BONIFACIO.
The town of Bonifacio proper is within the citadel walls, and two roads
ascend to the heights. One is wide and handsome, winding round the
lofty walls and entering the citadel by a strong drawbridge with fine
old chains; the other is a stony zigzag, too narrow and too steep for
any vehicle, and only available for men, women, and mules. This also
leads by a lesser drawbridge into the well-defended town.
On entering through the main gates of the city, you find yourself
in a wide street, which will be handsome when some ruined houses are
repaired, and others now building are finished. Between the houses,
come peeps of breezy hills and blue harbour. The ascent is still steep
and stony, although wide; and the street, which is the only good one in
Bonifacio, soon comes to an end.
An intricacy of narrow byways leads out of it in every direction. Into
some of these we penetrated, and found them most curious.
The houses were enormously high, supported by flying buttresses from
one roof or wall to the other across the narrow street; while the road
itself (by courtesy so called) was made up of mighty cobble-stones,
varied by large holes, with here and there a sudden drop of a foot or
two. There was of course no apparatus of any sort for lighting up these
side streets, and I could not help wondering what was the percentage of
the population whose nocturnal errands in these dark, dangerous alleys
gave them a contused or broken limb.
Here and there among the overleaning houses came a break of queer old
stone arches, leading by some black and filthy staircase into an abode
of darkness from which came the voices of dogs and children.
Our passage down these back streets, however, was a nervous and hasty
one, and we took care to keep in the centre of the five or six feet of
stony way, knowing by uncomfortable experience the national propensity
of treating the highways as drains, and the possibility any moment of
a deluge of dirty water from an upper window upon our heads.
In one street, a little wider than the others, and which boasted a row
of shops, a brown monk was collecting coppers for his order in a little
tin can, against which he rattled his brown rosary suggestively.
He was a very dirty, but a very polite monk, and showed withal rather
a pleasant, honest face as he bowed to us, turning back his cowl to get
a better stare.
The main street at its end branched off into two steep paths, one
of which led to our "hotel," (!) and the other, equally steep but
rather wider, brought us out, by rough stony passages, first to the
barracks, large and white with an open square in front, and then, under
an archway (over which is a little room once inhabited by the first
Napoleon when a Corsican lieutenant), to a wide breezy common.
This common, covered with grass and corn-fields, with flying
wind-mills, one or two military towers of heavy white stone, containing
gunpowder, and some fortifications, is the plateau of the rocky height
upon which Bonifacio is built.
Reaching the edge of the grassy plateau, we looked down the almost
perpendicular chalk cliffs to a depth of several hundred feet below,
where the blue water chafed and sparkled, as it worked away busily in
its endless task of excavation.
Straight before us, across the straits, lay Sardinia, one or two houses
showing a glitter across the nine miles of white-ribboned currents
that rushed with terrific pace between us and her. Then, turning back,
and wandering out again through the drawbridge, we descended the steep
hill up which we had come, and watched the inhabitants, as, in the cool
of sunset, they came riding in with their various burdens upon their
mules.
Many of them were loaded with grass and ferns for provender, and some
with sticks, and some had tolerably heavy barrels slung on each side of
their beast.
One long-suffering mule was heavily weighted. A barrel on either side,
a sack of hay, and a big lad of fifteen or sixteen was at first his
load; to which presently was added an additional boy, who climbed
up behind and perched himself upon the sack of hay, as the poor mule
plodded slowly uphill.
This elder boy was assuredly one of the most beautiful of God's
creations ever seen. The grace and symmetry of his figure and movements
were perfect, as with supple, bare brown feet pressing against
the mule's sides, he urged on the patient beast; his features were
faultless, and his splendid eyes were almost hidden by the long lashes
that matched the short coal-black curls under his ragged cap.
"Poor beast!" said No. 3, as the mule passed; "how tired he is!" For
one felt one must see those dark eyes raised.
They were raised, as the boy glanced up at us with the scowl of a
beautiful demon; then, suddenly changing his mind as he caught our
friendly looks, a smile broke over the chiselled mouth and flooded the
Italian eyes; and, in an instant, the demon became an angel. I would
have given a five-franc piece to have sketched that boy, but it would
have been almost as much as one's life was worth to have asked him to
stand.
A little further on came an old wayfarer, ragged and infirm, leaning
heavily upon his stick, and followed closely by a little sheep. When I
spoke to the old fellow, the sheep paused too, and looked up in my face
like a dog; and when its master held out his brown withered hand, ran
up to place a warm nose lovingly within it.
The poor man who "had nothing save one little ewe lamb, which he
nourished, and which lay in his bosom, and which was unto him as a
daughter," is a well-known character in Corsica, where tame sheep often
take the place of dogs, and are domestic favourites.
In Bastia I have seen a sheep walking leisurely down the pavement of
the street, looking in at doorways and sniffing here and there quite at
his ease, and quite disregarded, finally lying down in the sun to sleep
upon the public pathway. And I remember one handsome sheep at Ajaccio
that amused us greatly by its climbing powers.
We had strayed out upon the shore a mile or two from the town, and
were sitting down to rest by the sea, when a very grand coastguardsman
passed us. His real motive was evidently curiosity, but his feigned one
was expressed by the telescope in his hand, carrying which he mounted
a ridge of rock hard by, to gaze out upon the unbroken horizon.
The gold braid on his black and white uniform was fresh and telling;
and the tame sheep which followed his every footstep was as white as
snow.
When the coastguardsman paused, the little sheep paused; wherever he
went upon the slippery seaweed-covered rocks dashed with spray, there
followed she; and, when he was about to pass us, she stared for a
moment with frightened air, and then, with a little cry, tucked herself
close to her master's side until we were left behind.
Nearly all these Bonifacio people were civil and friendly, touching
their caps and wishing us good evening.
Military and naval uniforms gave the streets a gay air, and the
inhabitants appeared of a less solemn disposition than most Corsicans.
During the whole of our visit to the island, I never heard but one
man (or boy) whistle, out of Bastia, Ajaccio, and Bonifacio; and in
the villages nothing but chorus singing is heard, and that of the most
dismal kind, and but rarely.
But here in Bonifacio, children, and even men, might be heard singing
gay military airs about the streets.
The Hotel du Nord gave us a terrible shock. How it ever got itself
christened "hotel," even in Corsica, is a mystery to me.
The little stony street which led up to it was so steep and so narrow
that we and our packages had to leave the carriage at the bottom,
and climb up to the broken hovel-like doorway, which a swinging board
informed our astonished eyes was the "Entrance to the Hotel."
A stone step down into the darkness revealed before us a narrow,
creaking, wooden staircase, up which we went wondering, preceded by the
polite maître d'hôtel. A door then opened on a little wooden landing,
and showed a long dark room, kitchen and salle à manger in one, in
which were already seated a good many Bonifacians, drinking red wine
and smoking cheap tobacco.
Through this room and its astonished inmates, we were led into two
little apartments, each containing a bed, one of which was screened off
so as to make the larger room a sitting-room.
This was all the accommodation to be had; but a third room was promised
in another house for No. 2, "when the military gentleman now occupying
it should have departed," which he had promised to do before evening.
It seemed incredible that there should be no better inn at a place like
Bonifacio, one of the five principal towns in the island; but so it
was; though the excellent fare and unceasing care and attention of the
active little landlord deserved every commendation.
This man's French was most extraordinary, and had it not been that he
took such evident pride in its display, we should have informed him
that his Italian was the more comprehensible; but his kindness was
excessive and his charges most moderate.
He was particularly anxious to impress upon us the fact that a handsome
house, now building in the main street, was his new hotel, which
would be opened by next summer, so that we should have very different
accommodation on our next visit.
He also insisted strongly upon the cleanliness of his house, and his
knowledge of the English prejudices against creeping beasts.
"Mesdames," said he, emphatically, "pour chaque punaise que vous
trauverez ce soir, vous pourrez me donner un soufflet demain matin!"
With which handsome offer he led the way to the house, a few doors
lower down the street, where was the "extra apartment," making many
apologies as to its present state of untidiness, which would be
remedied directly.
Any place more cut-throat-looking than this room I never saw. It was
a sort of long low garret at the very top of an apparently deserted
house, up four or five flights of wooden stairs, and led out of another
lumber garret, as bare and unfurnished as itself.
"Don't sleep here," said No. 3; "you will dream of brigands all night!"
"You will be choked with dust, and devoured by fleas," said No. 1.
"I hope they _will_ clean it out," said No. 2, whose nerves were
brigand-proof; "and I hope the house won't catch fire. But I shall
sleep here."
Our polite little landlord was right as to his immunity from the worst
of nocturnal horrors. But he had been wary in omitting fleas from his
penalty of a box on the ear!
"Well, how did you sleep, mesdames?" he asked, as he brought us our
breakfast at eight o'clock next morning.
"Very well," said two of us.
"Ah!" he replied, triumphantly, "I told you my house was clean!"
"But," said the third, quietly, "twenty-seven fleas _are_ a good many
to catch at one sitting!"
The poor man's face fell. "Ah, peste!" said he, with a vexed air; "that
militaire kept three dogs in his room. What is a man to do?"
As for me, the beauty of the night alone prevented my sleeping. It
seemed a shame to be lying idly dreaming when the clear moonlight
outside was lighting up such weird beauties of nature.
My little window looked down from the very summit of the citadel
rock, over perpendicular chalk cliffs, upon the dashing waves far, far
beneath, where by daylight I had watched them playing over malachite
stones and purple seaweed.
All around stretched the bay, the chalk cliffs, and little detached
stacks, grooved and hollowed by the wasting waters; and the long
promontory, edged by black rocks, jutting out into distant depths of
blue Mediterranean. On this promontory stood a signal-house, and a
lighthouse; and at the extreme end of it was a curious natural rock,
shaped like a broad watch-tower, with pagoda roof.
But now, the bright moonlight shone on a black sea lit up by silver
crests, and golden gleams from the distant lighthouse threw strange
lights across little shadowy bays, whilst the detached rocks stood up
like black ghosts raising fantastic heads towards the deep blue sky.
All night long the sea moaned wild music ceaselessly, the rising wind
tossing up white jets of spray to catch the silver moonlight, and
increasing towards morning into a tempest cry.