BONIFACIO
The Genoese founded five colonies in what are now five of the chief
towns of Corsica. These were Bonifacio, Calvi, San Florent, Bastia,
and Ajaccio. Four of these towns are described in this and the three
succeeding chapters. Each of the towns possesses its own particular
interest, and differs from the others in many ways.
Bonifacio owes its name to Boniface, a Tuscan Duke, who founded the
town over a thousand years ago. He had been fighting in Africa, and on
his way home he touched at the southern end of the island and built a
fortress which he called by his own name, a name that has also been
given to the strait that separates Corsica from the more southerly
island of Sardinia. Boniface intended his fort to be used as a defence
against Saracen pirates.
[Illustration: THE HARBOUR, BONIFACIO.]
In due time (1195) it was taken by the Genoese, who drove out nearly
all the original inhabitants and replaced them by their own people.
To these people they gave a great deal of liberty. The new colonists
were allowed to coin their own money and to make most of their own
laws. In consequence of this treatment, they remained faithful to the
Genoese in later years, at a time when most of the other towns in
the island were rebelling against foreign rule. They defended their
town with courage and determination on many occasions, when they were
attacked by Corsican or other forces. At one time they were besieged
by Alphonso V., the King of Aragon, who said that the island belonged
to him, because the Pope had made a present of it to his father. As no
one paid any attention to his claims, he came with a fleet and 10,000
men to obtain possession of his rights. He laid siege to Bonifacio.
He surrounded the town both by land and by sea for a period of five
months. From a hill to the north of the town he directed a steady
bombardment against the fort, and destroyed a part of the defences.
Provisions grew scarce, but the colonists still held out. A small
vessel escaped from the harbour and managed to reach Genoa, carrying
the news to the doge of that city that if help did not soon arrive,
the inhabitants of Bonifacio would be forced by fire and hunger to
surrender the fort that they had so valiantly defended. The doge lost
no time in sending a small fleet laden with provisions, but this
fleet carried only 1,500 men to relieve a place that was besieged by
10,000. The inhabitants had almost given up all hope of relief, and
the Spaniards were expecting the immediate surrender of the fort
and town, when a new Genoese force, clad in bright armour, appeared
upon the walls. The Spaniards were told that reinforcements had arrived
during the night, though, as a matter of fact, nothing of the kind had
happened. The new army consisted simply of the women, children, and
priests of the town, who had clothed themselves in steel in order to
take part in the defence of their homes. When the real Genoese relief
force did arrive, it found the harbour blocked by a number of galleys
firmly chained together. The Genoese commander drove his vessels
against the chain, forced the barrier, and so got through the Spanish
lines and saved the town. Alphonso left the Corsicans to themselves,
and never again made any attempt to capture the island.
The inhabitants of Bonifacio speak a special dialect of their own. They
are much more gentle in their manners than the rest of the Corsicans,
whom they regard as strangers. They are not quarrelsome, and murders,
which are so common everywhere else, are here almost unknown. The
men work hard, and do not treat their women as slaves and beasts of
burden. About the only time in the year when the women of Bonifacio are
expected to work in the fields is at the time of the olive harvest,
when everybody leaves the town in the morning and returns again only in
the evening. During the day the town is completely deserted. The whole
population is in the fields. The return of the labourers in the evening
is a curious sight. They come home in a long procession, walking one
behind the other in single file, accompanied by hundreds of donkeys
bearing baskets full of ripe olives.
Bonifacio is one of the most picturesque and interesting places in
the island. It is built on the top of a high mass of white chalk, and
is reached by a steep and winding road. The streets are narrow alleys
with numerous passages, connecting one with the other, and winding in
and out in all directions. The houses are tall and dirty, and so close
together that in many places the sun finds little chance of entering
the unpleasantly smelling byways.
On one side of the town, overlooking the sea, there is a terrace, from
which you can pass by means of a long flight of steps to the waves at
the foot of the rock. Tradition states that the staircase was cut in a
single night. Not far from the terrace is an old church, which is said
to contain a piece of the cross upon which Christ was crucified.
I must tell you how this bit of the true cross came to be found.
Bonifacio had been attacked and plundered by the Saracens, and the
people were in great distress. One morning, some of the inhabitants
observed an ox and an ass kneeling in front of their one little spring.
The animals were gazing intently at the surface of the water. The men
who had seen this curious sight ran away and told their friends. It was
not long before a huge crowd had gathered round the kneeling animals.
Amongst this crowd were two or three priests. They noticed that the
waters of the spring, which were usually quiet, were now jumping about
and bubbling over in a most excited manner. Coming nearer, they found
that there was a bit of wood in the water, and that it was whirling
round at a great rate. They seized it and examined it, and pronounced
it to be a bit of the true cross.
The sacred morsel of wood is now kept in a cupboard built into the
wall, and is guarded by an iron door. The door has two keys, one of
which is in the possession of the Mayor, while the curé has charge of
the other. The lock is so made that both keys are required to open it.
On certain days of the year the relic is carried in procession through
the town. On dark nights, when tempests are howling, and the great
waves are dashing in fury against the base of the rock, the people go
to the Mayor, and then to the curé, and escort them both to the church.
The cupboard is unlocked, the bit of sacred wood is carried to the
edge of the cliffs, and prayers are said above the angry waters. Then
the tempest ceases, the waves become still, and the morsel of the true
cross is once more locked up in its strongly guarded resting-place.
There are other superstitions at Bonifacio, such as the one which tells
you never to sleep with your feet pointing to the door, as that is the
way corpses go out. Then, if anyone is ill in the house, or away from
home, so that he cannot take his usual place at the table, no one else
is allowed to sit in the empty chair. If there be any fear that this
will happen, the table is always pushed with one side against the wall,
thus preventing anyone from sitting on that side. The plate and knife
and fork of the sick or absent one are laid just the same as if he were
present.
The bit of sacred wood is not the only valuable relic that Corsicans
claim to possess, for in the crypt of one of their churches in the
north they have a little bit of the earth out of which Adam was made, a
handful of almonds from the Garden of Eden, a handful of manna gathered
by the Israelites in the wilderness, and the rod with which Moses
divided the waters of the Red Sea so that the Jews could pass over.
These precious relics have been in the country between five and six
hundred years. They were saved from the wreck of a Spanish ship that
was three times cast upon the shore.
There is no public water-supply for the houses in any Corsican town.
Most of the water required for washing and cooking has to be carried
from wells, streams, or springs. In that part of Bonifacio which is
built on the summit of the rock there are one public and thirty-nine
private cisterns, in which rain-water from the roofs is stored. Down by
the sea there is one, and only one, spring of water fit to drink. The
people who have no private cisterns are obliged to descend every day to
the low town to get water for use in their houses. Some men get their
living by carrying water to the high town in barrels on the backs of
mules. They sell the water at a penny a barrel. Now people must eat,
though they need not wash. Hence water is chiefly used for cooking.
Washing is reserved as a special duty, to be performed only on high
days and holidays. Such a thing as a good bath is unknown, and there is
probably not a single bathroom in the whole place. This is the case,
not merely in Bonifacio, but throughout the length and breadth of the
island. The difficulty of getting water is so great that the people
decline to waste it by pouring it over their bodies. When they wish to
wash their clothes, they carry them to the nearest stream, and there,
in full view of every passer-by, they cleanse the family linen. Floors
are never scrubbed, window-panes are never cleaned. Both houses and
people are nearly as dirty as if soap had never been invented.
Wherever you travel throughout the land you will see peasant-women
and young girls carrying water in big pails. Some of these pails
weigh, when full of water, from 50 to 60 pounds. They are balanced
on the head. The women trip along merrily, never stumbling on the
mountain-paths nor tripping over the holes in the streets. Except in
Bonifacio, it is always the women who carry the water, never the men.
They seldom hurry over their task. At the fountain or the spring they
meet their neighbours and have a good gossip, and the Corsican woman
is fond of gossip, even if she is not fond of carrying heavy pails of
water.
There are few industries in Corsica, except those of tilling fields
and tending vines and orchards, so that the existence of one in any
place is worth mentioning. At Bonifacio there is a factory for the
manufacture of corks. The cork-oak is a common tree in the island, and
its bark is of great value. It is exported either in strips, or else as
corks for bottles. The cork-factory at Bonifacio is the most important
in the island, and one of the first four belonging to France. It makes
as many as 24,000,000 corks in a year.