great height. "Look at that queer flat island there. That is Pianosa. And
there is Elba. Elba! Cannot the magic of that word rouse you? But no, you
have no Corsican blood in you; and you sit there with your uncompromising
old face and your black bonnet a little bit on one side, if I may mention
it"--and she proceeded to put Mademoiselle Brun's bonnet straight--"you,
who are always in mourning for something--I don't know what," she added
half reflectively, as she sat down again.

The road to St. Florent mounts in a semi-circle behind Bastia through
orange-groves and vineyards, and the tiny private burial-grounds so dear
to Corsican families of position. These, indeed, are a proud people, for
they are too good to await the last day in the company of their humbler
brethren, but must needs have a small garden and a hideous little
mausoleum of their own, with a fine view and easy access to the highroad.

With many turns the great road climbs round the face of the mountain, and
soon leaving Bastia behind, takes a southern trend, and suddenly commands
from a height a matchless view of the Lake of Biguglia and the little
hillside village where a Corsican parliament once sat, which was once,
indeed, the capital of this war-torn island. For every village can boast
of a battle, and the rocky earth has run with the blood of almost every
European nation, as well as that of Turk and Moor. Beyond the lake, and
stretching away into a blue haze where sea and land melt into one, lies
the great salt marsh where the first Greek colony was located, where the
ruins of Mariana remain to this day.

Soon the road mounts above the level of the semi-tropical vegetation, and
passes along the face of bare and stony heights, where the pines are
small and the macquis no higher than a man's head.