The sight of this beautiful garden transports the mind to tropical regions; and, when standing among these wondrous, foreign trees, with our eyes fixed on the deep blue waters of the gulf, upon which the warm summer air broods, it is difficult not to imagine ourselves on the shores of some Mexican bay. The garden lies near the road to Bastia—the most frequented of all the highroads from Ajaccio. This is especially the case in the evening, when the townspeople return from their occupations in the country.
It was a favourite amusement with me to take a seat on the shore of the gulf, and to observe the passers-by. The women have all good figures, and their features are clear and delicate. I was often struck with the softness of their eyes and the fairness of their complexion. They wear the fazoletto, or mandile as a head-dress; on Sundays it is of white gauze, and contrasts well with the black faldetta. The peasant women generally wear round straw hats with very low crowns. Upon the straw hat they place a little cushion, and in this manner carry easily and conveniently very heavy burdens. The Corsican, like the Italian women, are distinguished by natural grace of deportment. I had frequent occasion to be delighted with the ease and grace of their movements. One day I met a young woman carrying fruit to the town. I requested her to sell me some. The maiden immediately removed her basket from her head, and, with the most perfect grace, requested me to take as much as I wished. With equal delicacy, she declined my offer of money. She was very poorly dressed. Afterwards, every time I met her in Ajaccio she returned my salutation with a grace which would have well become a lady of the noblest birth.
A man gallops past me. His pretty little wife has perhaps just gone before him, laden with a bundle of brushwood or fodder, while her indolent husband has come from the mountains, where he has been doing nothing all day but waiting for an opportunity to shoot some mortal enemy. When I see these half savages alone, or in companies of three or six, on horseback or on foot, all armed with their double-barrelled guns, I can hardly persuade myself that the country is not permanently in a state of war. Even the peasant, who sits on his hay-cart, has his gun slung upon his shoulder. I counted in half an hour twenty-six men armed with double-barrelled guns, who passed me on their way to Ajaccio. The people in the neighbourhood of Ajaccio are known to be the most quarrelsome in the island.
The appearance of these men is often bold and picturesque; often, too, frightfully hideous, and even ridiculous. You see them on their small horses, men of short stature—generally about Napoleon's height—with jet-black hair and beard, deep bronze complexion, in brownish-black jacket of a shaggy material, trowsers of the same sort, their double-barrelled gun on their shoulder, the round yellow zucca—usually filled with water—strapped to their back, the pouch of goat-skin or fox-skin, stuffed with bread, cheese, and other necessaries, the shot-belt buckled round the waist, with the leathern tobacco-pouch attached. Thus is the Corsican horseman equipped; and thus he lies all day in the field, while his wife is hard at work. I could never repress a feeling of annoyance and disgust when I saw these furious fellows—two generally on one horse, spurring him on unmercifully—pass me at a gallop, and turned to look upon the beautiful shores of the gulf, where not a single village is visible. The soil might produce a hundred kinds of fruit, while at present it is overgrown with rosemary, thorns, thistles, and wild olives.
The walk along the shore, on the north side of the bay, is delightful. It is a pleasure, during the prevalence of a light breeze, to watch the waves breaking upon the granite reefs, and covering them with their pure white foam. On the right rise mountains, which, near the town, are covered with olive-trees, but beyond, and as far as Cape Muro, are bleak and desert.
On this part of the coast stands, close to the sea, the small Greek chapel. I have not been able to discover why it bears this name—dedicated as it is to the Madonna del Carmine, and bearing a tablet with the name of the family of Pozzo di Borgo—Puteo Borgensis—inscribed upon it. It was probably ceded to the Greeks on their arrival at Ajaccio. The Genoese had settled the colony of Mainotes at Paomia, which lies a considerable distance above Ajaccio. These industrious colonists were continually threatened by the Corsicans. Hating and despising the intruders—whose settlement had flourished in a remarkable degree—they stabbed the husbandman at the plough, shot the vine-dresser in his vineyard, and laid waste the fields and gardens. In the year 1731, the poor Greeks were expelled from their settlement; they fled to Ajaccio, where they were quartered by the Genoese, to whom they had always remained faithful, in three separate divisions of the town. When the island fell into the hands of the French, they were allowed to settle in Cargese. They brought this part of the country into a high state of cultivation, but had hardly time to become properly domesticated before the Corsicans again fell upon them, in the year 1793, set fire to their houses, slaughtered their cattle, destroyed their vineyards, and forced them to flee once more to Ajaccio. In 1797, General Casabianca led the poor wanderers back to Cargese, where they now live in peace and safety. All peculiarities in their manners and customs have disappeared; they speak Corsican, like their troublesome neighbours, and among themselves a corrupt kind of Greek. Cargese lies on the sea, north from Ajaccio, and not far from the baths of Vico and Guagno.
On the same part of the coast are scattered many small chapels, in various forms—round, polygonal, with and without cupolas, and some in the shape of sarcophagi and temples, surrounded by white walls, and overhung with cypresses and weeping willows. These are the country-houses of the dead—family burying-places. Their situation on the sea-shore, in sight of the beautiful gulf, standing, too, among green trees and shrubs, and the elegant Moorish style in which they are built, give a very pleasant and romantic appearance to the country. The Corsican has strong antipathies to being buried in a public churchyard; he follows the ancient custom of the patriarchs, and prefers to rest with his fathers on his own possessions. Thus the whole island is covered with small tombs, often in the most beautiful situations, and heightening greatly the picturesque appearance of the landscape.
Walking further on towards Cape Muro, where the traveller sees, close to the shore, several red granite cliffs—the Bloody Islands, as they are called—on which stand a lighthouse and several Genoese watch-towers, I found some fishermen engaged in drawing a net to land. They stood in rows of from ten to twelve men, each company pulling in a long rope, to which the net was fastened. These ropes are more than a hundred and fifty yards long on each side; the part pulled in is neatly and cleverly arranged in a round coil. In three-quarters of an hour the net was on shore, heavy with fish. When they spread it out on the beach, such a spluttering, and leaping, and bounding, and springing! The fish were mostly anchovies, the largest were ray-fish (razza), very similar to our Baltic flinder. They carry a sharp and painful sting at the end of their long tails. The fishermen lay the ray-fish very carefully on the ground, and sever the tail from the body with a knife. They were an industrious and active body of men, of a powerful build; for the Corsicans are as active and useful on sea as among their native mountains. The old granite mountains and the sea develop and determine, on the one side and on the other, the character of the island and its population; and thus the Corsicans are naturally divided into two powerful bodies—herdsmen and fishermen. The fishery in the neighbourhood of Ajaccio is, as in all the bays of the island, of great importance. In April, the tunny coasts along the shores of Spain, France, and Genoa, and makes its appearance in the Corsican channel; the shark is its sworn enemy. It also is often seen in these seas, but it does not come near the shore.
Returning in the twilight from this sea-side walk to Ajaccio, the report of a gun at no great distance among the hills, struck my ear. Presently a man came running up to me and inquired in an excited manner: "You heard the shot?" "Yes." "Did you see any one?" "No." He then left me. Two sbirri passed. "What was it?" I inquired. "Some one has been murdered, we suppose." A walk in the country may be diversified in this island by somewhat dramatic occurrences. Death breathes around one everywhere, and the beauty of Nature herself has here the sad charm of melancholy and gloom.