BY THE ROAD-SIDE
In whatever country you travel, sit awhile by the road-side. If it be
a small country, and you sit down for an hour or two, you may see and
hear much that is typical of the land you are visiting. Do not stay
only in towns; go out into the country places and watch, and make
friends with the people who live upon the soil.
Let us ramble out towards one of the lonely places that are so
plentiful in the little island about which we are speaking. Any road
and almost any direction will do. We need not hesitate for long. In
many respects the sights to be seen are much the same. Sometimes, it
is true, the highway lies by the side of a foaming torrent, hurrying
over stones and boulders to join the sea; sometimes it climbs amongst
untrodden snows; sometimes it creeps along the edge of the foam-clad
blue, or wanders through a grove of tall and silent pines. But we are
not out to see the scenery so much as the things that men do and make.
Just over yonder there is a tawny-skinned man in soiled shirt
and trousers, and wearing heavy boots. He is a _cantonnier_, or
road-mender. The high-roads of the island are under the care of the
French Government. They are excellent. Being cut mostly in the granite,
the surface is hard, smooth, and free from dust. So gently do they
ascend the mountain-sides, zigzagging backwards and forwards with easy
slopes, that carriage-drives can be comfortably taken over the highest
passes in the island.
The houses in which the cantonniers live are built of rough stones,
and, unlike other dwellings, are usually only one story high. They are
placed at fairly regular intervals between the different villages and
towns. The cantonniers lead very lonely lives, and often their only
companion is a dog. Sometimes, especially in the winter, they do not
see a human face for several days together. Their pay is poor, only a
few shillings a week. Yet these men, like all their countrymen, are
noted for their kindness and their hospitality towards strangers.
They will give the weary or benighted traveller bread, cheese, wine,
or any other simple food they possess. They will shelter him from sun
or storm, and wish him a hearty farewell when he takes his departure,
without dreaming of payment in money. In fact, they would feel insulted
if money were offered them in return for their hospitality.
We are not long upon the road before we meet n mule, or, rather, many
mules. Horses are seldom seen in the mountains. Their place is taken
by mules and donkeys. Here comes a mule heavily laden. He bears a man
and a woman, to say nothing of an assortment of sacks, baskets, and
pans. The woman is riding astride like the man. Now the mule, though
a very hardy and useful animal, has an unusually nasty temper and an
unobliging will at the back of it. He has to be humoured from time to
time, and a little thing will often frighten him and send him flying
like the wind. The women seem to be quite as much at home on these
animals as the men, and on market-days they are seen in great numbers
coming home in the evening sitting on the backs of the mules, packed
round with cans and baskets, and quietly knitting as they go. If a
cyclist appears, however, the women quickly jump down to the ground,
and hold the head of the animal until the man a-wheel has gone by.
Mules are not only ridden; they are harnessed to many different kinds
of vehicles. The market-cart is not much more than a flat platform
on wheels, with a kind of bridge raised over the middle on which two
people can sit. The timber-carts that carry the logs from the forests
to the sea are provided with huge wooden brakes. To put on the brake, a
man hangs on to a lever with all his weight. Very often, when the mule
refuses to halt at the word of command, the driver applies the brake as
tightly as possible, and so forces the animal to stop. He finds this
an easier method than that of tugging at the reins, for the mouth of
the mule is hard, and his temper stubborn. Mules are employed to pull
the heavy roller that is used in mending the roads, for in this land
steam-rollers are not known. Mules are also used to draw the diligence,
or omnibus. Railways are very few and far between, and the omnibus
is well patronized for journeys that are beyond a walking distance.
The place of the diligence will some day be taken by the motor-bus.
Already there is one automobile running between Ajaccio and some of
the coast towns. Perhaps the people will not be so very sorry when
the diligence is done away with entirely, for it is a dirty, lumbering
vehicle, though, like all the dirty things in Corsica, exceedingly
quaint and picturesque. In front there is a little space shut off for
the first-class passengers, of whom not more than three can be carried.
The back part is like an ordinary omnibus, but it rarely holds more
than six people. The windows are always closed to keep out the draught.
The travellers are half stifled with the heat, and almost choked with
the dust. They sit with their heads poked down between their shoulders
and their knees drawn up to their chins to avoid banging their heads
against the roof. The mules tear up and down the mountain-sides with
truly remarkable speed, and as the lumbering old coach sways from side
to side, the stranger expects every moment to see it topple over into
the valley below.
In the field on the other side of that thick cactus hedge the mules
are pulling a plough. Though three mules will drag a heavy diligence
up the side of the mountain, it is no uncommon thing to find a dozen
or more of them yoked to the same plough. They take their time over
this kind of work, and do not fly about as they do on the roads. The
peasants walk slowly after them, guiding either the plough or the
mules, quite content to go at a snail’s pace. The Corsican farmers are
not experts. Their vines are badly tended, their seed-potatoes are not
good, and their breeds of sheep and goats are very poor. Of late years
many of them have taken to growing citrons, which, in a good year,
yield them a considerable profit; but owing to frosts that often come
at inconvenient times and destroy the fruit, citron-growing is rather a
risky occupation.
That soft rippling noise that you hear is made by a fountain of
running water. These fountains are numerous in the villages and by
the road-side, and the water is cold and sparkling, though not always
pure. It is not wise to drink water in a land where the art of proper
drainage is unknown. Many of the fountains were originally made by the
Moors, and the people have had the sense to preserve them for their own
use.
The louder noise that is now making itself heard comes from a peasant
who is singing. The Corsicans are said to be fond of music, but their
singing is atrocious. They shriek in a high falsetto voice, beginning
on a very high note and ending on a low one, and they make up in volume
what they lack in sweetness. The music sounds strange to those not
acquainted with the bagpipes, or with the instruments and voices of
the Far East. The same music sung by a cultured voice has a certain
charm of its own, though too much of it is apt to prove monotonous. If
you are so unfortunate as to be shut up for half an hour in a railway
carriage with a peasant who likes the sound of his own voice, you will
probably be rewarded with a splitting headache. And so it goes on all
day--streams of mules and sheep, peasants and goats, women carrying
wood and water, men smoking and singing, and women knitting. Everyone
greets the passer-by with a polite salute, wishing him “Good-morning”
or “Good-evening,” as the case may be.
At the entrance to a village, or at places where the road divides, a
huge wooden cross is erected. This bears wooden models of a hammer,
pincers, spear, and nails, and is meant to remind the traveller of Him
who died for all the world so many years ago. But neither men nor women
seem to take much notice of this memorial of the Christ, and, once it
has been erected, it is allowed to go gradually to ruin.