"The Albanians appeared first in Greece during the fourteenth century. They are found penetrating into almost every province of the Greek continent, sometimes occupying whole districts, sometimes mingling with the Greek population of the towns, as in Argos and Athens. At the present day, not to mention those districts where the Albanians are mixed up with the Greek population, Attica, Megara, Boeotin, Southern Eobcaa, Argolis, and the Corinthian territory, are possessed altogether by Albanians; and only the population of the towns is either altogether—as in Carysto, Piraeus, Nauplia, and Corinth—or principally Greek—as in Athens, Megara, and Argos. In the islands of Hydra, Spezzia, Poros, and* Salamis, the Albanians possessed the whole territory so exclusively, that, before the Greek revolution, no female, .it is said, could speak a single word of Greek. The maritime power of the Greeks at that time was confined to the first two mentioned islands, and to the island of Psara, which was inhabited by pure Greeks, but lies now beyond the boundary of the Hellenic kingdom. The naval exploits, therefore, which were among the most notable of the revolutionary war, belonged to the Albanian element, and even at the present hour the language of the sailor class is Albanian, not Greek. But more: even in the camps of Tripolizza and Athens, Greek was far from being the only language spoken; for in the land army also the Albanian element asserted its existence.
* "Albanetische Studien." Von Dr. Johann Georg von Hahn. Jena. 1864.
^The Westminster review, Volumes 61-62
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