CHAPTER V.

BONIFACIO.

The town of Bonifacio proper is within the citadel walls, and two roads ascend to the heights. One is wide and handsome, winding round the lofty walls and entering the citadel by a strong drawbridge with fine old chains; the other is a stony zigzag, too narrow and too steep for any vehicle, and only available for men, women, and mules. This also leads by a lesser drawbridge into the well-defended town.

On entering through the main gates of the city, you find yourself in a wide street, which will be handsome when some ruined houses are repaired, and others now building are finished. Between the houses, come peeps of breezy hills and blue harbour. The ascent is still steep and stony, although wide; and the street, which is the only good one in Bonifacio, soon comes to an end.

An intricacy of narrow byways leads out of it in every direction. Into some of these we penetrated, and found them most curious.

The houses were enormously high, supported by flying buttresses from one roof or wall to the other across the narrow street; while the road itself (by courtesy so called) was made up of mighty cobble-stones, varied by large holes, with here and there a sudden drop of a foot or two. There was of course no apparatus of any sort for lighting up these side streets, and I could not help wondering what was the percentage of the population whose nocturnal errands in these dark, dangerous alleys gave them a contused or broken limb.

Here and there among the overleaning houses came a break of queer old stone arches, leading by some black and filthy staircase into an abode of darkness from which came the voices of dogs and children.

Our passage down these back streets, however, was a nervous and hasty one, and we took care to keep in the centre of the five or six feet of stony way, knowing by uncomfortable experience the national propensity of treating the highways as drains, and the possibility any moment of a deluge of dirty water from an upper window upon our heads.

In one street, a little wider than the others, and which boasted a row of shops, a brown monk was collecting coppers for his order in a little tin can, against which he rattled his brown rosary suggestively.

He was a very dirty, but a very polite monk, and showed withal rather a pleasant, honest face as he bowed to us, turning back his cowl to get a better stare.

The main street at its end branched off into two steep paths, one of which led to our "hotel," (!) and the other, equally steep but rather wider, brought us out, by rough stony passages, first to the barracks, large and white with an open square in front, and then, under an archway (over which is a little room once inhabited by the first Napoleon when a Corsican lieutenant), to a wide breezy common.

This common, covered with grass and corn-fields, with flying wind-mills, one or two military towers of heavy white stone, containing gunpowder, and some fortifications, is the plateau of the rocky height upon which Bonifacio is built.

Reaching the edge of the grassy plateau, we looked down the almost perpendicular chalk cliffs to a depth of several hundred feet below, where the blue water chafed and sparkled, as it worked away busily in its endless task of excavation.

Straight before us, across the straits, lay Sardinia, one or two houses showing a glitter across the nine miles of white-ribboned currents that rushed with terrific pace between us and her. Then, turning back, and wandering out again through the drawbridge, we descended the steep hill up which we had come, and watched the inhabitants, as, in the cool of sunset, they came riding in with their various burdens upon their mules.

Many of them were loaded with grass and ferns for provender, and some with sticks, and some had tolerably heavy barrels slung on each side of their beast.

One long-suffering mule was heavily weighted. A barrel on either side, a sack of hay, and a big lad of fifteen or sixteen was at first his load; to which presently was added an additional boy, who climbed up behind and perched himself upon the sack of hay, as the poor mule plodded slowly uphill.

This elder boy was assuredly one of the most beautiful of God's creations ever seen. The grace and symmetry of his figure and movements were perfect, as with supple, bare brown feet pressing against the mule's sides, he urged on the patient beast; his features were faultless, and his splendid eyes were almost hidden by the long lashes that matched the short coal-black curls under his ragged cap.

"Poor beast!" said No. 3, as the mule passed; "how tired he is!" For one felt one must see those dark eyes raised.

They were raised, as the boy glanced up at us with the scowl of a beautiful demon; then, suddenly changing his mind as he caught our friendly looks, a smile broke over the chiselled mouth and flooded the Italian eyes; and, in an instant, the demon became an angel. I would have given a five-franc piece to have sketched that boy, but it would have been almost as much as one's life was worth to have asked him to stand.

A little further on came an old wayfarer, ragged and infirm, leaning heavily upon his stick, and followed closely by a little sheep. When I spoke to the old fellow, the sheep paused too, and looked up in my face like a dog; and when its master held out his brown withered hand, ran up to place a warm nose lovingly within it.

The poor man who "had nothing save one little ewe lamb, which he nourished, and which lay in his bosom, and which was unto him as a daughter," is a well-known character in Corsica, where tame sheep often take the place of dogs, and are domestic favourites.

In Bastia I have seen a sheep walking leisurely down the pavement of the street, looking in at doorways and sniffing here and there quite at his ease, and quite disregarded, finally lying down in the sun to sleep upon the public pathway. And I remember one handsome sheep at Ajaccio that amused us greatly by its climbing powers.

We had strayed out upon the shore a mile or two from the town, and were sitting down to rest by the sea, when a very grand coastguardsman passed us. His real motive was evidently curiosity, but his feigned one was expressed by the telescope in his hand, carrying which he mounted a ridge of rock hard by, to gaze out upon the unbroken horizon.

The gold braid on his black and white uniform was fresh and telling; and the tame sheep which followed his every footstep was as white as snow.

When the coastguardsman paused, the little sheep paused; wherever he went upon the slippery seaweed-covered rocks dashed with spray, there followed she; and, when he was about to pass us, she stared for a moment with frightened air, and then, with a little cry, tucked herself close to her master's side until we were left behind.

Nearly all these Bonifacio people were civil and friendly, touching their caps and wishing us good evening.

Military and naval uniforms gave the streets a gay air, and the inhabitants appeared of a less solemn disposition than most Corsicans.

During the whole of our visit to the island, I never heard but one man (or boy) whistle, out of Bastia, Ajaccio, and Bonifacio; and in the villages nothing but chorus singing is heard, and that of the most dismal kind, and but rarely.

But here in Bonifacio, children, and even men, might be heard singing gay military airs about the streets.

The Hotel du Nord gave us a terrible shock. How it ever got itself christened "hotel," even in Corsica, is a mystery to me.

The little stony street which led up to it was so steep and so narrow that we and our packages had to leave the carriage at the bottom, and climb up to the broken hovel-like doorway, which a swinging board informed our astonished eyes was the "Entrance to the Hotel."

A stone step down into the darkness revealed before us a narrow, creaking, wooden staircase, up which we went wondering, preceded by the polite maître d'hôtel. A door then opened on a little wooden landing, and showed a long dark room, kitchen and salle à manger in one, in which were already seated a good many Bonifacians, drinking red wine and smoking cheap tobacco.

Through this room and its astonished inmates, we were led into two little apartments, each containing a bed, one of which was screened off so as to make the larger room a sitting-room.

This was all the accommodation to be had; but a third room was promised in another house for No. 2, "when the military gentleman now occupying it should have departed," which he had promised to do before evening.

It seemed incredible that there should be no better inn at a place like Bonifacio, one of the five principal towns in the island; but so it was; though the excellent fare and unceasing care and attention of the active little landlord deserved every commendation.

This man's French was most extraordinary, and had it not been that he took such evident pride in its display, we should have informed him that his Italian was the more comprehensible; but his kindness was excessive and his charges most moderate.

He was particularly anxious to impress upon us the fact that a handsome house, now building in the main street, was his new hotel, which would be opened by next summer, so that we should have very different accommodation on our next visit.

He also insisted strongly upon the cleanliness of his house, and his knowledge of the English prejudices against creeping beasts.

"Mesdames," said he, emphatically, "pour chaque punaise que vous trauverez ce soir, vous pourrez me donner un soufflet demain matin!"

With which handsome offer he led the way to the house, a few doors lower down the street, where was the "extra apartment," making many apologies as to its present state of untidiness, which would be remedied directly.

Any place more cut-throat-looking than this room I never saw. It was a sort of long low garret at the very top of an apparently deserted house, up four or five flights of wooden stairs, and led out of another lumber garret, as bare and unfurnished as itself.

"Don't sleep here," said No. 3; "you will dream of brigands all night!"

"You will be choked with dust, and devoured by fleas," said No. 1.

"I hope they _will_ clean it out," said No. 2, whose nerves were brigand-proof; "and I hope the house won't catch fire. But I shall sleep here."

Our polite little landlord was right as to his immunity from the worst of nocturnal horrors. But he had been wary in omitting fleas from his penalty of a box on the ear!

"Well, how did you sleep, mesdames?" he asked, as he brought us our breakfast at eight o'clock next morning.

"Very well," said two of us.

"Ah!" he replied, triumphantly, "I told you my house was clean!"

"But," said the third, quietly, "twenty-seven fleas _are_ a good many to catch at one sitting!"

The poor man's face fell. "Ah, peste!" said he, with a vexed air; "that militaire kept three dogs in his room. What is a man to do?"

As for me, the beauty of the night alone prevented my sleeping. It seemed a shame to be lying idly dreaming when the clear moonlight outside was lighting up such weird beauties of nature.

My little window looked down from the very summit of the citadel rock, over perpendicular chalk cliffs, upon the dashing waves far, far beneath, where by daylight I had watched them playing over malachite stones and purple seaweed.

All around stretched the bay, the chalk cliffs, and little detached stacks, grooved and hollowed by the wasting waters; and the long promontory, edged by black rocks, jutting out into distant depths of blue Mediterranean. On this promontory stood a signal-house, and a lighthouse; and at the extreme end of it was a curious natural rock, shaped like a broad watch-tower, with pagoda roof.

But now, the bright moonlight shone on a black sea lit up by silver crests, and golden gleams from the distant lighthouse threw strange lights across little shadowy bays, whilst the detached rocks stood up like black ghosts raising fantastic heads towards the deep blue sky.

All night long the sea moaned wild music ceaselessly, the rising wind tossing up white jets of spray to catch the silver moonlight, and increasing towards morning into a tempest cry.