Many of the pagan usages of ancient Corsica have been lost, many still exist, particularly in the highland pasture-country of Niolo. Among these, the practice of soothsaying by bones is remarkable. The fortune-teller takes the shoulder-blade (_scapula_) of a goat or sheep, gives its surface a polish as of a mirror, and reads from it the history of the person concerned. But it must be the left shoulder-blade, for, according to the old proverb--_la destra spalla sfalla_--the right one deceives. Many famous Corsicans are said to have had their fortunes predicted by soothsayers. It is told that, as Sampiero sat with his friends at table, the evening before his death, an owl was heard to scream upon the house-top, where it sat hooting the whole night; and that, when a soothsayer hereupon read the scapula, to the horror of all, he found Sampiero's death written in it. Napoleon's fortunes, too, were foretold from a _spalla_. An old herdsman of Ghidazzo, renowned for reading shoulder-blades, inspected the scapula one day, when Napoleon was still a child, and saw thereon, plainly represented, a tree rising with many branches high into the heavens, but having few and feeble roots. From this the herdsman saw that a Corsican would become ruler of the world, but only for a short time. The story of this prediction is very common in Corsica; it has a remarkable affinity with the dream of Mandane, in which she saw the tree interpreted to mean her son Cyrus. Many superstitious beliefs of the Corsicans, with a great deal of poetic fancy in them, relate to death--the true genius of the Corsican popular poetry; since on this island of the Vendetta, death has so peculiarly his mythic abode; Corsica might be called the Island of Death, as other islands were called of Apollo, of Venus, or of Jupiter. When any one is about to die, a pale light upon the house-top frequently announces what is to happen. The owl screeches the whole night, the dog howls, and often a little drum is heard, which a ghost beats. If any one's death is near, sometimes the dead people come at night to his house, and make it known. They are dressed exactly like the Brothers of Death, in the long white mantles, with the pointed hoods in which are the spectral eye-holes; and they imitate all the gestures of the Brothers of Death, who place themselves round the bier, lift it, bear it, and go before it. This is their dismal pastime all night till the cock crows. When the cock crows, they slip away, some to the churchyard, some into their graves in the church. The dead people are fond of each other's company; you will see them coming out of the graves if you go to the churchyard at night; then make quickly the sign of the cross over the trigger of your gun, that the ghost-shot may go off well. For a full shot has power over the spectres; and when you shoot among them, they disperse, and not till ten years after such a shot can they meet again.