Northward from this beautiful gulf, the coast runs in straight lines; the mountain-chain is still visible on the left, till it recedes into the interior in the district of Salenzara, and leaves behind it those extensive plains which give to the east coast of Corsica an aspect so different from that of the west. The whole west of the island is an uninterrupted series of parallel valleys; the mountain-chains run into the sea, terminating in promontories and enclosing splendid gulfs. The east has none of this protending valley-structure; the land loses itself in flats. The west of Corsica is romantic, picturesque, grand; the east smooth, monotonous, melancholy. The eye here sweeps over leagues of level country, seeking for villages, men, life, and discovers nothing but heaths, dotted here and there with clumps of wild bushes, and covered with morasses and ponds, extending far along the shore and the land with gloom.
The good and always level road leads us next from Porto Vecchio to the ancient Aleria—a day's journey. The grass grows on it a foot high. In summer, the people fear to travel over it. Along the whole road I met not a living soul. No village is to be met with along this dreary route, only here and there a hamlet may be descried in the distance, far among the hills. On the sea-coast, in such places as possess a little harbour, a cala or landing-place, a few isolated and deserted houses may be seen—as Porto Favone, to which the old Roman road ran, Fautea, Cala di Tarco, Cala de Canelle, Cala de Coro, which also goes by the name of Cala Moro or Moorish landing-place. Here, too, stand a few isolated Genoese watch-towers.
All those houses were forsaken, and their windows and doors shut, for the air is pestilential along the whole coast. The poor Lucchese perform the little field-work there is to do. The Corsicans do not venture down from the mountains. I am happy to say that I did not suffer from the unwholesome atmosphere, but perhaps I may ascribe my escape to my prudently following the example of my travelling companion, who snuffed camphor—said to be a good antidote.
Furnished with a very meagre travelling-wallet, we soon ran short, and hunger caused us considerable annoyance during this and half the following day. Neither open house nor hostelry was anywhere to be found. The pedestrian would here inevitably die of want, or be compelled to take refuge in the hills, and wander about there for hours till the fortunate discovery of some footpath led him to a herd's cabin. It is a strada morta.
We cross the Taravo. From that point the series of ponds begins with the long narrow Stagno di Palo. Then come the Stagno di Graduggine, the ponds of Urbino and Siglione, the Stagno del Sale, and the beautiful pond of Diana, which has retained its name since the time of the Romans. Tongues of land separate these fish-abounding ponds from the sea, but the most of them have an inlet. The fish found in them are famous—large fat eels and huge ragnole. The fishermen catch them with rush nets.
From Taravo stretches far to the north a magnificent plain—the Fiumorbo or the Canton Prunelli. Watered by rivers and bordered by numerous ponds and by the sea, it resembles, when beheld from a distance, a boundless, luxuriant garden lying by the sea-shore. But scarcely a rood of arable land is visible; the fern covers an immeasurable extent of flat country. It is very depressing to travel through so beautiful a plain, and see no sign of life or cultivation. One cannot understand how the French should have overlooked the colonization of these parts. Here the prosperity of colonies would be more certain than in the life and money devouring sands of Africa. There is room here for two populous towns of at least 50,000 inhabitants each. Colonies of industrious peasants and citizens would soon convert the whole plain into a garden. Good drainage would soon cause the morasses to disappear, and make the air wholesome. There is not a finer strip of land in all Corsica, and none whose soil would be more productive. The climate is milder and sunnier than that of southern Tuscany; it might grow the sugar-cane, and grain would certainly yield a hundred-fold. Only through colonization and industry, which create demand and increase competition, could those Corsican mountaineers be induced to leave their black mountain villages for the plains, and cultivate the soil. Nature here, with the most lavish hand, offers everything which can give birth to a great industrial life; the hills are literally treasure-chambers of precious stones; the forests yield pine, larch, and oak; there is no lack of medicinal springs also, which might be conveyed to any part of the country. There is abundant pasture for the most populous herds; and the unbroken succession of mountain, plain, and the Italian sea, which swarms with fish, leaves nothing to be desired.
To the coast, as it appears at the present day, the description which Homer gives of the Cyclops Isle is strikingly appropriate; its soil is represented by him as in the highest degree adapted for the cultivation which it does not receive:—
"For stretch'd beside the hoary ocean lie
Green meadows moist, where vines would never fail;
Light is the land, and they might yearly reap