Before the Italian occupation Santi Quaranta was a wretched village, consisting of large Turkish barracks, a custom-house and a few fishermen’s huts. During the war it became an important military and naval base; many large huts and even some handsome brick buildings were erected. It had been chosen as a base for transport to all parts of South Albania and later for Macedonia on account of its well-sheltered port, easy to defend against submarine attacks, and protected by the island of Corfu just opposite. Steamers cannot be moored up to the pier as the water is too shallow near the shore, and no attempt was made to deepen it or lengthen the jetties, as it was realized that after the war Santi Quaranta would lose much of its importance, Durazzo being a far more suitable starting point for a trans-Albanian commercial road or railway. The curious name of this little town is derived from the legend that forty Christians inhabiting it were massacred at some unspecified date by the Turks. The old town was not on the shore, but on a height dominating the port, and the ruins of two Venetian castles and other buildings are still visible. A third Venetian castle, with fine walls, is in the middle of the modern town. Throughout the latter period of the war Santi Quaranta was a busy place, when large troopships were constantly arriving and landing troops and stores, while torpedo boats and destroyers flitted about the bay, smaller boats plied to and from Corfu, and lorries dashed up and down the one long narrow street. At Corfu itself there were various military forces and more or less vague military missions. The French had a naval base and a military mission, the British a convalescent hospital and a mission, the Serbs a whole Government with the Skuptschina and the Diplomatic Corps, the Italians a military mission, a battalion of territorial militia and a squadron of cavalry. The atmosphere proved as fertile for inter-Allied intrigue as the soil was for olives, vegetables and fruit. After the abdication of Constantine and the entry of Greece into the ranks of the Allies, a new route to Macedonia was opened up--that via the Gulf of Patras and Itea. It was used only by the French and the British, but officers of other Allied armies travelled by it occasionally. The sea-passage from Taranto to Itea was much longer than that to Santi Quaranta (forty-eight hours instead of fifteen), but the part of it exposed to submarine attack was just the same, as the boats crossed from Taranto in one night to Corfu, lay off the island all day, sailed again at nightfall, along the channel between the mainland and the Ionian Islands, which was practically safe from attack, to the entrance of the Gulf of Patras, and thence up the Gulf to Itea on the northern shore. At Itea there was a small Franco-British base, whence a good road leads to Vralo on the Athens-Salonica railway.