AN atmosphere as invisible as that of Egypt, a sea of the clearest
amethyst and emerald, merging into sapphire in the distance, and
jealously guarded by a series of frowning headlands, now grey, now
black, now red, with heart and veins of iron, that enclose miniature
beaches and mysterious grottos where the water sleeps peacefully in
the arms of its lord; and within, a sea of vines embracing the feet
of mountains clothed with pines, with lentisks that have watched the
passage of centuries, with bushes of white heather taller than a tall
man, with glaucous agaves, rigid and puritanical, with prickly pears,
fantastic and repellent; the very air of a voluptuous quality: soft,
velvety even, with the mingled odours of an infinite number of aromatic
plants and herbs, sweet with the white amaryllis that fringes the sea.
Such, in broad outlines, is the island for which Etruscans, Romans,
Genoese, Pisans, Saracens, Spanish, French and English have fought, in
which Victor Hugo was nursed into life, in which Napoleon was caged; a
land of wine and iron, glowing with strength and passion.
A land of perfect peace and infinite possibilities does this island
seem as one drifts along the coast, watching the fish dart below
the keel of the boat, rounding the islets that look as though they
had skipped from the mainland in play and were intent on their own
reflection in the water; as one swims into grottos purple-roofed, over
water of the purest aquamarine, and looks through the narrow opening
across the twinkling sea outside; or, as one walks through miles of
vineyard in which grow the choicest grapes, or climbs up to the iron
quarries, where the mountain is being simply dug away.
Yet, the deepest impression made on the mind of a visitor to Elba is
not so much that of the future prosperity of the island, for all its
resources, as of its past importance. Almost every peak bears its
ruined castle; headland after headland was fortified in the Middle Ages
by Powers jealously tenacious of their rights; the iron quarries, now
comparatively little known, were worked unremittingly by the ancients,
witness Virgil’s well-known line:
“Insula inexhaustis Chalybum generosa metallis;”
and witness the iron slag that proves the existence in Roman times of
furnaces for refining the ore; the very wine, delicious as it is, is
no longer the great source of wealth it was some years ago, partly on
account of the phylloxera which has lessened the production, partly
because the customs-war between Italy and France stopped its export to
the country which afforded the most profitable market, partly for the
reason that the peasants are primitive enough to insist on selling the
unadulterated juice of the grape to a public that prefers manufactured
wines.
All this adds to the sense of repose; the past is so long past, the
future seems still so far off. And meanwhile the peasants and the
small proprietors prune their vines and shell their almonds, and use
their old-fashioned lamps, and dance barefoot on _festas_ to the music
of a concertina, either at their own houses or at the _palazzo_ of a
neighbouring large proprietor. They give each other nicknames, which
gradually supplant the surnames, descending from father to son after
the fashion of primitive times. Thus a man who thought a good deal of
himself was called _il Papa_ (the Pope), whereupon his sons and sons’
sons are called _Papini_ (little Popes); a man noted for his patience
was called _Giobbe_ (Job) and his children are known as _Giobbetti_;
a man who once wore a coat that was too long for him has ever since
been called the Doctor; another from a bad stroke at bowls rejoices
in the name of Scatterer (_il Baracone_), and one who should now call
him John would be scarcely understood. They intermarry largely. They
troop from all parts of the island on donkeys and diminutive horses to
the _festas_ of the various miraculous Madonnas, not omitting to go
down to the nearest beach on the eve of a _festa_ and wash according
to traditional custom. They preserve local differences and hostilities
that tell of difficult intercommunication: thus a Lacona man will tell
you that the men of Capoliveri,[10] whose township he can see perched
on a hill to the east, are “_danniferi_; what they have with their eyes
they must also have with their hands,” he adds, as he picks up a bunch
of unripe grapes, wantonly broken off and thrown away. No one but a
Capoliveri man would commit damage of that sort.
The earliest among the buildings that tell of the past importance
of the island is the Castle of Volterraio. A ride along the hills
overhanging the gulf of Portoferraio brings us to the foot of the
precipice on which it stands, rising, with the sheer rocks that form
part of the building, out of a tangled mass of low growth, from
which, every now and again springs a graceful wild olive. By only one
path is the place accessible. Path is a courtesy title. The way up is
a scramble, often on hands and feet, up smooth, slippery, slanting
masses of jasper rock in whose crevices flourish rounded, hedgehog-like
cushions of the most cross-grained thorns. Ten minutes’ climb brings us
to an ancient wall with a gap, where was once a gate, and a strongly
built, vaulted guard-house. Up again, over short grass this time, and
we come to the low, narrow doorway at the top of a steep flight of
steps sheer down on one side, without any trace of railing. At the
bottom of the steps a hole in the ground gives evidence that an upright
there supported a further defence of some sort. Inside, where armed men
fought, a couple of fig-trees flourish greatly, and the ground is a
series of heaps of grass-covered _débris_ that sound strangely hollow
as one stamps on them. The sentinel’s round within the castellation of
the walls is still intact. At some little distance on each side of the
tower, which forms the south-eastern corner, it stops short, and deep
holes for uprights in the parapet show clearly that a drawbridge on
each side enabled the defenders to isolate the tower and fight to the
last gasp. At one place it widens out. A number of men could make a
stand there; the inner wall is pierced with many loopholes, and these
all converge on one place: the steps leading up to the wall, and
the well at the bottom of them. One can creep too, into a number of
dungeon-like recesses in the walls, or clamber through a hole down a
steeply inclined ledge of rock to a little underground chamber having
a recess like a rough bed on one side, lighted by a hole in the rock
that forms the roof, and another in that which looks over the gulf. A
small opening, defended by an outwork, puts this underground cell into
communication with the outer world; but the outwork is evidently a
comparatively late structure.
All this is absolutely lonely, save for a few goats that now and again
make their way up, and the falcon that screams and wheels overhead.
Once it was the storehouse of the Etruscans of Volterra, who, drawing
iron, copper[11] and other minerals from the island, built the
Volterraio as a defence for themselves and their treasures in case of
sudden assault. It has stood many sieges, has heard the oaths of many
nations in Roman and Mediæval times and is now falling to decay; for
Turks and Saracens roam the seas no more, and the island it helped so
long to guard has become part of a united peaceful kingdom.
Quite the most curious proofs of the ancient importance of the island
are to be found between the little villages, of S. Ilario and St. Piero
di Campo, overlooking the southern coast. We are in a granite country
from which the stone is exported for sculptural and architectural
purposes. No need of quarries to obtain it, though; it lies scattered
over hill and valley in huge blocks, as though some prehistoric giant
had dumped cart-load after cart-load with the idea of raising some
enormous building, but had been cut off by a god in the midst of his
operations. They have a certain defiant air about them, still, those
masses of granite. They shrug a shoulder at you from under the houses,
they poke out a rounded back in the very middle of the church wall,
they lie across your path in winking, slippery masses, nourishing
thorns in their bosoms on to which you may fall, and then, if you look
up suddenly, you may see one that has climbed on to the shoulders
of his brethren and with feathered cap stuck awry, and big empty
eye-sockets, is grinning down at you with unholy, sardonic mirth. Every
little fold in the hillside, shut in strangely from the outside world,
has its chestnut grove and its running stream; but even here there is
something uncanny, and no peasant will put his lips to that water
without making the sign of the cross above it; he fears he may become
possessed by the spirits that haunt it. It is curious, however, that if
he takes the water in a glass he considers himself free from the danger.
In the midst of all this weird desolation rise two Roman buildings at
some little distance from each other; one a spacious ancient church,
the other a square tower. They are built of beautifully hewn blocks
of granite, oblong or square, but mostly square, at the surface, put
together without mortar. The door of the church is low and square,
not arched; its face is pierced just under the roof (now fallen in)
by a rounded window formed of smaller slabs of stone, also without
mortar, in which a bell formerly hung, but which does not give one the
idea of having been built for a belfry. The building is rather oblong
than square, and was apparently divided into two unequal portions by
a low granite wall, which does not seem to have much in common with
an altar-railing—it is too much towards the middle of the church and
appears to have been altogether too strong a construction. The apse
is extraordinarily shallow, pierced by three of the loopholes that at
long intervals serve as windows to the church. There are no traces of
pillars.
At some distance from the church the granite rocks have piled
themselves into a peak that looks straight over the underlying plain
to the sea beyond. On this peak stands the tower. “The solidity of
its walls,” writes that most conscientious, but not very critical
historian, Giuseppe Ninci,[12] “the smallness of its rooms, the great
difficulty of access, show it to have been one of those terrible
prisons in which pined for long years those unfortunates who, exiled
from their native land, were sent off to the islands.” If prisoners
were put there, it must have been to starve, and for that they might
surely have been shut up in some place which would cost less to build.
There is but one side on which it can be approached, and even there
a man must twice grasp the edge of the rock above his head and draw
himself up by sheer force of biceps before he reaches the base of the
tower. Once there he discovers that he must repeat the operation, for
there is no door, only a window above his head, which he can reach by
stretching up his arms. The tower consists of two low rooms one above
the other, with walls a metre thick. Was it really a prison, or was it
not rather a watch-tower, or a tower of refuge? Otherwise what should
it be doing there all alone on its granite base? Was there once a Roman
or an Etruscan city round that large church or temple? Yet, the huge
granite blocks look as though man had never attempted to oust them for
his advantage. Wanted, an archæologist’s report before these writings
of past history become still further obliterated.
St. Piero di Campo is well worth lingering in for a while on one’s
return from San Giovanni. It was always a favourite landing-place for
hostile ships, the plain below being fertile, and the gulf sheltered.
The castle, therefore, contained everything that could be wanted in
case of siege: a church, and a graveyard in addition to the usual
means of defence. It is a square, massive building, with but one small
entrance. The church is extremely ancient. The roof, low and vaulted,
is supported on two short, thick granite columns, one having a roughly
carved capital which is well worth study, the other none at all. The
walls have been barbarously whitewashed, but in two or three places
where the whitewash has been chipped off, there stand revealed the
figures of early 15th-century frescoes executed by a Tuscan artist.
One or two figures have been laid bare as a matter of curiosity, and
it appears probable that the whole church is frescoed in the same way.
If so, and the Campesi would undo their barbarism, it would be worth a
pilgrimage to see.