these Miss Lydia believed she beheld either a brigand or a son going
forth to avenge his father's death. But Orso always declared it was some
peaceful denizen of a neighbouring village travelling on business,
and that he carried a gun less from necessity than because it was the
fashion, just as no dandy ever takes a walk without an elegant cane.
Though a gun 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