Peeps at Many Lands: Corsica

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 writerD 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.”