Page:The nomads of the Balkans, an account of life and customs among the Vlachs of Northern Pindus (1914).djvu/28

 for the usual custom is that a peasant has the right to pasture so many head of sheep, cattle or horses. The houses even when they boast two stories, are built of wattle and daub or of mud-brick, but are as a rule in a most dilapidated and filthy condition. The peasant has no interest in repairing what is not his own, and the landlord is anxious only for his income. The inhabitants, though as might be expected in hill villages, they are often sturdy and healthy in appearance, are probably the lowest type of Greek to be found. They are slow and stupid and excessively dirty. Amongst their neighbours they have a bad reputation, for they are thought to be dishonest and treacherous. In fact the name Hashiot with some is almost a synonym for a dirty and thievish beggar.

The woods in the neighbourhood of Velemishti made it a favourable place for all who wished to cross the frontier unobserved. In the autumn of 1911, when owing to the cholera in Macedonia, the Greek authorities took strict measures to see that all who entered Greece secretly should at least do quarantine, the extent of this traffic was revealed. At Velemishti alone in the space of five days over fifty such persons were found, including a band of five brigands who had spent the summer in Macedonia, and an average of ten a day was considered normal. Absentee landlordism, and the facilities once offered for brigandage by the frontier in the absence of any extradition treaty, seem to be the main reasons for the deplorable state of the Hashiot villages.

Monday, May 30th.—We start at 6 a.m. having first said good-bye to the Albanian customs officer, who is left in a state of blank amazement at two Europeans who travel with Vlachs and prefer a night in the open to one in an aged guard house. Our road leads through country similar to that below Velemishti. To the north-east we see a fine stretch of open undulating country extending as far as Dhiminitsa and the Haliakmon ; to the north-west whither our way lies, we go across rolling hills well covered with oak woods and scrub. An hour after starting we pass Manesi unseen on the left, and shortly after a Turkish gendarmerie station just visible on a wooded ridge to the right. Four gendarmes watching