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with bunches of artificial flowers; in ad- their branches are veiled in the long dition, they wore so many necklaces, pins, clasps, buckles, rings, lockets, bracelets, pendants, girdles, and other adornments of silver and silver-gilt that they clanked as they walked. This was a gala costume of some sort. We did not see it again.

The island of Corfu is about forty miles long. Its breadth in the widest part is twenty miles. The English, who have a genius for road-making which is almost equal to that of the Romans, have left excellent highways behind them; it is easy, therefore, to cross the island from end to end.

Seated in a berlin, or perhaps in a calash, one goes out at least to visit the olive groves, if not to cross the island. These groves are not the ranks of severely pruned, almost maimed, trees which greet the traveller in many parts of southern Europe-groves without shade, without luxuriance; viewed from a distance, their gray-green foliage forms a characteristic part of the landscape, but at close quarters they have but one expression, namely, how many coins are to be squeezed out of each poor tree, whose every bud appears to have been counted. At Corfu one strolls through miles of wood whose foliage is magnificent; it is possible to lounge in the shade, for there is shade, and to draw a free breath. No doubt the Corfiotes keep guard over their leafy domain; but the occasional visitor, at least, is not harassed by warnings to trespassers set up everywhere, by children following him with suspicious eyes, by patrols, dogs, stone walls, and sometimes by stones of another kind which do not stay in the walls, but come flying through the air to teach him to keep his distance. It is difficult, probably, for people from the New World to look upon a forest as something sacred, guarded, private; we have taken our pleasure "in the woods" all our lives whenever we have felt so inclined; we do not intend to do any harm there, but we do wish to be free. In the olive groves of Corfu the wish can be gratified. Their aisles are wonderful in every respect: in the size of the trees (some of them are sixty feet high), in the picturesque shapes of the gnarled trunks, in the extent of the long vistas where the light has the color which some of us know at home-that silvery green under the great live oaks at the South, when

But Athens was before us; we must leave the groves; we must leave Nausicaa's shore. We did so at last in the wake of a departing storm. For several days the wind had been tempestuous. The signal, which is displayed from the citadel, had become a riddle; it is an arrangement of flags by day, and of lanterns by night, and no two of us ever deciphered it alike. If the order was thus and so, it meant that something belonging to the Austrian-Lloyd company was in sight; if so and thus, it meant the Florio line; if neither of these, then it might possibly be our boat, that is, the Greek coasting steamer which we had decided to take because we had been told

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that it was the best. I have never fathomed the mystery as to why our informant told us this. If he had been a Greek, it would have been at least a patriotic misrepresentation. We were dismayed when we reached the rough tub. But, after all, in one sense she was the best, for she dawdled in and out among the islands, never in the least hurry, and stopping to gossip with them all; this gave us a good chance to see them, if it gave us nothing else. I have said "when we reached her," for there were several false starts. We rose in the morning in a mood of regretful good-by, expecting to be far away at night. And at night, with our good-by on our hands, we were still in our hotel. But it is only fair to add that with its garlands of flowers and myrtle for the Christmas season; with its queer assemblage of Levantines in the

GALA COSTUME, CORFU.

dining-room; with its bath-room in the depths of the earth, to which one descended by stairway after stairway leading down underground; with its group of petticoated Greeks in the hall, and, in its rooms of honor above, a young Austrian princess of historic name and extraordinary beauty-with all this and its cheerful lies, its smiling gay-hearted irresponsibility, the Corfu inn was an entertaining place. The Greek steamer came at last. She had been driven out of her course by the gale, so said the pirate, ostensibly retired from business, who superintended the embarkations from the hotel. This lithe freebooter had presented himself at frequent intervals during the baffling days when we watched the signal, and he always entered without knocking. He could not grasp the idea, probably, that ceremonies would be required by persons who intended to sail by the coaster. When we reached this bark ourselves, later, we forgave him a little. Her deck was the most democratic place I have ever seen. We think that we approve of equality in the United States. But the Greeks carry their approval farther than we do. On this deck there were no reserved portions, no prohibitions; the persons who had paid for a first-class ticket had the same rights as those which were accorded to the steerage travellers, and no more; and as the latter were numerous, they obtained by far the larger share, eating the provisions which they had brought with them, sleeping on their coverlids, playing games, and smoking in the best places. There was no system, and little discipline; the sailors came up and washed the deck (a process which was very necessary) whenever and however they pleased, and we had to jump for our lives and mount a bench to escape the stream from the hose, as it suddenly appeared without warning from an unlooked-for quarter. The passengers, who came on board at various points during a cruise of several days, brought with them light personal luggage, which consisted of hens tied together by the legs, a live sheep, kitchen utensils, and bedding, all of which they placed everywhere and anywhere, according to their pleasure. A Greek dressed in the full national costume accompanied us all the way to Missolonghi so closely that he was closer than a brother; save when we were locked in our small sleeping-cabins below (the one extra possession which a

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first-class ticket bestows), we were literally elbow to elbow with him. And his elbows were a weapon, like the closed umbrella held under the arm in a crowded street-that pleasant habit of persons who are not Greeks.

Ten miles south of Corfu one meets the second of the Ionian Islands, Paxo, with the tiny severe Anti-Paxo lying off its southern point, like a summary period set to any romantic legend which the larger isle may wish to tell. As it hap pens, the legend is a striking one, and we all know it without going to Paxo. But it is impossible to pass the actual scene without relating it once more, and for the telling, no modern words can possibly approach those of the old annotator. "Here at the coast of Paxo, about the time that our Lord suffered His most bitter Passion, certain persons sailing from Italy at night, heard a voice calling aloud:

VOL. LXXXV.-No. 507.-37

'Thamus?' 'Thamus?' Who, giving ear to the cry (for he was the pilot of the ship), was bidden when he came near to Portus Pelodes" (the Bay of Butrinto) "to tell that the great god Pan was dead. Which he doubting to do, yet when he came to Portus Pelodes there was such a calm of wind that the ship stood still in the sea, unmoored, and he was forced to cry aloud that Pan was dead. Whereupon there were such piteous outcries and dreadful shrieking as hath not been the like.

By the which Pan, of some is understood the great Sathanas, whose kingdom was at that time by Christ conquered; for at that moment all oracles surceased, and enchanted spirits, that were wont to delude the people, henceforth held their peace."

Though I mention the Ionian group only, it must not be supposed that there were no other islands. Those of us who

seas.

like to turn over maps, to search out routes though we may never follow them except on paper - innocent stay-at-home geographers of this sort have supposed that it was a simple matter to learn the names of the islands which one meets in any well-known track across well-known This is a mistake. From Corfu to Patras, and, later, on the way to Egypt and Syria, and back through the Strait of Messina to Genoa, I saw many small islands-it seemed to me that they could have been counted by hundreds-which are not indicated in the ordinary guidebooks, and whose names no one on the steamers knew, not even the captains. The captains, the pilots, and all the officers were of course aware of the exact position in the sea of each one; that was part of their business. But as to names, these mariners, whether English men, Germans, Italians, Turks, or Greeks (and we sailed with all), appeared to share the common opinion that they had none; their manner was that they deserved

none.

Abreast of Paxo, on the mainland, is the small village of Parga. The place has its own tragic history connected with its cession to the Turks in 1815. But I am afraid that its principal association in my mind is the frivolous one of a roaring chorus, "Robbers all at Parga!" This song may be as much of a libel as that bold ballad concerning the beautiful town at the eastern end of Lake Erie; the ladies of that place are not in the habit of "coming out to-night, to dance by the light of the moon," and in the same way there may never have been any robbers worth speaking of at Parga. It is Hobhouse who tells the story. "In the evening preparations were made for feeding our Albanians. After eating, they began to dance round the fire to their own singing with an astonishing energy. One of their songs begins, 'When we set out from Parga, there were sixty of us.' Then comes the chorus: Robbers all at Parga! Robbers all at Parga! As they roared out this stave they whirled round the fire, dropped to and rebounded from their knees, and again whirled round in a wild circle, chanting it at the top of their voices:

whole Ionian Sea. Parga is not far from the Castle of Suli, and with the word "Suliote" we are launched aloft into the resplendent realm of Byron's poetry, which seems as beautiful and apparitionlike as the Oberland peaks viewed from Berne - shining cliffs, so celestially and impossibly fair, far up in the sky. The country near Parga is described at length in the second canto of "Childe Harold."

The third island of the Ionian group is Santa Maura, the Leucadia of the ancients. It looks like a chain of mountains set in the sea. I see a long, lofty promontory ending in a silvery headland. I see it flushed with the rose tints of sunset, high above a violet sea. Of course I was looking for it; every one looks for the rock from which dark Sappho flung herself in her despair. But, even without Sappho, it is a striking cliff; it rises perpendicularly from deep water, and it is so white that one fancies that it must be visible even upon the darkest night. All day its towering opaline crest serves as a beacon from afar. The temple of Apollo which once crowned its summit can still be traced in sculptured fragments, though there are no marble columns, like those that gleam across the waves from Sunium.

As the steamer crossed from Santa Maura to Cephalonia we had a clear view of little Ithaca, the Ithaca which Ulysses loved, "not because it was broad, but because it was his own." Except Paxo, Ithaca is the smallest of the sister islands. Sir William Gell and Dr. Schliemann between them have discovered at Ithaca all the sites of the Odyssey, even to the stone looms of the nymphs. Other explorers, with colder minds, have decided that at least the author of the poem must have had an acquaintance with the island, for some of his descriptions are accurate.

The next island, Cephalonia, is the largest of the Ionian group. There is much to say about it. But I must not say it here. The truth is that one sails past these sisters as the slippery Ulysses sailed past the sirens; they are so beautiful that one must tie one's hands to the mast (or the table) to keep them from writing a volume on the subject.

At Zante, for some unexplained cause, the classic associations suddenly vanished: Homer faded, Theocritus followed him; Pliny and Strabo disappeared. We

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were back in the present; we must have some Zante flowers and Zante trinkets; we thought of nothing but going ashore. We landed, and went roaming through the yellow town. Zante is the most cheerful-looking place I have ever seen. The bay ripples and smirks; it is so pretty that it knows it is pretty, and it smirks accordingly. The town, stretching, with its gayly tinted houses, round a level semicircle at the edge of the water, smiles, as one may say, from ear to ear. And this joyful expression is carried up the hill, by charming gardens, orange groves, and vineyards, to the Venetian fort at the top, which, as we saw it in the brilliant sunshine, with the birds flying about it, seemed to be throwing its cap into the sky with a huzza.

"O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!
Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!"

sang Poe, borrowing his chimes this time, however, from an Italian song "Zante, Zante, fior di Levante!" This flower of the Levant exports not flowers, but fruit. The currants, which had vaguely present ed themselves at Santa Maura and Cephalonia, now came decisively to the front. One does not think of these little berrylettes as ponderous. But when one beholds tons of them, cargoes for ships, one regards them with a new respect. It was probably the brisk commercial aspect of the currants which made the port look so modern. All the Ionian Islands except Corfu export currants, but Zante throws them out to the world with both hands. I must confess that I have always blindly supposed (when I thought of it at all) that the currant of the plum-pudding was the same fruit as the currant of our gardens-that slightly acrid red berry which grows on bushes that follow the lines of back fences-bushes that have patches of weedy ground under them where hens congregate. I fancied that by some process unknown to me, at the hands of persons equally unknown (perhaps those who bring flattened raisins from grapes), these berries were dried, and that they then became the well-known ornament of the Christmas cake. It was at Zante that my shameful ignorance was made clear to me. Here I learned that the dried fruit of commerce is a dwarf grape, which has nothing in common with currant jelly. Its English name, currant, is taken from the French raisin de Co

rinthe," or Corinth grape, a title bestowed because the fruit was first brought into notice at Corinth. We have stolen this

name in the most unreasonable way for our red berry. Then, to make the confusion worse, as soon as we have put the genuine currants into our puddings and cakes, we turn round and call them "plums!" The real currant, the dwarf grape of Corinth, is about as large as a gooseberry when ripe, and its color is a deep violet-black; the vintage takes place in August. It is not a hardy vine. It attains luxuriance, I was told, only in Greece; and even there it is restricted to the northern Peloponnesus, the shores of the Gulf of Corinth, and the Ionian Islands.

Zante is the sixth of the islands, and as the steamer leaves her, still smiling gayly over her dimpling bay, it seems proper to cast at least a thought in the direction of the seventh sister, upon whom we are now turning our backs. Why Cerigo should have been included in the Ionian group, I do not know; it lies off the southernmost point of Greece, near Cape Malea, and might more reasonably be classed with the Cyclades, or with Crete. Birthplace of Aphrodite, Cythera of the ancients, though it is, I have never met any one who has landed there. ple going by sea to Athens from Naples, or from Brindisi, pass it in their course.

Peo

The voyage northward to Missolonghi is beautiful. The sea was dotted with white wings. The Greeks are bold sailors; one never observes here the timidity, the haste to seek refuge anywhere and everywhere, which is so conspicuous along the Riviera and the western coast of Italy. Throughout the Ionian archipelago, and it was the same later among the islands of the Ægean, it was inspiring to note the smallest craft, far from land, dashing along under full sail, leaning far over as they flew.

Missolonghi is a small abortive Venice, without the gondolas; it is situated on a lagoon, and a causeway nearly two miles long leads to it, across the shallow water. Vague and unimportant as it is upon its muddy shore, it was the soul of the Greek revolution. It has been through terrible sieges. During one of these, Marcos Botzaris was in command, and his grave is outside the western gate. A few years ago, all the school-boys in America could chant his requiem; perhaps they chant it

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