We shall not easily forget Bonifacio. Our detention within the narrow bounds of the fortress-town afforded us leisure to realise the scenes which the crowded enceinte must have offered during its memorable sieges. The combined effects, too, of loathsome smells—the filth of the purlieus being indescribable—of bad diet, confinement, and the irritation natural to Englishmen under detention, brought on suddenly severe attacks of diarrhœa, though we were both before in robust health. Our sufferings shadowed out, however faintly, the miseries endured by a crowded population during the sieges, and again when half the inhabitants of Bonifacio became victims to the plague in 1582—a scourge which then devastated Corsica and parts of Italy.
Gasping for pure air, we were forbidden by the everwatchful gendarmes to walk on the town ramparts. From early dawn till late evening, the eternal clang of hand cornmills forbade repose in our locanda. The neighbouring country has few attractions, even if we had been in a state to profit by them. All interest is concentrated in the place itself. Our steps were therefore especially attracted to the open area forming the southern extremity of the Cape, as already mentioned. There at least we could breathe the fresh air, look down on the blue Mediterranean washing the base of the chalk cliffs, far beneath, and trace the outline of the coast of Sardinia across the Straits. The Gallura mountains rose boldly on the horizon, and the low island of Madaléna, our proposed landing-place, was distinctly visible. It needed not that we should indulge imagination in picturing to ourselves Castel Sardo, and other places along the coast, which we hoped soon to visit. The esplanade was generally solitary, and suited our musings. One evening, the silence was broken by a melancholy chant from the chapel of a ruined monastery within the guarded enceinte. It was a service for the dead, at which a prostrate crowd assisted in deep devotion. The sentries on the walls rested on their arms, and we stood at the open door, facing the western sky and the rolling waves, listening to strains of wailing which would have suited the times of the siege and the plague.
OUTLINE OF SARDINIA FROM BONIFACIO.
Nearer the town stands the old church of the Templars, dedicated to St. Dominic, of fine Gothic architecture, full of interest for its armorial and other memorials of the knightly defenders of the faith, and of noble Genoese families. Over the edge of the cliff towers the massive Torrione, the original fortress of the Marquis Bonifacio, consecrated in memory as long the bulwark of the island against the incursions of Saracen corsairs. Here, is the spot where the hastily-built galley, with its adventurous crew, was lowered down the face of the cliff, to convey to Genoa the intelligence of the extremity to which the citizens of Bonifacio were reduced when besieged by Alfonso of Arragon. There, is a ladder of rude steps, cut in the chalk cliffs to the edge of the water, two hundred feet beneath, the descent of which it made one dizzy to contemplate. Perhaps, under cover of night, the now ruinous steps have been boldly trodden in a sally for surprising the enemy, or stealthily mounted by emissaries from without, conveying intelligence to the beleaguered party. Perhaps, in the Genoese times, some Romeo and Juliet, of rival families, found the means of elopement by this sequestered staircase. One could imagine shrouded figures gliding from the convent church close by—the perilous descent, the light skiff tossing beneath, with its white sails a-peak, waiting to bear off the lovers to freedom and bliss. For what legends and tales of romance, real or imaginary, have we materials here!
CAVE UNDER BONIFACIO.
It is by sea only that one can escape from Bonifacio, except by miles of dreary road. To the sea we looked for ours. En attendant, we tried our wings to the utmost length of the chain which bound us to the rock. Procuring a boat, we pulled out of the harbour, and round the jutting points crowned by the fortress, half inclined to pitch the padrone overboard, and make a straight course for the opposite coast of Sardinia. Not driven to that extremity, we wiled away the time pleasantly enough in a visit to the caverns worn by the sea in the chalk cliffs, which front its surges. Some of these are exceedingly picturesque. Their entrances festooned with hanging boughs, they penetrate far into the interior of the rocks, and the water percolating through their vaulted roofs, has formed stalactites of fantastic shapes. The boat glides through the arched entrance, and we find ourselves in the cool and grateful shade of these marine grottoes. Fishes are flitting in the clear water; limpid streams oozing through the rocks form fresh-water basins, with pebbly bottoms; and the channels from the blue sea, flowing over the chalk, become cerulean. These are, indeed, the halls of Amphitrite, fitting baths of Thetis and her nymphs. Poetic imagination has never pictured anything more enchanting.
BONIFACIO FROM THE CONVENT IN THE VALLEY.