Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/20

2 HISTORY OF C.KEECE. ing to Skylax, were the northernmost 111 yrian tribe: the Amantini, immediately northward of the Epirotic Chaonians, were the itive barbarism without mitigation, is still very imperfect!) understood; though the researches of Colonel Leake, of Boue', of Grisebach, and others (especially the valuable travels of the latter), have of late thrown much light upon it. How much our knowledge is extended in this direction, maj be seen by comparing the map prefixed to Mannert's Geographic, or to O. Miiller's Dissertation on the Macedonians, with that in Bou<fs Travels, ^ut the extreme deficiency of the maps, even as they now stand, is emphat- ically noticed by Boue himself (see his Critique des Cartes de la Turquie in the fourth volume of his Voyage), by Paul Joseph Schaffarik, the learned historian of the Sclavonic race, in the preface attached by him to Dr Joseph Miiller's Topographical Account of Albania, and by Grisebach, who in his surveys, taken from the summits of the mountains Peristeri and Ljubatrin, found the map differing at every step from the bearings which presented themselves to his eye. It is only since Boue and Grisebach that the idea has been completely dismissed, derived originally from Strabo, of 9. straight line of mountains (eiidela ypafinri, Strabo, lib. vii, Fragm. 3) run- ning across from the Adriatic to the Euxine, and sending forth other lateral chains in a direction nearly southerly. The mountains of Turkey in Europe, when examined with the stock of geological science which M Viqucsncl (the companion of Boue) and Dr. Grisebach bring to the task, are found to belong to systems very different, and to present evidences of conditions of formation often quite independent of each other. The thirteenth chapter of Grisebach's Travels presents the best account which has yet been given of the chain of Skardus and Pindus : he has been the first to prove clearly, that the Ljubatrin, which immediately overhangs the plain of Kossovo at the southern border of Servia and Bosnia, is tho north-eastern extremity of a chain of mountains reaching southward to tho frontiers of -<Etolia, in a direction not very wide of N-S., with the single interruption (first brought to view by Colonel Leake) of the Klissoura of Devol, a complete gap, where the river Devol, rising on the eastern side. crosses the chain and joins the Apsus, or Bcratino, on the western, (it is remarkable that both in the map of Boue" and in that annexed to Dr. Joseph Miiller's Topographical Description of Albania, the river Devol is made to join the Genussus, or Skoumi, considerably north of the Apsus, though Colonel Leake's map gives the correct course.) In Grisebach's nomenclature Skardus is made to reach from the Ljubatrin as its north-eastern extremity, south-westward and southward as far as the Klissoura of Devol: soutli of that point Pindus commences, in a continuation, however, of the same axis. In reference to the seats of the ancient Illyrians an 1 Macedonians Grisebach has made another observation of great importance (vol. ii, p 121 ). Between the north-eastern extremity, Mount Ljubatrin, and th Klissoura of Devol, there are in the mighty and continuous chain of Ska*