Vector bundles on a nearly degenerate Riemann surface

We show that on a Riemann surface X close to a maximally degenerate complex curve, any semistable vector bundle of degree 0 is associated with a linear representation of the Schottky group ?? _X uniformizing X. Further, we study the relationship between the representation space of ?? _X and the moduli space of semistable bundles on X as a higher rank version of Abel?CJacobi??s theorem.