Weekly Trinity journal., 1869-04-17
The Greeks Of To-day.

Ethnoloeists do not assert that the present in
habitants of Greece, amounting to something
less than 500, 900, are the lineal descendents
of those who built the Parthenon and met upon
the Puyx. They are many persons. doubtless,
of purely Greek origin but in the progress OF
time the admixture Of Albanians and of all the
people of the Levant has given to the Greeks
race much new blood. Very obviously the
Greeks of to-day retain many of the characteris-
tics which distinguished the ancient possessors
of their name. In the frst place, now, as al
ways, the geological formation Of the country is
olates the population into divisions, having fee
BILE sympathies and imperfect meaus Of commu-
nication compared with those which connect
the people of countries of a more level surface.
Greece contains many fertile plains, divided one
from another by stony mountains, the higher
ranges admitting of no cultivation, and affording
| no herbage. Each plain is the seat of commu-
nifty, having generally only rugged and difficult
communications with the next. This formation
of the country makes the task of government
more difficult, and is, without question, one of
the prime causes of the inextinguishable love of
liberty which has always been characteristic Of
the Greek people. The level Of a country ma
terially affects its climate, which again accounts
for the disposition and habits of the people.
The high land of Greece often snow-covered-
as it is while l write, during the last week of
March-freezes, the winds raging norfhward,
and exposes the people to great variations Of
temperature. Sometimes the wind is blowing
with icy breath when the sun is pouring down q
perspiring heat These inequalities of climate
appear in the physical constitution of the Greek
people. They are not hardy; their courage is
fashy, not long-sufferng they are excitable,
but their passion is not their master, as it is
with the Neapoltan or the Andalusian the
cold winds, which have taught them of
their body till the city people seem efeminate in
their dread of low temperature, have also af-
fected their mental constitution. They love ease,
not the Arab does, scornng labor of all
kinds, as preferrng, above all things, to lie in
the sun covered with his bournous-not in the
boorish fashion Of the Dutch, or the lowest Glass
of English-but such ease as the Puritan aris-
tocracy of Sparta had, who left all but war and
learning to their Helots, and such as the free
men of Athens enjoved in the time of Pericles
In all this they resemble the Greeks of old
there is just the same division between "pa
gans" and citizens-those who till the soil and
those who eat its produce in the city that there
was formerly. A modern citizen Of Athens ha!
rarely any knowledge of agriculture, and indeed
would disdain such an acquaintance. The lead
ing idea of the ruling and political class i:
vaguely connected with the resuscitation of the
Byzantine Empire, the union of all the Greeks
under one government at Co1stantinople or
Athens; that of the laboring and productive
class is simply-how to pay their way. There
| are no rich, and the country is not one to which
capital is easily drawn.-From the Lepant, the
Black Sea and the Danube, by R. Arthur Arnold.