We were too much amused at having given him the slip to think much of the great tribulation in which he was panting and toiling to overtake us. Vain hope! “He will be in time for supper; let us push on;”—beginning to think that the sooner we realised the comforts which Antoine had encouraged us to expect, the better.
“Are we near the top of the pass?”
“Do you see that rock with the bush hanging from it?” pointing to a huge, insulated mass, its sharp outline clearly defined against the blue sky; “it is a thousand feet above the spot on which we stand. The path lies round the base of that rock. In an hour we shall reach it.”
We climbed on, the ascent becoming steeper and steeper as we mounted upwards, often casting wistful looks at the beacon rock. Just before we gained the summit, smoke was seen curling up from the copse at a little distance from the path.
“Ci sono pastori,” cried Antoine.
“Perhaps they can give us some milk.” We had need enough of some refreshment, the breakfast at Bastia having been our only meal.
“Vedéremmo,” said Antoine; and he led the way through the bushes.
Some rough dogs leapt out, fiercely barking at the approach of strangers. They were called off by the shepherds, who, wrapped in their shaggy mantles, the Corsican pelone, were sitting and lying round a fire of blazing logs, under the shelter of a rock. A mixed flock of sheep and goats lay closely packed round the bivouac. Unfortunately they had no milk to give us.
The Corsican shepherds are a singular race. We found them leading a nomad life in all parts of the island. They wander, as the season permits, from the highest mountain-ranges to the verge of the cultivated lands and vineyards, where the goats do infinite mischief; and drive their flocks in the winter to the vast plains of the littoral, and the warm and sheltered valleys. Home they have none; the side of a rock, a cave, a hut of loose stones, lends them temporary shelter. Chestnuts are their principal food; and their clothing, sheepskins, or the black wool of their flocks spun and woven by the women of the valleys into the coarse cloth of the pelone. Their greatest luxuries are the immense fires, for which the materials are boundless, or to bask in the sun, and tell national tales, and sing their simple canzone. But though a rude, they are not a bad, race; contented, hospitable, tolerably honest, and, as we found, often intelligent. We were not fortunate in our first introduction to these people. Antoine exchanged a few words with them; but they were sullen, and showed no signs of surprise or curiosity on the sudden appearance of strangers at their fireside. The sample was far from prepossessing. One of the men, who seemed to eye us with suspicion, had just the physiognomy one should assign to a bandit.
It was perhaps this idea which led me to question Antoine on a subject we had hitherto avoided.