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.