. Travels and politics in the Near East. orfu at its best one should ascendthe old fortress built by the Venetians, and still bearingtraces of the lion of St. Mark upon its walls. From itsramparts there is a magnificent view in every direction,the town and harbour lie at ones feet, and in this clearatmosphere one can see as far to the south as the islandof Santa Maura, whence Sappho leaped into the sea forlove of Phaon. A drive to Pantaleone gives one a grandview of the interior of the island, with its streams inwhich the Corfiote maidens are washing their clothes, 227 Travels and Politics and
. Travels and politics in the Near East. orfu at its best one should ascendthe old fortress built by the Venetians, and still bearingtraces of the lion of St. Mark upon its walls. From itsramparts there is a magnificent view in every direction,the town and harbour lie at ones feet, and in this clearatmosphere one can see as far to the south as the islandof Santa Maura, whence Sappho leaped into the sea forlove of Phaon. A drive to Pantaleone gives one a grandview of the interior of the island, with its streams inwhich the Corfiote maidens are washing their clothes, 227 Travels and Politics and its high mountains, only broken by the swampyplain in the centre, which a patriotic Corfiote has leftmoney to drain. But of all excursions in the island, thefinest is that to the monastery of Palaeokastrizza, on thewest coast. A more heavenly situation was never chosenby monks for the site of their earthly abode. We drovefor fourteen miles through a forest of olives—for in Corfuthe olive is a forest tree—amid the aromatic odours of. A HUMBLE IIAK, . . SUPPORTED OX WHITEWASHED PILLARS.(From a Photo, by Mr. C. A. Miller.) countless flowers and shrubs. Here and there a humblehan, or roadside inn, supported on whitewashed pillars,like a miniature temple of some heathen divinity, gleamedout from the green olive leaves, and the landlord wouldhasten to stop our carriage, not to offer us coffee, orinasticha, or ginger beer, that curious relic of the Englishdays in the Ionian Islands, but to ask us for the latestnews of the war. Was it true, as the false but flattering 228 in the Near East rumour had it, that Joannina had fallen before the Greeks,that the hero Smolenski had won a great victory, thatEdhem Pasha was meditating a retreat ? No ; it was not,but the Greeks are a sanguine people, and their news-papers pander to the national and not unnatural desireto believe what is favourable. So we stopped at everyhalting place on the road, to allow our driver the luxuryof talking polit
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjecteasternquestionbalka
