Corsica possesses no coal, and the people in the mountain villages are too poor to buy it even if it were imported. The villagers depend for fuel on the wood that grows at their very doors, using it both in the form of logs for firewood and of charcoal. Charcoal takes the place of coal for cooking purposes, and not only is it manufactured for home use, but hundreds of tons are exported every year to France, Spain, Italy, and Sardinia. The method of making charcoal appears very simple, but great care and experience are necessary to avoid wasting the wood. The black-faced, black-handed charcoal-burners cut down the thick stems of the arbutus and other plants, and stack them in a heap. Round this heap smaller pieces of wood are arranged, till the whole pile is something of the shape of an enormous plum-pudding. The mound is covered over with green leaves and earth. A hole is left in one side of the heap, and through this a fire is lighted. In about ten days the mass of wood is reduced to charcoal. To get a ton of charcoal it is necessary to cut down nearly a quarter of an acre of strong, healthy shrubs--that is, to destroy about eight tons of brushwood. In this way much of the maquis is continually being destroyed, but so rapidly do new plants spring up that the harm done is not nearly so great as would at first be expected. The bush is also cut down for use as firewood, for though charcoal is used in the kitchen, logs are burned in the “parlour.” Cutting and selling firewood is quite an important occupation. Some of the work is done by boys, but as a rule it is the barefooted, bareheaded women who toil with the axe upon the hill-side, and come home in the evening heavily laden, bearing their bundles on their heads. A Corsican woman seems to carry everything except her baby on her head--boxes, firewood, water, and provisions. If by any chance a man be seen transporting firewood, he is as often as not dragging it along on a trolley. He is not fond of carrying heavy articles. The firewood is not good of its kind; it soon sinks down, and leaves a heap of ashes. To keep it glowing, someone must be continually blowing it. As a peasant said to me once, “It takes four people to make a wood fire--one to cut, one to carry, one to light, and one to blow.” What the log-fire lacks in cheerfulness it makes up in heat. It is wonderful how much warmth is sometimes given out by what appears to be a mere heap of ashes and dead wood. We have already referred to the uses of certain kinds of heath in the manufacture of briar pipes, and of the use of cistus for heating baking-ovens. The amount of cistus used in baking bread is enormous. The shrub has light roots, and as it is much easier to pull the whole plant up than to cut it, it is usually completely uprooted. A hard-working woman can gather and bind from eight to fourteen bundles of cistus in a day. These she can sell for about a half-penny each, so that she can earn from fourpence to sevenpence a day.