Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-12-11
HISTORY OF CORFU ISLAND,
The Turkish Forces Tried in Vain to
Overcome Its Rocky Forti-
ficatiOns.
The Rule of Venice Over the COrfioteS
Lasted Nearly Six Hundred
Years.
Facts in Regard to Corfu, Which Ante
date the Christian Era 700
Years.
prof. Rufus B. Richardson in New York indie
PENDENT

PENDENT
| If Corfu had no classical history, it
would still be historically interesting. 1t
has been spared that curse which rested so
long on the rest of Greece-Turkish occu-
patton. The Turks dashed their forces in
vain in two memorable sieges against its
rock forts. The high degree of culture
here, as compared with the rest of Greece
outside of Athens, is partly due to this eX-
emption. But there have been stlmulat-
ing influences from without. Rome. By
zantium, Naples, Venice and England
have held sway here. The rule of Venice,
to which the Corfotes gave themselves
voluntarily, as they had formerly done to
Rome, lasted nearly 600 years, with the
interruption of the Anjou episode. This
rule was mild and benefcent. 1t was the
| Venetians who built the Notifications
which kept off the Turks, and which still
form the characteristic feature III the
aspect of the city.
From Waterloo to 1864 England exer-
clsed a proteotorate over this and the six
other Ionian islands. The successive lord
| high commissioners, OF whom Gladstone
was one, and whose monuments profusely
deck the esplanade, represented here the
majesty Of England. The English built
the present fine system of roads-paid for,
of course, in Ionian money. A kindly
feeling prevails toward England that she
yielded to the strong desire of the inhab-
itants for union with the kingdom of
Greece. But the fact that the English on
their departure blew up the principal for
LITIGATION of the harbor on the island Vido
and carried away all the guns from the
other forts left a sting. The dismantled
fort was paid for in Ionian money, but the
exigencies of European politics demanded
the dismantling. Austria had as much to
say about that as England
But sweeping away the name of Corfu,
which arose in the Middle Ages, and trans
ferring ourselves back of all this foreign
occupation and centuries of semi-bar-
barism, let us introduce ourselves to the
Greek Kerkyra, of Thucydides. Passing
southwark, half-mie or so from the es-
planade of the present city, one comes
along an isthmus between two old harbors
to an elevated peninsula, on which now
stands the kings villa in a beautiful gar
den. Here one is overpowered by historic
associations. Here lay tie proud Greek
colony established by Corinth in 734 B. e.,
a colony that first set the example of fila
}ingratitude, and, feeling itself stronger
than the mother city, joined battle with
her and defeated her in the first great
naval battle of Greeks against Greeks in
665 B. c. From this rising ground tine
eye dimly discerns in the distance, mean
the mainland opposite the southern end Of
the island, the SybOta islands, where the
later great naval battle between mother
city and colony in the presence of an
Athenian fleet, gave the occasion for the
dreadful Peloponnesian war. From this
inner harbor, now abandoned and still,
nearly silted up and yearly submitting to
the encroachment Of vines upon It's 0ord-
ers, the proud feet of Alkibiades and
Nikias sailed for Syracuse. 1t was the
alliance with Kerkyra, the key to the voy-
age to Sicily, that lured the Athenians tC
that ruin.
Little of this kerkyra remains above
ground. Perhaps much may yet be found
below the ground. Within year or SC
excavations by Cararanos have laid bare d
great quantity of terra-cottas. Perhaps 1t
was terra-3otta mandatory that he dis
covered. The ruins of an old Doric temple
lie on the surface of the ground near a
spring In an olive grove on the side of the
peninsula looking toward the mainland.
| The situation, 100 feet above the strait,
among the olives and near the ancient
fountain, makes one feel that he could
have Joined in doing honor to the dryads
and naiads with the throng that used to
meet here One of the antiquarians of
Corfu has lately advanced the view that
these remains are those not of temple,
but of a bath. Blessed bathers!
1t was not bad taste for the king of
Greece to put his gardens on the spot of
the gardens of Alkinoos. If | were king
of Greece | would try to compound with
my subjects to take the business of ruling
off my hands and let me keep my Corfu
home. It is no wonder that Elizabeth,
| the empress OF Austria, seeks relief from
| her troubles in her villa on the other side
| of the inner harbOr.
| But long before the time of Thucydides
the natives of this island stoutly main
| tanned their descent from the oar-loving
Phaacians of Homer Their land was
! Siberia, the home Of Alkinoos. This belief,
in which they took so much pride, really
made them great as a naval power; and he
who would to-day take away the charm of
| Homeric tradition from this land, which
has been made by it into holy ground,
would work it greater injury than one
who should despoil it of its olive trees. Of
course, our enjoyment of Homer does not
| depend on localizing his story. And yet
the story of the Odyssey having been
| localized here from gray antiquity, one
| like, while here, to believer, to read the
Hdyssey as if there had been nobody to
bring up any objection to its geography,
or to reason about its geography at ALTO
read it, in short, with Corfote eyes and
Corfiote fancy.
| Does not the very ship which Poseidon
| turned into stone, because it conveyed
Ulysses home against his WILL still stand
at the mouth OF its old inner harbor? |
passed the bridge over the Potamo, where,
according to Gregorius, Ulysses was cast
ashore and tumbled out of the stream that
had received him to sink exhausted in his
| long sleep under the double tree. | can
almost 60 further here than | am asked to
60. Methinks that under yOnder tree,
which looks as if it might count almost
any number of centuries, the sturdy SWIM
mer fell asleep and awoke so sweetly. 1t
does not matter that another place near
the entrance of the old harbor has come to
honor in the mouths of the natives as the
spot of the meeting between Ulysses and
Nausikaa. Our mood adapts itself kindly
to either locality. Somewhere hereabouts
we will let the sweet story have local
habitation. Let fancy for the hour hold
SWAY. thus we are perchance brought
nearer to the clever voyager, the beautiful
maid. the garrulous old king guided by
his wife in the midst OF his sailor people.
All the fiction of Homer holds the mind
in more abiding thrall than the facts of
Thucydides.
The Philosophy of Eating.
.,ou-o,oo lIrI,oo. 70 a o,rao,, old