The Corfiot peasantry are reputed the idlest of all the lonians. The olive receives little or no culture from them, and the vineries alone are laboured by the broad heart-shaped hoe. The vintage, which begins on the festival of Santa Croce, or the 26th of September (O.S.), is neither a pretty nor a lively scene, and little care is taken in the various operations. None of the Corfu wines are prized.
Cottagers cultivate no gardens for themselves ; they purchase their vegetables in the Corfu market, and a con siderable sum goes annually to buy in Apulia the garlic and onions so largely used by the people.
The capital (noticed below) 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.
Corfu contains very few and unimportant remains of antiquity. The site of the ancient city of Kerkyra is well ascertained, about 1 4 miles to the south-east of Corfu, upon the narrow piece of ground between the sea-lake of Calichiopulo and the Bay of Castrades, ill each of which it had a port. Under the hill of Ascension are the remains of atemple, popularly called of Neptune, a very simple Doric structure, which still in its mutilated state presents some peculiarities of architecture. Of Cassiope, the onlyothercity of ancientimportance, the name is still preserved by the village of Cassopo, and there are some rude remains of building on the site ; but the temple of Zeus Oassius for which it was celebrated has totally disappeared. Throughout the island there are numerous monasteries and other buildings of Venetian erection, of which the best known are Paleocastrizza, San Salvador, and Pelleka.
The ancient Corcyreans delighted to identify their island with the Homeric Scheria the kingdom of Alcinous and his Phaeacian subjects ; but the first authentic event in the history of Corcyra is its colonization in 734 B.C. by the Corinthians, and the expulsion of the previous Cretan and Liburnian settlers. So prosperous was the new community that in a short time it rivalled the mother country, and in 695 B.C., in a sea-fight which is remarkable as the first on record, destroyed the fleet which had been sent to compel its allegiance. Not long afterwards, however, it was forced to recognize Corinthian supremacy by the tyrant Periander, the son of Cypselus. At a subsequent period its dissensions with the parent state brought on the Peloponnesian war, during which it repelled several attempts of the Lacedaemonians. After various vicissitudes it fell into the hands of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, and on his death it was seized by the Illyrian pirates. Under the Romans, who obtained possession in 229 B.C., it became an important naval station, and so continued till the fall of the Eastern Empire. In 1081 Robert Guiseard, the Norman, captured Corfu, and in 1085 he died at Cassopo. It was again conquered by his nephew Roger of Sicily in 1146 ; tut it was recovered by Manuel Comnenus in 1152. In 1192 Richard I. of England landed at Corfu on his voyage from Palestine ; and the forces of the fifth crusade were welcomed to the island after the capture of Zara. The Genoese corsair, Leon Vetrano, who had made himself master of what was then regarded as a Venetian possession, was defeated and executed, and the Venetian senate in 1206 sent a colony of ten noble families to secure its occupancy. Through the rest of the 13th and most of the 14th century, Corfu and the other Ionian Islands were a prey by turns to corsairs, and to Greek and Neapolitan claimants ; and it was not till 1386 that the Corfiots voluntarily placed them selves under Venice, which in 1401, on the payment of 30, 000 ducats, had its right to the island recognized by Ladislas, king of Naples. Barbarossa ravaged Corfu in 1537, and Selim II. did much the same in 1570. In 1571 the great fleet which was about to become illustrious through the battle of Lepanto, was reviewed at Corfu by the generalissimo, Don John of Austria. The last and greatest struggle for the possession of the city and island was in 1716, when the forces of Achmet III. were defeated by the Venetians under Count_ Schulenburg, already famous for his crossing of the Oder and his share in the battle of Malplaquet. The peace of Campo Formio gave the Ionian Islands to the French, but in 1799 they were forced to capitulate to a Russo-Turkish fleet. By the treaty of Pans, 1815, the republic of the Ionian Islands was revived and placed under the protectorate of Great Britain, Corfu bein the chief island of the group. In 1864 that protectorate was res?gned m lavour of the kingdom of Greece, and Corfu now forms one of the nomarchies of that country, along with the neighbouring islands of Merlera, Fano, Ralmastraki, Paxo, Antipaxo, and Leukadia.
Literature.—???
Corfu, the capital of the above island, 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 gulley, with a salt-water ditch at the bottom. Seen from the water, or from a height, it is picturesque in massss, but in detail it is not to be praised for either beauty or comfort. Having grown up within fortifications, where every foot of ground was precious, there is nothing spacious about it except the handsome esplanade between the town and the citadel. Indeed, it is still, in spite of recent improvements, a perfect labyrinth of narrow, tortuous, up-and-down streets, accommodating themselves to the irregularities of the ground, few of them lit for wheel carriages. The palace, built by Sir Thomas Maitland, is a large structure of white Maltese stone, but the exterior has no architectural merits, although internally its apartments are very stately. 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 (rj Havayia 2 7777X1 omcro-a) ; St Spiri- dion 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 bishop; 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 Lord Guildford 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 fortifications of the town, being so extensive as to require a force of from 10,000 to 20,000 troops to man them, were in great part thrown down by the English, and a simpler plan adopted, limiting the defences to the island of Vido and the old citadel. Population about 25,000.
CORIANDER, the fruit, improperly called; seed, of an Umbelliferous plant (Coriandrum satimtm), a native of tho south of Europe and Asia Minor, but naturalized and cultivated in the south of England. The plant produces a stem rising about a foot in height, with bipinnate leaves and flowers in pink or whitish umbels. The fruit is globular and externally smooth, having five indistinct ridges, and the mericarps, or half-fruits, do not readily separate from each other. It is used in medicine as an aromatic and carminative, and on account of its pleasant and pungent flavour it is a favourite ingredient in hot curries and sauces. The fruit is also used in confectionery, and as a flavouring ingredient in various liqueicrs, The essential oil on which its aroma depends is obtained from it by distillation. The tender leaves and shoots of the young plant are used in soups and salads.
CORIGLIANO, a town of Italy, in the province of Calabria Citeriore and the district of Rossano, situated on a river of the same name, about four miles from the coast, on a steep hill, which is surmounted by an ancient castle and fringed at the foot by orange and lemon plantations. It is supplied with water by an extensive aqueduct, and carries on the manufacture of liquorice and a trade in timber. Population about 10,000.
collpctorate of Godavery and presidency of Madras, is situated in 82 19 E. long, and 16 49 N. lat., on the estuary of a branch of the Godavery River. The harbour is protected from the swell of the sea by the southward projection of Point Godavery, and affords a shelter to vessels during the south-west monsoon. Across its entrance is a bar, which shows a depth of about 15 feet at spring
tides. The repairing and building of small coasting ships