in his passion for color. Though I
mention the Ionian group only, it must not be supposed that there were
no other islands. Those of us who like to turn over maps, to search out
routes though we may never follow them except on paper--innocent
stay-at-home geographers of this sort have supposed that it was a simple
matter to learn the names of the islands which one meets in any
well-known track across well-known seas. This is a mistake. From Corfu
to Patras, and, later, on the way to Egypt and Syria, and back through
the Strait of Messina to Genoa, I saw many islands--it seemed to me that
they could have been counted by hundreds--which are not indicated in the
ordinary guide-books, and whose names no one on the steamers appeared to
know, not even the captains. The captains, the pilots, and all the
officers were of course aware of the exact position in the sea of each
one; that was part of their business. But as to names, these mariners,
whether Englishmen, Germans, Italians, Turks, or Greeks (and we sailed
with all), appeared to share the common opinion that they had none;
their manner was that they deserved none. But I have never met a steamer
captain who felt anything but profound contempt for small islands; he
appears to regard them simply as interruptions--as some Ohio farmers of
my acquaintance regard the occasional single tree in their broad, level
fields.

Abreast of Paxo, on the mainland, is the small village of Parga. The
place has its own tragic history connected with its cession to the Turks
in 1815. But I am afraid that its principal association in my mind is
the frivolous one of a roaring chorus, "Robbers all at Parga!" This song
may be as much of a libel as that bold ballad concerning the beautiful
town at the eastern end of Lake Erie; the ladies of that place are not
in the habit of "coming out to-night, to dance by the light of the
moon," and in the same way there may never have been any robbers worth
speaking of at Parga. It is Hobhouse who tells the story. "In the
evening preparations were made for feeding our Albanians. After eating,
they began to dance round the fire to their own singing with an
astonishing energy. One of their songs begins, 'When we set out from
Parga, there were sixty of us.' Then comes the chorus: 'Robbers all at
Parga! Robbers all at Parga!' As they roared out this stave, they
whirled round the fire, dropped to and rebounded from their knees, and
again whirled round in a wild circ