On the declivity of the mountain stands the gloomy village of Barbiguano; the road passes it through groves of chestnuts and olives. This road was made by Count Marbœuf, and it was here that Bernadotte worked among the other labourers. The _conducteur_ of the Diligence pointed out to me that its vast curves describe an _M_. We were now approaching the beautiful Gulf of San Fiorenzo, which lay within its silent, monotonous, red margin, smiling the "unnumbered smile" that Æschylus speaks of, from the countless waves and wavelets that crisped its lustrous surface. And from a valley watered by a winding brook smiled gaily back to it thousands on thousands of laurel-roses or oleanders, whose red blossoms clothed its slopes far and wide. In our northern homes the brook is glad when it can clothe its margin with alder and willow; here, in the beautiful south, it decks itself with the gorgeous oleander. The region is almost entirely uncultivated. I saw frequently, here and there, forsaken or half-ruined houses, picturesque objects in the landscape, for they were covered over and over with ivy, whose festoons obscured the very doors and windows. In such little ivy houses must the elves dwell, and titter, and twinkle their roguish eyes when a sunbeam or the moonlight steals in through the lattice of creepers to see what knavery the little wights are about. The history of those who once lived there was perhaps bloody and cruel; the Barbary Corsairs may have expelled them, or the murderous wars with Genoa, or the Vendetta. Old Genoese towers are seen at intervals along the coast. The country becomes more and more picturesque in the neighbourhood of San Fiorenzo. To the right stretched now the full expanse of the gulf—to the left, sweeping round it in a wide semicircle, towered far in the background the amphitheatre of the hills. They are the proud hills of Col di Tenda, at the foot of which the Romans were once defeated by the Corsicans. They encircle the little province of Nebbio—the district around the Gulf of San Fiorenzo, towards which alone the amphitheatre of mountains opens. It is a hilly province of great aridity, but rich in wine, in fruit, in olives, and chestnuts. Since the earliest times, Nebbio has been considered as a natural stronghold, and all invaders of the island, from the Romans to the French, have sought to force an entrance, and to effect a firm footing at this point—a circumstance which has made it the theatre of innumerable conflicts. Nebbio, as at present divided, contains four cantons or pieves—San Fiorenzo, Oletta, Murato, and Santo Pietro di Tenda. San Fiorenzo is the principal place.