This pathway led over an old cemetery, lying close beside the road, without palings or protection of any sort. A little rough stone building, a few yards from the road, and not more pretentious than an ordinary cottage, was the now disused cemetery chapel; and numberless little wooden crosses, black and white, but none laying claim to any artistic value, were scattered all about—some standing, and some ruthlessly uprooted and crushed beneath the cart wheels—to mark the now desecrated resting-places of the poor villagers of Evisa.
The church of Evisa stood below, half a mile away, and no doubt was now the fashionable burial-place; but had I been a native of the village, I would have chosen this exquisite hill-side for my last resting-place.
Of all the beautiful scenes witnessed in Corsica, perhaps this was the wildest and the grandest. On one side, the grey and purple rocks of the Capo dei Signori; in front, twelve miles away by road, the wide stretch of blue sea, casting up a thousand sparkling dew-drops to the bluer sky; and, on the other side, rising up from a fathomless gorge just below us, the blood-red rocks of Porto. These rocks are impossible to describe; their grandeur can only be felt, as—from many a shuddering abyss, where the lonely sea-gull circles with faint shrill calls among misty horrors—they rise almost perpendicularly to their fearful height, seamed and notched by many a primeval tempest, but calm, and cruel, and forsaken-looking in their homeless inaccessible solitudes.
Leaving the little path, we clambered down the rocks a short way, and sat in the silence opposite these glorious, fearful rocks.
Not a sound was to be heard but the gulls' cries, and the stream far away, and, close to, the gentle rustling of the countless little lizards among the green rocks beside us.
We sat so still that they grew quite tame, and played around us unsuspectingly. One couple especially amused us. They had a lizard game of romps, chasing each other round our rock with incredible swiftness, whisking out of each other's way, and gently biting each other's tail when caught.
Rain at last drove us home; and we were glad of a good wood fire to sit over in the chilly evening, whilst the clouds dropped below the village, hanging in thick white opaque swathes across the hills before us, or chased each other, far beneath, hiding the valley in rain, whilst we were enjoying a passing gleam of sunshine.
The evening was clear again; and, for the first time in Corsica, we heard the national singing, which continued long after we had retired. It was not musical, nor beautiful, but was the weirdest, strangest vocalism I ever heard. For more than an hour, a party of young men slowly paraded the village street, singing the same melancholy-sounding chant, sometimes in unison and sometimes in parts, but always ending in the same prolonged note.
The tune, such as it was, seemed always to be in a minor key, and would well have suited one of the national voceri, or dirges, but I have no idea of the words accompanying it.
This final note is a characteristic of Corsican singing, and rarely omitted; and it is wonderful to what an extent they will prolong it. Even mothers, singing lullabys to their babes, indulge in it, and its effect is wild and uncommon.