endetta, so that things
were as lively and exciting as they get in parts of Virginia at times.
Killing was certainly no murder, and even yet the vendetta flourishes to
some extent. There is nothing harder than to get a high-spirited
southern population ready to acknowledge the majesty of the law. The
attitude of the inland Corsican, even to this day, is that of a young
East-Ender whom I knew. When he was asked to give evidence against his
particular enemy, he replied, "But if I do, they'll jug him, and I won't
be able to get even with him." He preferred handling the man himself.

Yet nowadays Corsica has greatly changed from what it was in Paoli's
time. French justice is a fairly good brand of justice after all. The
magistrates administer the law, and the system of military roads all
over the island makes it easy for the police to get about. When a
criminal gets away from them he has to take to the hills and to keep
there. It is such solitary fugitives who still give the stranger a
notion that the country is essentially criminal. But he is a bandit, not
a brigand. He may rob, but he does not kidnap. His idea of ransom is
what is in a man's pockets, not what his Government will pay to prevent
having his throat cut. After all, there is such a thing in England as
highway robbery, and in Corsica robbery is usually without violence. If
a bandit is treated as a gentleman he will be polite, even though he
points a gun at a visitor's stomach and requests him to hand over all he
happens to have about him.

I went to Corsica from Leghorn with a friend of mine who knew no more of
the island than I did. We landed at Bastia, where, by the way, Nelson
also landed and was severely repulsed, and found the town one of the
most barren and uninviting places in the world. It is hot, glaring,
sandy, stony, sun-burnt, a most unpleasing introduction to one of the
most beautiful and interesting islands in the Mediterranean, or, for
that matter, in the world. For the island is fertile and is yet barren;
it is mountainous and has great stretches of plain in it along the
eastern shore. Though it is but fifty miles across and little more than
a hundred long, there is a real range of rugged high mountains in it,
two of them, Monte Cinto and Monte Rotondo, being nearly 9000 feet high,
while three others, Pagliorba, Padre and d'Oro are over 7000 feet. The
rocks of these ranges are primary and metamorphic, and the scenery is
bold. Yet it is kindly an