Page:The nomads of the Balkans, an account of life and customs among the Vlachs of Northern Pindus (1914).djvu/10

 CHAPTER I

MAINLY INTRODUCTORY

Viniră di t alte lokuri Tră z veadă anoastre tropuri. They came from other places to see our customs.

F the various races that inhabit the Balkan peninsula the Vlachs are in many ways one of the least known. Though at one time of sufficient importance to give their name to the greater part of Northern Greece, during the last few centuries their existence as a separate people has almost been forgotten. At the present day they are to be found widely scattered over the more mountainous and remote parts of the peninsula from Acarnania in the south to as far north as the mountains of Bulgaria and Servia. Their settlements are all small, there is no such thing as an exclusively Vlach town and nowhere do they occupy any large continuous tract of country. One of their chief districts in the south is along the wooded slopes of Northern Pindus between Epirus and Southwestern Macedonia. The higher of the villages on Pindus are under snow each winter and each year as soon as summer ends most of the inhabitants move down to the plains with their flocks and herds, taking with them whatever is needed to carry on their trade. Thus for the six winter months there is a large Vlach population living in the plains of Thessaly and Macedonia ; Velestinos for the time being becomes almost a Vlach town, and numerous Vlach families take up their abode in Trikkala, Larissa, Elassona