is a less noble and poetic weapon than a stiletto, Miss
Lydia thought it much more stylish for a man than any cane, and she
remembered that all Lord Byron's heroes died by a bullet, and not by the
classic poniard.

After three days' sailing, the ship reached Les Sanguinaires (The
Bloody Islands), and the magnificent panorama of the Gulf of Ajaccio was
unrolled before our travellers' eyes. It is compared, with justice, to
the Bay of Naples, and just as the schooner was entering the harbour
a burning _maquis_, which covered the Punta di Girato, brought back
memories of Vesuvius and heightened the resemblance. To make it quite
complete, Naples should be seen after one of Attila's armies had
devastated its suburbs--for round Ajaccio everything looks dead and
deserted. Instead of the handsome buildings observable on every
side from Castellamare to Cape Misena, nothing is to be seen in the
neighbourhood of the Gulf of Ajaccio but gloomy _maquis_ with bare
mountains rising behind them. Not a villa, not a dwelling of any
kind--only here and there, on the heights about the town, a few isolated
white structures stand out against a background of green. These are
mortuary chapels or family tombs. Everything in this landscape is
gravely and sadly beautiful.

The appearance of the town, at that period especially, deepened the
impression caused by the loneliness of its surroundings. There was
no stir in the streets, where only a few listless idlers--always the
same--were to be seen; no women at all, except an odd peasant come in to
sell her produce; no loud talk, laughter, and singing, as in the Italian
towns. Sometimes, under the shade of a tree on the public promenade, a
dozen armed peasants will play at cards or watch each other play; they
never shout or wrangle; if they get hot over the game, pistol shots ring
out, and this always before the utterance of any threat. The Corsican
is grave and silent by nature. In the evening, a few persons come out to
enjoy the cool air, but the promenaders on the Corso are nearly all of
them foreigners; the islanders stay in front of their own doors; each
one seems on the watch, like a falcon over its nest.

CHAPTER IV

When Miss Lydia had visited the house in which Napoleon was born, and
had procured, by means more or less moral, a fragment of the wall-paper
belonging to it, she, within two days of her landing in Corsica, began
to feel that profound melancholy which must overcome every f