Constructing Ionian identities: the Ionian Islands in British official ...

particular perspective towards a place and its inhabitants. 95 To some writers, present
day Ionians were contradictions of their Homeric forebears and the travellers’
observations provided complex and, at times, contradictory views. Ansted felt the
Ithacans were distinctly “better looking, better dressed… more active and
laborious… the men are busy … the women are also active and homely and clean …
in comparison to their neighbours.” 96 Yet Kirkwall felt “honest and respectable men
like the ancient hero Mitaides were not to be found in the islands” while Kendrick
believed the Ionian character and culture was “now altogether as bad as their worth
in ancient times was great”. 97 The middle and upper-class Ionians, as well as the
peasantry, were seen mainly as corrupt, immoral, and with degrading living
standards. They were portrayed as idlers, reckless and wild, half-civilised, and
simply unrespectable, thus unfit to govern themselves. Kendrick believed the Ionians
were “lazy” and not taking advantage of the Islands’ rich resources. He felt the
Cephalonian cotton production, if “more cultivated”, would prove “superior to [that
of] Indies”. 98 Lear considered the Corfiot villani “filthy, muffy, huzzly, bussly
creatures” who seem as “thick as the olives themselves”; they were “idiots”. 99
Although Ansted found the peasantry “hospitable” and “good natured” and was
95 Mills S., Discourses of Difference, pp. 14, 90; Pratt M. L., Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and
Transculturation (New York and London, 1992); Said E., Orientalism.
96 Ansted D. T., The Ionian Islands in the year 1863, pp. 253-255.
97 Kirkwall V, Four Years in the Ionian Islands: Their political and social condition, with a history of
the British Protectorate, 2 vols., (London, 1864), pp. 9, 235, 276; Kendrick T. C., The Ionian Islands,
pp. viii, 95, 113, 126, 130-32; Ansted D. T., The Ionian Islands in the year 1863, pp. 236-38, 248-49,
253-55; Goodison W., A historical and topographical essay upon the Islands of Corfu, Leucadia,
Cephalonia, Ithaca, and Zante, with remarks upon the character, manners and customs of the Ionian
Greeks, descriptions of the scenery ... and reflections upon the Cyclopean Ruins (London, 1822), pp.
22, 31, 193-94, 197-98; Maclellan F., Sketches of Corfu, p. 152.
98 Kendrick T.C., The Ionian Islands p. 104.
99 Sherrard P., Edward Lear: The Corfu Years, p. 31, 92, 124, 125.
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