ribs of mountain which run parallel, from north-east to south-west,
down towards the sea, and form the most important promontories of
the west coast. The axis of Corsica at that time must therefore have
been different from its later one; and the islands in the channel of
Bonifazio, as well as a part of the north-east of Sardinia, then stood
in connexion with Corsica. The material of this first upheaval is
mostly granite; consequently at the period of this primeval revolution
there was no life of any sort on the island.

The direction of the second upheaval was from south-west to north-east,
and the material here again consists largely of granitoids. But as we
advance to the north-east, we find the granite gradually giving way to
the ophiolitic (_ophiolitisch_) earth system. The second upheaval is,
however, hardly discernible. It is clear that it destroyed most of the
northern ridge of the first; but Corsican geology has preserved very
few traces of it.

The undoubted effect of the third and last upheaval was the almost
entire destruction of the southern portion of the first; and it
was at this time the island received its present form. It occurred
in a direction from north to south. So long as the masses of this
last eruption have not come in contact with the masses of previous
upheavals, their direction remains regular, as is shown by the
mountain-chain of Cape Corso. But it had to burst its way through the
towering masses of the southern ridge with a fearful shock; it broke
them up, altering its direction, and sustaining interruption at many
points, as is shown by the openings of the valleys, which lead from the
interior to the plain of the east coast, and have become the beds of
the streams that flow into the sea on this side--the Bevinco, the Golo,
the Tavignano, the Fiumorbo, and others.

The rock strata of this third upheaval are primitive ophiolitic
and primitive calcareous, covered at various places by secondary
formations.

The primitive masses, which occupy, therefore, the south and west of
the island, consist almost entirely of granite. At their extremities
they include some layers of gneiss and slate. The granite is almost
everywhere covered--a clear proof that it was elevated at a period
antecedent to that during which the covering masses were forming in
the bosom of the ocean, to be deposited in horizontal strata on the
crystalline granite masses. Strata of porphyry and eurite pierce
the granite; a decided porphyritic formation crowns Mounts Cinto,
Vagliorba, and Perturato, the highest summits of Niolo, overlying the
granite. From two to three feet of mighty greenstone penetrate these
porphyritic rocks.

The intermediary masses occupy the whole of Cape Corso, and the east of
the island. They consist of bluish gray limestone, huge masses of talc,
stalactites, serpentine, euphotides, quartz, felspar, and porphyries.

The tertiary formations appear only in isolated strips, as at San
Fiorenzo, Volpajola, Aleria, and Bonifazio. They exhibit numerous
fossils of marine animals of subordinate species--sea-urchins, polypi,
and many other petrifactions in the limestone layers.

In regard to the plains of the east coast of Corsica, as the plains
Biguglia, Mariana, and Aleria, they are diluvial deposits of the period
when the floods destroyed vast numbers of animal species. Among the
diluvial fossils in the neighbourhood of Bastia, the head of a lagomys
has been found--a small hare without tail, existing at the present day
in Siberia.

There is no volcano in Corsica; but traces of extinct volcanoes may
be seen near Porto Vecchio, Aleria, Balistro, San Manza, and at other
points.

It seems almost incredible that an island like Corsica, so close to
Sardinia and Tuscany, and, above all, so near the iron island of Elba,
should be so poor in metals as it really is. Numerous indications of
metallic veins are, it is true, to be found everywhere, now of iron or
copper, now of lead, antimony, manganese, quicksilver, cobalt, gold and
silver, but these, as the engineer Gueymard has shown in his work on
the geology and mineralogy of Corsica, are illusory.

The only metal mines of importance that can be wrought, are, at
present, the iron mines of Olmeta and Farinole in Cape Corso, an iron
mine near Venzolasca, the copper mine of Linguizzetta, the antimony
mine of Ersa in Cape Corso, and the manganese mine near Alesani.

On the other hand, Corsica is an inexhaustible treasury of the rarest
and most valuable stones, an elysium of the geologist. But they lie
unused; no one digs the treasure.

It may not be out of place here to give a detail of these beautiful
stones, arranged in the usual geological order.

1. _Granites._--Red granite, resembling the Oriental granite, between
Orto and the lake of Ereno; coral-red granite at Olmiccia; rose-red
granite at Cargese; red granite, tending to purple, at Aitone; rosy
granite of Carbuccia; rosy granite of Porto; rose-red granite at
Algajola; granite with garnets (the bigness of a nut) at Vizzavona.

2. _Porphyries._--Variegated porphyry in Niolo; black porphyry with
rosy spots at Porto Vecchio; pale yellow porphyry, with rosy felspar at
Porto Vecchio; grayish green porphyry, with amethyst, on the Restonica.

3. _Serpentines._--Green, very hard serpentines; also transparent
serpentines at Corte, Matra, and Bastia.

4. Eurites, amphibolites, and euphotides; globular eurite at Curso
and Girolata, in Niolo, and elsewhere; globular amphibolite, commonly
termed orbicular granite (the nodules consist of felspar and amphiboles
in concentric layers) in isolated blocks at Sollucaro, on the Taravo,
in the valley of Campolaggio and elsewhere; amphibolite, with crystals
of black hornblende in white felspar at Olmeto, Levie, and Mela;
euphotides, called also Verde of Corsica, and Verde d'Orezza, in the
bed of the Fiumalto, and in the valley of Bevinco.

5. _Jasper_ and _Agates_.--Jasper (in granites and porphyries) in
Niolo, and the valley of Stagno; agates (also in the granites and
porphyries) in the same localities.

6. _Marble_ and _Alabaster_.--White statuary marble of dazzling
splendour at Ortiporio, Casacconi, Borgo de Cavignano, and elsewhere;
bluish gray marble at Corte; yellow alabaster in the valley of S.
Lucia, near Bastia; white alabaster, semi-transparent, foliated and
fibrous, in a grotto behind Tuara, in the gulf of Girolata.

CHAPTER V.

A SECOND LESSON, THE VEGETATION OF CORSICA.

It was an instructive lesson that Francesco Marmocchi, _quondam_
professor of natural history, _quondam_ minister of Tuscany, now
Fuoruscito, and poor solitary student, gave me, that rosiest of all
morning hours as we stood high up on the green Mount Cardo, the fair
Mediterranean extended at our feet, exactly of such a colour as Dante
has described: _color del Oriental zaffiro_.

"See," said Marmocchi, "where the blue outline shows itself, yonder is
the beautiful Toscana."

Ah, I see Toscana well; plainly I see fair Florence, and the halls
where the statues of the great Tuscans stand, Giotto, Orcagna, Nicola
Pisano, Dante, Petrarca, Boccacio, Macchiavelli, Galilei, and the
godlike Michael Angelo; three thousand Croats--I can see them--are
parading there among the statues; the air is so clear, you can see and
hear everything: listen, Francesco, to the verses the marble Michael
Angelo is now addressing to Dante:--

     "Dear is to me my sleep, and that I am of stone;
     While this wo lasts, this ignominy deep,
     To see nought, and to hear nought, that alone
     Is well; then wake me not, speak low, and weep!"

But do you see how this dry brown rock has decorated himself over and
over with flowers? On his head he wears a glorious plume of myrtles,
white with blossom, and his breast is wound with a threefold cord
of honour; with ivy, bramble, and the white wild vine--the clematis.
There are no fairer garlands than those wreaths of clematis with their
clusters of white blossom, and delicate leaves; the ancients loved them
well, and willingly in lyric hours wore them round their heads.

Within the compass of a few paces, what a profusion of different
plants! Here are rosemary and cytisus, there wild asparagus, beside
it a tall bush of lilac-blossomed erica; here again the poisonous
euphorbia, which sheds a milk-white juice when you break it; and here
the sympathetic helianthemum, with its beautiful golden flowers, which
one by one all fall off when you have broken a single twig; yonder,
outlandish and bizarre, stands the prickly cactus, like a Moorish
heathen, near it the wild olive shrub, the cork-oak, the lentiscus,
the wild fig, and at their roots bloom the well-known children of
our northern homes--the scabiosa, the geranium, and the mallow.
How exquisite, pungent, invigorating are the perfumes that all this
blooming vegetation breathes forth; the rue there, the lavender, the
mint, and all those labiatae. Did not Napoleon say on St. Helena,
as his mournful thoughts turned again to his native island: "All was
better there, to the very smell of the soil; with shut eyes I should
know Corsica from its fragrance alone."

Let us hear something from Marmocchi now, on the botany of Corsica in
general.

Corsica is the most central region of the great plant-system of the
Mediterranean--a system characterized by a profusion of fragrant
Labiatæ and graceful Caryophylleæ. These plants cover all parts of the
island, and at all seasons of the year fill the air with their perfume.

On account of the central position of Corsica, its vegetation connects
itself with that of all the other provinces of the immense botanic
region referred to; through Cape Corso it is connected with the plants
of Liguria, through the east coast with those of Tuscany and Rome,
through the west and south coasts with the botany of Provence, Spain,
Barbary, Sicily, and the East; and finally, through the mountainous
and lofty region of the interior, with that of the Alps and Pyrenees.
What a wondrous opulence, and astonishing variety, therefore, in the
Corsican vegetation!--a variety and opulence that infinitely heightens
the beauty of the various regions of this island, already rendered so
picturesque by their geological configuration.

Some of the forests, on the slopes of the mountains, are as beautiful
as the finest in Europe--particularly those of Aitone and Vizzavona;
besides, many provinces of Corsica are covered with boundless groves of
chestnuts, the trees in which are as large and fruitful as the finest
on the Apennines or Etna. Plantations of olives, from their extent
entitled to be called forests, clothe the eminences, and line the
valleys that run towards the sea, or lie open to its influences. Even
on the rude sides of the higher mountains, the grape-vine twines itself
round the orchard-fences, and spreads to the view its green leaves and
purple fruit. Fertile plains, golden with rich harvests, stretch along
the coasts of the island, and wheat and rye enliven the hillsides, here
and there, with their fresh green, which contrasts agreeably with the
dark verdure of the copsewoods, and the cold tones of the naked rock.

The maple and walnut, like the chestnut, thrive in the valleys and on
the heights of Corsica; the cypress and the sea-pine prefer the less
elevated regions; the forests are full of cork oaks and evergreen oaks;
the arbutus and the myrtle grow to the size of trees. Pomaceous trees,
but particularly the wild olive, cover wide tracts on the heights. The
evergreen thorn, and the broom of Spain and Corsica, mingle with heaths
in manifold variety, and all equally beautiful; among these may be
distinguished the _erica arborea_, which frequently reaches an uncommon
height.

On the tracts which are watered by the overflowing of streams and
brooks, grow the broom of Etna, with its beautiful golden-yellow
blossoms, the cisti, the lentisks, the terebinths, everywhere where the
hand of man has not touched the soil. Further down, towards the plains,
there is no hollow or valley which is not hung with the rhododendron,
whose twigs, towards the sea-coast, entwine with those of the tamarisk.

The fan-palm grows on the rocks by the shore, and the date-palm,
probably introduced from Africa, on the most sheltered spots of the
coast. The _cactus opuntia_ and the American agave grow everywhere in
places that are warm, rocky, and dry.

What shall I say of the magnificent cotyledons, of the beautiful
papilionaceous plants, of the large verbasceæ, the glorious purple
digitalis, that deck the mountains of the island? And of the mallows,
the orchises, the liliaceæ, the solanaceæ, the centaurea, and the
thistles--plants which so beautifully adorn the sunny and exposed, or
cool and shady regions where their natural affinities allow them to
grow?

The fig, the pomegranate, the vine, yield good fruit in Corsica, even
where the husbandman neglects them, and the climate and soil of the
coasts of this beautiful island are so favourable to the lemon and the
orange, and the other trees of the same family, that they literally
form forests.

The almond, the cherry, the plum, the apple-tree, the pear tree, the
peach, and the apricot, and, in general, all the fruit trees of Europe,
are here common. In the hottest districts of the island, the fruits
of the St. John's bread-tree, the medlar of various kinds, the jujube
tree, reach complete ripeness.

The hand of man, if man were willing, might introduce in the proper
quarters, and without much trouble, the sugar-cane, the cotton plant,
tobacco, the pine-apple, madder, and even indigo, with success.
In a word, Corsica might become for France a little Indies in the
Mediterranean.

This singularly magnificent vegetation of the island is favoured by the
climate. The Corsican climate has three distinct zones of temperature,
graduated according to the elevation of the soil. The first climatic
zone rises from the level of the sea to the height of five hundred and
eighty metres (1903 English feet); the second, from the line of the
former, to the height of one thousand nine hundred and fifty metres
(6398 feet); the third, to the summit of the mountains.

The first zone or region of the coast is warm, like the parallel tracts
of Italy and Spain. Its year has properly only two seasons, spring
and summer; seldom does the thermometer fall 1° or 2° below zero of
Reaumur (27° or 28° Fah.); and when it does so, it is only for a few
hours. All along the coast, the sun is warm even in January, the nights
and the shade cool, and this at all seasons of the year. The sky is
clouded only during short intervals; the heavy sirocco alone, from the
south-east, brings lingering vapours, till the vehement south-west--the
libeccio, again dispels them. The moderate cold of January is rapidly
followed by a dog-day heat of eight months, and the temperature mounts
from 8° to 18° of Reaumur (50° to 72° Fah.), and even to 26° (90° Fah.)
in the shade. It is, then, a misfortune for the vegetation, if no rain
falls in March or April--and this misfortune occurs often; but the
Corsican trees have, in general, hard and tough leaves, which withstand
the drought, as the oleander, the myrtle, the cistus, the lentiscus,
the wild olive. In Corsica, as in all warm climates, the moist and
shady regions are almost pestilential; you cannot walk in these in the
evening without contracting long and severe fever, which, unless an
entire change of air intervene, will end in dropsy and death.

The second climatic zone resembles the climate of France, more
especially that of Burgundy, Morvan, and Bretagne. Here the snow,
which generally appears in November, lasts sometimes twenty days; but,
singularly enough, up to a height of one thousand one hundred and sixty
metres (3706 feet), it does no harm to the olive; but, on the contrary,
increases its fruitfulness. The chestnut seems to be the tree proper to
this zone, as it ceases at the elevation of one thousand nine hundred
and fifty metres (6398 feet), giving place to the evergreen oaks, firs,
beeches, box-trees, and junipers. In this climate, too, live most of
the Corsicans in scattered villages on mountain slopes and in valleys.

The third climate is cold and stormy, like that of Norway, during eight
months of the year. The only inhabited parts are the district of Niolo,
and the two forts of Vivario and Vizzavona. Above these inhabited
spots no vegetation meets the eye but the firs that hang on the gray
rocks. There the vulture and the wild-sheep dwell, and there are the
storehouse and cradle of the many streams that pour downwards into the
valleys and plains.

Corsica may therefore be considered as a pyramid with three horizontal
gradations, the lowermost of which is warm and moist, the uppermost
cold and dry, while the intermediate shares the qualities of both.

CHAPTER VI.

LEARNED MEN.

If we reflect on the number of great men that Corsica has produced
within the space of scarcely a hundred years, we cannot but be
astonished that an island so small, and so thinly populated, is yet so
rich in extraordinary minds. Its statesmen and generals are of European
note; and if it has not been so fruitful in scientific talent, this is
a consequence of its nature as an island, and of its iron history.

But even scientific talent of no mean grade has of late years been
active in Corsica, and names like Pompei, Renucci, Savelli, Rafaelli,
Giubeja, Salvatore Viali, Caraffa, Gregori, are an honour to the
island. The men of most powerful intellect among these belong to the
legal profession. They have distinguished themselves particularly in
jurisprudence, and as historians of their own country.

A man the most remarkable and meritorious of them all, and whose
memory will not soon die in Corsica, was Giovanni Carlo Gregori. He
was born in Bastia in 1797, and belonged to one of the best families
in the island. Devoting himself to the study of law, he first became
auditor in Bastia, afterwards judge in Ajaccio, councillor at the
king's court in Riom, then at the appeal court in Lyons, where he was
also active as president of the Academy of Sciences, and where, on
the 27th of May 1852, he died. He has written important treatises on
Roman jurisprudence; but he had a patriotic passion for the history of
his native country, and with this he was unceasingly occupied. He had
resolved to write a history of Corsica, had made detailed researches,
and collected the necessary materials for it; but death overtook him,
and the loss of his work to Corsica cannot be sufficiently lamented.
Nevertheless, Gregori has done important service to his native country:
he edited the new edition of the national historian Filippini, a
continuation of whose work it had been his purpose to write; he also
edited the Corsican history of Petrus Cyrnæus; and in the year 1843
he published a highly important work--the Statutes of Corsica. In his
earlier years he had written a Corsican tragedy, with Sampiero for a
hero, which I have not seen.

Gregori maintained a most lively literary connexion with Italy and
Germany. His acquirements were unusually extended, and his activity of
the genuine Corsican stubbornness. Among his posthumous manuscripts are
a part of his History of Corsica, and rich materials for a history of
the commerce of the naval powers. The death of Gregori filled not only
Corsica, but the men of science in France and Italy, with deep sorrow.

He and Renucci also rendered good service to the public library of
Bastia, which contains sixteen thousand volumes, and occupies a large
building formerly belonging to the Jesuits. They may be said, in
fact, to have _made_ this library, which ranks with that of Ajaccio
as second in the island. Science in Corsica is still, on the whole, in
its infancy. As the historian Filippini, the contemporary of Sampiero,
complains,--indolence, the mainly warlike bent given to the nature
of the Corsicans by their perpetual struggles, and the consequent
ignorance, entirely prevented the formation of a literature. But it
is remarkable, that in the year 1650 the Corsicans founded an Academy
of Sciences, the first president of which was Geronimo Biguglia, the
poet, advocate, theologian, and historian. It is well known that people
in those times were fond of giving such academies the most whimsical
names; the Corsicans called theirs the Academy dei Vagabondi (of the
Vagabonds), and a more admirable and fitting appellation they could not
at that period have selected. The Marquis of Cursay, whose memory is
still affectionately cherished by the Corsicans, restored this Academy;
and Rousseau, himself entitled to the name of Vagabond from his
wandering life, wrote a little treatise for this Corsican institution
on the question: "Which is the most necessary virtue for heroes, and
what heroes have been deficient in this virtue?"--a genuinely Corsican
subject.

The educational establishments--the Academy just referred to has
been dissolved--are, in Bastia, as in Corsica in general, extremely
inadequate. Bastia has a Lyceum, and some lower schools. I was present
at a distribution of prizes in the highest of the girls' schools. It
took place in the court of the old college of the Jesuits, which was
prettily decorated, and in the evening brilliantly illuminated. The
girls, all in white, sat in rows before the principal citizens and
magistrates of the town, and received bay-wreaths--those who had won
them. The head mistress called the name of the happy victress, who
thereupon went up to her desk and received the wreath, which she then
brought to one of the leading men of the town, silently conferring on
him the favour of crowning her, which ceremony was then gone through
in due form. Innumerable such bay-wreaths were distributed; and
many a pretty child bore away perhaps ten or twelve of them for her
immortal works, receiving them all very gracefully. It seemed to me,
however, that wealthy parents, or celebrated old families, were too
much flattered; and they never ceased crowning Miss Colonna d'Istria,
Miss Abatucci, Miss Saliceti--so that these young ladies carried more
bays home with them than would serve to crown the immortal poets of a
century. The graceful little festival--in which there was certainly too
much French flattering of vanity--was closed by a play, very cleverly
acted by the young ladies.

Bastia has a single newspaper--_L'Ere Nouvelle, Journal de la
Corse_--which appears only on Fridays. Up till this summer, the
advocate Arrighi, a man of talent, was the editor. The new Prefect
of Corsica, described to me as a young official without experience,
exceedingly anxious to bring himself into notice, like the Roman
prefects of old in their provinces, had been constantly finding
fault with the Corsican press, the most innocent in the world; and
threatening, on the most trifling pretexts, to withdraw the Government
permission to publish the paper in question, till at length M.
Arrighi was compelled to retire. The paper, entirely Bonapartist in
its politics, still exists; the only other journal in Corsica is the
Government paper in Ajaccio.

There are three bookselling establishments in Bastia, among which the
Libreria Fabiani would do honour even to a German city. This house has
published some beautiful works.

CHAPTER VII.

CORSICAN STATISTICS--RELATION OF CORSICA TO FRANCE.

In the Bastian Journal for July 16, 1852, I found the statistics
of Corsica according to calculations made in 1851, and shall here
communicate them. Inhabitants

     In 1740,   120,380
        1760,   130,000
        1790,   150,638
        1821,   180,348
        1827,   185,079

     In 1831,   197,967
        1836,   207,889
        1841,   221,463
        1846,   230,271
        1851,   236,251

The population of the several arrondissements, five in number, was as
follows:--In the arrondissement of Ajaccio, 55,008; Bastia, 20,288;
Calvi, 24,390; Corte, 56,830; Sartene, 29,735.[B]

Corsica is divided into sixty-one cantons, 355 communes; contains
30,438 houses, and 50,985 households.

             Males.
     Unmarried,      75,543
     Married,        36,715
     Widowers,        5,680
                    -------
                    117,938

             Females.
     Unmarried,      68,229
     Married,        36,916
     Widows,         13,168
                    -------
                    118,313

236,187 of the inhabitants are Roman Catholics, fifty-four Reformed
Christians. The French born on the island, _i.e._, the Corsicans
included, are 231,653:--Naturalized French, 353; Germans, 41; English,
12; Dutch, 6; Spaniards, 7; Italians, 3806; Poles, 12; Swiss, 85; other
foreigners, 285.

Of diseased people, there were in the year 1851, 2554; of these 435
were blind in both eyes, 568 in one eye; 344 deaf and dumb; 183 insane;
176 club-footed.

Occupation--32,364 men and women were owners of land; 34,427 were
day-labourers; 6924 domestics; people in trades connected with
building--masons, carpenters, painters, blacksmiths, &c., 3194;
dealers in wrought goods, and tailors, 4517; victual-dealers, 2981;
drivers of vehicles, 1623; dealers in articles of luxury--watchmakers,
goldsmiths, engravers, &c., 55; monied people living on their incomes,
13,160; government officials, 1229; communal magistrates, 803; military
and marinari, 5627; apothecaries and physicians, 311; clergy, 955;
advocates, 200; teachers, 635; artists, 105; _littérateurs_, 51;
prostitutes, 91; vagabonds and beggars, 688; sick in hospital, 85.

One class, and that the most original class in the island, has no
figure assigned to it in the above list--I mean the herdsmen. The
number of bandits is stated to be 200; and there may be as many
Corsican bandits in Sardinia.

That the reader may be able to form a clear idea of the general
administration of Corsica, I shall here furnish briefly its more
important details.

Corsica has been a department since the year 1811. It is governed by
a prefect, who resides in Ajaccio. He also discharges the functions of
sub-prefect for the arrondissement of Ajaccio. He has four sub-prefects
under him in the other four arrondissements. The prefect is assisted
by the Council of the prefecture, consisting of three members, besides
the prefect as president, and deciding on claims of exemption, &c.,
in connexion with taxes, the public works, the communal and national
estates. There is an appeal to the Council of State.

The General Council, the members of which are elected by the voters of
each canton, assembles yearly in Ajaccio to deliberate on the public
affairs of the nation. It is competent to regulate the distribution of
the direct taxes over the arrondissements. The General Council can only
meet by a decree of the supreme head of the state, who determines the
length of the sitting. There is a representative for each canton, in
all, therefore, there are sixty-one.

In the chief town of each arrondissement meets a provincial council
of as many members as there are cantons in the arrondissement. The
citizens who, according to French law, are entitled to vote, are also
voters for the Legislative Assembly. There are about 50,000 voters in
Corsica.

Mayors, with adjuncts named by the prefect, conduct the affairs of the
communes; the people have retained so much of their democratic rights,
that they are allowed to elect the municipal council over which the
mayor presides.

As regards the administration of justice, the high court of the
department is the Appeal Court of Bastia, which consists of one chief
president, two _présidents de chambre_, seventeen councillors, one
auditor, one procurator-general, two advocates-general, one substitute,
five clerks of court.

The Court of Assize holds its sittings in Bastia, and consists of
three appeal-councillors, the procurator-general, and a clerk of court.
It sits usually once every four months. There is a Tribunal of First
Instance in the principal town of each arrondissement. There is also
in each canton a justice of the peace. Each commune has a tribunal of
simple municipal police, consisting of the mayor and his adjuncts.

The ecclesiastical administration is subject to the diocese of Ajaccio,
the bishop of which--the only one in Corsica--is a suffragan of the
Archbishop of Aix.

Corsica forms the seventeenth military division of France. Its
head-quarters are in Bastia, where the general of the division resides.
The gendarmerie, so important for Corsica, forms the seventeenth
legion, and is also stationed in Bastia. It is composed of four
companies, with four _chefs_, sixteen lieutenancies, and one hundred
and two brigades.

I add a few particulars in regard to agriculture and industrial
affairs. Agriculture, the foundation of all national wealth, is
very low in Corsica. This is very evident from the single fact,
that the cultivated lands of the island amount to a trifle more than
three-tenths of the surface. The exact area of the island is 874,741
hectars.[C] The progress of agriculture is infinitely retarded by
family feuds, bandit-life, the community of land in the parishes,
the want of roads, the great distance of the tilled grounds from the
dwellings, the unwholesome atmosphere of the plains, and most of all by
the Corsican indolence.

Native industry is in a very languishing state. It is confined to
the merest necessaries--the articles indispensable to the common
handicrafts, and to sustenance; the women almost everywhere wear the
coarse brown Corsican cloth (_panno Corso_), called also _pelvue_; the
herdsmen prepare cheese, and a sort of cheesecake, called _broccio_;
the only saltworks are in the Gulf of Porto Vecchio. There are anchovy,
tunny, and coral fisheries on many parts of the coast, but they are not
diligently pursued.

The commerce of Corsica is equally trifling. The principle export is
oil, which the island yields so abundantly, that with more cultivation
it might produce to the value of sixty millions of francs; it also
exports pulse, chestnuts, fish, fresh and salted, wood, dyeing plants,
hides, corals, marble, a considerable amount of manufactured tobacco,
especially cigars, for which the leaf is imported. The main imports
are--grain of various kinds, as rye, wheat, and rice; sugar, coffee,
cattle, cotton, lint, leather, wrought and unwrought iron, brick,
glass, stoneware.

The export and import are grievously disproportionate. The Customs
impose ruinous restrictions on all manufacture and all commerce; they
hinder foreigners from exchanging their produce for the produce of the
country; hence the Corsicans must pay tenfold for their commodities
in France, while even wine is imported from Provence free of duty,
and thus checks the native cultivation of the vine. For Corsica is, in
point of fact, precluded from exporting wine to France; France herself
being a productive wine country. Even meal and vegetables are sent to
the troops from Provence. The export of tobacco to the Continent is
forbidden.[D] The tyrannical customs-regulations press with uncommon
severity on the poor island; and though she is compelled to purchase
articles from France to the value of three millions yearly, she sends
into France herself only a million and a half. And Corsica yields the
exchequer yearly 1,150,000 francs.

Bastia, Ajaccio, Isola Rossa, and Bonifazio are the principal trading
towns.

But however melancholy the condition of Corsica may be in an industrial
and a commercial point of view, its limited population protects it
at least from the scourge of pauperism, which, in the opulent and
cultivated countries of the Continent, can show mysteries of a much
more frightful character than those of bandit-life and the Vendetta.

For five-and-twenty years now, with unimportant interruptions, have
the French been in possession of the island of Corsica; and they
have neither succeeded in healing the ever open wound of the Corsican
people, nor have they, with all the means that advanced culture places
at their disposal, done anything for the country, beyond introducing a
few very trifling improvements. The island that has twice given France
her Emperor, and twice dictated her laws, has gained nothing by it
but the satisfaction of her revenge. The Corsican will never forget
the disgraceful way in which France appropriated his country; and a
high-spirited people never learns to love its conquerors. When I heard
the Corsicans, even of the present day, bitterly inveighing against
Genoa, I said to them--"Leave the old Republic of Genoa alone; you have
had your full Vendetta on her--Napoleon, a Corsican, annihilated her;
France betrayed you, and bereft you of your nationality; you have had
your full Vendetta on France, for you sent her your Corsican Napoleon,
who enslaved her; and even now this great France is a Corsican
conquest, and your own province."

Two emperors, two Corsicans, on the throne of France, bowing her down
with despotic violence;--well, if an ideal conception can have the
worth of reality, then we are compelled to say, never was a brave
subjugated people more splendidly avenged on its subduers. The name of
Napoleon, it may be confidently affirmed, is the only tie that binds
the Corsican nation to France; without this its relation to France
would be in no respect different from that of other conquered countries
to their foreign masters. I have read, in many authors, the assertion
that the Corsican nation is at the core of its heart French. I hold
this assertion to be a mistake, or an intentional falsehood. I have
never seen the least ground for it. The difference between Corsican
and Frenchman in nationality, in the most fundamental elements of
character and feeling, puts a deep gulf between the two. The Corsican
is decidedly an Italian; his language is acknowledged to be one of the
purest dialects of Italian, his nature, his soil, his history, still
link the lost son to his old mother-country. The French feel themselves
strange in the island, and both soldiers and officials consider their
period of service there as a "dreary exile in the isle of goats." The
Corsican does not even understand such a temperament as the French--for
he is grave, taciturn, chaste, consistent, thoroughly a man, and
steadfast as the granite of his country.

Corsican patriotism is not extinct. I saw it now and then burst out.
The old grudge still stirs the bosom of the Corsican, when he remembers
the battle of Ponte Nuovo. Travelling one day, in a public conveyance,
over the battle-field of Ponte Nuovo, a Corsican sitting beside me, a
man from the interior, pulled me vehemently by the arm, as we came in
sight of the famous bridge, and cried, with a passionate gesture--"This
is the spot where the Genoese murdered our freedom--I mean the French."
The reader will understand this, when he remembers that the name
of Genoese means the same as deadly foe; for hatred of Genoa, the
Corsicans themselves say, is with them undying. Another time I asked
a Corsican, a man of education, if he was an Italian. "Yes," said he,
"for I am a Corsican." I understood him well, and reached him my hand.
These are isolated occurrences--accidents, but frequently a living
word, caught from the mouth of the people, throws a vivid light on its
state of feeling, and suddenly reveals the truth that does not stand in
books compiled by officials.

I have heard it said again and again, and in all parts of the
country--"We Corsicans would gladly be Italian--for we are in reality
Italians, if Italy were only united and strong; as she is at present,
we must be French, for we need the support of a great power; by
ourselves we are too poor."

The Government does all it can to dislodge the Italian language, and
replace it with the French. All educated Corsicans speak French, and,
it is said, well; fashion, necessity, the prospect of office, force
it upon many. Sorry I was to meet Corsicans (they were always young
men) who spoke French with each other evidently out of mere vanity.
I could not refrain on such occasions from expressing my astonishment
that they so thoughtlessly relinquished their beautiful native tongue
for that of the French. In the cities French is much spoken, but the
common people speak nothing but Italian, even when they have learned
French at school, or by intercourse with Frenchmen. French has not at
all penetrated into the mountainous districts of the interior, where
the ancient, venerated customs of the elder Corsicans--their primitive
innocence, single-heartedness, justice, generosity, and love of
liberty--remain unimpaired. Sad were it for the noble Corsican people
if they should one day exchange the virtues of their rude but great
forefathers for the refined corruption of enervated Parisian society.
The moral rottenness of society in France has robbed the French nation
of its strength. It has stolen like an infection into society in
other countries, deepened their demoralization, and made incapacity
for action general. It has disturbed the hallowed foundation of all
human society--the family relation. But a people is ripe for despotism
that has lost the spirit of family. The whole heroic history of the
Corsicans has its source in the natural law of the inviolability and
sacredness of the family relation, and in that alone; even their free
constitution which they gave themselves in the course of years, and
completed under Paoli, is but a development of the family. All the
virtues of the Corsicans spring from this spirit; even the frightful
night-sides of their present condition, such as the Vendetta, belong to
the same root.

We look with shuddering on the avenger of blood, who descends from his
mountain haunts, to stab his foe's kindred, man by man; yet this bloody
vampire may, in manly vigour, in generosity, and in patriotism, be a
very hero compared with such bloodless, sneaking villains, as are to
be found contaminating with their insidious presence the great society
of our civilisation, and secretly sucking out the souls of their
fellow-men.

CHAPTER VIII.

BRACCIAMOZZO, THE BANDIT.

     "Che bello onor s'acquista in far Vendetta."--DANTE.

The second day after my arrival in Bastia, I was awakened during
the night by an appalling noise in my locanda, in the street of the
Jesuits. It was as if the Lapithæ and Centaurs had got together by the
ears. I spring to the door, and witness, in the _salle-à-manger_, the
following scene:--Mine host infuriated and vociferating at the pitch
of his voice--his firelock levelled at a man who lies before him on
his knees, other people vociferating, interfering, and trying to calm
him down; the man on his knees implores mercy: they put him out of the
house. It was a young man who had given himself out in the locanda for
a Marseillese, had played the fine gentleman, and, in the end, could
not pay his bill.

The second day after this, I happened to cross early in the morning
the Place San Nicolao, the public promenade of the Bastinese, on my
way to bathe. The executioners were just erecting a guillotine beside
the town-house, though not in the centre of the Place, still on the
promenade itself. Carabineers and a crowd of people surrounded the
shocking scene, to which the laughing sea and the peaceful olive-groves
formed a contrast painfully impressive. The atmosphere was close and
heavy with the sirocco. Sailors and workmen stood in groups on the
quay, silently smoking their little chalk-pipes, and gazing at the red
scaffold, and not a few of them, in the pointed barretto, brown jacket,
hanging half off, half on; their broad breasts bare, red handkerchiefs
carelessly knotted about their necks, looked as if they had more to do
with the guillotine than merely to stare at it. And, in fact, there
probably was not one among the crowd who was not likely to meet with
the same fate, if accident but willed it, that the hallowed custom of
the Vendetta should stain his band with murder, and murder should force
him to the life of the bandit.

"Who is it they are going to execute?"

"Bracciamozzo (Stump-arm). He is only three-and-twenty. The sbirri
caught him in the mountains; but he defended himself like a devil--they
shot him in the arm--the arm was taken off, and it healed."

"What has he done?"

"_Dio mio!_--he has killed ten men!"

"Ten men! and for what?"

"Out of _capriccio_."

I hastened into the sea to refresh myself with a bath, and then
back into my locanda, in order to see no more of what passed. I was
horror-struck at what I had heard and seen, and a shuddering came over
me in this wild solitude. I took out my Dante; I felt as if I must read
some of his wild phantasies in the _Inferno_, where the pitch-devils
thrust the doomed souls down with harpoons as often as they rise for a
mouthful of air. My locanda lay in the narrow and gloomy street of the
Jesuits. An hour had elapsed, when a confused hum, and the trample of
horses' feet brought me to the window--they were leading Bracciamozzo
past, accompanied by the monks called the Brothers of Death, in their
hooded capotes, that leave nothing of the face free but the eyes, which
gleam spectrally out through the openings left for them--veritable
demon-shapes, muttering in low hollow tones to themselves, horrible, as
if they had sprung from Dante's Hell into reality. The bandit walked
with a firm step between two priests, one of whom held a crucifix
before him. He was a young man of middle size, with beautiful bronze
features and raven-black curly hair, his face pale, and the pallor
heightened by a fine moustache. His left arm was bound behind his
back, the other was broken off near the shoulder. His eye, fiery no
doubt as a tiger's, when the murderous lust for blood tingled through
his veins, was still and calm. He seemed to be murmuring prayers. His
pace was steady, and his bearing upright. Gendarmes rode at the head
of the procession with drawn swords; behind the bandit, the Brothers
of Death walked in pairs; the black coffin came last of all--a cross
and a death's-head rudely painted on it in white. It was borne by four
Brothers of Mercy. Slowly the procession moved along the street of the
Jesuits, followed by the murmuring crowd; and thus they led the vampire
with the broken wing to the scaffold. My eyes have never lighted on
a scene more horrible, seldom on one whose slightest details have so
daguerreotyped themselves in my memory.

I was told afterwards that the bandit died without flinching, and that
his last words were: "I pray God and the world for forgiveness, for I
acknowledge that I have done much evil."

This young man, people said to me, had not become a murderer from
personal reasons of revenge, that is, in order to fulfil a Vendetta;
he had become a bandit from ambition. His story throws a great deal of
light on the frightful state of matters in the island. When Massoni
was at the height of his fame [this man had avenged the blood of
a relation, and then become bandit], Bracciamozzo, as the people
began to call the young Giacomino, after his arm had been mutilated,
carried him the means of sustenance: for these bandits have always an
understanding with friends and with goat-herds, who bring them food in
their lurking-places, and receive payment when the outlaws have money.
Giacomino, intoxicated with the renown of the bold bandit Massoni,
took it into his head to follow his example, and become the admiration
of all Corsica. So he killed a man, took to the bush, and was a
bandit. By and bye he had killed ten men, and the people called him
Vecchio--the old one, probably because, though still quite young, he
had already shed as much blood as an old bandit. One day Vecchio shot
the universally esteemed physician Malaspina, uncle of a hospitable
entertainer of my own, a gentleman of Balagna; he concealed himself
in some brushwood, and fired right into the _diligenza_ as it passed
along the road from Bastia. The mad devil then sprang back into the
mountains, where at length justice overtook him.

A career of this frightful description, then, is possible for a man
in Corsica. Nobody there despises the bandit; he is neither thief
nor robber, but only fighter, avenger, and free as the eagle on the
hills. Hot-headed youths are fired with the thought of winning fame
by daring deeds of arms, and of living in the ballads of the people.
The inflammable temperament of these men--who have been tamed by no
culture, who shun labour as a disgrace, and, thirsting for action,
know nothing of the world but the wild mountains among which Nature has
cooped them up within their sea-girt island--seems, like a volcano, to
insist on vent. On another, wider field, and under other conditions,
the same men who house for years in caverns, and fight with sbirri in
the bush, would become great soldiers like Sampiero and Gaffori. The
nature of the Corsicans is the combative nature; and I can find no more
fitting epithet for them than that which Plato applies to the race of
men who are born for war, namely, "impassioned."[E] The Corsicans are
impassioned natures; passionate in their jealousy and in their pursuit
of fame; passionately quick in honour, passionately prone to revenge.
Glowing with all this fiery impetuosity, they are the born soldiers
that Plato requires.

After Bracciamozzo's execution, I was curious to see whether the _beau
monde_ of Bastia would promenade as usual on the Place San Nicolao
in the evening, and I did not omit walking in that direction. And lo!
there they were, moving up and down on the Place Nicolao, where in the
morning bandit blood had flowed--the fair dames of Bastia. Nothing now
betrayed the scene of the morning; it was as if nothing had happened. I
also wandered there; the colouring of the sea was magically beautiful.
The fishing-skiffs floated on it with their twinkling lights, and the
fishermen sang their beautiful song, _O pescator dell' onda_.

In Corsica they have nerves of granite, and no smelling-bottles.

CHAPTER IX.

THE VENDETTA, OR REVENGE TO THE DEATH.

     "Eterna faremo Vendetta."--_Corsican Ballad._

The origin of the bandit life is to be sought almost exclusively in
the ancient custom of the Vendetta, that is, of exacting blood for
blood. Almost all writers on this subject, whom I have read, state that
the Vendetta began to be practised in the times when Genoese justice
was venal, or favoured murder. Without doubt, the constant wars,
and defective administration of justice greatly contributed to the
evil, and allowed the barbarous custom to become inveterate, but its
root lies elsewhere. For the law of blood for blood does not prevail
in Corsica only, it exists also in other countries--in Sardinia, in
Calabria, in Sicily, among the Albanians and Montenegrins, among the
Circassians, Druses, Bedouins, &c.

Like phenomena must arise under like conditions; and these are not
far to seek, for the social condition of all these peoples is similar.
They all lead a warlike and primitive life; nature around them is wild
and impressive; they are all, with the exception of the Bedouins, poor
mountaineers inhabiting regions not easily accessible to culture, and
clinging, with the utmost obstinacy, to their primitive condition and
ancient barbarous customs; further, they are all equally penetrated
with the same intense family sympathies, and these form the sacred
basis of such social life as they possess. In a state of nature, and
in a society rent asunder by prevailing war and insecurity, the family
becomes a state in itself; its members cleave fast to each other;
if one is injured, the entire little state is wronged. The family
exercises justice only through itself, and the form this exercise of
justice takes, is revenge. And thus it appears that the law of blood
for blood, though barbarous, still springs from the injured sense of
justice, and the natural affection of blood-relations, and that its
source is a noble one--the human heart. The Vendetta is barbarian
justice. Now the high sense of justice characterizing the Corsicans is
acknowledged and eulogized even by the authors of antiquity.

Two noble and great passions have, all along, swayed the the Corsican
mind--the love of family and the love of country. In the case of a
quite poor people, living in a sequestered island--an island, moreover,
mountainous, rugged, and stern--these passions could not but be
intense, for to that nation they were all the world. Love of country
produced that heroic history of Corsica which we know, and which is in
reality nothing but an inveterate Vendetta against Genoa, handed down
for ages from father to son; and love of family has produced the no
less bloody, and no less heroic history of the Vendetta, the tragedy
of which is not yet played to an end. The exhaustless native energy
of this little people is really something inconceivable, since, while
rending itself to pieces in a manner the most sanguinary, it, at the
same time, possessed the strength to maintain so interminable and so
glorious a struggle with its external foes.

The love of his friends is still to the Corsican what it was in the
old heroic times--a religion; only the love of his country is with
him a higher duty. Many examples from Corsican history show this. As
among the ancient Hellenes, fraternal love ranked as love's highest
and purest form, so it is ranked among the Corsicans. In Corsica, the
fraternal relation is viewed as the holiest of all relations, and the
names of brother and sister indicate the purest happiness the heart can
have--its noblest treasure, or its saddest loss. The eldest brother, as
the stay of the family, is revered simply in his character as such. I
believe nothing expresses so fully the range of feeling, and the moral
nature of a people, as its songs. Now the Corsican song is strictly a
dirge, which is at the same time a song of revenge; and most of these
songs of revenge are dirges of the sister for her brother who has
fallen. I have always found in this poetry that where-ever all love
and all laudation are heaped upon the dead, it is said of him, He was
my brother. Even the wife, when giving the highest expression to her
love, calls her husband, brother. I was astonished to find precisely
the same modes of expression and feeling in the Servian popular poetry;
with the Servian woman, too, the most endearing name for her husband
is brother, and the most sacred oath among the Servians is when a
man swears by his brother. Among unsophisticated nations, the natural
religion of the heart is preserved in their most ordinary sentiments
and relations--for these have their ground in that which alone is
lasting in the circumstances of human life; the feeling of a people
cleaves to what is simple and enduring. Fraternal love and filial love
express the simplest and most enduring relations on earth, for they are
relations without passion. And the history of human wo begins with Cain
the fratricide.

Wo, therefore, to him who has slain the Corsican's brother or
blood-relation! The deed is done; the murderer flees from a double
dread--of justice, which punishes murder; and of the kindred of the
slain, who avenge murder. For as soon as the deed has become known,
the relations of the fallen man take their weapons, and hasten to
find the murderer. The murderer has escaped to the woods; he climbs
perhaps to the perpetual snow, and lives there with the wild sheep:
all trace of him is lost. But the murderer has relatives--brothers,
cousins, a father; these relatives know that they must answer for the
deed with their lives. They arm themselves, therefore, and are upon
their guard. The life of those who are thus involved in a Vendetta is
most wretched. He who has to fear the Vendetta instantly shuts himself
up in his house, and barricades door and window, in which he leaves
only loop-holes. The windows are lined with straw and with mattresses;
and this is called _inceppar le fenestre_. The Corsican house among
the mountains, in itself high, almost like a tower, narrow, with a
high stone stair, is easily turned into a fortress. Intrenched within
it, the Corsican keeps close, always on his guard lest a ball reach
him through the window. His relatives go armed to their labour in the
field, and station sentinels; their lives are in danger at every step.
I have been told of instances in which Corsicans did not leave their
intrenched dwellings for ten, and even for fifteen years, spending all
this period of their lives besieged, and in deadly fear; for Corsican
revenge never sleeps, and the Corsican never forgets. Not long ago,
in Ajaccio, a man who had lived for ten years in his room, and at last
ventured upon the street, fell dead upon the threshold of his house as
he re-entered: the ball of him who had watched him for ten years had
pierced his heart.

I see, walking about here in the streets of Bastia, a man whom the
people call Nasone, from his large nose. He is of gigantic size, and
his repulsive features are additionally disfigured by the scar of a
frightful wound in his eye. Some years ago he lived in the neighbouring
village of Pietra Nera. He insulted another inhabitant of the place;
this man swore revenge. Nasone intrenched himself in his house, and
closed up the windows, to protect himself from balls. A considerable
time passed, and one day he ventured abroad; in a moment his foe sprang
upon him, a pruning-knife in his hand. They wrestled fearfully; Nasone
was overpowered; and his adversary, who had already given him a blow
in the neck, was on the point of hewing off his head on the stump of
a tree, when some people came up. Nasone recovered; the other escaped
to the macchia. Again a considerable time passed. Once more Nasone
ventured into the street: a ball struck him in the eye. They raised the
wounded man; and again his giant nature conquered, and healed him. The
furious bandit now ravaged his enemy's vineyard during the night, and
attempted to fire his house. Nasone removed to the city, and goes about
there as a living example of Corsican revenge--an object of horror to
the peaceable stranger who inquires his history. I saw the hideous man
one day on the shore, but not without his double-barrel. His looks made
my flesh creep; he was like the demon of revenge himself.

Not to take revenge is considered by the genuine Corsicans as
degrading. Thirst for vengeance is with them an entirely natural
sentiment--a passion that has become hallowed. In their songs, revenge
has a _cultus_, and is celebrated as a religion of filial piety. Now,
a sentiment which the poetry of a people has adopted as an essential
characteristic of the nationality is ineradicable; and this in the
highest degree, if woman has ennobled it as _her_ feeling. Girls and
women have composed most of the Corsican songs of revenge, and they
are sung from mountain-top to shore. This creates a very atmosphere of
revenge, in which the people live and the children grow up, sucking in
the wild meaning of the Vendetta with their mother's milk. In one of
these songs, it is said that twelve lives are insufficient to avenge
the fallen man's--boots! That is Corsican. A man like Hamlet, who
struggles to fill himself with the spirit of the Vendetta, and cannot
do it, would be pronounced by the Corsicans the most despicable of all
poltroons. Nowhere in the world, perhaps, does human blood and human
life count for so little as in Corsica. The Corsican is ready to take
life, but he is also ready to die.

Any one who shrinks from avenging himself--a milder disposition,
perhaps, or a tincture of philosophy, giving him something of
Hamlet's hesitancy--is allowed no rest by his relations, and all his
acquaintances upbraid him with pusillanimity. To reproach a man for
suffering an injury to remain unavenged is called _rimbeccare_. The old
Genoese statute punished the _rimbecco_ as incitation to murder. The
law runs thus, in the nineteenth chapter of these statutes:--

"Of those who upbraid, or say _rimbecco_.--If any one upbraids or says
_rimbecco_ to another, because that other has not avenged the death
of his father, or of his brother, or of any other blood-relation, or
because he has not taken vengeance on account of other injuries and
insults done upon himself, the person so upbraiding shall be fined in
from twenty-five to fifty lire for each time, according to the judgment
of the magistrate, and regard being had to the quality of the person,
and to other circumstances; and if he does not pay forthwith, or cannot
pay within eight days, then shall he be banished from the island for
one year, or the corda shall be put upon him once, according to the
judgment of the magistrate."

In the year 1581, the severity of the law was so far increased, that
the tongue of any one saying _rimbecco_ was publicly pierced. Now, it
is especially the women who incite the men to revenge, in their dirges
over the corpse of the person who has been slain, and by exhibiting
the bloody shirt. The mother fastens a bloody rag of the father's shirt
to the dress of her son, as a perpetual admonition to him that he has
to effect vengeance. The passions of these people have a frightful, a
demoniac glow.

In former times the Corsicans practised the chivalrous custom of
previously _proclaiming_ the war of the Vendetta, and also to what
degree of consanguinity the vengeance was to extend. The custom has
fallen into disuse. Owing to the close relationship between various
families, the Vendetta, of course, crosses and recrosses from one
to another, and the Vendetta that thus arises is called in Corsica,
_Vendetta transversale_.

In intimate and perfectly natural connexion with this custom, stand
the Corsican family feuds, still at the present day the scourge of
the unhappy island. The families in a state of Vendetta, immediately
draw into it all their relatives, and even friends; and in Corsica,
as in other countries where the social condition of the population is
similar, the tie of clan is very strong. Thus wars between families
arise within one and the same village, or between village and village,
glen and glen; and the war continues, and blood is shed for years.
Vendetta, or lesser injuries--frequently the merest accidents--afford
occasion, and with temperaments so passionate as those of the
Corsicans, the slightest dispute may easily terminate in blood, as
they all go armed. The feud extends even to the children; instances
have been known in which children belonging to families at feud have
stabbed and shot each other. There are in Corsica certain relations
of clientship--remains of the ancient feudal system of the time of the
seigniors, and this clientship prevails more especially in the country
beyond the mountains, where the descendants of the old seigniors live
on their estates. They have no vassals now, but dependants, friends,
people in various ways bound to them. These readily band together as
the adherents of the house, and are then, according to the Corsican
expression, the _geniali_, their protectors being the _patrocinatori_.
Thus, as in the cities of mediæval Italy, we have still in Corsica
wars of families, as a last remnant of the feuds of the seigniors.
The granite island has maintained an obstinate grasp on her antiquity;
her warlike history and constant internal dissensions, caused by the
ambition and overbearing arrogance of the seigniors, have stamped the
spirit of party on the country, and till the present day it remains
rampant.

In Corsica, the frightful word "enemy" has still its full old meaning.
The enemy is there the deadly enemy; he who is at enmity with another,
goes out to take his enemy's life, and in so doing risks his own. We,
too, have brought the old expression "deadly enemy" with us from a
more primitive state, but the meaning we attach to it is more abstract.
_Our_ deadly enemies have no wish to murder us--they do us harm behind
our backs, they calumniate us, they injure us secretly in all possible
ways, and often we do not so much as know who they are. The hatreds of
civilisation have usually something mean in them; and hence, in our
modern society, a man of noble feeling can no longer be an enemy--he
can only despise. But deadly foes in Corsica attack the life; they
have loudly and publicly sworn revenge to the death, and wherever they
find each other, they stab and shoot. There is a frightful manliness
in this; it shows an imposing, though savage and primitive force of
character. Barbarous as such a state of society is, it nevertheless
compels us to admire the natural force which it develops, especially as
the Corsican avenger is frequently a really tragic individual, urged by
fate, because by venerated custom, to murder. For even a noble nature
can here become a Cain, and they who wander as bandits on the hills of
this island, are often bearers of the curse of barbarous custom, and
not of their own vileness, and may be men of virtues that would honour
and signalize them in the peaceable life of a civil community.

A single passion, sprung from noble source--revenge, and nothing but
revenge! it is wonderful with what irresistible might it seizes on a
man. Revenge is, for the poor Corsicans, the dread goddess of Fate,
who makes their history. And thus through a single passion man becomes
the most frightful demon, and more merciless than the Avenging Angel
himself, for he does not content himself with the first-born. Yet dark
and sinister as the human form here appears, the dreadful passion,
nevertheless, produces its bright contrast. Where foes are foes for
life and death, friends are friends for life and death; where revenge
lacerates the heart with tiger blood-thirstiness, there love is capable
of resolutions the most sublime; there we find heroic forgetfulness of
self, and the Divine clemency of forgiveness; and nowhere else is it
possible to see the Christian precept, Love thine enemy, realized in a
more Christian way than in the land of the Vendetta.

Often, too, mediators, called _parolanti_, interfere between the
parties at feud, who swear before them an oath of reconciliation.
This oath is religiously sacred; he who breaks it is an outlaw, and
dishonoured before God and man. It is seldom broken, but it is broken,
for the demon has made his lair in human hearts.

CHAPTER X.

BANDIT LIFE.

     "On! on! These are his footsteps plainly;
     Trust the dumb lead of the betraying track!
     For as the bloodhounds trace the wounded deer,
     So we, by his sweat and blood, do scent him out."

     ÆSCHYL. _Eumen._

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.

     [B] There is a discrepancy which requires explanation between
     the sum of these and the population given for 1851. Their
     total is 50,000 below the other figure.--_Tr._

     [C] A hectar equals 2 acres, 1 rood, 35 perches English.

     [D] Of raw tobacco grown in the island, since manufactured
     tobacco was mentioned among the exports.--_Tr._

     [E] German, _Eiferartig_. The word referred to is probably
     θυμοειδής, usually translated _high-spirited_, _hot-tempered_.
     See Book II. of the _Republic_.--_Tr._

     [F] The hero of Schiller's tragedy of _The Robbers_.--_Tr._

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.

     "Say, whither rov'st thou lonely through the hills,
     A stranger in the region?"--_Odyssey._

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--

     "Who ne'er his bread with tears did eat,
     Who ne'er the weary midnight hours
     Weeping upon his bed hath sate,
     He knows you not, ye heavenly powers!"

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.

     "Melius latebam procul ab invidiæ malis
     Remotus inter Corsici rupes maris."
                              _Roman Tragedy of Octavia._

The Tower of Seneca can be seen at sea, and from a distance of many
miles. It stands on a gigantic, quite naked mass of granite, which
rises isolated from the mountain-ridge, and bears on its summit
the black weather-beaten pile. The ruin consists of a single round
tower--lonely and melancholy it stands there, hung with hovering mists,
all around bleak heath-covered hills, the sea on both sides deep below.

If, as imaginative tradition affirms, the banished stoic spent eight
years of exile here, throning among the clouds, in the silent rocky
wilds--then he had found a place not ill adapted for a philosopher
disposed to make wise reflections on the world and fate; and to
contemplate with wonder and reverence the workings of the eternal
elements of nature. The genius of Solitude is the wise man's best
instructor; in still night hours he may have given Seneca insight
into the world's transitoriness, and shown him the vanity of great
Rome, when the exile was inclined to bewail his lot. After Seneca
returned from his banishment to Rome, he sometimes, perhaps, among
the abominations of the court of Nero, longed for the solitary days of
Corsica. There is an old Roman tragedy called _Octavia_, the subject of
which is the tragic fate of Nero's first empress.[H] In this tragedy
Seneca appears as the moralizing figure, and on one occasion delivers
himself as follows:--

     "O Lady Fortune, with the flattering smile
     On thy deceitful face, why hast thou raised
     One so contented with his humble lot
     To height so giddy? Wheresoe'er I look,
     Terrors around me threaten, and at last
     The deeper fall is sure. Ah, happier far--
     Safe from the ills of envy once I hid--
     Among the rocks of sea-girt Corsica.
     I was my own; my soul was free from care,
     In studious leisure lightly sped the hours.
     Oh, it was joy,--for in the mighty round
     Of Nature's works is nothing more divine,--
     To look upon the heavens, the sacred sun,
     With all the motions of the universe,
     The seasonable change of morn and eve,
     The orb of Phœbe and the attendant stars,
     Filling the night with splendour far and wide.
     All this, when it grows old, shall rush again
     Back to blind chaos; yea, even now the day,
     The last dread day is near, and the world's wreck
     Shall crush this impious race."

A rude sheep-track led us up the mountain over shattered rocks.
Half-way up to the tower, completely hidden among crags and bushes,
lies a forsaken Franciscan cloister. The shepherds and the wild
fig-tree now dwell in its halls, and the raven croaks the _de
profundis_. But the morning and the evening still come there to
hold their silent devotions, and kindle incense of myrtle, mint, and
cytisus. What a fragrant breath of herbs is about us! what morning
stillness on the mountains and the sea!

We stood on the Tower of Seneca. We had clambered on hands and feet
to reach its walls. By holding fast to projecting ledges and hanging
perilously over the abyss, you can gain a window. There is no other
entrance into the tower; its outer works are destroyed, but the remains
show that a castle, either of the seigniors of Cape Corso or of the
Genoese, stood here. The tower is built of astonishingly firm material;
its battlements, however, are rent and dilapidated. It is unlikely that
Seneca lived on this Aornos, this height forsaken by the very birds,
and certainly too lofty a flight for moral philosophers--a race that
love the levels. Seneca probably lived in one of the Roman colonies,
Aleria or Mariana, where the stoic, accustomed to the conveniences of
Roman city life, may have established himself comfortably in some house
near the sea; so that the favourite mullet and tunny had not far to
travel from the strand to his table.

A picture from the fearfully beautiful world of imperial Rome passed
before me as I sat on Seneca's tower. Who can say he rightly and
altogether comprehends this world? It often seems to me as if it were
Hades, and as if the whole human race of the period were holding in
its obscure twilight a great diabolic carnival of fools, dancing a
gigantic, universal ballet before the Emperor's throne, while the
Emperor sits there gloomy as Pluto, only breaking out now and then into
insane laughter; for it is the maddest carnival this; old Seneca plays
in it too, among the Pulcinellos, and appears in character with his
bathing-tub.

Even a Seneca may have something tragi-comic about him, if we think
of him, for example, in the pitiably ludicrous shape in which he is
represented in the old statue that bears his name. He stands there
naked, a cloth about his loins, in the bath in which he means to die, a
sight heart-rending to behold, with his meagre form so tremulous about
the knees, and his face so unutterably wo-begone. He resembles one of
the old pictures of St. Jerome, or some starveling devotee attenuated
by penance; he is tragi-comic, provocative of laughter no less than
pity, as many of the representations of the old martyrs are, the form
of their suffering being usually so whimsical.

Seneca was born, B.C. 3, at Cordova, in Spain, of equestrian family.
His mother, Helvia, was a woman of unusual ability; his father, Lucius
Annæus, a rhetorician of note, who removed with his family to Rome. In
the time of Caligula, Seneca the younger distinguished himself as an
orator, and Stoic philosopher of extraordinary learning. A remarkably
good memory had been of service to him. He himself relates that after
hearing two thousand names once repeated, he could repeat them again
in the same order, and that he had no difficulty in doing the same with
two hundred verses.

In favour at the court of Claudius, he owed his fall to Messalina.
She accused him of an intrigue with the notorious Julia, the daughter
of Germanicus, and the most profligate woman in Rome. The imputation
is doubly comical, as coming from a Messalina, and because it makes
us think of Seneca the moralist as a Don Juan. It is hard to say how
much truth there is in the scandalous story, but Rome was a strange
place, and nothing can be more bizarre than some of the characters
it produced. Julia was got out of the way, and Don Juan Seneca sent
into banishment among the barbarians of Corsica. The philosopher now
therefore became, without straining the word, a Corsican bandit.

There was in those days no more terrible punishment than that of exile,
because expulsion from Rome was banishment from the world. Eight long
years Seneca lived on the wild island. I cannot forgive my old friend,
therefore, for recording nothing about its nature, about the history
and condition of its inhabitants, at that period. A single chapter from
the pen of Seneca on these subjects, would now be of great value to us.
But to have said nothing about the barbarous country of his exile, was
very consistent with his character as Roman. Haughty, limited, void
of sympathetic feeling for his kind, was the man of those times. How
different is the relation in which we now stand to nature and history!

For the banished Seneca the island was merely a prison that he
detested. The little that he says about it in his book _De Consolatione
ad Matrem Helviam_, shows how little he knew of it. For though it was
no doubt still more rude and uncultivated than at present, its natural
grandeur was the same. He composed the following epigrams on Corsica,
which are to be found in his poetical works:--

     "Corsican isle, where his town the Phocæan colonist planted,
     Corsica, called by the Greeks Cyrnus in earlier days,
     Corsica, less than thy sister Sardinia, longer than Elba,
     Corsica, traversed by streams--streams that the fisherman
     loves,
     Corsica, dreadful land! when thy summer's suns are returning,
     Scorch'd more cruelly still, when the fierce Sirius shines;
     Spare the sad exile--spare, I mean, the hopelessly buried--
     Over his living remains, Corsica, light lie thy dust."

The second has been said to be spurious, but I do not see why our
heart-broken exile should not have been its author, as well as any of
his contemporaries or successors in Corsican banishment.

     "Rugged the steeps that enclose the barbarous Corsican
     island,
     Savage on every side stretches the solitude vast;
     Autumn ripens no fruits, nor summer prepares here a harvest.
     Winter, hoary and chill, wants the Palladian gift;[I]
     Never rejoices the spring in the coolness of shadowy verdure,
     Here not a blade of grass pierces the desolate plain,
     Water is none, nor bread, nor a funeral-pile for the
     stranger--
     Two are there here, and no more--the Exile alone with his
     Wo."[J]

The Corsicans have not failed to take revenge on Seneca. Since he
gives them and their country such a disgraceful character, they have
connected a scandalous story with his name. Popular tradition has
preserved only a single incident from the period of his residence in
Corsica, and it is as follows:--As Seneca sat in his tower and looked
down into the frightful island, he saw the Corsican virgins, that they
were fair. Thereupon the philosopher descended, and he dallied with
the daughters of the land. One comely shepherdess did he honour with
his embrace; but the kinsfolk of the maiden came upon him suddenly, and
took him, and scourged the philosopher with nettles.

Ever since, the nettle grows profusely and ineradicably round the Tower
of Seneca, as a warning to moral philosophers. The Corsicans call it
_Ortica de Seneca_.

Unhappy Seneca! He is always getting into tragi-comic situations.
A Corsican said to me: "You have read what Seneca says of us? _ma
era un birbone_--but he was a great rascal." _Seneca morale_, says
Dante,--_Seneca birbone_, says the Corsican--another instance of his
love for his country.

Other sighs of exile did the unfortunate philosopher breathe out in
verse--some epigrams to his friends, one on his native city of Cordova.
If Seneca wrote any of the tragedies which bear his name in Corsica,
it must certainly have been the Medea. Where could he have found
a locality more likely to have inspired him to write on a subject
connected with the Argonauts, than this sea-girt island? Here he
might well make his chorus sing those remarkable verses which predict
Columbus:--

     "A time shall come
     In the late ages,
     When Ocean shall loosen
     The bonds of things;
     Open and vast
     Then lies the earth;
     Then shall Tiphys
     New worlds disclose.
     And Thule no more
     Be the farthest land."

Now the great navigator Columbus was born in the Genoese territory, not
far from Corsica. The Corsicans will have it that he was born in Calvi,
in Corsica itself, and they maintain this till the present day.

CHAPTER V.

SENECA MORALE.

                     ----"e vidi Orfeo
     Tullio, e Livio, e Seneca morale."--DANTE.

Fair fruits grew for Seneca in his exile; and perhaps he owed some of
his exalted philosophy rather to his Corsican solitude than to the
teachings of an Attalus or a Socio. In the Letter of Consolation to
his mother, he writes thus at the close:--You must believe me happy
and cheerful, as when in prosperity. That is true prosperity when
the mind devotes itself to its pursuits without disturbing thoughts,
and, now pleasing itself with lighter studies, now thirsting after
truth, elevates itself to the contemplation of its own nature and of
that of the universe. First, it investigates the countries and their
situations, then the nature of the circumfluent sea, and its changes of
ebb and flow; then it contemplates the terrible powers that lie between
heaven and earth--the thunder, lightnings, winds, rain, snow and
hail, that disquiet this space; at last, when it has wandered through
the lower regions, it takes its flight to the highest, and enjoys
the beautiful spectacle of celestial things, and, mindful of its own
eternity, enters into all which has been and shall be to all eternity.

When I took up Seneca's Letter of Consolation to his mother, I was not
a little curious to see how he would console her. How would one of the
thousand cultivated exiles scattered over the world at the present time
console _his_ mother? Seneca's letter is a quite methodically arranged
treatise, consisting of seventeen chapters. It is a more than usually
instructive contribution to the psychology of these old Stoics. The
son is not so particularly anxious to console his mother as to write
an excellent and elegant treatise, the logic and style of which shall
procure him admiration. He is quite proud that his treatise will be a
species of composition hitherto unknown in the world of letters. The
vain man writes to his mother like an author to a critic with whom he
is coolly discussing the _pros_ and _cons_ of his subject. I have, says
he, consulted all the works of the great geniuses who have written upon
the methods of moderating grief, but I have found no example of any
one's consoling his friends when it was himself they were lamenting. In
this new case, therefore, in which I found myself, I was embarrassed,
and feared lest I might open the wounds instead of healing them.
Must not a man who raises his head from the funeral-pile itself to
comfort his relatives, need new words, such as the common language of
daily life does not supply him with? Every great and unusual sorrow
must make its own selection of words, if it does not refuse itself
language altogether. I shall venture to write to you, therefore, not in
confidence on my talent, but because I myself, the consoler, am here to
serve as the most effectual consolation. For your son's sake, to whom
you can deny nothing, you will not, as I trust (though all grief is
stubborn), refuse to permit bounds to be set to your grief.

He now begins to console after his new fashion, reckoning up to his
mother all that she has already suffered, and drawing the conclusion
that she must by this time have become callous. Throughout the whole
treatise you hear the skeleton of the arrangement rattling. Firstly,
his mother is not to grieve on his account; secondly, his mother is not
to grieve on her own account. The letter is full of the most beautiful
stoical contempt of the world.

"Yet it is a terrible thing to be deprived of one's country." What is
to be said to this?--Mother, consider the vast multitude of people in
Rome; the greater number of them have congregated there from all parts
of the world. One is driven from home by ambition, another by business
of state, by an embassy, by the quest of luxury, by vice, by the wish
to study, by the desire of seeing the spectacles, by friendship, by
speculation, by eloquence, by beauty. Then, leaving Rome out of view,
which indeed is to be considered the mother-city of them all, go to
other cities, go to islands, come here to Corsica--everywhere are more
strangers than natives. "For to man is given a desire of movement and
of change, because he is moved by the celestial Spirit; consider the
heavenly luminaries that give light to the world--none of them remains
fixed--they wander ceaselessly on their path, and change perpetually
their place." His poetic vein gave Seneca this fine thought. Our
well-known wanderer's song has the words--

     "Fix'd in the heavens the sun does not stand,
     He travels o'er sea, he travels o'er land."[K]

"Varro, the most learned of the Romans," continues Seneca, "considers
it the best compensation for the change of dwelling-place, that
the nature of things is everywhere the same. Marcus Brutus finds
sufficient consolation in the fact that he who goes into exile can
take all that he has of truly good with him. Is not what we lose a
mere trifle? Wherever we turn, two glorious things go with us--Nature
that is everywhere, and Virtue that is our own. Let us travel through
all possible countries, and we shall find no part of the earth which
man cannot make his home. Everywhere the eye can rise to heaven, and