from the town to Sappho's Leap. It will be necessary, therefore, to make provision for sleeping one night on the excursion, and for that purpose it is advisable to procure from the Resident a letter of recommendation to a hospitable contadino, or peasant proprietor, in the village of Attáni, 6 hours from Amaxíchi, in whose roomy cottage the English stranger is sure of a hearty and primitive welcome. After leaving the olive-woods around the town, the road ascends a steep hill, and thence sometimes winds along the western coast, sometimes strikes across the central heights. The interior of the island wears everywhere a rugged aspect. There is but little cultivation, except where terraces have been formed on the mountain sides, and planted with vineyards. The scene is occasionally enlivened by a grove of evergreen oaks embosoming a church, or by a village surrounded with clumps of olives and cypresses. During a portion of the winter, the highest ridge of Santa Maura, rising about 3000 feet over the sea, is robed in snow and mist, as it appeared to the eyes of Eneas (En. iii. 274) : : "Mox et Leucatæ nimbosa cacumina montis, Et formidatus nautis aperitur Apollo." In like manner, the deep water, the strong currents, and the fierce gales which they there encounter, have preserved among the Greek sailors of the present day the evil fame which the Leucadian cape bore of old. Nothing but the substructions of the once farfamed Temple of Apollo now exist on the promontory. A small monastery, dedicated to St. Nicholas, the patron of mariners, nestles in a sheltered nook at a short distance from it. It is a graceful feeling which has often induced men, both in ancient and in modern times, to cover with a temple or a church the cliffs of their native land. The temple of the Leucadian Apollo, and that of Athene on Sunium, are but the forerunners of such shrines as the lofty chapels of Our Lady above Honfleur and Marseilles, whence the "Star of the Sea" guides the sailor from afar to his home, and recalls his wandering thoughts to that other and happier haven which awaits him when the storms and troubles of this life shall have passed away for ever. A broken white cliff, rising on one side perpendicularly from the sea to the height of at least 200 feet, and sloping precipitously into it on the other, forms "Leucadia's far-projecting rock of woe." Its summit is strewn with fragments of ancient pottery, glass, and hewn stones, the relics of the temple of Apollo; and the coins discovered on the spot generally bear a harp in honour of "the God of Love, of Light, and Poesy." The prospect is very extensive, but inferior to that from Karus, described above. The ancient associations of the spot form its chief charm. At the annual festival of Apollo it was the custom to cast down a criminal from this headland into the sea; to break his fall birds of various kinds were attached to him, and if he reached the water uninjured there were boats ready to pick him up (Strabo, x.; Cicero, Tusc. iv. 18; Ovid, Heroid. Ep. xv. 165). This appears to have been a kind of ordeal, or rather an expiatory rite; and it gave origin to the famous story that lovers leaped from this rock in order to seek relief from the pangs of love, after the example of Sappho when enamoured of Phaon. But that well-known legend vanishes at the first approach of criticism. It is prettily set forth by Moore in his Evenings in Greece :— "The very spot where Sappho sung Her swan-like music, ere she sprung On the island there is too little cover to furnish any quantity of game; but in Acarnania magnificent sport may be enjoyed in a magnificent country. During an easy excursion from Fort Santa Maura there may be found reddeer, fallow-deer, roe, wolves, jackals, &c., as well as an abundance of woodcocks, and every kind of wild fowl, from pelicans to jacksnipes. The best places to land at are Saltoná and Encheleovivari (Eyxsλeoßißág, yxsλsús, vivarium, i.e. eel-pond), which are only a short row across the lagoons. Farther to the southward, and nearly opposite to Ithaca, there is good shooting near the bay of Tragamesti, and at the mouth of the Achelous. 5. ITHACA. "There is, perhaps, no spot in the world where the influence of classical associations is so lively or so pure as in the island of Ithaca. The little rock Unless the traveller should intend to retired into obscurity immediately after make a tour in Albania, he ought by the age of its great mythological warrior no means to omit visiting, while in this and of his poet, and so it has remained island, the Turkish town of Prevesa, for nigh 3000 years. Unlike many other and the ruins of Nicopolis, about 3 miles places of ancient fame, it is indebted for from it. (SEE SECTION IV.) With no part of its interest to more recent favourable weather, and a good boat, distinctions, or to the rival associations this excursion can easily be made in a of modern history ;-so much as the few hours; going and returning the name of Ithaca scarcely occurs in the same day. It is only 9 miles by sea page of any writer of historical ages, from Fort Santa Maura to Prevesa; but unless with reference to its poetical that narrow space of water divides from celebrity. Indeed, in A.D. 1504, it was each other countries and nations more nearly, if not quite uninhabited, having essentially apart than those separated been depopulated by the incursions of by the Atlantic Ocean. Again, in the Corsairs, and during the fury of the West of Europe, though there are dis-wars waged between the Turks and the tinct languages in different states, yet the traveller will observe generally only small and progressive varieties of customs and dress. But here the scene is suddenly shifted, and there are presented to his eyes at once many of those appendages of Oriental character, manners, and landscape, by which Englishmen-perhaps owing to their early knowledge of the Bible-are so powerfully attracted. From the familiar habits and features of a British garrison, and of civilized life, with all its glare and bustle, the English traveller who crosses to Prevesa is immediately introduced into the solemn stillness of the East. The sedate and bearded Ottoman, veiled women, latticed harems, are around him; and the Albanian mountaineers, with their singular stateliness of carriage, and arrayed in the most picturesque costume of the world. Then too there is the fantastic tracery of the mosque, and the tall slender minaret from which the Imaum prays with his face to Mecca; in a word, a voyage of little more than one hour has produced a greater contrast than the voyage between London and New York, or between Lisbon and Rio Janeiro. Christians; and record is still extant of privileges offered by the Venetian government to the settlers from the neighbouring islands, and from the mainland of Greece, by whom it was repeopled. Here, therefore, all our recollections are concentrated around the heroic age; every hill and rock, every fountain and olive-grove, breathes Homer and the Odyssey; and we are transplanted by a sudden leap over a hundred generations to the most brilliant period of Greek chivalry and song."-Bowen. Like so many other names of classical geography, Ithaca was said to be derived from a chieftain of primitive times called Ithacus, who is mentioned by Homer (Od. xviii. 207). The measurement of the island, as given by Strabo (x. 2), is very wide of the truth; its extreme length from N. to S. is really about 17 miles; its greatest breadth does not exceed 4. It may be regarded in fact as a single narrow ridge of limestone rock, everywhere rising into rugged hills, of which the chief is the mountain of Anoge ('Avwyn), in shape and size not unlike Benlomond-towering over the N. shore of the great harbour. This, as being the highest and greatest mountain in the island, is, of course, identified with the "Neritos ardua saxis" of Virgil (Æn. iii. 271), and the Nigrov EivoríQuaλov of Homer (Od. ix. 21), although the forests which once "waved their leaves " on its sides have now disappeared. That fact is the reason why rain and dew are not so common here now as they were in the poet's time; and why the island no longer abounds in hogs fattening upon acorns, and guarded by "godlike swineherds"-successors of Eumæus. In all other points Homer's descriptions are still as accurate in Ithaca as they are elsewhere-proving him to be the great father of History and Topography as well as of Poetry. His verses present a perfect picture of the island as it now appears : Εν δ' Ιθάκη οὔτ ̓ ἄρ ̓ δρόμοι εὐρέες οὔτε τι λειμών· Αιγίβοτος καὶ μᾶλλον ἐπήρατος ἱπποβότοιο Οὐ γάρ τις νήσων ἱππήλατος οὐδ ̓ εὐλείμων Αἱ δ' ἁλὶ κεκλίαται· Ιθάκη δέ τε καὶ περὶ πασέων. (Od. iv. 603. Cf. also Od. xiii. 242.) Thus translated by Pope :"Horrid with cliffs, our meagre land allows Thin herbage for the mountain-goat to browse, But neither mead nor plain supplies, to feed The sprightly courser, or indulge his speed: To sea-surrounded realms the gods assign Small tract of fertile lawn, the least to mine." The general aspect is one of ruggedness and sterility; it can hardly be said that there are a hundred yards of continuous level ground in the whole island; which warrants the expression of Cicero that Ulysses loved his country "not because it was broad, but because it was his own." Nevertheless the scenery is rendered striking by the bold and broken outline of the mountains and cliffs indented by numerous small harbours and creeks, the λives Távoguos of the Odyssey (xiii. 193). And Ithaca is not without scenes of a softer character in the cultivated declivities of the ridges, and in the opening out towards the sea of many narrow ravines, where the water is fringed with feathery woods of olives, oranges, and almond trees, and the slopes are clothed with vineyards, or with evergreen copses of myrtle, cypress, arbutus, mastic, olean der, that beautiful rhododaphne or roselaurel of the ancients, and all the aromatic shrubs of the East. Here and there too among the rocks little green lawns glitter gaily with a thousand wild flowers. The climate of Ithaca is very healthy, and its inhabitants are famous for their longevity. So it is from no empty patriotism that Ulysses says of his fatherland,— Τρηχεῖ ἀλλ' ἀγαθὴ κουροτρόφος· οὔτοι ἔγωγε Ἧς γαίης δύναμαι γλυκερώτερον ἄλλο ιδέσθαι. In Pope's paraphase :- "Low lies our isle, yet bless'd in fruitful stores; Strong are her sons, though rocky are her shores; And none, ah! none so lovely to my sight, Of all the lands that Heaven o'erspreads with light!" (Od. ix. 27.) The lines immediately preceding, and also applied to Ithaca by Ulysses, have puzzled all the commentators, both ancient and modern :Αὐτὴ δὲ χθαμαλὴ πανυπέρτατη εἶν ἁλὶ κεῖται Πρὸς ζόφον, αἱ δὲ ἄνευθε πρὸς ἠῶ τ' έλιόν τε. -- (Vid. Nitzsch. Cf. also Od. x. 196.) Strabo (x. 2) discusses the passage, and perhaps his explanation is the most satisfactory of any. He supposes that by the epithet xapaλn the poet intended to express how Ithaca lies under, as it were, the neighbouring mountains of Acarnania; while by that of rave grárn he meant to denote its position at the extremity of the group of islands formed by Zacynthus, Cephallenia, and the Echinades. For another explanation see Dr. Wordsworth's Greece. The whole population of the island amounts to about 10,000. They are extremely laborious both by land and sea, cultivating with patient industry the light and scanty soil of their island, and maintaining at the same time a considerable part of the coasting trade of Greece, as well as of the general carrying commerce of the Mediterranean and the Euxine. Almost every family possesses a few roods of land of its own, as well as a share in one or more of the large and excellent ships which belong to their port, and are continually built and fitted out there. If we call to mind that Ulysses, with the whole force of the neighbouring islands of Cephallenia and Zacynthus, only mustered 12 galleys as his contingent to the Trojan expedition, it must be admitted that Ithaca has no reason to complain of any falling off in her naval establishment since the heroic age. (Il. ii. 631, 637.) The late Earl of Guildford, the founder and first president of the Ionian Uni versity, had intended, if insuperable difficulties had not been thrown in his way, to have established that institution in Ithaca. And certainly the healthy situation, beautiful scenery, and perfect seclusion of this island seem to promise great advantages, if it had been selected as the chief seat of the national education. Here-amid mountains and rocks hallowed by a thousand memories, and in groves and gardens which Plato would have preferred to his Academe -the scholar might have delighted his hours of leisure with the fair visions of Greek poetry and philosophy, for which the summer stillness of a Grecian sky appears a natural and congenial accompaniment. There is, however, in Ithaca, as in the other Ionian islands, a good secondary, or grammar school, supported by government; and in which ancient Greek, mathematics, history, geography, Italian, and English are taught. Primary schools also have been established in the chief villages. There are very few peasants who do not possess at least the rudiments of a good education; and, along with all the courtesy and good humour, they have even more than their share of the usual ready tact and cleverness (ayxivoia) of the lower orders throughout Greece. The higher classes resemble those of the neighbouring islands. Among the Ithacans, as wherever else in Greece there is little admixture of Venetian, Albanian, or other foreign blood-the traveller will generally remark that Hellenic cast of features so familiar from ancient statues and coins. Certainly the modern Greeks are, both physically and intellectually, the true representatives of their ancestors, and form a striking exception to the principle laid down in the fine observation of Dante L'umana probitate: e questo vuole The three principal clans into which the Ithacans are divided are called Petalas, Karabias, and Dendrinos. The chief families of the island all either bear these names, or, wherever branches of them have taken other appellations, the new patronymics were generally derived from some sobriquet applied to one of their ancestors. For instance, the family of Zabos is a principal branch of the Petalades, and came to be designated by its present name because its immediate founder had that epithet (abós, i. e. awkward) given to him. Numerous parallel examples occur in the genealogies of the clans of Ireland and Scotland. The civil government of Ithaca resembles that of the sister islands. Its ecclesiastical affairs are under the direction of a Greek bishop; and among the natives there is no other but the national religion. None of the churches are remarkable for architectural splendour or for costly decorations; but little chapels are as numerous in this as in the neighbouring islands, and indeed in most parts of Greece. Ithaca is divided into four districts, Bathy, Aetos, Anoge, and Exoge; Balù, 'Asròs, Avwyn, Ewyn, i. e. Deep Bay, Eagle's Cliff, Highland, Outland. The first at the southern, and the last at the northern extremity of the island, have each a fertile valley, but the rocky mountains of the two midland districts admit of little cultivation. Currantgrapes form the staple commodity of the Ithacans. A small quantity of oil and wine is also exported, the latter being reputed the best in the Ionian Islands. The produce in grain suffices only for three months' consumption; and even that quantity is raised by great toil and industry. But the natives are enabled to supply themselves from abroad, partly by their profits in the currant trade, and still more by the activity in maritime affairs which forms so remarkable a feature in this little people. The sight of the modern capital of Ithaca must always excite admiration. Bathy contains about 2500 inhabitants, and extends in one narrow stripe of white houses round the southern extremity of the horseshoe port or “deep” (Bali), whence it derives its name. Large ships can moor in perfect safety close to the doors of their owners. Bathy are the barracks for the garrison a company of the line and a few artillerymen-the dwellings of the chief proprietors and merchants, several Greek churches, and the house of the Resident with the English flag,— "The wavy cross that marks Britannia's power," entrance to this cave is a narrow opening to the N.W., admitting but little day. At the southern extremity there is a natural aperture, but more practicable for gods than for men. The vault within is lighted up by delicate gleams of a bluish hue, and is hung with stalactites, expanding here and there into what Homer calls webs of stone, where the Nymphs may be fancied to have woven their threads whose colour was like the purple of the ocean (Od. xiii. 108). It is highly probable that these are the very localities alluded to by Homer— indeed, this seems the only point In exactly corresponding to the poet's data:-1. In admitting unobserved of a rugged walk over woods and cliffs (Od. xiv. 1) to the station of Eumæus at the extremity of the island nearest Peloponnesus (Öd. xv. 36); 2. In being directly in front of Neritos, and so exactly adapted to the speech of the disguised Pallas, when she proves to Ulysses that he is in Ithaca by pointing to the mountain (Od. xiii. 345). It may here be remarked that a late Resident in the winter of 1850 came in a single day from Ithaca to Corcyra in one of the coasting boats of the island, which are very like ancient galleys both in appearance and in mode of navigation; so there is nothing wonderful in his predecessor Ulysses having accom plished in a single night-particularly with the aid of Athene-the voyage from Corcyra to Ithaca (Od. xiii. 81). displayed before it. The beauty of the scene is enhanced by a small island, crowned with buildings, in the middle of the harbour, and by several insulated houses scattered over the rising ground behind the town, and surrounded with trees and gardens. The whole prospect derives a singular aspect of seclusion from the mountains which hang over it on every side. It has no view of the open sea, because the creek on which it is built is an inlet of the wide and deep gulf, which, branching out into arms and bays sheltered by lofty hills and projecting cliffs, and running up into the heart of the island, divides it into two nearly equal portions, connected by a narrow isthmus. On the southern side of this great gulf, local tradition exhibits in a small creek the port of Phorcys, now called by the Ithacans Asia, probably because it is on the right hand of the entrance to the port of Bathy; and a little way up Mount St. Stephen above the harbour, the grotto of the Nymphs, in which the sleeping Ulysses was deposited by the Phæacians (Od. xiii. 116). The only We have hitherto taken it for granted that this is the Ithaca alluded to by Homer. "Of that fact," says Mr. Bowen, "we have ample testimony in its relative position to Zacynthus, Cephallenia, Leucadia, and the neighbour. ing mainland of Greece, as will at once be seen by a mere glance at the catalogue of ships in the Iliad, or at the picture-like sketch of the surrounding scenery in Virgil. (Æn. iii. 270 et seq.) More detailed proofs may be drawn from numerous passages in the Odyssey, and from the internal features of the island; to every sceptic I would say, like Athene to Ulysses, |