Photo by Felix J. Koch 



A CAFE IN MACEDONIA 



ish division of the empire into vilayets 

 was not made with any regard to natural 

 or ethnographic lines of demarcation, but 

 rather with a view to including as many 

 conflicting elements as possible in the 

 same territory, so as to simplify the task 

 of government. This confusion of 

 tongues and creeds makes the problem of 

 Macedonian reform or autonomy more 

 difficult than it was in the case of Greece, 

 Crete, Bulgaria, or Servia. 



But it is not only the Turkish govern- 

 ment which is to blame for this mixture 

 of races. Macedonia has for two thou- 

 sand years been the "dumping ground" 

 of different people and forms ; indeed, a 

 perfect ethnographic museum. The moun- 

 tainous nature of the interior made it a 

 difficult country to conquer, and the 

 various invaders were never able com- 

 pletely to absorb the different peoples 

 whom they found in it. 



While the greater part of a district was 

 occupied by the invader, the aboriginal 

 inhabitants retired into the mountain fast- 

 nesses and there maintained their exist- 



ence ; one race established itself on the 

 seacoast and another held the interior. 

 At the same time, certain centers — large 

 towns, seaports, fertile plains — attracted 

 men of all the races for purposes of busi- 

 ness or convenience. Thus in some parts 

 of Macedonia we find one population pre- 

 dominant ; in others another, and _ in 

 others again two or more races exist side 

 by side. 



The division of races in Macedonia is 

 not based wholly on differences of origin 

 or of anthropological type. We may find 

 characteristically Greek types, Bulgarian 

 tvpes, or Turkish types, but among those 

 who call themselves Greeks are many 

 whose type and whose origin is not 

 Greek; and so it is with the others. In 

 certain districts we find members of three 

 distinct races speaking their respective 

 languages, but all very similar in type. 



Language is a more reliable means of 

 classification, as the bulk of the Greeks 

 speak Greek, of the Bulgarians, Bul- 

 garian. But religion makes another dis- 

 tinction, and the Turkish method of 



iiig 



