Di Valdichiana tra 'l luglio e 'l settembre
E di maremma, e di Sardinia i mali
Fossero in una fossa tutte insembre,’” &c.
_Smyth's Sardinia_, p. 81.
[55] See before, pp. 150, 260.
[56] The trade in snow is farmed by the Aritzese, it being, like that in
salt and tobacco, a royal monopoly, leased for terms of years at a
considerable rent. Upwards of 9000 cantars (about 375 tons) are brought
down every year from the mountains of Fundada Cungiata and Genargentu,
and carried on horseback to all parts of the island. The labour,
fatigue, and difficulty attending the conveyance of the snow from those
great altitudes are severe; as in the paths where there is no footing
for a horse, the men are obliged to carry the burden on their shoulders;
and the quantity they can bear is a matter of boast and rivalry among
them.
It has been observed in a former chapter that none of the Sardinian
mountains rise to what would be the level of perpetual frost. The snow
trade must therefore be supplied from deep hollows in the mountains,
serving as natural ice-houses, in which it is lodged during the summer.
We have an account of a forest in Scotland held of the Crown by the
tenure of the delivery of a snow-ball on any day of the year on which it
may be demanded; and it is said that there is no danger of forfeiture
for default of the quit-rent, the chasms of Benewish holding snow, in
the form of a glacier, throughout the year.—_Pennant's Tour in
Scotland_, i. 185.
[57] “There is among the Sardes a degree of adopted relationship called
‘compare’ (_comparatico_), a stronger engagement than is known under the
common acceptation of the term in other countries.”—_Smyth's Sardinia_,
p. 193.
[58] “The lionedda is a rustic musical instrument formed of reeds,
similar to the Tyrrhenian and Lydian pipes we find depicted on the
ancient Etruscan vases. It consists of three or four reeds of
proportionate lengths to create two octaves, a _terce_ and a _quint_,
with a small mouthpiece at the end of each. Like a Roman tibicen, the
performer takes them into his mouth, and inflates the whole at once with
such an acquired skill that most of them can keep on for a couple of
hours without a moment's intermission, appearing to breathe and play
simultaneously. He, however, who can sound five reeds is esteemed the
Coryphæus.”—_Ib._ p. 192.
[59] Ezekiel, viii. 14.
[60] Isaiah, i. 29.
[61] Isaiah, lxvi. 15-17. _Mundos se putabant in hortis post
januam._—Vulgate.
[62] Ezekiel, viii. 14.
[63] Leviticus, xx. 2.
[64] Jeremiah, xix. 4, 5.
[65] “They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to devils, and shed
innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and their daughters, whom
they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan.”—_Psalm_ cvi. 26, 27.
“Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body
for the sin of my soul?”—_Micah_, vi. 7.
[66] 2 Kings, xvi. 3.
[67] Jeremiah, xxxii. 35.
[68] Vol. ii. p. 264.
[69] See before, p. 191.—The pine does not flourish in Sardinia. Deal
planks for house-building are imported from Corsica.
[70] _Annual Statement of Trade and Navigation presented to Parliament_.
[71] The vehicular statistics of Sardinia, ten years before, as summed
up by Mr. Warre Tyndale, show three vehicles for hire at Porto Torres,
seven at Sassari, four at Macomer, and about twenty at Cagliari. These
and about ten private carriages made the total in this island:
sufficient, he adds, for the unlocomotive propensities of the
inhabitants and their almost roadless country. Things were not much
improved at the period of our visit.
[72] _Memorie Politico-Economiche intorno alla Sardegna nel 1852, di
Vincenzo Sala, da Venezia. Seconda Edizione, riveduta dall'Autore._
[73] We do not include, in the enumeration of free states, the Swiss
confederacy, nor flourishing Holland. Both date their liberties to much
earlier times.
[74] _Norway in 1848 and 1849._ Longman and Co.
[75] La sua positura nel Mediterraneo la rende intermediara fra l'Africa
e l'Europa; fra il porto di Marsiglia da una parte, quelli di Genova e
Livorno dall'altra, e per conseguenza potrebbe proccaciarsi un conspicuo
reddito dal cabottagio. Se si considera che la francia scarreggia di
marina mercantile, relativemente alla sua potenza ed a suoi besogni, non
sembrerà per certo un sogno l'asserire che la Sardegna si troverebbe a
miglior portata di concorrere a soddisfare le sue bisogne di transporte,
principalmente per le coste d'Africa, dove la colonia francese va
prendendo sempre maggiore sviluppo, e prenunzia un avvenire fecondo. Si
la città di Cagliari e le altre terre littorale possedessero una marina
mercantile, quante fonti di richezza non troverebbe la Sardegna lungo le
coste d'Italia, di Francia, di Spagna e d'Africa! Non si credono queste
visioni o travidementi d'immaginazione; che anzi non temiamo d'affirmare
ch'essa potrebbe divenire, un giorno, _la piccola Inghilterra del
Mediterraneo.—Memorie Politico-Economiche_, p. 134.
[76] A passage in Aristotle's work “De Mirabilibus,” (chap. 104.) has
been supposed to refer to the Nuraghe. The words are these:—“It is said
that in the island of Sardinia are edifices of the ancients, erected
after the Greek manner, and many other beautiful buildings and _tholi_
(domes or cupolas) finished in excellent proportions.” Again, Diodorus
Siculus informs us (l. iv. c. 29, 30) that “after Iolaus had settled his
colony in Sardinia, he sent for Dædalus out of Sicily and employed him
in building many and great works which remain to this day.” And in
another place (l. v. c. 51) he reckons among these works “temples of the
gods,” of which, he repeats, “the remains exist even in these times.”
These passages, however, afford but slight grounds for considering that
the Nuraghe were built by the Greeks, or even were temples of the gods.
The term Θολούς, used by Aristotle, may indeed describe a round building
roofed with a dome, but the Nuraghe cannot be considered as
corresponding to the Grecian idea of buildings that are
“beautiful”—“finished in excellent proportions”—or fitting temples for
the gods. Pausanias denies that Dædalus was sent for out of Sicily by
Iolaus, and makes it an anachronism. See _Tyndale's Sardinia_, vol. i.
p. 116.
[77] Micah, iv. 8; and see 2 Kings, x. 12, xvii. 9, xviii. 8; and 2
Chron. xxvi. 10, &c.
[78] “_Apenas se diferenciaba el_ ARA de la TUMBA.
“_La graderia_ (del monumento sepolcrale) _se hallaba practicada en el
costade occidental per donde se subia para_ ORAR, _o para_
SACRIFICAR.”—Dupaix, vol. v. p. 243. 261.
[79] We borrow this description from Mr. Tyndale's work, as well as the
illustrations, not finding a sketch of a Sepoltura in our own portfolio.
[80] The learned Jesuit disconnects this migration from the expulsion of
the Canaanitish tribes by the Israelites under Joshua, considering it to
have occurred from one to two centuries before, when the giant tribes
east of Jordan were subdued by the Moabites and Amorites, who succeeded
to their possessions. Moses relates that “the Emims dwelt therein [that
is, in Moab,] in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the
Anakims; which also were accounted giants, as the Anakims; but the
Moabites call them Emims.” Of Ammon, Moses says:—“That also was
accounted a land of giants: giants dwelt therein in old time; and the
Ammonites call them Zamzummims; a people great, and many, and tall, as
the Anakims; but the Lord destroyed them before them; and they succeeded
them, and dwelt in their stead even unto this day.”—_Deut._ ii. 10, 11,
20, 21.
[81]
Οὓς καλέουσι Γίγαντας ἐπώνυμον ἐν μακάροισι
Οὕνεκα γῆς ἐγενόντο καὶ αἵματος οὐρανίοιο ORPHEUS.
[82] Gen. vi. 1-4.
[83] These giant tribes were defeated by Chedorlaomer and the kings
allied with him, in the same expedition in which the kings of Sodom and
Gomorrah were put to the sword, and Lot, who dwelt in Sodom, was carried
off, but afterwards rescued by Abraham. Numbers, xiv. 5. &c.
[84] Numb. xiii. 33.; Deut. iii. 11., ix. 2.; Josh. xv. 14.
[85] 1 Sam. xvii. 4; 2 Sam. xxi. 16-22.
[86]
. . . . . “Summo cum monte videmus
Ipsum, inter pecudes vastâ se mole moventem,
_Pastorem_ Polyphemum, et littora nota petentem.
. . . . . .
Trunca manum pinus regit, et vestigia firmat.
Lanigeræ comitantur oves; . . . .
. . . . de collo fistula pendet.” _Æn._ iii. 653, &c.
[87] Polypheme's clan are thus described;—
“Nam, qualis quantusque cavo Polyphemus in antro
Lanigeras claudit pecudes, atque ubera pressat,
Centum alii curva hæc habitant ad littora vulgo
Infandi Cyclopes, et altis montibus errant.” _Æn._ iii. 641.
[88] Father Bresciani has collected all the authorities for the
existence of giant races, with great diligence, in the course of his
remarks on the Sarde Sepolture. Vol. i. p. 89, &c.
[89] De Physicis, iv. 3.
[90] Gen. iv. 21, 22.
[91] A general idea seems to have prevailed in early times of the
prodigious muscular strength possessed by the men of an age still
earlier. Thus Turnus, the warlike chief of the Rutuli, is represented in
the Æneid as lifting and hurling at the Trojan an immense boundary stone
which would defy the united efforts of _twelve such men as the earth
produced in those days_ to lift on their shoulders.
“Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat,
Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis.
Vix illud lecti bis sex cervice subirent,
Qualia nunc hominum producit corpora tellus.” _Æn._ xii. 897.
[92] Gen. xi. 4.
[93] See before, p. 394.
[94] _Ordericus Vitalis_, vol. i. p. 113. (Bohn's Antiq. Library.)
[95] Ib. vol. i. pp. 130, 338; ii. 149.
[96] _Circonscrizione amministrativa delle provincie di Terra Ferma e
della Sardegna_.—Torino, Stamperia Reale, 1850.
[97] Atia, the daughter of M. Atius Balbus, by Julia, sister of Julius
Cæsar, was the mother of Octavius Augustus.—_Suetonius._
[98] Cohen, in his _Déscription des Médailles Consulaires_ recently
published (Paris, 1857), notices a bronze medal of the same type, of
which he says:—“Cette médaille était frappée par les habitans de la
Sardaigne, sous le règne d'Auguste, et pour gagner ses bonnes grâces ils
y placèrent le portrait de son aïeul en même tems que celui du fondateur
de leur patrie.” The cabinet of the British Museum contains a specimen
of this bronze medal, “de fabrique très-barbare,” to use Cohen's
description. He does not appear to be aware of the existence of the
silver coin, which is of a far better style.
[99] Captain Smyth states that in 1798 upwards of 2000 Moors suddenly
disembarked on the beach of Malfatano from six Tunisian vessels; when
the town was surrounded and taken. Brutality and pillage in all their
hideous forms visited every house; and 850 men, women, and children were
driven into slavery. The unhappy captives remained at Tunis; and, from
the embarrassments of the Sardinian Government, were not ransomed until
the year 1805. In 1815 the Tunisians, recollecting the rich booty they
had before obtained, reappeared off the port, but finding the garrison
well prepared to give them a warm reception, they sheered off.—_Sketch
of Sardinia_, p. 300.
[100] Among the other emblems of divinity we find the heads of dogs,
cats, apes, and birds, and also rude figures of the boats of Isis,
establishing a connection between the Egyptian and Phœnician
mythologies. Some exhibit astronomical and astrological symbols. Other
images appear to be carrying cakes, a part of the offering made to
Astarte, to which Jeremiah alludes:—“The women knead their dough, to
make cakes to the queen of heaven.”—Chap. vii. 18.
[101] The concern is incorporated under the name of “The Mediterranean
Telegraph Company,” but the terms “Sardinian” or “Sardo-French” Company
are adopted, as more distinctly indicating the nature of its origin and
designs.
[102] _L'Istmo di Suez, e la Stazione Telegrafico-Electrica di Cagliari;
Ragiamento del T. G. Alberto Della Marmora. Torino, 1856._
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