The Isles and Shrines of Greece (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ZANTE THE WORK OF THE EARTHSHAKER POOR Zante! When first I saw her, from the heights of Cephalonia, she was lying peacefully, like a brooch, on the quiet bosom of the sea. And then, as if seized by a fearful nightmare, she was rudely shaken from her sleep, and her scarred face plainly shows the suffering she endured. Zante, or Zakynthos, as it was anciently called, and as it has been renamed by the modern Greeks, is one of the most beautiful of the Ionian islands. It lies to the south of Cephalonia and to the west of the Peloponnesus, and, like the other Ionian islands, floats the Greek flag. It is old enough to be mentioned in the Odyssey, but, unlike Corfu or Ithaca, has not been the scene of epic description or adventure. With the exception of a constitutional tendency to earthquakes, Zante is a little island paradise, "the flower of the East." Its climate is exceptionally fine. In spring the multitude of flowers is something phenomenal, and even in winter roses and cyclamen bloom in abundance. It is a great garden for currants, oranges and lemons, and its olive groves are hale and venerable. Zante is seldom visited by Americans; but there are few who are not familiar with its products in theshape of currants and olive oil, which, until recently, have formed a large part of its trade, now sadly debilitated by causes as revolutionary as earthquakes. The island has a population of about forty-four thousand and an area of one hundred and sixty-nine square miles. Ordinarily, Zante is not a place for sightseers. The town by that name, with a population of about sixteen thousand souls, is quiet, well behaved, and not at all sensational. It has a fine old Greek church, a Roman Catholic church, and a ruined Venetian castle commanding the city from the high hill above....