CHAPTER X.
GIANT FORESTS.
The day fixed for our forest expedition to Aïtone and Valdoniello was wet and cloudy, and it was with many misgivings that we breakfasted at 7 a.m., and before eight o'clock started for our long day.
The carriage, Antonio informed us, could take us the first five or six miles; but after that, the road became too much out of repair for anything less than a waggon, and we must continue our way on mules. We had already, the evening before, seen the guide who was to escort us into the forest, and engaged him and his two mules. This guide was to meet us with his steeds at the forestier's cottage where our carriage was to be left.
Ignoring the gentle spotting of raindrops and the general confusion of earth and sky, caused by the clouds resting in patches over the path before us, we turned our backs towards the rocks of Porto, and ascended the steep hill above the village, entering the inland intricacies of grand and barren rocky slopes, and, before long, creeping into the forest of Aïtone. As we did so, the sun began to shine forth, throwing innumerable iridescent globules from every hanging branch, sweeping away clouds from before us, and rolling off mists from the white peaked range rising from the other side of the gorge.
Aïtone is composed of mixed pines and beeches; but it has been terribly mutilated, and is now chiefly filled with young trees, the older ones having been nearly all cut down for sale. The pine-wood is of course very valuable for ship-building purposes; but Corsica has taken so little pains to raise her reputation in the wood market, that these splendid trees are often sold in Italy, and even sometimes in the island herself, as of continental growth.
Aïtone is comparatively a small forest, and, although its views are lovely, as in every Corsican forest, it is not so interesting, nor are its trees so imposing, as in many others.
There is scarcely any break between it and Valdoniello, and it is, in effect, only a continuation of the latter enormous forest.
In less than two hours we had reached the baiting place, and, dismounting from the carriage, proceeded to mount our two lanky mules. One bore the only side-saddle of which Evisa boasted, and the other an ordinary man's saddle. We had been informed the night before that one of us would be expected to mount this, and when we demurred, were told that otherwise we could not see the forest, as it was too far to walk.
The guide, a big, fine-looking man, stolid as one of his own mules, appeared much perplexed by our hesitation—and no wonder, seeing that such was the invariable style of riding in fashion amongst his own countrywomen; but, after a moment's contemplation of the inevitable, No. 3 made a flying leap upon the back of her steed, arriving quite safely, and astonished to find how comfortable was the situation.
For the next two or three miles we jogged on through ever-increasing depths of shade and thickness of trees, the sunlight only peeping in here and there across the cone-scattered path. The forests of Corsica, however, rarely lie upon a level. They grow generally upon the sides of hills so steep, that neither light nor view is for long hidden; and wherever a tree grew thinly, or a little group had been cut down, spreading great arms across the road, there, through the gap, rose the perfect, glistening snow peak of Monte Cinto, the highest mountain in Corsica, close beside us, steeply precipitous, and clothed with fir-trees on every ledge. Below, to the very edge of the deep valley, we looked over the forest tree tops; while up above us, avenues of straight tall stems rose to a giddy height.