I.
An atmosphere as invisible as that of Egypt, a sea of the clearest amethyst and emerald, merging into sapphire in the distance, and jealously guarded by a series of frowning headlands, now grey, now black, now red, with heart and veins of iron, that enclose miniature beaches and mysterious grottos where the water sleeps peacefully in the arms of its lord; and within, a sea of vines embracing the feet of mountains clothed with pines, with lentisks that have watched the passage of centuries, with bushes of white heather taller than a tall man, with glaucous agaves, rigid and puritanical, with prickly pears, fantastic and repellent; the very air of a voluptuous quality: soft, velvety even, with the mingled odours of an infinite number of aromatic plants and herbs, sweet with the white amaryllis that fringes the sea. Such, in broad outlines, is the island for which Etruscans, Romans, Genoese, Pisans, Saracens, Spanish, French and English have fought, in which Victor Hugo was nursed into life, in which Napoleon was caged; a land of wine and iron, glowing with strength and passion.
A land of perfect peace and infinite possibilities does this island seem as one drifts along the coast, watching the fish dart below the keel of the boat, rounding the islets that look as though they had skipped from the mainland in play and were intent on their own reflection in the water; as one swims into grottos purple-roofed, over water of the purest aquamarine, and looks through the narrow opening across the twinkling sea outside; or, as one walks through miles of vineyard in which grow the choicest grapes, or climbs up to the iron quarries, where the mountain is being simply dug away.
Yet, the deepest impression made on the mind of a visitor to Elba is not so much that of the future prosperity of the island, for all its resources, as of its past importance. Almost every peak bears its ruined castle; headland after headland was fortified in the Middle Ages by Powers jealously tenacious of their rights; the iron quarries, now comparatively little known, were worked unremittingly by the ancients, witness Virgil’s well-known line:
“Insula inexhaustis Chalybum generosa metallis;”
and witness the iron slag that proves the existence in Roman times of furnaces for refining the ore; the very wine, delicious as it is, is no longer the great source of wealth it was some years ago, partly on account of the phylloxera which has lessened the production, partly because the customs-war between Italy and France stopped its export to the country which afforded the most profitable market, partly for the reason that the peasants are primitive enough to insist on selling the unadulterated juice of the grape to a public that prefers manufactured wines.
All this adds to the sense of repose; the past is so long past, the future seems still so far off. And meanwhile the peasants and the small proprietors prune their vines and shell their almonds, and use their old-fashioned lamps, and dance barefoot on festas to the music of a concertina, either at their own houses or at the palazzo of a neighbouring large proprietor. They give each other nicknames, which gradually supplant the surnames, descending from father to son after the fashion of primitive times. Thus a man who thought a good deal of himself was called il Papa (the Pope), whereupon his sons and sons’ sons are called Papini (little Popes); a man noted for his patience was called Giobbe (Job) and his children are known as Giobbetti; a man who once wore a coat that was too long for him has ever since been called the Doctor; another from a bad stroke at bowls rejoices in the name of Scatterer (il Baracone), and one who should now call him John would be scarcely understood. They intermarry largely. They troop from all parts of the island on donkeys and diminutive horses to the festas of the various miraculous Madonnas, not omitting to go down to the nearest beach on the eve of a festa and wash according to traditional custom. They preserve local differences and hostilities that tell of difficult intercommunication: thus a Lacona man will tell you that the men of Capoliveri,[10] whose township he can see perched on a hill to the east, are “danniferi; what they have with their eyes they must also have with their hands,” he adds, as he picks up a bunch of unripe grapes, wantonly broken off and thrown away. No one but a Capoliveri man would commit damage of that sort.
The earliest among the buildings that tell of the past importance of the island is the Castle of Volterraio. A ride along the hills overhanging the gulf of Portoferraio brings us to the foot of the precipice on which it stands, rising, with the sheer rocks that form part of the building, out of a tangled mass of low growth, from which, every now and again springs a graceful wild olive. By only one path is the place accessible. Path is a courtesy title. The way up is a scramble, often on hands and feet, up smooth, slippery, slanting masses of jasper rock in whose crevices flourish rounded, hedgehog-like cushions of the most cross-grained thorns. Ten minutes’ climb brings us to an ancient wall with a gap, where was once a gate, and a strongly built, vaulted guard-house. Up again, over short grass this time, and we come to the low, narrow doorway at the top of a steep flight of steps sheer down on one side, without any trace of railing. At the bottom of the steps a hole in the ground gives evidence that an upright there supported a further defence of some sort. Inside, where armed men fought, a couple of fig-trees flourish greatly, and the ground is a series of heaps of grass-covered débris that sound strangely hollow as one stamps on them. The sentinel’s round within the castellation of the walls is still intact. At some little distance on each side of the tower, which forms the south-eastern corner, it stops short, and deep holes for uprights in the parapet show clearly that a drawbridge on each side enabled the defenders to isolate the tower and fight to the last gasp. At one place it widens out. A number of men could make a stand there; the inner wall is pierced with many loopholes, and these all converge on one place: the steps leading up to the wall, and the well at the bottom of them. One can creep too, into a number of dungeon-like recesses in the walls, or clamber through a hole down a steeply inclined ledge of rock to a little underground chamber having a recess like a rough bed on one side, lighted by a hole in the rock that forms the roof, and another in that which looks over the gulf. A small opening, defended by an outwork, puts this underground cell into communication with the outer world; but the outwork is evidently a comparatively late structure.
All this is absolutely lonely, save for a few goats that now and again make their way up, and the falcon that screams and wheels overhead. Once it was the storehouse of the Etruscans of Volterra, who, drawing iron, copper[11] and other minerals from the island, built the Volterraio as a defence for themselves and their treasures in case of sudden assault. It has stood many sieges, has heard the oaths of many nations in Roman and Mediæval times and is now falling to decay; for Turks and Saracens roam the seas no more, and the island it helped so long to guard has become part of a united peaceful kingdom.
Quite the most curious proofs of the ancient importance of the island are to be found between the little villages, of S. Ilario and St. Piero di Campo, overlooking the southern coast. We are in a granite country from which the stone is exported for sculptural and architectural purposes. No need of quarries to obtain it, though; it lies scattered over hill and valley in huge blocks, as though some prehistoric giant had dumped cart-load after cart-load with the idea of raising some enormous building, but had been cut off by a god in the midst of his operations. They have a certain defiant air about them, still, those masses of granite. They shrug a shoulder at you from under the houses, they poke out a rounded back in the very middle of the church wall, they lie across your path in winking, slippery masses, nourishing thorns in their bosoms on to which you may fall, and then, if you look up suddenly, you may see one that has climbed on to the shoulders of his brethren and with feathered cap stuck awry, and big empty eye-sockets, is grinning down at you with unholy, sardonic mirth. Every little fold in the hillside, shut in strangely from the outside world, has its chestnut grove and its running stream; but even here there is something uncanny, and no peasant will put his lips to that water without making the sign of the cross above it; he fears he may become possessed by the spirits that haunt it. It is curious, however, that if he takes the water in a glass he considers himself free from the danger.
In the midst of all this weird desolation rise two Roman buildings at some little distance from each other; one a spacious ancient church, the other a square tower. They are built of beautifully hewn blocks of granite, oblong or square, but mostly square, at the surface, put together without mortar. The door of the church is low and square, not arched; its face is pierced just under the roof (now fallen in) by a rounded window formed of smaller slabs of stone, also without mortar, in which a bell formerly hung, but which does not give one the idea of having been built for a belfry. The building is rather oblong than square, and was apparently divided into two unequal portions by a low granite wall, which does not seem to have much in common with an altar-railing—it is too much towards the middle of the church and appears to have been altogether too strong a construction. The apse is extraordinarily shallow, pierced by three of the loopholes that at long intervals serve as windows to the church. There are no traces of pillars.
At some distance from the church the granite rocks have piled themselves into a peak that looks straight over the underlying plain to the sea beyond. On this peak stands the tower. “The solidity of its walls,” writes that most conscientious, but not very critical historian, Giuseppe Ninci,[12] “the smallness of its rooms, the great difficulty of access, show it to have been one of those terrible prisons in which pined for long years those unfortunates who, exiled from their native land, were sent off to the islands.” If prisoners were put there, it must have been to starve, and for that they might surely have been shut up in some place which would cost less to build. There is but one side on which it can be approached, and even there a man must twice grasp the edge of the rock above his head and draw himself up by sheer force of biceps before he reaches the base of the tower. Once there he discovers that he must repeat the operation, for there is no door, only a window above his head, which he can reach by stretching up his arms. The tower consists of two low rooms one above the other, with walls a metre thick. Was it really a prison, or was it not rather a watch-tower, or a tower of refuge? Otherwise what should it be doing there all alone on its granite base? Was there once a Roman or an Etruscan city round that large church or temple? Yet, the huge granite blocks look as though man had never attempted to oust them for his advantage. Wanted, an archæologist’s report before these writings of past history become still further obliterated.
St. Piero di Campo is well worth lingering in for a while on one’s return from San Giovanni. It was always a favourite landing-place for hostile ships, the plain below being fertile, and the gulf sheltered. The castle, therefore, contained everything that could be wanted in case of siege: a church, and a graveyard in addition to the usual means of defence. It is a square, massive building, with but one small entrance. The church is extremely ancient. The roof, low and vaulted, is supported on two short, thick granite columns, one having a roughly carved capital which is well worth study, the other none at all. The walls have been barbarously whitewashed, but in two or three places where the whitewash has been chipped off, there stand revealed the figures of early 15th-century frescoes executed by a Tuscan artist. One or two figures have been laid bare as a matter of curiosity, and it appears probable that the whole church is frescoed in the same way. If so, and the Campesi would undo their barbarism, it would be worth a pilgrimage to see.