nt has
been encouraged for political reasons by the Turkish government. The whole
Albanian nation possibly numbers from 1,500,000 to 1,600,000. The Greeks,
whose immigration from Asia Minor took place in pre-historic times, are,
next to the Albanians, the oldest race in the Peninsula. Their maritime and
commercial instincts have led them from the earliest times to found
settlements on the sea-coast and the islands. They inhabit the Black Sea
littoral from Varna to the Bosporus, the shores of the Sea of Marmora and
the Aegean, the Aegean archipelago, the mainland of Greece, Epirus and the
western islands as far north as Corfu. In Constantinople they [v.03 p.0260]
probably exceed 300,000. They are seldom found in large numbers at any
great distance from the sea, and usually congregate in the principal towns
and commercial centres, such as Adrianople, Constantza, Varna and
Philippopolis; there are also detached colonies at Melnik, Stanimaka,
Kavakly, Niegush and elsewhere. The Greek inhabitants of the Peninsula and
adjacent islands probably number 4,500,000. The remainder of the population
is for the most part composed of Armenians, Jews and gipsies. The
Armenians, like the Greeks, congregate in the principal centres of trade,
especially at Constantinople; their numbers were greatly reduced by the
massacres of 1896. The Jews are most numerous at Salonica where they form
half the population. The gipsies are scattered widely throughout the
Peninsula; they are found not only in wandering troops, as elsewhere in
Europe, but in settlements or cantonments in the neighbourhood of towns and
villages.

_Religions._--Owing to the numerous conversions to Islam which followed the
Turkish conquest, the Mahommedan population of the Peninsula is largely in
excess of the purely Turkish element. More than half the Albanian nation
and 35% of the inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted the creed of
the conquering race. Among the Bulgars and Greeks the conversions were less
numerous. The Bulgarian Mahommedans, or Pomaks, who inhabit the valleys of
Rhodope and certain districts in northern Bulgaria, are numerically
insignificant; the Greek followers of Islam are almost confined to Crete.
The whole Moslem population of the Peninsula is about 3,300,000. The great
bulk of the Christian population belongs to the Orthodox Church, of which
the oecumenical patriarch at Constantinople is the nominal head, having
precedence over all other ecclesia