ers.
So as to the mineral baths, of which this wretched hamlet of
Pozzonegro is one of the most important, with its fountain, whose
amazing ferruginous properties Paganetti is constantly vaunting. Of
packet-boats, not a trace. Yes, there is an old, half-ruined
Genoese tower, on the shore of the Bay of Ajaccio, with this
inscription on a tarnished panel over its hermetically closed door:
'Paganetti Agency, Maritime Company, Bureau of Information.' The
bureau is kept by fat gray lizards in company with a screech-owl.
As for the railroads, I noticed that all the excellent Corsicans to
whom I mentioned them, replied with cunning smiles, disconnected
phrases, full of mystery; and not until this morning did I obtain
the exceedingly farcical explanation of all this reticence.

"I had read among the documents which the Governor waves before our
eyes from time to time, like a fan to inflate his _blague_, a deed
of a marble quarry at a place called Taverna, two hours from
Pozzonegro. Availing myself of our visit to this place, I jumped on
a mule this morning, without a word to any one, and, guided by a
tall rascal, with the legs of a deer,--a perfect specimen of the
Corsican poacher or smuggler, with his great red pipe between his
teeth,--I betook myself to Taverna. After a horrible journey among
cliffs intersected by crevasses, bogs, and abysses of immeasurable
depth, where my mule maliciously amused himself by walking close to
the edge, as if he were measuring it with his shoes, we descended
an almost perpendicular surface to our destination,--a vast desert
of rocks, absolutely bare, all white with the droppings of gulls
and mews; for the sea is just below, very near, and the silence of
the place was broken only by the beating of the waves and the
shrill cries of flocks of birds flying in circles. My guide, who
has a holy horror of customs officers and gendarmes, remained at
the top of the cliff, because of a small custom-house station on
the shore, while I bent my steps toward a tall red building which
reared its three stories aloft in that blazing solitude, the
windows broken, the roof-tiles in confusion, and over the rotting
door an immense sign: '_Caisse Territoriale. Carr--bre--54._' The
wind and sun and rain have destroyed the rest.

"Certainly there has been at some time an atte