The commerce of Saloniki is important even now, but greater things are {110} expected of the future. Like Marseilles, Trieste, and Brindisi, Saloniki aspires to become a connecting link in the trade between England and the East. It actually lies on the most direct road between the Channel and the Suez Canal, and once connected by railways with the rest of Europe, it is sure to take a large share in the world’s commerce. This emporium of Macedonia is interesting, too, from an ethnological point of view, for, with the exception of Burgaz, on the Black Sea, it is the only place where the Bulgarians, the most numerous race of European Turkey, have reached the sea-coast. Everywhere else they are cut off from it by alien races, but Saloniki brings them into direct contact with the remainder of Europe. Saloniki, however, not only suffers from bad government, but also from the marshes which surround it, and in summer many of its inhabitants flock to the healthier town of Kalameria, to the west. Miasmatic swamps unfortunately occupy a large portion of the northern coast of the Ægean, and they separate the interior of Macedonia more effectively from the coast than do its mountains. There is hardly any commerce except at Saloniki. [Illustration: Fig. 34.—MOUNT OLYMPUS.] * * * * * On the western shores of the Gulf of Saloniki, beyond the ever-changing mouths of the Vardar and the briny waters of the Inje Karasu, or Haliacmon, the land gradually rises. Hills are succeeded by mountains, until bold precipices {111} approach close to the coast, and summit rises beyond summit, up to the triple peak of Mount Olympus. Amongst the many mountains which have borne this name, this is the highest and the most beautiful, and the Greeks placed upon it the court of Jupiter and the residence of the gods. It was in the plains of Thessaly, in the shadow of this famous mountain, that the Greeks lived in the springtide of their history, and their most cherished traditions attach themselves to this beautiful country. The mountains which had sheltered the cradle of their race remained to them for ever afterwards the seat of their protecting deities. But Jupiter, Bacchus, and the other great gods of antiquity have disappeared now, and monasteries have been built in the woods which witnessed the revels of the Bacchantes. [Illustration: Fig. 35.—MOUNT OLYMPUS AND THE VALLEY OF TEMPE.]