It is a large hotel, with two handsome dining-rooms, and spacious, well-furnished bedrooms; and although the broad stone staircase is somewhat odoriferous and the passages not over clean, yet the rooms are comfortable and perfectly above suspicion.
But, for the whole of this large establishment, generally well filled with a constantly changing series of guests, there appeared to be only one terribly overworked young waiter, and an elderly maid of all work, (exclusive of the kitchen department).
The result was, that even if you had that un-Corsican luxury of a bell in your room, which was not often, its repeated calls were unheeded; and you had speedily to learn and put in practice that great law of uncivilized regions, "If you want anything done, do it yourself."
As, however, every domestic was in a gasping hurry, and the big landlady—a mixture of sudden irascibility and occasional benevolence—was apt to regard your wants as puerile, and, Corsican fashion, to tell you so loudly to your face—a foray in dressing-gown and slippers to the kitchen, after hot water, or cleaned boots, or any other necessity of man and woman, was apt to end in ignominy and the trial of English tempers. The crockery and cutlery of Hotel Pierracci also run notably short.
It was a current joke amongst the English visitors, that the one coffee-pot of the establishment not only supplied all the numerous breakfast-tables of the different guests, but also did duty on occasions for shaving and toilette water. And this fact I can believe; for one morning, having by persistent obstinacy triumphed over the difficulties of obtaining a little hot water for dressing purposes, my tin jug was fetched away almost immediately afterwards, and I was astonished to see it reappearing on the breakfast table ten minutes later in its habitual guise of coffee-pot.
At breakfast this same coffee-pot was the cause of continual contention between the worried little waiter and ourselves. When it pleased him to give us our breakfast, he used to run in, fill our cups hastily, and whisk out again with his precious pot; and no entreaties or commands would persuade him to leave that invaluable and useful little metal jug behind him, or even to return with it and refill our cups. I think there was a bond of sympathy between that waiter and his coffee-pot, both so terribly overworked.
The food at Hotel Pierracci was good, but rather scarce, and it was difficult to make a dinner off the microscopic scraps which adorned the dishes during the eight courses of the table d'hôte. We noticed this particularly on our road home again, when perhaps our long stay in mountain air and the fine Corsican climate had increased our correct English appetites to a country voracity. But, on the whole, for Corsica, Hotel Pierracci may be considered a very comfortable hotel; and, excepting that at Sartene, which is also a good one, has the reputation of being almost the only large and handsome hotel out of Ajaccio.
Hotel Paoli, we were told afterwards by some French acquaintances, was clean and well ordered, with good rooms and very moderate charges; but we did not go inside the place.
CHAPTER X.
AN ENCOUNTER WITH STREET URCHINS.
Corte has one terrible drawback—nay, two: its extreme dirt and its impudent children.