IN BUSH AND FOREST
There are some scholars who say that the word “Corsica” means the “Land
of Woods,” and that this name was given to the island at a very early
time by the Phœnicians. Several of the old writers, when mentioning
Corsica in their works, describe it in some such terms as “shaggy and
almost savage with woods.” At one time Corsican timber was amongst the
best known, and there are still a number of fine forests left. But what
strikes the visitor most is the way in which the island is clothed
with flowering shrubs. These are collectively known as the _maquis_.
The maquis is that feature which distinguishes the island of Corsica
from all other islands. It is not a forest, but an immense thicket. So
closely is it interlaced that a shrub rarely becomes a tree. If the
thick tangle be cut down, it grows again with wonderful rapidity. The
stems of one kind of flowering shrub have been known to grow as much
as 5 feet in a single year, 3½ feet in the spring, and 1½ feet in the
following autumn. The chief plants which together form the maquis are
the arbutus, which bears white flowers, purple fruit, and shiny leaves;
the myrtles, with their snow-white blossoms; the cistus, scenting the
air with the odour of honey; and great flowering heaths, with white and
rose powdered tufts. This carpet of shrubs stretches from the bottoms
of the valleys to the tops of the mountains, rolls over and around
the rocks, finds its way into hollows and ravines, and fears neither
torrent nor gorge. In spring, when the different shrubs all burst into
bloom, the hill-sides are a mass of flowers. As the hot sun beats down
upon the blossoms, it causes them to exhale a peculiar smell, strong,
but not unpleasant. This odour can even be detected far out at sea when
the wind is blowing from the shore. It is so unlike any other odour
that, once known, it can never be forgotten. Napoleon is reported to
have said, “Put me blindfold on the shore of my native land, and I
should recognize it by the perfume of the maquis.”
The Corsicans do not admire this beautiful covering. They have little
love for Nature, and few of them ever think of travelling in search
of the beauties of mountain, moor, or wood. They are fond of the
company of their fellow-men, and like to live in towns. They leave to
“mad Englishmen” the task and the delight of roaming about on their
flower-decked hills. They would rather see a garden of onions than a
plantation of pines; they would rather look at a row of carrots than
a grove of beech. But though they do not admire the beauty of their
surroundings, they do not despise them. If the shrub is a poor thing to
look at, yet it has certain uses which they keenly appreciate.
Corsica possesses no coal, and the people in the mountain villages
are too poor to buy it even if it were imported. The villagers depend
for fuel on the wood that grows at their very doors, using it both
in the form of logs for firewood and of charcoal. Charcoal takes the
place of coal for cooking purposes, and not only is it manufactured
for home use, but hundreds of tons are exported every year to France,
Spain, Italy, and Sardinia. The method of making charcoal appears very
simple, but great care and experience are necessary to avoid wasting
the wood. The black-faced, black-handed charcoal-burners cut down the
thick stems of the arbutus and other plants, and stack them in a heap.
Round this heap smaller pieces of wood are arranged, till the whole
pile is something of the shape of an enormous plum-pudding. The mound
is covered over with green leaves and earth. A hole is left in one side
of the heap, and through this a fire is lighted. In about ten days the
mass of wood is reduced to charcoal. To get a ton of charcoal it is
necessary to cut down nearly a quarter of an acre of strong, healthy
shrubs--that is, to destroy about eight tons of brushwood. In this way
much of the maquis is continually being destroyed, but so rapidly do
new plants spring up that the harm done is not nearly so great as would
at first be expected.
The bush is also cut down for use as firewood, for though charcoal is
used in the kitchen, logs are burned in the “parlour.” Cutting and
selling firewood is quite an important occupation. Some of the work
is done by boys, but as a rule it is the barefooted, bareheaded women
who toil with the axe upon the hill-side, and come home in the evening
heavily laden, bearing their bundles on their heads. A Corsican woman
seems to carry everything except her baby on her head--boxes, firewood,
water, and provisions. If by any chance a man be seen transporting
firewood, he is as often as not dragging it along on a trolley. He is
not fond of carrying heavy articles.
The firewood is not good of its kind; it soon sinks down, and leaves a
heap of ashes. To keep it glowing, someone must be continually blowing
it. As a peasant said to me once, “It takes four people to make a wood
fire--one to cut, one to carry, one to light, and one to blow.” What
the log-fire lacks in cheerfulness it makes up in heat. It is wonderful
how much warmth is sometimes given out by what appears to be a mere
heap of ashes and dead wood.
We have already referred to the uses of certain kinds of heath in
the manufacture of briar pipes, and of the use of cistus for heating
baking-ovens. The amount of cistus used in baking bread is enormous.
The shrub has light roots, and as it is much easier to pull the
whole plant up than to cut it, it is usually completely uprooted. A
hard-working woman can gather and bind from eight to fourteen bundles
of cistus in a day. These she can sell for about a half-penny each, so
that she can earn from fourpence to sevenpence a day.
There are still many fine forests in the island, containing glorious
specimens of pine, oak, beech, chestnut, and walnut. In the south the
woods are chiefly of cork-oak. The chestnut-trees are of great value,
as the nut is the principal form of food for man and beast during the
winter months. Certain parts of Corsica were never entirely subdued
by either the French or the Genoese. The people hid themselves away
amongst the mountains, and existed on chestnuts. The trees bear an
abundance of fruit, and require no cultivation, so that plenty of food
was always at hand, and merely required gathering. It was like the
manna in the wilderness. Thus the people were enabled to fight all the
year round. There is no fighting now, and there are other foods besides
chestnuts, but in many out-of-the-way places, where the fruit is
plentiful and good, the people still make it their chief food, because
it costs nothing, either in labour or money. They can spend their time
in idleness, “in playing cards and dominoes, in gossiping, in talking
politics, and in doing as little work as possible.” The chestnuts are
ground into flour, out of which bread is made, and also a kind of
pease-pudding called _polenta_. “It is cooked in a great cauldron with
much stirring over a wood fire, and is eaten hot, the dough-like mass
being cut into thick slabs by means of a wire.” Chestnut flour costs
about half the price of wheaten flour, for, as no wheat is grown in the
island, wheaten flour has to be imported from Marseilles.
Another important plant is the olive, which will ripen its fruit up to
an elevation of 2,000 feet. The best olive district is not far from
Calvi. It is said that the Corsicans were forced by one of their
Genoese Governors to plant the olive-trees for which this part of the
island is now so famous. If this be true, then it is one of the very
few things for which the Corsican has to thank the Genoese. When the
olives are ripe, they are gathered by the women, and taken to the mills
to be crushed. Two or three qualities of oil can be got by repeated
crushings, but that which is first obtained is the best, and is used
for table purposes. The inferior kinds are used for lighting, and for
oiling machinery. The salted olives sold in bottles in English shops
are unripe fruits soaked in water and then bottled in brine. The leaves
of the olive are sharp and slender, and greyish-green in colour. They
are something like those of the common willow, but smaller. The fruit,
when ripe, is small, shiny, and black. It must be remembered that the
wild olive is a native of the Mediterranean, and not an imported plant,
as most of the fruit-trees of England are.
The most striking trees in appearance are the tall, dark pines, of
which there are several kinds. Then there are tangled masses of prickly
pear (the common cactus). The prickly pear is a perfect weed. It grows
anywhere and everywhere, and once it has taken root, it is almost
impossible to kill it. If a leaf be broken off and allowed to fall to
the ground, it takes root where it falls and starts a new plant. It is
used for making hedges, and the boldest boy would think twice before
he tried to make his way through its numerous thorns and poisonous
bristles. Some of the spines are so strong that they can be used as
pins, and a certain writer[D] says that a friend of his “used to save
the buying of pins on the part of the ladies of his family by going out
to gather the spines of the most prickly variety of cactus.”
[D] Barry.