In its westernmost area the delimitation of a Bulgarian linguistic boundary is greatly hampered by the relatively large Serbian-speaking element on the north and a corresponding mass of Greeks on the south. Reliable statistics are still unavailable. Figures supplied by rival nationalist propaganda institutions are for obvious reasons open to suspicion. The region where the determination of this linguistic boundary is most difficult is found in the neighborhood of Pirot and Vrania. Here the language of the Slavic natives departs equally from the Bulgarian and Serbian. This region, however, lies north of Macedonia proper. At the same time there appears to be little room to doubt that the area of Bulgarian speech attains the zone of the eastern Albanian dialects and that it attains the Gulf of Salonica. But the seafaring population of the Ægean coast is largely Greek. Salonica itself is by no means a Bulgarian city, but an excellent type of the polylingual cities of the Near East. Out of a population of 160,000 inhabitants, it contains 20,000 Greeks and an equal number of Europeans and Turks respectively. Its Bulgarian population is negligible. The most numerous element is made up of Jews who, it is estimated, constitute about one-half of the population. Next to Constantinople, Salonica is the best harbor in the Balkans. It is coveted by the Bulgarians on the plea that the population of the country environing Salonica is mostly Bulgar. The city occupies a dominating position on the Ægean coast halfway between Piraeus and Smyrna and has always been a meeting-point of Europe and Asia. In a sense it is the eastern terminal of continental lines with which it is connected by the railroad which passes through Nish and Uskub. In this light the city may be likened to one of the piles of a gigantic bridge thrown across the Ægean to connect Europe and Asia. It is the natural outlet of the greatest part of Macedonia. Inland towns all the way from Ipek, Prizrend and Mitrovitza to Monastir, Ishtip and Serres obtain the goods which they need through Salonica. The products of the fertile valleys of the Vardar and the Bistritza are almost exclusively directed toward this harbor. The exchange of commodities between Salonica and its rearlands reaches a yearly value of about $100,000,000.