As the traveller approaches the Fiumorbo river, he sees isolated palatial mansions; some of them are the seats of French capitalists who began imprudently, and became bankrupt. Others are mansions belonging to rich domains, true earldoms in extent, as Migliacciaro in the Canton Prunelli, which belongs to a French company, and was formerly a source of revenue to the Genoese family of Fiesco. The Fiumorbo, which takes its rise in the highest mountain range of Corsica, disembogues above the Stagno di Graduggine. It takes the name of "Blind River" from its course, for it moves like a blind man circuitously through the plain, feeling out its way to the sea. The country between it and the Tavignano is said to be the most fertile in Corsica. As the evening approached, the temperature changed with striking rapidity, from the most sultry heat to a moist and foggy chillness. In many parts the atmosphere was laden with miasma. I stumbled on a gravestone by the roadside. It seemed erected in this solitude to indicate a memorable spot. It was the monument of a road-contractor whom a paesane shot, because he had an amour with a maiden whose suitor the latter was. Nothing enchains the interest of men so powerfully as the romance of the heart. A simple love-tragedy exercises the same power over the fancy of the many, as a heroic deed, and its memory is often preserved for centuries. It is a beautiful thing that the heart too has its chronicle. The Corsicans are perfect devils of jealousy; they avenge insulted love as they do blood. My fellow-traveller related to me the following incidents:—"A young man had forsaken his betrothed, and attached himself to another girl. One day he was sitting in the open square of his village at a game of draughts. His rejected sweet-heart approached, and after overwhelming him with a torrent of imprecations, drew a pistol from her bosom and blew his brains out. Another forsaken maiden had, on one occasion, said to her lover, 'If you ever desert me for another, she will never be yours.' Two years passed away. The young man led another maiden to the altar. As he left the church-door with her, the girl whom he had forsaken shot him; and the people exclaimed, 'Evviva, may your countenance live!' The judge sentenced the maiden to three months' imprisonment. Many youths sued for her hand, but none desired the young widow of the murdered bridegroom."