Goodisson, William: A historical and topographical essay upon the islands of Corfu, Leucadia, Cephalonia, Ithaka and Zante: with remarks upon the character manners and customs of the Ionian Greeks : descriptions of the scenery and remains of antiquity discovered therein, and reflections upon the Cyclopian ruins, illustrated by maps and sketches (London: Thomas and George Underwood, 1822)

83

of Catechori as above described. The grain and
herbage grow in the ridges, formed in the in-
terstices of the vertical strata, and the cultivation
is carried on by means of the spade or hoe, it
being impossible to use a plough.
This rocky island becomes more impoverished
every year, the soil being continually washed
away by the rains, and there are no vallies to
arrest it in its progress to the sea. The present
population amounts to above six hundred people.
A great quantity of goats and sheep are fed upon
the island. It produces much grain, particularly
barley ; flax too grows upon it in abundance, and
a great quantity of cheese is made here. The
water is brackish. About thirty years ago a great
quantity of fine coral was found upon the eastern
coast, and is probably yet to be procured. Seve-
ral Neapolitan feluccas were then employed in
this fishery, and by all accounts they appear to
have been very successful. During the time that
these islands were under the Venetian republic,
this place was the haunt of pirates and assas-
sins, most of them escaped or outlawed from
Albania. Homer gives these islanders, admitting
it to be the ancient Taphios, the same character;
as in the Odyssey, Taiptot X^tqopeq avfyeq; Mentes,
who was their king, says in another place Ta^totqiv
<l>iXnpt:T/Lioiqiv avaatsw. The two circumstances, of its
having so remarkably good harbours, and its being
infested until so very lately with pirates, might
G 2