more ado, and then they suffered me to return unharmed. they are all dead."

Now

The road from Isola Rossa to Calvi leads along the coast all the way. On the mountains are seen many ruins of places destroyed by the Saracens, and above Monticello are situated also the ruins of a castle of the celebrated Giudice della Rocca, the Pisan lieutenant. This just judge of his people still lives in the memory of the Corsicans. They say he was just even to beasts. One day he heard the lambs of a flock in the Balagna bleating piteously; he asked the shepherds what was the matter with the lambs, and they confessed that they were bleating with hunger because the milk had been taken from the ewes; so Giudice commanded, that in future the ewes should not be milked till the lambs had been satisfied with drink.

I came first through Algajola, an old place by the sea, now quite decayed, and numbering scarcely 200 inhabitants. Many houses stand in ruins and uninhabited, battered by the shells of the English; for they have been allowed to stand as ruins till the present day in the state that the war reduced them to sixty years ago a sad and palpable witness of the condition of Corsica. Even the inhabited houses are like blackened ruins. A good-natured old man, whom Napoleon's wars had once taken as far as Berlin, showed me the wonders of Algajola, and called a great pile of stones the palazzo della communità. In the time of the Genoese, Algajola was the central place of the Balagna; and being so situated that the inhabitants of every village in the Balagna could go thither and back home again in a day, the Genoese raised it to be the seat of one of the lieutenants of the island, and fortified it.

The greatest distinction of Algajola is the popular legend of two true lovers, Chiarina and Tamante. Tamante was condemned to death by the French, but his lady-love armed herself, and with the help of her friends delivered him from execution. The people every where honour the noble deeds of love, and immortalise them as legends: the story of Chiarina and Tamante is popular all over Italy, and I have seen loose leaves of it even in Rome.

Near the sea, at Algajola, a magnificent blue-greyish granite is quarried. I saw a column lying in the quarry which would do honour to an Indian or Egyptian temple, sixty feet long and twelve in diameter. It has lain for years on the field, forgotten and weather-beaten, and noticed only by the wanderer who sits

down upon it, or the eagle who perches upon it. Originally intended for a monument to Napoleon at Ajaccio, it was left lying here because they could not raise funds sufficient for its transport. It will now probably be conveyed to Paris. Of the same splendid granite is the huge block that supports the Vendome column at Paris. With what fair pride, then, may the Corsican stand before that Austerlitz column, look down upon the French and say to them, "My country produced both, the great man up there, and the splendid granite he stands upon."

I now passed Lumio, an elevated paese, whose black-brown tower-like houses were not at a distance to be distinguished from the rocks. The green Venetian-shutters indicate, here and there, the abode of a man of rank. The descendants of the old Signori still live in all these villages; and men of the proudest names, and untold ancestors, live in the dingy Corsican paeses, in the midst of the people, and in company with them. Perhaps there is nowhere in the world such democratic uniformity of life as on this island, where differences of rank are scarcely perceptible, and the peasant associates with his master as a free man, as I have often witnessed. Above Calvi, in this district, lives Peter Napoleon, the son of Lucian, and the only Bonaparte who remained in his native island. The Balagnese are very fond of him, and praise him for being a good shot, for often mixing with the shepherds, and for having never forgotten that his ancestors were Corsicans. The election of Louis Napoleon naturally fills the Corsicans with pride and joy; I found his portrait every where, and heard his energy praised as Corsican energy. Some farther-seeing persons were not quite so prejudiced by their patriotism, and I heard, even from Corsican lips, the opinion expressed, that the Napoleons were tyrants, indeed the last tyrannizers over freedom.

Lumio possesses many orange orchards, and an astonishing number of cactus hedges, which I only found besides in Ajaccio in such profusion. The cactus here grows to the size of a tree. The view from the hills of Lumio, down to the valley and gulf of Calvi, is beautiful. Calvi lies on a tongue of land, at the foot of the mountains of Calenzana. With its dark-coloured flatroofed houses, two domes rising high above the houses, and the walls of the fort, which stands at the extreme point of the tongue of land, its bears a striking resemblance to a Moorish town.

Calvi is the capital of the smallest Corsican arrondissement, which has about 25,000 inhabitants, divided among six cantons and thirty-four communes, and comprises nearly the whole north

western part of the island. Of this mountain and coast-land, not the half is cultivated; for the large coast-strip of Galeria is utterly waste, and only the Balagna is in good cultivation, and the most numerously peopled.

The little town of Calvi, now numbering about 1680 inhabitants, owes its origin to Giovanninello, Lord of Nebbio, the bitter enemy of Giudice della Rocca, and the adherent of Genoa. The town then gave itself to Genoa, and always remained faithful to that republic. The citizens of Calvi, like those of Bonifazio, received many privileges and immunities. In Filippini's time the town numbered 400 hearths, and he calls it a chief town, as well for its antiquity as for the beauty of the houses, to which he adds, "relatively to the capacity of the country." The Bank of Genoa, he says, built the fortress, and it cost, in the opinion of some, 1850 scudi.

Calvi is placed on the tongue of land in which one of the mountain ranges ends, which encircle the great valley around the gulf. These mountains consist of granite and porphyry; they are bare, and form an imposing amphitheatre. Olives and vines thrive on their declivities, and their feet are covered by yew and various shrubs, myrtles, albatro, and tinus, from the blossoms of which last the bee sucks her honey. From this comes the bitterness of the Corsican honey, of which even Ovid and Virgil knew. Calenzana is especially rich in honey. A stream traverses this valley, and forms a morass with dangerous exhalations in the neighbourhood of Calvi, called la vigna del vescovo, the Bishop's vineyard. Of the origin of this morass one of those capital stories is told that delight the traveller in Corsica. The Bishop of Sagona, then, removed to Calvi, where he had a beautiful vineyard, and fell in love with a girl. In the vineyard he confessed to the fair one his love, and conjured her to reciprocate it; then he caressed her, and covered her with kisses, and was as one bewitched. The girl, seeing the episcopal signet ring on the holy man's finger, said laughing, “Aha! what a fine thing a bishop's ring is! I will love you for this ring." The bishop heaved a deep sigh; but his passion burned, and he drew the sacred ring from his finger, and put it on the fair maid's finger, that she might be gracious towards him. But no sooner did she grant him the favour of an embrace, than the ring sprang off her finger, fell to the ground, and was not any where to be found. On the following day the bishop went again to his vineyard, to look for the ring; but, lo and behold! there was no vineyard any more; it was gone, and in its place there was a morass.

CHAPTER V.

CALVI AND ITS MEN.

THE marsh air of the Borgo, or small suburb of Calvi, makes it unhealthy: the air is better above, in the fortress which surrounds the town properly so called. I went up to this old Genoese citadel, the strongest in Corsica after Bonifazio. Over the gates I read the words, CIVITAS CALVIS SEMPER FIDELIS. Ever faithful Calvi was to the Genoese. Faithfulness is always fine when it is not slavish; and Calvi was a Genoese colony. That declaration of faithfulness has become historical in more than one case. When the republican general Casabianca had to capitulate in the year 1794, after the heroic defence of Calvi against the English, it was one of the articles of capitulation, that the old inscription above the gate should not be touched. Faithfully has the condition been observed, as may be read above the gate. Only on one point are Genoa and the ever faithful Calvi at odds. The Calvese maintain that Columbus was born at Calvi; that his family, though undoubtedly Genoese, had long ago settled there. A dispute actually arose about this birthright, as of yore seven cities contended for Homer's cradle. They assert that Genoa took possession of the family registers of the Colombos of Calvi, and rebaptized one of the streets of the town, called Colombo Street, as the street del filo! I find also a record, that the inhabitants of Calvi were the first Corsicans who sailed to America. I was also told that the name Colombo still exists in Calvi. Even modern Corsican writers claim the great discoverer as their countrymen; and Napoleon, during his residence in Elba, was thinking of having historical researches undertaken upon this question. Suppose we let the dispute rest upon its own evidence. Columbus calls himself in his will a born Genoese. The world might be envious if, besides Napoleon, fate had given to little Corsica a greater than Napoleon.

Many brave men have adorned Calvi, and when one beholds the little town enclosed by the fortress, and sees what a mere heap of blackened and riddled ruins the English shells have reduced it to, one may read in this chronicle of desolation the

history of ancient heroes. An extraordinary sight this—a town bombarded almost a hundred years ago, and still lying in ruins. Here in Corsica time seems to have stood still. An iron hand has held fast the past, with its old popular usages, the dirges of the Etruscans, the family feuds of the middle ages, the barbarity of blood-revenge, the simplicity of the life of old, and the heroism of old: and as the people live in hoary ruins of towns, so they still live in hoary conditions of life, that have become fabulous to the men of civilisation.

In the principal church of Calvi, the Moorish dome of which is riddled by the English balls, they show the graves of a family that bears the most precious and envied name in the world— Liberty, Libertà. It is the ancient heroic family of Baglioni that bears this title. In the year 1400, when some aristocrats at Calvi set up for tyrants over the town, and were preparing to deliver it over to the Arragonese, a young man, Baglioni, roused himself, and with his friends fell upon the tyrants in the citadel, as Pelopidas fell upon the tyrants of Thebes, put them to the sword, and called the people to liberty. From his cry Libertà! Libertà! is derived the title given him by the grateful people, and borne thenceforward by his family. Among Baglioni's descendants were three heroic brothers, Piero Libertà, Antonio, and Bartolommeo, who were settled at Marseille. This town was in the hands of the Ligue, and alone defied Henry IV. after he had entered Paris and received the homage of the Guises. Casaux, the consul of the Ligue, was the tyrant of Marseille; he designed to deliver the place into the hands of Andrea Doria, who commanded the Spanish fleet. Then Piero Libertà conspired with his brothers and other bold men of Marseille to rescue the town. He took them all into his house, and as soon as they had laid their plan, they advanced boldly to its execution. They forced their way into the castle of Marseille, and Piero Libertà with his own hand drove a lance through the throat of the consul Casaux; and having cut down or disarmed all the soldiers on guard, he closed the gates of the castle, and rushed into the town with his bloody sword in his hand, crying Libertà! Libertà! The people rose at this cry and took up arms; and then they stormed the towers and redoubts of Marseille and delivered the town. The Duke of Guise then entered Marseille in the name of Henry IV.; and the latter wrote an honourable letter to Piero Libertà, dated from the camp at Rosny, March 6, 1596. He made him supreme judge of Marseille, Captain