Nature and Art, August 1, 1866.] 
IN SEAECH OF A CLIMATE. 
79 
tlie rocky character of tlie soil, and the general 
quality of the air, that washed linen dries always 
and quickly out of doors, except on the very few 
days when rain falls or tlie sky is obscured. Yet 
even fair Mentone has a skeleton in her house. 
“The little cloud” that bears the germ of future 
trouble has been detected on her horizon by the 
medical seer. The spectre of bad drainage rises 
even in an air laden with the perfume of a thousand 
flowers, and unless her inhabitants wisely look to 
it, the black mark of typhus may some day sully 
her now unspotted health-certificate. 
But although, as the author says, “ the search 
after an unimpeachable climate is in some respects 
— like that for the philosopher’s stone, for the elixir 
of life, or for the quadrature of the circle — a fruit- 
less one,” his fate, it seems, is to pursue it. In 
1860 he crossed the Mont Cenis ; found Genoa 
hygienically wanting ; flouted Pisa and its ditch-like 
Arno • found no rest in Florence or the Eternal 
City ■ from the like point of view, utterly con- 
demned the fair, yet ill-savoured, Naples; and at 
last returned to the Riviera from his sanitary 
survey, a more enlightened and contented man, but 
with the thirst for new well-springs of health yet 
unappeased. So, after many days, he sought the 
island-cradle of the Buonapartes, whose mountain- 
peaks had fitfully revealed themselves do him at 
early dawn, though from one hundred to one hun- 
dred and thirty miles from Mentone. The chapter 
upon Corsica is perhaps one of the most interesting 
in the book. It could hardly indeed be otherwise ; 
for, irrespective of the natural beauties of the 
island and the romance of its history, its associa- 
tions with the Imperial family are so deeply rooted 
that no observer, having our tourist’s facilities, 
can fail to collect rich store of gossip and informa- 
tion charming alike the cursory and the student 
reader. 
In Ajaccio he was pleased to find a thoroughly 
recommendable winter sanitarium. It is unques- 
tionably one of the most lovely spots in Europe : 
cleanly, well built, airily planned, and well pro- 
visioned. It offers society and good medical treat- 
ment, while the name of the great Emperor — no 
longer a word of terror and abhorrence to the 
Briton — hangs ever about it as a spell and a 
mysterious charm. Its grain of bitterness is un- 
questionably the backward civilization of its High- 
land-Italian populace. The atrocious institution of 
their Vendetta in its widest sense has, it is true, 
been modified by the total disarmament of the 
island, and by a rigorous application of the “ Loi du 
Recel ,” which enables the administration to seize 
and imprison a family, or even a clan, as hostages 
for the good behaviour or, as they prefer it, for the 
self-expatriation of a turbulent individual. But the 
ferocity engendered of this custom is not to be ex- 
tirpated with the custom itself, and adventures 
occurred to the author which he has very amusingly 
detailed, but which tend to show that, whatever its 
depths may be, the surface of Corsican society is by 
no means unruffled. 
Immediately before the enactment of the Loi du 
Recel a terrible state of things existed ; for, accord- 
ing to a French prefect — 
“ 4,300 assassinations occurred in Corsica, between tlie 
years 1821 and 1852, in a population of 250,000. In the 
last two years of this period, the number was 319. Tho 
peasant scarcely cultivated his field, for fear of being shot 
at the plough ; and his life wa3 often passed in tracking or 
avoiding a foe. The women, bred up in a savage sense of 
honour, urged their husbands and sons to these deeds of 
bloodthirsty revenge ; sang wild songs of triumph over 
them, if victorious, and equally wild lamentations if they 
were killed. Many Corsicans, in those days, spent years of 
their life barricaded in their houses, which they durst not 
leave. I made, myself, the acquaintance of a gentleman, 
one of the leading proprietors of the island, who, a long 
while ago, actually lived for two years barricaded in the 
upper flat of a house in that town to avoid the "Vendetta. 
An iron door on the staircase, through which he could 
shoot any one approaching, protected and separated him 
from relentless foes.” 
At the commencement of the present century, 
there were 1,000 assassins sheltered in the moun- 
tain fastnesses of the island. The commandant of 
Ajaccio told the author that, in 1855, there were 
still 300. The very vigorous measures of the 
Government are, however, beginning to tell tho- 
roughly. Security reigns ; and although the 
French officials regard appointment to Corsica as 
banishment, and the French public hold the island 
to be semi-barbarous, Dr. Bennet complacently feels 
persuaded that her isolation must end, and he uses 
his good offices, recommending that a few brigades 
of invalids should initiate the rapprochement. Be 
it so, and let the good physician lead the expedi- 
tion, but we will none of it. “ Servantgalism ” in 
England is bad enough, in America far worse ; but 
that of Corsica is fearsome for an athlete, and agony 
for an invalid to contemplate. Such a prejudice 
may be fallacious, and contrasted with the amiable 
enthusiasm of our author may seem mean ; yet 
we must confess we hold to it until otherwise 
advised. 
In the winter of 1862, our pilgrim of Hygeia 
went forth again upon his mission, and investigated 
Sicily. He glanced, on the road, at Naples and 
Pompeii, where he was fortunate enough to see 
the now famous plaster group, termed the “ In- 
pronti umani the ashy moulds for which, formed 
at the great eruption upon the actual bodies ol 
fugitives, were found in an available state for the 
use of the curators. How available, indeed, we 
were not aware until we read the following pas- 
sage, which appears to us worth quoting : — 
“ Every muscular contortion, every detail of shape is 
distinctly brought out in this vivid, ghastly group. I also 
saw a recently discovered' subterranean channel, some four 
feet wide and two deep, in which a considerable body of 
cool, pellucid water was running rapidly to the sea. A few 
feet only of the roof had been taken off, and I looked down 
with interest on this stream of pure water, collected from 
the adjoining mountains, more than eighteen centuries ago, 
for the use of the town ; and which, during all that period, 
has been running unseen, hidden in the bosom of the earth, 
buried with the city it was intended to supply.” 
Tlie result of tlie survey of Palermo was a con- 
viction that its climate, being unprotected north- 
ward, is as warm, but no more so, than that of 
