Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia Part 2

"_Monsieur ne manque que d'etre plus habitue_," 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.-Hyeres 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 ma.s.s. 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 _cafe_. 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 Ma.r.s.eilles, 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-pa.s.sengers, 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, pa.s.sing close under the _Chateau 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRENCH COAST OFF CIOTAT.]

We had an excellent _dejeuner_, 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 gla.s.s were directed to the heights crowned with forts, and the bold mountain ma.s.ses towering above them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OFF TOULON.]

Presently, we were threading the channel between the main land and the Hyeres 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 ma.s.s 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 sh.o.r.es 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 pa.s.sage across the Tuscan sea would be performed while we were in our berths.

However, we walked the deck long after the other pa.s.sengers had gone below; enjoying the fresh breeze, though it was no soft zephyr wafting sweet odours from the Ausonian sh.o.r.e. It is a sublime thing to stand on the p.o.o.p 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 compa.s.s; 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 bra.s.s 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 pa.s.sengers 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 Ma.r.s.eilles to Bastia is performed, under favourable circ.u.mstances, 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 r.e.t.a.r.ded 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 a.n.a.lyse causes producing these diversified effects. Every cla.s.s 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 gra.s.sy slope. For the moment, we were unable to conjecture of what it consisted; but we had not long set foot on sh.o.r.e 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 cla.s.s 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 sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ERSA, CAPO CORSO.]

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 princ.i.p.al 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 cla.s.ses. 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 cl.u.s.ter 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 a.s.serts 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IL TORRE DI SENECA.]

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.