Wanderings in Corsica: Its History and Its Heroes. Vol. 1 of 2

Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch' entrate.-Dante.

The voyage across to Corsica from Leghorn is very beautiful, and more interesting than that from Leghorn to Genoa. We have the picturesque islands of the Tuscan Channel constantly in view. Behind us lies the Continent, Leghorn with its forest of masts at the foot of Monte Nero; before us the lonely ruined tower of Meloria, the little island-cliff, near which the Pisans under Ugolino suffered that defeat from the Genoese, which annihilated them as a naval power, and put their victorious opponents in possession of Corsica; farther off, the rocky islet of Gorgona; and near it in the west, Capraja. We are reminded of Dante's verses, in the canto where he sings the fate of Ugolino-

"O Pisa! the disgrace of that fair land

Where Si is spoken: since thy neighbours round

Take vengeance on thee with a tardy hand,-

To dam the mouth of Arno's rolling tide

Let Capraja and Gorgona raise a mound

That all may perish in the waters wide."

The island of Capraja conceals the western extremity of Corsica; but behind it rise, in far extended outline, the blue hills of Cape Corso. Farther west, and off Piombino, Elba heaves its mighty mass of cliff abruptly from the sea, descending more gently on the side towards the Continent, which we could faintly descry in the extreme distance. The sea glittered in the deepest purple, and the sun, sinking behind Capraja, tinged the sails of passing vessels with a soft rose-red. A voyage on this basin of the Mediterranean is in reality a voyage through History itself. In thought, I saw these fair seas populous with the fleets of the Ph?nicians and the Greeks, with the ships of those Phoc?ans, whose roving bands were once busy here;-then Hasdrubal, and the fleets of the Carthaginians, the Etruscans, the Romans, the Moors, and the Spaniards, the Pisans, and the Genoese. But still more impressively are we reminded, by the constant sight of Corsica and Elba, of the greatest drama the world's history has presented in modern times-the drama which bears the name of Napoleon. Both islands lie in peaceful vicinity to each other; as near almost as a man's cradle and his grave-broad, far-stretching Corsica, which gave Napoleon birth, and the little Elba, the narrow prison in which they penned the giant. He burst its rocky bonds as easily as Samson the withes of the Philistines. Then came his final fall at Waterloo. After Elba, he was merely an adventurer; like Murat, who, leaving Corsica, went, in imitation of Napoleon, to conquer Naples with a handful of soldiers, and met a tragic end.

The view of Elba throws a Fata Morgana into the excited fancy, the picture of the island of St. Helena lying far off in the African seas. Four islands, it seems, strangely influenced Napoleon's fate-Corsica, England, Elba, and St. Helena. He himself was an island in the ocean of universal history-unico nel mondo, as the stout Corsican sailor said, beside whom I stood, gazing on Corsica, and talking of Napoleon. "Ma Signore," said he, "I know all that better than you, for I am his countryman;" and now, with the liveliest gesticulations, he gave me an abridgment of Napoleon's history, which interested me more in the midst of this scenery than all the volumes of Thiers. And the nephew?-"I say the Napoleone primo was also the unico." The sailor was excellently versed in the history of his island, and was as well acquainted with the life of Sampiero as with those of Pasquale Paoli, Saliceti, and Pozzo di Borgo.

Night had fallen meanwhile. The stars shone brilliantly, and the waves phosphoresced. High over Corsica hung Venus, the stellone or great star, as the sailors call it, now serving us to steer by. We sailed between Elba and Capraja, and close past the rocks of the latter. The historian, Paul Diaconus, once lived here in banishment, as Seneca did, for eight long years, in Corsica. Capraja is a naked granite rock. A Genoese tower stands picturesquely on a cliff, and the only town in the island, of the same name, seems to hide timidly behind the gigantic crag which the fortress crowns. The white walls and white houses, the bare, reddish rocks, and the wild and desolate seclusion of the place, give the impression of some lonely city among the cliffs of Syria. Capraja, which the bold Corsicans made a conquest of in the time of Paoli, remained in possession of the Genoese when they sold Corsica to France; with Genoa it fell to Piedmont.

Capraja and its lights had vanished, and we were nearing the coast of Corsica, on which fires could be seen glimmering here and there. At length we began to steer for the lighthouse of Bastia. Presently we were in the harbour. The town encircles it; to the left the old Genoese fort, to the right the Marina, high above it in the bend a background of dark hills. A boat came alongside for the passengers who wished to go ashore.

And now I touched, for the first time, the soil of Corsica-an island which had attracted me powerfully even in my childhood, when I saw it on the map. When we first enter a foreign country, particularly if we enter it during the night, which veils everything in a mysterious obscurity, a strange expectancy, a burden of vague suspense, fills the mind, and our first impressions influence us for days. I confess my mood was very sombre and uneasy, and I could no longer resist a certain depression.

In the north of Europe we know little more of Corsica than that Napoleon was born there, that Pasquale Paoli struggled heroically there for freedom, and that the Corsicans practise hospitality and the Vendetta, and are the most daring bandits. The notions I had brought with me were of the gloomiest cast, and the first incidents thrown in my way were of a kind thoroughly to justify them.

Our boat landed us at the quay, on which the scanty light of some hand-lanterns showed a group of doganieri and sailors standing. The boatman sprang on shore. I have hardly ever seen a man of a more repulsive aspect. He wore the Phrygian cap of red wool, and had a white cloth tied over one eye; he was a veritable Charon, and the boundless fury with which he screamed to the passengers, swearing at them, and examining the fares by the light of his lantern, gave me at once a specimen of the ungovernably passionate temperament of the Corsicans.

The group on the quay were talking eagerly. I heard them tell how a quarter of an hour ago a Corsican had murdered his neighbour with three thrusts of a dagger (ammazzato, ammazzato-a word never out of my ears in Corsica; ammazzato con tre colpi di pugnale). "On what account?" "Merely in the heat of conversation; the sbirri are after him; he will be in the macchia by this time." The macchia is the bush. I heard the word macchia in Corsica just as often as ammazzato or tumbato. He has taken to the macchia, is as much as to say, he has turned bandit.

I was conscious of a slight shudder, and that suspense which the expectation of strange adventures creates. I was about to go in search of a locanda-a young man stepped up to me and said, in Tuscan, that he would take me to an inn. I followed the friendly Italian-a sculptor of Carrara. No light was shed on the steep and narrow streets of Bastia but by the stars of heaven. We knocked in vain at four locandas; none opened. We knocked at the fifth; still no answer. "We shall not find admittance here," said the Carrarese; "the landlord's daughter is lying on her bier." We wandered about the solitary streets for an hour; no one would listen to our appeals. Is this the famous Corsican hospitality? I thought; I seem to have come to the City of the Dead; and to-morrow I will write above the gate of Bastia: "All hope abandon, ye who enter here!"

However, we resolved to make one more trial. Staggering onwards, we came upon some other passengers in the same unlucky plight as myself; they were two Frenchmen, an Italian emigrant, and an English convert. I joined them, and once more we made the round of the locandas. This first night's experience was by no means calculated to inspire one with a high idea of the commercial activity and culture of the island; for Bastia is the largest town in Corsica, and has about fifteen thousand inhabitants. If this was the stranger's reception in a city, what was he to expect in the interior of the country?

A band of sbirri met us, Corsican gendarmes, dusky-visaged fellows with black beards, in blue frock-coats, with white shoulder-knots, and carrying double-barrelled muskets. We made complaint of our unfortunate case to them. One of them offered to conduct us to an old soldier who kept a tavern; there, he thought, we should obtain shelter. He led us to an old, dilapidated house opposite the fort. We kept knocking till the soldier-landlord awoke, and showed himself at the window. At the same moment some one ran past-our sbirro after him without saying a word, and both had vanished in the darkness of the night. What was it?-what did this hot pursuit mean? After some time the sbirro returned; he had imagined the runner was the murderer. "But he," said the gendarme, "is already in the hills, or some fisherman has set him over to Elba or Capraja. A short while ago we shot Arrighi in the mountains, Massoni too, and Serafino. That was a tough fight with Arrighi: he killed five of our people."

The old soldier came to the door, and led us into a large, very dirty apartment. We gladly seated ourselves round the table, and made a hearty supper on excellent Corsican wine, which has somewhat of the fire of the Spanish, good wheaten bread, and fresh ewe-milk cheese. A steaming oil-lamp illuminated this Homeric repast of forlorn travellers; and there was no lack of good humour to it. Many a health was drained to the heroes of Corsica, and our soldier-host brought bottle after bottle from the corner. There were four nations of us together, Corsican, Frenchman, German, and Lombard. I once mentioned the name of Louis Bonaparte, and put a question-the company was struck dumb, and the faces of the lively Frenchmen lengthened perceptibly.

Gradually the day dawned outside. We left the casa of the old Corsican, and, wandering to the shore, feasted our eyes upon the sea, glittering in the mild radiance of the early morning. The sun was rising fast, and lit up the three islands visible from Bastia-Capraja, Elba, and the small Monte Christo. A fourth island in the same direction is Pianosa, the ancient Planasia, on which Agrippa Posthumus, the grandson of Augustus, was strangled by order of Tiberius; as its name indicates, it is flat, and therefore cannot be distinguished from our position. The constant view of these three blue islands, along the edge of the horizon, makes the walks around Bastia doubly beautiful.

I seated myself on the wall of the old fort and looked out upon the sea, and on the little haven of the town, in which hardly half a dozen vessels were lying. The picturesque brown rocks of the shore, the green heights with their dense olive-groves, little chapels on the strand, isolated gray towers of the Genoese, the sea, in all the pomp of southern colouring, the feeling of being lost in a distant island, all this made, that morning, an indelible impression on my soul.

As I left the fort to settle myself in a locanda, now by daylight, a scene presented itself which was strange, wild, and bizarre enough. A crowd of people had collected before the fort, round two mounted carabineers; they were leading by a long cord a man who kept springing about in a very odd manner, imitating all the movements of a horse. I saw that he was a madman, and flattered himself with the belief that he was a noble charger. None of the bystanders laughed, though the caprioles of the unfortunate creature were whimsical enough. All stood grave and silent; and as I saw these men gazing so mutely on the wretched spectacle, for the first time I felt at ease in their island, and said to myself, the Corsicans are not barbarians. The horsemen at length rode away with the poor fellow, who trotted like a horse at the end of his line along the whole street, and seemed perfectly happy. This way of getting him to his destination by taking advantage of his fixed idea, appeared to me at once sly and na?ve.

* * *

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.

* * *

How beautiful the walks are here in the morning, or at moon-rise! A few steps and you are by the sea, or among the hills, and there or here, you are rid of the world, and deep in the refreshing solitude of nature. Dense olive-groves fringe some parts of the shore. I often lay among these, beside a little retired tomb, with a Moorish cupola, the burial-vault of some family, and looked out upon the sea, and the three islands on its farthest verge.

It was a spot of delicious calm; the air was so sunny, so soothingly still, and wherever the eye rested, holiday repose and hermit loneliness, a waste of brown rocks on the strand, covered with prickly cactus, solitary watch-towers, not a human being, not a bird upon the water; and to the right and left, warm and sunny, the high blue hills.

I mounted the heights immediately above Bastia. From these there is a very pleasant view of the town, the sea, and the islands. Vineyards, olive-gardens, orange-trees, little villas of forms the most bizarre; here and there a fan-palm, tombs among cypresses, ruins quite choked in ivy, are scattered on every side. The paths are difficult and toilsome; you wander over loose stones, over low walls, between bramble-hedges, among trailing ivy, and a wild and rank profusion of thistles. The view of the shore to the south of Bastia surprised me. The hills there, like almost all the Corsican hills, of a fine pyramidal form, retire farther from the shore, and slope gently down to a smiling plain. In this level lies the great pond of Biguglia, encircled with reeds, dead and still, hardly a fishing-skiff cutting its smooth waters. The sun was just sinking as I enjoyed this sight. The lake gleamed rosy red, the hills the same, and the sea was full of the evening splendour, with a single ship gliding across. The repose of a grand natural scene calms the soul. To the left I saw the cloister of San Antonio, among olive-trees and cypresses; two priests sat in the porch, and some black-veiled nuns were coming out of the church. I remembered a picture I had once seen of evening in Sicily, and found it here reproduced.

Descending to the highway, I came to a road which leads to Cervione; herdsmen were driving home their goats, riders on little red horses flew past me, wild fellows with bronzed faces, all with the Phrygian cap on their heads, the dark brown Corsican jacket of sheeps'-wool hanging loosely about them, double-barrels slung upon their backs. I often saw them riding double on their little animals: frequently a man with a woman behind him, and if the sun was hot they were always holding a large umbrella above them. The parasol is here indispensable; I frequently saw both men and women-the women clothed, the men naked-sitting at their ease in the shallow water near the shore, and holding the broad parasol above their heads, evidently enjoying themselves mightily. The women here ride like the men, and manage their horses very cleverly. The men have always the zucca or round gourd-bottle slung behind them; often, too, a pouch of goatskin, zaino, and round their middle is girt the carchera-a leathern belt which holds their cartridges.

Before me walked numbers of men returning from labour in the fields; I joined them, and learned that they were not Corsicans, but Italians from the Continent. More than five thousand labourers come every year from Italy, particularly from Leghorn, and the country about Lucca and Piombino, to execute the field labour for the lazy Corsicans. Up to the present day the Corsicans have maintained a well-founded reputation for indolence, and in this they are thoroughly unlike other brave mountaineers, as, for example, the Samnites. All these foreign workmen go under the common appellation of Lucchesi. I have been able personally to convince myself with what utter contempt these poor and industrious men are looked on by the Corsicans, because they have left their home to work in the sweat of their brow, exposed to a pestilential atmosphere, in order to bring their little earnings to their families. I frequently heard the word "Lucchese" used as an opprobrious epithet; and particularly among the mountains of the interior is all field-work held in detestation as unworthy of a freeman; the Corsican is a herdsman, as his forefathers have been from time immemorial; he contents himself with his goats, his repast of chestnuts, a fresh draught from the spring, and what his gun can bring down.

I learned at the same time that there were at present in Corsica great numbers of Italian democrats, who had fled to the island on the failure of the revolution. There were during the summer about one hundred and fifty of them scattered over the island, men of all ranks; most of them lived in Bastia. I had opportunities of becoming acquainted with the most respectable of these refugees, and of accompanying them on their walks. They formed a company as motley as political Italy herself-Lombards, Venetians, Neapolitans, Romans, and Florentines. I experienced the fact that in a country where there is little cultivated society, Italians and Germans immediately exercise a mutual attraction, and have on neutral ground a brotherly feeling for each other. There was a universality in the events and results of the year 1848, which broke down many limitations, and produced certain views of life and certain theories within which individuals, to whatever nationalities they may belong, feel themselves related and at home. I found among these exiles in Corsica men and youths of all classes, such as are to be met with in similar companies at home-enthusiastic and sanguine spirits; others again, men of practical experience, sound principle, and clear intellect.

The world is at present full of the political fugitives of European nations; they are especially scattered over the islands, which have long been, and are in their nature destined to be, used as asylums. There are many exiles in the Ionian Islands and in the islands of Greece, many in Sardinia and Corsica, many in the islands of the English Channel, most of all in Britain. It is a general and European lot which has fallen to these exiles-only the locality is different; and banishment itself, as a result of political crime, or political misfortune, is as old as the history of organized states. I remembered well how in former times the islands of the Mediterranean-Samos, Delos, ?gina, Corcyra, Lesbos, Rhodes-sheltered the political refugees of Greece, as often as revolution drove them from Athens or Thebes, or Corinth or Sparta. I thought of the many exiles whom Rome sent to the islands in the time of the Emperors, as Agrippa Posthumus to Planasia, the philosopher Seneca to Corsica itself. Corsica particularly has been at all times not only a place of refuge, but a place of banishment; in the strictest sense of the word, therefore, an island of bandits, and this it still is at the present day. The avengers of blood wander homeless in the mountains, the political fugitives dwell homeless in the towns. The ban of outlawry rests upon both, and if the law could reach them, their fate would be the prison, if not death.

Corsica, in receiving these poor banished Italians, does more than simply practise her cherished religion of hospitality, she discharges a debt of gratitude. For in earlier centuries Corsican refugees found the most hospitable reception in all parts of Italy; and banished Corsicans were to be met with in Rome, in Florence, in Venice, and in Naples. The French government has hitherto treated its guests on the island with liberality and tolerance. The remote seclusion of their position compels these exiles to a life of contemplative quiet; and they are, perhaps precisely on this account, more fortunate than their brethren in misfortune in Jersey or London.

* * *