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 foreigner in
a country whose unsociable inhabitants appear to condemn him or her to a
condition of utter isolation. She was already regretting her headstrong
caprice; but to go back at once would have been to risk her reputation
as an intrepid traveller, so she made up her mind to be patient, and
kill time as best she could. With this noble resolution, she brought
out her crayons and colours, sketched views of the gulf, and did
the portrait of a sunburnt peasant, who sold melons, like any
market-gardener on the Continent, but who wore a long white beard, and
looked the fiercest rascal that had ever been seen. As all that was not
enough to amuse her, she determined to turn the head of the descendant
of the corporals, and this was no difficult matter, since, far from