He shrugged his shoulders silently, and smiled assent.
In the vendetta one touch of barbarity is spared—the women and children are unassailed.
But instances where women have taken the law into their own hands, and shot a faithless lover, or even a family foe, are not unusual; and of course, they are constantly the provoking cause of many a masculine vendetta.
As a rule, these female murderers are leniently judged. One young woman, well known to our driver, had, a short time before, openly shot her lover through the heart with a pistol, but had only been condemned to six months' imprisonment; while another, for a similar offence, but probably rather less of provocation, had received sentence of a year's incarceration. Capital punishment is abolished in Corsica, and imprisonment for life substituted. It is doubtful whether this latter penalty, to the free islander, is not a more dreaded calamity than even the loss of life.
But the fierce and revengeful nature which has fostered the vendetta is combined with many noble qualities. The Corsican is, and always has been, honest, hospitable, and truthful; and he would scorn to take advantage of a lonely stranger. There is something essentially manly about these people; and the base and petty vices of more so-called refined countries are unknown to them. There is an immense difference between them and the people of the neighbouring island of Sardinia, or that of Sicily.
The Corsicans have a thorough and well-merited contempt for the natives of Sardinia. "They are nothing, those Sardes, but a race of robbers, assassins, and liars," said a man to me with emphasis at Bonifacio.
Bonifacio is the nearest Corsican town to Sardinia, and looks across some narrow straits towards the Italian island with no friendly feelings.
From what we heard of Sardinia, travelling is neither safe nor agreeable there. It is not a particularly interesting country save for its antiquarian remains, being far flatter and less full of natural beauties than Corsica; and, although it boasts a railway, it is as far behind its neighbour in civilization and in the character of its inhabitants, as in the facilities it affords to travellers.
The inns are, I believe, worse, and dirtier than in Corsica; the roads are not so good, and brigands abound; whilst there is little in the character of Sardinian scenery to compensate for the domestic discomfort.
The people are reported sly, and as possessing little of the honesty and courtesy common in Corsica; on the contrary, they regard travellers as their lawful prey. The railway trains are occasionally fired at and pillaged by brigands, and highway robbers still infest the country.