Sardinia is still the country in which European civilisation and the change of manners resulting from it, have taken less root than in any part of Europe: those who regard civilisation as an evil, must consider Sardinia to be a paradise. In no country have witches been burnt at so recent a period, and the practice, perhaps, still prevails; the government has not yet been able to suppress the custom of taking revenge for bloodshed. The villages make war upon one another, and no one can travel with safety along the high roads, unless he purchase the protection of a party or a village, as in the East, or else he must acquire the rights of hospitality. According to the accounts we have of the condition of the island, we may imagine it to be something like that which certain persons call the golden period of the middle ages. But with all this barbarism, the greatest immorality prevails, especially among the priests. The country is in a perfect state of anarchy, being governed according to ancient privileges, which have never been changed at all; the country population is in a state of complete dissolution. When the island has an able governor, he can keep order only by the utmost rigour, without which he can do absolutely nothing. It is deplorable that, in these circumstances, the administration of the island is not entrusted to able men, the propriety of which I have often urged. I sometimes desired natives of Sardinia to come to me that I might examine their language, which is very peculiar; you cannot say that it is Italian, it contains indeed very much Latin, but much also that is quite foreign. The Sardinian mountaineers are said to have many words in their dialect which are radically different from all other European languages. As much information has at present been collected about the Berber language, my object was to question the natives and to examine their words to see whether they were Berber or Basque. But I could not succeed, the people were too timid and did not come. I have now placed my hope upon a friend, Count Castiglione, of Milan, a great linguist, who has studied the language of the Berbers; he may perhaps be more successful. The island, from the earliest times, always made the impression of a wild and ungenial country, which, poor as it was, was severely treated by the Carthaginians, for they are said to have forbidden the cultivation of grain, in order to compel the Sardinians to import their supplies from Spain and Africa. In like manner Spain, for a long time, would not tolerate the cultivation of European grain in her American possessions, and when at length she allowed it, she forbade the planting of olives and vines. It was the universally established opinion among the ancients, that Sardinia was the largest island, and larger than Sicily. This opinion, though erroneous, is found in all ancient writers, and we cannot say what may have given rise to it. CORSICA.