in ancient times, if bravely defended. Even now it is a place of
considerable strength, garrisoned by the French, who have erected
barracks and improved the works. But the place still singularly
preserves the character of a fortified town of the Middle Ages. Nothing
seems changed except that French sentries pace the battlements instead
of Genoese. There are the old towers, walls, churches, and houses;—the
houses, tall and gloomy, many of them having the arms of Genoese
families carved in stone over the portals. A network of narrow and
irregular streets spreads over the whole _plateau_ within the walls,
which rise from the very edge of the cliffs. There is not a yard of
vacant space, except an esplanade and _place d'armes_, where the
promontory narrows at its southern extremity. The only entrance is under
the vaulted archway of the barbican, still as jealously guarded as if
Saracen, Turk, or Spaniard threatened an attack. This tower commands the
approach from the Marino by the broad ramp, a long inclined plane, at a
sharp angle, the ascent of which, _en échelon_, by the troops of
diminutive mules and asses employed for conveying all articles necessary
for subsistence and use in the town, it was painful to witness. The
streets are as void of every kind of vehicle as those of Venice, and
almost as unsavoury as its canals. There is scarcely room for two loaded
mules to pass each other. Every morning, nearly the whole population
pours forth, with their beasts of burthen, to their labour in the
country, there being no villages in the canton; returning to their homes
in the evening. They are an industrious race, snatching their
subsistence from a barren soil.
Few strangers visit Bonifacio, and those who do must be content with
very indifferent accommodations. We were lodged _au premier_ of a gaunt
_locanda_, our last resource, after exploring the place for better
quarters. Its best recommendation was the zeal and kindness of the host;
and even the resources of his culinary skill, which, I believe, could
have produced a _ragout_ from a piece of leather, failed for want of
materials on which to exercise it. The supplies of flesh, fowl,
and—strange to say—fish, were scanty and bad. The French officers in
garrison messed, _en pension_, at our hotel, but their fare, limited by
a close economy, was not only meagre, but, with all the accompaniments
of the table, absolutely disgusting.
To make matters worse, we were detained several days beyond our allotted
time in this ill-provisioned fortress by an unexpected mischance. Armed
with Foreign Office passports, current at least through the friendly
states of France and Sardinia without the slightest hindrance, we had
taken the additional precaution of proposing to have them _visé_ by the
French and Sardinian Legations in London, that there might be no sort of
obstacle to our crossing from one of the two islands in our route to
the other. The _visé_ was refused as perfectly unnecessary; and even at
Ajaccio, where we passed some hours at the _Préfeture_, our passports
were returned to us on mere inspection. Greatly, however, to our
mortification, we discovered, at Bonifacio, that international
conventions between friendly governments had no force in this
out-of-the-way corner of the civilised world. We could not be allowed to
embark for Sardinia without authority from the Administration at
Ajaccio, which it would take at least forty-eight hours to procure. All
arguments were vain; the Foreign Office passport could not be
recognised; the orders were precise for a strict _surveillance_ of all
persons endeavouring to cross the Straits. As private individuals and
English gentlemen, we were on particularly pleasant terms with the
_maire_ and his son; but, officially, such was their language, they had
nothing to show that we were not brigands meditating escape. Officials
generally, and foreign officials especially, are not to be moved by any
force of circumstances from their regular track.
Unwilling to submit, and anxious to get forward, we lost twenty-four
hours of precious time in vainly negotiating with the master of a small
vessel to smuggle us over. He would be well paid, and we proposed going
to some unfrequented part of the coast, from whence he could take us
off. But, tempting as the offers were, after much deliberation, they
were rejected. Such things were common a short time before, and hundreds
of the banditti had been ferried over to the coast of Sardinia; but now
there was a sharp look-out, and discovery would be ruin. Insignificant
as is the commerce of Bonifacio, it is well watched by a staff of
_douaniers_, consisting of a captain, four _sous-officiers_, and
thirteen or fourteen _préposés_, _matelots_, &c., besides _officiers de
santé_ and swarms of _gendarmes_. They were everywhere: at our landing;
while sketching; always in pairs; and seeming to dodge our steps. Two
presented themselves while we were at supper the evening after our
arrival. The passports had been exhibited;—what could they want with us?
what offence had we committed? Their business was with the innkeeper; he
had omitted to fix a lantern at his door! He hated the French like a
true Corsican. He would not pay even decent respect to the officers, his
guests, and boasted of starving them to the last fraction his contract
for the mess allowed; while nothing was good enough for the Englishmen.
Piétro was, indeed, a true Corsican; had killed his man, given a _coup_,
as he called it, to his enemy, was condemned to death, but bought off.
_Encore_; a man he had offended came to his hotel, and called for food.
They sat down to table in company, Piétro observing that his enemy
frequently kept his hand on a side-pocket. After supper, the man asked
for a chamber to sleep. Piétro replied that they were all occupied, but
he might sleep with him. The other was staggered at his coolness, and,
hesitating to comply, Piétro seized him, and finding a pistol secreted
on his person, doubled him up, and kicked him down stairs.
Our host was not singular in his disaffection to the French. The
Bonifacians feel their thraldom more perhaps than any other people in
Corsica, overshadowed as their small population is by a strong garrison
and a host of _douaniers_ and _gendarmes_. Republican ideas prevail; and
they have not forgotten the days when their important town was more an
ally, than a dependance, of Genoa. Now, from their small population, a
single deputy represents them in the departmental council, while
Ajaccio sends twenty-nine and Bastia twenty-five members. The
Bonifacians despise their masters. “The French are inconstant,” said an
inhabitant, high in office, with whom I was talking politics; “they have
_tant de petitesses_; they have no national character: we have, and
you;—our very quarrels, which are deep and lasting, show it.”
Everything is primitive in Bonifacio, except the emblems of French
domination. On the evening of our arrival, having threaded my way alone
with some difficulty through a labyrinth of dark streets and lanes to
the Post Office, I found it closed; and there being no apparent means of
announcing my errand, was departing in despair, when a neighbour
good-humouredly cried out, “_Tirate la corda, signore!_” After some
search, for it was getting dark, I discovered a string, running up the
wall of the house to the third story. Pulling it lustily, at last a
window opened, and an old woman put her head out, inquiring, in a shrill
voice, “_Que volete?_” Having made known my wants, after some delay,
steps were heard slowly descending the stairs. Admitted at length into
the _bureau_, the old crone, spectacle on nose, proceeded very
deliberately to spell over, by a feeble lamplight, the addresses of a
bundle of letters taken from a shelf. The process was excruciating,
anxious as we were for news from home. She could make nothing of my
friend's truly Saxon name;—what foreign official can ever decipher
English names? Mine was more pronounceable, and as I kept repeating
both, she caught that, and, incapable as I should have thought her of
making a pun, she exclaimed at last, in despair, “_Forestier, ecco! sono
tutti forestière_,” tossing me the whole bundle to choose for myself.
Happily, I was not disappointed.
We shall not easily forget Bonifacio. Our detention within the narrow
bounds of the fortress-town afforded us leisure to realise the scenes
which the crowded _enceinte_ must have offered during its memorable
sieges. The combined effects, too, of loathsome smells—the filth of the
purlieus being indescribable—of bad diet, confinement, and the
irritation natural to Englishmen under detention, brought on suddenly
severe attacks of diarrhœa, though we were both before in robust health.
Our sufferings shadowed out, however faintly, the miseries endured by a
crowded population during the sieges, and again when half the
inhabitants of Bonifacio became victims to the plague in 1582—a scourge
which then devastated Corsica and parts of Italy.
Gasping for pure air, we were forbidden by the everwatchful _gendarmes_
to walk on the town ramparts. From early dawn till late evening, the
eternal clang of hand cornmills forbade repose in our _locanda_. The
neighbouring country has few attractions, even if we had been in a state
to profit by them. All interest is concentrated in the place itself. Our
steps were therefore especially attracted to the open area forming the
southern extremity of the Cape, as already mentioned. There at least we
could breathe the fresh air, look down on the blue Mediterranean washing
the base of the chalk cliffs, far beneath, and trace the outline of the
coast of Sardinia across the Straits. The Gallura mountains rose boldly
on the horizon, and the low island of Madaléna, our proposed
landing-place, was distinctly visible. It needed not that we should
indulge imagination in picturing to ourselves Castel Sardo, and other
places along the coast, which we hoped soon to visit. The esplanade was
generally solitary, and suited our musings. One evening, the silence was
broken by a melancholy chant from the chapel of a ruined monastery
within the guarded _enceinte_. It was a service for the dead, at which a
prostrate crowd assisted in deep devotion. The sentries on the walls
rested on their arms, and we stood at the open door, facing the western
sky and the rolling waves, listening to strains of wailing which would
have suited the times of the siege and the plague.
[Illustration: OUTLINE OF SARDINIA FROM BONIFACIO.]
Nearer the town stands the old church of the Templars, dedicated to St.
Dominic, of fine Gothic architecture, full of interest for its armorial
and other memorials of the knightly defenders of the faith, and of noble
Genoese families. Over the edge of the cliff towers the massive
_Torrione_, the original fortress of the Marquis Bonifacio, consecrated
in memory as long the bulwark of the island against the incursions of
Saracen corsairs. Here, is the spot where the hastily-built galley, with
its adventurous crew, was lowered down the face of the cliff, to convey
to Genoa the intelligence of the extremity to which the citizens of
Bonifacio were reduced when besieged by Alfonso of Arragon. There, is a
ladder of rude steps, cut in the chalk cliffs to the edge of the water,
two hundred feet beneath, the descent of which it made one dizzy to
contemplate. Perhaps, under cover of night, the now ruinous steps have
been boldly trodden in a sally for surprising the enemy, or stealthily
mounted by emissaries from without, conveying intelligence to the
beleaguered party. Perhaps, in the Genoese times, some Romeo and Juliet,
of rival families, found the means of elopement by this sequestered
staircase. One could imagine shrouded figures gliding from the convent
church close by—the perilous descent, the light skiff tossing beneath,
with its white sails a-peak, waiting to bear off the lovers to freedom
and bliss. For what legends and tales of romance, real or imaginary,
have we materials here!
[Illustration: CAVE UNDER BONIFACIO.]
It is by sea only that one can escape from Bonifacio, except by miles of
dreary road. To the sea we looked for ours. _En attendant_, we tried our
wings to the utmost length of the chain which bound us to the rock.
Procuring a boat, we pulled out of the harbour, and round the jutting
points crowned by the fortress, half inclined to pitch the _padrone_
overboard, and make a straight course for the opposite coast of
Sardinia. Not driven to that extremity, we wiled away the time
pleasantly enough in a visit to the caverns worn by the sea in the chalk
cliffs, which front its surges. Some of these are exceedingly
picturesque. Their entrances festooned with hanging boughs, they
penetrate far into the interior of the rocks, and the water percolating
through their vaulted roofs, has formed stalactites of fantastic shapes.
The boat glides through the arched entrance, and we find ourselves in
the cool and grateful shade of these marine grottoes. Fishes are
flitting in the clear water; limpid streams oozing through the rocks
form fresh-water basins, with pebbly bottoms; and the channels from the
blue sea, flowing over the chalk, become cerulean. These are, indeed,
the halls of Amphitrite, fitting baths of Thetis and her nymphs. Poetic
imagination has never pictured anything more enchanting.
[Illustration: BONIFACIO FROM THE CONVENT IN THE VALLEY.]
One afternoon, we walked a mile out of the town, up a narrow valley in
the limestone cliffs, to the ruined convent of St. Julian. The bottom of
the valley is laid out in gardens, with cross walls, and channels for
irrigation. The gardens appeared neglected, but there were some vines
and fig-trees, pomegranates, and crops of a large-growing kale. The
ruins lie at the head of the glen, facing Bonifacio and the sea; the
walls of the convent and church still standing, approached by a broad
paved way on a flight of marble steps. Seated on these, we enjoyed at
leisure a charming view.
Vineyards and plots of cultivated land overspread the slopes on either
side of the valley. There were scattered olive-trees, and bamboos waving
in the wind. The old convent walls, mantled with ivy, contrasted with a
chapel at the foot of the steps, having a handsome dome, covered with
bright glazed tiles of green, red, and black, and surmounted by a
cross—the only portion of the conventual buildings still perfect. In the
distance was the little landlocked haven, with a brig and some small
lateen-sailed vessels moored alongside the Marino. Above it rose the
fortress-town, with its towers and battlements. The sound of the church
bells tolling for vespers rose, softened by distance, up the valley.
Ravens were croaking over the ruins of the convent, and lizards frisking
on the banks and the marble steps on which we reposed. It was a fitting
spot for a Sunday afternoon's meditation—our last in Corsica!
CHAP. XXV.
ISLAND OF SARDINIA.—_Cross the Straits of Bonifacio.—The Town and
Harbour of La Madelena.—Agincourt Sound, the Station of the
British Fleet in 1803.—Anecdotes of Nelson.—Napoleon Bonaparte
repulsed at La Madelena._
Released, at length, from our irksome detention by the return of the
courier with the passports _visés_ from Ajaccio, and a boat we had
hired, meanwhile, lying ready at the Marino to carry us over to
Sardinia, not a moment was lost in getting under sail to cross the
straits.
The Bocche di Bonifacio were called by the Romans _Fossa Fretum_, and by
the Greeks _Tappros_, a trench, from their dividing the islands of
Corsica and Sardinia like a ditch or dyke. These straits are considered
dangerous by navigators, from the violence of the squalls gushing
suddenly from the mountains and causing strong currents, especially
during the prevalence of winds from the north-west during nine months of
the year. Lord Nelson describes them during one of these squalls as
“looking tremendous, from the number of rocks and the heavy seas
breaking over them.” In another letter he says, “We worked the ‘Victory’
every foot of the way from Asinara to this anchorage, [off La Madelena,]
blowing hard from Longo Sardo, under double-reefed topsails.” The
difficulties of the Bonifacio passage can hardly be understood by a
landsman who has not visited the straits, but they are stated to have
been so great, “and the ships to have passed in so extraordinary a
manner, that their captains could only consider it as a providential
interposition in favour of the great officer who commanded them.”[42]
[Illustration: LOOKING BACK ON CORSICA.]
It has been my fortune to pass these straits on three several occasions
when they were perfectly calm. During the passage from Corsica in an
open boat, which I am now relating, there was so little wind that, with
all the spread of high-peaked sails a Mediterranean boat can carry, we
made but little way, and the surface was so unruffled that my friend was
able to sketch at ease the outline of the Corsican mountains, from which
we were slowly receding. It was, however, pleasurable to linger midway
between the two islands, retracing our route in the one by the lines of
its mountain ranges, and anticipating fresh delight in penetrating those
of the Gallura now in prospect. The appearance of a French revenue
cutter to windward tended to reconcile us to the failure of our plan of
getting smuggled across the straits, which might have led to more
serious consequences than the detention we suffered.
The coast line on both sides of the channel, as on all the shores of
the two islands, is remarkably bold; and the scene was diversified by
the groups of rocky islets scattered across the straits, and described
in a former chapter as the broken links of a chain which once united
Corsica with the mountain system of the north-east-portion of the island
of Sardinia. They are composed entirely of a fine-grained red granite.
In some of the islets lying nearest the Corsican coast quarries were
worked to supply blocks and columns for the temples and palaces of
imperial Rome. Quarries of the same material were also worked by the
Romans, as we shall find presently, on the coast of Sardinia, opposite
these islands.
With two exceptions, these “Intermediate Islands” are uninhabited. They
were considered of so little importance that, till the middle of the
last century, it was considered a question which of them belonged to
Sardinia and which to Corsica. It was then easily settled by drawing a
visual line equidistant from Point Lo Sprono on the latter, and Capo
Falcone on the former; it being agreed that all north of this line
should belong to Corsica, and all south of it to Sardinia.
The distance between the two capes is about ten nautical miles. To the
westward of Capo Falcone lies the small harbour of Longo Sardo, or
Longone, the nearest landing-place from Bonifacio, from which it has
long carried on a contraband trade; its proximity to Corsica also making
it the asylum of the outlaws exiled from that island. A new town, called
Villa Teresa, built on a more healthy spot on the neighbouring heights,
has received a considerable access of population from the same source.
The Capes Falcone, with La Marmorata close by, and La Testa forming the
north-west point of Sardinia, are all of the same formation as the
rocky islands in the straits already mentioned, and, like them, this
district furnished the Romans with many of the granite columns which
still form magnificent ornaments of the Eternal City. Those of the
Pantheon are said to have been excavated near Longone; and several
similar ones, as well as rude blocks, may still be seen in the quarries
on the promontory of Santa Reparata, near which the remains of some
Roman villas have also been discovered. In later days we find the value
of the Gallura granite appreciated by the Pisans. Their Duomo, built by
Buschetto in 1063, soon after their possession of Sardinia, shows the
beauty of the Marmorata rocks; and the Battisterio, built in 1152 by
Dioti Salvi, has also much of Gallura material in its construction.
La Madelena is the largest island in the Sardinian group, and while
Porto Longone is a poor place, the town and harbour of La Madelena are
much frequented in the communications and trade between Corsica and
Sardinia. Our course therefore was shaped for the latter, though twice
the distance from shore to shore. The island of La Madelena, the _Insula
Ilva_, or _Phintonis_, of the Romans, is about eleven miles in
circumference. Till about a century ago it was only inhabited or
frequented by shepherds, natives of Corsica, who led a nomad life, and
by their constant intercourse with Corsica and Sardinia, and by
intermarriages with natives of both, formed a mixed but distinct race,
as the Ilvese are still considered. The town of La Madelena was only
founded in 1767, some Corsican refugees being among its first settlers;
but from its fine harbour, the healthiness of its site, and its
convenience for commerce with Italy, it rapidly became a place of
considerable population and trade.
There are numerous channels and many sheltered bays frequented by ships
between the group of islands of which La Madelena is the principal. Our
own course from the north-west led us through a strait between the main
land of Sardinia and the islands of Sparagi, Madelena, and Caprera,
which opened to view all the points of interest in its most celebrated
harbour. Right ahead, it was almost closed by the little rocky islet of
Santo Stefano, now defended by a fort, and remarkable for having been
the scene of a severe repulse received by Napoleon at the outset of his
long successful career. A point to the south, on the main land of
Sardinia, marking the entrance of the Gulf of Arsachena, is called the
Capo dell'Orso, from a mass of granite so exactly resembling the figure
of a bear recumbent on its hind legs, that it attracted the notice of
Ptolemy 1400 years ago. The island of Caprera, probably deriving its
name from the wild goats till lately its sole inhabitants, presents a
ridge of rugged mountains, rising in the centre to a ridge called
Tagiolona, upwards of 750 feet high, with some little sheltered bays,
and a few cultivated spots on its western side.
Sheltered by Caprera, La Madelena, and Santo Stefano, we find the fine
anchorage of Mezzo Schifo; the town of La Madelena, for which we are
steering, lying about half a mile south-west of the anchorage. This
harbour, named by Lord Nelson “Agincourt Sound,” was his head-quarters
while maintaining the blockade of Toulon, from 1803 to 1805. He formed
the highest opinion of its position for a naval station, as affording
safe and sheltered anchorage, and ingress and egress with any winds. His
public and private correspondence at that period shows the importance
he attached to its possession, and his anxiety that it should be secured
permanently to the crown of England.
“If we could possess the island of Sardinia,” he says, in a letter to
Lord Hobart, “we should want neither Malta nor any other island in the
Mediterranean. This, which is the finest of them, possesses harbours fit
for arsenals, and of a capacity to hold our navy,—within twenty-four
hours' sail of Toulon,—bays to ride our fleets in, and to watch both
Italy and Toulon.” In another letter, he says:—“What a noble harbour is
formed by these islands! The world cannot produce a finer. From its
position, it is worth fifty Maltas.” This opinion we find repeated in a
variety of forms, and with Nelson's characteristic energy of expression.
When at anchor in Agincourt Sound, he kept two or three frigates
constantly cruising between Toulon and the Straits of Bonifacio, to
signal any attempt of the enemy to leave their port; occasionally
cruising with his whole fleet, and then retreating to head-quarters. His
sudden appearance and disappearance off Toulon, in one of these
exercises, with the hope of alluring the French to put to sea, led their
admiral, M. Latouche-Tréville, to make the ludicrous boast, that he had
chased the whole British fleet, which fled before him. This bravado so
irritated Nelson, that it drew from him the well-known threat, contained
in a letter to his brother: “You will have seen by Latouche's letter how
he chased me, and how I ran. I keep it; and, if I take him, by God, he
shall eat it!”
Our boatman pointed out to us the channel through which Lord Nelson led
his fleet when at length, after more than two years' watching, the
object of all his hopes and vows was accomplished by the French fleet
putting to sea. This, the eastern channel, of which the low isle of
Biscie forms the outer point, is the most dangerous of all, from the
sunken rocks which lie in the fairway, and its little breadth of sea
room. Yet Nelson beat through it in a gale of wind, in the dusk of the
evening, escaping these dangers almost miraculously. Our sailor pointed
out all this with lively interest, for Nelson's name and heroic deeds
are still household words among the seafaring people of La Madelena.