ABSTRACT
Many travellers arrive at Constantinople under the impression that it is inhabited by Turks, or by Turks and Greeks. After a while they begin to realise the astonishing complexity of the population, talk glibly about Kurds and Albanians, and flatter themselves that they can at once detect an Armenian by his nose, or a Greek by his facial angle. But in most sciences progress obliges us to reject or qualify those crisp and distinct definitions which attract and convince a beginner, and ethnology is no exception to the rule. A few years’ observation in Turkey shows that it is impossible to draw hard-and-fast lines between the different races. One is assured that people who are apparently Greeks are really Vlachs, or hears that a Greek village has become Bulgarian, and perhaps by a second transformation Servian. It will, therefore, be well to understand clearly at the outset what is meant by the word race 1 as applied to the inhabitants of Turkey.
