A beautiful greeting does Bonifazio give to the wayfarer who enters through the old gloomy gate; for on the front of one of the towers stands boldly out the grand word _Libertas_. I used to read it often on the towers and houses of Italian towns—a melancholy satire; on many a banner has this word been blazoned. But here it stands proudly and confidently out on those antique turrets, which can tell of so many glorious deeds of arms. I entered the city with the joyful sensation that I was going among valiant and free men. To the present hour the Bonifazians have the character of being the most republican as well as the most industrious and religious of the inhabitants of Corsica. The site of Bonifazio is quite peculiar. Imagine a colossal white pyramid of rock, formed of horizontal layers planted in the sea, with its base pointing upwards, and supporting high in the air, fortress, towers, and town, and you will have some idea of this Corsican Gibraltar. The façade is deeply excavated; the whole mass seems to cling to the mainland. On two sides the sea foams round it, a narrow inlet shut in by precipitous, inaccessible hills washes it on a third, forming at once, gulf, haven, and fosse. The power of the water has torn up the coast all round, and has washed the rocks into the most grotesque forms. From beneath, viewed from the sea, which in many places has no beach, the coast rising sheer from the water, this gray rock stands out boldly. I descended to look up at it; the waves dashed round its base, the clouds above floated over it; I felt as if the rock were tottering and it was about to fall upon me—an ocular delusion the more natural, as a large mass is washed away from the bottom, and here and there huge layers of chalk blackened by the weather project boldly into the air. As soon as I saw Bonifazio, I at once comprehended how Alfonso of Arragon failed to take it. It numbers 3380 inhabitants, and, on account of its insular position, contains no communes. Its buildings are of Pisan and Genoese origin. Old, and long inhabited, they resemble ruins more than dwelling-houses. They are built mostly of the material of the rock. They are all white; and as the walls and short towers have the same hue, the spectator has more than enough of the national colour of Corsica. It would be difficult for me to convey a distinct idea of the town itself; for it is impossible to describe this intricate confusion of narrow streets, through which the draught or the sea-breeze is continually whirling the dust, and through which, going down or up hill, one must skilfully steer his course, wandering about in perpetual astonishment at the novelty of the position, especially when the eye, finding an open space, discovers the sea far beneath it as blue as the heavens above. Beams are frequently thrown across from house to house, and dark passages often lead from one narrow street to another.