Santa Maura is a small wooden town on the shore of a very shallow channel, which separates the island from Albania; so shallow, that the usual boats are made out of a single tree, and preserve their ancient name, _monoxylon_. They will only at the most hold two persons. This shallow water, and the salt works just by, make the place very unhealthy in the autumn. The castle is on a long spit of flat sand, which is supposed formerly to have been an isthmus, and in order to avoid a very long circuit in going to it from the town, we have to cross a bridge, about three quarters of a mile long and three feet wide; it is without any defence, and so exposed to the wind, that a picket guard in crossing it has been forced into the bay, which, though not deep in water, is very much so in mud. In bad weather therefore, the crossing may be considered as dangerous, and one day, when we had engaged to dine with Colonel Ross, the violence of the wind and rain prevented us keeping our appointment. We visited the remains of the ancient Leucas, or perhaps of Neritus, where however there is nothing but an extensive line of walls, mostly of Cyclopean masonry, but there is part of a tower built in parallel courses, and in one place the Cyclopean wall is double, the intermediate space being filled with earth. There are no vestiges of other buildings, public or private, except a fragment of a little column, and in one place a circular pit, widening downwards, perhaps a receptacle for corn. I mentioned to you some openings of this sort at Fiesole, but there it was among tombs, which would seem to indicate some other purpose, and Clarke describes a similar pit at the top of the Mount of Olives, near Jerusalem, on which he speculates largely. We could not find even the fragment of a moulding. The situation is delightful, commanding extensive views both to the north and south. Ithaca and Cefalonia, with the Gulf of Arta, the shores of Albania, and the lesser hills backed by the majestic range of the snow-covered Pindus, enter into the prospect. The island of Santa Maura seems almost to consist of a single mass of limestone, but it contains in its bosom some romantic rocky valleys, and fine plains in several places towards the shore. The uplands are generally cultivated in corn. The lower ground in the neighbourhood of the town is an almost continued olive-grove. The temperature of a copious spring, which is conducted to the town, was 62°, at the spot where it gushes out from the limestone rock, that of the air being 55°.