ABSTRACT
Nowadays most people would admit that, excluding the Albanians, the population of Eastern Europe south of the Danube and Drave and north of the latitude of Salonica is mainly Slavonic. I include in this name the Bulgarians, for though not originally Slavs they have been completely Slavised, and all the ties arising from language, religion, and politics connect them with the Slavs and not with Turkey or even Hungary. Such a general description of the inhabitants of an extensive area is, of course, subject to many qualifications. Not only is there a large Greek population in such districts as Seres and Drama, north of Salonica, and in the country between Adrianople and Constantinople, but there are considerable Greek enclaves among the Bulgarian population, e.g., at Dimotiko on the Maritsa and near Philippopoli, as well as many scattered settlements of Vlachs and Turks. Every ethnographic map of the Balkan Peninsula gives a different view of the arrangement of the populations, varying according to the date, and often according to the political opinions of the author, and a traveller may find that the statements of the latest authorities have ceased to be correct. I myself imagined there could be no doubt that the northern littoral of the Ægean is Greek, but a few years ago the Greek Archbishop of Giimürjina complained to me that his flock were all turning Bulgarian and speaking that language.
