How the Corsican may be compelled to live as bandit, may be suddenly hurled from his peaceable home, and the quiet of civic life, into the mountain fastnesses, to wander henceforth with the ban of outlawry on him, will be clear from what we have seen of the Vendetta.

The Corsican bandit is not, like the Italian, a thief and robber, but strictly what his name implies—a man whom the law has banned. According to the old statute, all those are banditti on whom sentence of banishment from the island has been passed, because justice has not been able to lay hands on them. They were declared outlaws, and any one was free to slay a bandit if he came in his way. The idea of banishment has quite naturally been extended to all whom the law proscribes.

The isolation of Corsica, want of means, and love of their native soil, prevent the outlawed Corsicans from leaving their island. In former times, Corsican bandits occasionally escaped to Greece, where they fought bravely; at present, many seek refuge in Italy, and still more in Sardinia, if they prefer to leave their country. Flight from the law is nowhere in the world a simpler matter than in Corsica. The blood has scarcely been shed before the doer of the deed is in the hills, which are everywhere close at hand, and where he easily conceals himself in the impenetrable macchia. From the moment that he has entered the macchia, he is termed bandit. His relatives and friends alone are acquainted with his traces; as long as it is possible, they furnish him with necessaries; many a dark night they secretly receive him into their houses; and however hard pressed, the bandit always finds some goat-herd who will supply his wants.

The main haunts of the bandits are between Tor and Mount Santo Appiano, in the wildernesses of Monte Cinto and Monte Rotondo, and in the inaccessible regions of Niolo. There the deep shades of natural forests that have never seen an axe, and densest brushwood of dwarf-oak, albatro, myrtles, and heath, clothe the declivities of the mountains; wild torrents roar unseen through gloomy ravines, where every path is lost; and caves, grottos, and shattered rocks, afford concealment. There the bandit lives, with the falcon, the fox, and the wild sheep, a life more romantic and more comfortless than that of the American savage. Justice takes her course. She has condemned the bandit in contumaciam. The bandit laughs at her; he says in his strange way, "I have got the sonetto!" meaning the sentence in contumaciam. The sbirri are out upon his track—the avengers of blood the same—he is in constant flight—he is the Wandering Jew of the desolate hills. Now come the conflicts with the gendarmes, heroic, fearful conflicts; his hands grow bloodier; but not with the blood of sbirri only, for the bandit is avenger too; it is not for love to his wretched life—it is far rather for revenge that he lives. He has sworn death to his enemy's kindred. One can imagine what a wild and fierce intensity his vengeful feelings must acquire in the frightful savageness of nature round him, and in its yet more frightful solitude, under constant thoughts of death, and dreams of the scaffold. Sometimes the bandit issues from the mountains to slay his enemy; when he has accomplished his vengeance, he vanishes again in the hills. Not seldom the Corsican bandit rises into a Carl Moor[F]—into an avenger upon society of real or supposed injuries it has done him. The history of the bandit Capracinta of Prunelli is still well known in Corsica. The authorities had unjustly condemned his father to the galleys; the son forthwith took to the macchia with some of his relations, and these avengers from time to time descended from the mountains, and stabbed and shot personal enemies, soldiers, and spies; they one day captured the public executioner, and executed the man himself.

It frequently happens, as we might naturally expect, that the bandits allow themselves to become the tools of others who have a Vendetta to accomplish, and who have recourse to them for the obligation of a dagger or a bullet. In a country of such limited extent, and where the families are so intricately and so widely connected, the bandits cannot but become formidable. They are the sanguinary scourges of the country; agriculture is neglected, the vineyards lie waste—for who will venture into the field if he is menaced by Massoni or Serafino? There are, moreover, among the bandits, men who were previously accustomed to exercise influence upon others, and to take part in public life. Banished to the wilderness, their inactivity becomes intolerable to them; and I was assured that some, in their caverns and hiding-places, continue even to read newspapers which they contrive to procure. They frequently exert an influence of terror on the communal elections, and even on the elections for the General Council. It is no unusual thing for them to threaten judges and witnesses, and to effect a bloody revenge for the sentence pronounced. This, and the great mildness of the verdicts usually brought in by Corsican juries, have been the ground of a wish, already frequently expressed, for the abolition of the jury in Corsica. It is not to be denied that a Corsican jury-box may be influenced by the fear of the vengeance of the bandits; but if we accuse them indiscriminately of excessive leniency, we shall in many cases do these jurymen wrong; for the bandit life and its causes must be viewed under the conditions of Corsican society. I was present at the sitting of a jury in Bastia, an hour after the execution of Bracciamozzo, and in the same building in front of which he had been guillotined; the impression of the public execution seemed to me perceptible in the appearance of the jury and the spectators, but not in that of the prisoner at the bar. He was a young man who had shot some one—he had a stolid hardened face, and his skull looked like a negro's, as if you might use it for an anvil. Neither what had lately occurred, nor the solemnity of the proceedings of the assize, made the slightest impression on the fellow; he showed no trace of embarrassment or fear, but answered the interrogatories of the examining judge with the greatest sang-froid, expressing himself briefly and concisely as to the circumstances of his murderous act. I have forgotten to how many years' confinement he was sentenced.

Although the Corsican bandit never lowers himself to common robbery, he holds it not inconsistent with his knightly honour to extort money. The bandits levy black-mail, they tax individuals, frequently whole villages, according to their means, and call in their tribute with great strictness. They impose these taxes as kings of the bush; and I was told their subjects paid them more promptly and conscientiously than they do their taxes to the imperial government of France. It often happens, that the bandit sends a written order into the house of some wealthy individual, summoning him to deposit so many thousand francs in a spot specified; and informing him that if he refuses, himself, his house, and his vineyards, will be destroyed. The usual formula of the threat is—Si preparasse—let him prepare. Others, again, fall into the hands of the bandits, and have to pay a ransom for their release. All intercourse becomes thus more and more insecure; agriculture impossible. With the extorted money, the bandits enrich their relatives and friends, and procure themselves many a favour; they cannot put the money to any immediate personal use—for though they had it in heaps, they must nevertheless continue to live in the caverns of the mountain wilds, and in constant flight.

Many bandits have led their outlaw life for fifteen or twenty years, and, small as is the range allowed them by their hills, have maintained themselves successfully against the armed power of the State, victorious in every struggle, till the bandit's fate at length overtook them. The Corsican banditti do not live in troops, as in this way the country could not support them; and, moreover, the Corsican is by nature indisposed to submit to the commands of a leader. They generally live in twos, contracting a sort of brotherhood. They have their deadly enmities among themselves too, and their deadly revenge; this is astonishing, but so powerful is the personal feel of revenge with the Corsican, that the similarity of their unhappy lot never reconciles bandit with bandit, if a Vendetta has existed between them. Many stories are told of one bandit's hunting another among the hills, till he had slain him, on account of a Vendetta. Massoni and Serafino, the two latest bandit heroes of Corsica, were at feud, and shot at each other when opportunity offered. A shot of Massoni's had deprived Serafino of one of his fingers.

The history of the Corsican bandits is rich in extraordinary, heroic, chivalrous, traits of character. Throughout the whole country they sing the bandit dirges; and naturally enough, for it is their own fate, their own sorrow, that they thus sing. Numbers of the bandits have become immortal; but the bold deeds of one especially are still famous. His name was Teodoro, and he called himself king of the mountains. Corsica has thus had two kings of the name of Theodore. Teodoro Poli was enrolled on the list of conscripts, one day in the beginning of the present century. He had begged to be allowed time to raise money for a substitute. He was seized, however, and compelled to join the ranks. Teodoro's high spirit and love of freedom revolted at this. He threw himself into the mountains, and began to live as bandit. He astonished all Corsica by his deeds of audacious hardihood, and became the terror of the island. But no meanness stained his fame; on the contrary, his generosity was the theme of universal praise, and he forgave even relatives of his enemies. His personal appearance was remarkably handsome, and, like his namesake, the king, he was fond of rich and fantastic dress. His lot was shared by his mistress, who lived in affluence on the contributions (taglia) which Teodoro imposed upon the villages. Another bandit, called Brusco, to whom he had vowed inviolable friendship, also lived with him, and his uncle Augellone. Augellone means bird of ill omen—it is customary for the bandits to give themselves surnames as soon as they begin to play a part in the macchia. The Bird of Ill Omen became envious of Brusco, because Teodoro was so fond of him, and one day he put the cold iron a little too deep into his breast. He thereupon made off into the rocks. When Teodoro heard of the fall of Brusco, he cried aloud for grief, not otherwise than Achilles at the fall of Patroclus, and, according to the old custom of the avengers, began to let his beard grow, swearing never to cut it till he had bathed in the blood of Augellone. A short time passed, and Teodoro was once more seen with his beard cut. These are the little tragedies of which the mountain fastnesses are the scene, and the bandits the players—for the passions of the human heart are everywhere the same. Teodoro at length fell ill. A spy gave information of the hiding-place of the sick lion, and the wild wolf-hounds, the sbirri, were immediately among the hills—they killed Teodoro in a goat-herd's shieling. Two of them, however, learned how dangerously he could still handle his weapons. The popular ballad sings of him, that he fell with the pistol in his hand and the firelock by his side, come un fiero paladino—like a proud paladin. Such was the respect which this king of the mountains had inspired, that the people continued to pay his tribute, even after his fall. For at his death there was still some due, and those who owed the arrears came and dropped their money respectfully into the cradle of the little child, the offspring of Teodoro and his queen. Teodoro met his death in the year 1827.

Gallocchio is another celebrated outlaw. He had conceived an attachment for a girl who became faithless to him, and he had forbidden any other to seek her hand. Cesario Negroni wooed and won her. The young Gallocchio gave one of his friends a hint to wound the father-in-law. The wedding guests are dancing merrily, merrily twang the fiddles and the mandolines—a shot! The ball had missed its way, and pierced the father-in-law's heart. Gallocchio now becomes bandit. Cesario intrenches himself. But Gallocchio forces him to leave the building, hunts him through the mountains, finds him, kills him. Gallocchio now fled to Greece, and fought there against the Turks. One day the news reached him that his own brother had fallen in the Vendetta war which had continued to rage between the families involved in it by the death of the father-in-law, and that of Cesario. Gallocchio came back, and killed two brothers of Cesario; then more of his relatives, till at length he had extirpated his whole family. The red Gambini was his comrade; with his aid he constantly repulsed the gendarmes; and on one occasion they bound one of them to a horse's tail, and dragged him so over the rocks. Gambini fled to Greece, where the Turks cut off his head; but Gallocchio died in his sleep, for a traitor shot him.

Santa Lucia Giammarchi is also famous; he held the bush for sixteen years; Camillo Ornano ranged the mountains for fourteen years; and Joseph Antommarchi was seventeen years a bandit.

The celebrated bandit Serafino was shot shortly before my arrival in Corsica; he had been betrayed, and was slain while asleep. Arrighi, too, and the terrible Massoni, had met their death a short time previously—a death as wild and romantic as their lives had been.

Massoni was a man of the most daring spirit, and unheard of energy; he belonged to a wealthy family in Balagna. The Vendetta had driven him into the mountains, where he lived many years, supported by his relations, and favoured by the herdsmen, killing, in frequent struggles, a great number of sbirri. His companions were his brother and the brave Arrighi. One day, a man of the province of Balagna, who had to avenge the blood of a kinsman on a powerful family, sought him out, and asked his assistance. The bandit received him hospitably, and as his provisions happened to be exhausted at the time, went to a shepherd of Monte Rotondo, and demanded a lamb; the herdsman gave him one from his flock. Massoni, however, refused it, saying—"You give me a lean lamb, and yet to-day I wish to do honour to a guest; see, yonder is a fat one, I must have it;" and instantly he shot the fat lamb down, and carried it off to his cave.

The shepherd was provoked by the unscrupulous act. Meditating revenge, he descended from the hills, and offered to show the sbirri Massoni's lurking-place. The shepherd was resolved to avenge the blood of his lamb. The sbirri came up the hills, in force. These Corsican gendarmes, well acquainted with the nature of their country, and practised in banditti warfare, are no less brave and daring than the game they hunt. Their lives are in constant danger when they venture into the mountains; for the bandits are watchful—they keep a look-out with their telescopes, with which they are always provided, and when danger is discovered they are up and away more swiftly than the muffro, the wild sheep; or they let their pursuers come within ball-range, and they never miss their mark.

The sbirri, then, ascended the hills, the shepherd at their head; they crept up the rocks by paths which he alone knew. The bandits were lying in a cave. It was almost inaccessible, and concealed by bushes. Arrighi and the brother of Massoni lay within, Massoni himself sat behind the bushes on the watch.

Some of the sbirri had reached a point above the cave, others guarded its mouth. Those above looked down into the bush to see if they could make out anything. One sbirro took a stone and pitched it into the bush, in which he thought he saw some black object; in a moment a man sprang out, and fired a pistol to awake those in the cavern. But the same instant were heard the muskets of the sbirri, and Massoni fell dead on the spot.

At the report of the fire-arms a man leapt out of the cave, Massoni's brother. He bounded like a wild-goat in daring leaps from crag to crag, the balls whizzing about his head. One hit him fatally, and he fell among the rocks. Arrighi, who saw everything that passed, kept close within the cave. The gendarmes pressed cautiously forward, but for a while no one dared to enter the grotto, till at length some of the hardiest ventured in. There was nobody to be seen; the sbirri, however, were not to be cheated, and confident that the cavern concealed their man, camped about its mouth.

Night came. They lighted torches and fires. It was resolved to starve Arrighi into surrender; in the morning some of them went to a spring near the cave to fetch water—the crack of a musket once, twice, and two sbirri fell. Their companions, infuriated, fired into the cavern—all was still.

The next thing to be done was to bring in the two dead or dying men. After much hesitation a party made the attempt, and again it cost one of them his life. Another day passed. At last it occurred to one of them to smoke the bandit out like a badger—a plan already adopted with success in Algiers. They accordingly heaped dry wood at the entrance of the cave, and set fire to it; but the smoke found egress through chinks in the rock. Arrighi heard every word that was said, and kept up actual dialogues with the gendarmes, who could not see, much less hit him. He refused to surrender, although pardon was promised him. At length the procurator, who had been brought from Ajaccio, sent to the city of Corte for military and an engineer. The engineer was to give his opinion as to whether the cave might be blown up with gunpowder. The engineer came, and said it was possible to throw petards into it. Arrighi heard what was proposed, and found the thought of being blown to atoms with the rocks of his hiding-place so shocking, that he resolved on flight.

He waited till nightfall, then rolling some stones down in a false direction, he sprang away from rock to rock, to reach another mountain. The uncertain shots of the sbirri echoed through the darkness. One ball struck him on the thigh. He lost blood, and his strength was failing; when the day dawned, his bloody track betrayed him, as its bloody sweat the stricken deer. The sbirri took up the scent. Arrighi, wearied to death, had lain down under a block. On this block a sbirro mounted, his piece ready. Arrighi stretched out his head to look around him—a report, and the ball was in his brain.

So died these three outlawed avengers, fortunate that they did not end on the scaffold. Such was their reputation, however, with the people, that none of the inhabitants of Monte Rotondo or its neighbourhood would lend his mule to convey away the bodies of the fallen men. For, said these people, we will have no part in the blood that you have shed. When at length mules had been procured, the dead men, bandits and sbirri, were put upon their backs, and the troop of gendarmes descended the hills, six corpses hanging across the mule-saddles, six men killed in the banditti warfare.

If this island of Corsica could again give forth all the blood which in the course of centuries has been shed upon it—the blood of those who have fallen in battle, and the blood of those who have fallen in the Vendetta—the red deluge would inundate its cities and villages, and drown its people, and crimson the sea from the Corsican shore to Genoa. Verily, violent death has here his peculiar realm.

It is difficult to believe what the historian Filippini tells us, that, in thirty years of his own time, 28,000 Corsicans had been murdered out of revenge. According to the calculation of another Corsican historian, I find that in the thirty-two years previous to 1715, 28,715 murders had been committed in Corsica. The same historian calculates that, according to this proportion, the number of the victims of the Vendetta, from 1359 to 1729, was 333,000. An equal number, he is of opinion, must be allowed for the wounded. We have, therefore, within the time specified, 666,000 Corsicans struck by the hand of the assassin. This people resembles the hydra, whose heads, though cut off, constantly grow on anew.

According to the speech of the Corsican Prefect before the General Council of the Departments, in August 1852, 4300 murders (assassinats) have been committed since 1821; during the four years ending with 1851, 833; during the last two of these 319, and during the first seven months of 1852, 99.

The population of the island is 250,000.

The Government proposes to eradicate the Vendetta and the bandit life by a general disarming of the people. How this is to be effected, and whether it is at all practicable, I cannot tell. It will occasion mischief enough, for the bandits cannot be disarmed along with the citizens, and their enemies will be exposed defenceless to their balls. The bandit life, the family feuds, and the Vendetta, which the law has been powerless to prevent, have hitherto made it necessary to permit the carrying of arms. For, since the law cannot protect the individual, it must leave him at liberty to protect himself; and thus it happens that Corsican society finds itself, in a sense, without the pale of the state, in the condition of natural law, and armed self-defence. This is a strange and startling phenomenon in Europe in our present century. It is long since the wearing of pistols and daggers was forbidden, but every one here carries his double-barreled gun, and I have found half villages in arms, as if in a struggle against invading barbarians—a wild, fantastic spectacle, these reckless men all about one in some lonely and dreary region of the hills, in their shaggy pelone, and Phrygian cap, the leathern cartridge-belt about their waist, and gun upon their shoulder.

Nothing is likely to eradicate the Vendetta, murder, and the bandit life, but advanced culture. Culture, however, advances very slowly in Corsica. Colonization, the making of roads through the interior, such an increase of general intercourse and industry as would infuse life into the ports—this might amount to a complete disarming of the population. The French Government, utterly powerless against the defiant Corsican spirit, most justly deserves reproach for allowing an island which possesses the finest climate; districts of great fertility; a position commanding the entire Mediterranean between Spain, France, Italy, and Africa; and the most magnificent gulfs and harbours; which is rich in forests, in minerals, in healing springs, and in fruits, and is inhabited by a brave, spirited, highly capable people—for allowing Corsica to become a Montenegro or Italian Ireland.

BOOK IV.—WANDERINGS IN CORSICA.

CHAPTER I.

SOUTHERN PART OF CAPE CORSO.

Cape Corso is the long narrow peninsula which Corsica throws out to the north.

It is traversed by a rugged mountain range, called the Serra, the highest summits of which, Monte Alticcione and Monte Stello, reach an altitude of more than 5000 feet. Rich and beautiful valleys run down on both sides to the sea.

I had heard a great deal of the beauty of the valleys of this region, of their fertility in wine and oranges, and of the gentle manners of their inhabitants, so that I began my wanderings in it with true pleasure. A cheerful and festive impression is produced at the very first by the olive-groves that line the excellent road along the shore, through the canton San Martino. Chapels appearing through the green foliage; the cupolas of family tombs; solitary cottages on the strand; here and there a forsaken tower, in the rents of which the wild fig-tree clings, while the cactus grows profusely at its base,—make the country picturesque. The coast of Corsica is set round and round with these towers, which the Pisans and Genoese built to ward off the piratical attacks of the Saracens. They are round or square, built of brown granite, and stand isolated. Their height is from thirty to fifty feet. A company of watchers lay within, and alarmed the surrounding country when the Corsairs approached. All these towers are now forsaken, and gradually falling to ruin. They impart a strangely romantic character to the Corsican shores.

It was pleasant to wander through this region in the radiant morning; the eye embraced the prospect seawards, with the fine forms of the islands of Elba, Capraja, and Monte Cisto, and was again relieved by the mountains and valleys descending close to the shore. The heights here enclose, like sides of an amphitheatre, little, blooming, shady dales, watered by noisy brooks. Scattered round, in a rude circle, stand the black villages, with their tall church-towers and old cloisters. On the meadows are herdsmen with their herds, and where the valley opens to the sea, always a tower and a solitary hamlet by the shore, with a boat or two in its little haven.

Every morning at sunrise, troops of women and girls may be seen coming from Cape Corso to Bastia, with produce for the market. They have a pretty blue or brown dress for the town, and a clean handkerchief wound as mandile round the hair. These forms moving along the shore through the bright morning, with their neat baskets, full of laughing, golden fruit, enliven the way very agreeably; and perhaps it would be difficult to find anything more graceful than one of those slender, handsome girls pacing towards you, light-footed and elastic as a Hebe, with her basket of grapes on her head. They are all in lively talk with their neighbours as they pass, and all give you the same beautiful, light-hearted Evviva. Nothing better certainly can one mortal wish another than that he should live.

But now forward, for the sun is in Leo, and in two hours he will be fierce. And behind the Tower of Miomo, towards the second pieve of Brando, the road ceases, and we must climb like the goat, for there are few districts in Cape Corso supplied with anything but footpaths. From the shore, at the lonely little Marina di Basina, I began to ascend the hills, on which lie the three communes that form the pieve of Brando. The way was rough and steep, but cheered by gushing brooks and luxuriant gardens. The slopes are quite covered with these, and they are full of grapes, oranges, and olives—fruits in which Brando specially abounds. The fig-tree bends low its laden branches, and holds its ripe fruit steadily to the parched mouth, unlike the tree of Tantalus.

On a declivity towards the sea, is the beautiful stalactite cavern of Brando, not long since discovered. It lies in the gardens of a retired officer. An emigrant of Modena had given me a letter for this gentleman, and I called on him at his mansion. The grounds are magnificent. The Colonel has transformed the whole shore into a garden, which hangs above the sea, dreamy and cool with silent olives, myrtles, and laurels; there are cypresses and pines, too, isolated or in groups, flowers everywhere, ivy on the walls, vine-trellises heavy with grapes, oranges tree on tree, a little summer-house hiding among the greenery, a cool grotto deep under ground, loneliness, repose, a glimpse of emerald sky, and the sea with its hermit islands, a glimpse into your own happy human heart;—it were hard to tell when it might be best to live here, when you are still young, or when you have grown old.

An elderly gentleman, who was looking out of the villa, heard me ask the gardener for the Colonel, and beckoned me to come to him. His garden had already shown me what kind of a man he was, and the little room into which I now entered told his character more and more plainly. The walls were covered with symbolic paintings; the different professions were fraternizing in a group, in which a husbandman, a soldier, a priest, and a scholar, were shaking hands; the five races were doing the same in another picture, where a European, an Asiatic, a Moor, an Australian, and a Redskin, sat sociably drinking round a table, encircled by a gay profusion of curling vine-wreaths. I immediately perceived that I was in the beautiful land of Icaria, and that I had happened on no other personage than the excellent uncle of Goethe's Wanderjahre. And so it was. He was the uncle—a bachelor, a humanistic socialist, who, as country gentleman and land-owner, diffused widely around him the beneficial influences of his own great though noiseless activity.

He came towards me with a cheerful, quiet smile, the Journal des Débats in his hand, pleased apparently with what he had been reading in it.

"I have read in your garden and in your room, signore, the Contrat Social of Rousseau, and some of the Republic of Plato. You show me that you are the countryman of the great Pasquale."

We talked long on a great variety of subjects—on civilisation and on barbarism, and how impotent theory was proving itself. But these are old affairs, that every reflecting man has thought of and talked about.

Much musing on this interview, I went down to the grotto after taking leave of the singular man, who had realized for me so unexpectedly the creation of the poet. After all, this is a strange island. Yesterday a bandit who has murdered ten men out of capriccio, and is being led to the scaffold; to-day a practical philosopher, and philanthropic advocate of universal brotherhood—both equally genuine Corsicans, their history and character the result of the history of their nation. As I passed under the fair trees of the garden, however, I said to myself that it was not difficult to be a philanthropist in paradise. I believe that the wonderful power of early Christianity arose from the circumstance that its teachers were poor, probably unfortunate men.

There is a Corsican tradition that St. Paul landed on Cape Corso—the Promontorium Sacrum, as it was called in ancient times—and there preached the gospel. It is certain that Cape Corso was the district of the island into which Christianity was first introduced. The little region, therefore, has long been sacred to the cause of philanthropy and human progress.

The daughter of one of the gardeners led me to the grotto. It is neither very high nor very deep, and consists of a series of chambers, easily traversed. Lamps hung from the roof. The girl lighted them, and left me alone. And now a pale twilight illuminated this beautiful crypt, of such bizarre stalactite formations as only a Gothic architect could imagine—in pointed arches, pillar-capitals, domed niches, and rosettes. The grottos of Corsica are her oldest Gothic churches, for Nature built them in a mood of the most playful fantasy. As the lamps glimmered, and shone on, and shone through, the clear yellow stalactite, the cave was completely like the crypt of some cathedral. Left in this twilight, I had the following little fantasy in stalactite—

A wondrous maiden sat wrapped in a white veil on a throne of the clearest alabaster. She never moved. She wore on her head a lotos-flower, and on her breast a carbuncle. The eye could not cease to gaze on the veiled maiden, for she stirred a longing in the bosom. Before her kneeled many little gnomes; the poor fellows were all of dropstone, all stalactites, and they wore little yellow crowns of the fairest alabaster. They never moved; but they all held their hands stretched out towards the white maiden, as if they wished to lift her veil, and bitter drops were falling from their eyes. It seemed to me as if I knew some of them, and as if I must call them by their names. "This is the goddess Isis," said the toad sneeringly; she was sitting on a stone, and, I think, threw a spell on them all with her eyes. "He who does not know the right word, and cannot raise the veil of the beautiful maiden, must weep himself to stone like these. Stranger, wilt thou say the word?"

I was just falling asleep—for I was very tired, and the grotto was so dim and cool, and the drops tinkled so slowly and mournfully from the roof—when the gardener's daughter entered, and said: "It is time!" "Time! to raise the veil of Isis?—O ye eternal gods!" "Yes, Signore, to come out to the garden and the bright sun." I thought she said well, and I immediately followed her.

"Do you see this firelock, Signore? We found it in the grotto, quite coated with the dropstone, and beside it were human bones; likely they were the bones and gun of a bandit; the poor wretch had crept into this cave, and died in it like a wounded deer." Nothing was now left of the piece but the rusty barrel. It may have sped the avenging bullet into more than one heart. Now I hold it in my hand like some fossil of horrid history, and it opens its mouth and tells me stories of the Vendetta.

CHAPTER II.

FROM BRANDO TO LURI.

I now descended to Erba Lunga, an animated little coast village, which sends fishing-boats daily to Bastia. The oppressive heat compelled me to rest here for some hours.

This was once the seat of the most powerful seigniors of Cape Corso, and above Erba Lunga stands the old castle of the Signori dei Gentili. The Gentili, with the Seigniors da Mare, were masters of the Cape. The neighbouring island of Capraja also belonged to the latter family. Oppressively treated by its violent and unscrupulous owners, the inhabitants rebelled in 1507, and placed themselves under the Bank of Genoa. Cape Corso was always, from its position, considered as inclining to Genoa, and its people were held to be unwarlike. Even at the present day the men of the Corsican highlands look down on the gentle and industrious people of the peninsula with contempt. The historian Filippini says of the Cape Corsicans: "The inhabitants of Cape Corso clothe themselves well, and are, on account of their trade and their vicinity to the Continent, much more domestic than the other Corsicans. Great justice, truth, and honour, prevail among them. All their industry is in wine, which they export to the Continent." Even in Filippini's time, therefore, the wine of Cape Corso was in reputation. It is mostly white; the vintage of Luri and Rogliano is said to be the best; this wine is among the finest that Southern Europe produces, and resembles the Spanish, the Syracusan, and the Cyprian. But Cape Corso is also rich in oranges and lemons.

If you leave the sea and go higher up the hills, you lose all the beauty of this interesting little wine-country, for it nestles low in the valleys. The whole of Cape Corso is a system of such valleys on both its coasts; but the dividing ranges are rugged and destitute of shade; their low wood gives no shelter from the sun. Limestone, serpentine, talc, and porphyry, show themselves. After a toilsome journey, I at length arrived late in the evening in the valley of Sisco. A paesane had promised me hospitality there, and I descended into the valley rejoicing in the prospect. But which was the commune of Sisco? All around at the foot of the hills, and higher up, stood little black villages, the whole of them comprehended under the name Sisco. Such is the Corsican custom, to give all the hamlets of a valley the name of the pieve, although each has its own particular appellation. I directed my course to the nearest village, whither an old cloister among pines attracted me, and seemed to say: Pilgrim, come, have a draught of good wine. But I was deceived, and I had to continue climbing for an hour, before I discovered my host of Sisco. The little village lay picturesquely among wild black rocks, a furious stream foaming through its midst, and Monte Stello towering above it.

I was kindly received by my friend and his wife, a newly married couple, and found their house comfortable. A number of Corsicans came in with their guns from the hills, and a little company of country-people was thus formed. The women did not mingle with us; they prepared the meal, served, and disappeared. We conversed agreeably till bedtime. The people of Sisco are poor, but hospitable and friendly. On the morrow, my entertainer awoke me with the sun; he took me out before his house, and then gave me in charge to an old man, who was to guide me through the labyrinthine hill-paths to the right road for Crosciano. I had several letters with me for other villages of the Cape, given me by a Corsican the evening before. Such is the beautiful and praiseworthy custom in Corsica; the hospitable entertainer gives his departing guest a letter, commending him to his relations or friends, who in their turn receive him hospitably, and send him away with another letter. For days thus you travel as guest, and are everywhere made much of; as inns in these districts are almost unknown, travelling would otherwise be an impossibility.

Sisco has a church sacred to Saint Catherine, which is of great antiquity, and much resorted to by pilgrims. It lies high up on the shore. Once a foreign ship had been driven upon these coasts, and had vowed relics to the church for its rescue; which relics the mariners really did consecrate to the holy Saint Catherine. They are highly singular relics, and the folk of Sisco may justly be proud of possessing such remarkable articles, as, for example, a piece of the clod of earth from which Adam was modelled, a few almonds from the garden of Eden, Aaron's rod that blossomed, a piece of manna, a piece of the hairy garment of John the Baptist, a piece of Christ's cradle, a piece of the rod on which the sponge dipped in vinegar was raised to Christ's lips, and the celebrated rod with which Moses smote the Red Sea.

Picturesque views abound in the hills of Sisco, and the country becomes more and more beautiful as we advance northwards. I passed through a great number of villages—Crosciano, Pietra, Corbara, Cagnano—on the slopes of Monte Alticcione, but I found some of them utterly poverty-stricken; even their wine was exhausted. As I had refused breakfast in the house of my late entertainer, in order not to send the good people into the kitchen by sunrise, and as it was now mid-day, I began to feel unpleasantly hungry. There were neither figs nor walnuts by the wayside, and I determined that, happen what might, I would satisfy my craving in the next paese. In three houses they had nothing—not wine, not bread—all their stores were expended. In the fourth, I heard the sound of a guitar. I entered. Two gray-haired men in ragged blouses were sitting, the one on the bed, the other on a stool. He who sat on the bed held his cetera, or cithern, in his arm, and played, while he seemed lost in thought. Perhaps he was dreaming of his vanished youth. He rose, and opening a wooden chest, brought out a half-loaf carefully wrapped in a cloth, and handed me the bread that I might cut some of it for myself. Then he sat down again on the bed, played his cithern, and sang a vocero, or dirge. As he sang, I ate the bread of the bitterest poverty, and it seemed to me as if I had found the old harper of Wilhelm Meister, and that he sung to me the song—

Heaven knows how Goethe has got to Corsica, but this is the second of his characters I have fallen in with on this wild cape.

Having here had my hunger stilled, and something more, I wandered onwards. As I descended into the vale of Luri, the region around me, I found, had become a paradise. Luri is the loveliest valley in Cape Corso, and also the largest, though it is only ten kilometres long, and five broad.[G] Inland it is terminated by beautiful hills, on the highest of which stands a black tower. This is the tower of Seneca, so called because, according to the popular tradition, it was here that Seneca spent his eight years of Corsican exile. Towards the sea, the valley slopes gently down to the marina of Luri. A copious stream waters the whole dale, and is led in canals through the gardens. Here lie the communes which form the pieve of Luri, rich, and comfortable-looking, with their tall churches, cloisters, and towers, in the midst of a vegetation of tropical luxuriance. I have seen many a beautiful valley in Italy, but I remember none that wore a look so laughing and winsome as that fair vale of Luri. It is full of vineyards, covered with oranges and lemons, rich in fruit-trees of every kind, in melons, and all sorts of garden produce, and the higher you ascend, the denser become the groves of chestnuts, walnuts, figs, almonds, and olives.

CHAPTER III.

PINO.

A good road leads upwards from the marina of Luri. You move in one continual garden—in an atmosphere of balsamic fragrance. Cottages approaching the elegant style of Italian villas indicate wealth. How happy must the people be here, if their own passions deal as gently with them as the elements. A man who was dressing his vineyard saw me passing along, and beckoned me to come in, and I needed no second bidding. Here is the place for swinging the thyrsus-staff; no grape disease here—everywhere luscious maturity and joyous plenty. The wine of Luri is beautiful, and the citrons of this valley are said to be the finest produced in the countries of the Mediterranean. It is the thick-skinned species of citrons called cedri which is here cultivated; they are also produced in abundance all along the west coast, but more especially in Centuri. The tree, which is extremely tender, demands the utmost attention. It thrives only in the warmest exposures, and in the valleys which are sheltered from the Libeccio. Cape Corso is the very Elysium of this precious tree of the Hesperides.

I now began to cross the Serra towards Pino, which lies at its base on the western side. My path lay for a long time through woods of walnut-trees, the fruit of which was already ripe; and I must here confirm what I had heard, that the nut-trees of Corsica will not readily find their equals. Fig-trees, olives, chestnuts, afford variety at intervals. It is pleasant to wander through the deep shades of a northern forest of beeches, oaks, or firs, but the forests of the south are no less glorious; walking beneath these trees one feels himself in noble company. I ascended towards the Tower of Fondali, which lies near the little village of the same name, quite overshadowed with trees, and finely relieving their rich deep green. From its battlements you look down over the beautiful valley to the blue sea, and above you rise the green hills, summit over summit, with forsaken black cloisters on them; on the highest rock of the Serra is seen the Tower of Seneca, which, like a stoic standing wrapt in deep thought, looks darkly down over land and sea. The many towers that stand here—for I counted numbers of them—indicate that this valley of Luri was richly cultivated, even in earlier times; they were doubtless built for its protection. Even Ptolemy is acquainted with the Vale of Luri, and in his Geography calls it Lurinon.

I climbed through a shady wood and blooming wilderness of trailing plants to the ridge of the Serra, close beneath the foot of the cone on which the Tower of Seneca stands. From this point both seas are visible, to the right and to the left. I now descended towards Pino, where I was expected by some Carrarese statuaries. The view of the western coast with its red reefs and little rocky zig-zag coves, and of the richly wooded pieve of Pino, came upon me with a most agreeable surprise. Pino has some large turreted mansions lying in beautiful parks; they might well serve for the residence of any Roman Duca:—for Corsica has its millionnaires. On the Cape live about two hundred families of large means—some of these possessed of quite enormous wealth, gained either by themselves or by relations, in the Antilles, Mexico, and Brazil.

One fortunate Crœsus of Pino inherited from an uncle of his in St. Thomas a fortune of ten millions of francs. Uncles are most excellent individuals. To have an uncle is to have a constant stake in the lottery. Uncles can make anything of their nephews—millionnaires, immortal historical personages. The nephew of Pino has rewarded his meritorious relative with a mausoleum of Corsican marble—a pretty Moorish family tomb on a hill by the sea. It was on this building my Carrarese friends were engaged.

In the evening we paid a visit to the Curato. We found him walking before his beautifully-situated parsonage, in the common brown Corsican jacket, and with the Phrygian cap of liberty on his head. The hospitable gentleman led us into his parlour. He seated himself in his arm-chair, ordered the Donna to bring wine, and, when the glasses came in, reached his cithern from the wall. Then he began with all the heartiness in the world to play and sing the Paoli march. The Corsican clergy were always patriotic men, and in many battles fought in the ranks with their parishioners. The parson of Pino now put his Mithras-cap to rights, and began a serenade to the beautiful Marie. I shook him heartily by the hand, thanked him for wine and song, and went away to the paese where I was to lodge for the night. Next morning we proposed wandering a while longer in Pino, and then to visit Seneca in his tower.

On this western coast of Cape Corso, below Pino, lies the fifth and last pieve of the Cape, called Nonza. Near Nonza stands the tower which I mentioned in the History of the Corsicans, when recording an act of heroic patriotism. There is another intrepid deed connected with it. In the year 1768 it was garrisoned by a handful of militia, under the command of an old captain, named Casella. The French were already in possession of the Cape, all the other captains having capitulated. Casella refused to follow their example. The tower mounted one cannon; they had plenty of ammunition, and the militia had their muskets. This was sufficient, said the old captain, to defend the place against a whole army; and if matters came to the worst, then you could blow yourself up. The militia knew their man, and that he was in the habit of doing what he said. They accordingly took themselves off during the night, leaving their muskets, and the old captain found himself alone. He concluded, therefore, to defend the tower himself. The cannon was already loaded; he charged all the pieces, distributed them over the various shot-holes, and awaited the French. They came, under the command of General Grand-Maison. As soon as they were within range, Casella first discharged the cannon at them, and then made a diabolical din with the muskets. The French sent a flag of truce to the tower, with the information that the entire Cape had surrendered, and summoning the commandant to do the same with all his garrison, and save needless bloodshed. Hereupon Casella replied that he would hold a council of war, and retired. After some time he reappeared and announced that the garrison of Nonza would capitulate under condition that it should be allowed to retire with the honours of war, and with all its baggage and artillery, for which the French were to furnish conveyances. The conditions were agreed to. The French had drawn up before the tower, and were now ready to receive the garrison, when old Casella issued, with his firelock, his pistols, and his sabre. The French waited for the garrison, and, surprised that the men did not make their appearance, the officer in command asked why they were so long in coming out. "They have come out," answered the Corsican; "for I am the garrison of the Tower of Nonza." The duped officer became furious, and rushed upon Casella. The old man drew his sword, and stood on the defensive. In the meantime, Grand-Maison himself hastened up, and, having heard the story, was sufficiently astonished. He instantly put his officer under strict arrest, and not only fulfilled every stipulation of Casella's to the letter, but sent him with a guard of honour, and a letter expressive of his admiration, to Paoli's head-quarters.

Above Pino extends the canton of Rogliano, with Ersa and Centuri—a district of remarkable fertility in wine, oil, and lemons, and rivalling Luri in cultivation. The five pievi of the entire Cape—Brando, Martino, Luri, Rogliano, and Nonza—contain twenty-one communes, and about 19,000 inhabitants; almost as many, therefore, as the island of Elba. Going northwards, from Rogliano over Ersa, you reach the extreme northern point of Corsica, opposite to which, with a lighthouse on it, lies the little island of Girolata.

CHAPTER IV.

THE TOWER OF SENECA.