Of course the village at the base of the cliff is wholly unimportant now. Malmsey wine is no longer the chief product of this one solitary spot, but comes from Santorin, Portugal, Madeira, and a dozen other places, while Monemvasía and the derivation of the word are largely forgotten. The town has sunk into a state of poverty, and as for the fort, it is capable neither by artifice nor by natural surroundings of defending anything of value, and hence is of no strategic importance. It has had its day and probably will never have another. It is, however, ruggedly beautiful, and the town, if degraded and half ruined, is still highly picturesque, though unfortunately seldom visited by Greek pilgrimages. It formed a fitting close for our island cruise, and indeed it is, as we discovered, really an island itself, the ribbon of isthmus connecting it with the Peloponnesus having been severed years ago, when Monemvasía was worthy to be counted a stronghold. The gap in the land is now spanned by a permanent bridge, so that practically Monemvasía is a promontory still, lofty and rugged, but not ungraceful; and its imposing bulk loomed large astern as we steamed back along the coast toward the Piræus and home.
CHAPTER XX. CORFU
The city of Patras, from which port we are about to take leave of Greece, is probably the most incongruous city in the kingdom. To be sure it is second in importance to Piræus, and the latter city is quite as frankly commercial. But the proximity of the Piræus to Athens and the presence of the Acropolis, crowned with its ruined temples always in the field of view, conspire to take a little of the modern gloss off the major port, and thus prevent it from displaying an entire lack of harmony with those classic attributes which are the chief charm of Hellas. Patras has no such environment. It has no such history. It is a busy seaport town, a railroad centre, and it is about everything that the rest of Greece is not. It even has a trolley line, which no other Greek city at this writing has, although of course the years will bring that convenience to Athens, as they have already brought the third-rail inter-urban road to the sea.
Patras appears to have been as uninteresting in antiquity as it is to-day, though doubtless from its advantageous position on the Gulf of Corinth it was always a more or less prosperous place. A very dubious tradition says that the Apostle Andrew was crucified here; and whether he was or not, St. Andrew has remained the patron saint of the town. In any event, Patras shares with Corinth the celebrity of being one of the earliest seats of Christianity in Greece, although it is a celebrity which Corinth so far overshadows that poor Patras is generally forgotten. It probably figures to most Hellenic travelers, as it has in our own case, as either an entrance or an exit, and nothing more. Still, after one has spent a fortnight or more in the wilds of the Peloponnesian mountains, an evening stroll through the brilliantly lighted streets of the city comes not amiss, and gives one the sense of civilization once more after a prolonged experience of the pastoral and archaic.
It was stated early in this book that probably the ideal departure from Greece is by way of the Piræus, as by that route one leaves with the benediction of the Acropolis, which must be reckoned the crowning glory of it all. But since we have elected to enter by the eastern gate in voyaging through these pages, it is our lot to depart by the western, and to journey back to Italy by way of Corfu, the island of Nausicaa. It is not to be regretted, after all. One might look far for a lovelier view than that to be had from the harbor of Patras. The narrow strait that leads into the Corinthian Gulf affords a splendid panorama of mountain and hill on the farther side, as the northern coast sweeps away toward the east; while outside, toward the setting sun, one may see the huge blue shapes of “shady Zakynthos,” and “low-lying” Ithaca—which it has always struck me is not low-lying at all, but decidedly hilly. Through the straits and past these islands the steamers thread their way, turning northward into the Adriatic and heading for Corfu—generally, alas, by night.
The redeeming feature of this arrangement is that, while it robs one of a most imposing view of receding Greece, it gives a compensatingly beautiful approach to Corfu on the following morning; and there is not a more charming island in the world. It lies close to the Albanian shore, and with reference to the voyage between Patras and Brindisi it is almost exactly half way. In Greek it still bears the name of Kerkyra, a survival of the ancient Corcyra, the name by which it was known in the days when Athens and Corinth fought over it. The ancients affected to believe it the island mentioned in the Odyssey as “Scheria,” the Phæacian land ruled over by King Alcinoös; and there is no very good reason why we also should not accept this story and call it the very land where the wily Odysseus was cast ashore, the more especially since his ship, converted into stone by the angry Poseidon, is still to be seen in the mouth of a tiny bay not far from the city! We may easily drive down to it and, if we choose, pick out the spot on shore where the hero was wakened from his dreams by the shouts of Nausicaa and the maids as they played at ball on the beach while the washing was drying.
In the ancient days, when navigation was conducted in primitive fashion without the aid of the mariner’s compass, and when the only security lay in creeping from island to island and hugging the shore, Corcyra became a most important strategic point. In their conquest of the west, the Greeks were wont to sail northward as far as this island, skirting the mainland of Greece, and thence to strike off westward to the heel of Italy, where the land again afforded them guidance and supplies until they reached the straits of Messina. So that the route of Odysseus homeward from the haunts of Scylla and Charybdis and the isle Ortygia was by no means an unusual or roundabout one. This course of western navigation gave rise to continual bickering among the great powers of old as to the control of Corcyra, and Thucydides makes the contention over the island the real starting-point of the difficulties that culminated in the Peloponnesian war and in the overthrow of the Athenian empire.
Modern Corfu has a very good outer harbor, suitable for large craft, although landing, as usual, is possible only by means of small boats. The declaration in Bædeker that the boatmen are insolent and rapacious appears no longer to be true. The matter of ferriage to shore seems to have been made the subject of wise regulation, and the charge for the short row is no longer extortionate. From the water the city presents a decidedly formidable appearance, being protected by some massive fortifications which were doubtless regarded as impregnable in their day, but which are unimportant now. They are of Venetian build, as are so many of the fortresses in Greek waters. Aside from the frowning ramparts of these ancient defenses, the town is a peaceful looking place in the extreme, with its tall white and gray houses, green-shuttered and trim. It is a town by no means devoid of picturesqueness, although it will take but a few moments’ inspection to convince the visitor that Corfu is by nature Italian rather than Greek, despite its incorporation in the domains of King George. Corfu has always been in closer touch with western Europe than with the East, and it is doubtless because she has enjoyed so intimate a connection with Italy that her external aspects are anything but Hellenic. Moreover the English were for some years the suzerains of the island, and have left their mark on it, for the island’s good, although it is many years since the British government honorably surrendered the land to Greece, in deference to the wish of the inhabitants.