Along the banks of the river, and far away in every direction, were scattered herds of cattle, guarded by armed shepherds, wild bearded fellows in goatskin mantles and leather doublets, mostly on horseback. We meet such figures on the grassy track, looking fiercely as we sweep along; we see them at a distance on the edge of some of the gentle slopes in which the plain is rolled, when only the profile of the horse, the stalwart rider and his long gun, comes out clear against the sky. There is more life on the Campidano than in the mountains. Not that it is inhabited; there is scarcely a house on this whole plain, fifty or sixty miles in circumference. Not that there is much cultivation; here and there, at rare intervals, we see patches of a livelier green than the surrounding expanse of grass, and the young wheat just springing up, the strong blade and rich loamy furrow, remind us that Sardinia was reckoned in former times a granary of Rome. We see also the grey mounds of the Nuraghe scattered over the plain, some mouldering down to its level, a few still rearing their truncated cones, like solitary watch-towers, for which they have been mistaken. They, too, remind us of times long past, of a primitive age. But they are to be found in all parts of the island, and we shall fall in with them again, more at leisure to examine their structure and hazard a conjecture as to their origin. Now we gallop on over the level plain. The sward on the beaten track is close and elastic, and our cavallante's spirited barbs, spared in the glen during the noontide heat, spring as if they had never been broken to the portante pace. The morning fog and the cadaverous features of the shepherds have warned us that the teeming Campidano is no place to linger in after nightfall. Their homes are in the villages scattered round the edge of the great plain; not much elevated, as the paese in Corsica, but standing on gentle acclivities. We marked them at a distance. Already we have passed Sassu on our right and Oschiri on our left; they are poor places. Codriaghe and Codrongianus and Florinas stand at the extremity of the plain towards Sassari, and we shall see them on our road thither, if we ever get there. Ardara, once the capital of the province of Logudoro, founded as early as 1060, and having many historic traditions, crowns, with its massive towers rising above the ruined walls, a hillock on the plain right before us. It boasts also a fine church, enriched with curious objects of art; but the town has dwindled to a collection of hovels with a small population, few of whom, we are told, survive their fiftieth year, so destructive is the intempérie. We turn away: Ozieri stands invitingly on rather a bold eminence at the head of a gorge where the plain narrows towards the hills. The rays of the setting sun are full upon its houses and churches. It is a place of some importance, and lies in our proposed line through byroads to the forest districts of the interior. If our pace holds on we may reach it by an hour after sunset. Perhaps we shall find good cheer, the best preservative, I should imagine, against the miasma that produces intempérie.
THE PLAIN OF OZIERI.
CHAP. XXX.
Effects of vast Levels as compared with Mountain Scenery.—Sketches of Sardinian Geology.—The primitive Chains and other Formations.—Traces of extensive Volcanic action.—The “Campidani,” or Plains.—Mineral Products.
Vast open plains, such as that described in the preceding chapter, form a singular feature in the physical aspect of the island of Sardinia. There are few travellers, I think, of much experience who, in traversing such tracts of country, have not been struck at one time by the desolation of their depths of solitude, or been pleased, at another, by the glimpses of nomade life, their occasional accompaniments; and who would not be willing to admit that, in their general impressions on the imagination, they sometimes rival even mountain scenery. For if grandeur be one main ingredient in the sublime, when an object such as a seemingly boundless level, or rolling plain, the extent of which the eye is unable to scan, lies before you, when, after long marches, it still appears interminable, the mind is perhaps more impressed with the idea of magnitude than by large masses, however enormous, with defined outlines presented to the view. In the former instance, the imagination is called into play and fills out the picture on a scale corresponding with the actual features, as far as they are subject to observation; but the imagination proverbially adopts an extravagant measure.
One of my friend's sketches of Campidano scenery, introduced here, cleverly represents the effects produced by great distances on one of these rolling plains.
