Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/263

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
Letters from New Zealand
231

with a light-house atop, a dangerous neighbour for that ship of Alexandria, in which the Apostle sailed, when caught in the tempestuous wind Euroclydon. Early in the morning we passed Cape Matapan, and mountains of Morea. Passing Zante, we caught a glimpse of the Gulf of Corinth, then coasted along the Island of Cephalonia, with its lofty mountain, Monte Nero, the Black Mountain, Homer's epithet for it, black in his day, as it is now, with pines, and its lower flanks dotted with currant vines grown espalier fashion. It reaches nearly six thousand feet in height. Then we entered the narrow channel between it and the Island of Ithaca, ten miles long, and little more than a mile in width. I was busy sketching a picturesque bay, where several Greek brigs were at anchor, when an American passenger came up, and said: "I'm told, sir, that you know all about these old Islands; is this the place where Ulysses used to hang out, and mustered his ships before he went to the war?" "Yes," I said, "it's Ulysses' Island, and tradition says that he used that harbour for his fleet." "Waal," he replied, "I don't think much of his location." "And that was," I said, "the opinion also of the poet Horace, who describes Ithaca as not fit for horses, with scarce any flat land, and scanty vegetation." Passing Santa Maura just before dark, we made a straight course for Brindisi.

Brindisi, in old Roman days, was the termination of the Via Appia, the highway from Rome; its harbour, as to-day, the point of departure for the East, much improved by the Italian Government, but practically what it was in Julius Cæsar's time. I had a few hours ashore, and saw the house in which, they say, Virgil died. Certainly he died in Brundusium,