ELBA
A MONTH IN ELBA
I.
An atmosphere as invisible as that of Egypt, a sea of the clearest amethyst and emerald, merging into sapphire in the distance, and jealously guarded by a series of frowning headlands, now grey, now black, now red, with heart and veins of iron, that enclose miniature beaches and mysterious grottos where the water sleeps peacefully in the arms of its lord; and within, a sea of vines embracing the feet of mountains clothed with pines, with lentisks that have watched the passage of centuries, with bushes of white heather taller than a tall man, with glaucous agaves, rigid and puritanical, with prickly pears, fantastic and repellent; the very air of a voluptuous quality: soft, velvety even, with the mingled odours of an infinite number of aromatic plants and herbs, sweet with the white amaryllis that fringes the sea. Such, in broad outlines, is the island for which Etruscans, Romans, Genoese, Pisans, Saracens, Spanish, French and English have fought, in which Victor Hugo was nursed into life, in which Napoleon was caged; a land of wine and iron, glowing with strength and passion.
A land of perfect peace and infinite possibilities does this island seem as one drifts along the coast, watching the fish dart below the keel of the boat, rounding the islets that look as though they had skipped from the mainland in play and were intent on their own reflection in the water; as one swims into grottos purple-roofed, over water of the purest aquamarine, and looks through the narrow opening across the twinkling sea outside; or, as one walks through miles of vineyard in which grow the choicest grapes, or climbs up to the iron quarries, where the mountain is being simply dug away.
Yet, the deepest impression made on the mind of a visitor to Elba is not so much that of the future prosperity of the island, for all its resources, as of its past importance. Almost every peak bears its ruined castle; headland after headland was fortified in the Middle Ages by Powers jealously tenacious of their rights; the iron quarries, now comparatively little known, were worked unremittingly by the ancients, witness Virgil’s well-known line:
“Insula inexhaustis Chalybum generosa metallis;”
and witness the iron slag that proves the existence in Roman times of furnaces for refining the ore; the very wine, delicious as it is, is no longer the great source of wealth it was some years ago, partly on account of the phylloxera which has lessened the production, partly because the customs-war between Italy and France stopped its export to the country which afforded the most profitable market, partly for the reason that the peasants are primitive enough to insist on selling the unadulterated juice of the grape to a public that prefers manufactured wines.
All this adds to the sense of repose; the past is so long past, the future seems still so far off. And meanwhile the peasants and the small proprietors prune their vines and shell their almonds, and use their old-fashioned lamps, and dance barefoot on festas to the music of a concertina, either at their own houses or at the palazzo of a neighbouring large proprietor. They give each other nicknames, which gradually supplant the surnames, descending from father to son after the fashion of primitive times. Thus a man who thought a good deal of himself was called il Papa (the Pope), whereupon his sons and sons’ sons are called Papini (little Popes); a man noted for his patience was called Giobbe (Job) and his children are known as Giobbetti; a man who once wore a coat that was too long for him has ever since been called the Doctor; another from a bad stroke at bowls rejoices in the name of Scatterer (il Baracone), and one who should now call him John would be scarcely understood. They intermarry largely. They troop from all parts of the island on donkeys and diminutive horses to the festas of the various miraculous Madonnas, not omitting to go down to the nearest beach on the eve of a festa and wash according to traditional custom. They preserve local differences and hostilities that tell of difficult intercommunication: thus a Lacona man will tell you that the men of Capoliveri,[10] whose township he can see perched on a hill to the east, are “danniferi; what they have with their eyes they must also have with their hands,” he adds, as he picks up a bunch of unripe grapes, wantonly broken off and thrown away. No one but a Capoliveri man would commit damage of that sort.