Chapter I (1)

_Inducements to the Expedition.—Early impressions concerning
Corsica.—Plan of the Tour.—Routes to Marseilles.—Meeting
there._

It would be difficult to say, and it matters little, what principally led to the selection of two islands in the Mediterranean, not generally supposed to possess any particular attractions for the tourist, as the object for an autumn's expedition with the companion of former rambles. At any rate, we should break fresh ground; and I imagine the hope of shooting _moufflons_ was no small inducement to my friend, who had succeeded in the wild sport of hunting reindeer on the high Fjelds of Norway. If, too, his comrade should fail in climbing to the vast solitudes in which the bounding _moufflon_ harbours, there were boar hunts in the prospect for him; not such courtly pageants as one sees in the pictures of Velasquez, but more stirring, and in nobler covers.

Should these prove to be false hopes, the enthusiastic sketcher, and the lover of the grand and beautiful in nature, must find ample compensation in the scenery of mountains lifting their snowy peaks from bases washed by the sunny Mediterranean,—mountain systems of a character yet unvisited, and with which we could at least compare those of Norway and Switzerland. This power of comparison is what imparts the most lively interest to travelling; and thus it becomes, for the time, all-engrossing, the eyes and the memory alike employed at every turn on contrasts of form, colour, and clothing.

Not less attractive, to any one desirous of extending his knowledge of human kind, would be the prospect of studying the races inhabiting islands as yet unknown to him. The oldest writer of travels, bringing on the stage his hero-wanderer along the shores of the Mediterranean, gives the finishing touch to his character in two significant words, νόον ἐγνῶ.[2] Not only did he “visit the abodes of many people,” but he “studied their Νοῦς;” all that the term involves of its impress on character, habits, and institutions was keenly investigated by the accomplished navigator. And what studies must be afforded by these singular islanders, who, we were informed, in the centre of the Mediterranean, at the very threshold of civilisation, combined many of the virtues, with more than the ferocity, of barbarous tribes!

My own impressions regarding Corsica were early received. In my younger days, there was the same sort of sympathy with the Corsicans which we now find more noisily, and sometimes absurdly, displayed for the Poles. I had seen Pascal Paoli, and talked with General Dumouriez about his first campaign against the Corsican mountaineers, of which his recollections were by no means agreeable. Pascal Paoli had found an asylum in England, where he maintained a dignified seclusion, not always imitated by patriot exiles. His memory has almost passed away, and it is quite imaginable that some stump orator may reckon him among the exiled Poles of former days. Pascal Paoli was, however, a truly great man. In my boyish enthusiasm—all “Grecians” are in the heroics about patriots who have fought and struggled for their country's liberty—I compared him with Aristides or Themistocles; the Corsicans were heroes; the country which rudely nursed those brave mountaineers—I had also a touch of sentiment for the sublime and beautiful in nature which a schoolboy does not always get from books,—such a country must be romantic. Should I ever ramble among its mountains, forests, and sunny valleys?

At last, long after the chimera, for such it inevitably was, of Corsican independence had vanished, my cherished hopes have been realised,—with what success will appear in the following pages. I will only say for myself, and I believe my fellow-traveller participates the feeling, a more delightful tour I never made.

Corsica had an ugly reputation for _banditisme_, and Sardinia for a deadly _intempérie_; but we did not attach much importance to such rumours. The enthusiastic traveller disregards danger. If told that there is “a lion in his path,” he only goes the more resolutely forward. As for the banditti, we would fraternise with them if they, best knowing the mountain paths, would track the moufflons for us.

The true traveller must “become all things to all men,” if he desires to familiarise himself with the habits and characters of other races. Without forgetting that he is an Englishman, he will cast off that self-conceit and cold exclusiveness which make so many of your countrymen ridiculous in the eyes of foreigners, and, adapting himself to the situation, become, if needs be, a bandit in Corsica, a bonder in Norway, drink sour milk without a wry face in a Caffre's kraal, take snuff with his wives—be any thing except a Turk in Turkey; though even there, when he comes to talk the language, he will adopt the eastern custom of taking his pipe, his coffee, and his repose, not chattering, but sententiously uttering his words between whiffs of smoke, which, meanwhile, he _drinks_, as the Turks well express it.

We envy not the man, the T. G. (travelling gent.) of society, whose principal aim in travelling is to gratify a miserable vanity; to be able to boast of crossing or climbing such a mountain; to have to say, “I have been here, I have been there; I have done Bagdad; I have seen the Nile,” or such and such a place. The true traveller is unselfish. Though to him it is food, breath, a renewal of life, a fresh existence, to travel,—half his pleasure is to carry home from his wanderings, to an English fireside, a tale of other lands. That happy English home is ever present to his mind, and, with all his enthusiasm, he meets with nothing in his rambles he would exchange for its blessings.

Being strongly recommended to defer our visit to Sardinia until the latest possible period of the autumn, the plan finally laid was to take Corsica in detail from Capo Corso to Bonifaccio, and then cross the straits, as best we might, there being no regular communication. Having landed in Sardinia, we should continue the tour through that island as long as circumstances permitted; leaving it by one of the Sardinian government's steam-boats which ply between the island and Genoa and so take the route by Turin, over the Mont-Cenis, to Lyons, Paris, and Boulogne.

As these islands lie on the same parallel of longitude (11° 50' E. nearly cutting the centre of both), by the route thus chalked out, we should make a straight course from north to south, with no considerable deviations, the islands being, as every one knows, in the form of parallelograms of much greater length than breadth.

Marseilles was finally arranged to be our port of embarkation, and the postponement of the visit to Sardinia till November leaving time on our hands, we had ample leisure for the accomplishment of some secondary projects, which brought us into training for the _grand coup_. My friend pushed through the more frequented parts of Switzerland for Zermatt and the Matterhorn. He was much struck by the remarkable contrast of that stupendous obelisk of rock, piercing the clouds, with the vast, but still sublime, expanse of the high Fjelds of snow we had seen in Norway; and the remark applies generally to the grand distinctive features of the two countries. Descending the valley of Aosta, my friend travelled by Genoa and Nice through the Maritime Alps to Marseilles, going on to Avignon with some friends he happened to fall in with on the way;—such meetings with those we know, and sometimes with those we do not know, being among the pleasures of travelling in the more frequented routes. Agreeable acquaintances are made or renewed; perhaps a day or two is spent in travelling together, with a charm that is very delightful; and you part with the hope of meeting again.

Meanwhile the author, who had been delving in the Norman Chronicles till every castle and abbey through the length and depth of the old Duchy were become familiar names, feeling a strong desire to revisit scenes thus brought fresh to his memory, shouldered his knapsack at Dieppe, and spent a most delightful fortnight in rambling through that fine province.

Many a pleasant story he could tell of wayside greetings and fireside hospitalities among the Norman peasantry. The old soldier of the empire stopped his _camarade_, as something in our _tenue_ led him to imagine, asking eager questions about the coming war and the united service, both which seemed to be popular; while market and fair, and the communal school, each in their turn, drew forth amusing companions for the road. But these episodes, and more serious talk of Norman abbeys buried in the depths of forests or girded round by the winding Seine—rich in memories of the past, but ruins all—and of Norman churches and cathedrals, in all their ancient grandeur, or well restored, are beside the present purpose.

Hastening southward by _diligence_ and _chemin-de-fer_, the first vineyards appeared between Chartres and Orleans, with an effect much inferior, as it seemed, to that produced by the orchards of Normandy, loaded as they were with ruddy fruit; but this may be the prejudice of a native of the West of England. From Lyons, one of the long narrow steamboats afforded a most agreeable passage down the stream of the rapid Rhone to Avignon. The autumn rains, which sometimes caused a weary march through the byroads of Normandy, had cooled the air, freshened vegetation, and made travelling in the south of France pleasant. While journeying on, every hour and every league bringing me nearer to the intended meeting, it was natural to feel some anxiety lest in such great distances to be traversed, with little or no intermediate communication, something might go wrong, and our plans, however well laid, be delayed or frustrated. The last stage of the journey commenced—should I be first at the rendezvous, or was my companion for the future waiting my arrival?

At last, after spending the warm noon of an unclouded day amongst the noble ruins of Arles, the train landed me at the station at Marseilles, and my friend was on the platform. The pleasure of casual meetings _en route_ has been just adverted to. How joyous was that of two travellers, wanderers together in times gone by, who now met so far from home, after their separate courses, with a fresh field opening before them!—the recognition, doubt and uncertainty vanishing, the glorious chat,—all this the warm-hearted reader will easily imagine.

CHAP. II.

_Marseilles.—Café de l'Orient.—Cannebière and Port.—Sail to the
Islands in the Gulf.—The Château d'If and Count de
Monte-Cristo.—A sudden Squall._

We met then at Marseilles in the second week of October, punctual to the appointed day. Our several lines of route had well converged. Want of companionship was the only drawback on the pleasure they had afforded; but they were only preludes to the joint undertaking on which we now entered. Each recounted his past adventures, and measures were concerted for the future.

Steamboats leave Marseilles three times every week for Corsica;—I like to be particular, especially when one gets beyond Murray's beat. One of these boats calls at Bastia on its way to Leghorn; the others make each a voyage direct to Calvi, or l'Isle de Rousse, and Ajaccio.

It suited us best to land at Bastia, but we were detained three days at Marseilles waiting for the boat. That also happened to suit us. We had hitherto travelled in the lightest possible marching order, and some heavier baggage, containing equipments for our expedition in the islands, had not yet turned up. Knapsack tours are not the style beyond the Alps. In the south and east, all above the lowest grade ride. It is so in Corsica; still more in Sardinia,—where all is eastern. We trudged on foot sometimes in Corsica, to get into the country, and should have been considered mad; but, as Englishmen, we were only eccentric. We waited then for our baggage, which contained, among other things, English saddles,—a great luxury. My companion thought it a professional duty to reconnoitre the fortifications of Toulon. By travelling in the night, going and returning, he contrived to get a clear day for the purpose.

Marseilles had interest enough to occupy my attention during his absence. Being the great _entrepôt_ of commerce, and centre of communication, in the Mediterranean, all the races dwelling on its shores, and many others, are represented there.

“Let us go to the _Grand Café_,”—I think it is called _Café de l'Orient_—said my companion, the evening we met.

Any one who has merely visited Paris may imagine the brilliance of this vast _salon_, the lights reflected on a hundred mirrors. But where else than at Marseilles could be found such an assemblage as now crowded it?

See that Turk, with the magnificent beard. What yards of snowy gauze-like cambric, with gold-embroidered ends, are wound in graceful folds round the fez, contrasting with the dark mahogany colour of his sun-burnt brow. And what a rich crimson caftan! Perhaps he is from Tunis or Barbary. He sits alone, smoking, with eyes half-closed, grave and taciturn.

They must be Greeks,—those two figures in dark-flowing robes. They too wear the red fez. Mark the neat moustache, the clean chiselled outline of their features, the active eye. They are eagerly conversing over that round marble table while they sip their coffee. Their talk must be of the corn markets. Now is their opportunity, as the harvest in France has failed. And see that man with the olive complexion, keen features, and ringlets of black hair and pendent ear-rings under his dark _barrette_. He may be the _padróne_ of some felucca from Leghorn or Naples. Beside him is a Spaniard. He, too, seems a seafaring man; and no felucca-rigged vessels in the Mediterranean are smarter, finer-looking craft than the Spanish.

There are plenty of Arabs, swarthy, high-cheeked-boned, keen-eyed fellows, in snowy bournouses, with hair and moustache of almost unnatural blackness. French officers of every arm in the service are grouped round the tables, drinking _eau-sucré_ and playing at dominoes or cards, or lounge on the sofas reading the gazettes. The _garçons_ in scarlet tunics, relieved by their white turbans and cambric trowsers, are hurrying to and fro at the call of the motley guests.

“Those two gentlemen just entering are Americans, not of the Yankee type, with free and easy air, and tall lanky forms. I made their acquaintance in the steam-boat down the Rhone. They are men of great intelligence, perfect _savoir-vivre_, and calm dignity of manner, patrician citizens of a republic. One of them wore his plaid as gracefully as a toga. I set him down for a senator from one of the Southern states.”

“I have seen no English here,” said my companion. Next day he met his friend Captain H—— returning on leave from Malta to England. Marseilles is on the highway to all the East, and on the arrival or departure of the packets connected with the “Overland Route” there must be a strong muster of our countrymen, and women too.

Turning out of the shady avenue of the Corso on a sultry afternoon, I sauntered down the _Rue de la Cannebière_ towards the port. It was the busiest part of the day, for there seemed to be no idle time for the _siesta_ here. The streets and quays were thronged with people of the same varieties of race we had seen in the _café_; most of them, of course, of an inferior class. There can be no mistaking that wild-looking creature, bare-legged, and in a white bournouse, who is staring with curious eyes at the splendid array of jewellery and plate displayed to his eager gaze in that shop window. Again he pauses before that elegant assortment of silks and shawls. What tales of European luxury will the child of the desert carry back to the tents of the Bedouins!

I found the port crowded with ships of all nations, the quays encumbered with piles of _barriques_ and mountains of Egyptian wheat discharged in bulk. What blinding dust as they shovel it up! What a suffocating heat! What smells in this hollow trough which receives the filth of all the town! How curiously names on the sterns of vessels, and _annonces_ over the shops of _traiteurs_ and ship-chandlers, in very readable Greek, carry the mind back to the Phocæan founders of this great emporium of commerce!

It was a cooler walk along the _Rue de Rome_, and by the _Marché-aux-Capucins_, gay with fruits and flowers, to the Museum library, in search of books relating to Corsica. There was some difficulty in discovering it. Literature and science do not appear to be much in vogue in this seat of commerce. The Museum was closed, the _custode_ absent, but a good-humoured porter allowed me a stranger's privilege, and took me into the library; giving me also some details of Corsican roads from his personal knowledge. The only book I discovered was Vallery's Travels. I made a few extracts, and found no reason to desire more. Few foreigners write travels in a style suited to the English taste. They are at home among cities, and galleries, and works of art, but have little real feeling for natural objects, and ill disguise it by pompous phrases, glitter, and sentiment.

“Let us take a boat and sail over to the islands lying off the harbour,” said my fellow-traveller one afternoon.

“With all my heart.”

These islets, most of them mere rocks, form a sort of sheltered strait, or roadstead, of which the island of Rion, with Cape Morgion on the mainland opposite, are the extreme points. Pomègue and Ratoneau are connected by a breakwater.

“_Garçon_, put a roast fowl and some _pâtés_, with a loaf of bread and a bottle of Bordeaux, into a _corbeille_ and send it down to the port.”

We bought some grapes as we went along. There are landing-stairs at the upper end of the harbour, where pleasure-boats lie. We stepped into one, and were rowed down in a narrow channel between four or five tiers of ships, loading and unloading at the quays on each side. An arm of the Mediterranean, a thousand yards long, forms a noble harbour; but, foul, black, and stagnant, how different were its waters from the bright sea without! After passing the forts defending the narrow entrance, we hoisted sail. On the right was the new harbour of _La Joliette_, connected with the old port by a canal. At present it did not appear to be much frequented, but, during the war in the East, both scarcely sufficed for the vast flotilla employed in conveying troops and stores. It must be difficult for any one who has not witnessed it to conceive the scene Marseilles then presented.

We now discussed the contents of our hamper with great _goût_, the boatman occasionally pulling an oar as the wind was scant. But we had sufficiently receded from the shore to command a view of the basin in which Marseilles stands, and the amphitheatre of hills surrounding it, studded with the country-houses of the citizens; small cottages, called _bastides_, thousands of which spot the slopes of the hills like white specks.

High upon a rocky summit stands the chapel of _Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde_, held in great reverence, and much resorted to, by mariners and fishermen; the walls and roof being hung with votive offerings, commemorating deliverances from shipwreck and other ills to which mariner-flesh is heir.

Seaward lay the islands for which we were bound, but without any immediate prospect of reaching them, as the wind died away. It was pleasant enough to lie listlessly floating on the blue Mediterranean, with such charming views of the coast and the islands, and the picturesque craft in every direction becalmed like our own skiff: but we had another object in our evening's excursion; so, lowering the lateen sail, my companion took one of the oars, and the boatman, reinforced by a strong and steady stroke, pulling with a will, we soon landed at the foot of the black and frowning rock, crowned on the summit by the square massive donjon of the _Château d'If_.

The whole circuit of the cliffs, containing an area of, perhaps, two acres, is surrounded by fortifications. Climbing some rocky steps, we waited in the guardroom till the _concièrge_ brought the keys of the castle. It was formerly used as a state prison; and the vaulted passages, echoing to the clang of keys and bolts, and deep and gloomy dungeons, from which air and light were almost excluded by the thick walls, reminded one of the unhappy wretches, victims of despotic or revolutionary tyranny, who had been immured there without trial and without hope. The island now serves as a depôt for recruits to fill up the regiments serving in Algiers; and some of the larger apartments of the château are used as a caserne.

But the _Château d'If_ is probably best known to many of my readers as connected with a remarkable incident in the adventures of the Count de Monte-Cristo, the hero of the celebrated novel of Alexandre Dumas. The story is shortly this:

Dantès (the count) being thrown into one of the dungeons, remains in hopeless captivity for a great number of years. In the end, by working his way through the massive walls, he establishes a communication with the cell of another prisoner, who was in a still more deplorable condition. His fellow-prisoner dies, and Dantès effects his escape by contriving to insert himself in the sack in which the corpse of his friend was deposited; having first dressed the body in his own clothes, and placed it in his bed, to deceive the gaolers. In the dead of the night the sack is thrown into the sea from the castle walls, and Dantès sinks with a thirty-two-pound shot fastened to his feet. He cuts the cord with a knife he had secreted, and, disengaged from the sack, rises to the surface and swims to a neighbouring island.

We were looking over the battlements towards these islands. One of them is covered by a vast lazzeretto,—a place, for the time, only a few degrees worse than the prison. The isles of Ratoneau and Pomègue lay nearest. Farther off was Lémaire, to which Dantès is described as swimming. They are all mere rocky islets washed by the sea, the group being very picturesque.

“_Mon ami_,” said I, pointing to the isle of Lémaire, “do you think you could do what the count is represented to have done.”

“What! swim from hence to that island? I would try, if I was shut up in this horrid place, and had the chance.”

The distance I reckoned to be about three miles; and as my friend has since swum across the Bosphorus, where the current is strong, he would probably have found no difficulty in that part of the affair.

“But how about cutting the cord to get rid of the thirty-two-pound shot, and extricating yourself from the sack?”

“_Ça dépend!_ All this is not impossible for a strong man in good health; for a prisoner, exhausted by fourteen years' captivity in a dungeon—_c'est autre chose_. Have you read the book?”

“Not much of it; I tried, but could not get on. That class of works is by no means to my taste.”

“French literature of this school is, I admit, bad for the weak: it is pastime to the strong, and serves to wile away an idle hour. This work exhibits great genius, and a powerful imagination.”

“So, indeed, it seems; but may not the _vraisemblable_ be preserved even in works of fiction? Let us have a story which, _se non è vero, è ben trovato_. Writers of this school, my dear fellow, create, or pander to, a vicious taste.”

“In a play or novel, I grant you, the plot, characters, and incidents, in order to enlist our sympathies, should be true to nature and real life. But who looks for this in a romance? such works are not read for profit, and the boldest nights of fancy, and some extravagance, are fairly admissible.”

“_Ah, mon cher_, my age is double yours, and that makes a great difference in our views on such subjects.”

The recruits flocked round us, asking for _eau-de-vie_. Many of them were Italians, deserters from the armies in Lombardy, Piedmont, and the Papal states, glad to change their service for better pay and treatment under the French flag, even on the burning plains of Africa. Perhaps some of them were drafted into that “foreign legion” which rivalled the Zouaves in the Crimea,—_âmes perdus_, the most reckless before the enemy, the most licentious in the camp. These were merry fellows, launching witty shafts against Austrians, Pope, and Cardinals,—_maladetti tutti_, and good-humoured gibes at their comrade, who, standing in an embrasure, bent his back with laudable patience to the right angle for an easel, while my friend was making sketches of the rocky islets and lateen-sail vessels reflected on the mirror-like sea, or of the amphitheatre of mountains at the foot of which Marseilles stands.

Others, leaning over the battlements, whiled away the listless evening hours, watching fishermen drawing the seine at the foot of the rocks.

We pulled round to the cove and watched them too; a very different set of fellows from the _malbigatti_ stationed above. Fine, athletic, muscular men, their heads bare, except that a few wore the red cap so common in the Mediterranean,—in woollen shirts, with naked feet planted on the slippery rocks, they were hauling up and coiling the rope, singing cheerily.

The wind had shifted some points while we were on the island, and it now freshened to a stiff breeze,—one of those sudden squalls for which these seas are remarkable. The craft, which an hour before lay sleeping on the waters, had caught the breeze. A brigantine came dashing up the straits under all sail, her topgallants still set, though the poles quivered; and smaller craft, with their long, pointed sails, like sea-fowl with expanded wings, were crossing in all directions on their several tacks, making for the harbour or inlets along the coast.

The sea was already lashed into foam, and tiny waves broke on the rocks. Loud and hoarse rung the fishermen's voices as they hauled away to save their nets. It was time for us to make for the port. A few strokes shoved the boat from under the lee of the island; the oars were shipped, and the lateen sail run up by all hands. Hauling close to the wind, my friend seized the tiller: it was doubtful if we could make the harbour, which the little craft, struggling with the breeze, just headed; the towers of St. Victor being the point of sight in the increasing haze.

“_Comme les Anglais font des braves marins_,” said the _padróne_, as he stood by the halyards, looking out ahead, after all was made snug.

We were, indeed, in our element. The sudden squall had stirred our blood. Many such rough cruises we had shared together in old times.

The boat flew through the water, which roared and broke over the bows. “It will be a short run,” said the steersman, “if the wind holds on.”

“_Port, monsieur, port!_” cried the _padróne_, who had learnt some English nautical phrases.

But it would not do. Approaching the land, the wind veered and headed us.

“We must make a short tack to gain the harbour.”

“_Je l'ai prévu_,” said the _padróne_.

“About” it was. She stayed beautifully, even under the single sail, and in a trice was lying well upon the other tack, as we stood out to sea. In five minutes we went about again, fetching under the stern of a felucca, also beating into the port; perhaps from Algiers or the Spanish coast. It was now a dead race with the felucca, which had forged ahead while we were in stays.

“_Nous gagnerons, j'en gagerais une bouteille de vin!_” cried the _padróne_, much excited, for he was proud of his boat.

“_Vous l'aurez, toutefois, pour boire à la santé de vos camarades Anglais._”

Again we flew through the water, making a straight course for the harbour. The felucca had much the advantage of us in breadth of canvas and her high-peaked sails; but being heavily laden, she was deep in the water. As it turned out, we did not overhaul her till just before she lowered her foresail at the _consigne_ office, to wait for her _permis d'entrer_, when we shot ahead right into the port.

We made out the evening at the theatre, well entertained by a _petite comédie_. “One is sure to be amused,” said my companion; “and it is good practice. It helps to get up one's French.”

“_Monsieur ne manque que d'être plus habitué_,” as it is politely suggested when one is at a loss for a phrase.

CHAP. III.

_Embark for Corsica—Coast of France and Italy.—Toulon.—Hyères
Islands, Frejus, &c.—A Stormy night.—Crossing the Tuscan Sea._

Once more we are at the water stairs. A stout boat is ready to convey us with our baggage to _L'Industrie_, one of Messrs. Vallery's fine steam-boats, in turn for Bastia. Just as we are pushing off, a carriage drives to the quay, with a niece of General the Count di Rivarola, formerly in the British service. She is returning to Corsica. We do the civil, spread plaids, and place her in the stern sheets; and she is very agreeable.

It is Sunday morning. The bells of the old church of St. Victor are ringing at early mass. The ships in the port have hoisted their colours. There is our dear, time-honoured jack, “the flag that has braved,” &c., as we say on all occasions; and the stars and stripes, the crescent and star, and the towers of Castille; with crosses of all shapes and colours, in as great variety as the costumes we saw in the _café_. The tricolor floated on the forts of St. Jean and St. Nicholas, as well as on French craft of all descriptions.

All was gay, but not more joyous than our own buoyant spirits. Time had been spent pleasantly enough at Marseilles, but it was a delay; and there is nothing an Englishman hates more than delays in travelling. Thwarted in his humour, he becomes quite childish, and frets and chafes more at having to wait two or three days for a steamboat than at any other hindrance I know. Now, when _L'Industrie_, with her ensign at the peak, had, somehow or other, with a din of unutterable cries in maritime French, been extricated from the dense tiers of vessels along the quay, and hauling out of the harbour, we were at last fairly on the high road to Corsica, never did the sun appear to shine more brightly; the Mediterranean looked more blue than any blue one had seen before, there was a ripple from the fresh breeze, the waves sparkled, and seemed positively to laugh and partake of our joy.

We hardly cared to speculate on our fellow-passengers, as one is apt to do when there is nothing else to engross the thoughts; and yet there were some among them we should wish to sketch. Besides French officers joining their regiments in the island, there was one, a Corsican, who had served in Algeria, returning home on sick leave. It was to be feared that it had come too late, for the poor invalid was so feeble, worn, and emaciated that it seemed his native country could offer him nothing but a grave. There was a Corsican priest on board, a pleasant, well-informed man, who met our advances to an acquaintance with great readiness, and was delighted with our proposed visit to his island. Some Corsican gentlemen, a lady or two, and commercial men _en route_ for Leghorn, completed the party. We seemed to be the only English. I was mistaken.

“After all, there is a countryman of ours on board,” I said, pointing to a pair of broad shoulders, disappearing under the companion-hatch. I caught sight of him just now; a fine, hale man, rather advanced in years, with a fair complexion, ruddy, and a profusion of grey hair. He wears a suit of drab; very plain, but well turned out.

“Unmistakeably English, as you say; it may be pleasant. I wonder we did not make him out before among these sallow-faced and rather dirty-looking gentry in green and sky-blue trousers.”

We were soon abreast of the group of rocky islets off the harbour, passing close under the _Château d'If_. The sea was smooth, the sky unclouded, but a gentle breeze deliciously tempered the heat, and vessels of every description—square-rigged ships, and coasting feluccas and xebecs—on their different courses, gave life to the scene. Thus pleasantly we ran along the French coast, here much indented and swelling into rocky hills of considerable elevation.

We had an excellent _déjeûner_, for which we were quite ready, having only taken the usual early cup of coffee. The genial influence of this meal had the effect of putting us on the best footing with our fellow-voyagers. Pacing the deck afterwards with the Corsican priest, we were joined by the stout Englishman. Observing our disappointment at hearing we should be probably baulked of shooting in Corsica, he expressed a hope that we would extend our excursion to Tuscany, where, he was good enough to say, he would show us sport. He had been settled there many years, and was now returning to his family by way of Leghorn. Under a somewhat homely exterior, which had puzzled us at first as to his position, we found our new acquaintance to be a man of refined taste, great simplicity, as well as urbanity, of manners, and keenly alive to the beautiful in nature and art. Such a specimen of the hearty old English gentleman, unchanged—I was about to say uncontaminated—by long residence abroad, it has been rarely my lot to meet with.

On rounding a projecting headland, we peeped into the mouth of Toulon harbour, and every eye and glass were directed to the heights crowned with forts, and the bold mountain masses towering above them.

Presently, we were threading the channel between the main land and the Hyères Islands. They appeared to us a paradise of verdure, on which the eye, weary of gazing at the bare and furrowed mountain-sides bounding this coast, rested with delight. One imagined orange groves and myrtle bowers, impervious to the summer's sun and sheltered by the lofty ridges from the northern blasts—all this verdure fringing the edge of a bright and tideless sea. Elsewhere, except rarely in the hollows, the mountain ranges extending along this coast exhibit no signs of vegetation; the whole mass appearing, with the sun full on them, not only scorched but actually burnt to the colour of kiln-dried bricks.

All the afternoon we continued running at the steamer's full speed along the shores of France and Italy. Notwithstanding their arid and sterile aspect, nothing can be finer than the mountain ranges which bound this coast, as every one who has crossed them in travelling from Nice well knows. Glimpses, too, successively of Frejus, Cannes, and Nice, more or less distant, as, crossing the Gulf of Genoa, we gradually increased our distance from the shore, together with a capital dinner, were pleasant interludes to the grand spectacle of Alps piled on Alps in endless succession, and glowing a fiery red, which all the waters over which we flew—deep, dark, or azure—could not quench.

Towards evening there were evident tokens in the sky, on the water, and in the vessel's motion, of a change of weather. We were threatened with a stormy night; and as we now began to lose the shelter of the land, holding a course somewhat to the S.E. in order to round the northern point of Corsica, there was no reason to regret that the passage across the Tuscan sea would be performed while we were in our berths.

However, we walked the deck long after the other passengers had gone below; enjoying the fresh breeze, though it was no soft zephyr wafting sweet odours from the Ausonian shore. It is a sublime thing to stand on the poop of a good ship when she is surging through the waves at ten knots an hour in utter darkness, whether impelled by wind or steam; especially when the elements are in strife. Nothing can give a higher idea of the power of man to control them. With no horizon, not a star visible in the vault above, and only the white curl on the crest of the boiling waves, glimmering in our wake, on—on, we rush, the ship dipping and rising over the long swells, and dashing floods of water and clouds of spray from her bows.

But whither are we driving through these dark waters, and this impenetrable, and seemingly boundless, gloom? The eye rests on the light in the binnacle. We stoop to examine the compass; the card marks S.S.E. Imagination expands the dark horizon. It is not boundless: the island mountain-tops loom in the distance. They beckon us on; we realise them now; at dawn the grey peaks of Cape Corso will be unveiled; we shall dream of them to-night.

One of the watch struck the hour on the bell. “It is ten o'clock; let us turn in.” There is an inviting glimmer through the cabin skylights. We are better off in this floating hotel than has often been our lot, baffling with storm and tempest, benighted, weary, cold and wet, in rough roads, forest or desert waste, with dubious hopes of shelter and comfort at the end of our march.

We paused for a moment, leaning over the brass rail which protected the quarter deck. Below, on the main deck, a number of French soldiers, wrapped in their grey coats, were huddled together, cowering under the bulwarks, or wherever they could find shelter from the bitter night wind.

The cabin lamps shed a cheerful light, reflected by the highly-polished furniture and fittings. All the passengers were in their berths. We had chosen ours near the door for fresher air. My companion climbed to his cot in the upper tier, above mine.

“If you wake first, call me at daylight. We shall be off the coast of Corsica. _Felicissima notte!_”

CHAP. IV.

_Coast of Capo Corso.—Peculiarity of Scenery.—Verdure, and
Mountain Villages.—Il Torre di Seneca.—Land at Bastia._

The voyage from Marseilles to Bastia is performed, under favourable circumstances, in eighteen hours; but we had only just made the extreme northern point of Corsica when I was hastily roused, at six o'clock, from a blissful state of unconsciousness of the gale of wind and rough sea which had retarded our progress during the night.

Hurrying on deck, the first objects which met the eye were a rocky islet with a lighthouse on a projecting point, and then it rested on the glorious mountains of Capo Corso, lifting their grey summits to the clouds, and stretching away to the southward in endless variety of outline. We were abreast of the rocky island of Capraja; on the other hand lay Elba, with its mountain peaks; Pianosa and Monte-Cristo rose out of the Tuscan sea further on. Behind these picturesque islands, the distant range of the Apennines hung like a cloud in the horizon. The sun rose over them in unclouded glory, no trace being left of the night-storm, but a fresh breeze, and the heaving and swelling of the deep waters.

Banging along the eastern coast of Capo Corso, at a short distance from the shore, with the early light now thrown upon it, the natural features of the country—groups of houses, villages, and even single buildings of a marked character—were distinctly visible. We were not long in discovering that Corsican scenery is of a peculiar and highly interesting character.

The infinite variety existing in all the Creator's works is remarkably exhibited in the physical aspect of different countries, though the landscape be formed of the same materials, whether mountains, forests, wood, water, and extended plains, or a composition of all or any of these features on a greater or less scale. The change is sometimes very abrupt. Thus, the character of Sardinian scenery is essentially different from the Corsican, notwithstanding the two islands are only separated by a strait twenty miles broad. Climate, atmosphere, geological formation, and vegetable growth, all contribute to this variety. The impress given to the face of nature by the hand of man, whether by cultivation, or in the forms, and, as we shall presently see, the position, of the various buildings which betoken his presence, give, of course, in a secondary degree, a difference of character to the landscape.

Remarks of this kind occurred in a conversation with our stout English friend and my fellow-traveller, while they were sketching the coast of Capo Corso from the deck of the _Industrie_. Trite as they may appear, it is surprising how little even many persons who have travelled are alive to such distinctions. What more natural than to say, “I have seen Alpine scenery in Switzerland; why should I encounter the difficulties of a northern tour to witness the same thing on a smaller scale in Norway? What can the islands in the Tuscan sea have to offer essentially different from Italian scenery with which I am already familiar?”

Only a practised eye can make the discrimination, and it requires some knowledge of physical geography, and the vegetable kingdom, to be able to analyse causes producing these diversified effects. Every class of rock, every species of tree, the various elevations of the surface of the globe, and the plants which clothe its different regions, have each their own forms and characteristics; and, of course, a landscape, being an aggregate of these several parts, ought to reflect the varieties of the materials composing it. An artist must have carefully studied from nature to have acquired a nice perception of these varied effects, and even should he be able to grasp the result, he may not succeed in transferring it to his sketch. Far less can words convey an adequate idea of the varied effects of natural scenery; so that one does not wonder when the reader complains of the sameness of the representation.

In the present instance, were there pictured to his imagination the distant peaks of Elba on the one hand, and on the other the long mountain ranges of Capo Corso, bathed in purple light, as the sun rose in the eastern horizon, the grey cliffs of rocks and promontories bordering the coast, contrasted with the verdure of the valleys and lower elevations, vineyards and olive grounds on the hill-sides, and the landscape dotted with villages, churches, and ancient towers, we should doubtless have a very charming sketch, but it would not convey a distinct idea of the peculiarities of Corsican scenery.

What struck us most, independently of the general effect, was the extraordinary verdure and exuberance of the vegetation which overspread the surface of the country far up the mountain sides, not only as contrasted with the sterile aspect of the coasts of the continent we had just left, but as being, in itself, different from anything which had before fallen under our observation in other countries, whether forest, underwood, or grassy slope. For the moment, we were unable to conjecture of what it consisted; but we had not long set foot on shore before we were at no loss to account for our admiration of this singular feature in Corsican, and in this particular, also, of Sardinian scenery.

Not to dwell now on the peculiar character of the mountain ranges of Corsica, I will only mention one other peculiarity in the landscape which strikes the eye throughout the island, but is nowhere more remarkable than in the views presented as we ranged along the coast of Capo Corso. As the former instance belongs to the department of physical geography, this comes under the class of effects produced by the works of man. The peculiarity consists in the villages being all placed at high elevations. They are seen perched far up the mountain sides, straggling along the scarp of a narrow terrace, or crowded together on the platform of some projecting spur; churches, convents, towers, and hamlets crowning the peaked summits of lower eminences almost equally inaccessible. The only extensive plains in the island are so insalubrious as to be almost uninhabitable, and this has been their character from the time the island was first colonised. For this reason, probably, in some measure, but more especially for defence, in the hostilities to which the island has been exposed from foreign invaders during many ages, as well as by internal feuds hardly yet extinct, nearly the whole population is collected in the elevated villages or _paese_ forming this singular and picturesque feature in Corsican scenery. They are visible from a great distance, and sometimes ten or a dozen of them are in sight at one time.

Capo Corso is not, as might be supposed, a mere cape or headland, but a narrow peninsula, containing a number of villages, and washed on both sides by the Tuscan sea; being about twenty-five miles long, though only from five to ten miles broad. Nearly the whole area is occupied by a continuation of the central chain which traverses the island from north to south. The average height of the range through Capo Corso, where it is called _La Serra_, does not exceed 1500 feet above the level of the sea, but it swells into lofty peaks; the highest, _Monte Stella_, between Brando and Nonza, rising 5180 feet above the shore of the Mediterranean.

From the central chain spurs branch off to the sea on both coasts, forming narrow valleys at the base and in the gorges of the mountains, of which the principal on the eastern side are Lota, Cagnano, and Luri; the last-named being the most fertile and picturesque, as well as the largest of these mountain valleys, though only six miles long and three wide. On the western side lie the valleys of Olmeta, Olcani, and Ogliastro; Olmeta being the largest. The valleys are watered by mountain torrents, often diverted to irrigate the lands under tillage, as well as gardens and vine and olive plantations. Each _paese_ has its small tract of more fertile land, marked by a deeper verdure, where the valleys open out and the streams discharge their waters into the Mediterranean. At this point, called the _Marino_, there is generally a little port, with a hamlet inhabited by a hardy race of sailors engaged in the traffic carried on coastwise between the villages of the interior and the seaports.

This mountainous district contains a considerable population, and the inhabitants are distinguished for their industry and economy. They live in much comfort on the produce obtained by persevering labour from the small portions of cultivated soil. Numerous flocks of sheep are herded on the vast wastes overhanging the valleys. The olive and vine flourish, and extensive chestnut woods supply at some seasons the staple diet of the poorer classes. The slopes of the hills about the villages are converted into gardens and orchards, in which we find figs, peaches, apples, pears,—with oranges and lemons in the more sheltered spots. The wines are in general sound, and we found them excellent where special care had been bestowed on the manufacture.

The Corsicans are generally indolent, but it is said that there are no less than a hundred families in the mountainous province of Capo Corso who are considered rich, some of them wealthy; and all these owe their improved fortunes to the enterprising spirit of some relative who left it poor, and after years of toil in Mexico, in Brazil, or some other part of South America, returned with his savings to his native village.

One valley after another opened as the steamer ran down the coast, each with its _Marino_ distinguished by a fresher verdure, and its cluster of white houses on the beach. The night mists still filled the hollows, and villages and hamlets hung like cloud-wreaths on the mountain-sides and the summits of the hills; the most inaccessible of which were crowned with ruins of castles and towers.

Tradition asserts that one of these towers was the prison of Seneca the Philosopher. _Il Torre di Seneca_, as it is called, stands on an escarped pinnacle of rock, terminating one of the loftiest of the detached sugar-loaf hills.

Seneca spent seven years in exile, having been banished to Corsica by the emperor Claudius, on suspicion of an illicit intercourse with the profligate Julia. The islands in the Tuscan sea were the Tasmania of the Roman empire, places of transportation for political offenders, and those who fell under the imperial frown—which was the same thing. Some smaller islands off the Italian coast, Procida, Ischia, &c., served the same purpose. _Relegatio ad insulam_ was the legal phrase for this punishment. Augustus banished his grandson Agrippa to the desolate island of _Planosa_, the Pianosa mentioned just before in connection with Elba. There he was strangled by order of Tiberius.

In some of his Epigrams, and the Books _de Consolatione_, composed during his exile, Seneca paints the country and the climate in the darkest colours. There is no doubt but these islands, though in sight of the coast of Italy, appeared to the polished Romans as barbarous and full of horrors as our penal settlements at the antipodes were considered long after their first occupation; so that the picture of Corsica, drawn by Seneca, may have been much exaggerated by his distempered and splenetic state of mind. The probability is, that he resided during his exile at one of the Roman colonies on the eastern coast, Aleria or Mariana. What is called the _Torre di Seneca_ is the ruin of a stronghold or watch-tower of the middle ages; and it is not likely that the spot was occupied by the Romans at any period of their dominion in Corsica, their possessions consisting only of the two colonies, and some harbours on the coast.

But those lonely towers standing close to the shore, which we see from time to time as we coast along—massive, round, and grey with lichens as the rocks at their base; what do their ruins tell of times past? Were they a chain of forts for the defence of the coast against Saracen, or other invaders, in the middle ages? They appear too small to hold a garrison, and too insulated for mutual support. More probably they were watch-towers, from which signals were made when the vessels of the corsairs hovered on the coast, that the inhabitants might betake themselves, with their cattle and goods, to the fortified villages and castles on the hills. We are told that, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, there were fifteen of those towers on the north coast of the island, and eighty-five in its whole circuit; but many of them are now fallen to ruin.

At length, Bastia appeared in sight, rising in an amphitheatre to a ridge studded with villas; the houses of the old town being crowded about the port. Sweeping round the mole, we found ourselves in a diminutive harbour, among vessels of small burthen. This basin is surrounded on three sides by tall gloomy buildings, of the roughest construction, piled up, tier above tier, to a great height. A man-of-war's boat shoves off from the shore in good style, and lands the Count's niece with due honours. Other boats come alongside the steamer, and all is confusion.

“Did you see the meeting between the two Corsican brothers—the sallow, fever-worn soldier from Algiers, our poor fellow-traveller, and the hearty mountaineer?”

“No; I was paying my last _devoirs_ to _madame_.”

“The contrast between the two was striking. I shall never forget the way they were laced in each other's arms, and the glance of keen anxiety with which the mountaineer looked into his sick brother's face, marking the ravages which time and disease had worked on those much-loved features.”

In the air of his mountain-village that brother, we would hope, grew strong again. Perhaps, having rejoined his regiment, his bones are left in the Crimea; perhaps, he again survives, and breathes once more his native air. Who can tell?

Our hale English friend remained on board to pursue the voyage to Leghorn. What a din, what frantic gestures, what a rush of these irascible Corsicans at our baggage! It is borne off to the custom-house, and undergoes an examination far from rigorous. We mount several flights of steps, leading from one narrow street to another in this old quarter of the town, and are led to an hotel, which had much the air of a second or third-rate Italian _locanda_—lofty and spacious apartments, neither clean nor well arranged; and the _déjeûner_ was a sorry affair. _N'importe_; we shall not stay longer in Bastia than is necessary, and we may go further and fare worse. Meanwhile, a battalion of French infantry were on parade, with the band playing in the barrack-yard under our windows. We threw them open to enjoy the fresh breeze and sweeten the room. They commanded a fine view of the coast we had passed, now seen in profile under the effect of a bright sunshine, with the waves washing in wreaths of foam on every jutting point and rock.

CHAP. V.

_Bastia.—Territorial Divisions.—Plan of the Rambles.—Hiring
Mules.—The Start._