The woods are generally leased at an annual rent, proportioned to the number of trees; but this rent, with the cost of stripping the bark, and even the transport to the coast, form but small items in the lessee's account of profit and loss. The heaviest charges are the export duty from Sardinia, the freight, and the import duties in France, to which country, I understand, the greatest part of the cork cut in the island is shipped. The French customs' duty is 2frs. 20 cents. the quintal. England imports no cork in its rough state from the island of Sardinia; but probably a considerable part of the manufactured corks we import from France (upwards of 226,000 lbs. in 1855[70]) grew in Sardinian forests. Our principal imports of unmanufactured cork bark are from Portugal, the quantity in the year just mentioned being 3300 tons and upwards. From Spain we only received 300 tons, and about 100 from Tuscany and other parts; the official value being from 32l. to 35l. per ton. It appears extraordinary that we should draw so considerable a portion of our supplies of this valuable commodity from France in a manufactured state, and subject to a heavy customs' duty and other double charges, when the raw material might be imported direct from Sardinia, subject only to an export duty of 1fr. 20 cents. per quintal. This arises, I imagine, from the trade being left by the apathy of the islanders mostly in the hands of French houses, who take leases of the forests and conduct the whole operations.
These details, though they smack of woodcraft, have led us away from our sylvan sports. We had reached the point where the dogs were thrown into the covers with a party detached to drive the woods. Having given a description in a former chapter of the caccia clamorosa, as wild boar hunting is well termed by the Sardes, repetition would be wearisome. It was conducted precisely as on the former occasion, except that the proceedings were on a more extended scale, and led us far among wilder and more varied scenery. As before, the stations of the hunters were assigned at about seventy or eighty paces apart, with the horses tethered in the rear. The line of shooters was first formed among the heather on the easy slope of a glen, lightly sprinkled with wood. The exhilarating sounds of the men and dogs breaking the silence of the woods as they drove the game before them, the minutes of eager expectation, the sharp look-out, the ringing shots, may now be easily imagined.
My fellow-traveller was fortunate enough to knock over the first wild boar that ran the gauntlet of the cordon, when the Count's gun had missed fire from the cap having become damp. Our next position was in an open piece of forest, where luck planted me in a notched cork tree, standing on a wooded knoll, at which several avenues met, so that I had not only a good chance of a shot, but the command of the champ de bataille on all sides. Wild boars were plentiful, roebucks not so, hares innumerable in some of our battues. I confess, however, that the incident in the day's sport in which I felt most interest was when a wild boar, slightly wounded, rushed by one of my posts, pursued by some of the dogs. Throwing myself on my spirited barb, I led the chase, followed by my neighbours, right and left, and was lucky enough to be in at the death, after a sharp run. Under such circumstances the wild boar, standing at bay with his formidable tusks, becomes dangerous to the dogs, if not to the hunters. Then the sharp steel is wanting. Oh, for a boar spear! instead of having to despatch the rabid animal by a shot.
Having had a long morning's ride, our first day's battue was closed early. The party defiled in loose order among the trees in the open forest, cantered over springy turf, and brushed through patches of fern to a sheltered dell in which we were to bivouac, and where the sumpter horses had already halted. Then followed such a rude feast as in all my rambles I had never before chanced to witness. Imagine the grassy margin of a rivulet, surrounded by thick bushes, which spread in brakes throughout the glen under scattered oaks, intermingled with crags and detached masses of rock, covered with white lichens. On the grass are piles of flat bread, which served for plates, loads of sausages, hams, cheeses, bundles of radishes, and heaps of apples, pears, grapes, and chestnuts, strewed about in the happiest confusion, with no lack of flasks and runlets of various sorts of wines. Our contribution to the pic-nic, a basket of signor Juliani's best cold dishes and larded fowls, seemed perfectly insignificant. Add to all this, the game we had bagged,—wild boar and roebuck, to say nothing of hares,—and the general stock might seem inexhaustible, if one glance at the crowd of hungry hunters did not banish the thought.
Eager for the attack, they were busily employed in preparations for it. Horses were unsaddled and tethered among the bushes, guns piled or rested against the boughs, wood collected, fires lighted, and dagger-knives whetted, ready to rip open and quarter the game. The leaders only stood apart, under a spreading tree. They had a grave duty to perform in apportioning the spoils among those who had been successful in the day's sport. This was done with great exactness and the perfect equality existing among all ranks on these occasions. It was Robin Hood and his merry men all through; or might have been taken for an episode of Sarde banditti life, except that, our party being all honest fellows, there was no plunder to divide. By the laws of the chase in Sardinia, the hunter to whose gun an animal falls is entitled exclusively to some distinct portion, varying with the species of the game,—sometimes to the skin, sometimes to the choicest parts of the roba interiora, the intestines; the rest falls into the common stock. The award being made, such choice morsels, with rashers of hog and venison steaks, were grilled over the embers on skewers of sweet wood, and handed round, filled each pause in the attack on the cold provisions, portions being detached by the formidable couteaux de chasse with which every man was armed; nor did English steel fail of doing its duty.
Though the party distributed themselves indiscriminately on the grass, they naturally fell into familiar messes, perfect harmony and good fellowship prevailing. But at times there was great confusion. Now, the horses, kicking and fighting, got free from their tethers, and there was a rush of the hunters to restore order; while the ravenous hounds, not content with the bones and fragments thrown to them, were making perpetual inroads on the circle of guests, and snatching at the morsels they were appropriating to themselves. The feast was drawing to a close, when Count T—— proposed the health of the foreigners associated in their sports, and the toast, with the reply, which, if not eloquent, was short and feeling,—“Agli nobili cacciatori della Sardegna, e di noi forestieri li sozii amicissimi, benevolentissimi,” &c., &c., &c., drew forth ev-vivas which made the old woods ring to the echo. And now all started on their legs, and there was a rush to the guns as if scouts had suddenly announced that the woods were filled with enemies. As an hour or two of daylight still remained, a bersaglio, or match of shooting at a mark, had been arranged during the feast.
The bersaglio is a favourite amusement of the Sardes, forming part of most of their festivities; and constant practice on these occasions, and in the field, makes them expert shots. Our party now addressed themselves to this exercise of skill with passionate eagerness. Some ran to fix a small card against the bole of a tree, eighty or a hundred yards distant, the rest gathered round the point of sight, loading their guns or applying caps, all talking rapidly, in sharp tones, as if they were quarrelling. They formed picturesque groups, in all attitudes—those mountain rangers, with their semi-Moorish costume, embroidered pouches, and bright ornamented arms, their dark-olive complexions and bushy hair, in strong contrast with their visitors from the north, in gray plaid and brown felt, unmistakable in their physiognomy, though almost as hairy and sunburnt as the children of the soil. The match was well contested, the card being often hit; which, as the Sarde guns are not rifled, may be considered good shooting, at the distance stated. The firing was continued till it was almost dark with eager zest, but much irregularity, and almost as great an expenditure of animal spirits in vociferation, as of powder and bullets.
An hour after sunset, when night came on, fresh wood was heaped on the smouldering fires, and after sitting round them, smoking and chatting, the party gradually broke up, some stretching themselves near the embers, and the rest seeking some shelter for the night, about which a Sarde mountaineer is not fastidious, any bush or hollow in a rock serving his purpose. For ourselves, after exchanging the “felice notte” with the Count and his friends, we lingered over a scene so singular in civilised Europe, though with such I had been familiar in other hemispheres. The smouldering fires cast fitful gleams on piled arms and the hardy men sleeping around in their sheepskins or shaggy cloaks; the deep silence of the woods was only broken by a neighing horse or the bay of a hound, and presently the stars shone out from the vault of heaven with a lustre unknown in northern climes. We, too, lay down ensconced in a brake, the younger traveller disdaining any other wrapping than his plaid, and the elder luxuriously enveloped in a couple of blankets which formed part of his equipments, having his saddle for a pillow. With sound sleep, the rivulet for our ablutions, and a hot cup of coffee, bread, cheese, and fruit for the collazione,—what more could be wanting?
In this expedition one day was like another, except in the ever-varying scenery, interesting enough to the traveller, but wearisome in description. Suffice it to say, that on the third morning, the provisions being exhausted, and no fresh supplies to be had in that wild country, our leaders decided on returning to Ozieri. It then became a question with us whether we should return with them, or pursue the mountain tracks to Nuoro, whence it was only two days' journey to the foot of Monte Genargentu, on the higher regions of which it had been our intention to hunt the moufflon, proceeding then, along byroads, through a chain of mountain villages to Cagliari. Nuoro, a poor place, though dignified with the title of “città,” and a large ecclesiastical establishment, stands high on a great table-land in the heart of the central chain, answering, in many respects, to the Corte of the sister island. This ancient capital of Barbagia is still the chief place of a province containing a population of 54,000 souls, very much scattered through an extensive and mountainous district, but containing many large villages, such as Fonni, Tonara, and Aritzu already mentioned.
The mountaineers of Barbagia have been distinguished from the earliest times for their indomitable courage and spirit of independence. Some of the best ancient writers relate that Iolaus, son of Iphicles, king of Thessaly, and nephew of Hercules, settled Greek colonies in this part of the island. The expedition, in which he was joined by the Thespiadæ, was undertaken in obedience to the oracle of Delphi; and it declared that, on their establishing themselves in Sardinia, they would never be conquered. Iolaus is said to have been buried in this district, after founding many cities; and, the Greek colonists intermingling with the native Sardes, their descendants, deriving their name of Iolaese or Iliese from their founder, became the most powerful race in the island,—just as the Roumains of Wallachia, boasting their descent from Trajan's Dacian colonists, long proved their right to the proud patronymic.