income. A single man lives at the best hotel (Nazionale) for forty-five
francs per week. A country-house with nine bedrooms, cellarage,
stabling, dog-house, orangery, and large garden, is to be had for
25_l._ a year. Fowls cost less than a franc; turkeys, if you do not
buy them from a shipchandler, two francs and a half. The strong and
sherry-flavoured white wine of Zante rarely exceeds three shillings the
gallon, sixpence a bottle. And other necessaries in the same proportion.

But, oh that St. Dionysius, patron saint of Zante, would teach his
_proteges_ a little of that old Persian wisdom which abhorred a lie
and its concomitants, cheating and mean trickery! The _Esmeralda_,
after two days and one night at Zante, was charged 15_l._, for
pilotage, when the captain piloted himself; for church, where there is
no parson; and for harbour dues where there is no harbour. It is almost
incredible that so sharp-witted a race can also be so short-sighted; so
wise about pennies, so foolish about pounds.

On Saturday we left Zante in the teeth of a fresh but purely local
north-easter, which whistled through the gear and hurled the spray high
up Cape Skinari. The result was, as the poet sings--

That peculiar up-and-down motion
Which belongs to the treacherous ocean.

Not without regret I saw the last of the memorious old castle and of
Skopo the picturesque. We ran along the western shore of Cephalonia, the
isle of three hundred villages: anyone passing this coast at once
understands how Greece produced so many and such excellent seamen. The
island was a charming spectacle, with its two culminations, Maraviglia
(3,311 ft.) and Elato (5,246 ft.), both capped by purple cloud; its