142 
THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
sues and lagoons are created. These are hotbeds 
of malarious fever in summer, dangerous even foi 
the natives, who migrate to the hills at that season. 
The forests, the great glory of the islands, 
consist chiefly of oak, beech, birch, and the J J inut 
laricio , indigenous to Corsica, and the monorch of 
European conifers, which rises as straight as an 
arrow sometimes to a height of 120 or 150 feet. 
The Castagniccia, or country of the chestnut, is 
an extensive and very beautiful district, expecially 
when the trees are in full leaf. The fruit is more 
useful to the people who inhabit the district than 
even the date to the Arab. He has to cultivate his 
palm trees laboriously, i rrigate them in so. m n e r, and 
pick the fruit with the greatest care. The chestnut 
demands no such attention ; it. grows spontaneous h 
requires no cultivation, and the fruit fails of itsel! 
when sufficiently ripe. It is the staple food of t ; • 
people, who eat it in every form, even gi ving it to 
their cattle instead of grain, while the sale of the 
of the surplus furnishes them with the other 
necessaries of life. 
After the forests the most pleasing feature in 
the island, and covering more than half its surface, j 
is the macchie, or brushwood, before mentioned, ; 
spreading its delicious -perfume through the air and 
lighting up the landscape with a blaze of colour. 
There is also a constant succesion of wild flowers, 
liliaceous plants, orchids, cyclamen, and many 
others. In one pine wood I saw the ground car- 
peted with violets and primroses, while ferns, 
from the common bracken to the noble Osmund a. 
regalis, are found everywhere-. 
The principal towns’ are Ajaccio on the south- 
west, a well-known winter station,* the capital of 
the island, full of memories and memorials of 
Napoleon; Bastia to the north-east, the commercial 
capital; Calvi to the north-west, a picturesque 
stronghold rising high above the sea, and domi- 
nating the surrounding country. The last is one 
of the places that were always faithful to the 
Genoese cause, and it still bears over the entrance 
gate the inscription Civitas Calvi semper Jidei is. 
It made a desperate resistance to the English in 
1794 under Hood and Nelson, who reduced it 
almost to a heap of ruins before it surrendered. 
Nelson lost his eye in the engagement. A local 
antiquary has tried to prove that Columbus was 
born here, of Genoese parents, though he left at 
an early age for Genoa. 
Corte, in the interior of the island, the ancient 
feudal capital, was the chief .'seat of Baoli's govern- 
ment, as w r ell as the headquarters of the short 
lived English administration under Sir Gilbert 
S Elliot. It is situated at the confluent of two 
' rivers, the Restonica and the Tavignana, wdiicli 
descend to the plains through a series of magnifi 
cent gorges. High about the town, perched on 
the summit of a rock, is the picturesque- citadel 
built in the beginning of the fifteenth century. 
In the extreme south is Bonifacio, another an- 
cien fortress, not only strange .and beautiful in 
itself, but commanding five views from its ram- 
parts of Sardinia and the numerous islands on 
both sides of the strait. 
Cargese, twenty-eight miles north of Ajaccio, is 
exceptionally interesting. In 1076 an emigration of 
about 1,000 Greeks from Maina, in the Morea, 
wearied with Turkish oppression, took place to 
Genoa, whence they were sent to Corsica. A second 
emigration of 400 started to join them in the 
following year, but they were overtaken by the 
Turkish fleet and massacred. The prosperity of the 
small colony was not of long duration, because, 
when the insurrection in Corsica against the 
Genoese broke out, t lie Greeks, out of gratitude to 
their protectors, refused to join in it. In conse- 
quence, their villages were destroyed, their lands 
confiscated, and their flocks driven away. They 
fled for refuge to Ajaccio, and there remained, till 
the advent of the French. It was one of the first 
acts of Comte Marbeuf, on assuming the govern- 
ment of the islands, to reinstate them in a new 
domain, and he it was who built the present town 
of Cargese. The inhabitants, though in full com- 
I m union with the Church of Rome, still retain 
their Greek Liturgy, and to some extent their 
language, and live on the most cordial terms with 
their Latin neighbours. 
The vendetta has always been one of the characte- 
ristic customs of Corsica, although prevailing more 
in some parts of the island than in others. Such 
feuds have been pursued with inveterate pertina- 
city, frequently involving whole families from one 
generation To another. The custom originated in 
times when. Genoese justice was venal and corrupt, 
