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for twenty years, the issuing forth of the old bishop into the brilliant sunshine to make a solemn circuit round the esplanade did not, I suppose, seem so remarkable to him as it seemed to us. There is another saint, a woman (her name I have forgotten), who also reposes in a silver coffin in one of the Corfu churches. At first we supposed that this was Spiro. But the absence of worshippers showed us our mistake. This lonely witness to the faith was also a martyr; she suffered decapitation. They don't think much of her," said the same resident. Then, explanatorily, "You see-she has no head." This practically minded critic, however, was not a native of Corfu. The true Corfiotes are very reverent, and no doubt they honor their second martyr upon her appointed day. But Spiro is the one they love. The country people believe that he visits their fields once a year to bless their olives and grain, and the Corfu sailors are sure that he comes to them walking on the water in the darkness when a storm is approaching. Mr. Tuckerman, in his delightful volume, The Greeks of To-Day, says, in connection with this last legend, that it is believed by the devout that seaweed is often found about the legs of the good bishop in his silver coffin, after his return from these marine promenades. There is something charming in this story, and it recalls a shrine I know at Venice; it is far out on the lagoon, and its name is Our Lady of the Seaweed.

The name of the national religion of Greece is the Orthodox Church of the East, or, more briefly, the Orthodox Church. Western nations call it the Greek Church, but they have invented that name themselves. The Orthodox Church has rites and ceremonies which are striking and sometimes magnificent. I have many memories of the churches of Corfu. The temples are so numerous that they seem innumerable; one is always coming upon a fresh one; sometimes there is only a façade visible, and occasionally nothing but a door, the church being behind, masked by other buildings. My impressions are of a series of magnified jewel-boxes. There was not much daylight; no matter how radiant the sunshine outside, within all was richly dim, owing to the dark tints of the stained glass. The ornamentation was never paltry or tawdry. The soft light

from the wax candles drew dull gleams from the singular metal-encrusted pictures. These pictures, or icons, are placed in large numbers along the walls and upon the screen which divides the nave from the apse. They are generally representations of the Madonna and Child in repoussé-work of silver, silvered copper, or gilt. Often the face and hands of the Madonna are painted on panel; in that case the portrait rises from metal shoulders, and the head is surrounded by metal hair. The painting is always of the stiff Byzantine school, following an ancient model, for any other style would be considered irreverent, and nothing can exceed the strange effect produced by these longeyed, small-mouthed, rigid, sourly sweet virgin faces coming out from their silvergilt necks, while below, painted taper fingers of unearthly length encircle a silver Child, who in His turn has a countenance of panel, often all out of drawing, but hauntingly sweet. These curious pictures have great dignity. The churches have no seats. I generally took my stand in one of the pewlike stalls which project from the wall, and here, unobserved, I could watch the people coming in and kissing the icons. This adoration, commemoration, reverence, or whatever the proper word for it may be, is much more conspicuous in the Greek places of worship than it is in Roman Catholic churches. Those who come in make the round of the walls, kissing every picture, and they do it fervently, not formally. The service is chanted by the priests very rapidly in a peculiar kind of intoning. The Corfu priests do not look as if they were learned men, but their faces have a natural and humane expression which is agreeable. In the street, with their flowing robes, long hair and beards, and high black caps, they are striking figures. The parish priest must be a married man, and he does not live apart from his people, but closely mingles with them upon all occasions.

In the suburb of Castrades is the oldest church of the island. It is dedicated to St. Jason, the kinsman of St. Paul. St. Jason's appeared to be deserted. Here, as elsewhere, it is not the church most interesting from the historical point of view which is the favorite of the people, or which they find, apparently, the most friendly. But when I paid my visit, there were so many vines and flowers

outside, and such a blue sky above, that the little Byzantine temple had a cheerful, irresponsible air, as if it were saying: "It's not my fault that people won't come here. But if they won't, I'm not unhappy about it; the sunshine, the vines, and I-we do very well together." The interior was bare, flooded also with white daylight, so white that one blinked. And in this whiteness my mind suddenly returned to Hellas. For Hellas had been forgot ten for the moment, owing to the haunting icons in the dark churches of the town. Those silver-encrusted images had brought up a vision of the uncounted millions today in Turkey, Greece, and Russia who bow before them, the Christians of whom we know and think comparatively so lit

tle. But now all these Eastern people vanished as silently as they had come, and the past returned the past whose spell summons us to Greece. For conspicuous in the white daylight of St. Jason's were three antique columns, which, with other sculptured fragments set in the walls, had been taken from an earlier pagan temple to build this later church. And the spell does not break again in this part of the island. Not far from St. Jason's is the tomb of Menekrates. This monument was discovered in 1843, when one of the Venetian forts was demolished. Beneath the foundations the workmen came upon funeral vases, and upon digging deeper, an ancient Greek cemetery was uncovered, with many graves, various

relics, and this tomb. It is circular, formed of large blocks of stone closely joined without cement, and at present one stands and looks down upon it, as though it were in a roofless cellar. It bears round its low dome a metrical inscription in Greek, to the effect that Menekrates, who was the representative at Corcyra (the old name for Corfu) of his native town Eanthus, lost his life accidentally by drowning; that this was a great sorrow to the community, for he was a friend of the people; that his brother came from Eanthus, and with the aid of the Corcyreans, erected the monument. There is something impressive to us in this simple memorial of grief set up before the days of Eschylus, before the battle of Marathon -the commemoration of a family sorrow in Corfu two thousand five hundred years ago. The following is a Latin translation of the inscription:

"Tlasiadis memor ecce Menecrates hoc monumen

tum,

Ortum Eantheus, populus statuebat at illi,

Quippe benignus erat populo patronus, in alto Sed periit ponto, totam et dolor obruit urbem.

Praximenes autem patriis huc venit ab oris Cum populo et fratris monumentum hoc struxit adempti."

On the

At Corfu one is over one's head in the Odyssey. "The island is not what it has been," said the English lady of the Indian Mail. It is not, indeed! She referred to the days of the Lords High. But the rest of us refer to Nausicaa; for Corfu is the Scheria of the Odyssey, the home of King Alcinous. Not far beyond the tomb of Menekrates, at the point called Canone, we have a view of a deep bay. opposite shore of this bay enters the stream upon whose bank Ulysses first met the delightful little maiden--" the beautiful stream of the river, where were the pools unfailing, and clear and abundant the water." And also (but this is a work of supererogation, like feminine testimony in a court of justice) we have a view of the Phæacian ship which was turned into stone by Neptune: "Neptune s'en approcha, et, le frappant du plat de la main, le changea en un rocher qu'il enracina dans le sol," as my copy of the Odyssey, which happens rather absurdly

to be a French one, translates the passage. The ship, therefore, is now an island; its deck is a chapel; its masts are trees. Of late, the belief that Corfu is the Scheria of the Odyssey has been attacked. But any one who has seen the groves and gardens of this lovely isle, who has watched the crystalline water dash against the rocks at Palæokastrizza, who has strolled down the hill-side at Pelleka, or floated in a skiff off the coast at Ipso-any such per son will say that Corfu is at least an ideal home for the charming girl who played ball, and washed the clothes on the shore, king's daughter though she was.

One wonders whether the princesses of to-day (who no longer dry clothes upon the shore) amuse their leisure hours with Homer's recitals concerning their predecessors. One of them, at any rate, has chosen Corfu as a place of sojourn; the Empress of Austria, after paying many visits to the island, has now built for herself a country residence, or villino, at a

distance from the town, not far from Nausicaa's stream. The house is surrounded by gardens, and from the terrace there is a magnificent view in all directions; here she enjoys the solitude which she is said to love, and the Corfiotes see only the coming and going of her yacht. I don't know why there should be something so delightful, to one mind at least, in the selection of this distant Greek island as the resting-place of a queen, who takes the long journey down the Adriatic, year after year, to reach her retreat. The preference is perhaps due simply to fondness for a sea-voyage, and to the fact that a yacht lying at Trieste, lies practically at Vienna's door. Lovers of Corfu, however, will not be turned aside by any of these reasons; they will continue to believe that the choice is made for beauty's sake; they will extol this perfect appreciation, and will praise this modern Nausicaa.

The casino of the Empress is not the