Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/9

 12 S. IV. JAN., 1918.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

people were to a certain extent touched upon in Gibbon's ' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' * "-where many references to the Byzantin chronicles are made.

Out of these as well as other sources, William Martin Leake gave for the first time in England an historical sketch of the Vlachs. Writing at a time when researches were not much advanced as yet, he holds the Vlaehs to be

" a branch of the same nation, which was found in those ages not only in the fertile country on the north side of the Lower Danube, now generally known in Europe by the name of Wallachia, but likewise in many of the moun- tainous parts of Thrace." ' Researches in Greece,' London, 1814, chap. iii. p. 363.

From Janina, his place of residence, Leake made frequent visits to the hinter- lands, gaining thus a great insight into Vlach life ; and in his ' Travels in Northern Greece ' (which, though published in 1835, is in the form of diaries written between 1804 and 1810) he enters into such charac- terizations as this":

" The Vlakhiotes, who, with less native acute- ness than the Greeks, are endowed with more steadiness, prudence, and perseverance, are nevertheless like all republicans seldom free from intestine intrigues and divisions." Vol. i. p. 282.

On the approach to a Vlach village, he observes :

" The scene has an appearance of comfort and successful industry seldom seen in Greek or 'Turkish villages." Vol. i. p. 300.

Of their dialect he says :

" The language of the Vlakhiote towns of Pindus differs very slightly from that of Walla- chia, and contains consequently many Latin words derived from the Latin colonists of Dacia. 'The Latin words are not so numerous as in Italian or Spanish, but the flexions and the auxiliary verbs in some of their forms are less changed than in any of the daughters of the Latin." Vol. i. p. 280.

Leake saw a great many Vlach villages on the ranges of Pindus and Olympus ; and he pursued his excursions towards the south, towards Salonica, Seres, and Mount Athos where Dr. Hunt before him met a number of Vlachs at the monastery of Vatopedef and towards the Albanian region of Tomor. In the description of this last place his unaffected style does not fail also to convey that sense of seclusion anc

Ed. 1776-88, vol. vi. chaps. Ix. and Ixi.

t He calls them " Wallachian-Greeks." It

was at Easter, 1801. See Bobert Walpole's

' Memoirs relating to European and Asiatic

'Turkey,' vol. i. p. 199.

mountainous solitude in which Vlach settle- ments are usually found :

" As we advance along the western side of the mountain, the sun becomes visible at short ntervals, and lights up portions of the great >lain of the Mizakia with the sea beyond it, jut these views are soon (shut out again by nterposing clouds and rain. Just as it becomes dark, we obtain a sight of the village of Tomor or Domor in the highest habitable part of the mountain, and perceive on our right at the ex- tremity of the long rugged slope of the mountain ,he Castle of Berat and the valley of the river Uzumi." Vol. i. pp. 350-51.'

And all through his work there is such a wealth of information, of appropriate quo- tations from the classics, of penetrating remarks, that it is indispensable for any student of the Vlachs.

Leake was in Janina when Lord Byron got there. From conversations they had together and from his reading of Gibbon, the poet came to know of the peoples inhabiting those parts. Therefore one would be justified in assuming that verses like

pensive o'er his scattered flock, The little shepherd in his white capote Doth lean his boyish form along the rock .... * allude to the Vlach shepherd.

For a more detailed account of the journey Byron refers to his fellow-traveller J. C. Hobhouse. The latter was acquainted with Pouqxieville's work, ' Voyage en Moree, a Constantinople,' &c., Paris, 1805. It was perhaps for this reason that he left aside the Vlach districts already described by the French author, and he only casually mentioned Metzovo, the village of Mala- cassi, and also the route to Zagori, which, he says, " is taken by the merchants travelling into Wallachia as being more secure than that which leads through the plains of Thessaly by Larissa " (' A Journey through Albania and other Provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia to Constanti- nople,' London, 1813, p. 62).

Shortly after Hobhouse we have the Rev. Thos. Smart Hughes (who published in 1820 * Travels in Sicily, Greece, and Albania') and Henry Holland. Both are much impressed by the Vlachs and their caravans, the latter dwelling with more length on them. After an interesting de- scription of Metzovo and some historical considerations, Holland gives what seems a very judicious report :

" The insulation and mode of life have tended to preserve them, in great measure, separated as a people ; and the Wallachian towns and villages

stanza Iii.
 * ' Childe Harold's Pilgrimage,' canto ii.