"After an hour's climbing then (for the road twisted uphill along the edge of the torrent) we came to the village, which was called Otta. Now, the first thing to happen to us in Otta was that we found it empty--not so much as a dog in the street--but all the inhabitants on the hill above, in a crowd before a mighty great stone: and Badcock would have it that they were gathered together in fear of us. But the true reason turned out to be something quite different. For this stone overhangs the village, which is built on a stiff slope; and though it has hung there for hundreds of years without moving, the villagers can never be easy that it will not tumble on top of them; and once a year regularly, and at odd times when the panic takes them, they march up and tie it with ropes. This very thing they were doing as we arrived, and all because some old woman had dreamed of an earthquake. We took notice that in the crowd and in the gang binding the stone there was no man the right side of fifty (barring a cripple or two); the reason being that all their young men had enlisted in the militia. "These people made us welcome (and I will say, gentlemen, once for all and in spite of what has happened to Master Prosper here, that there is no such folk as the Corsicans for kindness to strangers), but they told us we were on the wrong road. By following the pass we should find ourselves in forest-tracks which indeed would lead us down to the great plain of the Niolo and across it to Corte, whence a good road ran north to Cape Corso; but our shorter way was the coast-road, which (they added) we must leave before reaching Calvi-- for fear of the Genoese--and take a southerly one which wound through the mountains to Calenzana. They explained this many times to Sir John, and Sir John explained it to us; and learning that we were English, and therefore friends of liberty, they forced us to drink wine with them--lashins of wine--until just as my head was beginning to feel muzzy, some one called out that we were heroes and must drink the wine of heroes, the pride of Otta, the Invincible St. Cyprien.