red pines, or deep and flowery
brushwood--the 'maquis' of Corsica, which yields shelter to its
traditional outlaws and bandits. Yet upon these hillsides there
are hardly any signs of life; the whole country seems abandoned to
primeval wildness and the majesty of desolation. Nothing can possibly
be more unlike the smiling Riviera, every square mile of which is
cultivated like a garden, and every valley and bay dotted over with
white villages. After steaming for a few hours along this savage
coast, the rocks which guard the entrance to the bay of Ajaccio,
murderous-looking teeth and needles ominously christened Sanguinari,
are passed, and we enter the splendid land-locked harbour, on the
northern shore of which Ajaccio is built. About three centuries ago
the town, which used to occupy the extreme or eastern end of the bay,
was removed to a more healthy point upon the northern coast, so that
Ajaccio is quite a modern city. Visitors who expect to find in it
the picturesqueness of Genoa or San Remo, or even of Mentone, will
be sadly disappointed. It is simply a healthy, well-appointed town of
recent date, the chief merits of which are, that it has wide streets,
and is free, externally at least, from the filth and rubbish of most
southern seaports.

But if Ajaccio itself is not picturesque, the scenery which
it commands, and in the heart of which it lies, is of the most
magnificent. The bay of Ajaccio resembles a vast Italian lake--a Lago
Maggiore, with greater space between the mountains and the shore.
From the snow-peaks of the interior, huge granite crystals clothed in
white, to the southern extremity of the bay, peak succeeds peak and
ridge rises behind ridge in a line of wonderful variety and beauty.
The atmospheric changes of light and shadow, cloud and colour, on this
upland country, are as subtle and as various as those which lend their
beauty to the scenery of the lakes, while the sea below is blue and
rarely troubled. One could never get tired with looking at this view.
Morning and evening add new charms to its sublimity and beauty. In the
early morning Monte d'Oro sparkles like a Monte Rosa with its fresh
snow, and the whole inferior range puts on the crystal blueness of
dawn among the Alps. In the evening, violet and purple tints and
the golden glow of Italian sunset lend a different lustre to the
fairyland. In fact, the beauties of Switzerland and Italy are
curiously blended in this landscape.

In soil and veg