"Could nothing cooked be had?" inquired No. 3. "For the English do not eat their food uncooked."
The woman looked amazed and perplexed. "Mais non?" she asked, incredulously, as we pushed away the unpalatable dishes.
But our relief was great when it turned out that the inn boasted a small leg of mutton, which could at once be got ready for us. This was done by placing the meat upon a charred log, with a dish beneath, and dropping lard upon it. When roasted, it was more like a rabbit leg than a mutton leg, but was not bad, and, together with a very good omelette, soon disappeared, to the relief of our famine.
There are but two things which it is safe to order for lunch in these third-rate Corsican inns, and which are invariably eatable and good—omelette and broccia.
One of the queerest anomalies in Corsica are the perfectly clean dinner napkins, with which you are invariably supplied in the poorest inns; and which contrast with the total absence of tea-spoons and saucers at breakfast, and the appearance of the dirty two-pronged forks at dinner.
The old man, to whom the establishment belonged, assisted at our lunch, and was delighted to air his French, which, like his daughter's, seemed to consist of a capacity of saying half a dozen words, and not understanding one.
Conversation, under these circumstances, with the most polite intentions, became somewhat embarrassing; and pleasing diversions were caused by the entrance of a blind man, led in to the fireside in the inner room, and the occasional onslaughts made by mine host upon the juvenile inquirers, who, regardless of the pouring rain, pressed their wet noses persistently against the panes of the glass door, to obtain a glimpse of the Inglese.
They had their reward when, shortly afterwards, the carriage came round again, and we packed ourselves in, amid an admiring crowd.
It was still raining, but not so heavily, and there was no possibility of a recurrence of the pond beneath our feet, as our driver had bored three little holes in the flooring of the carriage to act as drainers.
From Bechisano to Propriano, a drive of about four hours, the road is one continual descent through steep rocky hills of picturesque form; some covered with shrubs, and some with trees, and often overhanging the road as it winds by the edge of the precipice.