and better known by the Italian name of Cerigo, formed a member of
the Septinsular Republic, although not situated in the Ionian Sea,
and clearly a dependency of the Peloponnesus. Cythera is no longer
the island of Venus, and its voluptuous groves have disappeared. Seen
from the north, it resembles a pile of sterile rocks. It nevertheless
yields abundant harvests, possesses fine plantations of olive-trees,
and populous villages. Cerigo, in former times, enjoyed considerable
importance, owing to its position between the Ionian Sea and the
Archipelago; but Cape Malea has lost its terrors now, and the harbour
of refuge on the island is no longer sought after. Heaps of shells,
left there by Phœnician manufacturers of purple, have been found on the
island; and it was the Phœnicians who introduced the worship of Venus
Astarte.
IV.—THE ISLANDS OF THE ÆGEAN SEA.
Islands and islets are scattered in seeming disorder over the Ægean
Sea, the name of which may probably mean “sea of goats,” because these
islands appeared at a distance like goats. By a singular misapplication
the modern term {70} Archipelago, instead of sea, is now used to
designate these groups of islands. The Sporades, in the north, form
a long range of islands stretching in the direction of Mount Athos.
The island of Scyros, farther south, the birthplace of Achilles and
place of exile of King Theseus, occupies an isolated position; the
large island of Eubœa extends along the coast of the continent; and in
the distance rise the white mountains of the Cyclades, likened by the
ancient Greeks to a circle of Oceanides dancing around a deity.
[Illustration: Fig. 23.—EURIPUS AND CHALCIS.
Scale 1 : 220,000.]
All these islands are so many fragments of the mainland. This is
proved by their geological structure, or by shoals which attach them
to the nearest coast. The Northern Sporades are a branch of Mount
Pelion. Eubœa is traversed by limestone mountains of considerable
height, running parallel to the chains of Attica, Argolis, Mount
Olympus, and Mount Athos. Scyros is a rocky mountain mass, whose axis
runs in the same direction as that of the central chain of Eubœa.
The summits of the Cyclades continue the ranges of Eubœa and Attica
towards the south-east, and the same micaceous and argillaceous
schists, limestones, and crystalline marbles are found in them. They
are, indeed, “mountains of Greece {71} scattered over the sea.” If
Athens may boast of the quarries of Mount Pentelicus, the Cyclades
produce the glittering marbles of Naxos, and the still more beautiful
ones of Paros, from which were chiselled the statues of heroes and of
gods. Curious caverns are met with in the limestone of the islands,
especially that of Antiparos, the existence of which was not known to
the ancients, and the Cave of Sillaka, on the island of Cythnos, or
Thermia, celebrated for its hot springs. Granite is found on some of
the islands, and particularly in the small island of Delos, dedicated
to the worship of Apollo and Diana. In the south, finally, the Cyclades
are traversed by a chain of volcanic islands, extending from the
peninsula of Methana, in Argolis, to Cos and the shores of Asia Minor.
Eubœa may be looked upon almost as a portion of the continent, for
the strait which separates it from the mainland resembles a submerged
longitudinal valley, and is nowhere of great depth or width. At its
narrowest part it is no more than two hundred and fourteen feet across,
and from the most remote times, Chalcis, the capital of the island, has
been joined to the mainland by a bridge. The irregular tidal currents
flowing through this strait were looked upon as marvellous by the
Greeks, and Aristotle is said to have flung himself into it because
he was unable to explain this phenomenon. The Italian name of the
island, Negroponte, is formed by a series of corruptions from Euripus,
by which name the ancients knew the strait between the island and the
mainland. Eubœa has at all times shared in the vicissitudes of the
neighbouring provinces of Attica and Bœotia. When the cities of Greece
were at the height of their glory, those of Eubœa—Chalcis, Eretria,
and Cerinthus—enjoyed likewise a high degree of prosperity, and
dispatched colonies to all parts of the Mediterranean. Later on, when
invaders ravaged Attica, Eubœa shared the same fate, and at present it
participates in every political and social movement of the neighbouring
continent.
In Northern Eubœa there are forests of oaks, pines, elms, and
plane-trees; the villages are embedded in orchards; and the surrounding
country resembles what we have seen in Elis and Arcadia. But in the
Cyclades we look in vain for charming landscapes. Foliage and running
water abound only in a very few spots. Arid rocks, more arid even than
those on the coast of Greece, predominate, and only in a few favoured
spots do we meet with a few olive-trees, valonia oaks, pines, and
fig-trees. Everywhere else the hills are naked. And yet these islands
arouse feelings of devotion in us, for their names are great in
history. The highest summits of most of them have been named after the
prophet Elias, the biblical successor of Apollo, the god of the sun;
and justly so, for the sun reigns supreme upon these austere rocks, and
his scorching rays destroy every vestige of vegetation.
Antimilos, one of the uninhabited islands of this group, still affords
an asylum to the wild goat (_Capra Caucasica_), which has disappeared
from the remainder of Europe, and is met with only in Crete, and
perhaps Rhodes. Wild pigs likewise haunt the rocks of Antimilos.
Rabbits were introduced from the West, and abound in the caverns
of some of the Cyclades, and especially on Myconus and Delos. The
ancient authors never mention these animals. It is a curious fact that
{72} hares and rabbits never inhabit the same island, with the sole
exception of Andros, where the hares occupy the extreme north, whilst
the rabbits have their burrows in the southern portion of the island.
As a curiosity, we may also mention that a large species of lizard,
called crocodile by the inhabitants, is found on the islands, but not
on the neighbouring continent, and we may conclude from this that the
Cyclades were separated from the Balkan peninsula at a very remote
period.
* * * * *
A chain of volcanic islands bounds the Cyclades towards the south,
where they are separated from Crete by an ocean trough of great depth.
Milos is the most important of these islands. It has an irregularly
shaped crater, which has been invaded by the sea, and forms there
one of the safest and most capacious harbours of refuge in the
Mediterranean. Milos has had no eruption within historic times, but the
existence of solfataras and of hot springs proves that its volcanic
forces are not yet quite extinct.
[Illustration: Fig. 24.—NEA KAMMENI.
According to Danfalik.]
The actual centre of volcanic activity has to be looked for in a small
group of islands known as Santorin, and lying midway between Europe and
Asia. These islands consist of marbles and schists, similar to those
of the other Cyclades, and they surround a vast crater no less than
twelve hundred and eighty feet in depth. The crescent-shaped island
of Thera, on the east, presents bold cliffs towards the crater, while
its gentle outer slopes are covered with vineyards producing exquisite
wine. Therasia, on the west, rises like an immense wall; and the islet
of {73} Aspronisi, between the two, indicates the existence of a
submarine partition wall which separates the crater from the open sea.
The submarine volcano occupies the centre of this basin. It remains
quiescent for long periods, and then suddenly arousing itself, it
ejects immense masses of scoriæ. Nearly twenty-one centuries ago the
first island rose to the surface in the centre of this basin. This
island is known now as Palæa Kammeni, or the “old volcano.” Three years
of eruptions in the sixteenth century gave birth to the smallest of
the three islands, Mikra Kammeni. A third cone of lava, Nea Kammeni,
rose in the eighteenth century; and quite recently, between 1866 and
1870, this new island has more than doubled its size, overwhelming
the small village of Volkario and its port, and extending to within a
very short distance of Mikra Kammeni. No less than half a million of
partial eruptions occurred during those five years, and the ashes were
sometimes thrown to a height of four thousand feet. Even from Crete
clouds of ashes could be seen suspended in the air, black during the
day, and lit up by night.
Thousands of spectators hastened to Santorin from all quarters of the
world to witness these eruptions, and amongst them were several men of
science—Fouqué, Gorceix, Reiss, Stübel, and Schmidt—whose observations
have proved of great service. The crater of Santorin appears to have
been produced by a violent explosion which shattered the centre of the
ancient island, and covered its slopes with enormous masses of tufa.[18]
Southern Eubœa and the vicinity of Port Gavrion, on the island of
Andros, are inhabited by Albanians, but the population in the remainder
of the Archipelago is Greek. The families of Italian or French descent
on Scyros, Syra, Naxos, and Santorin are not sufficiently numerous
to constitute an element of importance. They claim to be of French
descent, and are known in the Archipelago as Franks, and during the war
of independence they claimed the protection of the French Government.
In former times nearly the whole of the land was held by these Franks,
who had taken possession of it during the Middle Ages, and these large
estates are made to account for the sparse population of Naxos, which
supported a hundred thousand inhabitants formerly, but is now hardly
able to support one-seventh that number.
The Cyclades are farther removed from the coast of Greece than Eubœa,
and they have not always shared in the historical dramas enacted
upon the neighbouring continent. Their position in the centre of the
Archipelago naturally caused them to be visited by all the nations
navigating the Mediterranean, and their inhabitants were thus subjected
to the most diverse influences. In ancient times the mariners of
Asia Minor and of Phœnicia called at the Cyclades on their voyages
to Greece; during the Middle Ages the Byzantines, the Crusaders, the
Venetians, the Genoese, the Knights of Rhodes, and the Osmanli were
masters {74} there in turn; and in our own days the nations of Western
Europe, with the Greeks themselves, hold the preponderance in the
Archipelago.
These historical vicissitudes have caused the centre of gravity of
the Cyclades to be shifted from island to island. In the time of the
ancient Greeks, Delos, the island of Apollo, was looked upon as the
“holy land,” where merchants congregated from all quarters, carried
on business in the shadow of sanctuaries, and held slave markets at
the side of the temples. The sale of human flesh became in the end the
main feature of the commerce of Delos, and in the time of the Roman
emperors as many as ten thousand slaves were bartered away there in a
single day. But the markets, the temples, and monuments of Delos have
vanished, and its stony soil supports now only a few sheep. During the
Middle Ages Naxos enjoyed the predominance; and at present, Tinos, with
its venerated church of the Panagia and its thousands of pilgrims, is
the “holy land” of the Archipelago; whilst Hermopolis, on Syra, though
without trees or water, holds the position of commercial metropolis of
the Cyclades. The latter was a town of no importance before the war of
independence; but it remained neutral during that struggle, and thus
attracted numerous refugees from other islands, and, thanks to its
central position, it has since become the principal mart, dockyard, and
naval station of the Ægean Sea. Whether travellers proceed to Saloniki,
Smyrna, Constantinople, or the Black Sea, they must stop at Hermopolis.
The town formerly occupied the heights only, for fear of pirates,
but it has descended now to the foot of the hill, and its quays and
warehouses extend along the seashore.
Commerce has peopled the naked rocks of Syra, but it has not yet
succeeded in developing the resources of the Archipelago as in ancient
times. Eubœa is no longer “rich in cattle,” as its name implies, and
only exports corn, wine, fruit, and the lignite extracted from the
mines near Kumi. The gardens of Naxos yield oranges, lemons, and
citrons; Scopelos, Andros, and Tinos, the latter one of the best
cultivated amongst the islands, export wines, which are excelled,
however, by those of Santorin, the Calliste of the earliest Greeks.
The volcanic and other islands of the Cyclades export millstones,
china clay, lavas, and cimolite, this being used in bleaching. Naxos
exports emery, and that is all. The marbles of Paros even remain
untouched, and the excellent harbour of that island only rarely sees
a vessel. The inhabitants of the Cyclades confine themselves to the
cultivation of the soil, and to the breeding of a few silkworms, the
surplus population of Tinos, Siphnos, and others emigrating annually
to Constantinople, Smyrna, or Greece, to work as labourers, cooks,
potters, masons, or sculptors. But whilst some of the islands can
boast of a surplus population, there are others which are the abode
of a few herdsmen only. Most of the islands between Naxos and Amorgos
are hardly more than barren rocks. Antimilos, like Delos, is merely
a pasture-ground sown over with rocks. Seriphos and Giura are still
dreary solitudes, as in the time of the Roman emperors, when they
were set aside as places of exile. Seriphos, however, possesses iron
of excellent quality, and may, in consequence, again become of some
importance. On Antiparos there are lead mines. {75}
V.—THE IONIAN ISLES.
The island of Corfu, on the coast of Epirus, and the whole of the
Archipelago to the west of continental and peninsular Greece, down to
the island of Cythera, which divides the waters of the Ionian Sea from
those of the Ægean, have passed through the most singular political
vicissitudes in the course of the last century. Corfu, thanks to
the protection extended to it by the Venetian Republic, is the only
dependency of the Balkan peninsula which successfully resisted the
assaults of the Turk. When Venice was handed over to the Austrians
by Bonaparte in 1797, Corfu and the Ionian Islands were occupied by
the French. A few years afterwards the Russians became the virtual
masters in these islands, which they formed into a sort of aristocratic
republic under the suzerainty of the Porte. In 1807 the French once
more took possession of them; but the English captured one after the
other until there remained to them only Corfu, and this, too, had to
be given up in 1814. The Ionian Islands were then converted into a
“Septinsular Republic,” governed by the landed aristocracy, supported
by British bayonets. Twice did England alter the constitution of this
republic in a democratic sense, but the patriotism of the islanders
refused to submit to British suzerainty; and, when Great Britain parted
with her conquest, the Ionian Islands annexed themselves to Greece,
and they now form the best educated, the wealthiest, and the most
industrious portion of that kingdom. England, no doubt, consulted her
own interests when she set free her Ionian subjects; but her action is
nevertheless deserving of approbation. England exhibited her faith in
the axiom that moral influence is superior to brute force, and yielded
with perfect good grace, not only the commercial ports of the islands,
but likewise the citadel of Corfu, which gave her the command of the
Adriatic. This magnanimous policy has not hitherto met with imitators
in other countries, but England herself has still many opportunities of
applying it in other parts of the world.
Corfu, the ancient Corcyra, has always held the foremost place amongst
the Ionian Islands. It owes this position to the vicinity of Italy,
and to the commercial advantages derived from an excellent port and
a vast roadstead almost resembling an inland lake. The inhabitants
are fond of appealing to Thucydides in order to prove that Corfu
is the island of the Phæaces of Ulysses. They even pretend to have
discovered the rivulet in which beauteous Nausicaa washed the linen
of her father, and the shaded walks near the city are known by them
as the gardens of Alcinous. Corfu is the only one of the islands
which can boast of a small perennial stream, the Messongi, which is
navigable for a short distance in barges. The hills, which are placed
like a screen in front of the plains of the Epirus, are exposed to
the full force of the south-westerly winds, which bring much rain;
the vegetation, consequently, is rich: orange and lemon trees form
fragrant groves around the city, vines and olive-trees hide the barren
ground of the hills, and waving fields of corn cover the plains.
Corfu, unfortunately, is exposed to the hot sirocco, blowing from the
south-east, and this very much curtails its advantages as a winter
station for invalids. {76}
The city occupies a triangular peninsula opposite the coast of the
Epirus, and is the largest, and commercially the most important, of
the former republic. It is strongly fortified, and its successive
possessors—Venetians, French, Russians, and English—have sought to
render it impregnable. A beautiful prospect may be enjoyed from its
bastions; but far superior is that from Mount Pantokratoros, the
“commandant,” for it extends across the Strait of Otranto to Italy.
The commercial relations with the latter, as well as the traditions
of Venetian dominion, have converted Corfu into a city almost half
Italian, and numerous families residing in it belong to both nations,
the Greek and the Italian, by descent as well as language. Italian
remained the official language of the island until 1830. Maltese
porters and gardeners constitute a prominent element amongst the
cosmopolitan population of the city.
[Illustration: Fig. 25.—CORFU.]
Corfu formerly owned the town of Butrinto and a few villages on the
mainland; but an English governor thought fit to surrender them to the
terrible Ali Pasha, {77} and the only dependencies of Corfu at present
are the small islets near it, viz. Othonus (Fano), Salmastraci, and
Ericusa, in the north; Paxos, with its caverns, and Antipaxos, the
rocks of which exude asphalt, on the south. Paxos is said to produce
the best oil in Western Greece.
Leucadia, Cephalonia, Ithaca, Zante, and a few smaller islands, form
a crescent-shaped archipelago off the entrance to the Gulf of Patras.
They are the summits of a half-submerged chain of calcareous mountains,
alternately flooded by the rains or scorched by the sun. Their valleys,
like those of Corfu, produce oranges, lemons, currants (“Corinthians”),
wine, and oil, which form the objects of a brisk commerce. The
inhabitants very much resemble those of Corfu, the Italian element
being strongly represented, except on Ithaca.
[Illustration: Fig. 26.—THE CHANNEL OF SANTA MAURA.
From the French Staff Map.
Scale 1 : 200,000.]
Leucadia, or the “white island,” thus called because of its glittering
chalk cliffs, is evidently a dependency of the continent. The ancients
looked upon it as a peninsula converted into an island by Corinthian
colonists, who cut a canal through the isthmus which joined it to the
mainland; but this legend is not borne out by an examination of the
locality. These Corinthians probably merely dug a navigable channel
through the shallow lagoon which separates the island from the coast,
and does not exceed eighteen inches in depth. In fact, if there were
any tides in the Ionian Sea, the island of Leucadia would be converted
twice daily into a peninsula. A bridge, of which there still exist
considerable remains, formerly joined the island to the mainland near
the southern extremity of the lagoon, whilst an island occupied by the
citadel of Santa Maura—a name sometimes applied to the whole of the
island—defended its entrance to the north. {78} Until recently this
was the only spot in Western Greece where a grove of date-trees might
be seen. A magnificent aqueduct of two hundred and sixty arches, which
was also used as a viaduct, joined the citadel to Amaxiki, the chief
town and harbour of Leucadia. This monument of Turkish enterprise—it
was constructed in the reign of Bajazet—has sustained much injury from
earthquakes. Amaxiki might be supposed to be haunted by fever, owing
to the salt swamps and lagoons which surround it; but such is not the
case: on the contrary, it is a comparatively healthy town, and its
women are noted for freshness of complexion and beauty. To the south
of it rise the wooded mountains which terminate in the promontory
of Leucate (Dukato), opposite to Cephalonia. On the summit of this
promontory stood a temple of Apollo, whence, at the annual festival of
the god, a condemned criminal was hurled as an expiatory victim. It was
celebrated, also, as the lover’s leap, whence lovers leaped into the
sea to drown their passion.
Cephalonia, or rather Cephallenia, is the largest of the Ionian
Islands, and its highest summit—Mount Ænus, or Elato—is the culminating
point of the entire Archipelago. Mariners from the centre of the Ionian
Sea can see at one and the same time Mount Ætna in Sicily and this
mountain of Cephalonia. The forests of conifers, to which the latter
is indebted for its Italian name of Montenero, have for the greater
part been destroyed by fire, but there still remain a few clumps of
magnificent firs. On its summit may be seen the remains of a temple of
Jupiter. The island is fertile and populous, but suffers much from want
of water. All its rivers dry up in summer, the calcareous soil sucking
up the rain, and most of the springs rise from the bottom of the sea,
far away from the fields thirsting after water. On the other hand, two
considerable streams of sea-water find their way into the bowels of the
island.
This curious phenomenon occurs a short distance to the north of
Argostoli, a bustling town, having a safe but shallow harbour. The
two oceanic rivers are sufficiently powerful to set in motion the
huge wheels of two mills, one of which has been regularly at work
since 1835, and the other since 1859. Their combined discharge amounts
to 35,000,000 gallons daily, and naturalists have not yet decided
whether they form a vast subterranean lake, in which beds of salt are
constantly being deposited, or whether they find their way through
numerous threads, and, by hydrostatic aspiration, into the subterranean
rivers of the island, rendering their water brackish. The latter is
the opinion of Wiebel, the geologist, and thus much we may assume for
certain—that these subterranean waters and caverns are one of the
principal causes of the severe earthquakes which visit Cephalonia so
frequently. The island of Asteris, between Cephalonia and Ithaca, upon
which stood the city of Alalkomenæ, exists no longer, and was probably
destroyed by one of those earthquakes.