to Sardinia that the insecurity which, to some extent, prevailed when we
were in the island in 1853, had considerably lessened. But while at
Tempio in that year we learnt by an official communication from Cagliari
that some of the central mountain districts, through which we proposed
to pass on a shooting excursion, were in a disturbed state and must be
approached with caution. In consequence, the _Lascia portare arma_
forwarded to us was accompanied by an open order from the Colonel
commanding the royal Caribineers, addressed to all the stations, for our
being furnished with an escort. So, also, on our visit of leave to the
Intendente of Tempio he pressed us to allow him to send us forward under
escort, though I did not learn that there had been any recent outrages
in his own province. On our declining the offer, as at variance with our
habits and feelings, the Intendente said, “I assure you that, here, the
lowest government employé will not travel without an escort;”—and he
again urged our accepting it, adding, “the Marchese d'Azeglio having put
you under my especial protection, I am responsible for your safety, and
wish to use every precaution, lest anything unpleasant should occur.” On
our again respectfully declining the offer, the kind Intendente said,
with a shrug, “Well, gentlemen, I have done my duty, and I hope that
when you get to Turin you will so represent it.”
Such precautions exhibit a singular state of society in the midst of
European civilisation; I apprehend, however, that the Piedmontese
officials, and the continentals in general, paint the Sardes in darker
colours than they merit; and there is little good blood between them.
Having no such prejudices, and entertaining no apprehensions, we
started, as usual, having a honest viandante, with his saddle and
pack-horses, for our only escort. The sun was just rising over the
serrated ridge of the eastern mountains, when, emerging from the fetid
shade of the narrow streets of Tempio, we came suddenly into his blessed
light. The mountain sides still formed an indistinct mass of the richest
purple hue, while, over the whole plain beneath, light mists rolled in
fantastic waves, floating like a mysterious gauze-like veil, shreds of
which touched by the sun's rays became brilliantly coloured, and others
drifting through the scattered woods had the appearance of being combed
out into long and fine-spun threads like the spiders'-webs which, gemmed
with dew-drops, hung from spray to spray. It was a magnificent view, of
great breadth, like one of Martin's mysterious pictures, and seen under
the most splendid effects; but so transitory that after we crossed the
first ridge all was changed. Meanwhile denser, but still light, wreaths
close at hand mingled with the mists, as the blue smoke curled up from
the vineyard sheds where the industrious Tempiese had already commenced
their labours. The temperature was delicious, and rain had fallen in the
night cooling the air and refreshing vegetation. Pleasanter than ever
was our early ride through the pretty winding lanes dividing the
vineyards and gardens skirting the town, and again, as we descended
through deep banks among scattered woodlands to the open plains
extending to the foot of the Limbara Mountains.
A long but easy ascent led to the top of the pass, the ridge we mounted
being thickly clothed with evergreen shrubbery, the arbutus
predominating, profusely decked with fruit and flower. The summit of the
pass opened to us a double view in strong contrast. Looking back, we
once more saw through a gap the mountains of Corsica, in faint outlines,
eighty miles distant, with a glimpse of a blue stripe of water, the
Straits of Bonifacio. Turning southward, we stood at the summit of a
long winding glen richly wooded with ilex and cork trees, and far away
beneath there lay before us a broad plain partially covered with a sea
of vapour, not like the gay wreaths of mist that lightly floated over
the elevated plateau surrounding Tempio, but so still, so condensed, so
white, as to have been easily mistaken for a frozen lake powdered with
snow, and its hills for islands rising out of the water.[53]
But such an image is unsuited to the climate of Sardinia at any season.
Smiling as the landscape now appeared, its most striking feature was
associated with the idea of death.
That dense creamy vapour, formed by the pestiferous exhalations of the
lowlands, is the death shroud of the plain outstretched beneath it.
[Illustration: DESCENT TO THE CAMPIDANO.]
During the heats of summer, nay, sometimes from April till the latter
end of November, the ravages of the deadly _intempérie_ extend
throughout the island to such a degree that in Captain Smyth's list of
nearly 350 towns and villages included in his “Statistical Table of
Sardinia,” full a third are noted as insalubrious. The disorder has the
same character as malaria, but is far more virulent. Captain Smyth thus
describes the symptoms: “The patient is first attacked by a headache and
painful tension of the epigastric region, with alternate sensations of
heat and chilliness; a fever ensues, the exacerbations of which are
extremely severe, and are followed by a mournful debility, more or less
injurious even to those accustomed to it, but usually fatal to
strangers.” We have conversed with natives and residents who have
recovered from repeated attacks of _intempérie_; foreigners suffer most.
“Instances have been related to me,” observes Captain Smyth, “of
strangers landing for a few hours only from Italian coasters, who were
almost immediately carried off by its virulence; indeed, the very
breathing of the air by a foreigner at night, or in the cool of the
evening, is considered as certain death in some parts.”[54]
Not twelve months before our visit, an English officer was suddenly
struck down and carried off while on a similar excursion in this part of
the island. Sir Harry Darrell was one of the last men I should have
thought liable to so fatal an attack. A few years ago, when returning
from Caffreland just before the breaking out of the last war, I met him
on the march to the frontier. I had off-saddled at noon, and while my
horses were grazing, knee-haltered, on a slip of grass by the side of a
running stream, was lying under the shade of a wild olive-tree, when the
head-quarters' division of the —— Dragoon Guards passed along the road.
Sir Harry and some other officers rode down into the meadow, and we
talked of the state of Caffreland and of the principal chiefs, most of
whom I had recently seen. I heard afterwards that he had got out
fox-hounds and hunted the country about Fort Beaufort. He was a keen
sportsman and clever artist. Some of his sketches in South Africa were
published by Ackerman. His remains lie at Cagliari, where he was
conveyed when struck by the _intempérie_, dying a few days after. A
friend of mine, who was there at the time, informs me that Sir Harry's
constitution had become debilitated, and he had rendered himself liable
to the attack by exposure and over-fatigue. I mention the circumstance
as a warning, but do not think there is much risk, with proper
precautions, for men in good health, through most parts of the island,
after the November rains have precipitated the miasma and purified the
air. We ourselves slept in most pestiferous places, where the ravages of
the disease were marked in the sallow countenances of the inhabitants,
without experiencing the least inconvenience.
We rested at the summit of the pass commanding the distant view of the
Campidano, which led to these remarks on the insalubrity of the country
and the scourge of the _intempérie_. They are not, however, confined to
the plains, but of course are more prevalent where marshes, stagnant
waters, and rank vegetation engender vapours rising in the summer.
Leaving my companion to finish the sketch copied in a former page, I
slowly trotted on with the _viandante_, and, the descent becoming
rapid, proceeded leisurely down the wooded glen, a depth of shade in
which the heat, as well as the picturesque character of the scenery,
tempted to linger. Old cork and ilex trees, with their rugged bark and
grey foliage, throwing out rectangular arms of stiff and fantastic
growth, wild vines hanging from the branches in festoons of brilliant
hues, other trees with tawny orange leaves,—I believe a species of
ash,—some of a rich claret, and the never-failing arbutus, here quite a
tree, with its orange and crimson berries, all these massed together
formed admirable contrasts in shape and colour. And then there was the
gentle brook, never roaring or boisterous, but purling among rocks
dividing it into still pools, with giant ferns hanging over the stream
and bunches of hassock-grass luxuriating in the alluvial soil of its
little deltas, and, where the forest receded, a graceful growth of
shrubbery feathering the winding banks.
Some of the cork-trees were fine specimens, of great age. Several I
measured in a rough way by embracing their trunks with extended arms.
This, repeated four or five times, gave a circumference of twenty or
twenty-five feet. The bark was ten inches thick. While so employed I was
startled by a wild boar rushing by me into the thickets. The cork wood
gradually thinned into scattered clumps on the slopes of the hills, and
the winding valley, five or six miles long, was abruptly terminated by a
bold mamelon, or green mound, covered with dwarf heath or turf; so shorn
and smooth it appeared, probably from being pastured, in immediate
contrast with the shaggy sides of the mountain glen. The horsetrack,
avoiding this obstacle, led up the eastern acclivity of the glen, and
the summit commanded the Campidano, now clear of fog, spread out before
us, far as the eye could reach, in a broad level, broken only by some
singular flat-topped hills in the foreground.
Striking and novel as this landscape appeared at the first glance, I
confess that, at the moment, my attention was most directed backward on
the track I had just followed. It was now some hours since I parted from
my fellow-traveller. I had often listened for his horse's steps in the
deep glen, where there was no seeing many hundred yards backwards or
forwards; and though the present elevation commanded some points in the
track, he did not appear. I was getting fidgetty, and the guide's
replies to my inquiries did not tend to reassure me, for there are
“_malviventi_” as well as “_fuorusciti_” in the wilds—a well known
distinction—when, just as we were on the point of returning back, after
half an hour's additional suspense, I got a glimpse of my friend
trotting out of the woods close under the point of view. He, too, had
lingered in the romantic glen after finishing his sketch.
We had now cleared the defiles of the Limbara, and, descending to the
level of the plains, made up for lost time by galloping _ventre à terre_
over the boundless waste. Here were no shady nooks, no forest masses, no
fantastic growths, no grey crags, no bright-flowered thickets, so
grouped as one might never see again, and tempting to linger. All the
features were now on a broad scale; they were caught at a glance, and
the few which broke the monotony of the scene were repeated again and
again. But they were not without interest. The rivulet had expanded into
a wide stream, making long bends through the deep loam of the grassy
meads, and looking so cool and refreshing, that, but for the pebbly
shoals in its bed, it was difficult to conceive the midsummer heats
rendering these verdant plains desolate and pestilential.
Along the banks of the river, and far away in every direction, were
scattered herds of cattle, guarded by armed shepherds, wild bearded
fellows in goatskin mantles and leather doublets, mostly on horseback.
We meet such figures on the grassy track, looking fiercely as we sweep
along; we see them at a distance on the edge of some of the gentle
slopes in which the plain is rolled, when only the profile of the horse,
the stalwart rider and his long gun, comes out clear against the sky.
There is more life on the Campidano than in the mountains. Not that it
is inhabited; there is scarcely a house on this whole plain, fifty or
sixty miles in circumference. Not that there is much cultivation; here
and there, at rare intervals, we see patches of a livelier green than
the surrounding expanse of grass, and the young wheat just springing up,
the strong blade and rich loamy furrow, remind us that Sardinia was
reckoned in former times a granary of Rome. We see also the grey mounds
of the Nuraghe scattered over the plain, some mouldering down to its
level, a few still rearing their truncated cones, like solitary
watch-towers, for which they have been mistaken. They, too, remind us of
times long past, of a primitive age. But they are to be found in all
parts of the island, and we shall fall in with them again, more at
leisure to examine their structure and hazard a conjecture as to their
origin. Now we gallop on over the level plain. The sward on the beaten
track is close and elastic, and our cavallante's spirited barbs, spared
in the glen during the noontide heat, spring as if they had never been
broken to the _portante_ pace. The morning fog and the cadaverous
features of the shepherds have warned us that the teeming Campidano is
no place to linger in after nightfall. Their homes are in the villages
scattered round the edge of the great plain; not much elevated, as the
_paese_ in Corsica, but standing on gentle acclivities. We marked them
at a distance. Already we have passed Sassu on our right and Oschiri on
our left; they are poor places. Codriaghe and Codrongianus and Florinas
stand at the extremity of the plain towards Sassari, and we shall see
them on our road thither, if we ever get there. Ardara, once the capital
of the province of Logudoro, founded as early as 1060, and having many
historic traditions, crowns, with its massive towers rising above the
ruined walls, a hillock on the plain right before us. It boasts also a
fine church, enriched with curious objects of art; but the town has
dwindled to a collection of hovels with a small population, few of whom,
we are told, survive their fiftieth year, so destructive is the
_intempérie_. We turn away: Ozieri stands invitingly on rather a bold
eminence at the head of a gorge where the plain narrows towards the
hills. The rays of the setting sun are full upon its houses and
churches. It is a place of some importance, and lies in our proposed
line through byroads to the forest districts of the interior. If our
pace holds on we may reach it by an hour after sunset. Perhaps we shall
find good cheer, the best preservative, I should imagine, against the
miasma that produces _intempérie_.
[Illustration: THE PLAIN OF OZIERI.]
CHAP. XXX.
_Effects of vast Levels as compared with Mountain
Scenery.—Sketches of Sardinian Geology.—The primitive Chains
and other Formations.—Traces of extensive Volcanic action.—The
“Campidani,” or Plains.—Mineral Products._
Vast open plains, such as that described in the preceding chapter, form
a singular feature in the physical aspect of the island of Sardinia.
There are few travellers, I think, of much experience who, in traversing
such tracts of country, have not been struck at one time by the
desolation of their depths of solitude, or been pleased, at another, by
the glimpses of nomade life, their occasional accompaniments; and who
would not be willing to admit that, in their general impressions on the
imagination, they sometimes rival even mountain scenery. For if grandeur
be one main ingredient in the sublime, when an object such as a
seemingly boundless level, or rolling plain, the extent of which the eye
is unable to scan, lies before you, when, after long marches, it still
appears interminable, the mind is perhaps more impressed with the idea
of magnitude than by large masses, however enormous, with defined
outlines presented to the view. In the former instance, the imagination
is called into play and fills out the picture on a scale corresponding
with the actual features, as far as they are subject to observation;
but the imagination proverbially adopts an extravagant measure.
One of my friend's sketches of Campidano scenery, introduced here,
cleverly represents the effects produced by great distances on one of
these rolling plains.
[Illustration: THE CAMPIDANO.]
Perhaps the idea of illimitable extent is better conveyed by the
lithographic sketch, No. 8, in which the level, not being interrupted by
the intersection of a mountain ridge, as in the former, vanishes in
distance. But the termination of the plain in the woodcut is only
apparent as, winding round the base of the mountains, the level is still
continued though lost to sight. It is not however intended to intimate
that these Sardinian plains can at all vie with the great continental
levels in various quarters of the globe, the immensity of which occurred
to my mind, and some of them to my recollection, when remarking on the
impressions such scenes produce on the traveller's sensations. The most
extensive of the Sardinian Campidani is only fifty miles in length, and
they are all of far less breadth. Their effect is therefore only
comparative, but being proportioned to the scale of other surrounding
objects, to the area of the insular surface, and the limited height and
extent of the mountain ranges, they produce a proportionate effect; but
that, as it has been already remarked, is sufficiently striking.
Some brief details of these interesting features in Sardinian
scenery—the larger of which are termed _Campidani_, and the secondary
_Campi_—will be fitly combined with a general sketch of the geological
formations of the island; as we are now approaching the same standing
point, the central districts, from which we took occasion to review the
orology of Corsica. It was then remarked that the mountain systems of
the two islands are of similar character and were formerly united; of
which there is evidence in the rocky islets scattered from one coast to
the other, across the Straits of Bonifacio.[55] Sardinia, however,
though apparently a continuation of Corsica, is essentially different in
its physical aspect; the elevations being less, the plains more
extensive and fertile, its mineralogical riches far more varied, and
volcanic action on a large scale being traced throughout the island,
while few vestiges of it are discovered in Corsica.
While these sheets have been passing through the press, General Alberto
de la Marmora has published two volumes in continuation of his “_Voyages
en Sardaigne_,” devoted exclusively, with an accompanying Atlas, to the
geology of the island; a work of the greatest scientific value, from the
high character of the author, and the time he has zealously spent in his
researches, but too elaborate for any attempt to reduce its details
within the compass or the scope of these pages. Our brief sketch must be
confined to a few general remarks derived from La Marmora's former
volumes, and Captain Smyth's very accurate account of Sardinia;
availing ourselves also of Mr. Warre Tyndale's digest of these accounts,
and giving some results of our own limited observation.
The principal chain of primitive mountains trends from north to south,
extending through the districts of Gallura, Barbagia, Ogliastra, and
Budui, along the whole eastern coast of the island. This range consists
of granite, with ramifications of schist, and large masses of quartz,
mica, and felspar. It is intersected by transverse ranges, and by plains
and valleys partly formed by volcanic agency; indeed, the connection
between the Gallura group and that of Barbagia is entirely cut off by
the great plain of Ozieri.
The most northerly of the series is the Limbara group. Its highest peak,
according to La Marmora 4287 feet, is an entire mass of granite. The
Genargentu in the Barbagia range, of the same formation, the highest and
most central mountain in Sardinia, has two culminating points of the
respective heights of 6230 and 6118 feet. They are covered with snow
from September till May, and the inhabitants of Aritzu, who make it an
object of traffic, are, I believe, able to continue the supply
throughout the year.[56] The Monte Oliena in the central group near
Nuoro, 4390 feet high, is calcareous, as are two others, between 2000
and 3000 feet high, in the same chain. It terminates with the Sette
Fratelli, prolonged to Cape Carbonaro, the eastern point of the gulf of
Cagliari, the highest point of the group, which is entirely granite,
being 3142 feet.
We find a detached formation called the Nurra mountains, composed of
granite, schist, and primitive limestone, filling the isthmus of the
Cape at the north-west extremity of the island, and extending to the
little isle of Asinara. The mountains of Sulcis, at the extreme
south-west, and terminating in the Capes Teulada and Spartivento, are
similarly composed; their highest peaks, the Monte Linas and Severa,
being from 3000 to 4000 feet high.
But the most striking geological feature in Sardinia consists in the
great extent of the volcanic formations. These, as well as the slighter
traces of such action in Corsica, are doubtless connected with the
subterranean and submarine fires of which the coasts and islands of the
central Mediterranean basin afford so many evidences in active and
extinct volcanoes (some of them in activity in the times of Homer,
Pindar, and Thucydides), and ranging in a circle from the Roman
territory to that of Naples, to the Lipari islands, Sicily, and those
forming the subject of our present inquiry. Sardinia has been widely
ravaged by internal fires, but at too remote an era to admit of our
conjecturing the period. The volcanic action can be traced from Castel
Sardo, where it has formed precipices on the northern coast, to the
vicinity of Monastir, a distance southward of more than 100 miles; its
central focus appearing to have been about half-way between Ales, Milis,
and St. Lussurgiu, where, as Captain Smyth remarks, “the phlægrean
evidences are particularly abundant.” The action was principally
confined to the western side of the island, though, south of Genargentu,
the volcanic formations approach the primitive chain, and the rounded
hills we remarked in the present rambles, after crossing the Limbara, as
far east as Oschiri on the Campo d'Ozieri, are, I doubt not, craters of
extinct volcanoes. The flat-topped hill, or truncated cone, figured in
the lithograph drawing, No. 8, represents one of them, and, scattered as
these verdant cones are over the long sweeps of the Campidani, they
formed additional features in the interest with which, as I have already
said, we regarded those immense tracts.