Commerce has peopled the naked rocks of Syra, but it has not yet succeeded in developing the resources of the Archipelago as in ancient times. Eubœa is no longer “rich in cattle,” as its name implies, and only exports corn, wine, fruit, and the lignite extracted from the mines near Kumi. The gardens of Naxos yield oranges, lemons, and citrons; Scopelos, Andros, and Tinos, the latter one of the best cultivated amongst the islands, export wines, which are excelled, however, by those of Santorin, the Calliste of the earliest Greeks. The volcanic and other islands of the Cyclades export millstones, china clay, lavas, and cimolite, this being used in bleaching. Naxos exports emery, and that is all. The marbles of Paros even remain untouched, and the excellent harbour of that island only rarely sees a vessel. The inhabitants of the Cyclades confine themselves to the cultivation of the soil, and to the breeding of a few silkworms, the surplus population of Tinos, Siphnos, and others emigrating annually to Constantinople, Smyrna, or Greece, to work as labourers, cooks, potters, masons, or sculptors. But whilst some of the islands can boast of a surplus population, there are others which are the abode of a few herdsmen only. Most of the islands between Naxos and Amorgos are hardly more than barren rocks. Antimilos, like Delos, is merely a pasture-ground sown over with rocks. Seriphos and Giura are still dreary solitudes, as in the time of the Roman emperors, when they were set aside as places of exile. Seriphos, however, possesses iron of excellent quality, and may, in consequence, again become of some importance. On Antiparos there are lead mines. {75}

V.—THE IONIAN ISLES.

The island of Corfu, on the coast of Epirus, and the whole of the Archipelago to the west of continental and peninsular Greece, down to the island of Cythera, which divides the waters of the Ionian Sea from those of the Ægean, have passed through the most singular political vicissitudes in the course of the last century. Corfu, thanks to the protection extended to it by the Venetian Republic, is the only dependency of the Balkan peninsula which successfully resisted the assaults of the Turk. When Venice was handed over to the Austrians by Bonaparte in 1797, Corfu and the Ionian Islands were occupied by the French. A few years afterwards the Russians became the virtual masters in these islands, which they formed into a sort of aristocratic republic under the suzerainty of the Porte. In 1807 the French once more took possession of them; but the English captured one after the other until there remained to them only Corfu, and this, too, had to be given up in 1814. The Ionian Islands were then converted into a “Septinsular Republic,” governed by the landed aristocracy, supported by British bayonets. Twice did England alter the constitution of this republic in a democratic sense, but the patriotism of the islanders refused to submit to British suzerainty; and, when Great Britain parted with her conquest, the Ionian Islands annexed themselves to Greece, and they now form the best educated, the wealthiest, and the most industrious portion of that kingdom. England, no doubt, consulted her own interests when she set free her Ionian subjects; but her action is nevertheless deserving of approbation. England exhibited her faith in the axiom that moral influence is superior to brute force, and yielded with perfect good grace, not only the commercial ports of the islands, but likewise the citadel of Corfu, which gave her the command of the Adriatic. This magnanimous policy has not hitherto met with imitators in other countries, but England herself has still many opportunities of applying it in other parts of the world.

Corfu, the ancient Corcyra, has always held the foremost place amongst the Ionian Islands. It owes this position to the vicinity of Italy, and to the commercial advantages derived from an excellent port and a vast roadstead almost resembling an inland lake. The inhabitants are fond of appealing to Thucydides in order to prove that Corfu is the island of the Phæaces of Ulysses. They even pretend to have discovered the rivulet in which beauteous Nausicaa washed the linen of her father, and the shaded walks near the city are known by them as the gardens of Alcinous. Corfu is the only one of the islands which can boast of a small perennial stream, the Messongi, which is navigable for a short distance in barges. The hills, which are placed like a screen in front of the plains of the Epirus, are exposed to the full force of the south-westerly winds, which bring much rain; the vegetation, consequently, is rich: orange and lemon trees form fragrant groves around the city, vines and olive-trees hide the barren ground of the hills, and waving fields of corn cover the plains. Corfu, unfortunately, is exposed to the hot sirocco, blowing from the south-east, and this very much curtails its advantages as a winter station for invalids. {76}

The city occupies a triangular peninsula opposite the coast of the Epirus, and is the largest, and commercially the most important, of the former republic. It is strongly fortified, and its successive possessors—Venetians, French, Russians, and English—have sought to render it impregnable. A beautiful prospect may be enjoyed from its bastions; but far superior is that from Mount Pantokratoros, the “commandant,” for it extends across the Strait of Otranto to Italy. The commercial relations with the latter, as well as the traditions of Venetian dominion, have converted Corfu into a city almost half Italian, and numerous families residing in it belong to both nations, the Greek and the Italian, by descent as well as language. Italian remained the official language of the island until 1830. Maltese porters and gardeners constitute a prominent element amongst the cosmopolitan population of the city.

Fig. 25.—CORFU.

Corfu formerly owned the town of Butrinto and a few villages on the mainland; but an English governor thought fit to surrender them to the terrible Ali Pasha, {77} and the only dependencies of Corfu at present are the small islets near it, viz. Othonus (Fano), Salmastraci, and Ericusa, in the north; Paxos, with its caverns, and Antipaxos, the rocks of which exude asphalt, on the south. Paxos is said to produce the best oil in Western Greece.

Leucadia, Cephalonia, Ithaca, Zante, and a few smaller islands, form a crescent-shaped archipelago off the entrance to the Gulf of Patras. They are the summits of a half-submerged chain of calcareous mountains, alternately flooded by the rains or scorched by the sun. Their valleys, like those of Corfu, produce oranges, lemons, currants (“Corinthians”), wine, and oil, which form the objects of a brisk commerce. The inhabitants very much resemble those of Corfu, the Italian element being strongly represented, except on Ithaca.

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