I hardly recollect anything finer of its kind than the panoramic view of the country between Tempio and the mountains on either side, as seen from its terraces. It combined great breadth, striking contrasts, and a most harmonious blending of colour. For a wide circuit round the town, gardens, orchards, vineyards, and a variety of small inclosures, occupying the slopes and hollows of the undulating surface, and well massed, give an idea of fertility one should not expect at this elevation. Here and there, a single round-topped pine, or a group of such pines, crowns a knoll, and breaks the flowing outlines. The open pastoral country beyond is linked to this cultivated zone by detached masses of copse and woods of cork and ilex, extending to the base of the mountains.
The Tempiese are a hardy and industrious people, exhibiting their spirit of activity in the careful cultivation about the town and the occupations of vast numbers of the population as shepherds, cavallanti, or viandanti. The dull town also shows some signs of life by a considerable trade in the country produce of cheese, fruits, hams, bacon, &c. They manufacture here the best guns in Sardinia, and know how to use them; being capital sportsmen, cacciatori, as well as formidable enemies in the vindictive feuds for which they have been celebrated, and not yet entirely extinct. A short time ago, two factions fought in the streets, and, though the bloody strife was quelled, they are said still to eye each other askance. Returning one night from the Casino, in company of the Commandant, he stopped on the piazza in front of the cathedral and related to us the circumstances of an assassination perpetrated a short time before on the very steps of the church.
The office of viceroy of Sardinia having been abolished, each of the eleven provinces into which the island is divided, the principal being Cagliari, Oristano, Sassari, and Tempio including the whole of Gallura, is administered by an Intendente, who communicates directly with the Ministers at Turin. The military districts correspond with the civil divisions of the island. We found two companies of the line, and a squad of carabinieri, mounted gendarmes, stationed at Tempio. Sardinia returns twenty-four members to the national parliament at Turin. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction is administered by three archbishops, filling the sees of Cagliari, Sassari, and Oristano, and eight bishops, seated in the other principal cities.
High official appointments at Tempio are not very enviable posts; governors and commandants not being exempt from the summary vengeance, for real or supposed wrongs, at which the Sardes are so apt. The Commandant told us that his immediate predecessor had received one of the death-warnings which precede the fatal stroke: I believe he was soon afterwards removed. For himself, his successor said, he took no precautions, did his duty, and braved the consequences. A few years before, the Governor, having compromised himself by acts of injustice, was assassinated, after receiving one of these “death-warnings” peculiar to Sardinia. “During the night he heard a pane of glass crack, and on examining it in the morning he found the fatal bullet on the floor. The custom of the country is that, whenever the vendetta alla morte, revenge even to death, is to be carried out, the party avenging himself shall give his adversary timely notice by throwing a bullet into his window, in order that he may either make immediate compensation for the injury or prepare himself for death. The Governor for some time used every caution as to when and where he went, but at length disregarded the warning, imagining he was safe. The assassin, however, had watched him with an eagle's eye, and he fell in a moment he least expected. Report further says,” observes Mr. Tyndale, in whose words we relate the occurrence, “that he is not the only Governor of Gallura to whom this summary mode of obtaining justice, or inflicting vengeance, has been intimated.”
The present Intendente of Tempio, the Marchese Clavarino, though he only entered on his office in the month of April before our visit, had already done much by his firm and enlightened administration to restore order and confidence. He had been able to collect the arrears of taxes, and, by impartial justice between all factions, had removed every pretence for a resort to deeds of violence for the redress of injuries.
“The Governor's palace, establishment, and retinue,” observes Mr. Tyndale, “consist of three rooms on a second story, a female servant, and a sentry at the door.” Things were little changed in 1853, but, in the absence of all state, we were impressed on our first visit of ceremony that the government of a turbulent province could not have been intrusted to better hands. In the antechamber we found a priest waiting, as it struck me from his deportment, to prefer his suit with “bated breath,” and the feeling that the wings of the priesthood are now clipped in the Sardinian states. The Marquis conversed with frankness on his own position and the state of the island. He had been in London at the time of the “Great Exhibition,” and his views of the English alliance, and of politics generally, were just such as might be expected from an enlightened Sardinian. A worthy coadjutor to such statesmen as D'Azeglio and Cavour, I would venture to predict that the Intendente of Tempio will ere long be called to fill a higher post.
Our rambles in the environs of Tempio were very pleasant. It was the season of the vintage, late here; and great numbers of the people were busily employed in the vineyards and the “lodges”[47] attached to them. Observing smoke issuing from most of these, we learned, in answer to our inquiries, that a portion of boiled lees is added in the manufacture of wine, to insure its keeping, the grapes not sufficiently ripening in consequence of the coldness of the climate. We found no such fault with those we tasted. A very considerable extent of surface is planted with vines, divided, however, into small vineyards. At the entrance of each stands an arched gateway, generally a solid structure of granite, with more or less architectural pretensions, and a date and initials carved in stone, commemorative, no doubt, of the planting of so cherished a family inheritance. One of these is represented in the foreground of the accompanying plate.
There are several fountains in the neighbourhood of Tempio, the waters of which are deliciously cool and pure. One of them, on the road beyond the Commandant's house, gushes out of the rock, under shade of some fine Babylonian willows. Sheltered by these in the heat of noon, and in still greater numbers at eventide, one saw the damsels of Tempio resort with their pitchers, as in ancient times Abraham's steward, in his journey to Mesopotamia, stood at the well of Nahor, when the daughters of the men of the city came out with their pitchers[48]; as Saul, passing through Mount Ephraim and ascending the hill of Zuph, met the maidens going out to draw water[49]; or as the spies of Ulysses fell in with the daughter of Antiphates at the well of Artacia.[50] Sardinia abounds with such mementos of primitive times.
The Tempiese women have the singular habit of raising the hinder part of the upper petticoat, the suncurinu, when they go abroad, and bringing it over the head and shoulders, so as to form a sort of hood. So far from this fashion giving them, as might be supposed, a dowdy appearance, it is not inelegant when the garment is gracefully arranged. It has generally broad stripes, and is often of silk or a fine material. The under-petticoat, of cloth, is either of a bright colour, or dark with a bright-coloured border. Both of them are worn very full. The jacket is of scarlet, blue, or green velvet, fitting very tightly to the figure, the edges having a border of a different colour, and sometimes brocaded. The simple head-dress consists of a gaily-coloured kerchief wound round the head, and tied in knots before and behind.
We expected to get some shooting in the woods at the foot of the Limbara, as they abound with wild hogs, cingale, and deer, capreoli, a sort of roebuck. Our letters of introduction to some gentlemen of Tempio failed of assisting us. They were from home, probably engaged in the vintage. But the Sardes of all ranks are determined sportsmen, cacciatori, and we did not despair, though hunting excursions in the island require, as we shall find, a certain organisation. In our dilemma we made the acquaintance—of all people in the world—of a little barber, who appeared deeply versed in the politics of the place, and undertook to arrange the desired chasse with the Tempiese hunters. We were to meet him the same evening, at a low caffè, where he was to introduce us to the leaders of the band. A singular conference it was, that meeting of ourselves, men of the north, with the wild chasseurs of the Gallura, between whom there was nothing in common but enthusiastic love of the field and the mountain.