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 nourish in the west, and oleanders brighten the river beds.
The wild animals still to be found occasionally in Greece 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.
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 Beitrdye zur physikalischen Geographie von Griechen- land (1864-70), there were in 1859 only twenty-five days on which enough rain fell at Athens to bo 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 Cithaeron, in Bceotia, were confined to their houses sometimes for several weeks by snow. Kruse 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) ; biit 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 lecves debilitating effects in the adults, and altogether imposes a very serious check on the growth of the population of the country.
The modern Greeks are of very composite origin, yet are Inhabi- an extremely compact and homogeneous people. Oat of tants - 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 inter course 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 JEtolia, 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 Hellenized, 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.,Highlander,s),or Arnaouts, occupy at present more than a fourth of modern Greece, all Attica and Megaris (except the capitals), most part of Bosotia and part of Locris, the southern half of Euboea, part of ^Egina 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
