2. Kidney Troubles. Infusion of plantain leaves (Plantago coronopus).
3. Earache. The brown silk with which the pinna shell fixes itself to the ocean bed, is said by sailors to be excellent in cases of earache. The ear is plugged with the silk.
4. Stings, Bites. Garlic or onion applied to the wound.
5. Scorpion Bite. A living scorpion dissolved in a bottle of olive oil, provides a remedy against the bites of other scorpions. Lotion applied externally.
6. Dysentery or Diarrhea. A small bottle of beet root juice (about 50 cc.) is corked and placed in the heart of an uncooked loaf of bread. The bread is baked and the bottle removed. The medicine is drunk in small quantities on successive days until symptoms cease.
7. Open Wounds. Infusion of cypress cones used to dress wounds.
8. Malaria. The efficacy of quinine is supposed to be increased if taken with a little urine from an unweaned baby.
9. Open Wounds. Cobwebs or cigarette tobacco used to stanch flow of blood.
10. Coughs, Colds. Infusion of mallow flower.
11. Indigestion. Infusion of mint leaves and flowersused for flatulence, indigestion and all minor stomach disorders; often mixed with infusion of orange blossom.
12. Piles. Water from boiled onions applied in the form of hot fomentations.
13. Seasickness. Suck a lemon.
14. The Evil Eye. Blue stone amulet, price 3 drachmae. Worn by all horses and most motorcars.
15. Werwolves. Garlic fixes both werwolves and witches.
16. Rats. An excellent rat poison is made by pounding the center of asphodel bulbs and mixing with a lit tle ordinary cheese.
17. Warts. Rub on juice of milk-wort
18. Skin Eruptions and Sores. Strong infusion of Sambucco nigra used for skin trouble. Applied as poultices.
19. Hollow teeth. Juice of cloves on cotton wool.
Many of these peasant remedies show medical knowledge. No. 18 is particularly effective in the case of autumn sores, which are prevalent in Corfu towards the end of the year.
Synoptic History of the Island of Corfu
BCE
734 Island colonized by Corinth. (Town probably at Analypsis, Canoni.)
434 First sea victory in Greek history over Corinth. Took place off Lefkimi.
432 Corinthians repelled once more.
413 Corfu helps Athens in second Sicilian invasion.
373 Corfu helped by Athens beats off the Spartans under Mnesippus, who is killed.
361 Civil wars.
303 Corfu sacked by Spartan Cleonymnus.
301 Corfu sacked by Agathocles, Tyrant of Sicily.
229 Corfu conquered by Demetrius the Pharian with his Illyrian freebooters.
229 Taken by the Romans without resistance. Remains a Roman colony until CE 337.
CE
445 Raided by Vandals.
562 Raided by Goths.
733 Corfu comes under Byzantine Empire of Leo the Isaurian.
933 Raiding Slav pirates repulsed. Forts built on the hill near the town from which the island is supposed to get its name.
1032 Corfu raided by Barbary pirates who are destroyed by the Byzantines.
1080 Corfu conquered by Robert Guiscard, King of Sicily.
1149 Retaken by Byzantines after long siege.
1185 Retaken by Sicilians.
1191 Retaken by Byzantines.
1199 Corfu raided and taken by Genoese under Vetrano.
1203 Retaken by Byzantines.
1205 Conquered by the Venetians, who are however driven out by Vetrano.
1206 Vetrano defeated by Venetians and hanged.
1214 Corfu seized by Michael Douca, Despot of Epirus, who builds Castle of St. Angelo at Paleocastrizza.
1259 Helen, daughter of Michael II, receives the island as a dowry on her marriage with Manfred of Sicily.
1266 Manfred killed in battle. Island seized by Philip Cinardo for himself.
1266 Cinardo murdered.
1267 Island passes to Charles D’Anjou, King of Sicily and Naples.
1286 Island raided by Villaraut.
1292 Island raided by Roger Doria.
1303 Island raided by Catalans under Roger de Flor.
1373 Island raided by Jacques de Baux.
1382–6 Island passes to Charles D’Anjou II, on whose death the Anjou dynasty ends. At this time the first Jews came to Corfu.
1386 Corfu asks Venetians to take over the island.
1403 Island raided by the Genoese.
1431 Turks under Ali Bey are repulsed.
1537 First great siege by the Turks; 25,000 land at Gouvia and ravage the island throughout August, failing however to take the town. Abandon island in September carrying off 20,000 hostages into slavery.
1571 Don Juan of Austria wins victory of Lepanto over Turks. 1,500 Corfiot sailors in the battle.
1577–9 Town walls built.
1716 Second great Turkish siege; 33,000 Turks land at Gouvia and Ypso. Repulsed before the town with great slaughter by John Schulemberg, an Austrian general in Venetian employ.
1797 Corfu with Ionian islands taken by French.
1799 French driven out by mixed Russo-Turkish force.
1807 Corfu returned to French by Treaty of Tilsit.
1814 Ionian islands taken over by British.
1864 Corfu ceded to Greece.
1923 Shelled and occupied by Italians for two months. Italian attack on Greece. Corfu used as target ground for Italian Air Force. Town almost completely destroyed.
1941 April. Entry of Germans into Athens.
1944 Battle between Germans and Italians for possession of island. Latest reports indicate starvation rife; town badly damaged; Jews deported; but Church of St. Spiridion still standing.
“During the worst part of the shelling, when the inhabitants were ordered to take refuge in the stoutly built Italian school, a very large number preferred to trust in the Saint, and his Church was crowded with worshippers, who today claim yet another miracle; for while the Italian school and other refuges like it were hit repeatedly and demolished, the Church of St. Spiridion was untouched and those in it emerged unscathed. Today it is still proudly standing (December 1945).”
Places to See
Canoni, Gastouri, Paleocastrizza, Pantocratoras, Benitza.
Things to Visit
Churches of St. Spiridion and St. Theodora (the Cathedral).
Monasteries of Myrtiotissa, Paleocastrizza, Pantocratoras.
Byzantine Church of St. Jason and Sosipater.
Library of Venetian MSS and rare first editions.
Mother of Gorgons—beautiful stone relief in Museum.
Two old forts.
For Surrealists
The Achilleion. A monstrous building surrounded by gimcrack sculptures and lovely gardens belonging to the late Kaiser.
The Theatre. Shadowing the final end of the Italian operatic sense.
For Hunters
Two brackish lakes, one in the north of the island and one in the south, called respectively Antiniotissa and Korissia.
Drinks to Try
Ouzo . Aniseed drink, taken with water. Resembling Arabic zibib and French pernod. Fairly strong intoxicant.
Raki . Distilled from raisins. Alcoholic.
Salepi . Tea made from bulbs. Excellent. Swamp orchis provides the bulbs.
Retsina . Resinated wine. Turpentine flavour. Very good with meals but not for solitary drinking or parties.
Mastika . Mastic liquor.
Dishes to Experiment With
Whitebait Fried with Lemon. Ask for “Marides” .
Pipe Fish Fried with Rice. Ask for “Vellanida” .
Cuttlefish with Sauce. Ask for “soupya” .
Octopus with Sauce. Ask for “Ochtapodi” .
Meat or Mince Cooked in Vine Leaves. Ask for “Dolmades” .
Ionian Meat Balls, highly spiced. Ask for “Kephtaydes” .
Macaroni Pie. Ask for “Pastischada” .
Red Mullet Grilled. Ask for “Barbouni” .
Fried Egg-plant. Ask for “Melitzanes” .
Spitted Meat. Delicious. Ask for “Souvlakhia” .
Ionian Welsh Rarebit. Ask for “Saganaki” .
Roasted Pinna Shells.
Sole. Ask for “Glosa” .
Crayfish is called Astacos .
Sweets to Try
Sesame Sweet. White flaky blocks made from sesame, honey, and crushed almonds. Ask for “Halva” .
Yaourti. A sort of junket of curdled milk sprinkled with cinnamon .
Waffles. Ball-shaped waffles of flour with honey. Ask for “Loukoumades” .
Zante Nougat. Sweetmeat called mandolato.
Pasteli. An ordinary nougat.
Other sweetmeats: Trigono, Kadaïfi, Baklava, Galactobouri.
Best Village Festivals
Gastouri; Kastellani; Analypsis; Pantocratoras; Kassopi.
Best Local Wines on the Market
Provata red and white; Lavranos red; Theotoki white wine.
Excellent private cellars can be breached at Aphra, Lakones, and Ypso.
Lear’s Corfu
An Anthology Drawn from
the Painter’s Letters
CORFU OCCUPIED A very special place in the affections of Edward Lear—an affection which he celebrated by making it the subject of some of his best work. While he traveled widely and loved the Mediterranean in general it was Greece which most influenced him with her extraordinary landscapes and munificent people; it was in Corfu, too, that he resided for several long spells (during the winters of 1856, ’57, ’58, ’62 and ’63), and where he acquired his devoted Suliot servant Giorgio Kokali who stayed with him until his death in San Remo in 1888.
Lear took Greek seriously and studied “the Romaic tongue” with industry; for years after he left Greece he was still peppering his letters with passages in modern Greek. Sometime in 1941 I penciled in a few passages from his letters of the Corfu period to serve as an appendix to Prospero’s Cell, which I had illustrated by some of his drawings of the island. Unhappily this period was not propitious to long books—the paper shortage had afflicted all book production—and in order to lighten the burden I put aside the little Lear anthology and left the appendix to my book as it is. I am delighted, however, that the original idea has come to life again and that my little scraps of Lear should now find an even more appropriate place in a book of his Corfu drawings.* I hope they will form a contrast—gay, whimsical and nostalgic—to the grave and serene drawings by this master of nonsense verse.
I am also extremely lucky to be able to confide the editorial side of this little venture to the tender care of Miss Marie Aspioti, M.B.E. She is, I think, the first Greek friend I made, and as a girl in her twenties she wrote and published a book about Corfu in French which was the first study of the island to fall into my hands. It was full of good insights into the past and present of the island, and I learned much from it. Indeed her knowledge is as comprehensive as her scholarship is scrupulous and unobtrusive. Lear is in the safe hands of an old admirer.
—Lawrence Durrell
The Letters
1
2.19.1856
I shall send you this, though it will not be a long letter, rather than not write at all, for the days are so full of occupation that I vainly try for leisure. Up at 6, Greek master from 6¾ to 7¾. Breakfast etc., to 9, then work till 4, or sketching out of doors, and either dining out of doors, or at home with writing and drawing fill up my hours. First, I wish you a happy new Year, & continually if I didn’t do so before. At all events I wish you a lot of happy Leap-years.
I still think of making Corfu my head-quarters, & of painting a large picture here of the Ascension festa in June, for 1857 Exhibition, & of going over to Yannina and all sorts of Albanian abstractions.
Do you know there has been literally no winter here; they say it is 27 years since there was so little cold, & still some think we shall have a touch of rigour in March—in fact, I have scarcely any Asthma, & no symptom of Bronchitis at all. When I get a house, you must come out and have a run, & I’ll put you up: I’ll feed you with Olives & wild pig, and we’ll start off to Mount Athos.
2
10.9.1856
I trust to paint a magnificent large view of Corfu, straits, and Albanian hills. This I trust to sell for 500£ as it will be my best, and is 9 feet long. If can’t sell it I shall instantly begin a picture 10 feet long: and if that don’t sell, one 12 feet long. Nothing like persisting in virtue. O dear! I wish I was up there, in the village I mean, now, on this beautiful bright day!
3
1.11.1857
It is Mr. Kokali’s opinion & compliment that the painting I am now doing of Corfu will prevent all other Englishmen coming here, for says he —where’s the good of people paying for coming so far if they can see the very same at home? Giorgio is a valuable servant, capital cook, & endlessly obliging and handy, not quite as clean as I should like always, but improving by kindness. I teach the critter to read & write, & he makes long strides!
The palace folk continue to be very kind to me, & I like them better. Sir John Y. is evidently a kind good man, & I fancy more able than he was thought to be. The truth being that it is no easy matter to act suddenly, where as here, language & people are unbeknown & all power is in the hands of the secretary. Lady Y. lives too much for amusement, but she certainly improves & I believe I should end by liking her very much if saw more of her. I must close this as the Cyclopses used to say of their one eye. I wish I had written more or better but I can’t. My ‘ed is all gone wool-gathering.
4
12.6.1857
Just figure to yourself the conditions of a place where you never have any breadth or extent of intellectual society, & yet cannot have any peace or quiet—Suppose yourself living in Picadilly, we will say, taking a place with a long surface, from Coventry St. to Knightsbridge say. And suppose that line your constant & only egress & ingress from the country, and that by little & little you come to know all & every of the persons in all the houses, & meet them always & everywhere, & were thought a brute & queer if you didn’t know everybody more or less! Wouldn’t you wish every one of them, except a few, at the bottom of the sea? Then you live in a house, one of the best it is true, where you hear everything from top to bottom—a piano on each side, above and below, maddens you—and you can neither study nor think, nor even swear properly by reason of the proximity of the neighbours. I assure you a more rotten, dead or stupid place than this existeth not.
All this you would understand as coming from me, but others would speak differently of the place. Lady Young for instance calls it Paradise. No drawbacks annoy her at home, and between horses, & carriages, & yachts, she is away from it as she pleases. The Reids do not dislike Corfu as they would, had they not a nice family, and themselves to care about. The Cortazzi are gone, almost all the military offices are full of new people. My drawing companion Edward is gone, & I miss him terribly. I vow I never felt more shockingly alone than the two or three evenings I have staid in.
Yet all this must be conquered if fighting can do it. Yet at all times, I have thought of, I hardly know what. The constant walking and noise overhead prevents my application to any sort of work, & it is only from 6 to 8 in the morning that I can attend really to anything: Then . I am beginning bits of Plutarch and of Lucian dialogues. And then, if I can’t sleep, my whole system seems to turn into pins, cayenne-pepper, & vinegar & I suffer hideously. You see I have no means of carrying off my irritation: others have horses, or boats, in short—I have only walking, and that is beginning to be impossible alone. I could not go to church today. I felt I should make faces at everybody, so I read some Greek of St. John, wishing for you to read it with—some of Robinsons Palestine, some Jane Eyre, some Burton’s Mecca, some Friends in Council, some Shakespeare, some Vingt Ans après, some Leakes Topography, some Gardiner Wilkinson, some Grote, some Ruskin—& all in half an hour O! doesn’t “he take it out o
f me” in a raging worry? Just this moment I think I must have a piano: that may do me good. But then I remember Miss Hendon over my head has one, & plays jocular jigs continually. Then what the devil can I do? Buy a baboon & a parrot & let them rush about the room?
There is one thing here which cannot be grumbled at—at present at least. The weather, it has been simply cloudless glory, for 7 long days & nights. Anything like the splendour of olive-grove & orange-garden, the blue of sky & ivory of church & chapel, the violet of mountain, rising from peacock-wing-hued sea, & tipped with lines of silver snow, can hardly be imagined. I wish to goodness gracious grasshoppers you were here.
5
12.27.1857
The weather has been utterly wonderful, this the 28th day since I came, being the first with a single cloud in it! Nor has there been the least wind, or temporal annoyance of any kind, but always a lovely blue & golden sphere about all earth sky & sea. How different from the 2 preceding years this! And the olives are one bending mass of fruit. I have however walked but little. I grow weary of the 3 dull miles out & 3 back in order to reach any scenery.
6
1.3.1858
O mi i! how cold it is! The weather hasn’t changed after all, & I believe don’t mean to. It’s as bright and cold & icicular as possible, and elicits the ordibble murmurs of the cantankerous Corcyreans. As for the English they like the cold generally, I don’t:—Not-withstanding which, I must own to being in absolously better health than for I don’t know how long past. Yesterday I went up a mounting & made a sketch, . A majestic abundance of tympanum-torturing turkeys are now met with on all the roads, coming in to Corfu to be eaten. These birds are of a highly irascible disposition, and I never knew before 2 days ago, that they objected to being whistled to. But Col. Campbell informed me of the fact, and proved it to me, since when it is one of my peculiar happiness to whistle to all the Turkeys I meet or see, they get into such a damnable rage I can hardly stand for laughing.
7
1.10.1858