CHAPTER IV.

THE MOUNTAIN-TOP.

The day was dawning. I went out and refreshed myself in the waves of the sleepless Restonica, which sprang young and fresh from rock to rock, and hastened down into the valley. The young stream has a beautiful life. After a merry career of twelve hours through ever-green woods, it dies in the waters of the Tavignano. The Restonica gained my affections. I know the whole story of its life; for I have accompanied it in a single day, from its first leap to the end of its course; and many a glorious draught did it afford me. Its water is as clear, as fresh, and as light as ether; and is renowned far and wide throughout the land of Corsica. I never drank better water; it was more grateful than the noblest wine. There is such a keen quality in this incomparable stream, that it cleans iron to the purity of a mirror in the shortest time, and preserves it from rust; Boswell mentions that the Corsicans of Paoli's time laid their rusty gun-barrels in the Restonica to clean them. It makes all the stones and gravel that it washes milk-white; and its channel and banks glitter with such stones down to its confluence with the Tavignano.

On asking my guide to ascend with me now to the summit of Rotondo, he confessed that he did not know the road. Angelo, therefore, became my guide. We began the ascent between three and four o'clock in the morning. It was less dangerous but infinitely more fatiguing than I had supposed.

A number of ridges that rise one above the other, have to be surmounted before we reach Trigione, from which the ascent of the highest peak commences. These successive heights form a mighty scala—a stair piled by the hand of Nature—of colossal steps of primeval reddish granite; huge Titans, storming heaven with rocks in their giant hands, might be fit to stride them. Block lies here over block, vast and formless as chaos, and towering upwards and upwards in such endless masses of monotonous gray, that the heart almost quails, and the foot refuses to go farther. The rains of autumn have, in many places, given the granite such a remarkable smoothness, that it presents large surfaces with all the polish of a mirror. The water was running in a thousand little channels, in exhaustless abundance. Tree vegetation, however, here ceases, and only alder-bushes mark where the young Restonica is collecting its waters.

In two hours we had climbed Trigione, and the white snow-covered summit lay before us. Its steep and jagged cliffs form an incomplete circle (hence the name Rotondo—round), partly hollowed out, like a crater; and where this huge wild amphitheatre of rocks opens, lies a little dark lake, the Lago di Monte Rotondo, encircled by gentle green slopes; an ice-cold draught in a giant beaker of granite. Snow-fields rise from the lake to the summit—a strange sight, and producing a peculiar impression, in the hottest dog-days, under a southern sky and the 42d degree of latitude. They were covered with a crust of ice, and perceptibly cooled the air near them. But though I was in the region of eternal snow, I found the temperature pleasantly cool and bracing, and by no means uncomfortably low.

The summit appeared to the eye near enough, yet it took us two full hours' climbing, often on our hands and feet, over the shattered fragments of rock, before we reached it. The most difficult part of it was the ascent over a strip of snow, on which we could not keep our footing. We succeeded, however, by dint of hammering steps in the icy crust with sharp stones, in making cautious progress. At length, much exhausted, we reached the extreme peak, a torn and rugged obelisk of gray rock ending in a slender pinnacle, clinging to which one manages to support himself on the giddy and somewhat perilous height.

From this highest point of Corsica, then, 9000 feet (exactly 2764 metres) above the sea level, I saw the greater part of the island, and the sea far below washing its coast on both sides—a sight of inexpressible grandeur, once to have enjoyed which may justly be to any man a life-long source of pleasant thought. The horizon which the eye can take in from Rotondo is much grander and more beautiful than that afforded by Mont Blanc. The view ranges far over the island itself into the glittering distances of the sea, over the Tuscan islands to the mainland of Italy, which in clear weather shows the white Alps of the northern lakes, and the entire bend of the coast from Nice to Rome. On the other side rise the mountains of Toulon, and the wondrous panorama thus includes within its magic circle, mountains, seas, islands, the Alps, the Apennines, and Sardinia. I was not so fortunate as to have the prospect presented to me in its entire magnificence, for the clouds that rolled themselves unceasingly up from the ravines, and the exhalations, deprived me of part of the distance. To the north I saw the peninsula of Cape Corso stretching itself into the sea like a dagger; to the east the level coast country descending in easy lines, the islands of the Tuscan sea, and Tuscany itself; to the west the Gulfs of Prato, Sagone, Ajaccio, and Valinco. Ajaccio showed itself very distinctly on its tongue of land in the beautiful bay—a row of little white houses, that looked like swans swimming in the sea. The sea itself seemed an ocean of light.

Southwards the broad-breasted Monte d'Oro shuts out the view of the island. A great many peaks, little lower than Rotondo, and, like it, crowned with glittering snow, were visible on every hand, as the finely-formed Cinto, and Cape Bianco towards the north—the highest summits of the district of Niolo.

From such a comprehensive point of view the island itself shows like an enormous skeleton of rocks. Monte Rotondo does not lie within the main mountain-chain which traverses the island from north to south—it belongs to a subsidiary range running towards the east; nevertheless from its summit the spectator commands the entire gigantic net-work of cells that forms the mountain-system of the island. He sees the main chain close before him, and from this backbone the ribs running out on each side in parallel ranges, with valleys between, which are inhabited and cultivated. Each of these valleys is traversed by a stream, while from the principal range run also the three largest rivers of the island—towards the east coast, the Golo and Tavignano; towards the west, the Liamone.

Glancing from the summit of Rotondo on the scene in the immediate vicinity, the eye is startled and affrighted at these vast and desolate wastes of rock, and the giant ruins of shattered crag and cliff lying around. Huge blocks are tumbled about here in a wild chaos, like monuments of the struggle of the spirits of the elements with the light of heaven. Frightfully steep walls of rock form a net-work of dreary valleys. In the centre of most of them lies a little motionless lake, blue, gray, or deep black, according as it receives light from the sky or shadow from the cliffs. I counted several such lakes not far off, Rinoso, Mello, Nielluccio, Pozzolo, from which brooks run to the Restonica, and Oriente, the principal fountain-head of the Restonica itself. Farther to the north-west I had before me the famous pastoral highlands of Niolo, the most elevated basin of the island, with its black lake Nino, from which the Tavignano flows.

These diminutive lakes are all of great depth, and swarming with trout.

As you stand on the summit you hear a continual sound of rushing waters; part of them are forcing their way under ground. This rigid, blasted wilderness, we perceive, overflows with living fountains, which descend to bless the valleys, and there make culture and human society possible; far down on the lower declivities of these mountains the eye catches here and there a paese and green gardens, and patches of yellow field.

Clouds began to gather round the peak; we had to descend. Returning, we took the difficult route by the Lago di Pozzolo. In this direction rises, black and jagged, the colossal Frate, the mightiest granite pyramid of Rotondo. Chaotic debris covers its huge base, which sinks into the dreary glen of the Pozzolo. That blue wonder-flower, which Fiordalisa had said I should find, was growing in the crevices of the rocks. Angelo had plucked one, and cried to me: _Ecco, ecco la fiore?_—see, see the flower! I took it from his hand; it was our Forget-me-not. On the summit of Rotondo itself, I saw camomile, the amaranth, and the ranunculus, growing in abundance, and our own violets graced the very edge of the snow-fields.

It was with great difficulty that we succeeded in scrambling over the stones of Frate, and a strip of snow threatened at last to block up the way altogether. The goat-herd proposed making a _détour_ to avoid it, but as a North-Prussian I was not inclined so readily to succumb, and could not resist the temptation of a capital slide. I accordingly placed myself on Angelo's pelone, and made the descent. I had thus the pleasure of a little sledging-trip beneath the summer glow of an Italian sun, and under the 45th degree of latitude.

We breakfasted at the foot of another cone, and, refreshed with some bread, and a draught from a neighbouring brook, pursued our way downwards. I looked round in vain for the wild animals that haunt the rocks of Monte Rotondo—the Muffro namely, or wild sheep—and the bandits. Although Angelo assured me there were plenty of them in the clefts and ravines that we passed, I could discover none. The only wild creature I saw on these heights was the pretty mountain-finch of Monte Rotondo—a bird with gray body, and red, white, and black wings.

The Corsican wild sheep, the Muffro or Mufflone, is one of the most remarkable products of the island. It is a beautiful, strong-limbed animal, with spiral horns, and silky hair of a brownish-black. It inhabits the highest regions of eternal snow, mounting constantly higher as the summer sun melts the snow from the hills. By day it frequents the shores of the lakes, where it finds pasturage; at night it retires again to the snow. The muffro sleeps on the snow, and the female drops its young on the snow. Like the chamois, the muffro posts sentinels while feeding. Sometimes, in severe winters, when deep snow covers their pasture-grounds, these wild sheep appear in herds among the tame goats, and they are frequently to be seen in the valleys of Vivario, Niolo, and Guagno, feeding peaceably among the flocks of the shepherds. The young animal may be tamed, the old not. They are frequently hunted, and when shots are heard echoing from rock to rock up among the hills, people know that men are stalking the muffro or the bandit. Both are lawful game, brothers of the mountain-fastnesses, and both climb to the eternal snow.

After a descent of three hours we reached the cabins, and the foul atmosphere of these wretched hovels contrasted so disagreeably with the pure ether I had been breathing, that I did not rest more than an hour till I had the mule saddled, and put myself on the road for Corte. I bade the good people of Co di Mozzo a hearty farewell, and wished that their flocks might increase and multiply like the flocks of Jacob. They accompanied me to the gate of the enclosure; and as I rode away, men and children saluted me with an honest burst of _evvivas_.

A ride of some hours brought me once more to the region of chestnuts and citrons, and I had thus, in one day, from the heights of perpetual snow to the gardens of Corte, travelled through three distinct zones of climate, which was like journeying from the arctic winter of Norway to the countries of southern Europe.