Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/96

Rh 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, and 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 bloo.l 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, ^he 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 move ments, 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.

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 Pievolution 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 cour teous 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 stipls fare. Their rite of illegitimacy is lower than that of any 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 i.s a quality in which their neighbours the Turks are entirely wanting, and their love not only of liberty but specially of equa iv. They are in spirit the most demo cratic European nation. They have no nobility as of old, t j be a Greek is itself to be noble ; and Mahaffy says that &quot; every common mule-boy is a gentleman (/o&amp;gt;pios) and fully your equal, sitting in the room at meals, and joining in ihe conversation at dinner;&quot; and such is their jealousy of social superiorities that he was often told by Greeks ! that the only reason why they tolerated a foreign king j was that they could not endure to be under one of them- 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 no 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.
 * selves. It is the same temper as ostracized Aristides, and

The Greeks have few peculiar customs worth noting, o.sto 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 housas, 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.

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 mile. In continental Greece the rite is only 59 per square mile, and in the Morea 89. Greece is more thinly peopled