Chapter 2 THE CITY OF BASTIA.

The situation of Bastia, though not one of the very finest, takes one by surprise. The town lies like an amphitheatre round the little harbour; the sea here does not form a gulf, but only a landing-place-a cala. A huge black rock bars the right side of the harbour, called by the people Leone, from its resemblance to a lion. Above it stands the gloomy Genoese fort, called the Donjon. To the left, the quay runs out in a mole, at the extremity of which is a little lighthouse.

The town ascends in terraces above the harbour; its houses are high, crowded together, tower-shaped, and have many balconies: away beyond the town rise the green hills, with some forsaken cloisters, beautiful olive-groves, and numerous fruit-gardens of oranges, lemons, and almonds.

Bastia has its name from the fortifications or bastions, erected there by the Genoese. The city is not ancient; neither Pliny, Strabo, nor Ptolemy, mentions any town as occupying its site. Formerly the little marina of the neighbouring town of Cardo stood here. In the year 1383, the Genoese Governor, Lionello Lomellino, built the Donjon or Castle, round which a new quarter of the town arose, which was called the Terra Nuova, the original lower quarter now receiving the name of Terra Vecchia. Both quarters still form two separate cantons. The Genoese now transferred the seat of their Corsican government to Bastia, and here resided the Fregosos, Spinolas, Dorias-within a space of somewhat more than four hundred years, eleven Dorias ruled in Corsica-the Fiescos, Cibbàs, the Guistiniani, Negri, Vivaldi, Fornari, and many other nobles of celebrated Genoese families. When Corsica, under French supremacy, was divided into two departments in 1797, which were named after the rivers Golo and Liamone, Bastia remained the principal town of the department of the Golo. In the year 1811, the two parts were again united, and the smaller Ajaccio became the capital of the country. Bastia, however, has not yet forgotten that it was once the capital, though it has now sunk to a sub-prefecture; and it is, in fact, still, in point of trade, commerce, and intelligence, the leading city of Corsica. The mutual jealousy of the Bastinese and the citizens of Ajaccio is almost comical, and would appear a mere piece of ridiculous provincialism, did we not know that the division of Corsica into the country this side and beyond the mountains, is historical, and dates from a remote antiquity, while the character of the inhabitants of the two halves is also entirely different. Beyond the mountains which divide Corsica from north to south, the people are much ruder and wilder, and all go armed; this side the mountains there is much more culture, the land is better tilled, and the manners of the population are gentler.

The Terra Vecchia of Bastia has nowadays, properly speaking, become the Terra Nuova, for it contains the best streets. The stateliest of them is the Via Traversa, a street of six and seven-storied houses, bending towards the sea; it is only a few years old, and still continues to receive additions. Its situation reminded me of the finest street I have ever seen, the Strada Balbi and Nuova in Genoa. But the houses, though of palatial magnitude, have nothing to boast of in the way of artistic decoration, or noble material. The very finest kinds of stone exist in Corsica in an abundance scarcely credible-marble, porphyry, serpentine, alabaster, and the costliest granite; and yet they are hardly ever used. Nature is everywhere here abandoned to neglect; she is a beautiful princess under a spell.

They are building a Palace of Justice in the Via Traversa at present, for the porticos of which I saw them cutting pillars in the marble quarries of Corte. Elsewhere, I looked in vain for marble ornament; and yet-who would believe it?-the whole town of Bastia is paved with marble-a reddish sort, quarried in Brando. I do not know whether it is true that Bastia has the best pavement in the world; I have heard it said.

Despite its length and breadth, the Via Traversa is the least lively of all the streets of Bastia. All the bustle and business are concentrated in the Place Favalelli, on the quay, and in the Terra Nuova, round the Fort. In the evening, the fashionable world promenades in the large Place San Nicolao, by the sea, where are the offices of the sub-prefecture, and the highest court of justice.

Not a single building of any architectural pretensions fetters the eye of the stranger here; he must find his entertainment in the beautiful walks along the shore, and on the olive-shaded hills. Some of the churches are large, and richly decorated; but they are clumsy in exterior, and possess no particular artistic attraction. The Cathedral, in which a great many Genoese seigniors lie entombed, stands in the Terra Nuova; in the Terra Vecchia is the large Church of St. John the Baptist. I mention it merely on account of Marb?uf's tomb. Marb?uf governed Corsica for sixteen years; he was the friend of Carlo Bonaparte, once so warm an adherent of Paoli; and it was he who opened the career of Napoleon, for he procured him his place in the military school of Brienne. His tomb in the church referred to bears no inscription; the monument and epitaph, as they originally existed, were destroyed in the Paolistic revolution against France. The Corsican patriots at that time wrote on the tomb of Marb?uf: "The monument which disgraceful falsehood and venal treachery dedicated to the tyrant of groaning Corsica, the true liberty and liberated truth of all rejoicing Corsica have now destroyed." After Napoleon had become Emperor, Madame Letitia wished to procure the widow of Marb?uf a high position among the ladies of honour in the imperial court; but Napoleon luckily avoided such gross want of tact, perceiving how unsuitable it was to offer Mme. Marb?uf a subordinate charge in the very family which owed so much to the patronage of her husband. He granted Marb?uf's son a yearly pension of ten thousand francs; but the young general fell at the head of his regiment in Russia. The little theatre in Bastia is a memorial of Marb?uf; it was built at his expense.

Another Frenchman of note lies buried in the Church of St. John-Count Boissieux, who died in the year 1738. He was a nephew of the celebrated Villars; but as a military man, had no success.

The busy stir in the markets, and the life about the port, were what interested me by far the most in Bastia.

There was the fish-market, for example. I never omitted paying a morning visit to the new arrivals from the sea; and when the fishermen had caught anything unusual, they showed it me in a friendly way, and would say-"This, Signore, is a murena, and this is the razza, and these are the pesce spada, and the pesce prete, and the beautiful red triglia, and the capone, and the grongo." Yonder in the corner, as below caste, sit the pond-fishers: along the east coast of Corsica are large ponds, separated from the sea by narrow tongues of land, but connected with it by inlets. The fishermen take large and well-flavoured fish in these, with nets of twisted rushes, eels in abundance-mugini, ragni, and soglie. The prettiest of all these fish is the murena; it is like a snake, and as if formed of the finest porphyry. It pursues the lobster (legusta), into which it sucks itself; the legusta devours the scorpena, and the scorpena again the murena. So here we have another version of the clever old riddle of the wolf, the lamb, and the cabbage, and how they were to be carried across a river. I am too little of a diplomatist to settle this intricate cross-war of the three fishes; they are often caught all three in the same net. Tunny and anchovies are caught in great quantities in the gulfs of Corsica, especially about Ajaccio and Bonifazio. The Romans had no liking for Corsican slaves-they were apt to be refractory; but the Corsican fish figured on the tables of the great, and even Juvenal has a word of commendation for them.

The market in the Place Favalelli presents in the morning a fresh, lively, motley picture. There sit the peasant women with their vegetables, and the fruit-girls with their baskets, out of which the beautiful fruits of the south look laughingly. One only needs to visit this market to learn what the soil of Corsica can produce in the matter of fruit; here are pears and apples, peaches and apricots, plums of every sort; there green almonds, oranges and lemons, pomegranates; near them potatoes, then bouquets of flowers, yonder green and blue figs, and the inevitable pomi d'oro (pommes d'amour); yonder again the most delicious melons, at a soldo or penny each; and in August come the muscatel-grapes of Cape Corso. In the early morning, the women and girls come down from the villages round Bastia, and bring their fruit into the town. Many graceful forms are to be seen among them. I was wandering one evening along the shore towards Pietra Nera, and met a young girl, who, with her empty fruit-basket on her head, was returning to her village. "Buona sera-Evviva, Siore." We were soon in lively conversation. This young Corsican girl related to me the history of her heart with the utmost simplicity;-how her mother was compelling her to marry a young man she did not like. "Why do you not like him?" "Because his ingegno does not please me, ah madonna!" "Is he jealous?" "Come un diavolo, ah madonna! I nearly ran off to Ajaccio already." As we walked along talking, a Corsican came up, who, with a pitcher in his hand, was going to a neighbouring spring. "If you wish a draught of water," said he, "wait a little till I come down, and you, Paolina, come to me by and bye: I have something to say to you about your marriage."

"Look you, sir," said the girl, "that is one of our relations; they are all fond of me, and when they meet me, they do not pass me with a good evening; and none of them will hear of my marrying Antonio." By this time we were approaching her house. Paolina suddenly turned to me, and said with great seriousness-"Siore, you must turn back now; if I go into my village along with you, the people will talk ill of me (faranne mal grido). But come to-morrow, if you like, and be my mother's guest, and after that we will send you to our relations, for we have friends enough all over Cape Corso." I returned towards the city, and in presence of the unspeakable beauty of the sea, and the silent calm of the hills, on which the goat-herds had begun to kindle their fires, my mood became quite Homeric, and I could not help thinking of the old hospitable Ph?acians and the fair Nausicaa.

The head-dress of the Corsican women is the mandile, a handkerchief of any colour, which covers the forehead, and smoothly enwrapping the head, is wound about the knot of hair behind; so that the hair is thus concealed. The mandile is in use all over Corsica; it looks Moorish and Oriental, and is of high antiquity, for there are female figures on Etrurian vases represented with the mandile. It is very becoming on young girls, less so on elderly women; it makes the latter look like the Jewish females. The men wear the pointed brown or red baretto, the ancient Phrygian cap, which Paris, son of Priam, wore. The marbles representing this Trojan prince give him the baretto; the Persian Mithras also wears it, as I have observed in the common symbolic group where Mithras is seen slaying the bull. Among the Romans, the Phrygian cap was the usual symbol of the barbarians; the well-known Dacian captives of the triumphal arch of Trajan which now stand on the arch of Constantine, wear it; so do other barbarian kings and slaves, Sarmatian and Asiatic, whom we find represented in triumphal processions. The Venetian Doge also wore a Phrygian cap as a symbol of his dignity.

The women in Corsica carry all their burdens on their head, and the weight they will thus carry is hardly credible; laden in this way, they often hold the spindle in their hand, and spin as they walk along. It is a picturesque sight, the women of Bastia carrying their two-handled brazen water-pitchers on their head; these bear a great resemblance to the antique consecrated vases of the temples; I never saw them except in Bastia; beyond the mountains they fetch their water in stone pitchers, of rude but still slightly Etruscan form.

"Do you see yonder woman with the water-pitcher on her head?" "Yes, what is remarkable about her?" "She might perhaps have been this day a princess of Sweden, and the consort of a king." "Madre di Dio!" "Do you see yonder village on the hillside? that is Cardo. The common soldier Bernadotte one day fell in love with a peasant girl of Cardo. The parents would not let the poor fellow court her. The povero diavolo, however, one day became a king, and if he had married that girl, she would have been a queen; and now her daughter there, with the water on her head, goes about and torments herself that she is not Princess of Sweden." It was on the highway from Bastia to San Fiorenzo that Bernadotte worked as a common soldier on the roads. At Ponte d'Ucciani he was made corporal, and very proud he was of his advancement. He now watched as superintendent over the workmen; afterwards he copied the rolls for Imbrico, clerk of court at Bastia. There is still a great mass of them in his handwriting among the archives at Paris.

It was on the Bridge of Golo, some miles from Bastia, that Massena was made corporal. Yes, Corsica is a wonderful island. Many a one has wandered among the lonely hills here, who never dreamed that he was yet to wear a crown. Pope Formosus made a beginning in the ninth century-he was a native of the Corsican village of Vivario; then a Corsican of Bastia followed him in the sixteenth century, Lazaro, the renegade, and Dey of Algiers; in the time of Napoleon, a Corsican woman was first Sultaness of Morocco; and Napoleon himself was first Emperor of Europe.

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