Outside Venzolasca stands a beautifully situated tomb belonging to the Casabianca family. This is another of the noble and influential families which Vescovato can boast. The immediate ancestors of the present French senator Casabianca made their name famous by their deeds of arms. Raffaello Casabianca, commandant of Corsica in 1793, Senator, Count, and Peer of France, died in Bastia at an advanced age in 1826. Luzio Casabianca, Corsican deputy to the Convention, was captain of the admiral's ship, _L'Orient_, in the battle of Aboukir. After Admiral Brueys had been torn in pieces by a shot, Casabianca took the command of the vessel, which was on fire, the flames spreading rapidly. As far as was possible, he took measures for saving the crew, and refused to leave the ship. His young son Giocante, a boy of thirteen, could not be prevailed on to leave his father's side. The vessel was every moment expected to blow up. Clasped in each other's arms, father and son perished in the explosion. You can wander nowhere in Corsica without breathing an atmosphere of heroism. Venzolasca has a handsome church, at least interiorly. I found people engaged in painting the choir, and they complained to me that the person who had been engaged to gild the wood-carving, had shamefully cheated the village, as he had been provided with ducat-gold for the purpose, and had run off with it. The only luxury the Corsicans allow themselves is in the matter of church-decoration, and there is hardly a paese in the island, however poor, which does not take a pride in decking its little church with gay colours and golden ornaments. From the plateau on which the church of Venzolasca stands, there is a magnificent view seawards, and, in the opposite direction, you have the indescribably beautiful basin of the Castagniccia. Few regions of Corsica have given me so much pleasure as the hills which enclose this basin in their connexion with the sea. The Castagniccia is an imposing amphitheatre, mountains clothed in the richest green, and of the finest forms, composing the sides. The chestnut-woods cover them almost to their summit; at their foot olive-groves, with their silver gray, contrast picturesquely with the deep green of the chestnut foliage. Half-appearing through the trees are seen scattered hamlets, Sorbo, Penta, Castellare, and far up among the clouds Oreto, dark, with tall black church-towers.