We were quite as well served, and the accommodations were as good, at Ajaccio as in any provincial city of France. They gave us a delicate white wine made in the neighbourhood, an agreeable beverage, which, we thought, resembled Chablais; and a confiture of cherries preserved in jelly, which was exquisite. I had told the story of our adventure with the poor girls from Corte to the mistress of the house, and, on Bridget's appearing the day after our arrival to claim her wardrobe, she informed me, with great joy, that our good hostess had taken her into her service.
On leaving Ajaccio, Sartene was our next point. The road crosses the Gravone and the Prunelle, flowing into the gulf through fertile valleys, and then winds through a wild and mountainous country, in which Cauro is the only village, till, surmounting the Col San Georgio, 2000 feet above the level of the sea, it descends into a rich plain, watered by the Taravo. In its upper course its branches water two romantic valleys, which formed the ancient fiefs of Ornano and Istria, the seats of powerful lords in the old times. Picturesque scenery, ruins of castles, and mediæval tales lend a charm to this region, in which we would gladly have wandered for some days, but that Sardinia was before us.
There are few finer spots in the island than the paese of Olmeto, the principal village being surrounded by mountains, with a plain below, extending to the deep inlet of the Mediterranean, called the Gulf of Valinco, and rich in corn-lands, olive, and fruit trees. At Olmeto we were served with a dish of magnificent apples, some of them said to weigh two pounds. On the Monte Buturetto, 3000 feet high, are seen the ruins of the stronghold of Arrigo della Rocca; and, further on, near Sollacaró, another almost inaccessible summit was crowned by a castle, built by his nephew, Vincentello d'Istria—both famed in Corsican story.
It was at Sollacaró, standing at the foot of this hill, that our countryman, Boswell, first presented himself to Pascal Paoli, in a house of the Colonna's, with letters of introduction from the Count de Rivarola and Rousseau. Boswell remained some time with Paoli, who was then keeping a sort of court at Sollacaró, and admitted him to the most familiar intercourse. His conversations with the illustrious Corsican, jotted down in his own peculiar style, form the most interesting part of the account of his tour, published after his return to England. “From my first setting out on this tour,” he states, “I wrote down every night what I had observed during the day. Of these particulars the most valuable to my readers, as well as to myself, must surely be the memoirs and remarkable sayings of Pascal Paoli, which I am proud to record.”[37]
Boswell was treated with much distinction, and appears to have been flattered with the character, which ignorance or policy attributed to him, of being Il Ambasciadore Inglese. “In the morning,” he says, “I had my chocolate served up on a silver salver, adorned with the arms of Corsica. I dined and supped constantly with the general. I was visited by all the nobility; and when I chose to make a little tour, I was attended by a party of guards. One day, when I rode out, I was mounted on Paoli's own horse, with rich furniture of crimson velvet and broad gold lace, and had my guards marching along with me.” His vanity so flattered, and with what he calls Attic evenings, “noctes, cœnæque Deûm,” giving scope to his ruling passion, James Boswell must have been in the seventh heaven while Paoli's guest at Sollacaró.
But the most amusing part of the affair is the efforts he made to ingratiate himself with the lower classes of the Corsicans, his admiration of whom is sometimes chequered by a wholesome fear of their wild instincts. “I got a Corsican dress made,” he says, “in which I walked about with an air of true satisfaction. The general did me the honour to present me with his own pistols, made in the island, all of Corsican wood and iron, and of excellent workmanship. I had every other accoutrement.[38] The peasants and soldiers became quite free and easy with me. One day, they would needs hear me play upon my German flute. I gave them one or two Italian airs, and then some of our beautiful old Scotch tunes—‘Gilderoy,’ ‘The Lass of Patie's Mill,’ ‘Corn-riggs are bonny.’ The pathetic simplicity and pastoral gaiety of the Scotch music will always please those who have the genuine feelings of nature. The Corsicans were charmed with the specimens I gave them.
“My good friends insisted also on having an English song from me. I endeavoured to please them in this, too, and was very lucky in what occurred to me. I sung to them ‘Hearts of oak are our ships; hearts of oak are our men.’ I translated it into Italian for them; and never did I see men so delighted with a song as the Corsicans were with ‘Hearts of Oak.’ ‘Cuore di querco,’ cried they, ‘bravo Inglese!’ It was quite a joyous riot.”
Boswell's correspondence during this tour is also characteristic. He informs us that he walked one day to Corte, from the convent where he lodged, purposely to write a letter to Mr. Samuel Johnson.—“I told my revered friend, that from a kind of superstition, agreeable in a certain degree to him as well as to myself, I had, during my travels, written to him from Loca Solemnia, places in some measure sacred. That, as I had written to him from the tomb of Melancthon, sacred to learning and piety, I now wrote to him from the palace of Pascal Paoli, sacred to wisdom and liberty; knowing that, however his political principles may have been represented, he had always a generous zeal for the common rights of humanity.
“Mr. Johnson was pleased with what I wrote here; for I received, at Paris, an answer from him, which I keep as a valuable charter. ‘When you return, you will return to an unaltered and, I hope, unalterable friend. All that you have to fear from me is the vexation of disappointing me. No man loves to frustrate expectations which have been formed in his favour, and the pleasure which I promise myself from your journals and remarks is so great, that perhaps no degree of attention or discernment will be able to afford it. Come home, however, and take your chance. I long to see you and to hear you; and hope that we shall not be so long separated again. Come home, and expect such a welcome as is due to him whom a wise and noble curiosity has led where, perhaps, no native of this country ever was before.’”[39]