In this expedition one day was like another, except in the ever-varying scenery, interesting enough to the traveller, but wearisome in description. Suffice it to say, that on the third morning, the provisions being exhausted, and no fresh supplies to be had in that wild country, our leaders decided on returning to Ozieri. It then became a question with us whether we should return with them, or pursue tho mountain tracks to Nuoro, whence it was only two days' journey to the foot of Monte Genargentu, on the higher regions of which it had been our intention to hunt the moufflon, proceeding then, along byroads, through a chain of mountain villages to Cagliari. Nuoro, a poor place, though dignified with the title of città, and a large ecclesiastical establishment, stands high on a great table-land in the heart of the central chain, answering, in many respects, to the Corte of the sister island. This ancient capital of Barbagia is still the chief place of a province containing a population of 54,000 souls, very much scattered through an extensive and mountainous district, but containing many large villages, such as Fonni, Tonara, and Aritzu already mentioned.

The mountaineers of Barbagia have been distinguished from the earliest times for their indomitable courage and spirit of independence. Some of the best ancient writers relate that Iolaus, son of Iphicles, king of Thessaly, and nephew of Hercules, settled Greek colonies in this part of the island. The expedition, in which he was joined by the Thespiadæ, was undertaken in obedience to the oracle of Delphi; and it declared that, on their establishing themselves in Sardinia, they would never be conquered. Iolaus is said to have been buried in this district, after founding many cities; and, the Greek colonists intermingling with the native Sardes, their descendants, deriving their name of Iolaese or Iliese from their founder, became the most powerful race in the island,just as the Roumains of Wallachia, boasting their descent from Trajan's Dacian colonists, long proved their right to the proud patronymic.

The Iolaese offered a determined resistance to the Carthaginian invaders, and, on the decline of their power in Sardinia, maintained, during a long series of years, an unequal contest with the Roman legions; for, though often worsted in pitched battles, they found a safe and impregnable retreat in their mountain fastnesses. The triumphs of the Romans figure in history; but the traditions of the Sardes do justice to the heroic and patriarchal chiefs who fought in defence of their country. In after times, the Barbaricini (the Barbari of the Romans, whence Barbagia) exhibited their hereditary warlike spirit in resisting the invasions of the Moors; and, when Sardinia passed to the crown of Arragon, they refused to acknowledge Alfonso's rights and authority, resisting all claims of homage, tribute, or service. A sullen submission of three centuries to their Spanish sovereigns had not effaced their spirit of independence, and the Barbaricini were in arms against an unjust tax, and, moving their wives, children, and valuables to the mountains, kept the Spaniards entirely at bay, when, in 1719, Sardinia was ceded to the house of Savoy. The demand being prudently withdrawn, they returned to their villages, and their allegiance to the present dynasty has not been broken by any open revolt. But the indomitable spirit of their race has still been exhibited in sullen or violent resistance to the Piedmontese authorities. Driven by the corrupt administration of the laws to take a wild and summary justice, every man's hand has been against his neighbours' and the government officials. Mr. Tyndale states that upwards of 100 (or one in every 279) annually fall victims to vendetta, in contest with their enemies, or with the authorities. Those openly known to live in the mountains as fuorusciti, of some kind, are more than 300; and to them may be added another 300 unknown to the Government, so that, on an average, there is nearly one in every 46 an outcast from society, a fugitive from his hearth. I was happy to learn, on a second visit to the island of Sardinia, in 1857, that the numbers of these unhappy men were decreasing, outrages had diminished, and the system of vendetta was gradually dying out. This, it was stated, principally resulted from the Barbaricini beginning to feel that the government is able and willing to afford them the redress of their private wrongs, and the personal protection which, as individuals or banded together, they have so long asserted by the red hand in defiance of the authorities.

Thus the independence predicted by the oracle of Delphi to the race of Iolaus, preserved for untold centuries and through all political changes, has been maintained to the last by their direct descendants, the fuorusciti of Barbagia. They were in arms as late as our travels in 1853, and we were officially warned against venturing into the mountains without due precautions. It was not, however, this state of affairs which interfered with the prosecution of our journey, as we did not doubt being able to establish, as foreigners, amicable relations with their chiefs. Such a state of society could not be without interest, the scenery is represented as most romantic, the shooting excellent; but our time was limited, and, reserving the expedition to Barbagia for a future opportunity, we reluctantly retraced our steps to Ozieri, in company with our friendly hunters.



CHAP. XXXIII.

Leave Ozieri.The New Road and Travelling in the Campagna.Monte Santo.Scenes at the Halfway House.Volcanic Hills.Sassari; its History.Liberal opinions of the Sassarese.Constitutional Government.Reforms wanted in Sardinia.Means for its Improvement.

Ozieri standing on the verge of the great Sardinian plains, we dismissed our cavallante, and changed our mode of travelling. A primitive diligence plies occasionally between Ozieri and Sassari, by the new road just constructed to join the Strada Reale between Cagliari and Porto Torres. Missing the opportunity during our hunting excursion, we hired a voiture for the day's journey. It was comparatively a smart affair, a light calèche with bright yellow pannels, and drawn by a pair of quick-stepping horses; so that we travelled in much comfort. Carriages are seldom found in the island except on this great road, and in a few of the principal towns; the mode of travelling in the interior, for persons of all ranks and both sexes, being either on horseback or on oxen.[71]

We rattled out of Ozieri with a flourish of the driver's horn, more intent on which than on the management of his spirited horses he nearly brought us to grief. After some narrow escapes of being capsized over the heaps of stones scattered along the new road, now in the course of construction, we came to a dead lock in an excavation; and one of the horses, though mettlesome enough, hung in the collar, refusing to draw. It was said to be an Irish horse, but how or when it got to Sardinia was as much a myth as the immigration of some of the various races by which the island is said to have been peopled in ancient times. However, Miss Edgeworth's Irish postilion and Knockecroghery, could scarcely have afforded us more amusement than our Sarde driver and his horse, whose good qualities he ludicrously vaunted, alternately cursing and glorifying, thumping and coaxing, the vicious beast, while we heaved at the wheels. Our united efforts at length succeeded in extricating the vehicle from the sandy hollow; and after jolting for awhile over the new-formed road, the material having become solid and compact, we rolled at our ease across the plain. I remarked, that though the road was well levelled and macadamised, scarcely a man was to be seen employed in the present operations. Boys were breaking the metal, and girls carrying it in baskets on their heads.

The plains being undulating, extensive views are commanded by the eminences far away over the Campidano, backed by the Limbara mountains on the north-west. We passed the village of Nores, pleasantly situated on a hill at the verge of the Ozieri plain, across which Monte Santo, appearing from this point a long ridge, rose in full view to our left, 2000 feet high. The junction with the Strada Reale from Cagliari to Sassari was reached soon afterwards. About noon, we halted while the horses baited at a roadside locanda, the half-way house to Sassari, standing at the foot of Monte Santo, here reduced to the shape of a round-topped mountain. Lesser hills fell away to the great plain, the slopes and flats being sprinkled with large flocks of sheep. On a hillock two or three miles distant, were the ruins of a Nuraghe, mellowed to a rich orange tint.

It was a pleasant spot, and at the present moment full of life, numbers of Sardes of all classes having, like ourselves, halted there for rest. Two voitures were drawn up by the roadside, as well as several light carts, with high wheels and tilts made of rushes or cloth, conveying goods to and fro between Cagliari and Sassari. Women in yellow petticoats and red mantles, with bright kerchiefs round their heads, and men in their white shirt sleeves open to the elbow, and Moorish cotton trowsers, contrasting with their dark jackets, caps, and gaiters, were bustling about, fetching water and fodder for the horses. Others were sitting and eating under the shade of a group of weeping willows, overshadowing a bason of pure water, fed by a streamlet trickling down from the neighbouring hills. Intermingled with these were Sarde cavaliers, in a more brilliant costume; and a priest, carrying a huge crimson umbrella, came forth from the locanda, and with his attendants, mounting their horses, proceeded on their journey at a pace suited to the priest's gravity, and the requirements of his gorgeous canopy.

Presently a horn sounded, and a coach came thundering down the hill,the diligence on its daily service between the two capitals. The vehicle was double-bodied, well horsed, and, altogether, a superior turn-out. We took the opportunity of its pulling up for a moment to bespeak beds at Sassari. After amusing ourselves with a scene of life on the road not often witnessed in Sardinia,having already lunched in our voiture on a basket of grapes, with bread, and a bottle of the excellent white wine of Oristano,we sauntered up the course of the rivulet to its source, at the foot of a rock among the woods. There we drank of the clear fountain, and washed; bees humming among the flowers, as in the height of the summer, and the gabble from the roadside below, coming up mixed with the cries of the carrier's fierce dogs. The spot commanded charming views of Monte Santo and the far-stretching campagna beneath.

Pursuing our route, the country assumed a peculiar aspect from the number of the flat-topped hills, swelling in green slopes out of the plains which spread before us in long sweeps. These vividly green hillocks are probably the craters of long extinct volcanoes, as we were now in the line, and near the centre, of that wide igneous action mentioned in a former chapter. There were signs of more extensive cultivation than we had hitherto observed, and the evident fertility of the soil left no doubt on the mind of its powers of production under a better system. Large flocks of sheep were feeding in every direction; this being the season for their being driven from the mountains for pasture and shelter in the teeming plains. Sardinia remains still in that pastoral state, which, however picturesque to the eyes of the traveller, as well as suited to the indolent habits of the Sarde peasant, must yield to agricultural progress, or, at least, be reduced within due bounds, before the soil of the island can be made the source of that wealth which, with proper cultivation, large portions of it are naturally fitted to yield. Sardinia will continue to be poor and uncivilised while vast tracts of country are open to almost promiscuous and lawless commonage, and while the occupation of the shepherd, with all its hardships, is esteemed preferable and more honourable than that of the tiller of the soil.

After this, we got among hills bounding the plain in the neighbourhood of Florinas and Campo di Mela. The country became rugged, and, after crossing a river, over a still perfect Roman bridge, of several arches, with massive substructions of large square stones, which we alighted to examine, there commenced a steep ascent, winding among woods. We walked up it by moonlight, our driver's bugle echoing that of a diligence which preceded us at some distance in mounting the pass. Sassari was entered by an arched and embattled gateway in the square-towered wall surrounding the place; and, passing through the best quarter of the town, the dark mass of the citadel contrasting well with the white façades and lofty colonnades of the neighbouring houses, we were set down at the Albergo di Progresso, opposite the great convent of St. Pietro, one of the richest of the many religious houses of which Sassari once boasted. The accommodations at the hotel were the best we enjoyed in the island.

Sassari, the second city of Sardinia, containing a population of some 30,000 souls, has always been a jealous rival of Cagliari, the metropolis, boasting an independent history of its own, of which it has just pretensions to be proud. It was an insignificant village till the inhabitants of Porto-Torres,the ancient Turris Libysonis, founded on the neighbouring coast by the Greeks, and colonised by the Romans,were driven by the incursions of the Saracen corsairs, and, finally, by the ruin of their town by the Genoese, in 1166, to seek a refuge further inland. They established themselves at Sassari, where the long street, still called Turritana, was named from the new settlers. In 1441, the archiepiscopal see and chapter of St. Gavino, near Porto-Torres, were translated to Sassari by Pope Eugenius IV., and thenceforward it rivalled the metropolis in opulence and power. When, in the thirteenth century, the Genoese occupied the northern division of the island, Sassari became a republic, entering into an alliance, offensive and defensive, with that of Genoa. The articles of the treaty are a curious amalgamation of independence assumed by the one, and of interference and jurisdiction claimed by the other. The general effect was, that the Sassarese accepted annually from the Genoese a Podesta, who swore fidelity to their constitution; and the Sassarese assert that while their city was under the protection of Genoa, they only styled that haughty republic in their statutes and diplomas, Mater et Magistra, sed non Domina: non Signora, ma Amica.

Mutual quarrels induced a rupture of the alliance in 1306, and on the Arragonese kings advancing pretensions to the sovereignty of the island, the Sassarese made a voluntary transfer of their allegiance to Diego II. of Arragon, who, in return, guaranteed their rights and privileges; and Sassari continued to be governed as a republic long after the Spanish conquest in 1325. The city, however, suffered severely during the protracted contests between the Genoese, Pisans, and the Giudici of Arborea, for the expulsion of the Spaniards; sustaining no less than ten sieges, courageously defended, in the short interval between 1332 and 1409. It continued to be the victim of contending parties till 1420, when for the last time, and after a struggle of nearly a hundred years, it fell into the hands of Alfonso V., who conferred on it the title of Città Reale. In the middle of the fifteenth century it flourished both commercially and politically, enjoying privileges beyond any other town in the island. From this power and prosperity arose its rivalry with Cagliari; and the jealousies and dissensions in matters of government, religion, and education, surviving the transference of the sovereignly to the House of Savoy, have descended from generation to generation.

This feeling prevails to the present day, partly owing, perhaps, to the circumstance of society in Sassari being less under the influence of Piedmontese and Continental opinions than in the capital, Cagliari,and partly to the Sassarese population being mostly of Genoese extraction. The descendants of these settlers having almost all the trade, commerce, and employment in their hands, form a very important and influential middle class. I found at Sassari opinions more distinctly pronounced on the abuses of the government, and the necessity of reforms in the various branches of the administration, than I have reason to believe they are in the more courtly circles of Cagliari. Some numbers of a work, in course of publication, were put into my hands during our stay at Sassari, in which these topics were discussed in a sensible, bold, but temperate style.[72] Though written by a foreigner, a Venetian refugee, I have no doubt, from the manner in which it was spoken of by well-informed persons, and from its having reached a second edition, that it may be accepted as representing the opinions of a large class of the Sassarese, and I imagine of Sardes in general.

Much interest attaches to the working of the constitutional system in the Sardinian dominions, not only politically, but in its effects on the social and economical condition of the country. Hitherto the island of Sardinia has been treated by the cabinet of Turin much as it was long the misfortune of the English government to deal with Ireland; regarding the native race as a conquered, but turbulent, impracticable and semi-barbarous people; the consequences of such misrule being poverty, disaffection and bloodshed. But I trust we see the dawn of brighter days, when this fine island, partaking of the benefits following in the train of constitutional government,its wrongs redressed, its great natural resources developed, and the natural genius and many virtues of its inhabitants being cultivated and having free scope,will be no insignificant jewel in the crown which assumed its regal title from this insular possession.

With our own happy country in the van of political, social, and material progress, there are three secondary European states, which, in our own memory, have raised the banner of freedom, and are consistently marching under it with firm, vigorous, and well-poised steps. It need hardly be explained that we speak of Norway, Belgium, and Sardinia.[73] Occupying, geographically and politically, important positions ranging, at wide intervals, from the far north to the extreme south of Europe, these small, flourishing, and well-ordered states, offer a spectacle as full of hope and encouragement to all lovers of constitutional liberty, as it must necessarily be offensive to the despotic governments of the great continental monarchies, on whose thresholds the altars of freedom, newly lighted, have burnt with so steady and pure a flame. They may serve as beacon-lights to European populations gasping for that political regeneration, the hour of which will assuredly come, and may not be far distant.

Of the state and prospects of the kingdom of Norway,[74] we have treated in another work. The democratic element is so predominant in its constitutional code, that the only fear was lest it should clash with the executive functions of even a limited monarchy. But, hitherto, the natural good sense, patriotism, and loyalty of the Norwegian people, though represented in a Storthing of peasant farmers,and we may add, the moderation displayed by the Bernadotte dynasty,have so obviated the difficulties of a hastily formed, and somewhat crude, code of fundamental laws, that it has been harmoniously worked to the great benefit of the nation. In Belgium, notwithstanding religious antagonisms, which have also perplexed the young councils of Sardinia, the constitutional system has been so consolidated, under the rule of a sagacious prince, that it may be hoped its permanence is secured. We need not speak of the rising fortunes of the Sardinian States, the only hope of fair Italy. The eyes of Europe are upon them; they are closely watched by friends and foes. Our business at present is, not with the political, but with the social and material, condition of the insular kingdom which forms a valuable portion of those singularly aggregated dominions. In a work devoted to a survey of the island, even a passing traveller may be pardoned for pausing in his narrative while he collects some cursory notices of its present condition under these aspects, and its requirements for improvement.

All enlightened Sardes with whom we conversed unite with Signor Sala, who has devoted several sections of his work to the subject, in representing the corruption and other abuses pervading the administration of justice in Sardinia, as lying at the root of its greatest social evil. It is the ready excuse for rude justice, for private revenge, for the assertion of the rights of persons or of things by the strong hand, that the laws are inoperative, or iniquitously administered. There is too much reason to believe that this has been the normal state of Sardinia under all its rulers for ages past. And when at the same time we find the natural instincts of the people to be turbulent and lawless, and prone to theft and robbery, and consider the facilities afforded by a wild, mountainous, and densely wooded country, for the commission of crimes of violence, the scenes of bloodshed and rapine by which it has been desolated, are not to be wondered at. In the absence of a vigorous justice, and a sufficient military or police force for the protection of property, a voluntary association sprung up, consisting of armed men, under the name of Barancelli, who, for a sort of black mail paid by the peasants, undertook to recover their stolen cattle, or indemnify them for the loss. They fell, however, into disrepute, and I believe have been disbanded. Banditism has been finally and effectually extinguished in Corsica, as related in a former part of this work, by a total disarmament of the population, without respect of persons, or of the purposes for which fire-arms may be properly required. So stern a measure is neither suited to the genius of the Sardes or their rulers. With a numerous resident gentry, who, with their retainers, and the great mass of the population, are passionately fond of the chase, and with wastes so stocked with destructive wild animals, the total prohibition of fire-arms must be both unpopular and impolitic. The law, however, requires that no one shall carry them without a license. But it is not, or cannot be, enforced, for we saw them in every one's hands.

It gave me great pleasure to learn, as it has been already stated, on a recent visit to Sardinia, that the administration of the law was become more pure, the police improved, outrages were less frequent, and confident hopes entertained that banditism, now confined to a small number of outlaws, would gradually die out. There is no doubt it will do so when the laws are respected as in other parts of the Sardinian dominions.

In regard to the judges and other civil functionaries, we found everywhere the deepest antipathy towards the Piedmontese. Sardinia for the Sardes, was like the cry we often hear from our own sister island. Sala treats the subject with his usual temper and good sense. He admits the advantages of an administration conducted by natives possessing a knowledge of the country, conversant with its language and customs, and of a temper more conciliatory than foreigners invested with authority are likely to exhibit. He also admits that there is extreme mediocrity, and even ignorance, in the lower class of functionaries who arrive in the island with appointments obtained in Turin or Genoa. Sala relates a ludicrous story of one of these officials, who chanced to be his companion in the steam-boat from Genoa to Cagliari, being recommended to the Intendant-General as the chief of a department under him. When half-way across, the candidate for office had yet to learn whither they were bent,Si fece interrogarci per dove possimo diretti. Afterwards, says Sala, when chatting in Cagliari, he reproached the Sardes with ignorance and indolence because, though their land was surrounded by the sea, they did not know how to supply themselves with a river,Non sapevano formarsi un fiume; adding, with great self-complacency,Li civilizzeremo, li civilizzeremo!

Such impertinences are calculated to irritate the native Sardes against the continental officials; and they are generally detested. Our author, however, candidly allows that intrigue prevails so universally in the island, and the influences of relationship and connexions are so great, as to raise suspicions of the purity and fairness of native functionaries, especially of those who have been brought up under the old system,a school of corruption. Signor Sala therefore suggests, that while appointments, both on the continent and the island, should be equally open to competent candidates, without respect of birth, great advantages would be obtained by this interchange. The Sardes being habituated by residence for a while, and the transaction of business, on Terra Firma; and thus withdrawn from unfavourable influences, would be prepared to fill honourably offices at home. This seems a wise and obvious mode of abating a grievance of which the Sardes not unjustly complain.

Having mentioned before the gigantic evil of the vast extent of commonage claimed and exercised throughout the island, destructive of the rights of property and quite incompatible with agricultural progress, I have only to add that measures are contemplated for facilitating and protecting inclosures where lawfully made; but so as not to injure the great interest of the proprietors of flocks and herds, the staple production of the island. In this view it is proposed to place the great domains of the communes under better management.

Among various other reforms and beneficial projects to which the attention of a more enlightened government must be directed, in order to raise Sardinia to the rank she is entitled to hold by the extent of her resources, and the intelligence of great numbers of her inhabitants, we can only enumerate, without observation, the educational system generally, including a reform of the Universities of Cagliari and Sassari,sanitary measures tending, at least, to alleviate the insalubrity which is the scourge of the island,improved police arrangements throughout the interior,an increased supply of the circulating medium, the deficiency of which is represented as extreme and injurious to trade, and Agrarian Banks;an entire new system of communal roads, connected with the great national highways, which roads, it is said, would double the value of property wherever they passed,the protection and careful administration of the forests,measures for developing the great mineral wealth of the island,and the encouragement of the coral fisheries.

Nor have we exhausted the list; but enough has been shown to satisfy the reader who accepts the statements we have laid before him, from our own observation and from the best information of the capabilities of Sardinia and its present condition,how much is required to place her on a footing with other European states, and with what hope of eventual success. A vast field is, indeed, open for cultivation by an enlightened and patriotic administration. Great difficulties will have to be encountered, arising mainly from the indolence, the supineness, the prejudices, the ignorance, and the poverty of the Sarde population. The progress must be gradual, but noble will be the reward earned by that exercise of vigour, discretion, and perseverance, by which the obstacles to improvement may be overcome.

There is one highly gifted man, who has long filled a distinguished place in the service of his sovereign and the eyes of the world, in whose hands the task of regenerating Sardinia, herculean as it may appear, would be not only a labour of love, but facile comparatively with any others on which it may devolve. I speak of General the Count Alberto di Marmora, known to all Europe by his Topographical Survey, and his able work, the Voyage en Sardaigne, of which two additional volumes have been recently published. But, perhaps, his devotion to the best interests of the Sarde people, his labours in that cause, and the esteem and affection with which he is universally regarded in the island are less understood. Enjoying also the confidence of the king and his ministers, General La Marmora is eminently fitted to carry out the beneficial designs which he has long conceived and furthered; but his advanced age precludes the hope of his seeing them accomplished. May his mantle fall on no unworthy successor!

One subject of special interest in connection with Sardinian progress has been reserved for a more particular notice than we have been able to afford most others, both on account of its importance, and its having much engaged the attention of the master-mind most conversant with the situation of affairs. At the outset of our rambles in Sardinia, it was observed that the Sardes are averse to maritime occupations; the Iliese of La Madelena, who are so employed to some extent, being a distinct race. Sardinia has no mercantile marine. Signor Sala states that there are only four or five vessels belonging to natives, and, of these, two are the property of the same rich owner. Considering the advantages of her position, and the products the island is capable of supplying for an active commerce, he considers the want of a mercantile marine one of Sardinia's greatest misfortunes, and treats with much good sense of the means calculated to promote its establishment.[75]

General La Marmora drew attention to the subject in a pamphlet published at Cagliari in 1850, under the title of Questioni marittimi spettanti all'isola di Sardegna; and resumed the subject in 1856, in another work, which he was so obliging as to give me, when at Cagliari, in 1857. It originated in the expected completion of the line of Electric Telegraph between Algeria, Sardinia, Corsica, and the continent of Europe; its connexion with which, and its bearings on commerce, I may have to refer to on a future occasion. The General comments on the extraordinary fact, that, in an island 800 miles in circumference, there only exist four sea-ports, properly so called. These are Cagliari, on the south coast, Terranova, on the east, Porto-Torres, on the north, and Alghero on the west. All the other villages and towns on the coast stand more or less distantly from it, and cannot be called maritime. He considers this depopulation of the coast as the deplorable consequence of the devastations of the Saracen corsairs, and the continual piracy which was carried on to a late period, and only ceased on the conquest of Algeria by the French.

It would be foreign to our province to detail the projects which General La Marmora suggests, or advocates, for giving expansion to the commerce of Sardinia,such as the establishment of light-houses on Cape Spartivento, and other points; improvements in the harbour of Cagliari, and a better supply of the place with water. He considers the now almost deserted town and port of Terranova, at the head of the fine gulf Degli Aranci, on the north-eastern coast, to be a point of great importance from its position in face of the Italian ports, and as the proper station for the postal steamboats communicating between Genoa and the island of Sardinia. In reference to this, he mentions that the project of a law for encouraging colonisation in the island, was presented by the Minister to the Chamber of Deputies in February, 1856; the proposal being to grant 60,000 hectares of the national domains to a company formed for establishing agrarian colonies. The cabinet of Turin, then, are alive to one of the great wants of Sardinia,an increased and industrious agricultural population. But General La Marmora desires that a part of the colonists should be maritime, drawn from La Madalena, Genoa, and other ports, and settled at the proposed new harbour of Terranova.

By these and other aids, the General is sanguine that Sardinia will, ere long, take the place naturally belonging to it among maritime countries, and he repeats as a motto to his recent pamphlet, a sentence from the first edition of his Voyage en Sardaigne, published in 1826, to which, he remarks, recent events have almost given the character of a prediction in the course of speedy accomplishment:Qui sait si un jour, par suite des progrès que fait depuis quelque temps l'Egypte moderne, le commerce des Indes Orientales ne prendra pas la route de la Mer-Rouge et de Suez? La Sardaigne, alors, ne pourrait-elle pas devenir la plus belle et la plus commode échelle de la Méditerranée?

The cabinet of Turin and the national legislature must be well disposed to foster the commerce and agriculture, the natural resources, and social interests of the Sardes. Should the Ministers be negligent or ill-advised, the representatives of the people, or, in the last resort, the Sarde constituencies, have their constitutional remedy. British institutions are said to be models imitated in the young commonwealth. They present similar features; and let it be recollected what influence either the Irish or the Scotch members, acting in concert in our House of Commons, can bring to bear on any question affecting the interests of their respective countries. The Sardes return twenty-four deputies to the popular chamber, and if they be good men and true, inaccessible to intrigue, and find in their patriotism a bond of union, their united votes cannot be disregarded by any Minister.

How different is the case of Corsica, the sister island! In reviewing her industrial position we quoted rather largely from a Procès-Verbal of the deliberations of the Council-General, also an elective body, which canvasses, but not regulates, the internal administration of the island. It arrives at certain conclusions, but without any power to give them effect. Le Conseil-Général émet le vu, appelle l'attention, are the phrases wherewith, with bated breath, the representatives of the people convey their resolutions to the foot of the throne. The courtly Prefect communicates them to the Minister of the Interior, and he, the organ of the Imperial will, rejects, confirms, or modifies the vu. The Sarde representatives meet the Ministers face to face in the Parliament at Turin, demand, discuss, explain, remonstrate, carry their point, or are content to yield to a majority of the Chamber. With a free press, the public learns all; public opinion ratifies or condemns the vote. It will prevail in the end. Herein lies the difference between a despotic and a popular government. A bright day dawned on the future destinies of Sardinia, when it exchanged the one for the other.



CHAP. XXXIV.

AlgheroNotice of.The Cathedral of Sassari.University.Museum.A Student's private Cabinet.Excursion to a NuragheDescription of.Remarks on the Origin and Design of these Structures.

Sassari is about equidistant from Alghero and Porto-Torres. Of these two ports Alghero is far the best, but all the commerce of Sassari passes through Porto-Torres, by the Strada Reale. The ancient rivalry between the two cities engendered a hatred which continues to the present day, insomuch that the Sassarese have resisted all efforts to make a good road from Alghero, to enable it to become their port of trade. These feuds arose in the age when Alghero was the chief seat of the Arragonese power in the island, enjoyed great exclusive privileges, and was peopled by Catalonian settlers. It is still Spanish in the character of the inhabitants, their customs, and buildings. Surrounded by a fertile and well-cultivated country, abounding in orange and olive groves, vineyards, and fields of corn and flax, Alghero is a city of some seven thousand inhabitants, many of them in affluent circumstances. It is a fortified place, with a richly ornamented cathedral, and thirteen other churches.

Sassari also boasts a spacious cathedral, with a very elaborate façade, a work of the 17th century. It contains also twenty churches, including those that are conventual. If the religious state of the community were to be estimated by the number of those devoted to the service of the church, the Sassarese ought to be models of piety; for Mr. Tyndale calculates the number of priests and monks in 1840 as giving a total of 769 clerical persons, about one for every thirty-two individuals of the community. Their numbers have been diminished by the suppression of some of the convents, but, even at the time of our visit, his remark, that one cannot walk fifty yards in the street without meeting an ecclesiastic, was confirmed by our own observation.

The object which the Sassarese are most proud to exhibit to strangers, is the fountain of Rosello, outside the north-east or Macella gate. At the angles are large figures of the four seasons, at the feet of which the stream issues forth, as well as from eight lions' mouths in the sides of the building. The whole is of white marble, and though open to criticism as an architectural design, the utility of a fountain, which has twelve mouths constantly pouring forth pure water, in such a climate, cannot be overrated.

The University of Sassari, founded by Philip IV. in 1634, is established in the spacious college formerly belonging to the Jesuits. It numbers about 200 students. The library contains a scanty collection of books, mostly ecclesiastical works. The museum exhibits some few articles of interest, relics of the Phnician colonisation and Roman occupation of the island, mixed up in the greatest confusion, as in a broker's shop, with meagre specimens of mineralogy and conchology; and cannot for a moment be compared with the museum of Cagliari, rich in valuable remains of antiquity, and admirably arranged. It will be noticed in its proper place.

We were much more interested in being allowed to examine a small private collection belonging to a young Sassarese, whose acquaintance it was our good fortune to make, and of whose talents, intelligence, and courtesy I retain a most pleasing impression. The pursuits of the young men of the higher classes in Sassari, are described as entirely frivolous, and the bent of the bourgeoisie as eminently sordid. It was, therefore, with an agreeable surprise, that we found ourselves in a studio embellished with the portraits of such characters as Dante, Ariosto, and Sir Isaac Newton; and where mathematical instruments, scattered about, and a cabinet containing some of the best French, English, German, and Italian authors, gave a pleasing idea of the tastes of the owner. With imperfect aid he had made himself sufficiently proficient in foreign languages to be able to read them; and it appeared that his severer studies were relieved by accomplishments displaying considerable talent, such as painting, and taking impressions from the antique in electrotype. He was good enough to offer me some of his casts, with a few coins from his museum of antiquities; two engravings from which, illustrating the Punic and Saracenic periods of the history of Sardinia, will appear in future pages, together with one copied from a unique coin of the Roman age, preserved in the Royal Museum at Cagliari.

One seldom finds such talents and accomplishments accompanied by the modesty with which our young student spoke of his pursuits. Nor was he a mere recluse, though his health appeared feeble; for he entered with zest into conversation on the various topics of European interest suggested by a visit from foreigners, while he did not hesitate to expose, with patriotic zeal, the follies and abuses which opposed the march of civilisation in his native country. Such characters are rare. We had unexpectedly stumbled on a delicate flower, nurtured on an ungrateful soil, and destined to shed its sweetness in an atmosphere where, I fear, it is little appreciated. I may be excused, then, for devoting a page to the adventure, and allowed to inscribe on that page, a name of which I have so agreeable a recollectionthat of Carlo Rugiu.

Our new friend was kind enough to be our conductor in a walk to a Nuraghe, standing about three miles from Sassari, and in good preservation. We had already seen many of these very ancient structures scattered over all parts of the country; more or less ruinous, they are said to number 3000 at the present day, and many others have been destroyed.



Whether seen on the plains or on the mountains, the Nuraghe are generally built on the summits of hillocks, or on artificial mounds, commanding the country. Some are partially inclosed at a slight distance by a low wall of similar construction with the building. Their external appearance is that of a truncated cone from thirty to sixty feet in height, and from 100 to 300 in circumference at the base. The walls are composed of rough masses of the stones peculiar to the locality, each from two to six cubic feet, built in regular horizontal layers, in somewhat of the Cyclopean style, and gradually diminishing in size to the summit. Most commonly they betray no marks of the chisel, but in many instances the stones appear to have been rudely worked by the hammer, though not exactly squared.

The interior is almost invariably divided into two domed chambers, one above the other; the lowest averaging from fifteen to twenty feet in diameter, and from twenty to twenty-five feet in height. Access to the upper chamber is gained by a spiral ramp, or rude steps, between the internal and external walls. These are continued to the summit of the tower, which is generally supposed to have formed a platform; but scarcely any of the Nuraghe now present a perfect apex. On the ground floor, there are generally from two to four cells worked in the solid masonry of the base of the cone.

Independently of the interest attached to the object of our search, the fertile plains surrounding Sassari formed a sufficient attraction for a long walk. Plantations of olives, of vines, oranges, and other fruit-trees, succeeded each other in rich profusion; the olive trees being especially productive, and the oil, exported from Sassari in large quantities, being of the first quality. The environs, far and wide, are laid out in these plantations, and in gardens highly cultivated, interspersed with villas and pleasure-grounds. Tobacco is largely cultivated, and the vegetables are excellent. A cauliflower served up at dinner was of enormous size, nor can I forget the baskets of delicious figs which, at this late period of the year, were brought by the market-women to the door of our hotel.

The Nuraghe to which our steps were directed proved to be a very picturesque object, rising out of a thicket of shrubs, with tufts growing in the crevices of the tower, which on one side was dilapidated. The other, composed of huge boulders, laid horizontally with much precision, considering the rude materials, still preserved its conical form, rising to the height of twenty or twenty-five feet. The entrance was so low that we were obliged to stoop almost to our knees in passing through it. A lintel, consisting of a single stone, some two tons' weight, was supported by the protruding jambs. No light being admitted to the chamber, but by a low passage through the double walls, it was gloomy enough.





In this instance, the interior formed a single dome or cone about twenty-five feet high, well-proportioned, and diminishing till a single massive stone formed the apex. The chamber was fifteen feet in diameter, and had four recesses or cells worked in the solid masonry, about five feet high, three deep, and nearly the same in breadth.

The small platform on the summit of the cone, to which we ascended by the ramp in the interior of the wall and some rugged steps, commanded a rich view of the plain of Sassari, appearing from the top one dense thicket of olive and fruit trees spreading for miles round the city. Out of these groves rise the towers and domes of Sassari, the enceinte of its grey battlemented walls, and the lofty masses of its white houses. The view over the plain to the west is bounded by the Mediterranean, intersected by the bold outlines of the island of Asmara. After feasting our eyes on perhaps the most charming tableau the island affords, decked with nature's choicest gifts, and exhibiting an industry unusual among the modern Sardes, we sat down at the foot of the hillock, while my friend was completing his sketches of the Nuraghe, and our thoughts were naturally drawn to these relics of a primitive age. What was their origintheir historywhat were the purposes for which they were designed?

It needed only that we should lift our eyes to the rude but shapely cone before us,massive in its materials and fabric, and yet constructed with some degree of mechanical skill,to come to the conclusion that the Nuraghe are works of a very early period, just when rude labour had begun to be directed by some rules of geometrical art. But, in examining the details, we find little or nothing to assist us in forming any clear idea of the period at which they were erected, or the purpose for which they were designed. There are not the slightest vestiges of ornament, any rude sculpture, any inscriptions. Of an antiquity probably anterior to all written records, history not only throws no certain light on their origin, but, till modern times, was silent as to their existence. Successive races, and powers, and dynasties have flourished in the island, and passed away, scarcely any of them without leaving some relics, some medals of history, some impress on the manners and character of the people still to be traced. The mouldering cones which arrest the traveller's attention, scattered, as we have observed, in great numbers throughout the island, enduring in their simple and massive structure, have thrown their shade over Phnicians and Greeks, Romans and Carthaginians, Saracens, Pisans, Genoese, and Spaniards, and still survive the wreck of time and so many other early buildings,the remains of a people of whose existence they are the only record, and, except monoliths, the oldest of, at least, European monuments.

In the absence of any positive evidence regarding the origin and design of the Sardinian Nuraghe[76], there has been abundance of conjecture and speculation on the subject. On the present occasion, I had the advantage of discussing it with our intelligent Sassarese student, I have also heard the remarks of one of the most distinguished Sarde antiquarians, and having since consulted the works of La Marmora and other writers, whose extensive researches and personal investigations entitle their opinions to much respect, I shall endeavour to lay the result, unsatisfactory as it proves, before the reader, in the shortest compass to which so wide an inquiry can be reduced.

The world has been searched for styles of building corresponding with that of the Sarde Nuraghe; without success. Neither in Etruscan, Pelasgic, or any other European architecture are any such models to be found, nor do Indian, Assyrian, or Egyptian remains exhibit any identity with them. They have been supposed, among other theories, to have some affinity with the Round Towers of Ireland; but after a careful examination of some of those almost equally mysterious structures, and considerable research among the authorities for their antiquity and uses, I have failed to discover anything in common between them and the Nuraghe. If my memory be correct, Mr. Petrie, the highest authority on the subject of the Round Towers, though he had not seen the Nuraghe, incidentally expresses the same opinion. The only existing buildings exhibiting a cognate character with those of Sardinia, are certain conical towers found in the Balearic islands, which were also colonised by the Phnicians. They are called talayots, a diminutive, it is said, of atalaya, meaning the Giants' Burrow; and if the plate annexed to Father Bresciani's work be a correct representation, they would appear to be identical with the Nuraghe in the exterior, except that the ramp leading to the summit is worked in the outward face of the wall. We find, also, from La Marmora's description of the talayots examined by him, that the character of the cells is different, the style of masonry more cyclopean, and that many of them are surrounded with circles of stones and supposed altars, scarcely ever met with in Sardinia. The resemblance, however, is striking, as connected with the facts of the contiguity of Minorca, and the colonisation of both the islands by the Phnicians.

Opinions as to the purposes for which the Nuraghe were erected are as various as those regarding their origin. From their great number, scattered over the country, they are supposed by some to have been the habitations of the most ancient shepherds; and the words of Micahthe tower of the flocks,[77] and other similar passages, are referred to as supporting this view. But it is hardly necessary to point out that the inconveniences of the structure, from its low entrance and dark interior, to say nothing of the waste of labour in heaping up such vast structures for shepherds' huts, will not admit of the idea being entertained. With somewhat more reason, but still with little probability, they have been represented as watch-towers, strongholds, and places of refuge; a theory to which their position, their numbers, and their structure are all opposed. Another hypothesis treats the Nuraghe as monuments commemorating heroes or great national events, whether in peace or war; forgetting, as Father Bresciani suggests, the centuries that must have elapsed while the mountains, and hills, and plains of Sardinia were being successively crowned with monuments of this description.

Discarding such conjectural theories, the best-informed travellers and writers are agreed in considering the Nuraghe as being designed either for religious edifices or tombs for the dead. La Marmora confesses his inability to pronounce decidedly between the two opinions, but inclines to the opinion that they may have been intended for both purposes. Father Bresciani, the latest writer on Sardinian antiquities, after a personal examination of the Nuraghe and much general research, though he does not venture a decided opinion, is disposed to agree with La Marmora. In confirmation of the idea that the most ancient monuments were at once tombs and altars, he quotes a Spanish writer[78] on the antiquities of Mexico, referring also to Lord Kingsborough's splendid work. So general an assumption is hardly warranted either by historical testimony or existing relics of antiquity. If such were the primitive custom, it did not prevail among the Greeks and Romans, and it is in the rites and practices of the Christian Church that we find its revival.

However this may be, the theory not only of the twofold design or use of the Nuraghe, but of either of them, is confessedly quite conjectural: it rests upon a narrow basis of facts. Though a great number of the Nuraghe have been carefully ransacked, in very few instances only have human bones been discovered, but neither urns, arms, nor ornaments usually inhumed with the dead; nor are many of them so constructed as to permit the supposition that they were designed for sepulchral purposes. Occasionally, also, some of the miniature idols, such as are preserved in the museum at Cagliari, have been found buried in Nuraghe, or their precincts. But this is not general; and there are neither altars nor any other indications in the structure of the buildings to indicate their appropriation to religious uses, except their pyramidal or conical form, which they share in common with most buildings of the earliest age. So far as these were designed for idolatrous usesas many of them doubtless werethe argument from analogy may apply to the Nuraghe, but it can be carried no further.

Whatever were the purposes of the Nuraghe, almost all writers on Sardinia consider these ancient structures of Eastern origin. Father Bresciani attributes them to Canaanitish or Phnician colonies, which migrated to the west in early times; and he takes great pains, but, I consider, without much success, to establish their identity, or, at least, their analogy, with the religious or sepulchral erections,the altars, and high places, and tombs,of which notices are found in the Old Testament. No doubt exists that extensive migrations, favoured by the enterprise of the earliest maritime people of whom we have any record, took place, perhaps both before and after the age of Moses, from the shores of Syria to the islands and shores of the West of Europe. There is reason to think that the island of Sardinia, if not the first seat, was, from its peculiar situation, the very centre, of a colonisation, embracing in its ramifications the coasts of Africa and Spain, with Malta, Sicily, and the Balearic islands. It appears singular that Corsica, the sister island to Sardinia, should not have shared in this movement of settlers from the East; perhaps from its lying out of the direct current, while, in its onward course, the wave flowing through the Straits of Hercules bore forward on the ocean the merchants of many isles, for commerce if not for settlement, as far as the Cassiterides, our own Scilly Isles.

Though there is little historical evidence of the Phnician colonisation of Sardinia, and even that of the early Greek settlements in the island is obscure and conflicting, we have abundant traces of the former, more imperishable than written records, still lingering in the manners and customs of the modern Sardes, and in the great number of those extraordinary antiquities known as the Sarde idols. The greater part of these, as Mr. Tyndale undertakes to show, were symbols of Canaanitish worship, the miniature representations of the gods adored by the Syrian nations, especially of Moloch, Baal, Astarte or Astaroth, Adonis or Tammuz, the very objects of that idolatry so frequently and emphatically denounced in the Old Testament, to which we have already referred. Mr. Tyndale, however, justly observes, that so distinct and peculiar is the character of these relics, that their counterparts are no more to be met with out of Sardinia than the Nuraghe themselves. From this circumstance, in conjunction with the fact of the images being often found in and near those buildings, he infers that they may have been, directly or indirectly, connected with each other, in either a religious, sepulchral, or united character.

The inquiry would be incomplete unless it were extended to other Sarde remains, of equal or greater antiquity, for the purpose of discovering whether they have any affinity with, or can throw any light on, the mysterious origin of the Nuraghe. We propose devoting another chapter to this investigation.



CHAP. XXXV.

Sardinian Monoliths.The Sepolture, or Tombs of the Giants.Traditions regarding Giant Races.The Anakim, &c., of Canaan.Their supposed Migration to Sardinia.Remarks on Aboriginal Races.Antiquity of the Nuraghe and Sepolture.Their Founders unknown.

We can hardly be mistaken in supposing that, among the relics of antiquity still existing in Sardinia, the monoliths, of somewhat similar character with the Celtic remains at Carnac, Avebury, and Stonehenge, and common also in other countries, belong to the earliest age. These Sarde monoliths are found in several parts of the island, being, as the name expresses, single stones, or obelisks, set upright in the ground. In Sardinia they are called Pietra- or Perda-fitta, and Perda-Lunga. We generally find them rounded by the hammer, but irregularly, in a conical form tapering to the top, but with a gradual swell in the middle; and their height varies from six to eighteen feet. They differ from the Celtic monuments, in being generally thus worked and shaped; in not being often congregated on one spot beyond three in numbera Perda-Lunga with two lesser stones; and in there not being any appearance of their ever having had, like the Trilithons of Stonehenge, any impost horizontal stone.

Father Bresciani finds the prototype of all these rude pillars scattered throughout the world, in the Beth-El of Jacob and other Bethylia, sepulchral or commemorative, mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures. By Mr. Tyndale, the Sarde Perda-Lunga is considered a relic of the religion common to all the idolatrous Syro-Arabian nations, which, deifying the powers and laws of nature, considers the male sex to be the type of its active, generative, and destructive powers, while that passive power of nature, whose function is to conceive and bring forth, is embodied under the female form. And this worship, he conceives, was introduced into Sardinia, with the symbols just described, by the Phnician or Canaanitish immigrants.



The Sepolture de is Gigantes, the tombs of the giants, as they are called, form another class of Sarde antiquities of the earliest age. The structures to which the popular traditions ascribe this name, may be described as a series of large stones placed together without any cement, inclosing a foss or hollow from fifteen to thirty-six feet long, from three to six wide, and the same in depth, with immense flat stones resting on them as a covering. Though the latter are not always found, it is evident, by a comparison with the more perfect Sepolture, that they have once existed, and have been destroyed or removed.[79]

The foss runs invariably from north-west to south-east; and at the latter point there is a large upright headstone, averaging from ten to fifteen feet high, varying in its form, from the square, elliptical, and conical, to that of three-fourths of an egg; and having in many instances an aperture about eighteen inches square at its base.



On each side of this stele, or headstone, commences a series of separate stones, irregular in size and shape, but forming an arc, the chord of which varies from twenty to twenty-six feet; so that the whole figure somewhat resembles the bow and shank of a spur.

The shape of the foss and headstone, observes Mr. Tyndale, of these remains, fairly admits of the probability that they were graves, as some of the earliest forms of sepulchres on record are the upright stones with superincumbent slabs, such as the Druidical cistvaens and some tombs in Greece. Still, like the Sarde Idols and the Nuraghe, the Sepolture are peculiar to the island, being entirely different in point of size and character from any other sepulchral remains. Judging from the many remains of those partially destroyed, their numbers must have been considerable. The Sardes believe them to be veritable tombs of giants; and that there may be legends of their existence in the island is undeniable, as a similar belief is found in almost all countries. Mr. Tyndale, in speaking of the supposed connexion between the Nuraghe and the Sepolture, observes that, if a Canaanitish race migrated here, nothing is more probable than that the tradition and worship of the giants would be also imported; and that it is even possible that some of the actual gigantic races of the Rephaim, Anakim, and others mentioned in Scripture, might have actually arrived in Sardinia. Father Bresciani goes further: he fixes the era of this migration, points out the event which caused it[80], and traces its route by the Isthmus of Suez, through Egypt, and along the coast of Africa, which they are also said to have colonised; and whence he considers they could easily navigate to Sardinia and other islands in that part of the Mediterranean.

This immigration, however, of the Canaanitish giants rests upon very slender evidence; and it may be questioned whether the oldest Sardinian monuments do not belong to an age far anterior to that of any Phnician or Canaanitish colonisation of the island whatever. That such there was, undoubted proofs have already been gathered; but the statuettes of Phnician idols, forming part of those proofs, with the arts and skill required for the maritime enterprise it required, betray the civilisation of a period more advanced than that to which we should be disposed to attribute such rude structures as the Nuraghe and the Sepolture. In this uncertainty, it may be worth an inquiry, whether these ancient monuments did not exist before the colonists landed on the shores of Sardinia,in short, whether they were not the works of an aboriginal race. The question is raised by M. Tyndale: We may reduce the inquiry, he says, to the simple question, Were the Nuraghe built by the autochthones of the island, of whom we have no knowledge, or by the earliest colonists, of whom we have but little information? On the former alternative the author is silent; nor is the question even raised by any other writer on Sardinian antiquities within our knowledge.

Yet surely, independently of its bearing on the origin of the Nuraghe and the early population of Sardinia, the subject of indigenous races is interesting in a general point of view. And it is worthy of notice, that the accounts handed down to us of the earliest colonists of the ancient world, speak of an aboriginal population existing in the countries to which they migrated, just as the European adventurers and circumnavigators of the last three centuries found indigenous races on the continents and islands they discovered, except on some few islands of the Pacific Ocean, recently emerged from the state of coral reefs. The parallel may be carried further. The ancient, as well as the modern, colonists carried the arts of a superior civilisation in their train; but the indigenous races of the New World were destined to gradual decay and extinction, leaving some ancient monuments as the records of their existence, just as the primitive children of the soil in the West of Europe, whose relics we endeavour to decipher, disappeared and were lost; so uniform is the order of events in the designs of Providence.

Poetical legends, generally founded on, and blended with, traditionary facts, help us to form some idea of the character and habits of the aboriginal races; but history, and even tradition, seldom carry us further back in the review of past ages than the arrival of colonists, generally of Eastern origin, to form settlements on the shores and the islands washed by the Mediterranean. Did they find these shores and islands uninhabited? To say nothing of countries more remote and less accessible, many considerations would induce us to imagine that these fair regions were not all deserts; that, even at this early period, they were already peopled.

In Sardinia, where, as already observed, the manners, the superstitions, and the traditions of the earliest ages, are more faithfully preserved than in any other European country, we find, among the most ancient existing structures, some which, to this day, are pointed out by the natives as the Tombs of the Giants. And who were the giants, of whom we read much, both in sacred and profane history? The very term is significant. It is formed from two Greek words and , and signifies earth-born, sons of the earth.[81] The word (autochthones) has a cognate meaning; Liddell and Scott render it, of the land itself; Latin, terrigenæ, aborigines, indigenæ, of the original race, not settlers. The mythical account of the origin of the giants concurs with this etymology. It paints them as the sons of Clus and TerraHeaven and Earth. In the poetry of Hesiod, they spring from the earth imbued with the blood of the gods. Traces and traditions of this aboriginal race are found in all parts of the world, and in sacred as well as profane history. We are told that there were giants in the days before the flood[82]; and Josephus considers them the offspring of the union, mysteriously described by the sacred writer, of the sons of God with the daughters of men; for, as might be supposed, there were females also of the race of the earth-born. So the poets sang. Such was Cybele, daughter of Heaven and Earth, pictured as crowned with a diadem of towers, as the patroness of builders. We read of the giants, in the Old Testament, under the names of Rephaim, Emim, Zamzummim, and Anakim. In the time of Abraham, these tribes dwelt in the country beyond Jordan, in about Astaroth-Karnaim[83], and it is now the received opinion of biblical archæologists, that they were the most ancient, or aboriginal, inhabitants of Palestine; prior to the Canaanites, by whom they were gradually dispossessed of the region west of the Jordan, and driven beyond that river. Some of the race, however, remained in Palestine Proper so late as the invasion of the land by the Hebrews, and are repeatedly mentioned as the sons of Anak, and the remnant of the Rephaim;[84] and a few families existed as late as the time of David.[85]

In the most ancient legends we find the giant race located in all parts of the then known world. In Thessaly, under the name of Titans, poetic fiction records their deeds of prowess in piling mountain on mountain, and hurling immense rocks in their battles with the gods. Writers of credit have transmitted to us accounts of the discovery of their remains on the coast of Africa, from Bona to Tangier, in Sicily, and in Crete. The earliest navigators who touched on the shores and islands of the Mediterranean, brought back romantic tales, receiving their colouring from the terrors of the narrators, of the barbarity and the stature of the races they found on those then inhospitable shores. They were robbers, and even cannibals; enemies of the gods and men. Such tales are not without their parallels in the annals of modern maritime discovery.

Before the fall of Troy, Sicily was peopled by a giant or aboriginal people, called Cyclopes; that insular race being said to be descended from Neptune and Amphitrite, just as the giant Antæus, the founder of Tangier on the African coast, was called the son of Neptune and Terra. If we take Polyphemus, the chief of a tribe of the Cyclops, for a type of this cognate race, what do we find in his story, divested of the fiction with which it was clothed by tradition, transmuted into the poetry of the Odyssey and the Æneid? The Grecian and Trojan heroes, successively land on the eastern coast of Sicily, near the base of Mount Ætna, whose throes and thunders lend horror to the scene. There dwelt this Cyclop chief, in a cavern of the rocks. The race were Troglodytes, as were the aboriginal Sardes, Baleares, Maltese, Libyans, &c. In Sardinia, their caverns are still to be seen in an island of the territory of Sulcis. Caves were probably the first habitations of primitive man, before emerging from a condition hardly superior to that of the savage beasts, his competitors for such rude shelter. Irrespective of climate, in these we find his home, whether among the Celts of the frozen regions of the North, or the Arabs of the stony wastes bordering on the Erythrean Sea, in the Libyan deserts, or in the sandstone rocks of Southern Africa. There one still sees the pygmy Bushmen, perhaps the last existing Troglodyte race, the very reverse of the Cyclops in stature, but, like them, their hand against every man's, unchanged by ages in the midst of African tribes of considerable civilisation, neither sowing nor pasturing, but living on roots, berries, and grubs, like other aboriginal races, which sprang into existence with the forests through which they roam, and the various brutes which shared with them the possession of the soil:

Cum prorepserunt primis animalia terris, Mutum et turpe pecus. HOR. Sat. i. 3.

But the traditions of Polypheme and his Cyclops represent them as advanced beyond this first rude stage of society, though they still adhered to their ancestral caves. They were robbers, no doubt; at least, they plundered and made captive unfortunate mariners thrown on their shores. Perhaps they feasted on their captives, as American Indians and South-Sea islanders are reported to have done. This may be doubted; but at least the cannibal feasts of the Sicilian aborigines were but bonnes bouches occasionally thrown in their way. They had better means of subsistence. Polypheme was a shepherd, and so were all his clan. Picture him, as described by Virgil[86], descending from the mountains, probably at eventide, leaning on his staff, with his shepherd's pipe hanging on his bosom, surrounded by his flocks, and leading them to the shelter of some cavern on the shore; and we have a pleasant scene of pastoral life. Such were all his tribe, a pretty numerous one, comprising one hundred males, with their families, each having a flock as large as their chiefs. They led a nomad life, errantes between the mountain pastures and the plains on the coast[87].

Now, if we may be allowed to separate these facts, which seem genuine, from the fictions with which they are blended, we find the aborigines of Sicily, though barbarous, in a somewhat advanced stage of social life beyond that when we are told they roamed in the woods and fed on acorns. Such we may justly presume, divested of poetical fiction, was the condition of the aborigines of the neighbouring island of Sardinia, the largest in the Mediterranean except Sicily, when the first foreign colonists landed on its coast. And such, after the lapse of more than thirty centuries, are the Sarde shepherds of the present day, generally lawless, sometimes robbers, making the caves of the rocks their shelter, and their flocks and herds providing them with food and clothing. Tenacious, above all other European races, of the traditions and customs of their forefathers, when they point to structures of the highest antiquity scattered on their native soil, and call them Sepolture de is Gigantesas we now have some idea what these giants were,may we not find reason to accept their tradition, and consider these monuments as the tombs of the chiefs and first founders of their aboriginal race.

Still, it may be objected that the ancient legends relating to giants are too fabulous to admit of any sound theories being built on them; and some have even gone so far as to reject all the received accounts of families or tribes of men of gigantic stature, as worthy only of the belief of credulous ages. It may indeed be difficult to imagine whole districts and countries peopled with gigantic races so formidable that we can hardly conceive any other people subsisting in contact with them. But that individuals, and even families, of extraordinary stature and strength existed in the earliest ages cannot be denied, except by those who regard the narrative of Scripture as equally fabulous with the fictions of the poets; although the statements are literal and exact, occur in a variety of incidental notices, and are confirmed by discoveries related by authors of good repute.[88]

A solution of the difficulty may, perhaps, be found in the consideration, that, as even now we find families and races exceeding in stature and strength the average of mankind, there is still more reason to believe in the existence of such phenomena in the youth of the generations of man, when a simple mode of life, abundance of nutritious food, and a salubrious atmosphere, gave to all organic beings huge and sinewy forms. Such might be the special privilege of the Rephaim, and other tribes of which we read. But while the rank and file, as we may call them, of the nation, though tall and robust, might not much exceed the average height of the human species, the chiefs and heroes who took their posts in the van of battle may have attained the extraordinary dimensions recorded of them; and, their numbers being magnified by terror and tradition, the attributes of the class were extended to the whole tribe. Thus the poets gave the name of Cyclops to all the aboriginal inhabitants of Sicily, though the Cyclops, properly so called, are represented by them as a single family, sons, as before mentioned, of Neptune and Amphitrite.

That the Sepolture de is Gigantes may be considered the tombs of the chiefs or heroes of the aboriginal inhabitants of Sardinia seems to be generally allowed; and the opinion receives some confirmation from a passage in Aristotle's Physics, where, treating of the immutability of time, notwithstanding our perception or unconsciousness of what occurs, he incidentally illustrates his argument by the expression:So with those who are fabulously said to sleep with the heroes in Sardinia, when they shall rise up.[89]

The best authorities being thus led to the conclusion that the Sarde aborigines were a giant race, the question remains whether the Nuraghe had the same origin as the Sepolture; and, passing by some trivial objections to this hypothesis, we are disposed to adopt Mr. Tyndale's conclusion, thatthe coincidence of two such peculiar monuments in the same island, their non-existence elsewhere, and their being both indicative of some abstract principle of grandeur and power, practically carried out in their construction, are strong reasons for the presumption that they may have had some mutual reference to each other,as burying places, temples, and altars, and consequently were works of the same times and the same people.

Perhaps it may be objected, with some show of reason, that a people so rude and so primitive as the aborigines, could not have possessed the skill required for the construction of such buildings as the Nuraghe; so that they must be assigned to a later age. But we are informed in Genesis that, among some families of mankind, not only useful, but ornamental, arts were taught before Noah's flood![90] and, without instituting an inquiry how soon the inventive and mechanical faculties of mankind were more or less developed in various countries, we may venture to assume that, before the historical period, before navigation had conveyed the higher arts of civilisation to distant shores, the aboriginal races, generally, were not incapable of erecting the massive structures attributed to them by universal tradition, and which, defying the ravages of time, still remain the sole monuments of lost races, on which the puzzled antiquary can hope to decipher the records of their existence and condition.

To rear the lofty perpendicular monolith, to set up the tall stele as the headstone of a grave, to lift and poise the ponderous rocking-stone, to raise and fix the massive impost of the trilithon, or the slab covering a sepoltura, a cromlech, or a cistvaen; (for the remark applies to Celtic as well as Mediterranean antiquities), to heap up, not Pelion on Ossa, but untold loads of earth and stone to form the conical tumulus over the chambers of the dead, to build Cyclopean walls, and construct the cone of rude but solid masonry, with its cavernous recesses,all these are the works we should just expect from races of mankind when emerging from primitive barbarism, in the youth of the species, and possessed of enormous strength of limb.[91] Those who reared these works are supposed to have been in possession of some knowledge of the pulley, the lever, and the incline; but, after all, giant strength must have been the main fulcrum for such operations. Had there been ornament, sculpture, or inscriptions on these primeval monuments, our thoughts might have been carried forward to a later age, when colonisation from the East brought in its train the arts which there first undoubtedly flourished.

That the Sardinian antiquities of the earliest age are unique, that this is the case in other parts of the world, every primitive people having, with certain resemblances, a peculiar style in its ancient monuments, that none such as these are found in the countries from whence the first colonists migrated, nor are described in their records, are facts strengthening the argument for their being of indigenous origin. That the forms of these structures scattered over the world are generally pyramidal, often rounded, and sometimes spiral, tells nothing to the contrary. The cone, as Father Bresciani observes, was more graceful to the eye, more easy of construction, more durable, and, perhaps, connected with some mysterious ideas of Eternity, or the circling course of the heavenly bodies. Such was the form of the first great building on record, the Tower of Babel, as we have it represented; the type in many respects of the Sarde Nuraghe. Nor is it an unreasonable conjecture that the alien people, mysteriously alluded to in Genesis, as mixing with the children of God, having seduced the most froward of the chosen race, were the instigators and planners of the profane enterprise. Go to , said a man to his neighbour, as the marginal translation renders the passage,let us make bricks, let us build a tower whose top may reach to heaven.[92]

There were giants in those days,men not only of gigantic forms, but imbued with grand ideas. The structures included among the number of their monuments are, as just observed, indicative of some abstract principle of grandeur and power, practically carried out in their construction. In the strength of their might, the Titanic race bade defiance to the deities of Olympus, with whom they are poetically represented as combating; but that does not preclude our supposing that, in common with all the generations of man, however barbarous, the giant races had their religious instincts, their altars, their rites. Reverence, also, for the memories of their departed heroes, of their progenitors, was a common feeling, most powerful in the earliest times. In these two principles we trace the ideas to which the mysterious monuments of the ancient Sardes owe their origin, and thence we arrive at a reasonable conclusion respecting their object and uses.

Researches the most extended and the most profound, have failed to penetrate the obscurity in which the mists of ages have enveloped the origin of the primeval monuments of all nations, and of the people who founded them. Something may have been contributed towards the solution of the difficulties surrounding the subject, if we have been able to connect existing monuments with a rude race of extraordinary strength, the supposed giant-builders of those ancient structures. Such buildings we discover in various parts of the world, varying in their details, but similar as respects their simple but massive and durable forms. Gigantic stature and strength of limb we consider to have been the essential requisites, in the infancy of art, for transporting and raising the ponderous materials; and these properties were characteristics of the races of which, and of their Herculean labours, we find everywhere corresponding traditions.

In the absence of a satisfactory reply to the inquiry, whence, when, or how the giant race reached Sardinia, we are willing to accept the alternative, as regards the founders of the Nuraghe and its other ancient monuments, that these structures were the work of the autocthonoi, the aboriginal inhabitants. But we embrace the theory in a different sense from that in which it is proposed; suggesting that the so-called giants themselves may have been the autocthonoi, and not immigrants; and the remark is generally applicable. The etymology of the words used by the Greeks and Romans, to designate the aboriginal races, supports the conjecture of their identity; for, as already shown[93], the term giant () is not descriptive of extraordinary strength, but, equally with the phrases autocthonoi, terrigenæ, and aborigines, signifies the earth-born, the natives of the soil.

Further than this we cannot here pursue the inquiry. In a work of this description, it would be idle to speculate on the means by which aboriginal races, as well as a peculiar fauna and flora, were planted in distant lands, whether islands or remote continents, on which they have been found established by colonists and navigators, from the earliest to the latest times. Ethnologists have laboured to solve the difficulties surrounding the subject; with what success, those who have studied their works must decide for themselves.

The Sardinian Nuraghe are probably among the oldest structures in the world, and may therefore be reasonably considered the works of an aboriginal race; but their origin, and that of the founders, are equally involved in impenetrable mystery. Their rude, but massive and shapely, cones have survived the ruin of the sumptuous edifices of Babylon and Nineveh, of Ecbatana and Susa, of Tyre and the Egyptian Thebes. Like the pyramids of Egypt, they have witnessed, from their hoary tops, the current of untold centuries rolling onwards, wave after wave, in its turbid course. They have marked the rise and the fall of empires, the vicissitudes of fortune, the illusory hopes, the vain fears, and the insatiable desires of successive generations of men, whose brief span of existence has been that of a moment compared with the centuries that have looked down from their summits. But unlike the Pyramids, whose mysteries are partially unveiled, they give no note by which their age or their history may be discovered. Mute on their solitary mounds, they give no answer to the inquiries of the traveller or the learned, when questioned,what people of Herculean strength and undaunted will reared their massive walls, wrought the dark cells under the cover of their domes, and raised the ponderous slab which crowns the cone? No image of man, no form of beast, neither symbol nor inscription, are sculptured or graven on the solid blocks, within or without, to tell their tale. Well, then, may the thoughtful traveller, contemplating with silent wonder these mysterious cones, soliloquise in some such sort as this:Surely these structures must have been raised before men had learned the arts of writing and engraving, for how many thousands of the Nuraghe were built, in successive periods, without their founders having acquired the faculty of inscribing on them the name of a god or a hero, for a memorial to future generations.



CHAP. XXXVI.

Oristano.Orange-groves of Milis.Cagliari.Description of.The Cathedral and Churches.Religious Laxity.Ecclesiastical Statistics.Vegetable and Fruit Market.Royal Museum.Antiquities.Coins found in Sardinia.Phnician Remains.The Sarde Idols.

The high road between Sassari and Cagliari, called the Strada Reale, runs through the great level of the Campidano for a distance of 140 miles, and as there is a daily communication between the two cities by the well-appointed diligences already mentioned, the journey, unlike others in Sardinia, is performed with comfort and rapidity. But, whatever he may gain by the exchange, the traveller will hardly bid adieu to the mountains and forest-paths of the Gallura and Barbagia without regret.

About half way, stands Oristano, an old city, of some 6000 inhabitants, with some of the Spanish character of Alghero. Though fallen from its former importance, the place is still wealthy, and, in some degree, commercial. It is, however, deserted in the summer and autumn, when the atmosphere becomes so pestilential from the inhalations of the neighbouring stagna and lagunes as to justify the proverb:

A Oristano che ghe vù, In Oristano ghe resta!

The most striking object in the place is the belfry of the cathedral, a detached octangular tower, roofed with a pear-shaped dome, of coloured tiles, and commanding from the summit a fine view of the plains from the sea to the distant mountains. The orange groves of Milis, a village lying a little out of the high road to Oristano, are worth a visit. The trees are considered the finest in Europe. I have never seen orange trees that will bear comparison with them in any part of the world, except on some of the Dutch farms in the Cape colony, where they are still more magnificent; vying in size with the European oaks, planted, probably at the same time, by the German settlers from the Black Forest, the disbanded soldiers of the States of Holland, to whom many of the African Boers owe their origin. Such orange groves, when loaded with blossoms and fruit, glowing in the shade of their dense masses of glossy deep-green foliage, are perhaps the most charming of vegetable productions. No idea of their richness and beauty can be formed from the dwarf, round-topped trees, one sees in most orange districts. Here, as in South Africa, they owe their luxuriance to abundant irrigation. Some of the trees at Milis are from thirty-five to forty feet high, and there are said to be 300,000 of them of full growth. The annual produce is estimated at from fifty to sixty millions of fruit, and, being in great repute for their quality, they are conveyed to Sassari and Cagliari, and all parts of the island, the price varying from 1-1/2d. to 4-3/4d. per dozen, according to circumstances.