Corsica
Peeps at Many Lands
9781465622501
211 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Corsica is so small that from its highest point one can see almost all over the island. It is only about three times the size of Yorkshire. As the island is approached by steamer, it appears from every point of view something like an ocean of granite, a mass of rock-waves. High up on the crests of some of the granite billows small villages can be seen, themselves resembling a heap of rocks more than anything else. An examination of the map at the front of this book will show that there is one principal mountain-chain bending round from the north-west to the south-west, and rather nearer the west coast than the east, so that it divides the island into two unequal parts. From the central chain numerous small ranges run more or less directly to the sea. On the west, north, and south these chains end in capes, but in the east they form a series of terraces. Between the watersheds are hundreds of little streams and rivers. To get from the basin of one stream to that of another is so difficult, except along the coast, that each basin forms, as it were, a little world in itself. Most of the soil is uncultivated, and in many parts the great rocks of red granite come up above the surface, and lie bare to the eye, unadorned with either tree, grass, or flower. On the east coast there is a long stretch of low-lying land between the mountains and the sea. This is the most unhealthy part of the island, a mixture of swamps and lagoons, where deadly fevers have their home. It is only in winter and spring that life is possible on the eastern plain. In the spring the plain is exceedingly beautiful, decked with flowers and bright with verdure. On one side rolls the bluest of seas, crested with the whitest of foam. As you stand by the shore, and watch the great waves dashing themselves to pieces on the breakers or rippling caressingly over the tawny sands, it is almost impossible to believe that this smiling region is, during the hot weather, one of the unhealthiest places in Europe. About July or August the peasants lock up their houses, pack their carts with poultry, provisions, and children, and go up 3,000 feet into the mountains, to escape the fevers that come with the hot weather. Houses are shuttered and barred, fields and vineyards are left untended, and the peasants simply run away as fast as they can from a land where merely to sleep means death. The French Government is doing its best to improve the condition of things by planting groves of eucalyptus-trees in the most unhealthy places. The eastern plain is broken here and there by a number of lagoons or shallow lakes, separated from the sea by long narrow sand-banks. These lagoons swarm with fish and cockles. One of them is known as the Lake of Diana. It is a great sheet of salt water, with one narrow opening to the sea. It contains a small island, 460 yards in circumference, which is made up entirely of oyster-shells, covered, however, with grass, shrubs, and trees. The island is built in the shallowest part of the lagoon, and dates from the time when Aleria used to send large supplies of salted oysters to the people of Rome.
