THE NOMADS OF THE BALKANS
214 Vlachs.
They were however
in the eighteenth
century before
hands of the Albanians very flourishing and famous. widely Their inhabitants are now scattered far and wide for instance there are Gramosteani to be found amongst the glens of Rhodope in Thrace and families from Densko may be met at Aliphaklar in the plain of A3da in Thessaly. Adjoining the Gramos group to the north comes another block of Vlachs who centre about the large Albanian town of Kortsha. This block falls into two divisions. One lies to the east of Kortsha and contains the villages such as Pleasa, Morava and Stropan mainly inhabited by Farsherots who are shepherds and muleteers, and in addition the few families settled in the mixed Bulgar- Albanian town of Biklishta. These Farsherots are apparently newcomers and do not seem to have been settled in this district for more than two hundred years. Still as we have seen Pleasa itself has sent forth colonies, as instanced by the Pleasa Farsherots at Almiros in South Thessaly. This shows how ineradicable the spirit of wandering is in the Vlachs. In Kortsha itself there is a considerable Vlach colony mainly composed of Farsherots from Pleasa and its neighbourhood, but there are several families from Muskopol'e who are very much under Greek influence and a few from the Gramos district. The other division of the Vlachs in this region lies about Muskopol'e and Shipiska which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were large and flourishing towns. Of the two Muskopol'e, the Plain of Musk, was the larger and the most renowned, for it was the great commercial centre for Central Albania and Upper Macedonia and its merchants had branch houses in Venice, Vienna and Buda-Pest, and like their kinsfolk beyond the Danube frequented the great fair of Leipzig. The wealthy Greek colony in Vienna was largely composed of Vlachs from Muskopol'e and elsewhere, for example Leake remarks that at Shatishta and Selitsa German was commonly known because of trade connections. Locally it is believed that the town once contained eight or ten thousand houses and a population of about sixty thousand souls. These figures Weigand is inclined As the traveller to credit, but Leake was more sceptical. to-day can see from the extensive ruins amidst the meadows
their ruin at the
;