"Is it often as hot as this at this time of the year?" we inquired, as we trudged on despairingly.
"This hot? It is not hot now; this is only spring," was the unsympathetic reply.
We walked on so fast that we distanced our companions, who seemed astonished at the energy of Englishwomen, and stopped to remark upon it to some friendly road-menders a little further on. It was certainly six or seven kilomètres before, with faces like boiled lobsters, and much tried equanimity, we reached the promised land of Vivario, and, passing through a stable-yard of odoriferous propensities, ascended a little steep wooden staircase, or outside ladder, and entered the cool sitting-room of the village inn.
The Vivario inn is really superior. The people are civil and obliging, the bedrooms are beautifully clean, the little sitting-room is nicely furnished, and there is an air of comfort and refinement about the household arrangements not often to be found elsewhere in Corsica. It possesses also a really charmingly furnished private sitting-room, full of rugs, pictures, easy-chairs, and other luxuries, as a rule unknown to Corsica, where any one in search of lovely scenery and healthy mountain air might well spend a week or two with great pleasure.
When we arrived, lunch was ready. We were a snug little party of four ladies and two gentlemen, the strangers being French; and we improved our acquaintance with each other rapidly as we satisfied our hungry appetites and discussed our sweetbreads, duck, broccia, and dessert.
It was a short acquaintance, however; for on reaching Ajaccio our foreign friends went to the Hôtel de France, whilst we went to Hôtel Germania, and we saw no more of each other.
After a good rest and refreshment, we started anew, with fresh horses, for the Foce Pass.
The people of Vivario had all assembled to see us off, and two priests walked up and down amongst their flock, pretending to read, but in reality as much interested in the strangers as the smallest of the crowd. As the diligence rolled off with a "Hué, yoop!" from the driver, we nodded good-bye to the friendly looking assembly, and a number of hats were immediately taken off, the men wishing us "salut" or "bonjour." Only the two priests declined to take any notice of us, and retired to a low wall a few yards off, where, sheltered, as they fancied, by their shady wideawakes, they peered at us curiously out of the corners of their eyes.
It was a terrible mount up to the top of the Foce Pass, and, long before we reached it, the five poor horses were exhausted with pulling, and driver and conductor with beating. Amateur flagellants were at a premium, as we toiled painfully up the smooth road, steep as the side of a house, with greenhouse shrubs bordering it, fir-trees on the hills above, and snow mountains overhanging them.
In two or three hour's we reached the forest of Vizzavona, and continued to pass right through it. The forests of Corsica are almost the specialité of the country.