After an hour's rest they arranged an itinerary for their trip, and at
the end of three days spent in this little town, hidden at the end of
the blue gulf, and hot as a furnace enclosed in its curtain of
mountains, which keep every breath of air from it, they decided to
hire some saddle horses, so as to be able to cross any difficult pass,
and selected two little Corsican stallions with fiery eyes, thin and
unwearying, and set out one morning at daybreak. A guide, mounted on a
mule, accompanied them and carried the provisions, for inns are
unknown in this wild country.
The road ran along the gulf and soon turned into a kind of valley, and
on toward the high mountains. They frequently crossed the dry beds of
torrents with only a tiny stream of water trickling under the stones,
gurgling faintly like a wild animal in hiding.
The uncultivated country seemed perfectly barren. The sides of the
hills were covered with tall weeds, yellow from the blazing sun.
Sometimes they met a mountaineer, either on foot or mounted on a
little horse, or astride a donkey about as big as a dog. They all
carried a loaded rifle slung across their backs, old rusty weapons,
but redoubtable in their hands.
The pungent odor of the aromatic herbs with which the island is
overgrown seemed to make the air heavy. The road ascended gradually
amid the long curves of the mountains. The red or blue granite peaks
gave an appearance of fairyland to the wild landscape, and on the
foothills immense forests of chestnut trees looked like green brush,
compared with the elevations above them.
Sometimes the guide, reaching out his hand toward some of these
heights, would repeat a name. Jeanne and Julien would look where he
pointed, but see nothing, until at last they discovered something
gray, like a mass of stones fallen from the summit. It was a little
village, a hamlet of granite hanging there, fastened on like a
veritable bird's nest and almost invisible on the huge mountain.
Walking their horses like this made Jeanne nervous. "Let us go
faster," she said. And she whipped up her horse. Then, as she did not
hear her husband following her, she turned round and laughed heartily
as she saw him coming along, pale, and holding on to his horse's mane
as it bounced him up and down. His very appearance of a "beau
cavalier" made his awkwardness and timidity all the more comical.
They trotted along quietly. The road now ran between two interminable
forests of brush, which covered the whole side of the mountain like a
garment. This was the "Maquis," composed of scrub oak, juniper,
arbutus, mastic, privet, gorse, laurel, myrtle and boxwood,
intertwined with clematis, huge ferns, honeysuckle, cytisus, rosemary,
lavender and brambles, which covered the sides of the mountain with an
impenetrable fleece.
They were hungry. The guide rejoined them and led them to one of those
charming springs so frequent in rocky countries, a tiny thread of iced
water issuing from a little hole in the rock and flowing into a
chestnut leaf that some passerby had placed there to guide the water
into one's mouth.
Jeanne felt so happy that she could hardly restrain herself from
screaming for joy.
They continued their journey and began to descend the slope winding
round the Bay of Sagone. Toward evening they passed through Cargese,
the Greek village founded by a colony of refugees who were driven from
their country. Tall, beautiful girls, with rounded hips, long hands
and slender waists, and singularly graceful, were grouped beside a
fountain. Julien called out, "Good evening," and they replied in
musical tones in the harmonious language of their own land.