But the work was already done, and Nelson writes after the surrender of the place, “I am all astonishment when I reflect on what we have achieved.” A force of 4000 men in strong defences had laid down their arms to 1200 soldiers, marines, and British seamen.
The political results of these operations, which for the time numbered the Corsicans among the willing subjects of the British crown, will claim a short notice on a fitting opportunity. History is not our province, but a traveller may be allowed to trace the footsteps of his countrymen during their brief occupation of a soil fiercely trodden by all the European nations; and, on a standing point between Fiorenzo and Bastia, naturally lingers for a moment on a feat of arms memorable among our naval exploits in the Mediterranean.
After leaving the chestnut woods, the wildness of the scene increased at every step. Our track skirted a forest of ilex spreading far up the base of the mountains, and filling the glens below, round the gorges of which the path led. The trees were of all ages, from the young growth, with a shapely contour of silvery grey foliage, to the gigantic patriarchs of the forest, spreading their huge limbs, hoar with lichens, in most fantastic and often angular forms, and their boles black and rugged with the growth of centuries. Some were rifted by the tempests, and bared their scathed and bleached tops to the winds of heaven. Others had yielded to the storms or age, and lay prostrate on the ground, charred and blackened by the fires which the shepherds in these wilds leave recklessly burning. The destruction thus caused to valuable timber throughout the island is enormous. Among the ilex were scattered a few deciduous oaks, contrasting well in their autumnal tints with their evergreen congeners. We thought the colouring was not so rich as that of our English oak woods at this season, being of a paler or more tawny hue, resembling the maple and sycamore. Precipitous cliffs and insulated masses of grey rock broke the outline of the forest, and the charming cyclamen still tufted the edge of the path with its delicate flowers, nestling among the roots of the gigantic oaks; between the tall trunks of which glimpses were occasionally caught of the distant mountain peaks.
We had been ascending, generally at a pretty sharp angle, from the time we crossed the Bevinco, and had walked about three hours, when, emerging from the skirts of the ilex forest, we found ourselves on an elevated ridge connected with the vast wastes of which the greater part of the east and north-east of the province of Nebbio is composed. The surface is bare and stony, with a very scanty herbage among aromatic plants and bushes of low growth, consisting principally of the branching cistuses, which, however they may enliven these barren heaths by their flowers in the earlier part of the year, increased its parched and arid appearance now that the leaves hung withered on their stems.
Yet on these barren solitudes the Corsican shepherd spends his listless days and watchful nights. He has no fixed habitation, and never sleeps under a roof, but when he piles some loose stones against a rock to form a hut. Roaming over the boundless waste as the necessity of changing the pasturage of his flock requires, he finds his best shelter in the skirts of the forest, and his food in the chestnuts, which he luxuriously roasts in the embers of his watchfire when he is tired of eating them raw. The ground was so undulating that at one view we could see a number of these flocks on the distant hill sides; the little black sheep in countless numbers dotting the heaths, and the shepherds, in their brown pelone, either following them as they browsed in scattered groups, or perched on strong outline on some rocky pinnacle commanding a wide area over which their charge was scattered. Their bleating and the tinkling of the sheep-bells were wafted on the breeze, and more than once a flock crossed our path, and we had a nearer view of the wild and uncouth conductor.
My companion sat down to sketch, while I walked on. This often happened. Indeed, his rambles were often discursive, so that I lost sight of him for hours together; once in Sardinia, when there was reason to fear his having been carried off to the mountains by banditti. Thus, each had his separate adventures; on the present occasion I had opened out a new and splendid view, and, having retraced my steps to lead him to the spot, he related his.
Intent on his sketch, my friend was startled, on raising his head, at seeing a wild figure standing at his elbow. Leaning on a staff, its keen eyes were intently fixed on him. My friend at once perceived that one of the shepherds had crept upon him unawares. A year before, when they all carried arms, there would have been nothing in his exterior to distinguish him from a bandit, but an ingenuous countenance and a gentle demeanour.
The young shepherd seemed much interested in my friend's occupation, the object of which, however, he could not comprehend. His face brightened with pleasure and surprise on learning that the visitor to his wilds was an Englishman. The memory of the red-coats, who came to espouse the cause of Corsican liberty, lingers in Corsican traditions, and the English are esteemed as their truest friends. It was something new in the monotonous existence of the young shepherd to fall in with one of that race, though he had not the slightest idea where on the face of the earth they lived; still he was intelligent, inquisitive, and hospitable.
“Would the stranger accompany him to his hut?”
“It would give me pleasure, but it is growing late.”