The mountaineers likewise observe the lugubrious ceremony of a wake, called titio or attito. Women, who are either the friends of the deceased or are engaged for the purpose, penetrate the mortuary chamber, tear their hair, howl, and improvise hymns of mourning. These old pagan ceremonies become truly terrific when the deceased has been the victim of assassination, for in that case the mourners swear to take the life of the murderer. Up to the beginning of this century the practice of the vendetta annually cost the lives of hundreds of young men. At the present day it is confined to the most secluded parts of the island, and in the mountain districts of Nuoro and La Gallura it is customary at christenings to place a few bullets in the swaddling-clothes of the infants, these consecrated bullets being supposed never to miss their mark. Another custom still more barbarous has ceased to be observed since the beginning of the last century. Women, called “finishers” (accabadure), were employed to hasten the end of dying persons, a practice which often led to the most atrocious deeds.

The peasant of Sardinia, though not the proprietor of the soil, is nevertheless permitted to enjoy the result of his labour. The feudal system existed up to 1840, and many traces of it still survive. The great barons, most of them of Spanish extraction, were almost the absolute masters of the country, and up to 1836 they administered the law, had their prisons, and erected gallows as a symbol of their power. The peasants, however, were not tied to the land, but could migrate at pleasure, and custom granted them a fair share of the produce of the soil. By virtue of an ademprivio they were permitted to cut wood in the forests, to pasture their sheep on the hills, and to bring into cultivation the waste lands of the plains. Agriculture was carried on in the most primitive fashion, for the great lords of the land usually resided abroad, and the management of their estates was left to bailiffs. Government has now become the proprietor of most of the unenclosed {348} land, 80,000 acres of which have been ceded to the Anglo-Italian Company, which has undertaken to provide the island with a network of railways.

[Μ]

Fig. 128.—DISTRICT OF IGLESIAS.

Scale 1 : 420,800.

In the more densely populated districts the division of the land is exceedingly minute, and this subdivision is still progressing at a most disastrous rate. The nomad herdsmen, on the other hand, possess no land of their own, though, if inclined, they are at liberty to enclose a plot. But vague proprietary rights like these render the careful cultivation of the soil impossible. It has been seriously proposed to expropriate the whole of the land, and to sell it to a few enterprising capitalists, but this would simply amount to a restoration of the old feudal times, and poverty, which is great even now, would become greater. There are villages in the district of Ogliastra where the peasants eat bread made of the acorns of Quercus ilex, the dough being kneaded with water containing a fatty clay. This is, perhaps, the only instance of earth-eating in Europe. The Spaniards, too, eat acorn bread, but they use the fruit of Quercus ballota, which is really edible, and are careful not to mix its flour with earth.

The Sardinians, even when they are the owners of pasture-grounds or of fields, never live in the country. Like the Sicilians, they are concentrated in towns or large villages, and neither hamlets nor isolated farmhouses are met with. Even {349} the shepherds in the mountains build their huts in groups called stazzi, and combine for mutual protection into cussorgie. Members of these associations, when they lose their cattle from disease or any other cause, may claim one or more beasts from every one of their comrades living within the same district or canton. In other parts of the island—as, for instance, near Iglesias—the produce of the orchards is looked upon as common property. The mountaineers, though poor, practise the ancient virtue of hospitality, and though the dwellings are rude, they find means of making a stranger staying amongst them comfortable.

The products of Sardinia form but a small proportion of those of all Italy. Most of the peasants only work by fits and starts, and hardly more than a fourth of the area of the island has been brought under cultivation. It sometimes happens that the crops are destroyed by the scorching heat of the sun, or eaten up by locusts, which come in swarms from Africa. Except near Sassari no attempt is made to improve the produce. The olive-tree alone is cultivated with some care, for the grower of a certain number of these trees may claim political privileges, and even the title of “Count,” and thousands of proprietors have converted their sterile steppes into productive olive groves. The millions of oranges grown in the gardens of Millis and elsewhere are taken entirely for home consumption. Commercially these oranges are of less importance than the saline plants collected in the marshes of the coast districts, and the ashes of which are exported to Marseilles to be converted into soda.

The working of granite and marble quarries yields some profit, but the mines, which were of such importance in the time of the Romans, are hardly touched now. There is only one iron mine, that of San Leone, where work has been carried on seriously by a French company since 1822. It yields about 50,000 tons of ore annually, and the oldest railway of the island connects that mine with Cagliari. The district of Iglesias, where the Romans founded Plumbea and Metalla, and the Pisans searched for silver, has recently regained some of its ancient importance on account of its lead and zinc mines. The waste of the old mines is likewise being scientifically treated by French, English, and Italian companies, to whom mining claims have been ceded, and a curious stalactite cavern which traverses the hill near Domus Novas has been utilised in gaining access to the scoriæ. Iglesias is rapidly growing into a city of modern aspect, the village of Gonessa is already a respectable town, and the little harbour of Porto Scuso, until recently almost deserted, is now crowded with small craft employed in carrying annually 900,000 tons of lead and zinc ore to the roadstead of Carlo-Forte. Unfortunately the miners, especially those from abroad, frequently succumb to the climate.