26 TRAVELS IN THE EIGHTIES. 



Miiravera. Owing to the nature of the country, it 

 would probably be impossible to use horses the first 

 part of the way. The start might be made from Aritzu, 

 reached from Laconi, or from Lanusei, reached by the 

 new road from Cagliari to Muravera, where the river 

 has lately washed away the large stone bridge. This 

 road as far as Monte Acuto passes through as fine 

 scenery as any road in the island a narrow gorge with 

 grotesque rocks and tremendous granite precipices 

 covered with luxuriant vegetation of beech, larch, and 

 oak, and competing in grandeur with the gorges of the 

 Chiffa and of the Issa near Algiers, or even with the 

 famous Chabet-el-Akhira, also in Algeria, between 

 Bougie and Setif. Chirra Castle, which is passed on 

 the road, seems quite unknown, unless mentioned by 

 General la Marmora in his great work upon Sardinia. 

 Below it, and in an inaccessible position on the face of the 

 cliff, are passages hewn in the rock, perhaps like the 

 Giants' Tombs (sepolturas de los gig antes) , of Phoenician 

 origin. Of the latter there are but few visible in this 

 part of the island. 



In the hundreds and thousands of " nuraghe," or 

 mysterious erections of stones, which belitter the 

 island, an imaginative man might see a superb supply 

 of ready-made fastnesses for rogues and vagabonds of 

 the brigand type. Whatever the first purpose of these 

 " nuraghe" (whether temples, or tombs, or sacrificial 

 altars, or fortresses), they stand now simply to puzzle 

 our wits. In the interior are invariably found cham- 

 bers, sometimes three stories in height. As we go 



