The Vlachs beyond the new Rumania, in the centre of the Balkan Peninsula, illustrate for us a noteworthy problem of that troubled region. Whereas if we wish to get a picture of the early stages of the settled life of cultivation in Europe we naturally look to Russia, we may go to the Balkans for glimpses of the remnants of the still earlier scheme of society when kinship groups moved from place to place with flocks and herds. In the Peninsula the western mountains shelter many a clan of ancient local lineage, and much as these mountain clans have been affected by Slav, Bulgar, Greek, Roman, Turkish, Magyar, and German-Austrian pressure, a considerable group have remained true to their pre-Slavonic language (Albanian), and, despite deep religious differences amongst themselves, seem to tend towards some vague national unity, largely as a protection against Greek and Slav in {81} the next generation. It is well to realize that these old populations, even when Slavonized, are often most distinct from the Slavs, and that they and the Vlachs are the nearest approaches we have to an autochthonous population in the Peninsula. They for the most part limit their movements to seasonal shifts up and down hill, and, like the Highlanders of Scotland and others similarly situated, have done their share of raiding on valley cultivators, for if 'the mountain sheep are sweeter, the valley sheep are fatter', as Peacock put it. Among the Albanian peoples the Greek Church has done a good deal of propaganda at various times, and as they are near the Adriatic and the Roman Via Egnatia, the Roman Church has also used opportunities of reinforcing them against Greek pressure. Moreover, all along this mountain country Manichaean ideas replaced old heathendom and primitive Christianity alike, and with the Manichaean objection to symbolism and all approach to idolatry there was a natural tendency to accept Islam without too much difficulty, when it was brought by conquerors. So along the western mountains of the Balkan Peninsula are many old groups confirmed in their ancient possessions by the Turk, and practising Islam in succession to Manichaean doctrines rather than to Christianity. As the people on the fringes of the truly Albanian clans speak two languages, in many cases there is as much doubt about the proper political boundary of an Albanian state as there would be about that of a Welsh state were it proposed to make one separate from and hostile to England! Much harm has recently been done by conscientious demarcators taking the frontier line along 'empty' ridges which were really summer pastures or ways thereto for many a shepherd clan now cut off from its livelihood and ruined or forced to maraud. Among the Albanian clansmen the leaders are often rather fine types with the strength arising from a long maintenance of tradition, the change to Islam not having been as fundamental as might be {82} supposed. It is the more regrettable that the antipathies