Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia Part 4

On clearing Bastia, we found ourselves on this high road,-a magnificent causeway carried nearly in a straight line for many miles through the plain extending between the sea and the mountains. Orange groves embowering sheltered nooks in the environs of the town, and hedges of the Indian fig (_cactus opuntia_), betokened the warmth of this southern sh.o.r.e; and, as we advanced, the rank growth of vegetation on the flats realised all we had heard of the teeming richness of the _littorale_.

It was hot walking, and the causeway and flats would have been monotonous enough but for the glorious views on either hand.

To the left, the Mediterranean was calmly subsiding from the effects of the gale, its undulations still sparkling in the sunbeams. Far within the horizon was the group of islands which lend a charm to all this coast, and are a.s.sociated with great historical names. There rises Elba, with the sharp outline of its lofty peaks and dark sh.o.r.es, too narrow for the mighty spirit which ere long burst the bounds of his Empire Island. Far away in the southern hemisphere I had visited that other island, where the chains were riveted too firmly for release, except by the grave over which I had pondered. Now we stood on the soil that gave him birth. Why was not this the "Island Empire?" The Allied Sovereigns were disposed to be magnanimous. It was offered to him; why did he refuse it? Was it that, with far-sighted policy, he considered Corsica too bright a gem in the crown of France for him to pluck, without sooner or later giving umbrage to the Bourbons? May his refusal be cited as a further proof of the little love he bore for the land of his birth? Or was it that, when once hurled from the throne of his creation, the conqueror of kingdoms could not descend to compare one petty island with another? "At Elba he found the horizon, the sky, the air, the waves of his childhood; and the history of his island-state, would be to him a constant lesson of the mutability of human things."[3]

Napoleon emperor in Corsica! On this spot, with Elba in view, one dwells for a moment on the idea! Then, indeed, Corsica's long-cherished dreams of national independence-it was her last chance-would have been strangely realised. But her fate was sealed. She had sunk to the rank of an outlying department of France, and so remained; with what results we may perhaps discover.

Near Elba, and strongly contrasting with its bold outline, lies the little island of _Pianosa_, the ancient Planosa. Its surface is flat, as the name indicates. That island, too, has its tale of imperial exile.

The young Agrippa, grandson of Augustus, and heir-presumptive to an empire wider than that of Napoleon's most ambitious dreams, was banished to Planosa by his grandfather, at the instance of Livia. Augustus is said to have visited him there. It was Agrippa's fate to find a grave, as well as a prison, in the Mediterranean island; the tyrant Tiberius, with the jealousy of an eastern monarch, having caused his rival to be strangled on his own accession to the empire.

Soon after Napoleon's arrival in Elba he sent some troops to take possession of Pianosa; which, ravaged by the Genoese in the thirteenth century, had never since flourished. The fallen emperor himself could not help laughing at this mighty expedition, for which thirty of his guards, some Elban militia, and six pieces of artillery were detailed; exclaiming, as he gave orders to erect batteries and fire upon any enemies who might present themselves, "Europe will say that I have already made a conquest." Napoleon partially restored the fortifications of an old castle, which had been bombarded by an English squadron, landing the marines, in 1809, during the revolutionary war. The island now belongs, with Elba, to the Grand-Duke of Tuscany.

Further to the south appears the rocky island of Monte-Cristo. This, too, has its tale of exile, insignificant as it looks except for its sharply serrated outline, and a worldwide fame. The emperor Diocletian banished here St. Mamilian, Archbishop of Palermo. A convent was afterwards founded on the site of the Saint's rude cell. The monks of Monte-Cristo flourished, as they deserved; the worthy fathers having founded many hospitals in Tuscany and done much good. Saracen corsairs carried off the monks; the convent was laid in ruins; and the lone island remained uninhabited for a long course of years, except by wild goats. It was in this state when Alexandre Dumas made it the scene of his hero's successful adventure after his escape from the _Chateau d'If_, and adopted it as the t.i.tle of his popular novel. The island having been recently purchased and colonised by Mr. Watson Taylor, he has built a house on it for his own residence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ISLE OF MONTE-CRISTO.]

It is about nine miles in circ.u.mference, and I should judge from its appearance that the greatest part of the surface is rocky, though not without green hollows, dells, and verdant slopes. But the olive and the vine usually thrive, and are largely cultivated, on such spots; and if, as I should imagine, the natural vegetation and the climate are similar to those of the other islands in the Tuscan sea with which we are acquainted, happy may the lord of Monte-Cris...o...b..; for, in the hands of a wealthy English gentleman, such a spot may be made an earthly paradise.

After about an hour's walk we halted for the muleteer to come up. A glorious point of view it was, embracing a wide expanse of the bright sea, with the islands which had supplied so many striking and pleasant recollections. Looking backward, the purple mountains of Capo Corso now appeared ma.s.sed together in endless variety of outline, with Bastia at their base, the citadel and white houses glowing in the evening suns.h.i.+ne. Turning to the right, the eye caught the fine effect of the meeting of the plain and mountains-the interminable level, stretching far away till it was lost in distance, and teeming with luxuriant vegetation, but with only here and there a solitary clump of trees,-and the long mountain-range line after line rising into peaks above the gracefully rounded hills that swelled up from the level of the plain.

Woods, orchards, vineyards overspread the lower slopes, the hollows were buried in thickets of evergreen, and picturesque villages and towers appeared, though rarely, on the summits of the hills.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MEETING OF MOUNTAIN AND PLAIN, NEAR BASTIA.]

Who would not linger at the sight of Furiani, the most important of these villages, its ivy-mantled towers crumbling to ruins?-Furiani, where the Corsicans, in a national a.s.sembly, first organised their insurrection against the Genoese, and elected the prudent and intrepid Giaffori one of their leaders; with cries of "_Evviva la liberta! evviva il popolo!_"-Furiani, where, in almost their last struggle, two hundred Corsicans held the fortifications long after they were a heap of ruins, and at length cut their way by night to the sh.o.r.e.

The muleteer at last made his appearance with his sorry cavalcade, and my companion having taken advantage of our halt to make the sketch of the "Meeting of the mountains and plain," which was not quite finished, that we might not lose time, as the sun was descending behind the mountains, one of the mules was tied to a stake, in order that my friend might overtake us, while we made the best of our way forward.

I still preferred walking, and pushed on at a pace which suited none of my company, human or asinine. We had got ahead about a mile, when shouts from behind opened a scene perfectly ludicrous. There was the little mule trotting up the road at most unusual speed, impelled by my friend's shouts and the big stones with which he was pelting the miserable beast.

He too came up at a long trot, rather excited, and calling to the muleteer, "Catch your mule, Giovanni! I'll have nothing more to do with the brute."

"What is it all about?"

It appeared that my friend, having finished his sketch, prepared to mount and push after us. The mule, however, had a design diametrically opposed to this. No sooner was it loosed from the stake to which it was tied, than the poor beast very naturally felt a strong impulse to return to its stable at Bastia. Could instinct have forewarned it what it would have to encounter before midnight, the retrograde impulse would have been still stronger. Every one knows how difficult it is to deal with a mule when it is in the mood either not to go at all, or to go the wrong way. Having driven a team of these animals-fine Calabrian mules they were, equal to the best Spanish-all the way from Naples to Dieppe, I can boast of some experience in the mulish temperament.

To make matters worse, the English saddle being all too large for its wizened sides, in spite of all our care in knotting the girths, it twisted round in the attempt to mount, and my very excellent friend-no disparagement to his n.o.ble horsemans.h.i.+p, for one has no firm seat even when mounted on a vicious pony-before he could bring the saddle to a level and gain his equilibrium, was fairly pitched over the side of the road. Mule having now achieved that glorious _liberta_, the instinctive aspiration of Corsican existence, whether man, mule, or moufflon, started forward alone, my friend following, I have no doubt, in rather a thundering rage.

"At every attempt I made to take the mule by the head"-such was his account-"he reversed his position, and launched his heels at me with a viciousness that rendered the enterprise not a little dangerous, for I do not know anything so funky as an a.s.s's heels. Had it not been for saving the saddle, mule might have taken himself off to Bastia, or a worse place, for any trouble I would have taken to stop him."

It may be supposed that this story was not told or listened to without shouts of laughter, the muleteer being the only one of the party who was seriously disconcerted.

"_Andiamo, Giovanni_," said I, cutting short all discussion, and moved forward. We had lost time, and the evening was closing in.

"Won't you ride, then?-try the other mule."

"No, I thank you; I am not in the least fatigued, and have no desire to be pitched into a bush of p.r.i.c.kly cactus, or rolled down the bank of the causeway."

"Let us push on, then; if we are belated, we may have worse adventures, this first day of our rambles in Corsica, before we get to our night's quarters; and where we are to find them, I am sure I have no idea."

We walked on at a smart pace, and gradually drew far ahead of Giovanni and his mules. They were not to be hurried, and if they had been gifted like Balaam's a.s.s, I imagine they would have agreed with Giovanni in wis.h.i.+ng _l'Inglesi all'Inferno_. I don't know, speaking from experience, which is worst, riding, leading, or driving a malcontent mule.

The rays of the setting sun were now faintly gleaming on a vast sheet of shallow stagnant water, the _Stagna di Biguglia_, between the road and the sea, from which it is only separated by a low strip of alluvial soil. It was a solitary, a melancholy scene. A luxuriant growth of reeds fringes the margin of the lagoon, and heat and moisture combine to throw up a rank vegetation on its marshy banks. The peasants fly from its pestiferous exhalations, and nothing is heard or seen but the plash of the fish in the still waters, the sharp cry of the heron and gull, wheeling and hovering till they dart on their prey, and some rude fisherman's boat piled with baskets of eels for the market at Bastia.

This vast sheet of water was formerly open to the sea, forming a n.o.ble harbour, in which floated the galleys of the powerful republics that in the middle ages disputed the empire of the Mediterranean and the possession of its islands. On a hill above stood the town of Biguglia, the capital of the island under the Pisans and Genoese, till in the fourteenth century Henri della Rocca, with the insurgent Corsicans, carried it by a.s.sault. The Genoese then erected the fortress at Bastia, which, with the town growing up under its protection, became the chief seat of their power in the island, and Biguglia fell to decay.

Mariana, a Roman colony, stood on the coast near the lower extremity of this present lagoon; and Aleria, another still further south, on the sea-line of the great plain extending for forty miles below Bastia. Our proposed route led in another direction, and, not to interrupt the thread of the narrative, a notice of these colonies is reserved for another opportunity.

We had reached the neighbourhood at which, according to calculation, we ought to strike off from the high-road towards the mountains. Now, if ever, a guide was needed; but Giovanni and his mules had fallen far in the rear. A by-road turned to the right, apparently in the desired direction. At the angle of the roads we took counsel,-should we venture to take the by-path, or wait till Giovanni came up?-which involved a loss of time we could ill spare at that period of the day. A mistake might be awkward, but we had carefully studied the bearings of the country on our maps, and deciding to risk it, struck boldly into the lane. For a short distance it led between inclosures, but presently opened, and we found ourselves on the boundless waste, with only a narrow track for our guidance through its mazes. We were in the bush, the _Macchia_ as the natives call it.

CHAP. VII.

_Evergreen Thickets.-Their remarkable Character.-A fortunate Rencontre.-Moonlight in the Mountains.-Cross a high Col.-Corsican Shepherds.-The Vendetta.-Village Quarters._

A slight ascent over a stony bank landed us at once on the verge of the thickets. It had been browsed by cattle, and scattered myrtle-bushes, of low growth, were the first objects that gladdened our eyes. A new botany, a fresh scenery was before us. The change from the littoral, with its rank vegetation, close atmosphere, and weary length of interminable causeway, was so sudden, that it took us by surprise.

Presently we were winding through a dense thicket of arbutus, tree-heaths, alaternus, daphne, lentiscus, blended with myrtles, cystus, and other aromatic shrubs, ma.s.sed and mingled in endless variety-the splendid arbutus, with its white bell-shaped flowers and pendulous bunches of red and orange berries, most prevailing.

The _Macchia_ is, in fact, a natural shrubbery of exquisite beauty. We travelled through it, in the two islands, for many hundred miles, and I feel confident that, to English taste, it forms the unique feature in Corsican and Sardinian scenery. This sort of underwood prevails also, I understand, in Elba, and, more or less, in the other islands of the central Mediterranean basin. We now fully comprehended how it was that, when sailing along the coast, our attention had been so riveted on the rich verdure clothing the hills and mountain-sides of Capo Corso, although at the time we were unable to satisfy ourselves in what its striking peculiarity consisted.

The air is so perfumed by the aromatic plants, that there was no exaggeration in Napoleon's language when conversing, at St. Helena, of the recollections of his youth, he said:

"_La Corse avait mille charmes; tout y etait meilleur jusqu'a l'odeur du sol meme. Elle lui eut suffi pour la deviner, les yeux fermes. Il ne l'avait retrouvee nulle part._"

A trifling occurrence in my own travels gives some faint idea of the sentiment which dictated this remark. At St. Helena the flora of the North and South singularly meet. Patches of gorse (_Ulex Europaea_)-that idol of Linnaeus and ornament of our English and Cambrian wastes-grow freely on the higher grounds, rivalling the purple heath in their golden bloom, and shrubs of warmer climates in their sweet perfume. Returning to England after lonely wanderings in the southern hemisphere, I well remember how the sight and the scent of this rude plant, dear in its very homeliness, recalled former scenes a.s.sociated with it. I recollect, too, that the mettlesome barb which bounded over the downs surrounding Longwood did not partake of my sympathy for the golden bough I had plucked. The smooth turf and the yellow furze had no charms for the exile of St. Helena. Never was the "_lasciate ogni speranza_" more applicable than to his island-prison, and in his melancholy hours his thoughts naturally reverted, with a gush of fond tenderness, to the land of his birth, little as he had shown partiality for it in his hour of prosperity.

On its picturesque scenes we were now entering, with everything to give them the highest zest. The autumn rains had refreshed the arid soil, and the aromatic shrubs filled the air with their richest perfume.

Escaped from cities, and from steam-boats, redolent of far other odours, and having turned our backs on marsh, and _stagna_, and wearisome causeway, well strung to our work, and gaining fresh vigour in the evening breeze, we brushed through the waving thickets with little thought of Giovanni and his mules, left far behind, and as little concern whither our path would lead us. It was a beaten track, and must be our guide to some habitation. A few hours ago we set foot on sh.o.r.e, and we were already engaged in some sort of adventure-and that, too, in Corsica, which has an ugly reputation! "_N'importe_; it is our usual luck; it will turn out right." But let us push on, for the sun has long set, and the twilight is fading.

Fortune favoured us, for the enterprise on which we had stumbled turned out rather a more serious affair than we antic.i.p.ated. It was getting dark, when the footprints of a mule on the sandy path attracted our notice, the fresh marks pointing in the direction we were taking. Soon we caught sight of a small party winding through the tall shrubbery. The turning of a zigzag on a slight rocky ascent brought the party full in view, and we closed with it. There were two girls riding astride on the same mule, with a stout peasant trudging behind. It was a pleasant rencontre.

"Good evening, friend. How far is it to the next village?"

"Three hours."

"What is it called?"

"Olmeta."

"Is the road good?"

"Mountainous and very steep."

"Allow us to join your party?"

"By all means." "_Allons donc_; we shall be late."

And the party moved on. Antoine, our new acquaintance, was, like most Corsicans, of the middle size, with a frame well knit. He had a pleasant expression of countenance, with a frank and independent air, the very reverse of our muleteer, Giovanni. We amused ourselves at having given him the slip, and continued to question our new guide.