The Aegean is an almost landlocked body of water. The
Balkan peninsula, narrowing toward the Mediterranean into the smaller peninsula
of Greece, confines it on the west. On the east it meets a boundary in Asia
Minor. The southern boundary is formed by a chain of islands, while the only
opening northward is found in the narrow passage leading to the Black Sea. The
coasts and islands of the Aegean thus make up a little world set off by itself.
CONTINENTAL GREECE
Continental Greece is a tiny country. Its greatest length
is scarcely more than two hundred and fifty miles; its greatest breadth is only
one hundred and eighty miles. Mountain ridges, offshoots of the Balkans,
compose the greater part of its area. Into the valleys and deep gorges of the
interior the impetuous sea has everywhere forced a channel. The coast line,
accordingly, is most irregular—a constant succession of sharp promontories and
curving bays. The mountains, crossing the peninsula in confused masses, break
it up into numberless valleys and glens which seldom widen into plains. The
rivers are not navigable. The few lakes, hemmed in by the hills, have no
outlets except in underground channels. In this land of the Greeks no place is
more than fifty miles from a mountain range, or more than forty miles from some
long arm of the Mediterranean.
