CHAPTER VI.

FROM CORTE TO AJACCIO.

THE road from Corte to Ajaccio rises for many miles as you go southwards, till you come to the mountain Monte d'Oro. It leads through a cheerful and well-cultivated undulating country, and glorious chestnut groves. Nothing can be brighter

and more cheerful than the landscapes of the canton of Serraggio, which was the former pieve of Venaco. Brooks flowing from Monte Rotondo traverse a lovely green country, on the hills of which villages are situated, such as Pietro, Casa Nova, Riventosa, and Poggio.

Poggio di Venaco preserves the memory of the handsome Arrigo Colonna, who was Count of Corsica in the tenth century. One picks up in passing many a charming picture connected with some romantic tale, and this is always one of the great pleasures of travel. Arrigo was so handsome in form, and so fascinating in manners, that he was called the Bel Messere; under this appellation he still lives in the mouth of the people. His wife, too, was noble and beautiful, and his seven children were all young and lovely. But his enemies wished to deprive him of his supremacy, and a ruthless Sardinian conspired with them against his life. The murderers fell upon him one day, and assassinated him, and threw his seven children into the little lake" of the seven bowls." Now, when the fell deed was done, there arose a voice in the air, which cried plaintively, "Bel Messere is dead! Miserable Corsica, hope for no prosperity again!" All people began to grieve for Bel Messere. But his widow took up sword and spear, and marched with her vassals to the castle of Tralavedo, to which the murderers had retired, burned it down, and killed them all. On the green hills of Venaco nine ghosts are still often seen wandering by night; these are the ghosts of Bel Messere, his wife, and the seven poor children.

It was Sunday. The people were strolling about in the villages, and generally sitting round the church, like their fathers in the days of old-a beautiful picture on a quiet Sunday, people celebrating the holy day, and keeping the Lord's peace. But

even on Sunday, and before the church-door, a gunshot may be heard, and then the scene is changed,

Near Vivario, the country becomes wilder, and the mountains more considerable. Many a one pauses before the threshold of the little church of Vivario to remark a gravestone, on which is written in Latin the biblical verse, MALEDICTUS QUI PERCUSSERIT CLAM PROXIMUM SUUM, ET DICET OMNIS POPULUS, AMEN. (Cursed be he that smiteth his neighbour secretly. And all the people shall say, Amen.-Deut. xxvii. 24.) The stone tells a story of revenge from the seventeenth century; beneath it the avenger lies buried. Blessed be the memory of the priest of Vivario, who took this saying from the Bible and wrote it on the stone! They say it is the talisman of Vivario ; for it commemorates the last case of blood-revenge in the village. Would that the hand that wrote it had been a giant's hand, and had written in giant letters over the whole of Corsica, Maledictus qui percusserit clam proximum suum, et dicet omnis populus, Amen!

There is a small guard-house, with a garrison of ten men, in a wild and lonely situation in the mountains of Vivario. The great valley of the Tavignano closes in here, and an elevated ridge forms the water-shed between it and the Gravone, which flows in the opposite direction, south-west to Ajaccio. On the confines of the two valleys are the two snow-covered mountains, the Monte Renoso and the Monte d'Oro, the latter of which is only a few metres lower than Monte Rotondo, and superior to it in the grandeur of its forms. One keeps the mountain in sight in front for many hours.

One next passes through the glorious forest of Vizzavona, between the two mountains. This consists chiefly of larches (Pinus larix), which often attain a height of 120 feet, and a thickness of 21. Among all the pine tribe this mighty, broad-branching, fragrant larch is surely next to the cedar in grandeur; not having seen the cedars of Asia, I may at least affirm the Corsican larches to be the finest of all the trees that I have ever seen. It was always an enchanting sight to me, to see it in its dark and silent majesty on the immense granite crags of those mountains. It well suits this royal tree to grow on granite : it rises high above the rocks, which are forcibly penetrated by its roots, and it stands gloriously and majestically in many places known only to the eagle or the wild sheep. There are in the forest, also, beautiful pines, red beeches, evergreen oaks (ilex), and firs. There is plenty of game concealed there, especially deer, which

are small in Corsica; the wild-boar is found more towards the coast, where he is eagerly hunted.

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The forest of Vizzavona is the second in size, and comes next to that of Aitone in the canton of Evisa, which belongs to Ajaccio. All these forests are in mountainous regions: belong to the state, but most to the communes. Here, too, great treasures are yet to be found. I saw a snake on the road, basking in the sun. Corsica possesses only two kinds of snakes, and no venomous animals, with the exception of a spider, called Malmignatto, whose bite brings on a sudden numbness of the body, and occasionally even death, and the venomous ant, Innafantato.

It was about noon that I passed the forest. The air was stiflingly hot, but the wood offered its cool and refreshing streams, which trickle down on every side towards the Gravone. Seneca can never have tasted Corsican mountain streams, since says in his epigram that Corsica possesses no draught of water. At length we reached the mountain ridge which forms the highest point on the road to Ajaccio, 3500 feet above the sea. This is the Foce of Vizzavona, which is mentioned in many a Corsican ballad.

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The road now descends into the Gravone valley. This fruitful valley is formed by two chains of mountains, the northern issuing from Monte d'Oro, and ending in the Punta della Parata above Ajaccio, and parting the water system of the Gravone from that of the Liamone; the southern running in a parallel direction from Monte Renoso, and separating the valley of the Gravone from that of Prunelli. On both sides of the Gravone are hamlets on the hills, which look more cheerful than I have found them elsewhere in Corsica.

The first place in the canton is Bocognano, which is near the entrance of the wild defile of Vizzavona. It is surrounded by dark mountains covered with wood, and having snow-clad summits, and the whole district bears a solemn grandiose character. It is inhabited by poor herdsmen, a strong and brave population. Those who do not feed on milk, live on chestnuts. Many manufacture the pelone. Arms are here universal. The appearance of such strong men with their double-barrelled guns, their carchera and brown woollen coats, is quite in keeping with the gloomy Alpine mountains and pine forests all around. These Corsicans look iron, like the fucili they carry. The people seemed to me here to have remained stationary, and to have rusted since the dreary middle-ages.

The road constantly descends towards Ajaccio. At last we saw the magnificent bay. It was five o'clock in the afternoon when we approached the town. The more richly planted hills, vineyards, and olive grounds, and a fruitful plain called the Campoloro, in which the Gravone valley terminates near the bay, announced the capital of Corsica; which showed itself at length as a row of white houses running out into the bay, at the foot of a chain of hills, and surrounded by rural cottages. An avenue of elm-trees leads along the bay into the town and so I entered with joyful emotion the small native place of the man who shook the world.

TRAVELS.BOOK VI.

CHAPTER I.

AJACCIO.

AJACCIO lies at the northern end of a gulf which is reckoned among the finest in the world. Its two coast-lines are of unequal length: the northern one is shorter, and runs on in a westerly direction as far as the Punta della Parata, a point of land, opposite which are the Isole Sanguinarie, or Bloody Islands: the southern side of the gulf trends from north to south with many curves, as far as Cape Muro, sailing round which you come into the bay of Valinco.

One sees on the northern coast no villages, and on the southern but few, and several solitary towers and fanali. The northern end of the gulf is frowned upon by several high mountains, one of which is Pozzo di Borgo; they are the mountains that confine the Gravone valley, which terminates in the fruitful plain of Campo di Loro. The situation of Ajaccio bears a surprising analogy to that of Naples.

They say that Ajaccio is one of the oldest towns in Corsica. The fabling chroniclers of the island derive it from the hero Ajax; others from Ajazzo, the son of the Trojan prince Corso, who wandered with Eneas to the western sea, carried off Sica, a niece of Dido, and thus gave the island the name of Corsica. According to the statement of Ptolemy, the ancient town of Urcinium, which is said to be the Adjacium of the earliest part of the middle ages, lay on the gulf of Ajaccio; and this town is always coupled with the oldest towns of the island, Aleria, Mariana, Nebium, and Sagona, which are decayed.

But ancient Ajaccio stood not on the site of the modern town, but on a more northern hill on the gulf, called San Giovanni.