Our path lay now through very narrow lanes, dividing vineyards and gardens, extending all the way to Tempio. The replies of the courier to our inquiries after a hotel had left a complete blank in our prospects of bed, board, and lodging at the end of our journey. For travellers, such as ourselves, there was no accommodation. Tempio was rarely visited by strangers. This looked serious, after a mountain ride of nearly thirty miles, and between nine and ten o'clock at night;what was to be done? We had letters of introduction to persons of the highest distinction in the place, but they hardly warranted our intruding ourselves on them, hungry, travel-stained, and houseless, at that late hour. The case, however, being desperate we decided, at last, on presenting ourselves to the Commandant of the garrison, as the most likely person to give or procure us quarters.

The horses' feet clattered sharply on the pavé in the stillness of the narrow deserted streets; and the huge granito-built houses overhanging them, gloomy at all hours, appeared doubly inhospitable now that all lights were extinguished, the doors closed, and none ready to be opened at the call of weary travellers. Thus we traversed the whole city, the Commandant's mansion lying at the furthest extremity. Our tramp roused to attention a drowsy sentry at the gate; there were lights à la primathe family then had not retired for the night. The strange arrival is announced, and our viandante makes no scruple of depositing our baggage in the hall. The Commandant receives us with politeness, regrets that he is so straitened in his quarters that he cannot offer us beds, and sends an orderly who procures us a lodging, meanwhile giving us coffee. Attended by two soldiers, carrying our baggage, we retrace our steps to the centre of the town, and take possession of very sorry apartments, the best portion of a gaunt filthy house. We are installed by the mistress, a shrewish person, who, making pretensions to gentility, receives her guests under protest that she does not keep a hotel, but is willing to accommodate strangers,a phrase repeated a hundred times while we were under her roof, and emphatically when presenting a rather unconscionable bill on our departure. And this was the only refuge in a city of from six to eight thousand inhabitants, many of them boasting nobility, the capital of a province, the seat of a governor and a bishop, and head-quarters of a military district. I may be pardoned for being circumstantial in details giving an idea of what travelling in Sardinia is. Things are much the same throughout the island. The tourist who sets foot on it must be steeled against brigands, vermin, intempérie, and indifferent fare. Per aspera tendens would be his suitable motto. He must be prepared to rough it.



CHAP. XXVIII.

Tempio.The Town and Environs.The Limbara Mountains.Vineyards.The Governor or Intendente of the Province.Deadly Feuds.Sarde Girls at the Fountains.Hunting in Sardinia.Singular Conference with the Tempiese Hunters.Society at the Casino.Description of a Boar Hunt.

Unpropitious as first appearances were, we found no want of real hospitality and kindness among the Tempiese, and I have seldom spent a few days more pleasantly in a provincial town. Daylight, indeed, failed to improve the internal aspect of the place, but rather disclosed the filth of the narrow streets, without entirely dissipating the gloom shed upon them from the dusky granite of which the buildings are constructed, and the heavy wooden balconies protruding over the thoroughfares. The houses have, however, a substantial air, some of them are stuccoed, and Tempio can even boast its palaces of an ancient nobility, with coats of arms sculptured in white marble over the entrances. It possesses not less than thirteen churches, of which the collegiate and cathedral church of St. Peter is the only one worth notice,a large and lofty building of a mixture of styles, with some tawdry ornaments, but a handsome high altar and well carved oak stalls in the choir. The foundation consists of a dean and twelve canons, with eighteen other inferior clergy. Since 1839 it has ranked as a cathedral, Tempio having been erected into a see united with those of Cività and Ampurias, and the bishop residing here six months of the year. There is a massive old nunnery, now, I believe, suppressed, in the centre of the place, and outside the town a reformatory for the confinement of criminals sentenced to secondary punishment, a large building with a handsome elevation.

A finer position for a large city, of greater importance than Tempio, can scarcely be imagined. Placed on a gentle swell of the wide undulating plain already mentionedthe Gemini plain,a plateau of nearly 2000 feet above the level of the sea, it stands midway between two grand mountain ranges, the Limbara stretching the bold outlines of its massive forms in a course south of the town, its summit rising to 4396 feet; and, to the north-east, a chain not quite so elevated, but of an equally wild and irregular formation, and presenting to the eye, when viewed from Tempio, even a more rugged and serrated ridge. The defiles of this chain we passed in approaching Tempio; those of the Limbara were to be penetrated in our progress southward.

Its high situation and exposure render Tempio healthy, and it is even said to be cold in winter, of which we found no symptoms in the month of November, when Limbara is supposed to assume its diadem of snow, retaining it till April.



I hardly recollect anything finer of its kind than the panoramic view of the country between Tempio and the mountains on either side, as seen from its terraces. It combined great breadth, striking contrasts, and a most harmonious blending of colour. For a wide circuit round the town, gardens, orchards, vineyards, and a variety of small inclosures, occupying the slopes and hollows of the undulating surface, and well massed, give an idea of fertility one should not expect at this elevation. Here and there, a single round-topped pine, or a group of such pines, crowns a knoll, and breaks the flowing outlines. The open pastoral country beyond is linked to this cultivated zone by detached masses of copse and woods of cork and ilex, extending to the base of the mountains.

The Tempiese are a hardy and industrious people, exhibiting their spirit of activity in the careful cultivation about the town and the occupations of vast numbers of the population as shepherds, cavallanti, or viandanti. The dull town also shows some signs of life by a considerable trade in the country produce of cheese, fruits, hams, bacon, &c. They manufacture here the best guns in Sardinia, and know how to use them; being capital sportsmen, cacciatori, as well as formidable enemies in the vindictive feuds for which they have been celebrated, and not yet entirely extinct. A short time ago, two factions fought in the streets, and, though the bloody strife was quelled, they are said still to eye each other askance. Returning one night from the Casino, in company of the Commandant, he stopped on the piazza in front of the cathedral and related to us the circumstances of an assassination perpetrated a short time before on the very steps of the church.

The office of viceroy of Sardinia having been abolished, each of the eleven provinces into which the island is divided, the principal being Cagliari, Oristano, Sassari, and Tempio including the whole of Gallura, is administered by an Intendente, who communicates directly with the Ministers at Turin. The military districts correspond with the civil divisions of the island. We found two companies of the line, and a squad of carabinieri, mounted gendarmes, stationed at Tempio. Sardinia returns twenty-four members to the national parliament at Turin. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction is administered by three archbishops, filling the sees of Cagliari, Sassari, and Oristano, and eight bishops, seated in the other principal cities.

High official appointments at Tempio are not very enviable posts; governors and commandants not being exempt from the summary vengeance, for real or supposed wrongs, at which the Sardes are so apt. The Commandant told us that his immediate predecessor had received one of the death-warnings which precede the fatal stroke: I believe he was soon afterwards removed. For himself, his successor said, he took no precautions, did his duty, and braved the consequences. A few years before, the Governor, having compromised himself by acts of injustice, was assassinated, after receiving one of these death-warnings peculiar to Sardinia. During the night he heard a pane of glass crack, and on examining it in the morning he found the fatal bullet on the floor. The custom of the country is that, whenever the vendetta alla morte, revenge even to death, is to be carried out, the party avenging himself shall give his adversary timely notice by throwing a bullet into his window, in order that he may either make immediate compensation for the injury or prepare himself for death. The Governor for some time used every caution as to when and where he went, but at length disregarded the warning, imagining he was safe. The assassin, however, had watched him with an eagle's eye, and he fell in a moment he least expected. Report further says, observes Mr. Tyndale, in whose words we relate the occurrence, that he is not the only Governor of Gallura to whom this summary mode of obtaining justice, or inflicting vengeance, has been intimated.

The present Intendente of Tempio, the Marchese Clavarino, though he only entered on his office in the month of April before our visit, had already done much by his firm and enlightened administration to restore order and confidence. He had been able to collect the arrears of taxes, and, by impartial justice between all factions, had removed every pretence for a resort to deeds of violence for the redress of injuries.

The Governor's palace, establishment, and retinue, observes Mr. Tyndale, consist of three rooms on a second story, a female servant, and a sentry at the door. Things were little changed in 1853, but, in the absence of all state, we were impressed on our first visit of ceremony that the government of a turbulent province could not have been intrusted to better hands. In the antechamber we found a priest waiting, as it struck me from his deportment, to prefer his suit with bated breath, and the feeling that the wings of the priesthood are now clipped in the Sardinian states. The Marquis conversed with frankness on his own position and the state of the island. He had been in London at the time of the Great Exhibition, and his views of the English alliance, and of politics generally, were just such as might be expected from an enlightened Sardinian. A worthy coadjutor to such statesmen as D'Azeglio and Cavour, I would venture to predict that the Intendente of Tempio will ere long be called to fill a higher post.

Our rambles in the environs of Tempio were very pleasant. It was the season of the vintage, late here; and great numbers of the people were busily employed in the vineyards and the lodges[47] attached to them. Observing smoke issuing from most of these, we learned, in answer to our inquiries, that a portion of boiled lees is added in the manufacture of wine, to insure its keeping, the grapes not sufficiently ripening in consequence of the coldness of the climate. We found no such fault with those we tasted. A very considerable extent of surface is planted with vines, divided, however, into small vineyards. At the entrance of each stands an arched gateway, generally a solid structure of granite, with more or less architectural pretensions, and a date and initials carved in stone, commemorative, no doubt, of the planting of so cherished a family inheritance. One of these is represented in the foreground of the accompanying plate.

There are several fountains in the neighbourhood of Tempio, the waters of which are deliciously cool and pure. One of them, on the road beyond the Commandant's house, gushes out of the rock, under shade of some fine Babylonian willows. Sheltered by these in the heat of noon, and in still greater numbers at eventide, one saw the damsels of Tempio resort with their pitchers, as in ancient times Abraham's steward, in his journey to Mesopotamia, stood at the well of Nahor, when the daughters of the men of the city came out with their pitchers[48]; as Saul, passing through Mount Ephraim and ascending the hill of Zuph, met the maidens going out to draw water[49]; or as the spies of Ulysses fell in with the daughter of Antiphates at the well of Artacia.[50] Sardinia abounds with such mementos of primitive times.

The Tempiese women have the singular habit of raising the hinder part of the upper petticoat, the suncurinu, when they go abroad, and bringing it over the head and shoulders, so as to form a sort of hood. So far from this fashion giving them, as might be supposed, a dowdy appearance, it is not inelegant when the garment is gracefully arranged. It has generally broad stripes, and is often of silk or a fine material. The under-petticoat, of cloth, is either of a bright colour, or dark with a bright-coloured border. Both of them are worn very full. The jacket is of scarlet, blue, or green velvet, fitting very tightly to tho figure, the edges having a border of a different colour, and sometimes brocaded. The simple head-dress consists of a gaily-coloured kerchief wound round the head, and tied in knots before and behind.

We expected to get some shooting in the woods at the foot of the Limbara, as they abound with wild hogs, cingale, and deer, capreoli, a sort of roebuck. Our letters of introduction to some gentlemen of Tempio failed of assisting us. They were from home, probably engaged in the vintage. But the Sardes of all ranks are determined sportsmen, cacciatori, and we did not despair, though hunting excursions in the island require, as we shall find, a certain organisation. In our dilemma we made the acquaintanceof all people in the worldof a little barber, who appeared deeply versed in the politics of the place, and undertook to arrange the desired chasse with the Tempiese hunters. We were to meet him the same evening, at a low caffè, where he was to introduce us to the leaders of the band. A singular conference it was, that meeting of ourselves, men of the north, with the wild chasseurs of the Gallura, between whom there was nothing in common but enthusiastic love of the field and the mountain.

The low vault of the Caffè de la Costituzione was lighted by a single lamp, by whose glimmerings we dimly discerned, amidst wreaths of tobacco-smoke, the grim features of the men with whom we had to do. They were honest enough, no doubt, according to Sarde notions of honour, and received us with great cordiality; but the consultation between themselves was carried on in a patois quite unintelligible, except that we gathered that there were some difficulties in the way.

La caccia di cingale, a boar-hunt in Sardinia, requires a number of hunters, besides those who beat the woods to rouse the game; and, whether there were any feuds to be stifled, any jealousies to be allayed, which, with armed men in that state of society, might endanger the peace, the difficulties appeared serious. Whatever they were, our Barbière di Seviglia, who, to use a familiar phrase, seemed up to everything, and conducted the treaty on our part, did not think proper to disclose them. One thing, however, we soon learned, that the services of these men were not to be hired; their ruling passion for the chase and the national principle of hospitality were incentives enough to the proposed expedition. We were also informed that there were other parties to be consulted, and the meeting was adjourned to the following day.

Very different was the scene at the Casino to which we were introduced by the Commandant shortly after our consultation with the hunters. At the Casino there is a réunion of the best society in Tempio every evening. We found good rooms, well lighted, with coffee and refreshments nicely served. There were newspapers, and a small collection of books,the standard works of Italian writers, with some French. The society was unexpectedly good for such a place as Tempio, consisting, besides the officers of the garrison, of many of the resident nobles and gentry. We spent some pleasant hours there, finding among the members well-informed and intelligent persons. Politics were freely discussed, liberal opinions prevailing even to the degree of such ultra-liberalism as might have better suited the class of persons we met at the Caffè de la Costituzione, if politics are discussed there also. No doubt they are, the Tempiese, like the rest of the islanders, being a shrewd race, devotedly patriotic, and jealous of their independence.

We could not, as already hinted, reckon Madame Rosalie's ménage among the pleasant things that reconciled us to a longer stay than we intended in the rude capital of Gallura; but, at least, she supplied us in her own person with a fund of amusement. My companion, who had the happy gift for a traveller of being almost omnivorous, used to laugh heartily at my vain attempts to extract something edible from the meagre carte offered by Madame. Her replies parrying my demands, and uttered with amazing volubility, in shrill tones and a patois almost unintelligible, invariably ended to this effect:Signore, my house is not a locanda, though I have opened my doors to accommodate you. It was a species of hospitality that cost us dear. Madame's airs of gentility, though very amusing, were of course treated with due respect. But what gave zest to my friend's mirth, and, with the hopeless prospect of dinner, produced in me a slight irritation, sometimes, perhaps, ill concealed, was Madame Rosalie's evolutions on these occasions. I fancy, now, that I see her slight figure skipping into the room, dancing a jig round the table, never at rest, screeching all the while at the highest pitch of her voice, with every limb in motion, as if she had St. Vitus's dance, or, as they say, went on wires. I can only compare the play of her limbs to that of one of those children's puppets of which all the limbshead, legs, and armsare set in motion by pulling a string.

Nothing detained us at Tempio but the proposed boar-hunt. We attended a second meeting of the principal hunters, committing ourselves unreservedly to their disposal, and, after some further consultation, among themselves, our little barber had the glory of bringing the negotiations to a successful issue. All the difficulties, whatever they were, had been removed, and it was settled that the affair should come off on the morrow.

Accordingly, at an early hour, there was an unusual stir in the dull streets of Tempio, snapping of guns, trampling of horses, and barking of dogs. On our joining the party at the rendezvous in front of the caffè, we found some twenty horsemen, carrying guns,rough and ready fellows, looking as if a dash into the forest, whether against hogs or gendarmes, would equally suit them. We were followed by a rabble on foot, attended by dogs of a variety of species, some of them strong and fierce. After winding through the narrow lanes among the vineyards, our cavalcade was joined by one of the gentlemen on whom we had called with a letter of introduction, and his son, who mixed freely with our rank and file. There is a happy fellowship in field sports which, to a great degree, levels for the time distinctions of rank; and this we found particularly in Sardinia, where all classes are so devoted to these sports, and they are of a character requiring extended and rather promiscuous operations.

Our irregular cavalry shaped their march in broken order towards a spur of the mountains, covered with dense thickets, at the foot of the Punta Balestiere, the highest point of the Limbara. After clearing the inclosures our track led us over the wide undulating plain already described, interspersed with scattered thickets, but with few signs of cultivation. On approaching the mountains there were indications giving promise of sport in patches of soil grubbed up by the wild hogs in search for the root of the Asphodel, which they greedily devour. This handsome plant springs from a bunch of long fibrous bulbs, something like the Dahlia, throwing up straight stems two or three feet high, with numerous angular filiformed leaves and yellow flowers.[51] It grows freely on all the wastes throughout the island. The root contains so large a portion of saccharine matter, and is so plentiful, that while we were in Sardinia a Frenchman was forming a company for distilling alcohol from it on an extensive scale. A distillery was to be established at Sassari, with moveable stills throughout the island, wherever the bulbs could be most easily procured. The projector gave us a sample-bottle of the alcohol, a strong and purely tasteless spirit. I heard afterwards that the speculation did not succeed. There is fine feeding for the wild hogs, in season, on the acorns of the vast cork and other oak woods in the interior of the island, where we afterwards hunted them. They commit great ravages in the cultivated grounds. One was shot in the vineyards skirting the town during our stay at Tempio.

Approaching the mountains we threw off our attendants on foot, with their mongrel pack, whose business it was to scale the wooded ridge from behind, and beat the thickets for the game. The rest of our party soon afterwards struck up a valley parallel with the ridge, and facing the mountain side, which rose above it a vast amphitheatre of hanging woods, shelving and precipitous cliffs, rocks and pinnacles,so glorious a spectacle that it riveted my attention, and almost drew it off from the work before us. But now our leaders proceeded to tell off the party, stationing them singly at distances of about seventy or eighty paces along the bottom of the valley, within gunshot of the verge of the wood, which sloped to it. In this open order the line extended more than half a mile. The horses were tethered in the rear.

It was my lot to be posted near the extreme right on a detached rock, slightly elevated, so as to command the ground. I could just distinguish my neighbours on either hand, low down in the broom, the valley being rather thickly covered with brakes of underwood. The instructions for my noviciate in boar-hunting were,not to quit my post, and to maintain strict silence; injunctions not likely to be disregarded, as a breach of the former might have exposed me to be winged, in mistake for a pig among the rustling bushes, considering that there were dead shots on either flank, with two or three balls in their barrels. As to the other word of order, silence, the injunction was needless, for the ear of my nearest neighbour could only have been reached by shouts which might scare the game, and prevent their breaking cover, and that I was not quite novice enough to risk.

So I sat down on the rock, with my gun across my knees, watching the play of light and shade on the mountain sides as the clouds flitted round them. But this did not last long, for the line of vedettes could have been scarcely formed when the shouts of the party who had now gained the heights, and were beating the woods in face of our position, summoned the hunters in the valley beneath to be on the alert. The interval of suspense and silence being now broken, the scene became very exciting. The dogs in the wood gave tongue, and the short and snapping bark was shortly followed by a full burst, which told that the game was on foot. Then, no doubt, every gun was at full cock, every eye intently watching the avenues in the thickets through which boar or deer, driven from the woods, might cross the valley. The shouts and cries sounded nearer and nearer, till at length a shot from the extreme left announced that some game had been marked as it broke cover. A dropping fire now extended at intervals along the line, as cingale or capreole burst from the thickets. Several fell to the guns of the party, some escaped; others, wounded, were pursued by the dogs to the rear of the position, with a rush of some of the hunters on their trail.

The thickets having been completely swept, the line was now broken, and the party remounting their horses bore their trophies to a woody glen, where we dined, the spot chosen being the grassy bank of a little rivulet. Arms were piled; some gathered wood and lighted fires, others fetched water from the brook, and the more handy opened the baskets of provisions we had brought from Tempio and spread them on the grass. A wild boar was cut open, and, in Homeric style, the choicest portions of the intestines were torn out, and, broiled on wooden skewers, offered to the hunting-knives of the guests. The wine cup went round, and the hunters' feast was seasoned with rude merriment.

When they had eaten and drank enough,[52] the party mounted their horses and returned to Tempio, carrying the game across their saddle-bows. The cavalcade was as joyous as the feast. Jumping from their horses when they got among the vineyards, some dashed over the fences and brought away large bunches of grapes. And so we entered the city in triumph. In the course of the evening the skin of the finest wild boar was sent to our quarters as a trophy of our share in the work of the day, with a joint of the meat. Madame Rosalie's cuisine failed to do it justice; but, when well cooked, wild boar is excellent eating. This mode of hunting, generally practised by the Sardes, resembles the battue of wolves and leopards at which I have assisted in South Africa, where the Boers, assembling in numbers, make an onslaught on the ravagers of their flocks; having the dens and thickets driven, and stationing themselves on the outskirts with their long roers to shoot down the vermin as they issue forth. Such meetings are jovial, and the sport is exciting, but not to be compared, I think, to deer-stalking or fox-hunting, to say nothing of a foray against lions and tigers.



CHAP. XXIX.

Leave Tempio.Sunrise.Light Wreaths of Mist across the Valley.A Pass of the Limbara.View from the Summit.Dense Vapour over the Plain beneath.The Lowlands unhealthy.The deadly Intempérie.It recently carried off an English Traveller.Descend a romantic Glen to the Level of the Campidano.Its peculiar Character.Gallop over it.Reach Ozieri.

I have reason to believe from information received during a recent visit to Sardinia that the insecurity which, to some extent, prevailed when we were in the island in 1853, had considerably lessened. But while at Tempio in that year we learnt by an official communication from Cagliari that some of the central mountain districts, through which we proposed to pass on a shooting excursion, were in a disturbed state and must be approached with caution. In consequence, the Lascia portare arma forwarded to us was accompanied by an open order from the Colonel commanding the royal Caribineers, addressed to all the stations, for our being furnished with an escort. So, also, on our visit of leave to the Intendente of Tempio he pressed us to allow him to send us forward under escort, though I did not learn that there had been any recent outrages in his own province. On our declining the offer, as at variance with our habits and feelings, the Intendente said, I assure you that, here, the lowest government employé will not travel without an escort;and he again urged our accepting it, adding, the Marchese d'Azeglio having put you under my especial protection, I am responsible for your safety, and wish to use every precaution, lest anything unpleasant should occur. On our again respectfully declining the offer, the kind Intendente said, with a shrug, Well, gentlemen, I have done my duty, and I hope that when you get to Turin you will so represent it.

Such precautions exhibit a singular state of society in the midst of European civilisation; I apprehend, however, that the Piedmontese officials, and the continentals in general, paint the Sardes in darker colours than they merit; and there is little good blood between them.

Having no such prejudices, and entertaining no apprehensions, we started, as usual, having a honest viandante, with his saddle and pack-horses, for our only escort. The sun was just rising over the serrated ridge of the eastern mountains, when, emerging from the fetid shade of the narrow streets of Tempio, we came suddenly into his blessed light. The mountain sides still formed an indistinct mass of the richest purple hue, while, over the whole plain beneath, light mists rolled in fantastic waves, floating like a mysterious gauze-like veil, shreds of which touched by the sun's rays became brilliantly coloured, and others drifting through the scattered woods had the appearance of being combed out into long and fine-spun threads like the spiders'-webs which, gemmed with dew-drops, hung from spray to spray. It was a magnificent view, of great breadth, like one of Martin's mysterious pictures, and seen under the most splendid effects; but so transitory that after we crossed the first ridge all was changed. Meanwhile denser, but still light, wreaths close at hand mingled with the mists, as the blue smoke curled up from the vineyard sheds where the industrious Tempiese had already commenced their labours. The temperature was delicious, and rain had fallen in the night cooling the air and refreshing vegetation. Pleasanter than ever was our early ride through the pretty winding lanes dividing the vineyards and gardens skirting the town, and again, as we descended through deep banks among scattered woodlands to the open plains extending to the foot of the Limbara Mountains.

A long but easy ascent led to the top of the pass, the ridge we mounted being thickly clothed with evergreen shrubbery, the arbutus predominating, profusely decked with fruit and flower. The summit of the pass opened to us a double view in strong contrast. Looking back, we once more saw through a gap the mountains of Corsica, in faint outlines, eighty miles distant, with a glimpse of a blue stripe of water, the Straits of Bonifacio. Turning southward, we stood at the summit of a long winding glen richly wooded with ilex and cork trees, and far away beneath there lay before us a broad plain partially covered with a sea of vapour, not like the gay wreaths of mist that lightly floated over the elevated plateau surrounding Tempio, but so still, so condensed, so white, as to have been easily mistaken for a frozen lake powdered with snow, and its hills for islands rising out of the water.[53]

But such an image is unsuited to the climate of Sardinia at any season. Smiling as the landscape now appeared, its most striking feature was associated with the idea of death.

That dense creamy vapour, formed by the pestiferous exhalations of the lowlands, is the death shroud of the plain outstretched beneath it.



During the heats of summer, nay, sometimes from April till the latter end of November, the ravages of the deadly intempérie extend throughout the island to such a degree that in Captain Smyth's list of nearly 350 towns and villages included in his Statistical Table of Sardinia, full a third are noted as insalubrious. The disorder has the same character as malaria, but is far more virulent. Captain Smyth thus describes the symptoms: The patient is first attacked by a headache and painful tension of the epigastric region, with alternate sensations of heat and chilliness; a fever ensues, the exacerbations of which are extremely severe, and are followed by a mournful debility, more or less injurious even to those accustomed to it, but usually fatal to strangers. We have conversed with natives and residents who have recovered from repeated attacks of intempérie; foreigners suffer most. Instances have been related to me, observes Captain Smyth, of strangers landing for a few hours only from Italian coasters, who were almost immediately carried off by its virulence; indeed, the very breathing of the air by a foreigner at night, or in the cool of the evening, is considered as certain death in some parts.[54]

Not twelve months before our visit, an English officer was suddenly struck down and carried off while on a similar excursion in this part of the island. Sir Harry Darrell was one of the last men I should have thought liable to so fatal an attack. A few years ago, when returning from Caffreland just before the breaking out of the last war, I met him on the march to the frontier. I had off-saddled at noon, and while my horses were grazing, knee-haltered, on a slip of grass by the side of a running stream, was lying under the shade of a wild olive-tree, when the head-quarters' division of the Dragoon Guards passed along the road. Sir Harry and some other officers rode down into the meadow, and we talked of the state of Caffreland and of the principal chiefs, most of whom I had recently seen. I heard afterwards that he had got out fox-hounds and hunted the country about Fort Beaufort. He was a keen sportsman and clever artist. Some of his sketches in South Africa were published by Ackerman. His remains lie at Cagliari, where he was conveyed when struck by the intempérie, dying a few days after. A friend of mine, who was there at the time, informs me that Sir Harry's constitution had become debilitated, and he had rendered himself liable to the attack by exposure and over-fatigue. I mention the circumstance as a warning, but do not think there is much risk, with proper precautions, for men in good health, through most parts of the island, after the November rains have precipitated the miasma and purified the air. We ourselves slept in most pestiferous places, where the ravages of the disease were marked in the sallow countenances of the inhabitants, without experiencing the least inconvenience.

We rested at the summit of the pass commanding the distant view of the Campidano, which led to these remarks on the insalubrity of the country and the scourge of the intempérie. They are not, however, confined to the plains, but of course are more prevalent where marshes, stagnant waters, and rank vegetation engender vapours rising in the summer. Leaving my companion to finish the sketch copied in a former page, I slowly trotted on with the viandante, and, the descent becoming rapid, proceeded leisurely down the wooded glen, a depth of shade in which the heat, as well as the picturesque character of the scenery, tempted to linger. Old cork and ilex trees, with their rugged bark and grey foliage, throwing out rectangular arms of stiff and fantastic growth, wild vines hanging from the branches in festoons of brilliant hues, other trees with tawny orange leaves,I believe a species of ash,some of a rich claret, and the never-failing arbutus, here quite a tree, with its orange and crimson berries, all these massed together formed admirable contrasts in shape and colour. And then there was the gentle brook, never roaring or boisterous, but purling among rocks dividing it into still pools, with giant ferns hanging over the stream and bunches of hassock-grass luxuriating in the alluvial soil of its little deltas, and, where the forest receded, a graceful growth of shrubbery feathering the winding banks.

Some of the cork-trees were fine specimens, of great age. Several I measured in a rough way by embracing their trunks with extended arms. This, repeated four or five times, gave a circumference of twenty or twenty-five feet. The bark was ten inches thick. While so employed I was startled by a wild boar rushing by me into the thickets. The cork wood gradually thinned into scattered clumps on the slopes of the hills, and the winding valley, five or six miles long, was abruptly terminated by a bold mamelon, or green mound, covered with dwarf heath or turf; so shorn and smooth it appeared, probably from being pastured, in immediate contrast with the shaggy sides of the mountain glen. The horsetrack, avoiding this obstacle, led up the eastern acclivity of the glen, and the summit commanded the Campidano, now clear of fog, spread out before us, far as the eye could reach, in a broad level, broken only by some singular flat-topped hills in the foreground.

Striking and novel as this landscape appeared at the first glance, I confess that, at the moment, my attention was most directed backward on the track I had just followed. It was now some hours since I parted from my fellow-traveller. I had often listened for his horse's steps in the deep glen, where there was no seeing many hundred yards backwards or forwards; and though the present elevation commanded some points in the track, he did not appear. I was getting fidgetty, and the guide's replies to my inquiries did not tend to reassure me, for there are malviventi as well as fuorusciti in the wildsa well known distinctionwhen, just as we were on the point of returning back, after half an hour's additional suspense, I got a glimpse of my friend trotting out of the woods close under the point of view. He, too, had lingered in the romantic glen after finishing his sketch.

We had now cleared the defiles of the Limbara, and, descending to the level of the plains, made up for lost time by galloping ventre à terre over the boundless waste. Here were no shady nooks, no forest masses, no fantastic growths, no grey crags, no bright-flowered thickets, so grouped as one might never see again, and tempting to linger. All the features were now on a broad scale; they were caught at a glance, and the few which broke the monotony of the scene were repeated again and again. But they were not without interest. The rivulet had expanded into a wide stream, making long bends through the deep loam of the grassy meads, and looking so cool and refreshing, that, but for the pebbly shoals in its bed, it was difficult to conceive the midsummer heats rendering these verdant plains desolate and pestilential.

Along the banks of the river, and far away in every direction, were scattered herds of cattle, guarded by armed shepherds, wild bearded fellows in goatskin mantles and leather doublets, mostly on horseback. We meet such figures on the grassy track, looking fiercely as we sweep along; we see them at a distance on the edge of some of the gentle slopes in which the plain is rolled, when only the profile of the horse, the stalwart rider and his long gun, comes out clear against the sky. There is more life on the Campidano than in the mountains. Not that it is inhabited; there is scarcely a house on this whole plain, fifty or sixty miles in circumference. Not that there is much cultivation; here and there, at rare intervals, we see patches of a livelier green than the surrounding expanse of grass, and the young wheat just springing up, the strong blade and rich loamy furrow, remind us that Sardinia was reckoned in former times a granary of Rome. We see also the grey mounds of the Nuraghe scattered over the plain, some mouldering down to its level, a few still rearing their truncated cones, like solitary watch-towers, for which they have been mistaken. They, too, remind us of times long past, of a primitive age. But they are to be found in all parts of the island, and we shall fall in with them again, more at leisure to examine their structure and hazard a conjecture as to their origin. Now we gallop on over the level plain. The sward on the beaten track is close and elastic, and our cavallante's spirited barbs, spared in the glen during the noontide heat, spring as if they had never been broken to the portante pace. The morning fog and the cadaverous features of the shepherds have warned us that the teeming Campidano is no place to linger in after nightfall. Their homes are in the villages scattered round the edge of the great plain; not much elevated, as the paese in Corsica, but standing on gentle acclivities. We marked them at a distance. Already we have passed Sassu on our right and Oschiri on our left; they are poor places. Codriaghe and Codrongianus and Florinas stand at the extremity of the plain towards Sassari, and we shall see them on our road thither, if we ever get there. Ardara, once the capital of the province of Logudoro, founded as early as 1060, and having many historic traditions, crowns, with its massive towers rising above the ruined walls, a hillock on the plain right before us. It boasts also a fine church, enriched with curious objects of art; but the town has dwindled to a collection of hovels with a small population, few of whom, we are told, survive their fiftieth year, so destructive is the intempérie. We turn away: Ozieri stands invitingly on rather a bold eminence at the head of a gorge where the plain narrows towards the hills. The rays of the setting sun are full upon its houses and churches. It is a place of some importance, and lies in our proposed line through byroads to the forest districts of the interior. If our pace holds on we may reach it by an hour after sunset. Perhaps we shall find good cheer, the best preservative, I should imagine, against the miasma that produces intempérie.





CHAP. XXX.

Effects of vast Levels as compared with Mountain Scenery.Sketches of Sardinian Geology.The primitive Chains and other Formations.Traces of extensive Volcanic action.The Campidani, or Plains.Mineral Products.

Vast open plains, such as that described in the preceding chapter, form a singular feature in the physical aspect of the island of Sardinia. There are few travellers, I think, of much experience who, in traversing such tracts of country, have not been struck at one time by the desolation of their depths of solitude, or been pleased, at another, by the glimpses of nomade life, their occasional accompaniments; and who would not be willing to admit that, in their general impressions on the imagination, they sometimes rival even mountain scenery. For if grandeur be one main ingredient in the sublime, when an object such as a seemingly boundless level, or rolling plain, the extent of which the eye is unable to scan, lies before you, when, after long marches, it still appears interminable, the mind is perhaps more impressed with the idea of magnitude than by large masses, however enormous, with defined outlines presented to the view. In the former instance, the imagination is called into play and fills out the picture on a scale corresponding with the actual features, as far as they are subject to observation; but the imagination proverbially adopts an extravagant measure.

One of my friend's sketches of Campidano scenery, introduced here, cleverly represents the effects produced by great distances on one of these rolling plains.



Perhaps the idea of illimitable extent is better conveyed by the lithographic sketch, No. 8, in which the level, not being interrupted by the intersection of a mountain ridge, as in the former, vanishes in distance. But the termination of the plain in the woodcut is only apparent as, winding round the base of the mountains, the level is still continued though lost to sight. It is not however intended to intimate that these Sardinian plains can at all vie with the great continental levels in various quarters of the globe, the immensity of which occurred to my mind, and some of them to my recollection, when remarking on the impressions such scenes produce on the traveller's sensations. The most extensive of the Sardinian Campidani is only fifty miles in length, and they are all of far less breadth. Their effect is therefore only comparative, but being proportioned to the scale of other surrounding objects, to the area of the insular surface, and the limited height and extent of the mountain ranges, they produce a proportionate effect; but that, as it has been already remarked, is sufficiently striking.

Some brief details of these interesting features in Sardinian scenerythe larger of which are termed Campidani, and the secondary Campiwill be fitly combined with a general sketch of the geological formations of the island; as we are now approaching the same standing point, the central districts, from which we took occasion to review the orology of Corsica. It was then remarked that the mountain systems of the two islands are of similar character and were formerly united; of which there is evidence in the rocky islets scattered from one coast to the other, across the Straits of Bonifacio.[55] Sardinia, however, though apparently a continuation of Corsica, is essentially different in its physical aspect; the elevations being less, the plains more extensive and fertile, its mineralogical riches far more varied, and volcanic action on a large scale being traced throughout the island, while few vestiges of it are discovered in Corsica.

While these sheets have been passing through the press, General Alberto de la Marmora has published two volumes in continuation of his Voyages en Sardaigne, devoted exclusively, with an accompanying Atlas, to the geology of the island; a work of the greatest scientific value, from the high character of the author, and the time he has zealously spent in his researches, but too elaborate for any attempt to reduce its details within the compass or the scope of these pages. Our brief sketch must be confined to a few general remarks derived from La Marmora's former volumes, and Captain Smyth's very accurate account of Sardinia; availing ourselves also of Mr. Warre Tyndale's digest of these accounts, and giving some results of our own limited observation.

The principal chain of primitive mountains trends from north to south, extending through the districts of Gallura, Barbagia, Ogliastra, and Budui, along the whole eastern coast of the island. This range consists of granite, with ramifications of schist, and large masses of quartz, mica, and felspar. It is intersected by transverse ranges, and by plains and valleys partly formed by volcanic agency; indeed, the connection between the Gallura group and that of Barbagia is entirely cut off by the great plain of Ozieri.

The most northerly of the series is the Limbara group. Its highest peak, according to La Marmora 4287 feet, is an entire mass of granite. The Genargentu in the Barbagia range, of the same formation, the highest and most central mountain in Sardinia, has two culminating points of the respective heights of 6230 and 6118 feet. They are covered with snow from September till May, and the inhabitants of Aritzu, who make it an object of traffic, are, I believe, able to continue the supply throughout the year.[56] The Monte Oliena in the central group near Nuoro, 4390 feet high, is calcareous, as are two others, between 2000 and 3000 feet high, in the same chain. It terminates with the Sette Fratelli, prolonged to Cape Carbonaro, the eastern point of the gulf of Cagliari, the highest point of the group, which is entirely granite, being 3142 feet.

We find a detached formation called the Nurra mountains, composed of granite, schist, and primitive limestone, filling the isthmus of the Cape at the north-west extremity of the island, and extending to the little isle of Asinara. The mountains of Sulcis, at the extreme south-west, and terminating in the Capes Teulada and Spartivento, are similarly composed; their highest peaks, the Monte Linas and Severa, being from 3000 to 4000 feet high.

But the most striking geological feature in Sardinia consists in the great extent of the volcanic formations. These, as well as the slighter traces of such action in Corsica, are doubtless connected with the subterranean and submarine fires of which the coasts and islands of the central Mediterranean basin afford so many evidences in active and extinct volcanoes (some of them in activity in the times of Homer, Pindar, and Thucydides), and ranging in a circle from the Roman territory to that of Naples, to the Lipari islands, Sicily, and those forming the subject of our present inquiry. Sardinia has been widely ravaged by internal fires, but at too remote an era to admit of our conjecturing the period. The volcanic action can be traced from Castel Sardo, where it has formed precipices on the northern coast, to the vicinity of Monastir, a distance southward of more than 100 miles; its central focus appearing to have been about half-way between Ales, Milis, and St. Lussurgiu, where, as Captain Smyth remarks, the phlægrean evidences are particularly abundant. The action was principally confined to the western side of the island, though, south of Genargentu, the volcanic formations approach the primitive chain, and the rounded hills we remarked in the present rambles, after crossing the Limbara, as far east as Oschiri on the Campo d'Ozieri, are, I doubt not, craters of extinct volcanoes. The flat-topped hill, or truncated cone, figured in the lithograph drawing, No. 8, represents one of them, and, scattered as these verdant cones are over the long sweeps of the Campidani, they formed additional features in the interest with which, as I have already said, we regarded those immense tracts.

From the supposed centre of volcanic action just suggested, it may be traced northward through the districts of Macomer, Bonorva, Giavesu, Keremule, with the hillock on which Ardara stands, and Codrongianus, to its termination in the cliffs of Lungo Sardo. But its most salient feature is the detached group of mountains on the western coast between Macomer and Orestano, which are entirely volcanic. This group has the name of Monte del Marghine, in the small map prefixed to Captain Smyth's survey, but I do not find that or any other distinct name attached to it in La Marmora's large Carta dell'Isola. The village of St. Lussurgiu is literally built in a crater connected with this group, as is also that of Cuglieri. The highest point, Monte Articu, the summit of Monte Ferro, entirely volcanic, rises 3442 feet above the Mediterranean, and the Trebia Lada, 2723 feet high, is one of the three basaltic feet forming the Trebina, or Tripod, on the summit of Monte Arcuentu, a mountain between Orestano and Ales formed of horizontal layers of basalt. Further south at Nurri, closely approaching the primitive chain, are two hills, called pizzè-ogheddu, and pizzè ogu mannu, or peaks of the little and great eye, which were certainly ignivomous mouths, and the peasants believe that they still have a subterraneous communication. A volcanic stream has run from them over a calcareous tract, forming an elevated plain nearly 1600 feet above the level of the sea, called, Sa giara e Serri. It overlooks Gergei, and is covered with oaks and cork trees, while the northern side of its declivity affords rich pasture. North-west from this place is the Giara di Gestori, of similar formation, proceeding from a crater at Ales, but strewed with numerous square masses of stoneprincipally fragments of obsidian, and trachytic and cellular lavaso as to resemble a city in ruins. At Monastir there is a distinct double crater, now well wooded; and a bridge constructed of fine red trap, with the bold outline of the neighbourhood, render the entrance to the village by the Strada Reale singularly picturesque. The volcanic current, flowing westward from Monastir by Siliqua and Massargiu, again approached the coast towards the southern extremity of Sardinia, extending across the deep gulf of Palmas to the islands of S. Pietro and S. Antonio, which are entirely composed of trachytic rocks. Their bold escarpments arrested our attention on approaching the coast, near Cape Teulada, in one of our excursions to Sardinia.

Plains of lava, called giare by the natives, are often found reposing on the large tracts of recent formation, such as those of Sardara, Ploaghe, and other places; and considerable extents of trap and pitchstone are frequently met with on limestone strata, while others, tending fast to decomposition, are incorporated with an earth formed of comminuted lava. Vestiges of craters, though generally ill defined, still exist in the vicinity of Osilo, Florinas, Keremule, St. Lussurgiu, Monastir, &c. Some of these are considered, from their less broken and conical shape, and from the surrounding country consisting of fine red ashes, slaggy lava, scoria, obsidian, and indurated pozzolana, with hills of porphyritic trap,all lying over tertiary rock,to have been of a much more recent formation than the others, which in form present a lengthened straggling appearance, and in composition resemble those of Auvergne.

The tertiary formation lies on the west side of the principal granitic chain, and, besides forming the Campidano and the bases on which the volcanic substances rest, constitutes the hills of Cagliari, Sassari, and Sorso. The tertiary limestone seldom ranges more than 1313 feet above the level of the sea, though at Isili and some other places it is 1542 feet high. La Marmora considers it analogous to the upper tertiary formations found in the south of France, central and southern Italy, Sicily, Malta, the Balearic Islands, and Africa. The plains generally consist of a deep alluvial silt, interspersed with shingly patches, containing boulder stones. Such is the valley of the Liscia, occupying nearly the whole surface from sea to sea towards the northern extremity of the island. This, it may be recollected, we crossed north of the Limbara. Then succeeds the series of Campi or Campidani, properly so called. We have already spoken of the vast plain of Ozieri, terminating in the south-west with its minor branches, the Campi di Mela, St. Lazarus, and Giavesu, to which it spreads transversely from the Gulf of Terranova, on the eastern coast. The bottom of this gulf forms one of the finest harbours in the island, with some trade, but the town of that name is a wretched place, remarkable for its insalubrity and the truculent character of the inhabitants.

On the western side of the island are the small Campi of Anglona, lying round Castel Sardo, and another plain highly cultivated between Sassari and Porto Torres. The largest of these plains on the eastern side of the island is that of Orosei, washed by several rivers having their sources in the neighbouring primitive chain of mountains. Westward of this chain we have the great central plain, which, first surrounding the Gulf of Oristano, extends in an unbroken line, for upwards of fifty miles, to the Gulf of Cagliari. This is generally spoken of as the Campidano, without further specification, though its parts are distinguished by local names, such asdi Uras, di Gavino, &c.

The mineral riches of Sardinia were well known to the ancients, and vast excavations, with the remains of a number of foundries, afford ample testimony of the extent of their operations. Tradition asserts that gold was formerly extracted; and there is no doubt that silver was found in considerable quantities, as it is even now procured in assaying the lead. Copper is found near Cape Teulada, and at other places, and in one of the mines beautiful specimens of malachite occur. Iron is very plentifully distributed, but is found principally at the Monte Santo of Cape Teulada, and at Monte Ferru. The richest mine is in the Ogliastra, where the intempérie, however, is so malignant as to preclude the formation of an establishment. Lead is the most abundant of Sardinian ores, and its mines are profusely scattered throughout the islands.

Anthracite has been found, but only that of the Nurra district is fit for working; and the coal, though met with in various places in the secondary formations, and especially in the lower parts of the beds of magnesian limestone, is neither sufficient in quantity nor good enough in quality to be generally used. The granites of the Gallura, as we have already mentioned, were known to the ancients, and highly appreciated in Italy for their beauty and colours. Among the other mineral products may also be mentioned the porphyries of the Limbara, the basalt of Nurri, Gestori, and Serri, the alabaster of Sarcidanu, and the marbles of the Goceano and Monte Raso. Jasper abounds in the trachyte and dolomite, and large blocks, of beautiful variety, are found in some districts. Among the chalcedonies are the sardonyx, agates, and cornelian. The districts from whence the ancients obtained the sardonyx, once held in high repute, are not known, but the vicinity of Bosa abounds in chalcedenous formations. A fine quality of quartz amethyst has been obtained, and also hydrophane, known for its peculiar property of becoming transparent when immersed in water. Good turquoises and garnets are also found, but not frequently. Though there have been so many volcanoes, and selenite, gypsum, lime, and aluminous schist frequently occur, neither sulphur nor rock salt have been discovered, and but very little alum. Mineral springs are numerous, but not much frequented.



CHAP. XXXI.

Ozieri.A Refugee Colonel turned Cook and Traiteur.Traces of Phenician Superstitions in Sarde Usages.The Rites of Adonis.Passing through the Fire to Moloch.

We entered Ozieri by a new carriage-road in the course of construction to connect it with the great Strada Reale between Sassari and Cagliari; such an undertaking being a novelty in Sardinia, and, of itself, indicating that Ozieri is an improving place. It is the chief town of a province, and contains a population of 8000, having the character of being, and who were to all appearance, thriving, industrious, and orderly. The streets are airy and clean, the principal thoroughfare being watered by a stream issuing from a handsome fountain. There are many good houses, and, including the cathedral, a large heavy building, nine churches in the city, with three massive convents. That of the Capucins, from its cypress-planted terrace, commands a fine view of the Campidano, as does the church of N.S. di Montserrato on the summit of a neighbouring hill.

The piazza, a large area in the centre of the town, was thronged with people, lounging and enjoying the evening air, when we rode into it, not having the slightest idea where we were to dismount. In this dilemma, observing among the crowd, through which we slowly moved, a serjeant of the Bersaglieri, distinguished by the neat uniform of his rifle corps, with the drooping plume of cock's feathers in his cap, we addressed ourselves to him, having among our letters one to the Commandant of the garrison, which he undertook to deliver. Meanwhile, he turned our horses' heads to a house in the piazza, kept by an Italian, with the accommodations of which we found reason to be well satisfied.

Mr. Tyndale describes the osteria at Ozieri as execrable, while, on the other hand, Captain Smyth speaks favourably of the locanda at Tempio. At the period of our visit the circumstances were just the reverse. The Café et Restaurant de Rome proved more than its titles implied. Fully maintaining the latter of these, it supplied us also with two good apartments. Mine was festooned with bunches of grapes hung from the ceiling, and heaps of apples and pears were stored on shelvesso there was no lack of fruit; while, much to our surprise, several excellent plats were served for supper, the master of the house uniting the offices of chef de cuisine and garçon. On our praising his dishes,Ah, said he, rather theatrically, Je n'ai pas toujours rempli un tel métier!How so?Sirs, I am a Roman exile; I have fought for liberty; I was a Colonel in the service of the republic,and now I make dishes in Sardinia! But a good time is coming; before long, I shall be recalled, and thenthere would be an end of popes and cardinals, &c. He told us that many of Mazzini's partisans had taken refuge in Sardinia. We afterwards met with another of them under similar circumstances. Unwilling to wound the feelings of a Colonel who, like the Theban general, was also our Amphitryon, we did not inquire under what circumstances our host had acquired the arts which he practised so well; suspecting, however, that our Colonel's earliest experience was in handling batteries de cuisine. In his double capacity, he might have more than rivalled in the Crimea even our General Soyer. To recommend some liqueurs of his own composition, which certainly were excellent, he told us that Sir Harry Darrell, who was here the preceding winter, just before he was seized with the intempérie, prized them so much that he carried off great part of his stock.

In the course of the evening we had a visit from the Commandant. Among other civilities, he made the agreeable proposal that we should join a party formed by the Conte di T to hunt in the mountains south of Ozieri, following the sport for several days. This scheme suited us exactly, as it would lead us into the forest district of Barbagia, which it was our design to visit. Such is the warmth of the climate, that though it was now the middle of November, after the Commandant took his leave we sat to a late hour in our shirt-sleeves, with the casements wide open on the now solitary piazza, while I wrote and my companion was drawing. So employed, a strain of distant music stole on the ear in the stillness of the night, one of those plaintive melodies common among the Sardes, a sort of recitative by a tenor voice, with others joining in a chorus.

Among the many usages derived by the Sardes from their Phenician ancestors, one of a singular character is still practised by the Oziese, of which Father Bresciani gives the following account:Towards the end of March, or the beginning of April, it is the custom for young men and women to agree together to fill the relation of godfathers and godmothers of St. John, compare e comaresuch is the phrasefor the ensuing year. At the end of May, the proposed comare, having procured a segment of the bark of a cork tree, fashions it in the shape of a vase, and fills it with rich light mould in which are planted some grains of barley or wheat. The vase being placed in the sunshine, well watered and carefully tended, the seed soon germinates, blades spring up, and, making a rapid growth, in the course of twenty-one days,that is, before the eve of St. John,the vase is filled by a spreading and vigorous plant of young corn. It then receives the name of Hermes, or, more commonly, of Su Nennere, from a Sarde word, which possibly has the same signification as the Phenician name of garden; similar vases being called, in ancient times, the gardens of Adonis.

On the eve of St. John, the cereal vase, ornamented with ribbons, is exposed on a balcony, decorated with garlands and flags. Formerly, also, a little image in female attire, or phallic emblems moulded in clay, such as were exhibited in the feasts of Hermes, were placed among the blades of corn; but these representations have been so severely denounced by the Church, that they are fallen into disuse. The young men flock in crowds to witness the spectacle and attend the maidens who come out to grace the feast. A great fire is lit on the piazza, round which they leap and gambol, the couple who have agreed to be St. John's compare completing the ceremony in this manner:the man is placed on one side of the fire, the woman on the other, each holding opposite ends of a stick extended over the burning embers, which they pass rapidly backwards and forward. This is repeated three times, so that the hand of each party passes thrice through the flames. The union being thus sealed, the comparatico, or spiritual alliance, is considered perfect.[57] After that, the music strikes up, and the festival is concluded by dances, prolonged to a late hour of the night.

In some places the couple go in procession, attended by a gay company of youths and damsels, all in holiday dresses, to some country church. Arrived there, they dash the vase of Hermes against the door, so that it falls in pieces. The company then seat themselves in a circle on the grass, and feast on eggs fried with herbs, while gay tunes are played on the lionedda.[58] A cup of wine is passed round from one to another, and each, laying his hand on his neighbour, repeats, with a certain modulation of voice, supported by the music of the pipes, Compare e comare di San Giovanni!. The toast is repeated, in a joyous chorus, for some time, till, at length, the company rise, still singing, and, forming a circle, dance merrily for many hours.

Father Bresciani, La Marmora, and other writers, justly consider the Nennere as one of the many relics of the Phenician colonisation of Sardinia. Every one knows that the Sun and Moon, under various names, such as Isis and Osiris, Adonis and Astarte, were the principal objects of worship in the East from the earliest times; the sun being considered as the vivifying power of universal nature, the moon, represented as a female, deriving her light from the sun, as the passive principle of production. The abstruse doctrines on the origin of things, thus shadowed out by the ancient seers, generated the grossest ideas, expressed in the phallic emblems, the lewdness and obscenities mixed up in the popular worship of the deified principles of all existence. Of the prevalence in Sardinia of the Egypto-Phenician mythology, in times the most remote, no one who has examined the large collection of relics in the Royal Museum at Cagliari, or who consults the plates attached to La Marmora's work, can entertain any doubt. But it is surprising to find, among the usages of the Sardes at the present day, a very exact representation of the rites of a primitive religion, introduced into the island nearly thirty-five centuries ago, though it now partakes rather of the character of a popular festival than of a religious ceremony.

The Phenicians worshipped the sun under the name of Adonis, while the moon, Astarte, the Astaroth of the Bible, and the Venus-Ouranie of the Greeks, was their goddess of heaven. The story of Adonis is well known:how, being slain by a wild boar in the Libanus, his mistress sought him in vain, with loud lamentations, throughout the earth, and following him to the infernal regions, prevailed on Proserpine by her tears and prayers to allow him to spend one half the year on earth, to which he returned in youth perpetually renewed. Thus was shadowed out the annual course of the sun in the zodiac, and especially his return to ascendancy at the summer solstice, a season devoted to joy and festivity. In after times, this period corresponding with the feast of St. John the Baptist (24th June), that festival was celebrated in many parts of Christendom with bonfires and merriment,usages adopted from pagan traditions. The practices of the Nennere, in the neighbourhood of Ozieri and other parts of Sardinia, still more distinctly coincide with the rites which accompanied the ancient festival.

It was the custom of the Phenician women, towards the end of May, to place before the shrine, or in the portico of the temples, of Adonis, certain vessels, in which were sown grains of barley or wheat. These vessels were made of wicker-work or pieces of bark, and sometimes wrought of plaster. The seeds, sown in rich earth, soon sprung up, and formed plants of luxuriant growth. These verdant vases were then called by the Phenicians the Gardens of Adonis. The ceremonies of the summer solstice commenced over night with lamentations by the women, expressive of grief for the loss of Adonis. But on the morrow, when the sun came out of his chamber like a giant refreshed, all was changed to joy; the garden vases were crowned with wreaths of purple and various-coloured ribbons, and the resurrection of the boy-god was celebrated by dancing, feasting, and revelry. The priestesses of Adonis led the way in a mysterious procession, bearing the vases, with other symbols already alluded to, and on re-entering the temples, dancing and singing, they cast the vases and scattered their verdure at the feet of the god. All the women then danced in a circle round the altar, and the day and night were spent in pious orgies, feasting, and revelry. It is needless to point out the close identity of the Oziese Nennere with these Phenician rites.

The worship of Adonis, under the name of Tammuz[59], with all its seductive abominations, was one of the Canaanitish idolatries into which the Israelites were prone to fall. Father Bresciani considers these rites to be emphatically referred to in the indignant apostrophe of Isaiah:How is the faithful city become an harlot!... ye shall be confounded with idols to which ye have sacrificed, and be ashamed of the gardens which ye have chosen.[60] And again, in the prophet's terrible denunciation:Behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire ... and the slain of the Lord shall be many. They that sanctified themselves and esteemed themselves clean in the garden of the portico[61] shall be consumed together, saith the Lord.

Whether the learned Jesuit's interpretation of these passages be well founded or not, we may add another from the prophet Ezekiel, not referred to by him, but of the application of which to some of these rites there can be no doubt. In one of those lofty visions, vividly portraying the iniquities of Israel, her idolatries and wicked abominations, the prophet's attention is directed to the intolerable scandal that, even at the gate of the Lord's house, behold there sat women weeping for Tammuz.[62]

Thammuz came next behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate, In amorous ditties, all a summer day, While smooth Adonis, from his native rock Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Thammuz, yearly wounded: the love tale Infected Zion's daughters with like heat; Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led, His eye surveyed the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah.Par. Lost, i. 447.

One of the remarkable incidents in the Sarde Nennere, just described, consists in the consecration of the spiritual relation between the compare and comare, by their thrice crossing hands over the fire in the ceremonies of St. John's day. A still more extraordinary vestige of the idolatrous rite of passing through the fire, is said to be still subsisting among the customs of the people of Logudoro, in the neighbourhood of Ozieri, and in other parts of Sardinia.

Of the worship of Molochpar excellence the Syrian and Phenician god of fireby the ancient Sardes, there is undoubted proof. We find among the prodigious quantity of such relics, collected from all parts of the island, in the Royal Museum at Cagliari, a statuette of this idol, supposed to have been a household god. Its features are appalling: great goggle eyes leer fiercely from their hollow sockets; the broad nostrils seem ready to sniff the fumes of the horrid sacrifice; a wide gaping mouth grins with rabid fury at the supposed victim; dark plumes spring from the forehead, like horns, and expanded wings from each shoulder and knee. The image brandishes a sword with the left hand, holding in the right a small grate, formed of metal bars. It would appear that, this being heated, the wretched victim was placed on it, and then, scorched so that the fumes of the disgusting incense savoured in the nostrils of the rabid idol, it fell upon a brazier of burning coals beneath, where it was consumed. There is another idol in this collection with the same truculent cast of features, but horned, and clasping a bunch of snakes in the right hand, a trident in the left, with serpents twined round its legs. This image has a large orifice in the belly, and flames are issuing between the ribs, so that it would appear that when the brazen image of the idol was thoroughly heated, the unhappy children intended for sacrifice were thrust into the mouth in the navel, and there grilled,savoury morsels, on which the idol seems, from his features, rabidly gloating, while the priests, we are told, endeavoured to drown the cries of the sufferers by shouts and the noise of drums and timbrels

... horrid king, besmeared with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears; Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud, Their children's cries unheard, that pass'd through fire To his grim idol.Par. Lost, i. 392.

This cruel child-sacrifice was probably the giving of his seed to Moloch[63], fwhich any Israelite, or stranger that sojourned in Israel, guilty of the crime was, according to the Mosaic law, to be stoned to death. We are informed in the Sacred Records, that no such denunciations of the idolatries of the surrounding nations, no revelations of the attributes, or teachings of the pure worship of Jehovah, restrained the Israelites from the practice of the foul and cruel rites of their heathen neighbours; and we find, in the latter days of the Jewish commonwealth, the prophet Jeremiah predicting[64] the desolation of the people for this sin among others, that they had estranged themselves from the worship of Jehovah, and burned incense to strange gods, and filled the holy place with the blood of innocents, and burned their sons and their daughters with fire for burnt-offerings unto Baal.[65]

There appear to have been two modes in which the ancient idolaters devoted their children to Moloch. In one they were sacrificed and consumed in the manner already described, a burnt-offering to the cruel idol for the expiation of the sins of their parents or their people. In the other, they were only made to pass through the fire, in honour of the deity, and as a sort of initiation into his mysteries, and consecration to his service. Thus Ahaz, King of Judah, is said to have made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen.[66] And it is reckoned in the catalogue of the sins of Judah, which drew on them the vengeance of God, that they built the high places of Baal, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Moloch.[67]

In the case of infants, it is supposed that this initiation, this baptism by fire, was performed either by placing them on a sort of grate suspended by chains from the vault of the temple, and passed rapidly over the sacred fire, or by the priests taking the infants in their arms, and swaying them to and fro over or across the fire, chanting meanwhile certain prayers or incantations. With respect to children of older growth, they were made to leap naked through the fire before the idol, so that their whole bodies might be touched by the sacred flames, and purified, as it were, by contact with the divinity.

The Sardes, we are informed by Father Bresciani[68] still preserve a custom representing this initiation by fire, but, as in other Phenician rites and practices, without the slightest idea of their profane origin. In the first days of spring, from one end of the island to the other, the villagers assemble, and light great fires in the piazze and at the cross-roads. The flames beginning to ascend, the children leap through them at a bound, so rapidly and with such dexterity, that when the flames are highest it is seldom that their clothes or a hair of their head are singed. They continue this practice till the fuel is reduced to embers, the musicians meanwhile playing on the lionedda tunes adapted to a Phyrric dance. This, says the learned Father, is a representation of the initiation through fire into the mysteries of Moloch; and, singular as its preservation may appear through the vast lapse of time since such rites were practised, we see no reason to doubt his relation, exactly as he treats on this subject after repeated visits to the island, even if the account were not confirmed by other writers, as we find it is. Bresciani's recent work is almost entirely devoted, as we have already observed, to the task of tracing numerous customs still existing among the Sardes to their eastern origin. We may find future opportunities of noticing some in which the coincidence is most striking.



CHAP. XXXII.

Expedition to the Mountains.Environs of Ozieri.First View of the Peaks of Genargentu.Forests.Value of the Oak Timber.Cork Trees; their Produce, and Statistics of the Trade.Hunting the Wild Boar, &c.The Hunters' Feast.A Bivouac in the Woods.Notices of the Province of Barbagia.Independence of the Mountaineers.

The hunting excursion in the mountains south of Ozieri was in the order of the day, the expedition being on a much larger scale than that arranged by our honest Tempiese friends at the Caffè de la Costituzione. We were to camp out; and the party consisted of upwards of thirty horsemen, well mounted and armed, with the Conte di T and some other Oziese gentlemen for leaders. We had also a large pack of dogs, some of them fine animals, almost equal to bloodhounds.

Our route from the town led us over a succession of scraggy hills, with cultivation in the bottoms, and some straggling vineyards, not very flourishing. The walnut trees in the glens, and small inclosures mixed with copse wood, reminded us more of English or Welsh scenery than anything we had before seen in either of the Mediterranean islands. After passing a village standing on high ground, there was a long ascent, and in about an hour and a half from our leaving Ozieri, on gaining the summit of a ridge of hills outlying from the Goceano range, we opened on a magnificent view of the great central chain of mountains, stretching away to the south-east in giant limbs and folds, with Genargentu and other summits shrouded in a grey silvery haze. A broad valley was spread out beneath our point of view, and the mountain range immediately opposite, the lower regions of which, as far as the eye could command the view, right and left, were clothed with dense forests, straggling down in broken masses and detached clumps to the edge of the intervening valley.

Into the depths of these forests we were to penetrate in pursuit of our game, and finer covers to be stocked with cingale and capriole, or bolder scenery for the theatre of our sylvan sport, can scarcely be imagined. It was spirit-stirring when, full in view of these grand natural features, our numerous cavalcade wound down the hill in scattered groups to the plain beneath, among pollard cork trees, just now shedding their acorns. There was deep ploughing in the rich vale watered by the upper streams of the Tirso, which winds through the valley at the foot of the Goceano range. After crossing the holms, we were on slopes of greensward, lightly feathered with the red fern, and dotted with trees, like a park.

And now we touched the verge of the forest, rough with brakes of giant heaths, such underwood alternating with grassy glades wherever the woods opened. This part of the forest consists of an unbroken mass of primitive cork trees of great size. The rugged bark, the strangely-angular growth of the limbs, hung with grey lichens in fantastic combs, and the thick olive-green foliage almost excluding the light of heaven, with the roar of the wind through the trees,for it was a dull, cold day, the coldest we spent in Sardinia,with all this, a Scandinavian forest could not be more dreary and savage. After tracking the gloomy depths of shade for a considerable distance, it was an agreeable change to quit the forest and warm our blood by cantering up a slope of scrub. Then, after crossing a grassy hollow, we came among scattered woods of the most magnificent oaks, both evergreen and deciduous, I ever saw. Some of the trees were of enormous size, and if the quality of the timber be equal to the scantling, Sardinia would supply materials of great value for naval purposes.

The forests of the Barbagia, into which we now penetrated, like those of the Gallura, are principally virgin forests; the want of roads, of navigable rivers, and even of flottage, presenting formidable obstacles to the conveyance of the timber to the seaboard for exportation, though the first is not insurmountable. The forests of the Marghine and Goceano ranges round Macomer, having the little port of Boso on the western coast for an outlet, are felled to some extent. The contracts are mostly in the hands of foreigners, who obtain them on such low terms that their profits are enormous. Mr. Tyndale gives the details of a contract obtained by a Frenchman for 18,000 oak trees, at fifteen lire nove, 12s. each, the trees being said to realise from 200 to 300 francs (8l. to 12l.) each at Toulon or Marseilles. In England, we pay from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 3d. per cubic foot for very indifferent American oak, and from 1s. 9d. to 2s. 6d. for Baltic oak, perhaps superior to the Sardinian.

In the course of the Corsican notices in this volume, it was mentioned that after my return to England, I had some communications with a government department respecting the pine forests of Corsica.[69] On my taking occasion also to represent the great abundance of oak timber of large dimensions standing in Sardinia, I learnt that a valuable report on the subject had been made to the Admiralty by Mr. Craig, Her Majesty's excellent Consul-General in the island. It did not, however, appear that any steps had been taken in consequence.

Great damage is done to the forests by the herdsmen and shepherds, who are permitted, under certain restrictions, to burn down portions of underwood, such as the lentiscus, daphne, and cistus, to allow the pasturage to grow for their flocks. But though this is not legal before the eighth of September, when the intense heat of the summer has passed away, and the periodical autumnal rains are necessary for the young herbage, the law is broken, and not only accidental but wilful conflagrations have been the destruction of numerous forests. What with this waste, the injury done to the growing timber by the contractors, and the indolence of the natives, the noble forests of Sardinia are of little account. Even the government, it is said, purchase most of the oak used in the dockyards of Genoa at the French ports before mentioned.

Similar observations apply to cork, though capable of easier transport, and said to be as fine as any in the world. The Sardinian forests would supply large quantities; but it enters little into the exports of the island. We saw a great many trees stripped by the peasants for domestic uses, naked and miserable skeletons; with them it is indiscriminate slaughter, doing irreparable injury to the trees. There now lie before me the specimens I collected of the successive layers of the bark. The spongy external cuticle, swelling into excrescences, is only used for floats of the fishermen's nets in the island. Beneath lies a coating of more compact, but cellular, tissue, of a beautiful rich coloura sort of red umber. This layer, called la camicia (the shift), covers the good or female bark, with which every one is acquainted in the shape of corks.

The bark will bear cutting every ten years, commencing when the trees are about that age; but it should not be cut till the inner bark is an inch or an inch and a quarter thick. I consider that the bark of old trees is less valuable. Some of those we saw in the forests of the Gallura and Barbagia must have been the growth of many centuries. It is calculated that each tree, on an average, produces upwards of 30 lbs. of bark at a cutting; there are about 220 lbs. in a quintal, worth, at Marseilles, 20 francs; and a quintal of cork makes from 4500 to 5000 bottle-corks.

The woods are generally leased at an annual rent, proportioned to the number of trees; but this rent, with the cost of stripping the bark, and even the transport to the coast, form but small items in the lessee's account of profit and loss. The heaviest charges are the export duty from Sardinia, the freight, and the import duties in France, to which country, I understand, the greatest part of the cork cut in the island is shipped. The French customs' duty is 2frs. 20 cents. the quintal. England imports no cork in its rough state from the island of Sardinia; but probably a considerable part of the manufactured corks we import from France (upwards of 226,000 lbs. in 1855[70]) grew in Sardinian forests. Our principal imports of unmanufactured cork bark are from Portugal, the quantity in the year just mentioned being 3300 tons and upwards. From Spain we only received 300 tons, and about 100 from Tuscany and other parts; the official value being from 32l. to 35l. per ton. It appears extraordinary that we should draw so considerable a portion of our supplies of this valuable commodity from France in a manufactured state, and subject to a heavy customs' duty and other double charges, when the raw material might be imported direct from Sardinia, subject only to an export duty of 1fr. 20 cents. per quintal. This arises, I imagine, from the trade being left by the apathy of the islanders mostly in the hands of French houses, who take leases of the forests and conduct the whole operations.

These details, though they smack of woodcraft, have led us away from our sylvan sports. We had reached the point where the dogs were thrown into the covers with a party detached to drive the woods. Having given a description in a former chapter of the caccia clamorosa, as wild boar hunting is well termed by the Sardes, repetition would be wearisome. It was conducted precisely as on the former occasion, except that the proceedings were on a more extended scale, and led us far among wilder and more varied scenery. As before, the stations of the hunters were assigned at about seventy or eighty paces apart, with the horses tethered in the rear. The line of shooters was first formed among the heather on the easy slope of a glen, lightly sprinkled with wood. The exhilarating sounds of the men and dogs breaking the silence of the woods as they drove the game before them, the minutes of eager expectation, the sharp look-out, the ringing shots, may now be easily imagined.

My fellow-traveller was fortunate enough to knock over the first wild boar that ran the gauntlet of the cordon, when the Count's gun had missed fire from the cap having become damp. Our next position was in an open piece of forest, where luck planted me in a notched cork tree, standing on a wooded knoll, at which several avenues met, so that I had not only a good chance of a shot, but the command of the champ de bataille on all sides. Wild boars were plentiful, roebucks not so, hares innumerable in some of our battues. I confess, however, that the incident in the day's sport in which I felt most interest was when a wild boar, slightly wounded, rushed by one of my posts, pursued by some of the dogs. Throwing myself on my spirited barb, I led the chase, followed by my neighbours, right and left, and was lucky enough to be in at the death, after a sharp run. Under such circumstances the wild boar, standing at bay with his formidable tusks, becomes dangerous to the dogs, if not to the hunters. Then the sharp steel is wanting. Oh, for a boar spear! instead of having to despatch the rabid animal by a shot.

Having had a long morning's ride, our first day's battue was closed early. The party defiled in loose order among the trees in the open forest, cantered over springy turf, and brushed through patches of fern to a sheltered dell in which we were to bivouac, and where the sumpter horses had already halted. Then followed such a rude feast as in all my rambles I had never before chanced to witness. Imagine the grassy margin of a rivulet, surrounded by thick bushes, which spread in brakes throughout the glen under scattered oaks, intermingled with crags and detached masses of rock, covered with white lichens. On the grass are piles of flat bread, which served for plates, loads of sausages, hams, cheeses, bundles of radishes, and heaps of apples, pears, grapes, and chestnuts, strewed about in the happiest confusion, with no lack of flasks and runlets of various sorts of wines. Our contribution to the pic-nic, a basket of signor Juliani's best cold dishes and larded fowls, seemed perfectly insignificant. Add to all this, the game we had bagged,wild boar and roebuck, to say nothing of hares,and the general stock might seem inexhaustible, if one glance at the crowd of hungry hunters did not banish the thought.

Eager for the attack, they were busily employed in preparations for it. Horses were unsaddled and tethered among the bushes, guns piled or rested against the boughs, wood collected, fires lighted, and dagger-knives whetted, ready to rip open and quarter the game. The leaders only stood apart, under a spreading tree. They had a grave duty to perform in apportioning the spoils among those who had been successful in the day's sport. This was done with great exactness and the perfect equality existing among all ranks on these occasions. It was Robin Hood and his merry men all through; or might have been taken for an episode of Sarde banditti life, except that, our party being all honest fellows, there was no plunder to divide. By the laws of the chase in Sardinia, the hunter to whose gun an animal falls is entitled exclusively to some distinct portion, varying with the species of the game,sometimes to the skin, sometimes to the choicest parts of the roba interiora, the intestines; the rest falls into the common stock. The award being made, such choice morsels, with rashers of hog and venison steaks, were grilled over the embers on skewers of sweet wood, and handed round, filled each pause in the attack on the cold provisions, portions being detached by the formidable couteaux de chasse with which every man was armed; nor did English steel fail of doing its duty.

Though the party distributed themselves indiscriminately on the grass, they naturally fell into familiar messes, perfect harmony and good fellowship prevailing. But at times there was great confusion. Now, the horses, kicking and fighting, got free from their tethers, and there was a rush of the hunters to restore order; while the ravenous hounds, not content with the bones and fragments thrown to them, were making perpetual inroads on the circle of guests, and snatching at the morsels they were appropriating to themselves. The feast was drawing to a close, when Count T proposed the health of the foreigners associated in their sports, and the toast, with the reply, which, if not eloquent, was short and feeling,Agli nobili cacciatori della Sardegna, e di noi forestieri li sozii amicissimi, benevolentissimi, &c., &c., &c., drew forth ev-vivas which made the old woods ring to the echo. And now all started on their legs, and there was a rush to the guns as if scouts had suddenly announced that the woods were filled with enemies. As an hour or two of daylight still remained, a bersaglio, or match of shooting at a mark, had been arranged during the feast.

The bersaglio is a favourite amusement of the Sardes, forming part of most of their festivities; and constant practice on these occasions, and in the field, makes them expert shots. Our party now addressed themselves to this exercise of skill with passionate eagerness. Some ran to fix a small card against the bole of a tree, eighty or a hundred yards distant, the rest gathered round the point of sight, loading their guns or applying caps, all talking rapidly, in sharp tones, as if they were quarrelling. They formed picturesque groups, in all attitudesthose mountain rangers, with their semi-Moorish costume, embroidered pouches, and bright ornamented arms, their dark-olive complexions and bushy hair, in strong contrast with their visitors from the north, in gray plaid and brown felt, unmistakable in their physiognomy, though almost as hairy and sunburnt as the children of the soil. The match was well contested, the card being often hit; which, as the Sarde guns are not rifled, may be considered good shooting, at the distance stated. The firing was continued till it was almost dark with eager zest, but much irregularity, and almost as great an expenditure of animal spirits in vociferation, as of powder and bullets.

An hour after sunset, when night came on, fresh wood was heaped on the smouldering fires, and after sitting round them, smoking and chatting, the party gradually broke up, some stretching themselves near the embers, and the rest seeking some shelter for the night, about which a Sarde mountaineer is not fastidious, any bush or hollow in a rock serving his purpose. For ourselves, after exchanging the felice notte with the Count and his friends, we lingered over a scene so singular in civilised Europe, though with such I had been familiar in other hemispheres. The smouldering fires cast fitful gleams on piled arms and the hardy men sleeping around in their sheepskins or shaggy cloaks; the deep silence of the woods was only broken by a neighing horse or the bay of a hound, and presently the stars shone out from the vault of heaven with a lustre unknown in northern climes. We, too, lay down ensconced in a brake, the younger traveller disdaining any other wrapping than his plaid, and the elder luxuriously enveloped in a couple of blankets which formed part of his equipments, having his saddle for a pillow. With sound sleep, the rivulet for our ablutions, and a hot cup of coffee, bread, cheese, and fruit for the collazione,what more could be wanting?