DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4593#0088
THE IONIAN ISLES JI
shape of currants and olive oil, which, until recently,
have formed a large part of its trade, now sadly
debilitated by causes as revolutionary as earthquakes.
The island has a population of about forty-four thou-
sand and an area of one hundred and sixty-nine
square miles.
Ordinarily, Zante is not a place for sightseers.
The town by that name, with a population of about
sixteen thousand souls, is quiet, well behaved, and
not at all sensational. It has a fine old Greek
church, a Roman Catholic church, and a ruined
Venetian castle commanding the city from the high
hill above. The archaeologist generally goes else-
where in search of ruins; but in February, 1893, he
could find them there in sad abundance. He could
watch them, too, in process of making, with the
added interest which came from knowing that he was
in great danger thereby of becoming a ruin himself.
At Vido I had seen them made by gunpowder; I was
interested to see how they were made by earthquakes.
My curiosity was abundantly satisfied. A dead earth-
quake is bad enough, especially when it leaves pov-
erty and distress in its path, but a live one, when
you are in the second story of a hotel, is the most
surprising of earthly sensations.
It does not seem strange, when you think of the
globe as rushing through space faster than a cannon-
ball, that occasionally a section of its crust, warped
by volcanic fires or wrinkled by some great subsi-
dence, should crack and shiver. But, though we are
perfectly used to the motion of the earth as a whole,
there are few things more startling than the motion
of a large piece of its surface. It is doubly startling
shape of currants and olive oil, which, until recently,
have formed a large part of its trade, now sadly
debilitated by causes as revolutionary as earthquakes.
The island has a population of about forty-four thou-
sand and an area of one hundred and sixty-nine
square miles.
Ordinarily, Zante is not a place for sightseers.
The town by that name, with a population of about
sixteen thousand souls, is quiet, well behaved, and
not at all sensational. It has a fine old Greek
church, a Roman Catholic church, and a ruined
Venetian castle commanding the city from the high
hill above. The archaeologist generally goes else-
where in search of ruins; but in February, 1893, he
could find them there in sad abundance. He could
watch them, too, in process of making, with the
added interest which came from knowing that he was
in great danger thereby of becoming a ruin himself.
At Vido I had seen them made by gunpowder; I was
interested to see how they were made by earthquakes.
My curiosity was abundantly satisfied. A dead earth-
quake is bad enough, especially when it leaves pov-
erty and distress in its path, but a live one, when
you are in the second story of a hotel, is the most
surprising of earthly sensations.
It does not seem strange, when you think of the
globe as rushing through space faster than a cannon-
ball, that occasionally a section of its crust, warped
by volcanic fires or wrinkled by some great subsi-
dence, should crack and shiver. But, though we are
perfectly used to the motion of the earth as a whole,
there are few things more startling than the motion
of a large piece of its surface. It is doubly startling