Basil spend their lives in contemplative inaction. They are bound to pray eight hours in the day and two in the night, and during the whole of that time they are not allowed to sit. They have, therefore, neither time nor strength for study or manual labour. The books in their libraries are incomprehensible mysteries to them, and, in spite of their sobriety, they might die of starvation if there were not lay-brothers to work for them, and numerous farms on the mainland which are their property. A few shiploads of hazel nuts is all this fertile peninsula produces. The ancient cities of Olynthus and Potidæa, on the neck of the western peninsula of Chalcidice, have dwindled down into insignificant villages; but the city of Therma, called afterwards Thessalonica, and now known as Saloniki, still exists, for its geographical position is most favourable, and after every siege and every conflagration it again rose from its ashes. Vestiges of every epoch of history may still be seen there: Cyclopean and Hellenic walls, triumphal arches, and remains of Roman temples, Byzantine structures, and Venetian castles. Its harbour is excellent, its roadstead well sheltered; and the high-roads into Upper Macedonia and Epirus lead from it along the valleys of the Vardar and Inje Karasu. These favourable circumstances have not been without their influence, and Saloniki, next to Constantinople and Adrianople, is the most important city of European Turkey. Its population is mixed, like that of other cities in the East, and Jews are exceptionally numerous. Most of them are the descendants of Spanish Jews, expelled by the Inquisition, and they still talk Spanish. Many have outwardly embraced Mohammedanism to escape persecution, but the true Mussulman spurns these converts with disdain. They are generally known as “Mamins.”