Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/8

 NOTES AND QUERIES.

[12 8. IV. JAK., 1918.

by, " which shine like silver as those of Clissura,"* and on his way to Thessaly he passed through Monastir. Some years later, in 1675, George Wheler met on the hills opposite Lepanto with a settlement of shepherds, and in a short description which he gives of their mode of life as well as of their dress f one recognizes the same folk about whom Dr. Sibthorp wrote in 1794 :

" During the winter months a wandering tribe of Nomades drive their flocks from the mountains of Thessaly into the plains of Attica and Bceotia, and give some pecuniary consideration to the Pasha of Negropont and Vaivode of Athens. These people are much famed for their woollen manufactures, particularly the coats or cloaks worn by the Greek sailors." Robert Walpole, ' Memoirs relating to European and Asiatic Turkey' (London, 1817, vol. i. p. 141).

The aforesaid travellers do not name the Vlachs; they speak in general terms, as do some of the Byzantin chroniclers. Gregoras, for instance (ed. Bonn, vol. i. p. 247), says :

To, ev MciKeSovia 'Pcoyucuois o/iopouvra $1/77, 'IAAv/3ioi rt SrjXaSij /cat IpijSaXNol xa.1 'Axa/3- vavs xai GerraAoi, the latter comprising the Vlachs. Cantacuzene likewise alludes to them by saying : 01 TTS/H QtrraXtav OIKOVCTIV avTovo/Aoi vo/jidSts (ed. Bonn, vol. i. p. 450). Learned men as they all were, it must be presumed that they knew about the Vlachs. These people, who call themselves Armani, had a part of their own at times of para- mount importance in the very tangled history of the Balkans. Beginning with the tenth century, one often hears about them from different sources, including some English, either direct or translated. Thus Benjamin of Tudela's narrative of his journey, with an oft-quoted passage on the " Balachi," appeared in ' Purchas His Pilgrimes/ ed. 1625 (vol. ii. chap. ix. p. 1441). In the same collection of travels William de RubruquisJ refers in 1253 to the " Land of Assanus," and, as implied in the words " as farre as Solonia," he means but the MeyaA?; EXa\ia of the Byzantin chronicles. From this Vallachia came to London in 1427 a person called Paulus. The king

garia, Servia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Thessaly, Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, and Friuli ' London, 1673, p. 45.
 * ' A Brief Account of some Travels in Hun-

t ' A Journey into Greece.' London, 1682, p. 303.

J Vol. iii. chap. i. p. 2. This is the Latin text : " ultra Danubium versus Constantino- polim, Valachia, quae est terra Assani, et Minor Bulgaria, usque in Solonomam." Hurmusaki, ' Documente privitoare la Istoria Romanilor,' Bucuresti, 1887, vol. i. pp. 265-6.

then reigning, Henry VI., granted him ari allowance on account of his being ruined by the Turks. The decree issued for this purpose distinctly points out that he is " Comes de V.alache, in partibus Grecice, qui de Nobile Sanguine Tractus existit " (Rymer, ' Foedera,' 3rd ed., vol. iv., 4th part, p. 128; vol. v., 1st part, pp. 7-8). He was probably one of those chieftains who, according to the tunes and extent of their powers, bore different titles, besides that of " Comes de Valache." We learn from the ' Cecaumeni Strategicon ' that the Emperor Basile II. granted to Niculitza rrjV apXT;v TWV BAa^wv 'EAAaSos (B. Wassi- liewsky and V. Jernstedt, Petersburg, 1896, p. 96); later on Niketas speaks of a roTrapx 7? 5 ruling over Great Vallachia (ed. Bonn, p. 841).

At the advent of the Turks, Great Vallachia ceased to be a principality apart, but her name, with something of a glamour about it, lingered still through the tradition of the people, as shown by an old folk-song beginning : KAcuyow rcI^Sovia TTJS BAaKias KCU TO, irovXta

<rn;v &VO-LV .... *

and the Vlachs managed to retain their own organization and local privileges. If during more than three centuries afterwards one meets but few records, the reason has to be sought in the fact that, on the one hand, the Vlachs were in many instances confounded with the various races around them; on the other hand, they had, as they still have, their homes on the out-of-the-way hills, in a country of no easy communications, withal far too dangerous to attract visitors for its own or its people's sake.

There came circumstances of a different nature, such as the interest for classicism, geographical and topographical researches in relation to it, the quest for old books and manuscripts all these induced English travellers, in spite of many hardships, to venture towards those regions of Turkey and Northern Greece. On their journeys they often encountered nomad tribes of Vlachs ascending to the mountains or going down to the grassy pastures with their sheep and their caravans so picturesque in colour.

Questions that might have arisen with regard to the past of these rather strange

and the birds in the West...." Passow, ' Popularia Cannina Grascise Recentioris,' Lipsise, I860, p. 145.
 * " Lament the nightingales of Vallachia,.