In the north of Europe we know little more of Corsica than that Napoleon was born there, that Pasquale Paoli struggled heroically there for freedom, and that the Corsicans practise hospitality and the Vendetta, and are the most daring bandits. The notions I had brought with me were of the gloomiest cast, and the first incidents thrown in my way were of a kind thoroughly to justify them. Our boat landed us at the quay, on which the scanty light of some hand-lanterns showed a group of doganieri and sailors standing. The boatman sprang on shore. I have hardly ever seen a man of a more repulsive aspect. He wore the Phrygian cap of red wool, and had a white cloth tied over one eye; he was a veritable Charon, and the boundless fury with which he screamed to the passengers, swearing at them, and examining the fares by the light of his lantern, gave me at once a specimen of the ungovernably passionate temperament of the Corsicans. The group on the quay were talking eagerly. I heard them tell how a quarter of an hour ago a Corsican had murdered his neighbour with three thrusts of a dagger (_ammazzato, ammazzato_--a word never out of my ears in Corsica; _ammazzato con tre colpi di pugnale_). "On what account?" "Merely in the heat of conversation; the sbirri are after him; he will be in the _macchia_ by this time." The _macchia_ is the bush. I heard the word _macchia_ in Corsica just as often as _ammazzato_ or _tumbato_. He has taken to the _macchia_, is as much as to say, he has turned bandit. I was conscious of a slight shudder, and that suspense which the expectation of strange adventures creates. I was about to go in search of a locanda--a young man stepped up to me and said, in Tuscan, that he would take me to an inn. I followed the friendly Italian--a sculptor of Carrara. No light was shed on the steep and narrow streets of Bastia but by the stars of heaven. We knocked in vain at four locandas; none opened. We knocked at the fifth; still no answer. "We shall not find admittance here," said the Carrarese; "the landlord's daughter is lying on her bier." We wandered about the solitary streets for an hour; no one would listen to our appeals. Is this the famous Corsican hospitality? I thought; I seem to have come to the City of the Dead; and to-morrow I will write above the gate of Bastia: "All hope abandon, ye who enter here!" However, we resolved to make one more trial. Staggering onwards, we came upon some other passengers in the same unlucky plight as myself; they were two Frenchmen, an Italian emigrant, and an English convert. I joined them, and once more we made the round of the locandas. This first night's experience was by no means calculated to inspire one with a high idea of the commercial activity and culture of the island; for Bastia is the largest town in Corsica, and has about fifteen thousand inhabitants. If this was the stranger's reception in a city, what was he to expect in the interior of the country?