"Their embarrassments had become almost insupportable, when, one day, two strange vessels came to anchor in the Gulf of Isola Rossa (Ile Rousse), and began to discharge a heavy cargo of victuals and warlike stores—gifts for the Corsicans from unknown and mysterious donors. The captains of the vessels scorned all remuneration, and only asked the favour of some Corsican wine in which to drink the brave nation's welfare. They then put out to sea again, amid the blessings of the multitude who had assembled on the shore to see their foreign benefactors.
"This little token of foreign sympathy fairly intoxicated the poor Corsicans. Their joy was indescribable: they rang the bells in all the villages; they said to one another that Divine Providence, and the Blessed Virgin, had sent their rescuing angels to the unhappy island, and their hopes grew lively that some foreign power would at length bestow its protection on Corsica.... Generous Englishmen had equipped these two ships...."
CHAPTER V.
THE CURÉ OF CALVI.
Driving through an irregular little street with overhanging houses, our coachman suddenly stopped before a dirty stone staircase. This, he informed us, was the entrance to our hotel. We were suspicious; and the event proved how just were our suspicions.
It seemed incredible that a large town like Calvi should furnish no better inn than this wretched looking one; besides which, we had been distinctly advised to go to a certain Madame Puoggi in the Haute Ville, and this was the Basse Ville.
But it was impossible to move our stolid coachman. This was the best, the only inn in Calvi: he had never heard of Madame Puoggi: there was no inn in the upper town at all. Alas! we afterwards discovered that this degenerate Corsican lied in this, as in other matters; and that fate and his obstinacy had led us to the third best inn in the town! But, unable ourselves to discover the mysterious Madame Puoggi, we were forced to submit to destiny.
The sun was shining hotly upon white (or what had been white) pavement, when we descended from the carriage, and the scene was one of the gayest and most pictorial I ever looked upon.
A narrow, uneven street, houses with tumbledown balconies and broken stone staircases, opening out before us to a wide white quay with the gleaming sea alongside, and a row of vessels like Arab dhows at anchor, drying their long drooping sails in the sun.
Behind these, the grand old citadel, white and fierce, looking down with the pride of five centuries upon quay and town, and sea and hill; and from the opposite coast, as far as the eye could reach northward, a chain of receding blue mountains.
Most of the vessels had come from the African coast, bringing a motley array of foreign sailors.