39^ LETTER FROM A FRENCH OFFICER 



July, and Auguft, that a man rilks his life by paffing a 

 night in thefe flats. The air at Fiumorbo, the moun- 

 tainous part of the country, is healthy, and the ground 

 covered with fine woods. At the village Ifolaccio are 

 hot fprings, which were very famous in the time of the 

 Romans. We ftill fee the remains of the baths that 

 were built there. Half a mile from the fea we perceive 

 the ruins of an antient city which bore the name of 

 Aleria. They confift. of decayed walls and the frag- 

 ments of fome houfes. The four walls of a church are 

 ftill Handing, but the architecture fhews it to be of no 

 remoter a date than the fifteenth century at the utmofl:; 

 whereas, we know that Aleria was exifting in the time 

 of the Saracens. It is afferted that it contained fixty 

 thoufand inhabitants. Not far from this, in the opi- 

 nion of the hiftoriographers, flood the city of Accia ; 

 of which, however, there is not the fmajleft vefcige re- 

 maining. 



Bonifacio and Porto-Vecchio contain vaft tracts of 

 land that might be excellently employed in agriculture ; 

 neither is there any fcarcity of wood and water ; but 

 only the diftricts about the inhabited places are culti- 

 vated. 



The air at Porto-Vecchio, on account of the neisrh- 



J o, 



bouring marfhes, is very unwholefome during the fum- 

 mer ; this is owing to the negligence of the inhabi- 

 tants, who fuifer their haven, where it incroaches on 

 the land, to get choaked up with mud. The clean - 

 fing of the haven would render it one of the fmeft and 

 belt in ail the Mediterranean, and at the lame time make 

 the country more falubrious. Porto-Vecchio is only a 



wretched 



