Patras 46,527 Ægialia 12,764 Kalavryta 39,204 Ilia (Elis) 51,066 ─────── Achaia and Ilis (Elis) 149,561 ═══════ Kerkyra (Corfu) 25,729 Mesi 21,754 Oros 24,983 Paxi (Paxos) 3,582 Leucas (Santa Maura) 20,892 ─────── Kerkyra (Corfu) 96,940 ═══════ Kranæa 33,358 Pali 17,377 Sami 16,774 Itaki 9,873 ─────── Kephallinia 77,382 ═══════ Zakynthos (Zante) 44,557 The modern nomenclature has been adopted in the above table. [Illustration] {87} [Illustration] TURKEY IN EUROPE.[23] I.—GENERAL ASPECTS. The Balkan peninsula is, perhaps, that amongst the three great peninsulas of Southern Europe which enjoys the greatest natural advantages, and occupies the most favourable geographical position. In its outline it is far less unwieldy than Spain, and even surpasses Italy in variety of contour. Its coasts are washed by four seas; they abound in gulfs, harbours, and peninsulas, and are fringed by numerous islands. Several of its valleys and plains vie in fertility with the banks of the Guadalquivir and the plains of Lombardy. The floras of two climes intermingle on its soil, and add their charms to the landscape. The mountains of Turkey do not yield to those of the two other peninsulas in graceful outline or grandeur, and most of them are still covered with virgin forests. If they are less accessible than the Apennines of Italy or the _sierras_ of Spain, that is owing simply to the want of roads; for they are, as a rule, of moderate elevation, and the plateaux from which they rise are narrower and more extensively intersected by valleys than is the table-land of Castile. Both Spain and Italy are closed in the north by mountain barriers difficult to cross, whilst the Balkan peninsula joins the continental trunk by almost imperceptible transitions, and nowhere is it separated from it by well-defined natural boundaries. The Austrian Alps extend without a break into Bosnia, and the Carpathians cross the Danube in order to effect a junction with the system of the Balkan. To the east of the “Iron Gate” there are no mountains at all, and Turkey is bounded there by the broad valley of the Danube. {88}