The Bulgarians form a compact mass containing slight admixture of alien elements in northern and central Macedonia. Many of the occasional Greek communities encountered within this area are former Slav or Albanian centers having passed under the sphere of the Greek religious propaganda which has been actively carried on as a means of increasing the Hellenic domain. The instrument of Hellenization was the Patriarchate at Constantinople. The Patriarchs, bearing the title of Œcumenical, considered themselves as apostles of the Greater Greece idea. After the fall of Byzantium, and notably after the closing of the Bulgarian Patriarchate of Okrida, the Œcumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople was the only official church established in Turkey for Christians. Its influence, directed through schools and churches, aimed above all to Hellenize Christians. The clergy was directed to convert to Orthodoxy the greatest possible number of Christians of alien denomination and, at the same time, attempt to enforce the use of Greek speech among non-Mohammedans. The Greeks of Macedonia are as mixed a people as can be found on the surface of the earth. Inhabitants of cities are strongly mixed with Albanian and Slav populations. Strains of Tatar blood can even be detected among them. The Mediterranean type becomes more pronounced as Thessaly is approached. In unfrequented villages, however, the tourist will not uncommonly find living impersonations of the sculptor’s classical conception of the human form. This Greek element predominates in the valley of the Bistritza, which, regionally, should be considered as the northeastern boundary of the area of the Greek speech. The Slavs of Macedonia are, in many respects, distinct in character from the other Slavs of the Balkan peninsula. National feeling among them is less strongly developed than with the rest of the southern Slavs. They are industrious and frugal--even grasping. Yet there are marked exceptions which seem to prove that these qualities are not natural to them but have been acquired under the stress of circumstances. Macedonia is a land of poverty. It may rank with southern Greece as the poorest land in the Balkan peninsula. Of little fertility, extensively deforested and without particularly good pasture land, the country cannot support its relatively numerous population, and therefore an important occupation with the Macedonians is the taking of service in menial capacity in foreign countries--“Petchalba,” as it is called.