قراءة كتاب Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition.
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Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition.
SEA-SIDE
RAMBLES
IN
CORSICA AND SARDINIA.
CHAPTER I.
Inducements to the Expedition.—Early impressions concerning Corsica.—Plan of the Tour.—Routes to Marseilles.—Meeting there.
It would be difficult to say, and it matters little, what principally led to the selection of two islands in the Mediterranean, not generally supposed to possess any particular attractions for the tourist, as the object for an autumn's expedition with the companion of former rambles. At any rate, we should break fresh ground; and I imagine the hope of shooting moufflons was no small inducement to my friend, who had succeeded in the wild sport of hunting reindeer on the high Fjelds of Norway. If, too, his comrade should fail in climbing to the vast solitudes in which the bounding moufflon harbours, there were boar hunts in the prospect for him; not such courtly pageants as one sees in the pictures of Velasquez, but more stirring, and in nobler covers.
Should these prove to be false hopes, the enthusiastic sketcher, and the lover of the grand and beautiful in nature, must find ample compensation in the scenery of mountains lifting their snowy peaks from bases washed by the sunny Mediterranean,—mountain systems of a character yet unvisited, and with which we could at least compare those of Norway and Switzerland. This power of comparison is what imparts the most lively interest to travelling; and thus it becomes, for the time, all-engrossing, the eyes and the memory alike employed at every turn on contrasts of form, colour, and clothing.
Not less attractive, to any one desirous of extending his knowledge of human kind, would be the prospect of studying the races inhabiting islands as yet unknown to him. The oldest writer of travels, bringing on the stage his hero-wanderer along the shores of the Mediterranean, gives the finishing touch to his character in two significant words, νόον ἐγνῶ.[2] Not only did he “visit the abodes of many people,” but he “studied their Νοῦς;” all that the term involves of its impress on character, habits, and institutions was keenly investigated by the accomplished navigator. And what studies must be afforded by these singular islanders, who, we were informed, in the centre of the Mediterranean, at the very threshold of civilisation, combined many of the virtues, with more than the ferocity, of barbarous tribes!
My own impressions regarding Corsica were early received. In my younger days, there was the same sort of sympathy with the Corsicans which we now find more noisily, and sometimes absurdly, displayed for the Poles. I had seen Pascal Paoli, and talked with General Dumouriez about his first campaign against the Corsican mountaineers, of which his recollections were by no means agreeable. Pascal Paoli had found an asylum in England, where he maintained a dignified seclusion, not always imitated by patriot exiles. His memory has almost passed away, and it is quite imaginable that some stump orator may reckon him among the exiled Poles of former days. Pascal Paoli was, however, a truly great man. In my boyish enthusiasm—all “Grecians” are in the heroics about patriots who have fought and
