CHAPTER VI.

THE TOWN OF BONIFAZIO.

AT eight o'clock in the morning I set off on my drive from Sartene to Bonifazio, the most southern town and fortress in Corsica, I traversed a desolate coast region, where the mountains gradually sink down to the sea. There is not a place on the whole road, and I should have half perished of hunger and thirst if my travelling companion had not taken bread and wine with him. Who ne'er his bread with rapture ate, or o'er the wine-cup 'neath an olive sate, he knows ye not, ye heavenly powers!

We passed through the Ortoli valley-barren hills every where, and no fruit. The olive ceases, and only shrubby cork-trees and strawberry-trees now cover the land. We approached the perfectly barren southern coast. Not far from the mouth of the Ortoli stands a solitary post-house, and opposite it a ledge of rock, on which the tower of Roccapina stands. An oddly shaped block of stone rises near it on the sharp edge of rock. It bears a striking resemblance to a colossal crowned lion, and the common people call it il leone coronato. Upon this coast, the first occupied by Genoa when she wrested Corsica from the Pisans, this extraordinary rock looks like a monument, or like the arms of the Republic herself

From this eminence I first perceived the coasts and mountains of Sardinia afar off over the sea, but not very distant. There is a glorious distant view. The sight of a strange land suddenly unfolding itself to the eye, and displaying, here only its outlines, there objects full of character, arouses the most agreeable sensations of expectation, longing desire, and uncertainty. These sensations most recall the fabulous fancies of childhood.-It is

quite an island. So I stood a long time on one of the barren masses of rock, in a high wind and the heat of noon, looking longingly over the straits at the twin sister of Corsica. She was completely enwrapped in the most ethereal blue veil, and the waves excited by the maestrale foamed around her with white surge.

After a two hours' rest we proceeded along the coast, which

is interrupted by arms of the sea, and melancholy. Small rivers creep through morasses into the sea, upon the coast-cliffs of which grey towers hold guard. The air is foul and unhealthy. I saw a few small hamlets on the side of the hill, and was told that they were empty, for that the inmates do not return to them from the mountains till the month of September.

The sea here forms two small gulfs, that of Figari and that of Ventilegne. They resemble fiords, and their coasts are frequently of the oddest conformation, rising like rows of ashengrey obelisks.

Crossing the last point of land in Corsica towards the southwest, namely Santa Trinita, the tongue which ends in Capo di Feno, the white chalk cliffs of Bonifazio then come into view, and this most southern and most original town of the island itself, snow-white like the coast, placed high up on the rocks;—a surprising prospect in the midst of the wide and depressing solitude.

The coast-land round about is stony and bushy. One drives however for half an hour amongst olive-groves and orchards up to the town, and is astonished to find such fertility, which man, here compelled to industry, has forced from the chalky soil. The district of Bonifazio produces an abundance of olives, which are said not to yield in goodness to those of the Balagna. The traveller now drives downhill between chalk-cliffs to the marina of Bonifazio, which extends along the gulf. Into the town itself he can come only on foot or on horseback; for he has to climb up the steep chalk-cliff on a broad path cut into steps. Passing over two drawbridges and two old gates, he then enters Bonifazio. The whole town is within the fortress, on the plateau of the rock.

Bonifazio hails the wanderer with a welcome greeting as he enters through the gloomy old gate: for upon one of its towers parades the great word Liberty. I have often read it upon towers and town-halls in Italy as the most pitiable irony upon their present state, and upon many a banner has this word paraded; but here it makes a proud figure upon the old tower, which has such brilliant deeds of arms to tell of; and thus I entered the town with the joyous sensation of coming among brave and free men. For even at the present day the Bonifazines have the reputation of being the most republican, as well as the most laborious and religious inhabitants of Corsica.

The situation of Bonifazio is most remarkable. Fancy a whitish colossal rock-pyramid with horizontal strata, inverted with the base upwards, set down by the seaside, and upon the

base fortress, towers, and town high up in the air, and you will have a picture of this Corsican Gibraltar. The façade of the rock is moreover excavated into huge caverns. The rock is connected with the land; on two sides it is lashed by the surges of the straits, on the third it is washed by a narrow arm of the sea, which forms gulf, harbour, and fortifying moat at the same time, and is enclosed by most precipitous, indeed inaccessible, hills. The force of the water has crumbled away the shores all round, and produced the most grotesque forms. Seen from below, that is, from the sea, which in many places has no edging of shore at all, from the rock sinking quite precipitously into the waves, this rock is most awe-inspiring. I descended and looked up it: the waves broke in surges, and clouds were driving across the sky, and it seemed as if the rock were tottering and would fall down upon me-an illusion which is the more natural because a part of its base has actually been torn off, and the chalk strata blackened by the storms are here and there exposed freely to the air. When I saw Bonifazio, I well understood that Alfonso of Arragon could not take the town.

It numbers 3380 inhabitants, comprising no communes in its insular position. Its houses are of Pisan and Genoese origin. Old and worn out as they are, they are more like ruins than dwellings, The rocks upon which they stand generally furnish their building-materials. They are all white, and the city-walls and short towers being also white, there is enough of this contrast to the Corsican national colour. It would be hard for me to give a clear picture of the town itself; for the medley of narrow lanes cannot possibly be described, in which draughts or the sea-breeze are always whirling the dust about, and in which one strays now uphill, now downhill, in astonishment at the novelty of the situation, where the eye, wherever it finds an outlet into the open world, discovers the sea deep below, not less blue than the heaven above. Beams are often thrown across from one house to another, and there are frequently dark passages leading from one narrow lane into another.

The wind whistles and the sea-waves are surging: one feels ill at ease. The feeling of space, a most beneficial one to the soul, is here banished. The solitary sentinel on the round tower there paces up and down, quite surrounded by a whirl of chalk-dust I will try to find a piazza, to come among men again. But there is no piazza: the want of room allows of no such extension; but the main street is here curiously called the

Piazza Doria, for the Bonifazines must have felt the necessity of having a square or forum, without which a town is like a house without assembling-rooms. So they called the main street their square. The want of extent compelled them to build the houses high; and, from the want of depth, the staircases are exceedingly steep. On many houses I saw the arms of Genoa, the crowned lion rampant holding a ring in his claws. This old token rouses proud reminiscences, as does the name Doria, which has preserved itself here alive, there being still in Bonifazio a family called Doria, or more correctly d'Oria. This is the proper form of the name of the celebrated Genoese lords, who were of the great family of Oria. The Corsicans hated Genoa with a mortal hatred; whenever I spoke to them of the old republic, I found the same rooted hate. All the misery that has befallen Corsica -its moral as well as its physical wilderness-they ascribe to the Genoese. But with the Bonifazines Genoa stands in the best possible odour; and this is intelligible from their history.

It is not agreed what the tract upon which the modern Bonifazio is built was called in antiquity. It is held to be either the ancient Syracusanus Portus, or the ancient town of Pallae, which is the last enumerated by the Itinerary of Antoninus in his list of the Corsican stations. Bonifazio itself was founded by the Tuscan marquis whose name it bears; and we know that he planned it in the year 833, after a naval victory over the Saracens, to oppose a dam to their piratical incursions, as they were wont to land from Spain, Africa, and Sardinia, on this side of the island. Of the fortifications erected by the marquis, the great old tower called Torrione, is still standing. Three other towers besides are erected upon the rock: Bonifazio carries them all in its armorial bearings. The town, as well as the island, subsequently came under the Pisans; but the Genoese deprived them of Bonifazio as early as the year 1193. It was during a wedding that they assembled and gained the city. They treated it with great liberality, gave it very free statutes, and allowed it to subsist as a republic under their protectorate. In the Red Book of Bonifazio, the instrument is preserved which Brancaleone d'Oria, the procurator of Genoa, signed on the 11th February 1321, and solemnly swore to upon the Testament. By this instrument perfect free trade with Genoese ports without imposts, was secured to the Bonifazines; furthermore, the privilege of governing themselves. They elected their elders, called Anziani, in their popular assembly; to their tlecrees the Genoese podestà,

who was annually sent to the town as syndic or commissioner, was to conform. He could not impose any tax or make any innovation without the will of the Anziani; and he was not competent to hold in arrest any citizen of Bonifazio who could offer bail, except a murderer, thief, or traitor. When a new podestà came to Bonifazio, the possession of the town could not be granted him till he had solemnly sworn an oath upon the sacraments, to observe inviolably all the treaties and statutes of Bonifazio. This instrument is subscribed, "Per Brancaleonem de Oria, et per Universitatem Bonifatii, in publico Parlamento" -" by Brancaleone d'Oria, and the entire community of Bonifazio, in public parliament assembled." This sounds sufficiently pompous for a little town which had then no more than 1000 inhabitants.

Thus these brave people gained for themselves freedom without stint, which they found means upon their rock to preserve for many centuries.

The Genoese honoured the Bonifazines in every possible way. If one of their ships came to Genoa and declared its native port, they used to ask, "Are you from the territory of Bonifazio, or from Bonifazio proprio?" Hence the popular saying has been derived, which may still be heard, "He is a Bonifazino proprio." Many Genoese nobles and citizens, glad of such immunities and privileges, removed from their glorious city to this rock, and Bonifazio thus became in language, manners, and sentiments, a Genoese colony. This may be seen at the present day, not only in the old armorial bearings, but in the people themselves.

Like Calvi, Bonifazio always kept faith inviolably with the Genoese. These two towns occupy, in virtue of these sentiments, a peculiar historical position; and it is remarkable to find, on the terrible ocean of Corsican hatred, two little islands, as it were, in which the tyrannical Genoa was loved. Let us not be hard upon the manly Genoese, and envy them this advantage: their old and sinful, yet ever great and glorious Republic, has long paid its debt to history, and no longer exists.

A Bonifazine, Murzolaccio, wrote a small separate history of his town in the year 1625. It was published at Bologna, and is extremely rare. I have not been able to beat up a copy, which I regret, because I grew so attached to Bonifazio. But I will here relate the memorable siege of the town by Alfonso of Arragon, according to Peter Cyrnæus; for the heroism of the Bonifazines well deserves to live in the memory of man beside