MAIxAHIA IN GREECE ROSS. 707 



I can not imagine Lake Kopais, in its present highly malarious 

 condition, to have been thickly peopled by a vigorous race; nor, on 

 looking at those wonderful figured tombstones at Athens, can I 

 imagine that the healthy and powerful people represented upon them 

 could have ever passed through the anaemic and splenomegalous 

 infancy (to coin a word) caused by widespread malaria. Well, I 

 venture only to suggest the hypothesis, and must leave it to scholars 

 for confirmation or rejection. Of one thing I am confident, that causes 

 such as malaria, dysentery, and intestinal entozoa must have modified 

 history to a much greater extent than we conceive. Our historians 

 and economists do not seem even to have considered the matter. It is 

 true that they speak of epidemic diseases, but the epidemic diseases 

 are really those of the greatest importance. 



The same cause w^orks the same evil in modern Greece. Though the 

 country has been freed from the Turks for seventy years, and enjoys 

 what is considered to be (though personally I doubt it) the best form 

 of government, yet its population has not increased very much. 

 Athens has about 130,000 inhabitants, and Patras, the next largest 

 city, about 40,000; and the other towns are scarcely more than large 

 villages. The rural areas contain small and poor, but not destitute, 

 hamlets, but what strikes one most in them is the absence of villas 

 and of large hotels. Few of the wealthier people seem to live in the 

 country. A gentleman of Athens told me that he bought a shooting 

 box, but that he was attacked by malaria when he went to stay there. 

 Tlie inns are comparatively small and shabby, and not likely to be 

 frequented by many modern tourists, and the methods of communi- 

 cation are primitive. This is very surprising, because one would 

 think that such a country would be the Mecca of all the tourists of 

 Europe and America, who would pour their millions of pounds into 

 it, just as they do into Switzerland. But, of course, the reputation 

 of unhealthiness possessed by many of the rural tracts is fatal ; the 

 tourist thinks twice about going to them, and the innkeeper hesi- 

 tates about spending his capital in a locality where he and his chil- 

 dren may expect to be frequently ill. 



The whole life of Greece must suffer from this weight, which 

 crushes its rural energies. Where the children suffer so much, how 

 can the country create that fresh blood which keeps a nation young? 

 But for a hamlet here and there, those famous valleys are deserted. 

 I saw from a spur of Helikon the sun setting upon Parnassus, Apollo 

 sinking, as he was wont to do, toward his own fane at Delphi, and 

 pouring a flood of light over the great Kopaik Plain. But it seemed 

 that he was the only inhabitant of it. There was nothing there. 

 " Who," said a rich Greek to me, " would think of going to live in 

 such a place as that?" I doubt much whether it is the Turk who has 

 done all this. I think it is very largely the malaria. 



