last the judicial authority is vested in a jury of twelve, with three accessory judges selected from those of the inferior courts, who apply the law in accordance with the jury's verdict. The crown is prosecutor in all criminal cases, and punish-ments are by fines, imprisonment, and, in the case of capital offences, death by guillotine. The prisons are extremely defective in construction and administration, except that of Corfu; improvements are often projected but constantly put off from want of funds to carry them out. There is no Habeas Corpus Act, and an accused person may be detained indefinitely before being brought to trial. Judicial commissions and extraordinary courts of judicature cannot be established under any pretext.

The courts of law are open to the public, except when the interests of good morals or public order demand the contrary. Naval and military offences are tried by naval and military courts, and offences of ministers of the crown by special courts, in accordance with the constitution of 1864

Crime is proportionately less common in Greece than elsewhere, for the people are more temperate, and, on the whole, more contented. The peculiar Greek crime is—or, as we may happily now say, was—brigandage, the form of robbery which is natural to a mountainous 'and thinly-peopled country without roads. According to the latest consular reports, the country is at present completely free from brigands. But it will never be secure against their reappearance until it obtains good roads, which will operate against the brigands both by tending to increase the rural population and by affording better facilities for the capture of criminals.

Army. The strength of the Greek army on a peace footing was, at the census in 1870, 12,400, including upwards of 2000 gendarmes; but since the Servian war with the Turks in 1876 the Government has resolved to raise it to 24,376, exclusive of 2508 mounted gendarmes. This, with the national guard and the reserves and volunteers, would make their total strength on a war footing over 150,000. The national guard is composed of all citizens capable of serving and under the age of 50; it is designed for purposes of defence only. The reserves consist of those who have served out their time in the regular army. The army is recruited by lot from all capable of serving, with the alternative, which is largely used, of providing a sub-stitute; and the period of service is three years in the line, three years in the first reserve, and six in the second. Navy. The navy consists of two small ironclads and a few wooden gunboats and vessels for coast-guard purposes, which are manned by 2500 men, raised, as a rule, by conscription from the inhabitants of the coast, though volunteering is encouraged. The Greek flag is a white cross on blue ground—the Bavarian colours and the Greek cross. Religion. The religion of the people and of the state is that of the Orthodox Greek Church. In fact, the Greek rite is not only the national, religion, but perhaps the deepest and most creative factor in the nationality of Greece itself. Men of Greek blood who do not belong to the Greek Church do not identify themselves with the Greek people. The Moslems of Crete were the sternest oppressors the Greeks knew, and the Latins of Syros sided at the revolution with the Turks, yet both were of the purest Greek descent. And what makes the Greek and Skipetar and Wallach of the modern kingdom all equally Greek in their sympathies to-day is their common profession of the Greek rite. But ' all other religions are tolerated in Greece. There is a Moslem mosque at Chalcis ; there is a Jewish synagogue at Corfu; and, whatever a man's religion maybe, it entails on him in Greece no civil disabilities of any kind. A Catholic or a Mahometan may rise to the highest offices of state; both Turks and Jews are at present members of municipal councils ; and Jews and Catholics are buried in the same cemetery with the Orthodox at Athens. The Church of Greece, which became virtually independent at the time of the revolution, was organized upon the model of the Russian Church. Its supreme power is vested in a synod consisting of five members, who are appointed annually by the king, and the majority of whom must be prelates. The metropolitan (archbishop of Athens) is ex officio president; two royal commissioners attend and deliberate without voting, and the synod's resolutions require to be confirmed by them in the king's name. In all purely spiritual matters the synod has entire independ-ence ; but on questions having a civil side,—as marriage, divorce, excommunication of laymen, the appointment of feasts and fasts, and the religious censorship of the press and of religious pictures,—it can only act in concert with the Government. Excluding the Ionian Islands, which have five archbishops, there are eleven archbishops and thirteen bishops in Greece, who are chosen by the king out of a list of three candidates presented by the synod, and can only be deposed by common consent of king and synod, and in conformity with canon law. The clergy numbered 5102 in 1861. The immense majority of the population belongs to the Greek Church. In 1870 the number of other Christians in Greece was 12,585, most of whom were Roman Catholics ; of Jews, 2582 ; and of all other religions, 917. There are two Roman Catholic archbishops and four bishops. The revenue from the property of the Greek Church in 1877 was £10,571. The prelates receive a salary from the state,—the bishops £145, and the archbishops £180. The inferior clergy receive none, but are entirely dependent on the fees they earn for various spiritual services and superstitious observances,— praying for the sick, exorcising the evil eye, consecrating a new house or fishing boat, or purifying one bought from a Turk. There are 1600 monks and 1500 nuns in Greece.

Popular education is widely diffused in Greece. It was the first care of the newly-liberated people, and has been jealously fostered ever since, till they have now an exceed-ingly complete national system of education, which is perhaps the most striking product of the new kingdom. The latest statistics we have on the subject are those of the year 1872, given in Watson's report of that year (Reports of H.M. Secretaries of Embassy and Legation, No. i. 1872). From these figures we learn that there were then 1141 primary or demotic schools, 136 grammar or Hellenic schools, 7 gymnasia, and finally, the crown of the whole, the university of Athens; besides 6 nautical schools, a polytechnic school, 4 theological seminaries of the Greek Church, and various private institutions main-tained by Catholic or Protestant societies. At the primary schools, the usual elementary branches only are taught,— reading, writing, arithmetic, the catechism, grammar, history, geography, natural history, agriculture, and draw-ing. In the Hellenic schools instruction is given besides in the least difficult of the ancient Greek authors; and in the gymnasia, a more thorough acquaintance is made with ancient Greek, and with Latin and French, mathematics, logic, anatomy, physics, and natural history. The teachers of the primary schools are educated at a training institu-tion in Athens; those of the Hellenic schools must be licentiates of a university ; and those of the gymnasia must have the degree of Ph.D. The primary schools are main-tained at the expense of the communes, with a subsidy, in certain particular cases, from the state. The total amount spent by the communes for this object comes to about one-sixth part of their income, or over £40,000 in all, and the whole Government grant for primary education in 1872 was £4171. At these schools a small fee is charged, running from Id. to 5d. a month, from all who are able to pay it. The grammar schools, the gymnasia, and the university' are maintained entirely by the state, the ex-pense in 1877 exceeding £35,000 for the two classes of secondary schools, and £18,000 for the university; at these schools and the university education is entirely gratuitous, and is furthermore encouraged by the existence of various exhibitions for meritorious pupils, won by competition. The university was erected at a cost of £10,000, raised by private subscription from Greeks all over the world, and is furnished with excellent laboratories and museums, a library of 150,000 volumes, medical hospitals, an astronomical observatory, and a botanical garden. It has 4 faculties—arts, medicine, law, and theology—52 professors, 12 fellows, and, after a curriculum of 4 years, confers the degrees of licentiate and doctor, which are indispensable for those who contemplate becoming lawyers, medical men, or teachers in the higher schools. It was opened in 1835 with 52 students; in 1854 it had 643 ; it now has 1400. In 1872 it had 1244,—of whom 26 were students of theology, 622 of law, 423 of medicine, 120 of arts, and 53 of pharmacy. The small number of theologi-cal students is partly accounted for by the existence of four other theological seminaries in Greece, supported by private funds,—one at Athens and three in the provinces, —and partly by the scandalous neglect of clerical educa-tion that obtains in Greece. In 1867 there were only 115 students at these four theological seminaries. A large pro-portion of the students at the university have always been foreign Greeks, for professional men are trained there not only for Greece itself but for the whole region of the Levant. Out of the 1244 students who attended in 1872, 249 were Greeks from foreign parts,—124 of these being students of medicine, 66 of law, and 6 of theology. No one is admitted as a student who has not completed his education at a gymnasium. The salary of a professor hardly amounts to £200 a-year. There is no school inspection beyond that of the demarch.





Education is by law compulsory for children from seven to twelve years of age, but this law is not enforced, for it does not require to be; and the results of education in Greece are the more remarkable as being the fruits of what is practically purely voluntary attendance. Every eighteenth person in Greece is at school; in Eussia only every seventy-seventh is so. In 1872 the total number of pupils was 81,197,—of whom 65,111 were males and only 16,086 females. Boys and girls are taught at sepa-rate schools ; of the primary schools, 942 are for boys, with 1009 male teachers and 52,943 pupils, and only 199 for girls, with 221 female teachers and 11,035 pupils. The Hellenic schools and gymnasia are for boys only, and in 1872 had 6055 and 1942 pupils respectively. There are, however, various private schools for girls, with an aggregate attendance of 5000. These figures show that there is a serious defect in female education, for which neither the Government of Greece nor the people have due solicitude. It ought to be mentioned, however, that there is one phase of female education in which Greece is in advance of many other European countries, for the medical school of Athens is open to female students, who num-bered 42 in 1879. Indus- We have no exact statistics as to the numbers engaged tries. jn eaea branch of industry severally, but Bikelas gives in the Journal of the Statistical Society of London for 1868 an estimate for the year 1861, according to which nearly half the population (49'37 per cent.) were agricul-turists and shepherds, and more than a third of the remainder (or 18 66 per cent, of the whole population) in the liberal professions. 13'87 per cent, were engaged in industrial pursuits, 843 per cent, in trade, 5'40 per cent, were domestic servants, and only 4'27 per cent, were persons of independent means. Government officials and their families comprise a twelfth part of the population. There is great want of employers with considerable capital, and the amount of labour done and wages earned by the workmen is much diminished by the extraordinary number of ecclesiastical holidays they are required to observe. There are 195 fast days in Greece, and the number of working days in the year never exceeds 265. There are no paupers in Greece, no poor law or poor-rate, and no religious associations for charitable purposes. Beggars are very rare, and absolute destitution may be said not to exist. Agri- Agriculture is still in its infancy. A larger proportion culture. 0£ ^s area js uncuitiva(;e,i than obtains in any country in Europe except Russia; but that is explained by the unusually large part of it which is occupied by mountair.s. We have no exact statistics since 1860, but then only one-seventh was under cultivation. Its entire area (exclusive of the Ionian Islands, not then part of it), was 45,699,248 stremmas,—a stremma being a little over a quarter of an acre. Of these only 17,824,000 were capable of cultiva-tion, and only 6,076,000 actually under it, and half of this amount is always fallow from their system of working it. By universal testimony the country might grow food for three times its present population, yet it has to import cereals every year to an amount exceeding a third of its own produce, and over £1,000,000 in value. But agricul-ture contends with many difficulties in Greece, most of them, like the vicious land-tax, the want of roads, and the imperfect agricultural methods, being happily remediable.

The soil is, as a rule, light and thin. In many places there is great lack of rain and running water, but the people are expert in irrigation. The chief products are corn, wine, fruit, and oil. Six different kinds of wheat are grown, producing, in a favourable season, as much as 10 or 13 returns, and after a dry spring from 3 to 5. Good crops are got of rye, barley, and maize ; oats do not grow so well, and potatoes not at all. Pulse thrives everywhere, and rice is produced in the plains of Marathon and Argos, and in marshy land elsewhere. Cotton and tobacco have been introduced in our own day, and give good returns.

Greece is still in want of one of the first requisites to agricultural prosperity,—a resident proprietary. The modern kingdom began with almost no proprietors. Under the Turks two-thirds of the land belonged to the sultan, and became at the revolution simply national propert}', which the Government has been selling ever since to pri-vate owners on more or less reasonable terms. The peasants are showing a passion for land, and save up to buy their crofts, and in this way a large class of small freeholders is being created, with what effect upon agriculture we have no means as yei of determining. There were 16,122 proprietors in 1861. The relation between landlord and tenant is the metayer system of taking as rent or usufruct a share of the net produce, usually a third, but in the case of Government land 15 per cent. Great part of the agricultural labourers are not Greek subjects, but are Mahometan Albanians from Thessaly and Epirus, who come into Greece annually in harvest-time, in bands of 30 or 40 under a captain, who work at lower rates than Greeks and work longer, for they have no feasts to observe, and who contrive by frugal living to carry back three-fourths of their earnings to their families at home.

The methods of cultivation in use are still primitive. Modern implements are not employed to any great extent, though their manufacture is carried on at Syra and the Piraeus, and though even the steam plough has been actually introduced in Elis. The Greek plough is still that of Homer, which the husbandman carries about his croft on his shoulder, and which hardly does more than scrape the surface of the ground. It is wrought by oxen, Greek horses—the old Thessalian breed—being small and unfit for farm work. There is no system of rotation of crops. Fields are cropped till they are exhausted, and then left fallow for a year or two. The farmers have no idea of manure or drainage. There are few enclosures, and even the laying out of the fields is slovenly,—a patch of this crop here, and a patch of that there. The houses of the peasantry are sheds of wood or huts of mud, without either chimney or window, but always with a picture of the Virgin inside.

With all the defects in the Greek system of cultivation, agricultural returns show gradual though slow progress. In

was estimated at 6,000,000 kilots, a kilot being nearly 7-3 gallons; in 1876, 12,000,000. In 1860 there were 2,287,645 stremmas—i.e., 565,048 acres—under cereal crops, which yielded 9,512,993 kilots of grain—i.e., 1,165,807 quarters, or 2 quarters an acre.

Wines. Vineyards are numerous, but the wine is poor, with little body, and is ruined for European use by the resin put in to preserve it. All province's produce wine, but the best is that of Santorin, which is shipped largely to Eussia. There is still a Malvoisie wine, though it is no longer that which was once so celebrated under the name of Malmsey ; and the Kephissia wine of Attica and the red wine of Zante are in good repute. There has been a large increase in the number of vineyards, and a marked improvement in the manufac-ture of wine since the kingdom began, and Greek wines have been of some commercial importance since 1858. In 1830 there were only 25,000 stremmas under vines ; there are now 700,000.

Currants. A grape peculiar to Greece is that of Corinth, which, from the place where it grows, is called the currant. It constitutes the largest export of Greece, and goes almost exclusively to England to make the national plum-pudding. Its cultivation lias been largely increased of late. In 1820 only 10,000,000 lb were raised, and in 1831, after the destruction of the vines by Ibrahim Pasha, only 5,000,000 lt>, but in 1851 there were 57,000,000 lb, and in 1876 195,000,000 lb,—valued at £1,400,000. There are now 40,000 acres of ground under currants alone, and this probably cannot be much increased, for the Corinthian vine is fastidious, and grows only on the northern and western shores of the Morea, on some of the Ionian Islands, and at Mesolonghi, and nowhere else in Greece or in the world. The vines bear in their sixth year, but do not attain full perfection till their twelfth. The grapes are gathered in August, dried in the sun, and packed.

Other products. The olive and the mulberry are very important products of cultivation. The oil of Attica has still its ancient reputation. It is calculated that in Greece in 1876 there were 12,000,000 olive trees, which yielded 19,000,000 okes of oil. In 1834 there were only 2,300,000 trees, yielding 1,000,000 okes. The mulberry grows best in the scuth of the Morea, and there the house of almost every feasant is given up in part to rearing the silk-worm, the eggs being nestled in the bosoms of the women. There were in 1833 only S00,000 mulberry trees in Greece ; in 1876 there were 2,000,000.

A natural production of Greece of great importance is valonia, the husk of the acorn of the Quercus JEgilops, an oak of which considerable forests exist in Arcadia, Attica, the island Zea, and other places. Valonia is valuable on account of the amount of tannin it contains, and is much exported to England and Italy for use in dyeing and tanning. Another species of oak, the Quercus cocci/era, which grows largely on Mount Taygetus, breeds the insect called kermes, which, when dried, looks like a berry, and is used in dyeing the red fez of the country. Turpentine is obtained in large quanti-ties from the pines of Cithaeron and elsewhere.

Cotton and tobacco are the only products whose cultivation is free from taxation, the exemption being made with a view to the encouragement of their cultivation. Cotton is now grown to a considerable extent, its culture having received a great impetus during the American civil war. It is produced particularly on the marshy lands of Levadia, and Phthiotis in northern Greece. In 1862 the produce was 28,537 quintals ; in 1864, 193,615 quintals. The annual yield of tobacco is 4,000,000 okes. Opium, madder, and flax are grown in the northern parts of Greece.

Greece is rich in fruits. The figs of Attica have not degenerated, and they are produced to a considerable extent in other parts also, especially Messenia. In 1834 there were but 50,000 fig-trees ; in 1861, 300,000. Apricots, oranges, lemons, pomegranates, and citrons grow well in the islands, and the fruit trade might be largely increased.

Though there is much excellent timber in the Greek forests, it is practically useless from want of roads, so that it is cheaper to import wood from abroad. In 1860 there were 7,000,000 stremmas of land under forest, and it is estimated that now only 5,500,000 are so.

The herds are chiefly bred on the mountain pastures, and are mainly sheep and goats. Most of the cattle are used in agricultural labour. In 1865 the total number of sheep in the country subject to taxation was 1,778,729 ; of goats, 2,289,123; of cattle, 226,737— of which 168,927 were work oxen; of horses, 69,787 ; of mules, 29,637 ; of asses, 64,051 ; of swine, 55,776 ; and of camels, 72. Cows' milk and butter are considered unwholesome in Greece (Kruse, 'Hellas, i. p. 368), and the butter and cheese in use are from ewes' and goats' milk. The honey of Greece is not equal to that of other countries ; even that of Hymettus,—so famous in ancient days when honey was exceptionally prized, because men were ignorant of sugar, and which is still one of the best kinds in Greece,—could not compete with French in the English market. But over £35,000 worth of honey is produced in Greece every year, and goes chiefly to Turkey. There are extensive fisheries on some parts of the coasts.

The land tax is still the Turkish system of exacting a percentage— Land generally a tenth—of the gross produce of the land ; and though, tax. in the case of the vineyards, a money commutation, based on the planter's declaration, is coming into use, the tax is, as a rule, paid in kind. This system is rendered more objectionable by the tax being farmed out to private contractors. The cultivator cannot reap his crop, though it be ripe, till the day appointed by the tax collector, and he must cut it then, though it be green. When cut, he must carry the whole crop on pack animals (there being no roads for waggons), sometimes for miles, to the particular public threshing-floor which the collector fixes upon, and he must wait with it there till the collector can find time to see it threshed and take his tithe, which is often weeks, sometimes, it is said, even as as long as three months. Proposals for the abolition of this method of taxation have often been introduced into the chamber of deputies, but the matter has always been deferred till they should have a register of lands, which, however, they seem to take no steps to make.

When Capodistria assumed the government of Greece fifty years Roads, ago, he said there were two things he meant to give the nation,— roads and education. The system of education has been very satis-factorily built up since that time, but its roads are still to make. We have no recent statistics on the subject, but Eangabe says that in 1867 nineteen roads had been made since the kingdom was estab-lished, with a total length of 380 kilometres ; and Watson, writing in 1872, complains that, from want of roads at that time, it cost more to carry grain from Marathon to Athens (25 miles) than to bring it from the Black Sea, while highly fertile tracts of country, not far from seaport towns, were left entirely uncultivated because of the expense of the transit of their produce. Every man in Greece is by law obliged to give at least three days' labour in the year, or its equivalent in money, for road-making ; and a law was passed in 1876 to apply one-fifth of the proceeds from the sale of state lands to making roads.

Manufactures. Manufacturing industries are steadily advancing. According to a report issued in 1876 by Mansolas, director of the statistical bureau at Athens, there are in Greece 95 steam-mills and factories, with a total of 1967 horse-power ; the most important of these have been established since 1869. They include 35 flour-mills, 12 for cotton-weaving, 2 for cotton-spinning, 4 for ginning, 6 for sillk-weaving, 10 oil-mills, 9 for constructing machinery, 4 for making wines and spirits, 3 tanneries, 2 metal-foundries," 1 powder-mill, and 7 others of various kinds. Shipbuilding is carried on at the seaports. The Greeks excel in tailoring, confectionery, and i embroidery. As an index to the industrial progress of the nation ' it may be noted that in the International Exhibition of 1851 there were only 35 Greek exhibitors ; in 1862, 295 ; and in 1878, 1000. Greece has established a series of industrial exhibitions of its own, —the new Olympic games, as they are termed, which a wealthy Greek left £3000 a year to found,—which combine literary, scien-tific, and athletic competitions with those of industry, and which occur, like the old Olympic games, every four years. The cotton industry is making decided progress. The annual export of raw cotton is diminishing, and its importation is increasing ; and, to encourage the trade, there is no duty on native cotton, unless exported, while the import duty on raw cotton was reduced in 1875. Leather is made chiefly at Syra.

The marble quarries of Pentelicus, Caryste, and Paros are im- Mines, portant works. The coals of Eubcea are not much used, as their heat-giving capacity is small. The only mining operations in the country are those of the Laurium Company, which, by help of improved modern appliances, extracts treasure from the waste which the ancient workers of the mines threw away, and which has been roughly guessed to contain still 120,000 tons of lead. The scoriae or refuse heaps of Laurium are dug up and carried on trucks, by a short line of rail belonging to the company, to the town of Ergasteria, near Cape Colonna, built by themselves to be their workshop and port; there these scoriae are re-smelted, and yield annually nearly 10,000 tons of lead, and a large quantity of silver. There are 3000 operatives engaged in this work at Ergasteria. The value of the export in 1875 was £150,513.

Commerce. But the most conspicuous success of Greece has been in her maritime commerce, for which the situation and configuration of the country afford unusual facilities. In 1821 Greece had only 440 vessels, with a total tonnage of 61,450 tons, whereas in 1875 she had 5440 vessels, 27 of them steamers, with a tonnage in all of 262,032 tons, and employing 26,760 men. In 1830 there was hardly a harbour in all Greece worth the name, the Piraeus being then barely accessible to fishing boats ; there are now 65 good ports. It had only one lighthouse in 1847 ; it has now 46, but more are still urgently needed.
The straits of Euripushave been cleared, deepened, and widened, and an iron bridge thrown across. There are five chambers of commerce. The chief ports are Hermopolis (Syra), Hydra, Spezzia, Corfu, Zante, Piraeus, Patras, Mesolonghi, Nauplia, Santorin, Naxos, Corinth.
The commerce of Greece is usually divided into general and

special,—general including all exports and imports whatever, and special taking in only imports meant for home consumption and exports of commodities produced in the country. The special com-merce amounts usually to 80 per cent, of the general. The general commerce of Greece in 1875 amounted to £8,374,198, of which £5,196,629 were imports and £3,177,569 exports. An idea of the remarkable progress of its commerce may be obtained by comparing these figures with the following :—In 1833 the total Greek com-merce amounted to £671,499, and in 1840 to £1,036,374 ; in 1860 it was £3,147,000, and in 1870 £5,354,000. England occupies the first place among countries trading with Greece, its transactions being more than double those of any other country, and amounting in 1873 to 41 per cent., and in 1875 to 38 per cent., of the whole commerce of Greece. Taking the average of the six years ending 1874, Wyndham calculates that 60'75 per cent, of the exports of Greece go to England, and that 28 85 per cent, of its imports come from England. Turkey and Austria, its nearest neighbours, stand next. 25 per cent, of its imports are cereals and flour,—the cereals from Russia, Turkey, and Eoumania, the flour from France ; and 20 per cent, are tissues, mainly from England. Though timber is so abundant, it still is one of the largest imports, amounting to .2187,778 in 1875. The other chief imports are cattle, salt meat, rice, coals, butter, iron, and paper. The principal item of export, amounting to half the whole, is currants; this in 1875 was £1,350,467, of which £1,083,482 went to England ; then come oil, hides, lead, figs, valonia, wines and spirits, tobacco, cotton yarn, &e.

The Greek coasting trade is not open to foreigners. The steamers of the Hellenic Company possess a monopoly of the eoastage of those waters, the object being to encourage the development of native steam navigation.

Railways. There is only one railway in Greece, if we except the private one already mentioned belonging to the Laurium Company. It is from
Piraeus to Athens, is 7J miles long, belongs to Government, and
carries passengers only. Another railway is projected from the
Pirseus to Lamia (Zeitoum) in the north (140 miles), with the view
of connecting Greece with the general railway system of Europe.
There were 1235 miles of telegraph in Greece in 1875, the property
of Government, and worked at a considerable loss. The postal
Postal system is a Government undertaking, and has been a source of profit
system, only since 1861, when postage stamps were introduced. In 1875
there were 131 post-offices in Greece. There are two banks,—the
Banks, National, with its head office at Athens, and the Ionian, with its
head office at Corfu. The National had in 1868 a paid-up capital
of £540,000, with a reserve fund of £215,000.
Money. The currency of Greece is that of the Latin monetary league,
which it joined in 1868, and which allows it to strike
26,000,000 silver francs and as much gold as it thinks proper.
Under Otho, Greece had a coinage of its own, on the basis of a
double standard and the decimal system, the unit being the drachma
(equal to 8 Jd.), which was divided into 100 equal parts called leptas.
Coins of various values were struck, but only £4000 in "gold
pieces, and only £36,000 in silver, an amount quite inadequate for
the trade of the country, and quickly disappearing altogether, so
that there is probably not a single coin of them now left in Greece.
It became necessary therefore to declare the gold and silver coins of
other countries a legal tender in Greece ; and these, with the notes
of the National and Ionian Banks, became, and still remain, the
practical currency of the country, so that the simplest payment may
require a puzsling arithmetical calculation, for people have to pay
in sovereigns and thalers prices stated in drachmas and leptas.
Though the unit of the Latin currency is the franc, the official
accounts of Greece are still reckoned in old drachmas, in distinction
from which the franc is termed the new drachma. There are 28 old
and 25 new drachmas in the pound sterling.

Weights. The system of weights and measures is the Turkish. Their
and measures of length are—the pique, which is equal to 27 inches ; the
measures, royal pit, equal to 1 metre, or 3'2808 feet; the stadion, equal to 10'62 English miles. Their measures of superficial extent are—the stremma, equal to one-fourth of an English acre, and the hectare equal to 10 stremmas. Their standard of weight is the cantar or quintal, equal to 123 lb avoirdupois. It is divided into 44 okes, an oke being equal to 2 '84 lb, and subdivided into 400 old and 1280 royal drams. A kilo, used for weighing com, is half a cantar, or 22 okes. 816 kilos are equal to 100 quarters.
89

Finances. The financial condition of Greece is unsatisfactory. Its annual expenditure usually exceeds its income, and it is deeply in debt. The new kingdom was born in debt, and contracted to pay the expenses of the revolution that gave it being, and to that original burden it has from time to time added fresh liabilities, till it has now no longer any credit in the money markets of Europe, and is deeper in debt in proportion to its revenue than any European country except Spain. The total debt of Greece was £15,360,103, according to Mr Malet's report in 1875, and, what with the accumu-lation of interest and the contraction of a fresh debt for army extension during the Servian insurrection of 1876, it must now be over £16,000,000. This debt consists of two kinds—foreign and internal. The foreign debt is of two parts. There are first the original two loans, amounting between them to £2,300,000, which were negotiated by the revolutionists in 1824 and 1825 with two English houses at 59 and 55 per cent., and whose coupons are now held mainly by Dutch speculators. On this Greece has never paid a farthing of interest. The Greek treasury, although it accepts the obligation, puts it off from year to year under the heading '' Deferred Debt." With accumulating interest at 5 per cent., it had increased to £8,084,500 in 1874. The second part of the foreign debt is a loan of £2,400,000 guaranteed by the three protecting powers on the accession of Otho in 1832, and negotiated with Eothsehild at 94. On this Greece paid interest for a few years, but its payment has so fallen into arrear that in 1874 this debt had grown to £3,870,000. There is also a small debt due to the Bavarian Government, amounting now to £250,000, and there are some still smaller debts to other foreign creditors. The internal debt of the country consists partly of indemnity due to sufferers in the War of Independence, partly of loans contracted with capitalists within the kingdom after its credit abroad was gone ; it now amounts in all to £5,270,839.

The revenue for 1877, according to the estimate in the budget, was £1,401,687, and the expenditure £1,466,708. The actual receipts usually fall short of the budget estimate, for Greece per-mits her subjects to fall much into arrear with the payment of their taxes ; and in 1867 it was calculated there was an aggregate of arrears of taxes amounting to £2,226,000. This revenue is received partly from direct taxes on land and property ; partly from indirect taxes ; partly from the public services, the post-office, telegraphs, and printing ; partly from the rent of the public domains, mines, quarries, hot springs, salt, fisheries, fruits, olive gardens, vineyards, and currant plantations ; and partly from the sale of national lands and the ecclesiastical revenues. The largest sources of revenue are the land tax, which brought in 8,500,000 drachmas in 1877 ; the customs, 13,400,000 ; and the stamps, 4,200,000. The cost of collecting the land tax is very extravagant. It takes £25 to collect £100, or ten times more than it does in France. The Greeks are not sorely taxed. Eangabe estimates that they pay 23'43 drachmas (about 17s.) each in the year as taxes.

Of the expenditure of Greece, nearly one-fourth part goes to pay interest on its debt, another fourth to maintain its army and navy, and a large sum (£136,386) to pay pensions to persons who suffered in the revolution, or who possessed interests in the Ionian Islands at the time of their cession. The education and worship of the country cost £75,427, and the foreign office and diplomatic service only £40,257. The administration of justice takes £107,716, and the department of the interior, including the post-office and many other outlays, £171,526. The salaries of members of the chambers of deputies come to £16,071.

Literature.—Bursian, Geographie von Griechenland (Leipsic, 1862); Tozer, Lectures on the Geography of Greece (London, 1873); Eruse, Hellas (Leipsic, 1825-27); Julius Schmidt, Beiträge zur physikalischen Geographie von Griechenland (Leipsic, 1864-70); Finlay, History of Greece (Oxford, 1877); Maurer, Das Griechische Volk in öffentlicher und privat-rechtlicher Beziehung (Heidelberg, 1835) ; About, La Grece Contemporaine (Paris, 1854); Eangabe, Greece, her Former and Present Position (New York, 1867); Strickland, Greece, its Condition and Resources (London, 1863) ; Wyse, Impressions of Greece (London, 1871) ; Tuckerman, The Greeks of To-day (London, 1873) ; Moraitinis, La Grece telle qu' elle est (Paris, 1877); Sergeant, New Greece (London, 1878) ; and the annual reports of the British secretaries of embassy and legation and of the British consuls. (J. E.)


Read the rest of this article:
Greece - Table of Contents