Silver.-British Crowns and Half-crowns, Shillings, and Sixpences, and German, Sicilian, French, and Mexican dollars, and all other coins specified in the Greek tariff.

=

French 5-franc piece

Copper.-Lepta, of which ten equal 1d.

N.B.-Small accounts are often calculated in oboli, an imaginary coin, of which two equal 0·1 of a penny.

In the Ionian Islands, as elsewhere in the Levant, bargains are generally made in Spanish dollars, or colonnati, in Greek Alornλλa.

There is an Ionian bank established at Corfu, with branches at Cephalonia and Zante, as also in Patras and Athens. The principal direction is at 31, Finsbury Circus, London, S.E. The Ionian Bank notes are printed in Greek, and are current in all the Seven Islands. They can be changed at Athens and Patras, as elsewhere in Greece. Mr. J. W. Taylor, as also Barff and Co., and Mr. Courage, are private bankers at Corfu.

5. SHOPS, SERVANTS, &c.

There are very few English shopkeepers and tradesmen at Corfu. It has been already stated, that it will be the better course for travellers to make Athens their head-quarters; but those who prefer to begin their journey on the mainland from Corfu, must procure their travelling equipage and hire a servant, to act as guide and interpreter, before leaving that island (see GENERAL INTRODUCTION, h, j). Among the many individuals who will offer themselves, the traveller should engage no one who is not well recommended by his previous employers, for much of the comfort of his journey will depend on his selection. It is absolutely necessary that the servant chosen should be thoroughly acquainted with the districts to be visited, and be possessed of knowledge of the places where horses are to be hired and lodgings procured, of the people, the roads, the distances, &c. He should be able to speak Albanian as well as Greek. He should likewise understand cooking, and be capable of taking upon himself the trouble and responsibility of making bargains and purchasing everything that is required. The person selected should be strong, active, and able to undergo great fatigue. The usual wages for a good servant are one dollar a day, exclusive of board. Many will go for less, and some will demand more; it is never wise or, in the end, economical, to take an inferior servant, and be perpetually annoyed by his blunders, ignorance, and delays (GENERAL INTRODUCTION, ƒ).

6. INNS, AND ACCOMMODATION FOR TRAVELLERS, &c.

The best hotels at Corfu are The Hotel de St. George, The Club Hotel, the Hôtel d'Europe, the Hôtel d'Orient, and La Bella Venezia. Here, as in the S. of Europe generally, a bargain should be made for meals and accommodation. Saddle-horses may be hired at Corfu for about a dollar a day; if taken for a week or a month, the charge diminishes in proportion. Carriages may likewise be engaged in the same manner.

There is a small inn at Argostoli, the chief town of Cephalonia; and another in Zante, the accommodation in which is very bad. There are no

inns in the smaller islands, though lodgings may be procured in all of them.

There are Theatres at Corfu and at Cephalonia, where Italian operas are given during the winter, and plays and amateur representations at other

British subjects will have no trouble about their luggage or passports on landing in the Ionian Islands.

ROUTES

AND

DESCRIPTIONS OF THE SEVERAL ISLANDS.

were various. Though it appears never to have recovered its former political consequence, a gorgeous picture of the fertility and opulence of the island in B.C. 373 has been drawn by Xenophon (Hellen., vi. 2). When it was invaded in that year by the Spartans under Mnasippus, it is represented as being in the highest state of cultivation and full of the richest produce; with fields admirably tilled, and vineyards in surpassing condition; with splendid farm-buildings, well-appointed winecellars, and abundance of cattle. The hostile soldiers, we are told, while enriching themselves by their depredations, became so pampered with the plenty around them that they refused to drink any wine that was not of the first quality. At a later period the island was alternately seized by the Spartans, the Athenians, and the Macedonians. King Pyrrhus, of Epirus, occupied it during his Italian wars; and it finally fell under the Roman dominion B.C. 229. From its situation near Brundisium and Dyrrachiumthe Dover and Calais of the ancients

but it seems probable that they were a branch of the Liburnians, that enterprising and sea-faring people who long continued to occupy the more northernly islands in the Adriatic along the Dalmatian and Illyrian shores. Corcyra soon became rich and powerful by its extensive commerce, and founded many colonies on the neighbouring mainland, such as Epidamnus, Apollonia, Leucas, and Anactorium. So rapid was their prosperity that the colonists soon became formidable rivals of their mothercountry; and about B.C. 665 a battle was fought between their fleets, which is memorable as the most ancient seafight on record. Corcyra appears to have been subjugated by Periander (Herod., iii. 49, seq.), but to have recovered its independence. During the Persian war the Corcyræans are stated by Herodotus (vii. 168) to have played false to the national cause, and their names did not appear on the muster-roll of Salamis. At a later period Corcyra, by invoking the aid of Athens against the Corinthians, became one of the proximate causes Corcyra was frequently visited by of the Peloponnesian war. During illustrious Romans. Here Augustus the progress of that contest her poli- assembled his fleet before the battle tical power and importance were irre- of Actium, and we have notices of the trievably ruined, in consequence of presence of Tibullus, Cato, and of the fierce factions and civil dissen- Cicero, whose friend Atticus possessed sions which agitated the island, and large estates on the opposite coast in which both the aristocratical and of Epirus-probably in the plain of popular parties were guilty of the Butrinto, now so much resorted to by most horrible atrocities. It has been English shooting-parties. The last truly observed, that "it was the state mention of Corcyra in the ancient of parties and of politics at Corcyra authors seems to have been that by that the greatest of ancient historians Suetonius, who relates that the Emmade the subject of a solemn disqui-peror Nero, on his way to Greece, sition, considering that they were a sang and danced before the altar of type of the general condition of Greece Jupiter at Cassiope. at the period of the Peloponnesian war, and that the picture which he then drew of his countrymen belongs, in its main outlines, to all ages and nations. He who would discuss that most interesting problem, the state and prospects of the Modern Greeks, can hardly do wrong in adopting for his observations the same basis as Thucydides."

Henceforward there is little notice of Corfu until the times of the Crusades, when its geographical position caused it to be greatly frequented. Robert Guiscard seized the island in A.D. 1081, during his wars with the Eastern Empire; and another great Norman Chief, Richard I. of England, landed here on his return from the Holy Land in A.D. 1193. After reFor some generations after the Pelo-maining in the island for some time, ponnesian war the fortunes of Corcyra | he continued his voyage to Ragusa,

"Spread like a shield upon the dark blue sea.”

Od., v. 281.

ammunition and stores, including 78 | rises to the southward, presenting a pieces of artillery; and they are stated long swelling mountain-ridge, to have lost, during the siege of 5 weeks, full half their army in action and by disease, for it was the most deadly period of a very unhealthy season. The Venetians lost 2000 out of their garrison of 5000 men.*

The outlines of the island are very graceful; and its surface is a dark mass of luxuriant groves of olive, cypress, and ilex. The eastern ex

The first approach to Corfu, whether from the north or the south, is ex-tremity of the mountain-ridge of San tremely striking. The south channel will be described hereafter (Section II., Rte. 1). Coming from the north, the traveller sails close under those

"Thunder-cliffs of fear, The Acrocerannian mountains of old fame "—

an uninterrupted lofty chain, rising abruptly from the very brink of the sea in precipitous cliffs or rugged declivities, and terminating in craggy peaks, capped with snow during nine months in the year. Here and there an Albanian hamlet hangs like a snowwreath on the mountain-side. Wherever there is a break in the heavy masses of cloud which robe so often the further summits of the Pindus range, and the sun of Greece tints them at mid-day with golden, at even with rosy, radiance, the mind delights to figure to itself, far away amid those dim mysterious crags, the region of the "wintry Dodona," now shorn, indeed, of its ancient sanctity and honour, but still tenanted, as in Homer's time, by a race" with unwashed feet and sleeping on the ground." (I., xvi. 235.)

As we advance, the coast of Corfu

* An excellent account of the siege of Corfu in 1716 will be found in the Corps Papers of the Royal Engineers,' vol. i., pp. 262-272.

The best special authorities on the antiquities and history of the Island are:

Historia di Corfu,' da Andrea Marmora, Venice, 1672; which contains much curious information and several prints of the town and

fortresses in their medieval aspect.

Primordia Corcyra,' curâ A. M. Quirini, 1725; a treatise in Latin on the antiquities of Corfu by a Roman Catholic Archbishop of the island.

Illustrazioni Corciresi,' da Andrea Mustoxidi, Milano, 1811; comments on the history of his native island by a Corfiot noble of literary dis

tinction.

Le tre Costituzioni delle Isole,' Corfu, 1850; a valuable collection of official documents, &c., throwing light on the more recent history of the Ionian Islands,

Salvador (the Istóne of the ancients, but now called by the Greeks ПavTоkpáтwp) projects within 2 m. of the mainland. On the right the vessel passes the ruined walls of the mediaval fortress of Cassópo, erected on the site of the Hellenic city of Cassiope; on the left opens the plain or valley of Butrinto, the ancient Buthrontum, where Æneas was entertained by his kinsman Helenus. On clearing this strait, the sea again expands into an open gulf between the two coasts, and the citadel and town of Corfu appear in sight, forming the centre of an amphitheatre of rich varied scenery. In front, the green slopes of the islet of Vido form a breakwater for the harbour. Behind, the promontory on which the town is built terminates to the eastward in the citadel, built on a huge insulated rock, with its summit split into two lofty peaks, the aeria Phæacum arces of Virgil (Æn., iii. 291), from which the modern name of the island is derived. The hoary cliff is bound round with forts and bat

teries, while its base is strewn with white houses and barracks, perched like sea-fowl, wherever they can find a resting-place. The ramparts and bastions mingle with Nature's own fusion of cactuses, evergreens, and wild craggy fortifications, mantled by a proflowers.

Across the bay, the Albanian coast presents now a less rugged aspect. The ridges of snowy mountains retire further into the distance, while the hills in the immediate vicinity of the sea offer, by their bleak but varied landscape, a fine contrast to the richly wooded and cultivated shores of the island. In the general view of the town, the Palace, formerly of th Lord High Commissioner, and now