The next two hours, in the very dark grimy little room, with onion odours from below, and no view from the window-hole but equally grimy houses opposite, and ceaseless sheets of driving rain, were not enlivening; and our only amusement consisted in listening to the strange jargon of patois going on amongst the commonalty in the kitchen underneath, and in watching the picturesque effects made in the fire by the fir cones, as they panted and swelled their glowing orange bodies like living things incandescent. At four o'clock we could stand it no longer, and started anew for Carghese in rather better weather.
A little more than two hours' driving brought us there; first, through fine mountain scenery, but very soon through a tame and uninteresting route, surrounded by grassy hills, and across a long marshy tract, well cultivated and planted with wheat and vineyards, but malarious in looks and in fact. The gulfs of Chioni and Pero lay before us, and more than one round tower kept watch upon the neighbouring headlands.
Turning a corner, we suddenly came into view of Carghese, lying little above the sea-level, just before us, and presently drove up the main, tolerably wide, street, to the dirty looking Hôtel de l'Univers.
Carghese is a town of some size for Corsica, but is uninteresting and odoriferous. None of the population appear over civil, and the boys are scarcely safe for ladies walking alone. They followed us, not only with mischievous hoots, like other gamins, but with scowls and mutterings, and more than one stone was furtively thrown unpleasantly near our backs after we had passed a corner, and without the slightest provocation, except that of an unaccustomed sight,—which provocation we sometimes see rousing our British youth to stone a squirrel or an escaped monkey, or condemns a tame-bred canary to get pecked to death by its untamed neighbours.
Carghese has an interest of its own from the fact that it is a Greek colony of very ancient date, which, until quite lately, has kept up its exclusive nationality, and shunned intermarriage with the sons and daughters of its adopted country.
Both in physique and in manners they differ, even yet, very considerably from the other islanders.
There seemed, from our cursory acquaintance, to be a great number of very dark and good-looking faces amongst them; and the children are decidedly handsomer than elsewhere; although in manliness of appearance and pleasantness of expression the Corsicans have the advantage.
Every one sings and whistles in Carghese; and the songs of the young men, as, for two or three hours after dark, they marched, arm in arm, up and down the village street in front of our hotel, were far less dismal and more tuneful than elsewhere, and only towards midnight did they collapse into the national minor howl.
There is little to be seen in Carghese, except the Greek priest, who is certainly worth a glance, as, with long white beard almost to his waist, black cassock and square cap, the tall stout old man parades the streets with no little dignity.
There is a fine round Greek church, lately built, and considered handsome, in this land where good architecture is conspicuous by its absence; and a Romish church, less fine,—but nothing else to interest, either natural or artificial.