622 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



anthropology, or else we have again a confirmation of our assertion 

 that, however conscious of their peculiar facial traits a people may be, 

 the head form is a characteristic whose significance is rarely recog- 

 nized. 



Linguistically the pure Slavs in the Balkan states comprise only 

 the Serbo-Croatians and the Albanians (see map), dividing between 

 them the ancient territory of Illyria. This western half of the penin- 

 sula, rugged and remote, has been relatively little exposed to the direct 

 ravages of either Finnic or Turkish invaders. Especially is this true 

 of Albania. Nearly all authorities since Iiahn are agreed in identi- 

 fying these latter people — who call themselves Skipetars, by the way 

 — as the modern representatives of the ancient Illyrians. They are 

 said to have been Slavonized by the Serbo-Croatians, who have been 

 generally regarded as descendants of the settlers brought by the Em- 

 peror Heraclius from beyond the Save. This he is said to have done in 

 order to repopulate the lands devastated by the Avars and other Slavs 

 who, Procopius informs us, first appeared in this region in the sixth 

 century of our era. The settlers imported by Heraclius came, we are 

 told, from two distant places: Old Servia, or Sorabia, placed by Free- 

 man in modern Saxony; and Chrobatia, which, he says, lies in south- 

 western Poland. According to this view, the Serbo-Croatians are 

 an offshoot from the northern Slavs, being divided from them to-day 

 by the intrusive Hungarians, while the Albanians alone are truly in- 

 digenous to the country. 



The recent political fate of these Illyrian peoples has been quite 

 various, the Albanians alone preserving their independence continu- 

 ally under the merely nominal rule of the Turks. Religion, also, has 

 affected these Slavs in various ways. Servia owes much of its present 

 peace and prosperity to the practical elimination of the Moslems. 

 Bosnia is still largely Mohammedan, with about a third of its people, 

 according to White ('86), still professing that religion. The signifi- 

 cance of this is increased, since it was mainly the upper classes in 

 Bosnia, according to Freeman, who embraced the religion of Islam in 

 order to preserve their power and estates. The conversion was not 

 national, as in the case of the Albanians. Thus social and religious 

 segregation work in harmony to produce discord. With multitudes of 

 Jews monopolizing the commerce of the country and the people thus 

 divided socially as well as in religion, the political unrest in Bosnia cer- 

 tainly seems to require the strong arm of Austrian suzerainty to pre- 

 serve order. 



Whatever the theory of the historians as to origins may be, to the 

 anthropologist the modern Illyrians — Serbo-Croatians and Albanians 

 alike — are physically a unit. Two characteristics render this ethnic 



