Corsicans, of the middle size, with a frame well knit. He had a pleasant
expression of countenance, with a frank and independent air, the very
reverse of our muleteer, Giovanni. We amused ourselves at having given
him the slip, and continued to question our new guide.
“Shall we be able to procure beds and something to eat at Olmeta?”—the
“_qualche cosa per mangiare_” being always a question of first
importance.
“Never fear; you will find hospitality?”
We had no misgivings of any kind. Under Antoine's guidance we could now
proceed boldly, quite at ease to enjoy all the charms of our wild
adventure.
“E pur per selve oscure e calli obliqui,
Insieme van, senza sospetto aversi.”—ARIOST. Canto I.
“Together through dark woods and winding ways
They walk, nor on their hearts suspicion preys.”
In about an hour, the moon, then at her full, rose above the hills on
our left, shedding a soft and silvery light on the mountain-tops; our
narrow path through the thickets being still buried in gloom. Presently
a full tide of lustrous radiance was poured on the waving sea of verdure
and the face of the mountains. We made good speed, for the family mule,
homeward bound, stepped on briskly under its double burden. Sometimes we
kept up with the party, joining in the talk of the good peasants; at
others, falling behind to enjoy the stillness of the scene, and abandon
ourselves to the contemplation of its ever-varying features. Now we
threaded the bank of a mountain torrent far beneath in shade, the depth
of which the eye was unable to penetrate as we plunged downwards through
the thickets; then, crossing the stream and scrambling up the opposite
bank, once more emerged from the gloom, and, standing for a few instants
on the summit we had gained, the grey mountain-tops again showed
themselves touched with the silver light, and the quivering foliage of
the evergreen shrubs, which covered the undulating expanse beneath,
twinkled like diamond sprays.
In these alternations of light and shade, and precipitous descents which
led on to still increasing altitudes, we followed our rocky path for
about two hours, when Antoine halted his party to prepare for
surmounting the main difficulty of the route, in evident surprise all
the while at finding two Englishmen engaged in an adventure of which he
could not comprehend the motive. And yet Antoine had seen something of
the world beyond the narrow bounds of his native island. He had been a
_matelot_, he said,—made a long voyage, and once touched at an English
port. Antoine seemed to be now leading a vagabond life. He was not
communicative as to why he left his country or why he returned, and was
gay and melancholy by fits. He did not belong to Olmeta, but had friends
there, to whom he was conducting the girls.
It is not often that the Corsican women ride while the men walk, the
reverse being generally the case. But Antoine was gallant, and, on the
whole, a good fellow. The girls, we have said, rode astride; but now, in
preparation for the ascent, one of them slipped off the mule, over the
crupper, with amusing agility, relieving the poor beast of half its
burden, and they afterwards rode by turns.
We now began the ascent of the pass, the Col di S.to Leonardo, leading
into the valley of Olmeta. The Col is nearly 3000 feet above the level
of the sea, and the passage proved to be almost as difficult as any I
recollect having encountered. We had no idea, when we left Bastia, of
attempting it that evening, and, had we not parted from Giovanni, should
probably have made for some village near the high-road, and lost the
splendid effects of moonlight on such scenery. The face of the mountain
is scaled either by rocky steps or by terraces cut in the escarped
flanks, with quick returns, in the way such elevations are usually
surmounted. The passing and repassing, as we traversed the successive
stages, brought out the effects of light and shade even better than we
had remarked them below. The path, too, was extremely picturesque.
Masses of grey rock, half in shade, jutted out among the shrubbery with
which the mountain-side was covered; giant heaths, five or six feet
high, hung feathering, and the arbutus threw its broad branches, over
our heads.
We had made some progress, and stood, as it were, suspended over the
valley, when Antoine's quick ear caught sounds from below. We halted to
take breath and listen. Presently, the sounds became more distinct, and
we made out the tramp of mules coming up the path, but still far
beneath. It was probably Giovanni with his mules, following our steps.
Again we stood and listened, looking over the precipice at an angle
which commanded the descent for many hundred feet beneath. The thicket
shrouding the narrow track was so dense, that nothing could be seen,
even in that bright moonlight, but its glistening slope. The sounds
from below rose more dearly. Thwack, thwack, fell Giovanni's cudgel on
the ribs of his unfortunate mules; and we could hear them scrambling,
and his hoarse voice uttering strange cries, as he urged them on.
We were too much amused at having given him the slip to think much of
the great tribulation in which he was panting and toiling to overtake
us. Vain hope! “He will be in time for supper; let us push
on;”—beginning to think that the sooner we realised the comforts which
Antoine had encouraged us to expect, the better.
“Are we near the top of the pass?”
“Do you see that rock with the bush hanging from it?” pointing to a
huge, insulated mass, its sharp outline clearly defined against the blue
sky; “it is a thousand feet above the spot on which we stand. The path
lies round the base of that rock. In an hour we shall reach it.”
We climbed on, the ascent becoming steeper and steeper as we mounted
upwards, often casting wistful looks at the beacon rock. Just before we
gained the summit, smoke was seen curling up from the copse at a little
distance from the path.
“_Ci sono pastori_,” cried Antoine.
“Perhaps they can give us some milk.” We had need enough of some
refreshment, the breakfast at Bastia having been our only meal.
“_Vedéremmo_,” said Antoine; and he led the way through the bushes.
Some rough dogs leapt out, fiercely barking at the approach of
strangers. They were called off by the shepherds, who, wrapped in their
shaggy mantles, the Corsican _pelone_, were sitting and lying round a
fire of blazing logs, under the shelter of a rock. A mixed flock of
sheep and goats lay closely packed round the bivouac. Unfortunately
they had no milk to give us.
The Corsican shepherds are a singular race. We found them leading a
nomad life in all parts of the island. They wander, as the season
permits, from the highest mountain-ranges to the verge of the cultivated
lands and vineyards, where the goats do infinite mischief; and drive
their flocks in the winter to the vast plains of the littoral, and the
warm and sheltered valleys. Home they have none; the side of a rock, a
cave, a hut of loose stones, lends them temporary shelter. Chestnuts are
their principal food; and their clothing, sheepskins, or the black wool
of their flocks spun and woven by the women of the valleys into the
coarse cloth of the _pelone_. Their greatest luxuries are the immense
fires, for which the materials are boundless, or to bask in the sun, and
tell national tales, and sing their simple _canzone_. But though a rude,
they are not a bad, race; contented, hospitable, tolerably honest, and,
as we found, often intelligent. We were not fortunate in our first
introduction to these people. Antoine exchanged a few words with them;
but they were sullen, and showed no signs of surprise or curiosity on
the sudden appearance of strangers at their fireside. The sample was far
from prepossessing. One of the men, who seemed to eye us with suspicion,
had just the physiognomy one should assign to a bandit.
It was perhaps this idea which led me to question Antoine on a subject
we had hitherto avoided.
“Are there any outlaws harboured in these wild mountains?”
“Not now; they have been hunted out; all that is changed; but blood has
been often spilt in this _maquis_. One terrible _vendetta_ was taken not
far from hence; but that was many years ago. I will show you the spot.”
Antoine strode rapidly onward; and we overtook the women, who had rode
on. In ten minutes we were rounding the mass of rock crowning the pass.
“This was the spot,” said Antoine, taking a step towards me, the rest of
the party having passed; and he added calmly, but with decision, and a
slightly triumphant air, “I did it myself.” (“_J'ai donné le coup
moi-même._”)
It may be well supposed that I stood aghast. We had not then learnt with
what little reserve such deeds of blood are avowed in Corsica; how
thoroughly they are extenuated by the popular code of morals or honour.
Such avowals were afterwards made to us with far less feeling than
Antoine betrayed; indeed, with the utmost levity. “_Je lui ai donné un
coup_,” mentioning the individual and giving the details, was the climax
of a story of some sudden quarrel or long-harboured animosity. It was
uttered with the _sang froid_ with which an Englishman would say, “I
knocked the fellow down;” and it might have been our impression that
nothing more was meant, but for the circumstances related, which left no
doubt on the subject. When a Corsican says that he has given his enemy a
_coup_, the phrase is a decorous ellipse for _coup-de-fusil_.
Occasionally, perhaps, it may mean a _coup-de-poignard_, which amounts
to much the same thing; but since carrying the knife has been rigorously
prohibited by the French Government, stabbing has not been much in vogue
in Corsica. Now, it is to be hoped, the murderous _fusil_ has equally
disappeared.
There was no time for asking what led to the quarrel or encounter.
Antoine coolly turned away, saying, “The descent is easy; we shall have
a good road now down the hill to Olmeta;” and, most opportunely, the
view which opened from the summit of the pass was calculated to divert
my thoughts from what had just occurred.
It has been often remarked, that the Corsican villages are most commonly
built on high ground. We now counted, by their cheerful lights, nine or
ten of them dotting the hills in all directions; some perched on the
heights beyond the Bevinco, which wound through the valley beneath, the
moonlight flashing on patches of the stream and faintly revealing a dark
chain of mountains beyond—the Serra di Stella, dividing the valley of
the Bevinco from that of the Golo.
The descent was easy, according to Antoine's augury. We tear down the
hill, pass the village church at a sharp angle, its white _façade_
glistening in the moonbeams; and a straight avenue, shaded by trees,
brings us into a labyrinth of narrow lanes, overhung by tall, gaunt
houses of the roughest fabric and materials. Antoine bids us stop before
one of these gloomy abodes; an old woman appears at the door of the
first story with a feeble oil-lamp in her hand. The ground-floor of
these houses, as usual in the South, are all stables or cellars. After a
short conference, Antoine disappears, and we see him no more that night.
We mount a flight of steep, unhewn stone steps, at the risk of breaking
our necks, for there is no rail; the good dame welcomes us to all that
she has, little though it be, and we land in a grim apartment containing
the usual raised hearth for cooking, with a very limited apparatus of
utensils—a few shallow kettles of copper and iron, a table, some
chairs, and a very questionable bed in a corner.
There were two other apartments, _en suite_, the next being a _salle_,
with a brick floor like the kitchen, tolerably clean. A few Scripture
prints on the walls, a large table, some rickety chairs, and a settee,
convertible, we found, into a very satisfactory shakedown, composed the
furniture. The inner apartment, which contained a really good bed,
seemed to be the widow's wardrobe and storeroom of all her most valuable
effects; being crowded with chests, and tables covered with all sorts of
things, helped out by pegs on the walls. These were ornamented with
little coloured prints of the Virgin, and Saints, and there was a
crucifix at the bed's head. After showing her apartments, the widow
placed the lamp on the table in the _salle_, with the usual _felice
notte_, and there was a running fire of questions and answers between
her and the two hungry travellers about the _qualche cosa per mangiare_.
The larder was of course empty, and the discussion resolved itself into
some rashers of bacon, a loaf of very sweet bread, and a bottle of the
light and excellent wine for which Capo Corso is famous, procured from a
neighbour.
This was not accomplished without a great deal of bustle and screeching,
and running to and fro of the widow and some female friends, withered
old crones, who had come to her aid on so unexpected an emergency as our
appearance on the scene. This continued after supper till the chests in
the inner apartment had delivered up their stores of sheets, coverlets,
and towels, all as white as the driven snow. How we ate, drank, and
lodged during our rambles is not the most agreeable of our
recollections, and can have little interest except as affording glimpses
of the habits of the people. This first essay of Corsican hospitality
was not amiss.
Just as we had finished our frugal meal, Giovanni made his appearance.
Wishing to give him his _congé_, we expected a sharp altercation; to
avoid which, and not forfeit our engagement that he should conduct us to
Corte, it was proposed to him to leave the malcontent mule till his
return, procuring at Olmeta a more serviceable beast, or to proceed with
the others only. Giovanni was crestfallen; he had had enough of it, and
did not bluster, as we expected. Though disliking him, we had amused
ourselves at his expence, and could hardly now refrain from laughing at
his piteous aspect. Giovanni, however, was quite as ready to be quit of
us as we were to get rid of him. His reply to our proposal about the
mule was quite touching:—
“_Je ne veux pas me séparer de mon pauvre âne!_”
So the inseparables were dismissed to return to Bastia, after an
equitable adjustment, and we parted good friends. Giovanni was no
favourite of ours, but that touch of sentiment for his “_pauvre âne_”
was a redeeming trait. As for ourselves, we were left without a guide,
which did not matter, and without the means of carrying forward our
baggage, which did. This dilemma did not spoil our rest; it was such as
weary travellers earn.
CHAP. VIII.
_The_ Littorale.—_Corsican Agriculture.—Greek and Roman
Colonies.—Sketch of Mediæval and Modern History.—Memoirs of
King Theodore de Neuhoff._
Let us now return for a short space to the point at which we quitted the
high-road from Bastia. More attractive metal drew us off to the
mountain-paths; but the _Littorale_ is not without interest, especially
as the seat of the earliest and most thriving colonies in the island.
These and its subsequent fortunes claim a passing notice.
It may be recollected that our road lay for some miles through the plain
between the mountains and the Mediterranean. This level is between fifty
and sixty miles long. Intersected by the rivers flowing from the central
chain, alluvial marshes are formed at their mouths, and there are also,
from similar causes, several lagoons on the coast, of which the Stagna
di Biguglia, near which we turned off into the _maquis_, is the largest.
The exhalations from these marshes and waters render the climate so
pestiferous, that the _littorale_ is almost uninhabited. The soil is
extremely fertile, producing large crops where it is cultivated, and
affording pasturage to immense herds of cattle, sheep, and goats. The
country people inhabit villages on the neighbouring hills, descending
into the plains at the seasons when their labour is required for
tilling and sowing the land, and harvesting the crops; and but too
frequently carrying back the seeds of wasting or fatal diseases.
Even under the double disadvantages of exposure to malaria, and the
natural indolence of the Corsican peasant, this district supplies a very
large proportion of the corn consumed in the island. So great is this
indolence, that not more than three-tenths of the surface of Corsica is
brought under cultivation, although it is calculated that double that
area is capable of it. I was unable to ascertain the number of acres
under tillage, planted with vines and olive-trees, or otherwise
requiring agricultural labour; but it might have been supposed that a
population of 230,000 souls would at least have met the demand for
labour on the portion of the surface thus occupied. So far, however,
from this being the case, it is a curious fact that from 2000 to 3000
labourers come into the island every year from Lucca, Modena, and Parma,
to engage in agricultural employment. They generally arrive about the
middle of April, and take their departure in November. They are an
intelligent, laborious, and frugal class; and as the savings of each
individual are calculated at 100 or 110 francs, no less a sum than
200,000 francs is thus annually carried to the Continent instead of
being earned by native industry. The climate of Corsica is described by
many ancient writers as insalubrious; but there does not seem to be any
foundation for the statement, except as regards the _littorale_, the
only part of the island which appears to have been colonised in early
times, and with which they were acquainted.
Who were its primitive inhabitants and first colonists, whether Corsus,
the supposed leader of a band of immigrants, who gave his name to the
island, was a son of Hercules or a Trojan, are facts lost in the mist of
ages, through which the origin of few races can be penetrated. An
inquiry into such traditions would be a waste of time, and is foreign to
a work of this kind.
There is reason to believe that the light of civilisation first beamed
on its shores from Sardinia—an island which some brief records, and,
still more, its existing monuments, lead us to consider as civilised
long before the period of authentic history.
The island of Sardinia, placed in the great highway from the East, was a
convenient station for the people who, in the first ages, were driven
thence by a providential impulse towards the shores of the West, and,
with the torch of civilisation in their hands, passed successively by
Asia Minor and the islands of Crete, Sicily, and Sardinia to Greece, to
Italy, and the other countries of the West.
A smaller branch of the torrent of this great and primitive emigration
poured from the mountain ranges in the north of Sardinia, and, crossing
the straits, overspread the south of Corsica, bearing with it the
civilisation of the East, of which records are found in the most ancient
Corsican monuments. Some of these are identical with those in Sardinia,
which will be mentioned hereafter. Such are the Dolmen, called in
Corsica _Stazzone_; and the Menhir, to which they give the fanciful name
of _Stantare_. When a child at play stands on its head with its heels
self-balanced in the air, making itself a pyramid instead of cutting a
pirouette, that is, in the language of mothers and nurses, _far la
Stantare_.
However this may be, there are numerous testimonies that the island of
Corsica was known and visited in the most remote times by navigators of
the several races on the shores of the Mediterranean—Phœnicians,
Pelasgians, Tyrrhenians, Ligurians, and Iberians. Herodotus, who calls
the island Cyrnos, describes an attempt at colonisation by Phocæans,
driven from Ionia, who founded the city of Alalia, afterwards called
Aleria, 448 years before the Christian era. But the genuine history of
Corsica commences with the period when the Roman republic, on the decay
of the Carthaginian power, began to extend its conquests in the
Mediterranean.
In the year 260 B.C., Lucius Cornelius Scipio led an expedition into the
island, which was crowned with success. Every traveller who has visited
Rome must have been interested in one of the few relics of the
republican era, remarkable for its primitive simplicity—the tomb of the
Scipios. It chanced that the writer, when there, procured a model of the
sarcophagus which contained the ashes of this first of a race of heroes,
L. C. Scipio. The monuments of Rome were not of marble in the times of
the republic, and this sarcophagus being cut out of a block of the
volcanic _peperino_, so common in the Campagna, the author had his model
made of the same material, with the inscription cut in rude characters
round the margin; that is to say, such part of it as had been preserved,
so that it is a perfect fac-simile. He reads on it—
HEC CEPIT CORSICA ALERIAQUE URBE.
That fragment contains the earliest record of Roman conquest in Corsica.
But the conquest was incomplete, and for upwards of a century the
Corsicans maintained an unequal struggle against the Roman legions,
strong in their mountain fastnesses, while the Roman armies appear to
have seldom advanced beyond the plains. The natives held their ground
with such obstinacy that, on one occasion, after a bloody battle, a
consular army, under Caius Papirius, was so nearly defeated, when rashly
entangled in the gorges of the mountains, that the Corsicans obtained
honourable terms of peace. The Roman historians relate that this battle
was fought on “The Field of Myrtles,” a name appropriate to a Corsican
_macchia_; and they do not otherwise describe the locality.[4] It is
easy to imagine the scenes and the issue of a deadly struggle between
the mountaineers and the disciplined legions, on ground such as that
described in the preceding chapter.
In these wars great numbers of the natives were carried off as slaves to
Rome, and the annual tribute paid on submission consisted of wax, which
was raised to 200,000 lbs. after one defeat.
A two hours' walk over the plains from the point at which we quitted the
high-road would bring us to the ruins of Mariana, a colony founded by
Marius on the banks of the Golo, and to which he gave his name. Not a
vestige of Roman architecture can now be found on the spot.
During the civil wars, the rivals, Marius and Sylla, established each a
colony in Corsica. That of Sylla (Aleria) stood forty miles further down
the coast, at the mouth of the Tavignano, the seat of the ancient Greek
colony of Alalia. Sylla restored it, sending over some of his veteran
soldiers, among whom he distributed the conquered lands, and it became
the capital of the island during the Roman period, and so continued
during the earlier part of the middle ages. Sacked and laid in ruins by
the Arabs, some iron rings on the Stagna di Diana, the ancient port,
large blocks of stone on the site of a mole at the mouth of the
Tavignano, some arches, a few steps of a circus, with coins and cameos
occasionally turned up, are the sole vestiges of the Roman colonisation
in Corsica. Their only road led from Mariana by Aleria to Palæ, a
station near the modern Bonifaccio, from whence there was a _trajectus_
to Portus Tibulus (Longo Sardo), in Sardinia; and the road was continued
through that island to its southern extremity, near Cagliari.
In the decline of the Roman power, Corsica shared the fate of the other
territories in the Mediterranean attached to the eastern empire. Seized
by the Vandals under Genseric, despotically governed by the Byzantine
emperors, pillaged by Saracen corsairs, protected by Charlemagne, and,
on the fall of his empire, parcelled out, like the rest of Europe, among
a host of feudal barons, mostly of foreign extraction—who, from their
rock-girt towers, waged perpetual hostilities with each other, and
tyrannised over the enthralled natives—claimed by the Popes in virtue of
Pepin's donation, and granted by them to the Pisans,—after a long
struggle between the two rival republics contending for the supremacy of
the Mediterranean, the island at last fell under the dominion of the
Genoese.