Page:The nomads of the Balkans, an account of life and customs among the Vlachs of Northern Pindus (1914).djvu/19

 give a large number of Albanians, for comparatively few have entirely adopted Greek. Yet if they were asked to what nation they belonged the large majority would probably answer Greek, and all would be Greek in politics and ideals.

A Greek estimate made before political troubles began put the total number of Vlachs at 600,000 ; later Greek estimates give usually a much lower figure. An enthusiastic Roumanian has proposed 2,800,000, but other Roumanian estimates are from about 850,000 upwards. Weigand who has paid more attention to the subject than any other traveller puts the total of Vlachs in the whole peninsula at 373,520. This seems to us to err on the side of moderation, for it is based largely on the calculation of five persons to a house, which from our own experience of Vlach villages is well below the average. Including as Vlachs all those who learnt Vlach as their mother tongue we should estimate the total at not less than half a million. Of these however some will now be using Greek and others Bulgarian in everyday life and their children will not know Vlach at all. Quite apart from questions which involve politics, information of any kind is difficult to acquire. At times courtesy towards the stranger which especially in the villages as we have good reason to know is very real indeed, demands that all answers given should be adapted to the questioner’s assumed desires ; on the other hand there is a deep-rooted belief, by no means confined to the villages, that all strangers being credulous the most fantastic answers will suffice. Once in the early days when our knowledge of Vlach was small we arrived at a Vlach village which had just reunited after a winter in the plains. All around were talking Vlach ; we were welcomed kindly by the schoolmaster who spoke to us in Greek. “We only talk Vlach when we first meet again after the winter” were almost his first words. It was not till a month later that we heard another word of Greek.

It is perhaps necessary to add that no dragoman or interpreter has ever been with us on our journeys; most of our wanderings have been made alone and of those many on foot.