By and bye I reached Lumio, a high-lying village, whose black-brown, tower-like houses it had been at a distance totally impossible to distinguish from the rocks. Green jalousies marked here and there the house of a man of some means. Descendants of the ancient seigniors still live in all these villages; and men of the proudest names, and endless pedigree, live in the gloomy paeses of Corsica among the common people, and mix in their society. Nowhere in the world, perhaps, is so much democratic equality in social life to be found as in this island, where distinctions of rank are hardly ever visible, and the peasant conducts himself before the noble with the upright bearing of an independent man, as I have often myself seen. Above Calvi, in this region, lives Peter Napoleon, Lucian's son—at the time I was in Corsica the only Bonaparte resident on the native island of the family. The Balagnese are fond of him; they say he is a good hunter, associates freely with the shepherds, and has not forgotten that his forefathers belonged to the Corsicans. The election of Louis Napoleon of course filled the Corsican people with pride and exultation. I found the portrait of this man everywhere throughout the island, and heard his energy praised as Corsican energy. Men of more insight, however, did not allow their patriotism to carry them so far; and I heard Corsicans express the opinion that the Napoleons were tyrants, and the _last_ oppressors of liberty. Lumio has many orange-orchards, and such an astonishing quantity of cactus-hedges as I found nowhere else, except at Calvi. The cactus has here the size and stem of a tree. The view of the valley and gulf of Calvi from the mountains of Lumio is very beautiful. Calvi lies on a tongue of land at the foot of the hills of Calenzana. With its dark flat houses, two cupolas rising high above them, and the walls of the fort, which stands at the extreme end of the little peninsula, it has a striking resemblance to a Moorish city. Calvi is the leading town of the smallest of the arrondissements of Corsica. This arrondissement contains six cantons, thirty-four communes, and about 25,000 inhabitants, and extends over almost the entire north-west of the island, mountains and coast. Not one half of it is under cultivation, for the whole district of coast from Galeria lies completely waste. The Balagna alone is well cultivated, and it has also the larger proportion of the population.