CORSICA, ISLAND OF UNREST.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XVIII, Issue 12070, 25 October 1913, Page 3 (Supplement)

CORSICA, ISLAND OF UNREST.

(By Berthe Gressier.)

Lapped by the sapphire waves of the jj e diterranean, Corsica hangs, a peuian t jewel from the foot of France. It is a little world apart; a fairy jurld made up of sea and flowers and jjoiintains —of mountains, flowers and ga—a veritable panorama of beauty to fhich every tree and house and field jD (ls its own distinction.. The whole jiand offers a series of picture's which jjdt- and change and pass into each ,tlier in transitions of such intangible iW et"<'-">s that--a •traveller might well 3 v that there is no Corsica because |,ero are only Corsican pictures. y e t because the popularity of a land [epeiuis as far as the average tourist j concerned; less .-upon beauty bin upon its/facility of access, Corsica ju jifver, because of its geographical hope to rival those other' {juty spots' which have' become the. ;orld's pleasure ground. Sooner than jji the chance of uncomfortable hotels, uisiitive- cookery, and the many little .conveniences which accompany the jal "simple life" as distinguished" from j e fashionable conception of it, the ■avellw prefers those places which, long wiiii a certain amount of pietugque setting, offer the comforts cf Kxfernity. _

»Time, too, in this hustling age, is too f 3rly measured to allow of excursions [J£r' unknown beauties. Couriers, jket-ag«nts, and hotelkeepers who jnri'the triple alliance which year after ;ar and with certain financial profits :ould public taste, in travel, take cogence of these things and' 'give tha iblic what it- wants." From Norway ,Malaga and from St. Petersburg to iliray, this alliance spreads its web sd does its work right well. But it pores Corsica. Wisely, too, for the leads and stories which drift from it to of Europe do not encourjethe neglect of.sure profits for the development of a land where for ane years to come the average middleis tourist would be ill at ease. Nevertheless Corsica is an enchanting see. The last French pro_yince which mains untouched by the taint of (dernity—the onily one which still jds fast to' its traditions—the only ic that has not been humiliated by j attacks of vandals and advertising in, this rare little island; rewards a jt. AVhat she is to-day, that she was sterday, that she probably will be tojttok'.

Paoli knew her for the indomitable jrage of her sons, Napoleon rememied iter as a miracle of beauty and ago loved her for her poetic grace. [most divinely she has preserved her itures of another day, her dazzling corations and her prodigious variety aspect. If she could resemble any her land that land would be ancient race —but Greece with the added or y of the Pyrenees, Algeria and w'ence.

Aid all this beauty runs to waste bejse.Corsica lies on no popular route — rarely reached and often passed. aong "the thousands who every year sg their boredom along the Riviera d the Cote d' Azur, how many know it-Calvi is only six hours from Nice — dCalvi is Corsica' Ajaccio-Bast-ia, and Vizzavona, the ilanches of Pian'a and the outlying ets so hill of tragic memories of irbary pirates that they have well raeil their grim 'title of the Isles of bod; are'all interesting and tmique. The flora of the island is pecuh'arly •h; field-- of purple asphobeds grow to 5 very edge of the silver sand which 3ms with wonderful shells and bits coral, and as one leaves the shore ies of tafl heath, bums, c-istus, myrtle and every kind of mafic shrub clothe the rocky mouir-

ill sides. Great clumps of hellebore th pale green blossoms as'., large as a »and growing in bunches of six or m on a single stem gleam brightly iiristva blackground of ancient silvery res and hedges of tamerisk in bloom it trace delicate patterns .of green I rose across the blue dusk of idows that- mass low pines. lie Gulf of Sagone. the Gulf of Porto d that of Bonifacio, equally though rssely lovely, are all apparently imed in by range upon range of perb mountains, rocky and serrated. lose towering crests, the Monte d' o, Monte I'ocoiida and Monte Cintro. 5 forever wreathed with shifting veils rioud.

Corsica has to thank Napoleon for » fine Toads which make carriage nel a pleasure. Ajaccio is an insignimfc town which never forgets that is Napoleon's birthplace and that ctor Hugo spent some years vof his ig exile there. -'■'•■ Napoleon! Hugo! Those two demids who revolutionised the worlds of Sinn and- of thought! What wonder it that Ajaccio reveres their memory ithat-ffionuments and '-busts 'of; these 0 world-men are to' 'he met with at aost every corner. ■ But although the ■Empress Eugenie did her utmost to 4e Ajaccio a second Riviera it has fa "arrived." lieCasa Bonaparte, the plain threeiried building in which'the '"Eagle" s l»m, stands in a strip of untidy nien and has been so-carefully preyed that it is not difficult- for the itor to conjure 'up a vision 'of ladame Mere" sitting in the : 'great lon on the' first- floor .in- those days ffii the furniture was new and the 1 spinet in the corner'hadnot lost its ae. The whole "house - exhales the rfume of the narrow, rigid, dignified, e which this mother of a- hero Ted tough the loni>- vears of her widowod. Pierre Loti, who more than other xlerns seems to understand the spiri; relics, speaks of this interesting home ts': ' - :

"In the bare little yard surrounded high houses, I saw him playing—the apgfr child that became an emperor. * rooms, which I. entered at dusk, dan air of faded, elegance, of correct fa; evidently- in their heydey its Hers were well off. The odor of age. 'quaint time-worn furniture "recalled * presence of the family' tliat lived Kebefore they changed the" map of "ope. In the dining room where iMraekcd chairs were ranged round stable 1 seemed to see pale Madame tfitia segued among the strange chilli who future already occupied her Remind. And their time is really E Mr to ours; we are all so close to * another in - the endless suite of orations that when I thought of this °'«er of an emperor, my mind flew mv own mother; my mother ?°,is ahvavs the most precious and ™ul of n-.y friends. 'Hooked into "his room —a young room i'uli of little personal be-J B Eings, th e room where, it is said, he W for the last time" on his return '5%Pt- ' .' i .'But for me. rhe soul, the haunting lni of the whole place emanates from" 3 P a le portrait of -Mme. Lcetitia which ln ?s lit hoi- room. In a tarnished gilt Ifnndrr ;i dis-cnlored glass, it seems "a livid head against a black backWnil. s?'o was very like-him; she j 2 dm same imperious eyes and: the | 1115 ..f1at buck hair; her expression of Ijnsiiig intensitv' Jias 'a nameless 1%. something'sad, haggard, sup- j ■'?t; slip seems "a prey to the anguish ,lue. - Xho facer—one' does not know "Mias nut remained in the centre of eirame and it looks like a dead face T wck to ask what the living do * 'what has become of her son's t2r * >ool ' "oman'T It would be inresting to know what they wero like ■Wiher, th.. <;.- ? roe"of tenderness they S for one another, -he,' intoxicated y euteps*. and she. always uneasy, '," e -sad and clairvoyant,' , VPPosite this pastel'; another pa?*£lc little thing "attracted me; in a ,i~P le wooden frame bancs a fading ' Mt °graph. It represents'a little boy ;, s ™ri trousers—the Prince Iniperia' 1° *Vas killed in Africa. A" singular enough, of the ex-Em-m? tugeni,. „-h 0 nlacod it there as a un ? i" r of iun " son—the last" of the in the room where, was born rorld^ — the -- rreat one wno stirrccl t,!e Th' built bv the Genoese to V i i :ni 'interior of dingy splenJeiit i mosaics, solid silver ornate? n a pular or red'marble upon £ n.are engraved" the sorrowful words "If tT°" e '' Wrote from St, Helena: stL l e - forl, id mv corpse in Paris lit il - fo rbidden my body,T hope fe' : \, w '" hurv ms near mv aneesCa! : hedral of Ajaocio, in •keaSr^v' 0 • !s not a! 1 -Corsica, and Man dl^nifiw l streets are far be-%W-°°c me ? u l >0 » Cofte, that moun'fie fn' 6 i ark S re J- stone which Paoli 'or th e capital in the brief repub-

lican days when Corsica felt herself to be a nation. .' ' " ' It is a tragic fact that this haughty little race should rarely have been free from foreign dominion. Italians, Greeks, Arabs, English, and French have mastered it in- turn, but Corsica remains a wild highlandpeqpje, as poor, as proud, as passionately attached .0 their lands as are the reninants of the old Scottish elans. And the clan system still nourishes in the island, although the spirit which in an earlier • day responded to the call to arms' is now perverted to secret political intrigues and to grim service of the vendetta. Cut —and this is worthy of note—-as far as strangers are concerned, there is uo country in which it" is'possible-'to tru'r vel in .greater security:' Honesty and civility prevail among the people, who seem to have inherited "much of the old Roman virtue along with Roman beauty. For they are beautiful, these supple, dark men who till the rich earth, these quiet, black-robed women who knit on their way to market and smile so proudly -at their comely children. From Gorte, the fantastic and famous Calan.cb.es, an avenue of red rocks whose mighty spires tower to a. great height while alarming gulfs open under the load and show glimpses of swirling, savage sea, lead to the charming- village of Piana, which appears ready to drop into the Gulf of Porte, so far beneath jt. Higher still, but to the interior, lies Vizzavona, a clean, modern, town set down "just anyway" in a forest of pine and beech —in a landscape that seemsmore like a colored Japanese print than a corner of this earth.

Soldiers iii the red and blue uniform of the French infantry patrol the entire Island, for Corsica is regarded—much to the surprise, of those unversed in military matters —as an important military station. They are Corsica s link with the mainland, and a source of income to the primitive innkeepers who house the officers. The real charm of Corsica lies in its primitive wil'dness and "on the day when it shall be modernised, "tidied up," decked out with "smart" hotels, it will lose much of this charm. It may—and in one of Fashion's swift turns—it probably will, become a "point of interest" —a prosperous winter resort. ' But it will then be no longer Corsica.