oil, and this with little trouble or expense beyond the collecting and
pressing of the fallen fruit. The trees grow unrestrained, and some are
not less than three hundred years old. The vineyards are laboured by the
broad heart-shaped hoe. The vintage begins on the festival of Santa
Croce, or the 26th of September (O.S.). None of the Corfu wines is much
exported. The capital is the only city or town of much extent in the
island; but there are a number of villages, such as Benizze, Gasturi,
Ipso, Glypho, with populations varying from 300 to 1000. Near Gasturi
stands the Achilleion, the palace built for the Empress Elizabeth of
Austria, and purchased in 1907 by the German emperor, William II.

The town of Corfu stands on the broad part of a peninsula, whose
termination in the citadel is cut from it by an artificial fosse formed
in a natural gully, with a salt-water ditch at the bottom. Having grown
up within fortifications, where every foot of ground was precious, it is
mostly, in spite of recent improvements, a labyrinth of narrow,
tortuous, up-and-down streets, accommodating themselves to the
irregularities of the ground, few of them fit for wheel carriages. There
is, however, a handsome esplanade between the town and the citadel, and
a promenade by the seashore towards Castrades. The palace, built by Sir
Thomas Maitland (?1759-1824; lord high commissioner of the Ionian
Islands, 1815), is a large structure of white Maltese stone. In several
parts of the town may be found houses of the Venetian time, with some
traces of past splendour, but they are few, and are giving place to
structures in the modern and more convenient French style. Of the
thirty-seven Greek churches the most important are the cathedral,
dedicated to Our Lady of the Cave ([Greek: he Panagia Speliotissa]); St
Spiridion's, with the tomb of the patron saint of the island; and the
suburban church of St Jason and St Sosipater, reputed the oldest in the
island. The city is the seat of a Greek and a Roman Catholic archbishop;
and it possesses a gymnasium, a theatre, an agricultural and industrial
society, and a library and museum preserved in the buildings formerly
devoted to the university, which was founded by Frederick North, 5th
earl of Guilford (1766-1827, himself the first chancellor in 1824,) in
1823, but disestablished on the cessation of the English protectorate.
There are three suburbs of some importance--Castrades, Manduchio and San
Rocco. The old f