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Peloponnesus Peninsula and Greece Geography.
Peloponnesus Peninsula Greece Geography
The Peloponnesus forms a whole by itself. It contains in its own centre its principal mountain-range, whose mighty bulwarks embrace the high in land country of Arcadia, while its ramifications break up the surrounding districts. These are either mere terraces of the inner highland country, like Arcadia and Elis, or new mountain-ranges issue, and, running in a south or east ward direction, form the trunk of new peninsulas : such is the origin of the Messenian, Laconian, and Argive penin sulas, and of the deeply-cut gulfs between them, with their broad straits. Equal in rich variety to the outline of the country is the constitution of its interior. On the monotonous table land of Arcadia one fancies oneself in the midst of an ex tensive inland district ; the basins of its valleys partici pate in the organization and the heavy foggy atmosphere of Bceotia : whereas the closely-packed mountain-chains of Western Arcadia resemble the wild Alpine scenery of Epirus. The west coast of Peloponnesus corresponds to the flat shores of the Achelous districts ; the rich plains of the Pamisus and Eurotas are natural gifts of the river, as in the case of the Thessalian Peneus, which flows out of mountain clefts ; finally, Argolis, with its Inachus Plain, opens towards the south, and its peninsula, abounding in rocky harbors and projecting islands, is both by situation and soil like a second Attica. Thus the creative nature of Hellas once more, in the southernmost member of the country, repeats all its favorite formations, compressing within narrow limits the greatest variety of contrasts. Notwithstanding this confusing multiplicity in the relations of the soil, we find, asserting themselves in all their severity, certain plain and clear laws, which impress upon the whole of European Greece the mark of a peculiar or ganization. Among these are the co-operation of sea and mountains in marking off the different parts of Laws regu the country ; further, the series of cross-bars. Running out from the central range, and, in icai forma combination with the Illyrico-Macedonic high lands in Greece, rendering access to the dwellings of the Greeks impossible from the north, isolating them from the mainland, and confining them entirely to the sea and the opposite coasts. The very nature of the northern high lands forces their inhabitants to live in their narrow well watered valleys as peasants, shepherds, and hunters ; to steel their strength by the Alpine air, and to preserve it intact amidst their simple and natural conditions of life, until the time shall have come for them to descend into the regions farther to the south, the more subdivided and manifold formation of which has, in turn, assigned to them the mission of becoming a theatre for the creation of states, and of leading their inhabitants in an eastward direction into the maritime and coast intercourse of a new and wider world. For, in fine, of all the laws which regulate the formation of the countries of European Greece, this is at once the most undeniable and the most important, that, beginning at the Thracian coast, the east side is marked out as the frontage of the whole complex of coun tries. With the exception of two bays and of the Gulf of Corinth, the western sea, from Dyrrhachium to Methone, washes nothing but precipitous cliffs or a flat shore, an accretion of the sea, and disfigured by lagunes ; while in numerable deep bays and anchorages open from the mouth of the Strymon, as far as Cape Malea, to invite the inhab itants of the islands hard by to sail into, or their own pop ulation to sail out of, them. The form of rocky coast which prevails on the east side, and renders maritime in tercourse possible at almost every point of a long line of. Shore, at the same time conduces to a superior healthiness of climate, and is better adapted for the foundation of cities. Thus the whole history of Hellas has thrown itself on the eastern coast, and those tribes which were driven into the rear of the land, such as, e. g., the Western Locrians, were by this means simultaneously excluded from ac tive participation in the progress of the national development.
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