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You see its long and complicated coast-line, its intricate system of rugged hills, and the broken strings of islands which they fling off into the sea in every direction. On the map it recalls the features of Scotland or Norway. It hangs like a jewel on a pendant from the south of Europe into the Mediterranean Sea. Like its sister peninsulas of Italy and Spain it has high mountains to the north of it; but the Balkans do not, as do the Alps and Pyrenees, present the form of a sheer rampart against Northern invaders.
— J. C. STOBART