The Greeks are morally inferior to the Turkish peasantry, but they surpass them in intelligence and industry. In the seventeenth century there took place amongst them even a sort of revival similar to the Renaissance of Western Europe, and the love of art was developed sufficiently far to give rise to a school of painters in the villages of Olympus. Faithful to their national traditions and the instincts of their race, the Greeks of Thessaly have sought to organize themselves into self-governing commonwealths. In their free towns, or _kephalokhori_, they are permitted to elect their town councils, establish schools, and appoint what teachers they like. They know how to get the Turkish pasha not to meddle in their local affairs. They pay the taxes demanded by the Turks, as their ancestors paid them to Athens or some other Greek city, but in every other respect they are free citizens governing themselves. The contrast between these independent commonwealths and the _chifliks_ of Mussulman proprietors cultivated by Greek farmers is most striking. The land of the free proprietors is, as a rule, far less fertile than that included within these chifliks; yet it produces more, and its cultivators live in comparative ease. The Greeks of Thessaly bestow much care upon the education of growing generations. Even the most miserable Greek village in the Pindus can boast of a school, which is visited by the young people up to the age of fifteen. As an instance of the commercial spirit of the Thessalians we may mention the Weavers’ Co-operative Association, formed in the last century in the town of Ambelakia, delightfully situated amongst orchards and vineyards on the southern slopes of the Valley of Tempe. This powerful association wisely limited its dividends to six per cent., and expended the surplus profits upon an extension of its business. For {115} many years it enjoyed the greatest prosperity, but the wars of the empire, which closed the markets of Germany against it, brought about its ruin. Co-operation likewise partly accounts for the flourishing cloth manufacture of the twenty-four wealthy Greek villages on the peninsula of Magnesia, to the north of the Gulf of Volo. This district, together with that of Verria, to the north of the Inje Karasu, is probably the most prosperous in all the Greek provinces of Turkey, and it is at least partly indebted for this prosperity to its happy geographical position, being far away from great strategical high-roads.[32] IV.—ALBANIA AND EPIRUS.