We had made some progress, and stood, as it were, suspended over the valley, when Antoine's quick ear caught sounds from below. We halted to take breath and listen. Presently, the sounds became more distinct, and we made out the tramp of mules coming up the path, but still far beneath. It was probably Giovanni with his mules, following our steps. Again we stood and listened, looking over the precipice at an angle which commanded the descent for many hundred feet beneath. The thicket shrouding the narrow track was so dense, that nothing could be seen, even in that bright moonlight, but its glistening slope. The sounds from below rose more dearly. Thwack, thwack, fell Giovanni's cudgel on the ribs of his unfortunate mules; and we could hear them scrambling, and his hoarse voice uttering strange cries, as he urged them on.

We were too much amused at having given him the slip to think much of the great tribulation in which he was panting and toiling to overtake us. Vain hope! He will be in time for supper; let us push on;beginning to think that the sooner we realised the comforts which Antoine had encouraged us to expect, the better.

Are we near the top of the pass?

Do you see that rock with the bush hanging from it? pointing to a huge, insulated mass, its sharp outline clearly defined against the blue sky; it is a thousand feet above the spot on which we stand. The path lies round the base of that rock. In an hour we shall reach it.

We climbed on, the ascent becoming steeper and steeper as we mounted upwards, often casting wistful looks at the beacon rock. Just before we gained the summit, smoke was seen curling up from the copse at a little distance from the path.

Ci sono pastori, cried Antoine.

Perhaps they can give us some milk. We had need enough of some refreshment, the breakfast at Bastia having been our only meal.

Vedéremmo, said Antoine; and he led the way through the bushes.

Some rough dogs leapt out, fiercely barking at the approach of strangers. They were called off by the shepherds, who, wrapped in their shaggy mantles, the Corsican pelone, were sitting and lying round a fire of blazing logs, under the shelter of a rock. A mixed flock of sheep and goats lay closely packed round the bivouac. Unfortunately they had no milk to give us.

The Corsican shepherds are a singular race. We found them leading a nomad life in all parts of the island. They wander, as the season permits, from the highest mountain-ranges to the verge of the cultivated lands and vineyards, where the goats do infinite mischief; and drive their flocks in the winter to the vast plains of the littoral, and the warm and sheltered valleys. Home they have none; the side of a rock, a cave, a hut of loose stones, lends them temporary shelter. Chestnuts are their principal food; and their clothing, sheepskins, or the black wool of their flocks spun and woven by the women of the valleys into the coarse cloth of the pelone. Their greatest luxuries are the immense fires, for which the materials are boundless, or to bask in the sun, and tell national tales, and sing their simple canzone. But though a rude, they are not a bad, race; contented, hospitable, tolerably honest, and, as we found, often intelligent. We were not fortunate in our first introduction to these people. Antoine exchanged a few words with them; but they were sullen, and showed no signs of surprise or curiosity on the sudden appearance of strangers at their fireside. The sample was far from prepossessing. One of the men, who seemed to eye us with suspicion, had just the physiognomy one should assign to a bandit.

It was perhaps this idea which led me to question Antoine on a subject we had hitherto avoided.

Are there any outlaws harboured in these wild mountains?

Not now; they have been hunted out; all that is changed; but blood has been often spilt in this maquis. One terrible vendetta was taken not far from hence; but that was many years ago. I will show you the spot.

Antoine strode rapidly onward; and we overtook the women, who had rode on. In ten minutes we were rounding the mass of rock crowning the pass.

This was the spot, said Antoine, taking a step towards me, the rest of the party having passed; and he added calmly, but with decision, and a slightly triumphant air, I did it myself. (J'ai donné le coup moi-même.)

It may be well supposed that I stood aghast. We had not then learnt with what little reserve such deeds of blood are avowed in Corsica; how thoroughly they are extenuated by the popular code of morals or honour. Such avowals were afterwards made to us with far less feeling than Antoine betrayed; indeed, with the utmost levity. Je lui ai donné un coup, mentioning the individual and giving the details, was the climax of a story of some sudden quarrel or long-harboured animosity. It was uttered with the sang froid with which an Englishman would say, I knocked the fellow down; and it might have been our impression that nothing more was meant, but for the circumstances related, which left no doubt on the subject. When a Corsican says that he has given his enemy a coup, the phrase is a decorous ellipse for coup-de-fusil. Occasionally, perhaps, it may mean a coup-de-poignard, which amounts to much the same thing; but since carrying the knife has been rigorously prohibited by the French Government, stabbing has not been much in vogue in Corsica. Now, it is to be hoped, the murderous fusil has equally disappeared.

There was no time for asking what led to the quarrel or encounter. Antoine coolly turned away, saying, The descent is easy; we shall have a good road now down the hill to Olmeta; and, most opportunely, the view which opened from the summit of the pass was calculated to divert my thoughts from what had just occurred.

It has been often remarked, that the Corsican villages are most commonly built on high ground. We now counted, by their cheerful lights, nine or ten of them dotting the hills in all directions; some perched on the heights beyond the Bevinco, which wound through the valley beneath, the moonlight flashing on patches of the stream and faintly revealing a dark chain of mountains beyondthe Serra di Stella, dividing the valley of the Bevinco from that of the Golo.

The descent was easy, according to Antoine's augury. We tear down the hill, pass the village church at a sharp angle, its white façade glistening in the moonbeams; and a straight avenue, shaded by trees, brings us into a labyrinth of narrow lanes, overhung by tall, gaunt houses of the roughest fabric and materials. Antoine bids us stop before one of these gloomy abodes; an old woman appears at the door of the first story with a feeble oil-lamp in her hand. The ground-floor of these houses, as usual in the South, are all stables or cellars. After a short conference, Antoine disappears, and we see him no more that night. We mount a flight of steep, unhewn stone steps, at the risk of breaking our necks, for there is no rail; the good dame welcomes us to all that she has, little though it be, and we land in a grim apartment containing the usual raised hearth for cooking, with a very limited apparatus of utensilsa few shallow kettles of copper and iron, a table, some chairs, and a very questionable bed in a corner.

There were two other apartments, en suite, the next being a salle, with a brick floor like the kitchen, tolerably clean. A few Scripture prints on the walls, a large table, some rickety chairs, and a settee, convertible, we found, into a very satisfactory shakedown, composed the furniture. The inner apartment, which contained a really good bed, seemed to be the widow's wardrobe and storeroom of all her most valuable effects; being crowded with chests, and tables covered with all sorts of things, helped out by pegs on the walls. These were ornamented with little coloured prints of the Virgin, and Saints, and there was a crucifix at the bed's head. After showing her apartments, the widow placed the lamp on the table in the salle, with the usual felice notte, and there was a running fire of questions and answers between her and the two hungry travellers about the qualche cosa per mangiare. The larder was of course empty, and the discussion resolved itself into some rashers of bacon, a loaf of very sweet bread, and a bottle of the light and excellent wine for which Capo Corso is famous, procured from a neighbour.

This was not accomplished without a great deal of bustle and screeching, and running to and fro of the widow and some female friends, withered old crones, who had come to her aid on so unexpected an emergency as our appearance on the scene. This continued after supper till the chests in the inner apartment had delivered up their stores of sheets, coverlets, and towels, all as white as the driven snow. How we ate, drank, and lodged during our rambles is not the most agreeable of our recollections, and can have little interest except as affording glimpses of the habits of the people. This first essay of Corsican hospitality was not amiss.

Just as we had finished our frugal meal, Giovanni made his appearance. Wishing to give him his congé, we expected a sharp altercation; to avoid which, and not forfeit our engagement that he should conduct us to Corte, it was proposed to him to leave the malcontent mule till his return, procuring at Olmeta a more serviceable beast, or to proceed with the others only. Giovanni was crestfallen; he had had enough of it, and did not bluster, as we expected. Though disliking him, we had amused ourselves at his expence, and could hardly now refrain from laughing at his piteous aspect. Giovanni, however, was quite as ready to be quit of us as we were to get rid of him. His reply to our proposal about the mule was quite touching:

Je ne veux pas me séparer de mon pauvre âne!

So the inseparables were dismissed to return to Bastia, after an equitable adjustment, and we parted good friends. Giovanni was no favourite of ours, but that touch of sentiment for his pauvre âne was a redeeming trait. As for ourselves, we were left without a guide, which did not matter, and without the means of carrying forward our baggage, which did. This dilemma did not spoil our rest; it was such as weary travellers earn.



CHAP. VIII.

The Littorale.Corsican Agriculture.Greek and Roman Colonies.Sketch of Mediæval and Modern History.Memoirs of King Theodore de Neuhoff.

Let us now return for a short space to the point at which we quitted the high-road from Bastia. More attractive metal drew us off to the mountain-paths; but the Littorale is not without interest, especially as the seat of the earliest and most thriving colonies in the island. These and its subsequent fortunes claim a passing notice.

It may be recollected that our road lay for some miles through the plain between the mountains and the Mediterranean. This level is between fifty and sixty miles long. Intersected by the rivers flowing from the central chain, alluvial marshes are formed at their mouths, and there are also, from similar causes, several lagoons on the coast, of which the Stagna di Biguglia, near which we turned off into the maquis, is the largest. The exhalations from these marshes and waters render the climate so pestiferous, that the littorale is almost uninhabited. The soil is extremely fertile, producing large crops where it is cultivated, and affording pasturage to immense herds of cattle, sheep, and goats. The country people inhabit villages on the neighbouring hills, descending into the plains at the seasons when their labour is required for tilling and sowing the land, and harvesting the crops; and but too frequently carrying back the seeds of wasting or fatal diseases.

Even under the double disadvantages of exposure to malaria, and the natural indolence of the Corsican peasant, this district supplies a very large proportion of the corn consumed in the island. So great is this indolence, that not more than three-tenths of the surface of Corsica is brought under cultivation, although it is calculated that double that area is capable of it. I was unable to ascertain the number of acres under tillage, planted with vines and olive-trees, or otherwise requiring agricultural labour; but it might have been supposed that a population of 230,000 souls would at least have met the demand for labour on the portion of the surface thus occupied. So far, however, from this being the case, it is a curious fact that from 2000 to 3000 labourers come into the island every year from Lucca, Modena, and Parma, to engage in agricultural employment. They generally arrive about the middle of April, and take their departure in November. They are an intelligent, laborious, and frugal class; and as the savings of each individual are calculated at 100 or 110 francs, no less a sum than 200,000 francs is thus annually carried to the Continent instead of being earned by native industry. The climate of Corsica is described by many ancient writers as insalubrious; but there does not seem to be any foundation for the statement, except as regards the littorale, the only part of the island which appears to have been colonised in early times, and with which they were acquainted.

Who were its primitive inhabitants and first colonists, whether Corsus, the supposed leader of a band of immigrants, who gave his name to the island, was a son of Hercules or a Trojan, are facts lost in the mist of ages, through which the origin of few races can be penetrated. An inquiry into such traditions would be a waste of time, and is foreign to a work of this kind.

There is reason to believe that the light of civilisation first beamed on its shores from Sardiniaan island which some brief records, and, still more, its existing monuments, lead us to consider as civilised long before the period of authentic history.

The island of Sardinia, placed in the great highway from the East, was a convenient station for the people who, in the first ages, were driven thence by a providential impulse towards the shores of the West, and, with the torch of civilisation in their hands, passed successively by Asia Minor and the islands of Crete, Sicily, and Sardinia to Greece, to Italy, and the other countries of the West.

A smaller branch of the torrent of this great and primitive emigration poured from the mountain ranges in the north of Sardinia, and, crossing the straits, overspread the south of Corsica, bearing with it the civilisation of the East, of which records are found in the most ancient Corsican monuments. Some of these are identical with those in Sardinia, which will be mentioned hereafter. Such are the Dolmen, called in Corsica Stazzone; and the Menhir, to which they give the fanciful name of Stantare. When a child at play stands on its head with its heels self-balanced in the air, making itself a pyramid instead of cutting a pirouette, that is, in the language of mothers and nurses, far la Stantare.

However this may be, there are numerous testimonies that the island of Corsica was known and visited in the most remote times by navigators of the several races on the shores of the MediterraneanPhnicians, Pelasgians, Tyrrhenians, Ligurians, and Iberians. Herodotus, who calls the island Cyrnos, describes an attempt at colonisation by Phocæans, driven from Ionia, who founded the city of Alalia, afterwards called Aleria, 448 years before the Christian era. But the genuine history of Corsica commences with the period when the Roman republic, on the decay of the Carthaginian power, began to extend its conquests in the Mediterranean.

In the year 260 B.C., Lucius Cornelius Scipio led an expedition into the island, which was crowned with success. Every traveller who has visited Rome must have been interested in one of the few relics of the republican era, remarkable for its primitive simplicitythe tomb of the Scipios. It chanced that the writer, when there, procured a model of the sarcophagus which contained the ashes of this first of a race of heroes, L. C. Scipio. The monuments of Rome were not of marble in the times of the republic, and this sarcophagus being cut out of a block of the volcanic peperino, so common in the Campagna, the author had his model made of the same material, with the inscription cut in rude characters round the margin; that is to say, such part of it as had been preserved, so that it is a perfect fac-simile. He reads on it

HEC CEPIT CORSICA ALERIAQUE URBE.

That fragment contains the earliest record of Roman conquest in Corsica. But the conquest was incomplete, and for upwards of a century the Corsicans maintained an unequal struggle against the Roman legions, strong in their mountain fastnesses, while the Roman armies appear to have seldom advanced beyond the plains. The natives held their ground with such obstinacy that, on one occasion, after a bloody battle, a consular army, under Caius Papirius, was so nearly defeated, when rashly entangled in the gorges of the mountains, that the Corsicans obtained honourable terms of peace. The Roman historians relate that this battle was fought on The Field of Myrtles, a name appropriate to a Corsican macchia; and they do not otherwise describe the locality.[4] It is easy to imagine the scenes and the issue of a deadly struggle between the mountaineers and the disciplined legions, on ground such as that described in the preceding chapter.

In these wars great numbers of the natives were carried off as slaves to Rome, and the annual tribute paid on submission consisted of wax, which was raised to 200,000 lbs. after one defeat.

A two hours' walk over the plains from the point at which we quitted the high-road would bring us to the ruins of Mariana, a colony founded by Marius on the banks of the Golo, and to which he gave his name. Not a vestige of Roman architecture can now be found on the spot.

During the civil wars, the rivals, Marius and Sylla, established each a colony in Corsica. That of Sylla (Aleria) stood forty miles further down the coast, at the mouth of the Tavignano, the seat of the ancient Greek colony of Alalia. Sylla restored it, sending over some of his veteran soldiers, among whom he distributed the conquered lands, and it became the capital of the island during the Roman period, and so continued during the earlier part of the middle ages. Sacked and laid in ruins by the Arabs, some iron rings on the Stagna di Diana, the ancient port, large blocks of stone on the site of a mole at the mouth of the Tavignano, some arches, a few steps of a circus, with coins and cameos occasionally turned up, are the sole vestiges of the Roman colonisation in Corsica. Their only road led from Mariana by Aleria to Palæ, a station near the modern Bonifaccio, from whence there was a trajectus to Portus Tibulus (Longo Sardo), in Sardinia; and the road was continued through that island to its southern extremity, near Cagliari.

In the decline of the Roman power, Corsica shared the fate of the other territories in the Mediterranean attached to the eastern empire. Seized by the Vandals under Genseric, despotically governed by the Byzantine emperors, pillaged by Saracen corsairs, protected by Charlemagne, and, on the fall of his empire, parcelled out, like the rest of Europe, among a host of feudal barons, mostly of foreign extractionwho, from their rock-girt towers, waged perpetual hostilities with each other, and tyrannised over the enthralled nativesclaimed by the Popes in virtue of Pepin's donation, and granted by them to the Pisans,after a long struggle between the two rival republics contending for the supremacy of the Mediterranean, the island at last fell under the dominion of the Genoese.

This dominion the republic of Genoa exercised for more than four centuries (from the thirteenth to the eighteenth) in an almost uninterrupted course of gross misrule. Instead of endeavouring to amalgamate the islanders with her own citizens, she treated them as a degraded cast, worthy only of slavery. A governor, frequently chosen by the republic from amongst men of desperate circumstances, had the absolute sovereignty of the island: by his mere sentence, on secret information, without trial, a person might be condemned to death or to the galleys. The venality of the Genoese tribunals was so notorious, that the murderer felt sure to escape if he could pay the judge for his liberation.[5]

The Corsicans were not a race which would tamely submit to this tyranny, and their annals during this long period exhibit a series of bloody struggles against the Genoese republic, and devoted efforts to maintain their rights and recover their independence. In these contests the signori either allied themselves with the Genoese, or took part with their countrymen, as their interest inclined; while a succession of patriot leaders, such as few countries of greater pretensions can boastSambucchio, Sampiero, the Gaffori, the Paoliall sprung from the ranks of the people; the bravest in the field and the wisest in council, carried aloft the banner of Corsican libertà.

The hostilities were not confined to the parties immediately interested in the quarrel. Foreign aid was invoked on the one side and on the other, and for a long period the little island of Corsica became the battle-field of the great European powers; Spaniards, Austrians, French, and English, at one time or the other, and especially in the decay of the Genoese republic, throwing their forces into the scale, and occupying portions of the island, but with no definitive result, until its final absorption in the dominion of its present masters.

Little interest would now attach to the details of a struggle confined to so insignificant a territory, and having so little influence on European politics; and it would be alike foreign to the province of a traveller, and wearisome to the reader, that the subject should be pursued, except incidentally, where events or persons connected with the localities he visits call forth some passing remarks. An exception may perhaps be allowed in the course of this narrative for some account of the English intervention in Corsican affairs. It is little known that our George III. was once the constitutional king of Corsica. Nelson, too, performed there one of his most dashing exploits.

Just now we have been talking of Aleria, a place identified with a curious and somewhat romantic episode in Corsican history. Corsica cradled and sent forth a soldier of fortune, to become in his aspirations, and almost in effect, the Cæsar of the western empire. Corsica received into her bosom a German adventurer, who, for a brief space, played on this narrow stage the part of her crowned king. That there is but a short interval between the sublime and the ridiculous, was exemplified in the career of these upstart monarchs. Both sought an asylum in England. The one pined in an island-prison, the other in a London gaol.

THEODORE DE NEUHOFF, KING OF CORSICA.[6]

On the 25th March, 1736, a small merchant-ship, carrying the English ensign, anchored off Aleria. There landed from it a personage of noble appearance, with a suite of sixteen persons, who was received with the deference due to a monarch. He superintended the disembarkation of cannon and military stores, and gratuitously distributed powder, muskets, and other accoutrements, to the Corsicans who crowded to the shore.

The imagination exercises a powerful sway over the people of the South. The mystery which surrounded this personage, his dignified and polished manners, the important succour he brought, and even the fantastical and semi-Oriental cast of his dress, all contributed to produce a great influence on ardent minds naturally inclined to the marvellous. This was Theodore de Neuhoff.

Theodore Antoine, Baron de Neuhoff, a native of Westphalia, had been in his youth page to the Duchess of Orleans, and afterwards served in Spain. Returning to France, he attached himself to the speculations of Law, and partook the vicissitudes of splendour and misery which were the fortunes of his patron. When that bubble burst, our adventurer wandered through Europe, seeking his fortune with a perseverance, combined with incontestable talent, which, sooner or later, must seize some opportunity of accomplishing his schemes.

At Genoa he fell in with Giaffori and some other Corsican patriots, then exiled; and representing himself to be possessed of immense resources, and even to have it in his power to secure the support of powerful courts, offered to drive the Genoese out of the island, on condition of his being recognised as King of Corsica. The patriot chiefs, seduced by these magnificent promises, and, perhaps, too apt to seek for foreign aid wherever it could be found, accepted Theodore's offers.

Not to follow him through all the course of his romantic adventures, it appears that he found means of creditperhaps from the Jews, with whom he was already deeply involvedfor a considerable sum of ready money, and the arms, ammunition, and stores necessary for his expedition. Landing in Corsica, in the manner already described, the Corsican chiefs, although they had concerted his descent on the island, had the address to cherish the popular idea that Theodore's arrival was a mark of the interest taken by Heaven in the liberty of the Corsicans.

In a popular assembly held at the Convent of Alesani, a Constitution was resolved on, by which the kingdom of Corsica was settled hereditarily in the family of the Baron de Neuhoff; taxation was reserved to the Diet, and it was provided that all offices should be filled by natives of the island. The baron, having sworn on the Gospels to adhere to the Constitution, was crowned with a chaplet of laurel and oak in the presence of immense crowds, who flocked to the ceremony from all quarters, amid shouts of Evviva Teodoro, re di Corsica!

Theodore took possession of the deserted episcopal residence at Cervione, where he assumed every mark of royal dignity. He had his court, his guards, and his officers of state; levied troops, coined money, instituted an order of knighthood, and created nobility, among whom such names as Marchese Giaffori and Marchese Paoli (Pasquale's father) singularly figure. His manifesto, in answer to Genoese proclamations denouncing his pretensions and painting him as a charlatan, affected as great a sensitiveness of insult as could exist in the mind of a Capet. For some time all things went well; Theodore became master of nearly the whole island except the Genoese fortresses, which he blockaded. These were, in fact, the keys of the island. But the succours which he had boasted of receiving did not arrive, and, after employing various artifices to keep alive the expectations of foreign aid and fresh supplies of the muniments of war, finding, when he had held the reins of power about eight months, that his new subjects began to cool in their attachment to his person, and did not act with the same ardour as before, he determined to go over to the Continent, with the hope of obtaining the means of carrying on the war, and thus reinstating himself in the confidence of the Corsicans.

Appointing a regency to conduct the affairs of his kingdom during his absence, he went to Holland, and, though even his royal credit was probably at a discount, after long delay, he succeeded in negotiating a considerable loan, at what rate of interest or on what security we are not told. However, a ship was freighted with cannon and other warlike stores, on board of which he returned to Corsica two years after he had quitted the island. But it was too late; the French were then in possession of the principal places, the patriot leaders were negotiating with them, and the people had lost all confidence in their mock-king. Theodore found, to use a colloquial expression, that the game was up, and wisely retracing his steps, found his way to England, the last refuge of abdicated monarchs.

Fortune still frowned on him. Pursued by his relentless creditors, the ex-king was thrown into the King's Bench prison. His distresses attracted the commiseration of Horace Walpole, who, as Boswell informs us, wrote a paper in the World, with great elegance and humour, soliciting a contribution for the monarch in distress, to be paid to Mr. Robert Dodsley, bookseller, as lord high treasurer. This brought in a very handsome sum, and he was allowed to get out of prison. Walpole, he adds, has the original deed by which Theodore made over the kingdom of Corsica in security to his creditors. Mr. Benson's statement, which is more exact, and agrees with the epitaph, is, that the subscription was not sufficient to extricate King Theodore from his difficulties, and that he was released from gaol as an insolvent debtor. However that may be, he died soon afterwards. Former writers have stated that he was buried in an obscure corner, among the paupers, in the churchyard of St. Anne's, Westminster, but they are mistaken. We find a neat mural tablet fixed against the exterior wall of the church of St. Anne's, Soho, at the west end, on which, surmounted by a coronet, is inscribed the following epitaph, written by Horace Walpole:



Near this place is interred THEODORE, KING OF CORSICA, Who died in this parish Dec. 11, 1756, Immediately after leaving The King's Bench Prison By the benefit of the Act of Insolvency; In consequence of which He registered his kingdom of Corsica For the use of his Creditors.

The grave, great teacher, to a level brings Heroes and beggars, galley-slaves and Kings: But Theodore this moral learned, ere dead: Fate poured his lesson on his living head, Bestow'd a kingdom, and denied him bread.



CHAP. IX.

Environs of Olmeta.Bandit-Life and the VendettaIts Atrocities.The Population disarmed.The Bandits exterminated.



Olmeta stands, like most Corsican villages, on the point of a hill, forming one side of an oval basin, the slopes of which are laid out in terraced gardens and vineyards. Here and there, in sheltered nooks, we find plantations of orange-trees, now showing green fruit under their glossy leaves. Some fine chestnut and walnut trees about the place, and the magnificent elms (olme) from which it derives its name, soften the aspect of its bleak, exposed site, and gaunt houses.

Charming as the natural landscapes are in Corsica, one finds most of the villages, however picturesque at a distance, on a nearer approach, a conglomeration of tall, shapeless houses, black and frowning, with windows guarded by rusty iron grilles, and generally unglazed. Altogether, they look more like the holds of banditti than the abodes of peaceful vinedressers; while the filth of the purlieus is unutterable. Throwing open the double casements of the widow's sanctum, I may not call it boudoir, when I leapt out of bed to enjoy the fresh morning air,underneath was a noisome dunghill, grim gables frowned on either hand, but beyond was the riant landscape just described. Here truly God made the country, man the town.

While my friend was sketching, I strolled up to the pretty church we had seen by moonlight. Close by is a large, roomy mansion, which belonged to Marshal Sebastiani. He was a native of Olmeta, and, from an obscure origin, arriving at high rank as well as great wealth, partly, I understood, through a brilliant marriage, bought a large property in the neighbourhood, which has been recently sold for 150,000 francs to a French Directeur. I went over the château: to the original mansion the marshal had added a handsome salle, and a lofty tower commanding varied and extensive views towards Fiorenzo and the Mediterranean. My conductor was a gentleman of Olmeta, who accidentally meeting me, proffered his services, pressing me afterwards to take breakfast with him. We had done very well at the widow's long before, with delicious bread, eggs, apples, and figs, and coffee in the smallest of cups. We brewed our own tea in a bran-new coffee-pot, purchased for that purpose at Bastia. Butter and milk were wanting, but whipped eggs make a very tolerable substitute for the latter.

My new acquaintance informed me that the decree, passed the year before for disarming the whole population, combined with measures for increasing the force of the gendarmerie, and making it highly penal to harbour the bandits or afford them any succour, had been actively and rigorously carried out, and were completely successful. The life of a citizen is as safe in Corsica as in any other department of France. You may walk through the island, added my informant, with a purse of gold in your bosom.

This was true, I imagine, with regard to strangers, in the worst of times; their security from molestation being nearly allied to the national virtue of hospitality, which is not quite extinct. Nor were the Corsican banditti associated, like those of Italy, for the mere purpose of plunder, though they have heavily taxed the peaceable inhabitants, both by drawing from the poor the means for their subsistence in the woods and mountains, and by levying, under terror, direct contributions in money from the more wealthy inhabitants in the towns and villages. These are, however, but trifling ingredients in the mass of crime for which Corsica has been so painfully distinguished. Would, indeed, that robbery and pillage were the sins of the darkest dye which have to be laid to the account of the Corsican bandit! Most commonly, his hands have been stained with innocent blood, shed recklessly, relentlessly, in private quarrels, often of the most frivolous description, and not in open fight, as in the feuds of the middle ages, not in the heat of sudden passion, but by cool, premeditated murder.

Philippini, the best Corsican historian, who lived in the sixteenth century, states that in his time 28,000 Corsicans were murdered in the course of thirty years. A later Corsican historian calculates that between the years 1683 and 1715, a period of thirty-two years, 28,715 murders were perpetrated in Corsica; and he reckons that an equal number were wounded. The average, then, in their days, was about 900 souls yearly sent to their account by the dagger and the fusil in murderous assaults; besides vast multitudes who fell in the wars.

It was still worse in earlier ages; but those of which we speak were times of high civilisation, and Corsica lay in the centre of it. What do we find in recent times, up to the very year before we visited the island?

I have before me the Procès verbal of the deliberations of the Council General of the department of Corsica for each of the years 1850, '51, and '52. From these I gather that 4,300 assassinats had been perpetrated in Corsica since 1821; and, in the three years before mentioned, the Assassinats, ou tentatives d'assassiner, averaged ninety-eight annually from the 1st of January to the 1st of August, to which day the annual reports are made up; so that, reckoning for the remaining five months in the same proportion, the list of these heinous crimes is brought up to the fearful amount, for these days, of 160 in each year.

Well might M. le Préfet observe, in his address at the opening of the session of 1851: La situation du département à cet égard est sans doute profondément triste. Le nombre des crimes n'a pas diminué sensiblement. So low, however, is the moral sense in Corsica with regard to the sanctity of human life, that these atrocities excite no horror, and the sympathies of vast numbers of the population are with the bandits. They are the heroes of the popular tales and canzoni; one hears of them from one end of the island to the other, round the watchfires of the shepherds on the mountains, in the remote paése, by the roadside. They are the tales of the nursery,the Corsican child learns, with his Ave Maria, that it is rightful and glorious to take the life of any one who injures or offends him.

To a passionate and imaginative people, these tales of daring courage and wild adventure have an inconceivable charm; though stained with blood, they are full of poetry and romance. Such stories have been eagerly seized upon by writers on Corsica,they make excellent literary capital. Unfortunately, banditisme forms so striking a feature in Corsican history, that it must necessarily occupy a conspicuous place in a faithful review of the genius and manners of the people. There are doubtless traits of a heroism worthy a better cause, and sometimes of a redeeming humanity, in the lives of the banditti; but one regrets to find, though happily not in the works of the English travellers who have given accounts of Corsica, a tendency to palliate so atrocious a system as blood-revenge. Vendetta, the name given it, has a romantic sound; and it is treated as a sort of national institution, originating in high and laudable feelings, the injured sense of right, and the love of family; so that, with the glory shed around it by a false heroism, it is almost raised to the rank of a virtue.

To take blood for blood, not by the hand of public justice, but by the kinsmen of the slain, was, we are reminded, a primitive custom, sanctioned by the usages of many nations, and even by the laws of Moses. We know, however, that among our Anglo-Saxon ancestors the laws humanely commuted this right of revenge for fines commensurate with the rank of the murdered person. But while the Mosaic law forbad the acceptance of any pecuniary compensation for the crime of manslaughter, and expressly recognised the right of the avenger of blood to exact summary vengeance, it provided for even the murderer's security until he were brought to a fair trial. But Corsica, alas! has had no Cities of Refuge, and examples drawn from remote and barbarous times can afford no apology for the inveterate cruelties of a people enjoying the light of modern civilisation and professing the religion of the New Testament.

The vendetta is also represented as a kind of rude justice, to which the people were driven in the long ages of misrule during which law was in abeyance or corruptly administered. There is, no doubt, much truth in this as applied to those times; but the prodigious amount of human slaughter shown in the statistics just quoted, as well as the continuance of this atrocious system to the present day, long after the slightest shadow of any pretence of legal injustice has vanished, seem to argue that the ferocity which has shed such rivers of blood, if not instinctive in the national character, at least found a soil in which it took deep root.

For more than half a century, there can be no question but, under a settled government, strict justice has been done by the ordinary proceedings of the courts of law, in all cases of injury to person or property, submitted to them. But the turbulent Corsicans were ever impatient of regular governmentone great cause of their ultimate degradation, not a little connected also with the growth of banditisme; and the failure of justice has not lain with the authorities, but with the population which harbours and screens the criminals, and with the juries who refuse to convict them.[7]

The only other instance in the present day of crimes similar to those which have been the scourge of Corsica, is found in the case of unhappy Ireland. There, however, the blood-revenge has been mostly confined to cases of supposed agrarian grievances, and the number of victims sacrificed to it is comparatively limited; more innocent blood having been shed in Corsica in a single year, than in Ireland during, perhaps, a quarter of a century.

The vendetta, is also palliated as vindicating wrongs for which no courts of law, however upright, can afford redress. Among the most polished nations, the point of honour has been held to justify an injured man for challenging his adversary to mortal combat. But the duel, from its first origin among our Scandinavian ancestors, savage as they were, and through all its forms, whether legalised or treated as felonious, to its last shape in civilised society, has nothing practically in common with the Corsican vendetta. In the one, the appeal to arms has always been tempered by a punctilious chivalry, which recoiled from the slightest unfairness in the attendant circumstances; in the other, the enemy is, if possible, taken unawares, shot down by a cowardly miscreant lurking behind a tree or a rock, or suddenly stabbed without an opportunity of putting himself on his defence. The practice of the vendetta is mere assassination.

Stript of the colouring shed round it by sentiment and romance, banditisme, in its latter days at least, has been a very common-place affair. Great numbers of the Corsicans, too indolent to work, were happy to lead a vagabond life, harbouring in the woods and mountains with a gun on their shoulders, and as ready to shoot a man as a wild beast. C'est qu'en général, said the Préfet, in the address already quoted, ces crimes proviennent moins du banditisme que de la déplorable habitude de marcher toujours armés, par suite de laquelle les moindres rixes dégénèrent si souvent en attentats contre la vie. One hears continually for what trifles assassinations have been perpetrated; and a recent traveller informs us that his life was threatened for having merely resisted the extortionate demand of his guide to the mountains.

The hardships to which the bandit is exposed in his wild life in the maquis cannot be much greater than those of the shepherd who, from fear or favour, shares with him his chestnuts, his goat's milk, and cheese. The gendarmes, indeed, are sometimes on his track, but there is stirring adventure in eluding their pursuit, triumph in the ambuscade to which they become victims, glory even in death heroically met. With all its perils and hardships, such a life of lawless independence has its charms; and the bandit knows that his memory will be honoured, and his death, if possible, revenged. But who laments the unfortunate gendarme who falls in these encounters? Who pities the widow and orphans of men as bold, resolute, and enterprising as those against whom they are matched? In the tales of banditti life, the ministers of justice are sbirri, conventionally a term of disgrace; all the sympathy is with the culprit against whom the gendarmerie peril their lives in an arduous service.

The brigands must live by plunder in one shape or another. It is not likely that bands of armed men, the terror of a whole neighbourhood, would be always content with the mere subsistence wrung from the scanty resources of the poor shepherds. Not that they robbed on the highways; it answered better to levy contributions, under pain of death, from such of the defenceless inhabitants as were able to pay them. Mr. Benson tells a story of one of the most celebrated of the bandit chiefs, who levied black mail in the wild districts bordering on the forest of Vizzavona.

Leaving Vivario, we heard from the lips of the poor curé, that Galluchio and his followers were in the maquis of a range of mountains to our right. The curé was busy in his vineyard when we passed, but as soon as he recognised our French companion, he left his work for a few moments to join us. Sir, said he, addressing himself to M. Cottard, I feel myself in imminent danger; Galluchio and his band are in yonder mountains, and only a few evenings ago I received a peremptory message from him, requiring 300 francs, and threatening my speedy assassination should I delay many days to comply with his demand. I have not the money, and I have sent for some military to protect me.[8]

There is reason to believe that these forced contributions have not diminished since Mr. Benson's journey. We were told of a case in which a wealthy man, having received notice to pay 10,000 francs, under penalty of being shot, was so terrified, that after shutting himself up in his house for a year in constant alarm, his health and spirits became so shattered by the state of continual terror and watchfulness in which he lived, that he sank under it, and was carried out dead. In another case, a young man of more resolute character was called upon for 1000 francs, and having no ready money, was allowed three months to raise it, on giving his bill for security. He armed himself, and went to the appointed rendezvous. The brigand was waiting for him; he made him lay down his arms, and searched him. The young man had filled his pockets with chestnuts, and had contrived to secrete a small pistol about his person, which escaped discovery. The brigand, producing paper and ink, ordered his victim to draw the bill. The young man excused himself on the ground that he was so frightened, and his hand trembled so that he could not write;he would sign the bill if the other drew it out. The brigand knelt down by the side of a flat stone to do so. Meanwhile the young man walked up and down eating his chestnuts, and throwing the shells carelessly away. Some of them struck the brigand. What are you doing? said he, startled. Eating my chestnuts; and he took out another handful. Occasionally he stopped and looked down on the bandit while engaged in writing; still, with apparent sang froid, munching his chestnuts. Presently the bill was finished; he pretended to look it over, found some error, which he pointed out, and while the brigand stooped to correct it, drew his concealed pistol and shot him through the head.The so-called vendetta has shrunk more and more to the level of vulgar crime. It is even notorious that bandits have become hired assassins, employed by others to take off persons against whom they had a grudge,mais plus pour amitié que pour argent, said my informant, giving the fact the most favourable turn.

It seems surprising that such enormities should have been permitted in a European country, at an advanced period of the nineteenth century. Could a strong national government have been established in Corsicawhich, however, seems to have been impracticable with so lawless and factious a peopleits first duty would have been, as was the case under Pascal Paoli's administration, to give security to life, coûte que coûte. The successive Governments of France appear to have been too much occupied by their own affairs to pay any regard to the social state of their Corsican department, flagrant as was the disgrace it reflected on them. Perhaps they were impressed with the idea that the passion of revenge, the thirst for blood, were so inherent in the native character, that law and force were alike powerless, and the vendetta could only be extirpated by a moral change more to be hoped for than expected. Thus speaks the Préfet, in his inaugural address of 1851:Ici, messieurs, vous en conviendrez, l'administration est sans force. C'est à la religion seule qu'appartient la touchante prérogative de prêcher l'oubli des injures: and a traveller who spent some time in the island during the year following, gives the result of his observations in the following words:There is probably no other means of certainly putting down the blood-revenge, murder, and bandit-life, than culture; and culture advances in Corsica but slowly.[9]

The same author says of the general disarming, proposed in 1852: Whether, and how, this will be capable of execution, I know not. It will cost mischief enough in the execution; for they will not be able to disarm the banditti at the same time, and their enemies will then be exposed, unarmed, to their bullets. These doubts and forebodings are proved to have been imaginary. It might have been long, indeed, before preaching and moral culture had eradicated evils so deeply rooted in the genius of the people. In such an extreme case, the exercise of a despotic power was required to put an end to the reign of terror and blood which has desolated this fair island for so many centuries. One bold stroke has broken the spell; the measures adopted for the suppression of banditisme have completely succeeded. The prisons are full, said my informant; in the last year, 400 of the brigands have been sentenced or shot down, and as many more driven out of the country: the land is at peace.

The only wonder is that the experiment was not tried before.



CHAP. X.

The Basin of Oletta.The Olive.Corsican Tales.The Heroine of Oletta.Zones of Climate and Vegetation.

We found that no mules could be hired at Olmeta, and intending to wander for a few days in the neighbouring valleys, and on the skirts of the mountainous district of Nebbio, though we preferred walking, were at some loss how to get forward our baggage. The Bastia muleteer was dismissed, and as we were travelling somewhat at our ease, the luggage was more than could be conveniently carried. In this dilemma, Antoine proffered the services of himself and the mule which had done its work so well the evening before. His offer was readily accepted, and we had much reason to be pleased with the change we had made in our conductor. Antoine relieved us from all care as to our baggage and entertainment, knew the roads, and where we could best put up, had by heart many a story of times past, and something to tell of all the places we visited, and, having been a rover himself, entered into the spirit of our rambles: altogether, as I have observed before, Antoine was an excellent specimen of a Capo Corso peasant. To be sure, he had killed his man, but that was in a duello, according to Corsican ideas; as singular, if one may jest on such a subject, as Captain Marryat's famous triangular duel.

The valleys of Olmeta, Oletta, and some others, form a sort of basin between the mountains bounding the littorale, already spoken of, and the Serra di Tenda, a noble range in the western line of the principal chain. Broken by numberless hills, the whole basin is a scene of fertile beauty, similar to the picture drawn of Olmetavineyards, olive-grounds and gardens, orange, citron, fig, almond, apple, and pear-trees, clustering at every turn with groups of magnificent chestnut-trees, and alternating with spots devoted to tillage. The country people were now sowing wheat or preparing the ground with most primitive ploughs, of the Roman fashion, drawn sometimes by a single ox or mule. Patches, on which the green blade was already springing, showed that it is the practice to sow wheat as soon as possible after the autumnal rains.



Retracing our steps of the preceding night nearly to the summit of the pass, under the persuasion that it commanded a fine prospect, we turned to the right, and strolled along a terrace above the broad valley through which the Bevinco flows into the Stagno di Biguglia, somewhat below the point at which we left it. Looking backward, we had a charming peep at the Mediterranean through a gorge in the mountains, with the lonely island of Monte-Cristo, seen from this point of view detached from the rest of the group of islands to which it belongs. Across the valley was a range of mountains, a branch of the central chain dividing it from that of the Golo. Mists hung about them, pierced by the Cima dei Taffoni, the most elevated point of the range, which rose magnificently, being about 3000 feet high, twenty miles to the south-east. The ridge along which we strolled was covered partly by patches of the never-failing evergreen shrubbery, rendered more beautiful by the quantities of cyclamen, one of the prettiest plants we have in our greenhouses at home, now in full flower under the shelter of the arbutus and other shrubs. Small flocks of sheep, all black, and no larger than our Welsh mountain breed, were browsing among the barren patches of heath, and sometimes crossed our path, with their tinkling bells. There was a slight shower; but it soon cleared off, and the sun shone out, and the air and surface of the ground, cooled and freshened by the gentle rain, were in the best state for the continuation of our rambles.

The cultivation, as may be supposed, is indolent and imperfect, the surface being merely scratched, and little care taken to free it of weeds. We need not, therefore, be surprised at finding that the average produce of the wheat-crop throughout Corsica is only an increase of nine on the seed sown. Of maize, or Indian corn, it is thirty-eight or forty.

The canton of Oletta is called by the Corsicans the pearl of the Nebbio. It contains two or three hamlets, the principal village seeming to hang on the rocky slope of a hill, embowered in fruit trees. The olive flourishes particularly well here; and Oletta takes its name from its olive-trees, as Olmeta does from its elms. Many of them are of great age and size, and, with their silvery leaves, have a soft and pleasing effect, especially when contrasted with the richer foliage of the spreading chestnut-trees. The olive-yards are neatly dug and kept clear of weeds; and we observed that the soil was drawn round the stems of the trees, probably in well-manured heaps, such a produce as the olive truly requiring to feed on the fat of the land. The berries were now full formed, but had not begun to fall. I believe they hang till Christmas, when they are collected, and carried to the vats. When pressed, twenty pounds of olives yield five of pure oil. It is stored in large pottery jars, and forms the principal export from Corsica; this district, with the Balagna and the neighbourhood of Bonifaccio, producing the largest quantity. An inferior sort of oil is used in the lamps throughout the island; the lamps being of glass, with tall stems containing the oil, and crowned by a socket, through which the cotton burner is passed, and having nothing of the antique or classical about them. The birds scattering the berries in all directions, and carrying them to great distances, the number of wild olive-trees is immense. An attempt was made to count them, by order of the Government, in 1820, with a view to foster so valuable a source of national wealth by the encouragement of grafting; and it is said that as many as twelve millions of wild olive-trees were then counted.

There is a story of love and heroism connected with Oletta. One hears such tales everywhere in Corsicaby the wayside, at the shepherd's watch-fire, lying in the shade, or basking in the sun. Antoine was an excellent raconteur; so are all such vagabonds. I possess a collection of these tales by Renucci, published at Bastia[10], and proposed to interweave some of them into my narrative. They may be worked up, with invention and embellishment, into pretty romances; but that is not our business. In Renucci, we have stories of Ospitalità, Magnanimità, Fedeltà, Probità, Generosità, Incorruttibilità, all the virtues under the sun with names ending in tà, and many others. One wearies of the eternal laudation lavished on these islanders, not only by their own writers, but by all travellers, from Boswell downwards.

The story of the heroine of Oletta is told by Renucci[11], and, more simply, by Marmocchi.[12] During the occupation of Capo Corso by the French, in 1751, some of the villagers were sentenced to be broken on the wheel for a conspiracy to seize the place, which was garrisoned by the French; their bodies were exposed on the scaffold, and their friends prohibited, under severe penalties, from giving them Christian burial. But a young woman, giovinetta scelta e robusta, as she must have been to perform the exploit assigned to her in the tale, eluded the sentries, and, taking the body of her lover, one of the conspirators executed, on her shoulders, carried it off. The general in command, struck by her exalted virtue, pardons the offence, and she is borne home in triumph amidst the shouts of the villagers.

All honour to the French marquis for his gallantry to a woman, though his tactics were somewhat savage for the reign of Louis XVI.; and all glory to Maria Gentili of Oletta, stout of heart and strong of limb, fit to be the wife and mother of bandits; still better, to have fought at Borgo, where Corsican women, in male attire, with sword and gun, rushed forward in the ranks of the island militia which triumphantly defeated a French army, composed of some of the finest troops in Europe.[13]

But let us proceed with our rambles; and, before we change the scene from the region of the vine and the orange to that of the chestnut and ilex, a short digression on the climatic zones of Corsica may not be out of place.



The island may be divided, as to climate and vegetation, into three zones, corresponding with the degrees of elevation of its surface. The first, ranging to about 1,700 feet above the level of the Mediterranean, and embracing the deeper valleys of the island, as well as the sea-coast, has the characteristics conformable to its latitude; that is to say, similar to those of the parallel shores of Italy and Spain. Properly speaking, there is no winter; they have but two seasons, spring and summer. The thermometer seldom falls more than a degree or two below the freezing point, and then only for a few hours. The nights are, however, cold at all seasons.

When we were at Ajaccio, towards the end of October, the heat was oppressive; my thermometer at noon stood at 80° in the shade, in an airy room closed by Venetian blinds. In January, we were told, the sun becomes again powerful, and then for eight months succeeds a torrid heat. The sky is generally cloudless, the thermometer rises from 70 to 80 and even 90 degrees in the shade, and scarcely any rain falls after the month of April; nor indeed always then, so that there are often long and excessive droughts.

The indigenous vegetation is generally of a class suited to resist the droughts, having hard, coriaceous leaves. Such is the shrubbery described in a former chapter, which, exempt from severe frosts on the one hand, and thriving in an arid soil and parching heat on the other, clothes half the surface of the island with perpetual verdure. There have been seasons when even these shrubs were so burnt up that the slightest accident might have caused a wide-spread conflagration. When we travelled, the leaves of the rock-roses, which here grow to the height of four or five feet, were hanging on the bushes scorched and withered by the summer heat, somewhat marring the beauty of the evergreen thickets.

Most of the fruit-trees suited to flourish in such a climate have been already noticed in passing. We saw also almonds, pomegranates, and standard peaches and apricots. To the list of shrubs which most struck us, I may also add the brilliant flowering oleander, and the tamarisk. Corsica is said to be famous for its orchids, verbenas, and cotyledinous and caryophyllaceous plants; but I only speak of what I saw, and these were out of season.

The second zone ranges from about 2000 feet to between 5000 and 6000 feet above the level of the Mediterranean, the climate corresponding with that of the central districts of France. The temperature is, however, very variable, and its changes are sudden. Frost and snow make their appearance in November, and often last for fifteen or twenty days together. It is remarked, that frost does not injure the olive-trees up to the level of about 3800 feet; and snow even renders them more fruitful.

The chestnut appears to be the characteristic feature in the vegetation of this zone. Thriving also among hills and valleys of a lower elevation, here it spreads into extensive woods, till at the height of about 6000 feet it is exchanged for the pine, and Marmocchi says[14], I think incorrectly, cède la place to the oak and the beech. We certainly found the oak, both evergreen (ilex) and deciduous, growing very freely and in extensive woods in close contiguity with the chestnut at an elevation far below the limit of the second zone, as well as mixed with the pine in the forest of Vizzavona, also below that limit. But, from my own observation, I should class the oak of both kinds among the trees belonging to the second zone, though the chestnut is its most characteristic feature; and should much doubt its flourishing at the height of between 6000 and 7000 feet above the sea-level,still more the beech. The highest point at which we found the beech was the Col di Vizzavona, on the road from Vivario to Bocagnono, 3435 feet above the level of the Mediterranean, and I was surprised to see it flourishing there.

While the principal cities and towns in Corsica stand within the limits of the first zone, it is in the second that by far the greatest part of the population live,dispersed, as we have often had occasion to remark, in valleys and hamlets placed on the summits or ridges of hills. The choice of such positions is a necessary condition of health, as in this region, no less than in the former, the valleys are notorious for the insalubrity of the air.

The third zone, ranging from an elevation of about 6000 feet to the summits of the highest mountains, is a region of storms and tempests during eight months of the year; but during the short summer the air is said to be generally serene, and the sky unclouded. This elevated region has, of course, no settled inhabitants, but during the fine season the shepherds occupy cabins on its verge, their sheep and goats browsing among the dwarf bushes on the mountain sides. The vegetation is scanty. Even the pine cannot thrive at such an elevation, and the birch, which one generally finds, though dwarf, still higher up the mountains, I did not happen to see in Corsica, though it is mentioned in Marmocchi's list of indigenous trees.

The summits of the Monte Rotondo and Monte d'Oro are capped with snow at all seasons, and beautiful are snowy peaks, piercing the blue heavens in the sunny region of the Mediterranean, and well does the glistening tiara, marking from afar their pre-eminence among the countless domes and peaks which cluster round them, or break the outline of a long chain, assist the eye in computing their relative heights. We had no opportunity of ascertaining how low perpetual snow hangs on the sides of the highest Corsican mountains. According to M. Arago, Monte Rotondo is 2762 mètres (about 8976 feet) above the level of the sea; and he says that there are seven others exceeding 2000 mètres (about 6500 feet). Among these must be included Monte d'Oro, which figures in Marmocchi's list at 2653 mètres, or about 8622 feet. The season was too late for our making an ascent with any prospect of advantage; but at that time of the year (the end of October) none of the peaks we saw, except the two named, though some of them are only from 500 to 800 feet lower than Monte d'Oro, had snow upon them.

While rounding the base of Monte d'Oro, we observed long streaks on the side of the cone, descending, perhaps, 1000 feet below the compact mass on the summit; but they had the appearance of fresh-fallen snow, and from our observing that all the other summits were free from snow, I am inclined to assign the height of about 7500 or 8000 feet above the level of the Mediterranean as the line of perpetual snow in Corsica.

In Norway, between 59°-62° N. latitude, we calculated it at about 4500 feet on the average, the line varying considerably in different seasons. In the summer of 1849 there was snow on the shores of the Miös-Vand, which are under 3000 feet, while the summer before the lakes on the table-land of the Hardanger Fjeld, 4000 feet high, were free from ice, and throughout the passage of the Fjeld the surface covered with snow was less than that which was bare. In 1849, crossing the Hardanger from Vinje to Odde, the whole of the plateau was a continued field of snow.[15] Taking the entire mountain system of central Norway, from the Gousta-Fjeld to Sneehættan and the Hörungurne, with elevations of from 5000 to near 8000 feet, the average of the snow-level may be taken, as before observed, at about 4500 feet; that of the Corsican mountains, with elevations of from 6000 to nearly 9000 feet, being, as we have seen, from 7000 to 8000 feet.

In Switzerland, where the elevations are so much greater, the snow-line varies from 8000 to 8800 feet above the level of the sea.[16] On Mont Blanc it is stated to be 8500 feet. The height differs on the northern and southern faces of the chain within those portions of the Alps that run east and west, but 8500 feet may be taken as the average.

We may be surprised to find that congelation rests at the same, or nearly the same, level in the Alps of Switzerland, and on the Corsican mountains eight degrees further south. But difference of latitude is no determinate rule for calculating the level to which the line of perpetual snow descends. There are other influences to be taken into the account, such as the duration and intensity of summer heats, the comparative dryness of climate, the extent of the snow-clad surface in the system generally, and more especially the height and exposure of particular mountains.[17] Thus the snow-line on the southern slope of the Alps is in some cases as high as 9500 feet. It may be conceived that as the great extent of snow-clad surface on the high Fjelds of Norway so much depresses the level of the snow-line in that country, so the great superincumbent mass resting on the summits of the higher Alps has a similar effect, reducing the average snow-line in Switzerland to nearly that of the Corsican mountains. The wonder is that Monte Rotondo and Monte d'Oro,rising from a chain surrounded by the Mediterranean, in insulated peaks of no very considerable height, without glaciers or snowy basins to reduce the temperature,should, in a climate where the sun's heat is excessive for eight months of the year, have snow on their summits in the months of July and August. I have observed the Pico di Teyde in Teneriffe with no snow upon it in the first days of November, though it is 3000 feet higher than Monte Rotondo, and only five degrees further south. Mount Ætna, also, nearly 11,000 feet high, in about the same latitude as the Peak of Teneriffe (37° N.), is free from perpetual snow; but that may arise from local causes.



CHAP. XI.

Pisan Church at Murato.Chestnut Woods.Gulf of San Fiorenzo.Nelson's Exploit there.He conducts the Siege of Bastia.Ilex Woods.Mountain Pastures.The Corsican Shepherd.

Murato, a large, scattered village, which formerly gave its name to a piève, and is now the chef-lieu of a canton, stands on the verge of a woody and mountainous district. Just before entering the village, we were struck by the superior character of the façade of a little solitary church by the roadside. We afterwards learnt that it was dedicated to St. Michael, and reckoned one of the most remarkable churches in the island, having been erected by the Pisans, before the Genoese established themselves in Corsica. The façade is constructed of alternate courses of black and white marble, and put me in mind of the magnificent cathedrals of Pisa and Sienna, of which it is a model in miniature. Indeed, most of the churches in Corsica are built on these and similar Italian models, though few of them with such chaste simplicity of design as this little roadside chapel.

The smiling aspect of the vine-clad hills, umbrageous fruit-orchards, and silvery olive-groves of the canton of Oletta now changed for a bolder landscape and wilder accompaniments. Soon after leaving Murato, the ilex began to appear, scattered among rough brakes, and a sharp descent led down to the Bevinco, here a mountain-torrent, hurrying along through deep banks, tufted with underwood, the box, which grows largely in Corsica, being profusely intermixed. The roadlike all the other byroads, merely a horse-trackcrosses the stream by a bold arch.



Immediately in front of the bridge stands a pyramidal rock, remarkable for all its segments having the same character, and for the way in which evergreen shrubs hang from the fissures in graceful festoons, contrasting with some gigantic gourds, in a small cultivated patch at the foot of the rock, and sloping down to the edge of the stream.

Higher up we entered the first chestnut wood we had yet seen. At the outskirts it had all the character of a natural wood; the trees were irregularly massed, and many of them of great age and vast dimensions. Further on they stood in rows, this tree being extensively planted in Corsica for the sake of the fruit. We were just in the right season for this important harvest, it being now ripe, and the ground under the trees was thickly strewed with the brown nuts bursting from their husky shells.

It being about noon, we halted in the shade by the side of a little rill, trickling among the trees into the river beneath, to rest and lunch. Nothing could be more delightful, after a long walk in the sun; for the temperature of the valleys is high even at this season. Antoine had charge of a basket of grapes, with a loaf of bread and a bottle of the excellent Frontigniac of Capo Corso; to these were added handfuls of chestnuts, so sweet and tender when perfectly fresh; so that, tempering our wine in the cool stream, we fared luxuriously.

While we sip our wine and munch our chestnuts, seasoned by talk with Antoine, the reader may like to hear something of a crop which is of more importance than might be supposed in the agricultural statistics of Corsica.

There are several cantons, Murato being one of the principal, in which the chestnut woods, either natural or planted, are so extensive that the districts have acquired the name of Paése di Castagniccia. The Corsican peasant seldom sets forth on a journey without providing himself with a bag of chestnuts, and with these and a gourd of wine or of water slung by his side, he is never at a loss. Eaten raw or roasted on the embers, chestnuts form, during half the year, the principal diet of the herdsmen and shepherds on the hills, and of great numbers of the poorer population in the districts where the tree flourishes. They are also made into puddings, and served up in various other ways. It is said that in the canton of Alesanni, one of the Castagniccia districts just referred to, on the occasion of a peasant making a feast at his daughter's marriage, no less than twenty-two dishes have been prepared from the meal of the chestnut.

I recollect that the innkeeper at Bonifaccio, boasting his culinary skill, said that he could dress a potato sixteen different ways, and though we earnestly entreated him not to give himself the trouble of making experiments not suited to our taste, it was with great difficulty, and after several failures, we made him comprehend that an Englishman preferred but one wayand that was au naturel.

The cultivation of the potato has made considerable advance in Corsica, and there are now seventeen or eighteen hundred acres annually planted with it. But in many parts of the island the chestnut fills the same place which the potato once occupied in the dietary of the Irish peasant. A political economist would find no difficulty in deciding that in both cases the results have been similar, and much to be lamented. Indeed, the Corsican fruit is still more adapted to cherish habits of indolence than the Irish root, as the chestnut does not even require the brief exertion, either in cultivation or cookery, which the potato does. It drops, I may say, into the Corsican's mouth, and living like the

Prisca gens mortalium.

the primitive race of mortals, of whom the poet sings, who ran about in the woods, eating acorns and drinking water, the Corsicans are, for the most part, satisfied with their chestnuts literally au naturel.

Most French writers on Corsica declare war against the chestnut-trees for the encouragement they afford to a life of idleness, and M. de Beaumont does not scruple to assert, that a tempest which levelled them all with the ground would, in the end, prove a great blessing. There is some truth in these opinions, but humanity shudders at the misery such a catastrophelike the potato blight, which truly struck at the root of the evil in Irelandwould entail on tens of thousands of the poor Corsicans, to whom the chestnut is the staff of life. In the interests of that humanity, as well as from our deep love and veneration for these noble woods, we say, God forbid!

Many years ago, an attempt was made to discountenance the growth of chestnuts, by prohibiting their plantation in soils capable of other kinds of cultivation; but shortly afterwards the decree was revoked on the report of no less a political economist than the celebrated Turgot.[18] Vivent donc ces châtaigniers magnifiques, quand même! And may the Corsicans learn not to abuse the gifts which Providence gratuitously showers from their spreading boughs!

Our al fresco repast on chestnuts and grapes being concluded, we left Antoine to load his mule, which had been grazing in the cool shade, and following a track through the wood, it became so steep that we soon gained a very considerable elevation. Of this we were more sensible when, turning round, we found that our range of sight embraced one of the finest views imaginable. In the distance, the long chain of mountains intersecting Capo Corso appeared grouped in one central mass, with their rocky summits and varied outlines more or less boldly defined, as they receded from the point of view. The western coast of the peninsula stretched far away to the northward, broken by a succession of mountainous ridges, branching out from the central chain, and having their bases washed by the Mediterranean, point after point appealing in perspective.



Of these indentations in the coast, the nearest, as well as the most important, is the Gulf of San Fiorenzo, one of the finest harbours in the Mediterranean. The town stands on a hill, above the marshy delta of the Aliso, the course of which we could trace through the most extended of these high valleys. Close beneath our standing point, as it appeared, lay the basin of Oletta, with its villages on the hill-tops, and its gentle eminences, with slopes and hollows richly clothed, now grouped together like the mountain ranges above, but in softer forms. This view, whether as partially seen in our first position through the glades and under the branching canopy of the chestnut wood, or shortly afterwards, still better, from a more commanding point on the summit of the ridge, had all the advantages which the most exquisite colouring, and the finest atmospheric effects could lend. Indeed, I felt persuaded, that the extraordinary richness of the warm tints on some of the mountain sides was not merely an atmospheric effect, but aided by the natural colour of the formation.

The whole country lying beneath, the ancient province of Nebbio, with the Gulf of San Fiorenzo for its outlet, guarded by the mountain ridges and embracing the districts of Oletta, Murato, and Sorio, is of such importance in a strategical view, that the fate of Corsica has often been decided by campaigns conducted on this ground; and it is said that whatever power obtains possession of it, will sooner or later become masters of the whole island.

San Fiorenzo, a fortified place, was bombarded in 1745 by an English fleet acting in concert with the King of Sardinia for the support of the Corsicans against the Genoese, and on the surrender of the place it was given up to the patriots. Then first the British Government interfered in Corsican affairs; but shortly afterwards, when some of the patriot leaders sent emissaries to Lord Bristol, our ambassador at the court of Turin, offering to put themselves under the protection of the English Government, the court of St. James's, deterred probably by the jealousies then subsisting among the supporters of the patriotic cause, civilly declined the offer, and withdrew their fleet. Having thus lost by their own misconduct the powerful co-operation of England, the Corsicans, left to their own resources, after a long and determined struggle, at length yielded to a power with which they were unable to cope.

San Fiorenzo was again the scene of British intervention, when the Corsicans, throwing off in 1793 the yoke of the French revolutionary government, applied to Lord Hood, the commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, for assistance. In consequence, Nelson, then commanding the Agamemnon, and cruising off the island with a small squadron, to prevent the enemy from throwing in supplies, made a sudden descent on San Fiorenzo, where he landed with 120 men. Close to the port the French had a storehouse of flour adjoining their only mill, Nelson threw the flour into the sea, burnt the mill, and re-embarked in the face of 1000 men and some gun-boats, which opened fire upon him. In the following spring, five English regiments were landed in the island under General Dundas, and Lieutenant-Colonel (afterwards Sir John) Moore having taken possession of the heights overlooking the port of San Fiorenzo, the French found themselves unable to hold the place, and sinking one of their frigates, and burning another, retreated to Bastia.

Nelson's dashing enterprise was succeeded by another of far greater moment, characteristic of the times when our old 74's had not been superseded by costly screw three-deckers, and our naval commanders, though not wanting in discretion, acted on the impulses of their own brave hearts, without any very nice calculations of responsibilities and possible consequences.

On a reconnaissance made by Nelson on the 19th of February, when he drove the French under shelter of their works, it appeared that the defences of Bastia were strong. Besides the citadel, mounting thirty pieces of cannon and eight mortars, with seventy embrasures counted in the town-wall near the sea, there were four stone redoubts on the heights south of the town, and two or three others further in advance; one a new work, with guns mounted en barbette. A frigate, La Flèche, lay in the harbour, but dismasted; her guns were removed to the works. These works were held by 1000 regular troops, 1500 national guards, and a large body of Corsicans, making a total of 4000 men under arms.[19]

To attack this formidable force, manning such defences, Nelson could only muster 218 marines, 787 troops of the line under orders to serve as such, the admiral insisting on having them restored to this service, 66 men of the Royal Artillery, and 112 Corsican chasseurs, making a total of 1183 troops. To these were added 250 sailors. Meanwhile, the English general made a reconnaissance in force from San Fiorenzo, and retired without attempting to strike a blow, though he had 2000 of the finest troops in the world lying idle; declaring that the enterprise was so rash that no officer would be justified in undertaking it. He even refused to furnish Lord Hood with a single soldier, cannon, or store.

The Admiral replied, that he was most willing to take upon himself the whole responsibility, and Nelson, nothing daunted, landed his small force on the 9th of April, three miles from the town, and the siege operations commenced. Encamping near a high rock, 2500 yards from the citadel, and the seamen working hard for several days in throwing up works, making roads, and carrying up ammunition, the fire was opened on the 12th of the same month. The works of the besiegers were mounted with four 13-inch and 10-inch mortars, an 18-inch howitzer, five 24-pounder guns, and two 18-pounder carronades. I give these details in order to show with what small means the daring enterprise was accomplished.

Lord Hood had sent in a flag of truce, summoning the city to surrender; to which M. La Combe St. Michel, the Commissioner of the National Convention, replied, that he had red-hot shot for our ships and bayonets for our troops, and when two-thirds of his men were killed, he would trust to the generosity of the English.

The place being now regularly invested, there was heavy firing on both sides, the seamen minding shot, as Nelson characteristically wrote to his wife, no more than peas. The besiegers' works were advanced, first to 1600 yards, and afterwards to a ridge 900 yards from the citadel; and on the 19th of May, thirty-five days after the fire was opened, the enemy offered to capitulate. The same evening, while the terms were negotiating, the advanced guard of the troops from San Fiorenzo made their appearance on the hills above the place, and on the following morning the whole army, under the command of General D'Aubant, who had succeeded Dundas, arrived just in time to take possession of Bastia.

Nelson had anticipated this, for in a letter to his wife, written during the siege, he says, My only fear is, that the soldiers will advance when Bastia is about to surrender, and deprive our handful of brave men of part of their glory.

But the work was already done, and Nelson writes after the surrender of the place, I am all astonishment when I reflect on what we have achieved. A force of 4000 men in strong defences had laid down their arms to 1200 soldiers, marines, and British seamen.

The political results of these operations, which for the time numbered the Corsicans among the willing subjects of the British crown, will claim a short notice on a fitting opportunity. History is not our province, but a traveller may be allowed to trace the footsteps of his countrymen during their brief occupation of a soil fiercely trodden by all the European nations; and, on a standing point between Fiorenzo and Bastia, naturally lingers for a moment on a feat of arms memorable among our naval exploits in the Mediterranean.

After leaving the chestnut woods, the wildness of the scene increased at every step. Our track skirted a forest of ilex spreading far up the base of the mountains, and filling the glens below, round the gorges of which the path led. The trees were of all ages, from the young growth, with a shapely contour of silvery grey foliage, to the gigantic patriarchs of the forest, spreading their huge limbs, hoar with lichens, in most fantastic and often angular forms, and their boles black and rugged with the growth of centuries. Some were rifted by the tempests, and bared their scathed and bleached tops to the winds of heaven. Others had yielded to the storms or age, and lay prostrate on the ground, charred and blackened by the fires which the shepherds in these wilds leave recklessly burning. The destruction thus caused to valuable timber throughout the island is enormous. Among the ilex were scattered a few deciduous oaks, contrasting well in their autumnal tints with their evergreen congeners. We thought the colouring was not so rich as that of our English oak woods at this season, being of a paler or more tawny hue, resembling the maple and sycamore. Precipitous cliffs and insulated masses of grey rock broke the outline of the forest, and the charming cyclamen still tufted the edge of the path with its delicate flowers, nestling among the roots of the gigantic oaks; between the tall trunks of which glimpses were occasionally caught of the distant mountain peaks.

We had been ascending, generally at a pretty sharp angle, from the time we crossed the Bevinco, and had walked about three hours, when, emerging from the skirts of the ilex forest, we found ourselves on an elevated ridge connected with the vast wastes of which the greater part of the east and north-east of the province of Nebbio is composed. The surface is bare and stony, with a very scanty herbage among aromatic plants and bushes of low growth, consisting principally of the branching cistuses, which, however they may enliven these barren heaths by their flowers in the earlier part of the year, increased its parched and arid appearance now that the leaves hung withered on their stems.

Yet on these barren solitudes the Corsican shepherd spends his listless days and watchful nights. He has no fixed habitation, and never sleeps under a roof, but when he piles some loose stones against a rock to form a hut. Roaming over the boundless waste as the necessity of changing the pasturage of his flock requires, he finds his best shelter in the skirts of the forest, and his food in the chestnuts, which he luxuriously roasts in the embers of his watchfire when he is tired of eating them raw. The ground was so undulating that at one view we could see a number of these flocks on the distant hill sides; the little black sheep in countless numbers dotting the heaths, and the shepherds, in their brown pelone, either following them as they browsed in scattered groups, or perched on strong outline on some rocky pinnacle commanding a wide area over which their charge was scattered. Their bleating and the tinkling of the sheep-bells were wafted on the breeze, and more than once a flock crossed our path, and we had a nearer view of the wild and uncouth conductor.

My companion sat down to sketch, while I walked on. This often happened. Indeed, his rambles were often discursive, so that I lost sight of him for hours together; once in Sardinia, when there was reason to fear his having been carried off to the mountains by banditti. Thus, each had his separate adventures; on the present occasion I had opened out a new and splendid view, and, having retraced my steps to lead him to the spot, he related his.

Intent on his sketch, my friend was startled, on raising his head, at seeing a wild figure standing at his elbow. Leaning on a staff, its keen eyes were intently fixed on him. My friend at once perceived that one of the shepherds had crept upon him unawares. A year before, when they all carried arms, there would have been nothing in his exterior to distinguish him from a bandit, but an ingenuous countenance and a gentle demeanour.