Page:The nomads of the Balkans, an account of life and customs among the Vlachs of Northern Pindus (1914).djvu/25

 blanket helps to temper the hardness of a wooden pack saddle. In a more severe climate a Vlach tent might prove insufficient ; a door would be an advantage, and might easily be contrived ; but for Macedonia however they will be found in all ways satisfactory. As to how many each tent holds opinions will differ, for it depends on the state of the weather outside, but on a bad night six or seven can sleep inside with comfort.

Breaking camp at 4 p.m. we start off again towards Trikkala in a long procession increased by several families that had joined us in the course of the morning from Tatar and other villages near Larissa and Tirnavos. The main road to Trikkala here runs along the foot of the hills, in places on a small embankment, and in places cut out of the hill-side to avoid some large pools and marshes fed by springs at the hill foot. This road does not appear on the Austrian staff map, which marks instead a presumably older road, now never used, some distance to the south. At 7.30 p.m. we turned off the road to the north and camped on a small level space between the foot of the hills and the marshes. On a low isolated hill just behind our camp are the ruins of a Hellenic and medieval city, known now as Paleogardhiki. Directly separating this from the main range is a deep hollow in the ground called Zurpapa where local tradition says that a priest who by a trick had obtained his bishop’s permission to commit incest with his daughter, was swallowed up.

Saturday, May 28th.—An early start was made at 3.30 a.m. in order to get beyond Kalabaka by evening. We turned back into the main road, and went straight along it to Trikkala, the first place that merits notice on this day’s journey. Two-thirds at least of the population of this town are Vlachs or of Vlach extraction. Some of the Samarina Vlachs since the cession of Thessaly to Greece in 1881, became permanent residents on Greek soil, and founded a New Samarina in the southern part of Pindus due west of Trikkala above Karvuno-Lepenitsa, to which they go in the summer. But the majority are still faithful to their old homes, and as we passed through the town several families joined us increasing the caravan to