The main haunts of the bandits are between Tor and Mount Santo Appiano, in the wildernesses of Monte Cinto and Monte Rotondo, and in the inaccessible regions of Niolo. There the deep shades of natural forests that have never seen an axe, and densest brushwood of dwarf-oak, albatro, myrtles, and heath, clothe the declivities of the mountains; wild torrents roar unseen through gloomy ravines, where every path is lost; and caves, grottos, and shattered rocks, afford concealment. There the bandit lives, with the falcon, the fox, and the wild sheep, a life more romantic and more comfortless than that of the American savage. Justice takes her course. She has condemned the bandit _in contumaciam_. The bandit laughs at her; he says in his strange way, "I have got the _sonetto_!" meaning the sentence _in contumaciam_. The sbirri are out upon his track--the avengers of blood the same--he is in constant flight--he is the Wandering Jew of the desolate hills. Now come the conflicts with the gendarmes, heroic, fearful conflicts; his hands grow bloodier; but not with the blood of sbirri only, for the bandit is avenger too; it is not for love to his wretched life--it is far rather for revenge that he lives. He has sworn death to his enemy's kindred. One can imagine what a wild and fierce intensity his vengeful feelings must acquire in the frightful savageness of nature round him, and in its yet more frightful solitude, under constant thoughts of death, and dreams of the scaffold. Sometimes the bandit issues from the mountains to slay his enemy; when he has accomplished his vengeance, he vanishes again in the hills. Not seldom the Corsican bandit rises into a Carl Moor[F]--into an avenger upon society of real or supposed injuries it has done him. The history of the bandit Capracinta of Prunelli is still well known in Corsica. The authorities had unjustly condemned his father to the galleys; the son forthwith took to the macchia with some of his relations, and these avengers from time to time descended from the mountains, and stabbed and shot personal enemies, soldiers, and spies; they one day captured the public executioner, and executed the man himself.