CHAPTER III.

THE GROTTO OF BRANDO.

Notwithstanding the cold wind and the uncertain weather, we could not leave Bastia without an expedition in the Cap Corse direction. Cap Corse is the northern peninsula of Corsica, stretching out into the Mediterranean for many miles, like a long tongue. At its extremity are fine rocks and one or two lighthouses, but these we were fated not to see.

We started from the hotel in good time, leaving behind No. 1, who preferred the quaintness of the Bastia architecture, and wished to sketch in the streets.

Our equipage was a little open carriage, drawn by a pair of lively chestnut ponies that went like the wind; and we were further escorted by "Bigemark"--a black and tan quadruped apparently belonging to the pointer breed, intelligent and affectionate, but not endowed with the fatal gift of beauty, and possessed of barely a remnant either of ears or tail. Our first object was to see the Caves of Brando, wonderful grottos of limestone formation, in the hillside close by the seashore, about seven miles from Bastia.

The road to Brando was charming, following the shore the whole way, about a dozen yards above the sea level; the slope downwards being clothed with splendid cacti, and with groves of olive, orange, cherry, walnut, and fig trees, with here and there an ilex. Out of the forests, the two common trees of Corsica are the olive and the ilex; and beautifully they harmonize together, the rich shining green of the ilex contrasting effectively with the silver grey of the olive.

The forest trees consist chiefly of pines, firs, and beeches, varied by a few oaks and cedars; and the chestnut woods generally stand alone.

Bordering the slope, and amongst the olives, bloomed flowers of every description and colour; whilst great grasses, pale pink asphodel, and giant golden spurge, grew like young trees among the rocks, and all along the roadside the weird prickly pear raised its ghostly arms in a huge hedge.

Beyond this, almost from beneath our feet, stretched far away the wide sweep of Mediterranean, sparkling with countless flashes, and bearing on its laughing bosom the islands of Capraya, Elba, and Monte Christo. Monte Christo was but a blue cone above the waters; and Capraya, though larger, was cloudy and mysterious; but Elba lay before us majestically grand in the dappled sunlight, precipitous walls of barren rock and smiling hillside standing out in a fine contrast.

On the other side of the road, and rising steeply up, were rocky hills, well clothed with the sweet-smelling macchie; whilst, between every rocky rift, showed glimpses of wilder mountains, the inland chain of Corsica, raising their grey heads from misty veils of morning.

Macchie, in Corsica, is a word that means much. It is, literally, scrub or undergrowth; but it is, practically, one of the most perfect garments ever woven by nature. It may be thick or thin, but is generally composed of a dense mass of shrubs, from two to four feet high, massed over and carpeted under by the richest and most luxuriant flowers.

The pink and the white cystus, the common weed of Corsica, which covers miles of country with its red or snow-white bushes on their sturdy growth, is the usual foundation of the macchie; but mingled with it are a score of other low growing plants, of various and often aromatic scents.

Here, by the Bastia road, where the hills sloped gently up from the road, the macchie grew closely; but where the grey and green and red rocks rose more steeply, the plants could only hang in the crevices overhead--here a cystus, and there a purple thistle, with the little crimson cyclamen peeping out of every cranny, and the bright lizards darting across the sunny stones.

Very beautiful was this first view of the Corsican rocks, and of the wide sea panorama of historic islands, each telling in silent grandeur its own history of adventure, heroism, or the stern freaks of fortune. The very name of Monte Christo seemed to launch one into dim dreams of wild peril and desperate attempt; whilst the dark cliffs of Elba frowned in a stern harmony to their tale of the despotic emperor, whose heart for a time beat in impotent resistance against its prison walls.

What a satire it seemed, to place that proud, all-conquering Corsican on an island from whose heights he could plainly see the rugged mountains of his native land--almost smell the sweet odours of the macchie-covered hills, wafted across his childhood's sea, from her to him!

At last, in a blue bay where little breakers dashed merrily, the red ponies were suddenly reined up. Bigemark came to the carriage door to offer his congratulations, and our taciturn coachman informed us we were at Brando. At the same time he obligingly pointed out to us, up the side of the steep hill, a stony watercourse, down which ran a lively little stream, and which, he told us, was the "path" to the grotto.

Up this we accordingly went, with one hand keeping a desperate clutch on our straw hats (which evinced a strong disposition to obey the invitation of the sirocco, and fly away for a nearer view of Capraya), and, with the other, rescuing what garments we could from the running stream.

About half-way up the hill we were met by an aged but lively crone, who with another woman escorted us to the caves, informing us, as we supposed (for it was quite impossible to understand her toothless jumble of bad French and Italian patois), that she was the custodian of the place. The grottos belong to a private family, of the name of Ferdinandi, who have made the winding staircases, and whose name, on the stone slab fixed in the rock outside, is appended to the intimation that this their work is devoted to the enjoyment of all lovers of beauty.

Leading us by the hand, and laughing much at our evident want of comprehension of all the interesting facts with which she was beguiling the short way, our cavern crone opened a little wooden door in the face of the cliff, and ushered us straight into a Gothic-roofed hall of limestone, the reception room in this winding gallery of nature's building. Here we were told (by gesture) to remain until our guides returned. We accordingly sat down on a block of limestone, which constituted the one chair in this chilly, half-stuffy hall, semi-darkness revealing the grey white walls and roof, and the rude staircase up which had gone our two companions to light up the many hanging lamps necessary to illuminate the caves.

In about ten minutes they returned, and we then proceeded up the same staircase, cut roughly out of the rock, into the heart of the cliff. Overhead hung countless glittering stalactites, whilst on each side the most fantastic walls enclosed us, the dim rays of the oil lamps throwing open tracery and arched roof into weirdest shadows and gleams of sparry radiance.

Here and there the path was broken, and in some places we had to bow humbly beneath the drooping arch; sometimes up, and sometimes down, we went on in this airy labyrinth for about ten minutes before we turned and came back by another path. The limestone formations probably extend much further into the cliff; but the winding pathway goes no further, and one can only be thankful that Corsican energy has effected so much. The forms of some of the stalagmites were most curious, rising like Alpine ranges, with an infinity of Matterhorns, above many a little hollowed nook, or like the carved screen behind some marble altar; some so delicate in tracery and so transparent that a light, held behind them, lit them up like finely veined cream-coloured glass; whilst the stalactites overhead were countless and most graceful, often passing below their stalagmitic brethren and falling between them in a rich confusion of spiral carving.

What a glare it seemed when we emerged again from fairyland, out among the arbutus and the foxgloves on the green hillside, overlooking the dazzling sea!

The old woman was merrier than ever after her short incarceration in Mother Earth, and held out her capacious apron to receive our fees; sending after us many good wishes, which I have no doubt were as sincere as her witticisms were pungent, but which unfortunately were quite lost upon us.

The stipulated sum to see the caves of Brando is a franc and a half each person. It seems a good deal at first; but the visitors are no doubt few, and the expense of so many lights rather heavy.

In a minute or two more, we and the red ponies and Bigemark were off again, trotting on to the marina, or little sea hamlet of Sisco. A mile or two past Brando, we came in sight of Erbalunga, a most picturesque little village lying on a low tongue of land right out into the Mediterranean, a Genoese round tower at its furthest end, standing on black rocks washed incessantly by the breaking waves.

Towards one o'clock we reached our baiting place, a seashore village which appeared to consist of one house, namely, the dirty and unpretentious inn before which we stopped. Since leaving Brando, the road had become sterner, the rocks barer, and the flowers more scanty; the green groves disappearing from the waterside, and being replaced by great blocks of granite and porphyry.

Feeling a little doubtful as regarded lunch, we entered the inn door, and picking our way across the very dirty floor of the outer room, in which were assembled some half dozen or so of peasant men and women, with the usual accompaniment of dogs and guns, we were shown by the host into an inner apartment, and supplied with two rickety chairs.

The floor of this apartment was not much cleaner than the other, and a bedstead lately in use filled one end of it. But a capital smell of cooking came from the kitchen on the other side, and through the grimy little window gleamed the bluest sweep of sea and sky. After some conversation with our host, a hairy, black bearded man of polite and sociable proclivities, smoking a short pipe, we discovered that the culinary resources of the establishment consisted of an omelette. But, sniffing again incredulously, and stating our conviction that something better was secreted in the little kitchen, after some hesitation, a soup tureen, containing the most savoury smelling soup, was brought to us.

"Look here, mesdames," said the landlord confidentially, "I have two more ladies upstairs, lodging here; young ladies, whose home is in the Cap, and this is their soup. But, if you will not take too much, you shall have some. The ladies have also my best room, or you would not have had to put up with this poor apartment."

Whilst making his polite speeches, and they were many, our host constantly half raised his fur cap from his bushy hair; but he continued to smoke his short black pipe.

Whilst we were eating our soup, he drew a chair up to the table, and continued the conversation.

"You are Continentales, ladies, are you not? Are you Frenchwomen?"

"No, monsieur, we are English," we replied, feeling gently flattered by the compliment to the purity of our French accent.

It was not until some time later that I discovered that the Corsican lower orders, although often speaking the French tongue tolerably fluently, yet were not very correct judges of the French accent. And I confess my vanity received a shock when a young Corsican gentleman at Corte, who had travelled a good deal and lived some time in Paris, remarked, almost before I had opened my mouth, "You are English, I perceive, mademoiselle? One discovers that at once by your accent!"

This gentleman was very agreeable, and gave me some interesting information about his country; but, from his opening speech, I could have told _him_, however good his accent, that _he_ was not a Frenchman.

"Ah!" said the landlord, thoughtfully, "English, to be sure. They travel a great deal, for they are all rich, as rich as possible."

"No," said I; "some of them are very poor." Whereat our black friend laughed incredulously.

It is simply impossible to convince any uneducated Corsican that England is not a nation composed exclusively of millionaires. He thinks every English person has his pocket full of gold.

England, although well known to them all by name, is to them a sort of Ultima Thule; and the mere fact of a journey taken from such a distance for purposes of pleasure, seems to them conclusive upon the point. "How can you say you are not wealthy when you have come all this way to amuse yourselves?" was frequently said to us in a tone of conviction.

This being the popular notion, it is much to the credit of the people, and a proof of the national simplicity and honesty, that imposition and overcharging to strangers is almost unknown.

A little stir outside now attracted the attention of the landlord, and he left us to finish our lunch alone. This appeared to me a favourable opportunity for depriving the Cap Corse young ladies of a little more of their good soup, and I was just going to help myself to a second basinful when the old woman who had spread the table for us, and who no doubt had suspected my felonious intentions, entered from the kitchen and abruptly bore off the tureen upstairs.

So I had to content myself with munching some sour bread, which my companion was already sharing with a happy family gathered around, consisting of three cats, a dog, two pigeons, and a hen. They did not seem to share our objections to the bread which we found difficult to swallow, even when soaked in the good red wine upon the table.

The peninsula of Cap Corse is celebrated for its red and white wines, which even in the sixteenth century, we are told by the native historian Fillipini, were exported to the Continent and much thought of.

In some particulars, this northern district of Cap Corse bears a stamp of its own, apart from the customary Corsican character. It is one of the most fertile districts in the island. Oranges and lemons, and the fruit called the cédrat, which is neither orange nor lemon, but something between the two, and is much preserved, grow here luxuriantly; whilst vineyards flourish in every direction.

The valleys all along the coast, and especially the Vale of Luri, are green and cultivated; and the population is thicker and more well-to-do than in the other parts of the island. The land certainly is rich and peculiarly friendly to the growth of vines, but the secret perhaps lies in the superior energy of the Cap Corse people.

For several centuries they have manifested an industry truly unpatriotic, and a corresponding neglect of warlike pursuits. Among the gentler inhabitants of this district it was, too, that Christianity found its first converts on the island, from them gradually spreading to the sterner tribes southward; and tradition asserts that St. Paul, amongst his many perils by sea, braved the dangers of this rocky coast, and landed somewhere on Cap Corse as its first missionary.

Sisco also, Gregorovius tells us, possesses a marine church dedicated to St. Catherine, and containing some very remarkable relics, such as the rod with which Moses smote the Red Sea, almonds from the garden of Eden, and even a piece of the lump of earth from which Adam was modelled!

I saw no church in or near Sisco during my short stay there; but, had I then been aware of the reputed possession of these treasures, I should certainly have made some efforts to discover its whereabouts.

We were still struggling with the sour bread when the landlord re-entered. He had rather a triumphant smile upon his countenance, as he remarked quietly, "You cannot go back to Bastia; you must stay here. Your carriage is all broken to pieces."

"That is unfortunate," said we; "but we could not stop here, quand même; we could walk back to Bastia, it is not ten miles." And, leaving the happy family, we walked outside to see the truth of the assertion.

A little crowd of about a dozen people, constituting, I fancy, all the population of the village of Sisco, had gathered round the inn, watching the course of events with a sort of phlegmatic interest.

Our carriage was gone from its original position in the middle of the road, and stood by the wall of the inn yard, with one red pony standing quietly beside it, and the other enjoying a canter on his own account about a quarter of a mile off, and rapidly becoming a speck in the distance.

As we came up, our driver advanced to us, with the pole and part of the carriage in his hand, saying curtly, with the first smile we had yet seen upon his countenance, "The carriage is broken."

To use a slang expression, we both felt a little "floored." "Yes," we replied to this incontrovertible fact; "but don't you think you had better catch the pony?"

Jehu acquiesced silently, and proceeded in a leisurely manner up the road, where, assisted by another man, he managed to capture the recalcitrant pony in an incredibly short space of time.

"Well," we inquired when he returned; "and how are we to continue our journey?"

"You cannot."

"Won't the carriage hold together?"

"Mais non!"

"And how are we to get back to Bastia?"

"Oh, I will mend it up enough for that."

It was impossible to be angry with such a piece of placid indifference as this man, however much one might wish it; one might as well have been angry with a sack of wheat.

So we left him, humming softly to himself, to mend up the carriage as best he could, whilst we walked on towards the Cap for a two or three hours' stroll.

The sun now lay hot upon the shadeless road, which began to mount gently, keeping, however, close above the seashore, and always bastioned on its other side by rocky walls, which after a while gave place to massive lordly hills, green and steep, more than one surmounted by ruined tower or long deserted cloister, braving in solitary grandeur the eastern gales that sweep each crag-topped eminence.

It was a beautiful walk; only a little bit marred by the unpleasant attentions of two men in a mule cart. They passed once, stopping the conveyance to offer us a seat, which we declined; and afterwards shouting and calling after us from a wayside inn, where they had stopped.

On returning homeward, we were not overpleased to see our persecutors again coming after us in their blue blouses and black wide-awakes.

Apparently their journey had been no further than to the inn; and it was probably not the first inn they had visited, for they were more pressing and less agreeable than ever. One man went so far as to jump down from his seat, insisting upon the advantages of a drive in the cart; and it was only by walking on rapidly, with the damping remark that we did not understand a word they said (which, as they spoke a harsh Italian patois, was nearly true), that we at length managed to get rid of them. This, I must remark, was the sole occasion on which any one of us experienced any rudeness or unpleasantness from the behaviour of any grown up Corsican man or woman. One could scarcely say as much for many more frequented countries, after incessant travelling for several weeks in their loneliest and wildest regions.

On nearing Sisco, we met the carriage, driver, and ponies coming slowly towards us.

"See," said the coachman, with a gay, placid smile, "am I not a good workman?" And he pointed to the pole and broken carriage, pieced together by his bits of string. He really seemed to think the breakage altogether quite a clever affair.

"How did the accident originally happen?" we inquired.

"The ponies ran up against the wall whilst I was out of sight for a moment," was the careless reply.

The man was evidently not a fool, but his comfortable phlegm surpassed anything I ever saw, out of Corsica.

On the road home, we passed another round tower standing lonely by the roadside overlooking the sea, and No. 3 got out to sketch it. It was--like all the Genoese towers which strew the country, standing erect on every high cliff and commanding hill--perfectly round and not very lofty, but of immense thickness, and but little ruined.

Apparently, our coachman had not profited much by his morning's lesson; for, whilst we sat by the roadside, he found it more to his taste to come and look over our shoulders than to remain by his carriage. The ponies were anxious to get home, and would not stand. They had already taken the empty carriage, with no guard save Bigemark, half across the road, when I pointed out the fact to Jehu.

"Oh," said he, composedly, "they will stand."

"But," said No. 2, "they are _not_ standing; they are moving now."

Again he smiled silently.

"Is it your carriage?" I demanded of the imperturbable man.

"Mais non!"

"Whose, then?"

"M. Stauffe, sans doute."

"Poor M. Stauffe! I am sorry for him. His carriages must come expensive."

Jehu gave a momentary stare, and then took the hint, and departed to his ponies.

No town could look more lovely than did Bastia as we returned homewards. Framed in by a foreground of noble cacti and of green hills on one side, and blue sea on the other, the shipping stood out against a crimson sky, and the white houses lay in the soft evening light against a range of pink and blue and purple mountains.

The wind had moderated, and the Mediterranean, as we entered the town and passed along the broad quay, lay like a shining sapphire against the dark mole; but the calm was delusive, for at night again the sirocco resumed its sway, and a few hours later a vivid thunderstorm was rolling over the angry sea.

Not much beyond Sisco lies Pino, a village on the western shore, surrounded by gardens, vineyards, and the residences of some of the wealthiest of the islanders. Not far from it is the celebrated tower of Seneca, a round tower standing in stern solitude on the summit of a pointed rock rising from amongst the mountains and overlooking two seas. We were very sorry not to see this tower, although it is very doubtful whether it deserves its name, and whether the Roman philosopher, during his eight years' exile in the uncongenial land of Corsica, did really frequent these rocky wilds in preference to the neighbouring towns of Mariana or Aleria. Corsican savagery and Corsican character were unpalatable and incomprehensible to the courtly, selfish stoic, and his comments upon his hosts are little flattering. He calls them liars, robbers, revengeful, and irreligious, and will not even admit the natural beauties of this "rude island," "desolate in situation, scanty in products, and unhealthy in climate."

But the unhappy position of poor Seneca may well explain his ill-temper. He might write long-winded letters of consolation to his mother, inculcating the beauty of resignation and of a calm indifference to earthly surroundings; but I have no doubt the sour bread and stony roads tried the equanimity of the polished Roman just as much as they do that of the fastidious traveller nowadays, who moreover comes, unlike Seneca, by his own will and for his own pleasure.