DISCOVERY 



257 



arose : Why do not the American larv;e make their 

 way to Europe and the European to America ? To 

 this riddle, too, Dr. Schmidt has furnished an answer. 

 Tracing the larvae~of the American eel westwards and 

 northwards, he found that the larval stage, which 

 lasts for three years in the European species, is passed 

 through in one j'ear, the elver being then ready to enter 

 fresh water. Consequently, if an American larva 

 should jom the current setting for the coasts of Europe, 

 he would find himself in mid-Atlantic at the time 

 when the period for river life arrived, and thus would 

 come to an untimely end. On the other hand, should 

 a European larva be carried to the north-west, he 

 would arrive at the coast with two years of pelagic 

 life still before him, and he too would perish. 



Dr. Schmidt, not content with these discoveries, 

 is now completing yet another Atlantic cruise in the 

 new Danish exploring steamer Dana with the object 

 of clearing up any points which still remain obscure 

 in the life-history of the eel and, if possible, finding 

 and hatching out its egg, thus completing what is 

 probably one of the most remarkable investigations 

 in marine zoology ever undertaken. 



REFERENCES 



Grassi : " The Reproduction and Metamorphosis of the Com- 

 mon JLel {A ngiiilla vulgaris)." (Prcc. Royal Soc. London, 

 vol. Ix, 1896.) 



Schmidt, J. : " Contributions to the Life-History of the Eel 

 (Anguilla vulgaris, Flem.)." (Conseil International pour 

 I'Exploration de la Mer : Rapports et Proces-verbau.x, vol. v, 

 1906.) 



Schmidt, J.: "The Breeding Places of the Eel." (Trans. 

 Royal Soc. London, series B, vol. ccxi, igi2.) 



The Sacred Mountain 

 of Pang92uni 



By Stanley Casson, M.A. 



Fellow of yuD College, Oxford 



For a \-ariety of reasons it has come about that the 

 north coast of the ^Egean Sea is the least explored 

 part of the European shores of the Mediterranean. 

 From prehistoric times until to-day armies have 

 marched and invading hordes have passed from east 

 to west and west to east along the great highway that 

 stretches from Constantinople to the Adriatic, along 

 this North .Egean shore. As each invader or con- 

 queror appeared, the native population was either 

 displaced or else took to the hills and waited until the 

 trouble had passed. The great movements of peoples 

 from Central Europe to the South and East which 

 took place in prehistoric times at the close of the 



Bronze Age were deflected southwards into Greece and 

 eastwards into Asia Minor when they reached the sea- 

 coast between Olympus and the Dardanelles. Tribe 

 after tribe moved along the northern coast road, and 

 the remnants of the earlier peoples took to the hills 

 and fastnesses of the moimtain ranges that fringe 

 the coast. 



Later, in historic times, there came first Megabazus 

 the Persian on a punitive e.xpedition for his master 

 Darius in 513 B.C., and then Xerxes in 4S1 B.C. 

 -\gain the native peoples took to the hills ; but this 

 time the more disciplined forces of Persia subdued all 

 of them except the tribesmen who had fled to the 

 remoter highlands of the upper Strymon, and the 

 Satrffi and Bessi, who lived on the summits of 

 Pangfeum. Later still, in 168 B.C., ^EmUius PauUus, 

 conquering for Rome, found that there were still many 

 tribes to subdue, and did little but cut an avenue of 

 peace through a forest of savagery. Then later came 

 the Turk, and with him alternating revolt and massacre. 

 Armies of Bulgars, Turks, Greeks, and Serbs have never 

 ceased to move eastwards and westwards along this 

 troubled coast, and still to-day more armies come and 

 go, and peace, that has never yet come to this land, 

 seems as far off as ever. Therefore in antiquity the' 

 native peoples lived a semi-nomad life among the 

 hills and the Greek colonists lived along the coast. 

 Each could thus escape the attacks of the other more 

 easUy, or equally well of any third party who, as 

 invader, would find the natives inaccessible and the 

 Greeks defended by walls and supplied by sea. 

 Similarly to-day the most flourishmg villages exist 

 either along the coast or against the mountains, the 

 latter usually at the entrances of ravines that open 

 a way of refuge to the highlands. Seres, Demir-Hissar, 

 Poroi in the Struma valley, and all the villages on the 

 north side of the plaui of Drama, are so situated at 

 the very roots of the hills at the entrance of ravines or 

 clefts. So, too, with Xanthi in western Thrace and with 

 the numerous villages that form a ring right round the 

 foot of Pangaeum. The inhabitants could thus escape 

 at a moment's notice and return when the danger had 

 passed, to find their villages sometimes in ashes and 

 sometimes untouched. 



So recurrent have been tlie wars, massacres, deporta- 

 tions, and migrations even in recent times in these 

 regions that little scientific exploration has been 

 possible. A succession of travellers has passed across 

 the Macedonian and Thracian coast, but few have 

 halted and scarcely any, have left the beaten track — 

 the old coast road — to explore the highlands on the 

 north or the Greek coast towns on the south. Cyriac of 

 .■\ncona,i in the fifteenth century, passed only along 



'■ The MSS. of Cyriac are in the Laurentian Library at 

 Florence. 



