ing examples of the supremacy of that law. He, however, adds what most travellers have experienced under such circumstances, that the system has great inconveniences, and for a wearied-out traveller to have to wait till eleven or twelve, or even later, for his supper, and then to sustain a conversation (all of inquiries on the part of your entertainers) is very trying; equally so is it sometimes to eat of all the delicacies that are forced upon a jaded and travel-worn appetite. Throughout Sardinia it would appear, that in most houses, admitting of an extra room, one is set apart for the guests-the "hospitale cubiculum" of the Romans-ready and open to all strangers; and its sanctity is as great as in former days. The guest is generally expected to give some little trifle in money to the servant of the house on parting; but it would be a high offence to offer the host, however humble or poor, any payment for the expense or trouble he may have incurred. Mr. Tyndale justly remarks, that the traveller may, with great advantage, carry with him a little stock of Genoese filagree, brooches, ear-rings, rings, &c., or little coloured silk kerchiefs, as presents; their effect is prodigious, being thankfully accepted where money would be spurned, and where it is difficult to know how to repay a kindness.

The fuorusciti, literally "out-goers," of all kinds, who used to render the interior of the island inaccessible to travellers, are, according to Mr. Tyndale, much upon the decrease. The Sarde fuorusciti, he tells us, includes the regular bandit, the petty robber, the fugitive from the arm of the law, the avenger of an insult or injury, and the voluntary fugitive, and they are in many respects different characters to the Italian and Spanish outlaws.

The bandito of Apuglia comes before one's mind as a romantic rogue, decorated with watches, ornaments, miniatures of the virgin, rings, and other spoils of his victims,—with all the charms of a hero, and the atrocities of a villain,-as living on the pleasure and profit of plunder, and actuated to it by the necessity as well as excitement of gaining an existence by his course. The ladron, the salteador, and the ratero of Spain may be similarly distinguished from each other; the first being the wholesale professional robber; the second, the literal "pouncer upon" whatever he can lay his hands, and proportionally less generous and magnanimous than the ladron; and the third is the common order of thief.

But all these differ from the Sarde fuorusciti, for the regular bandito can only arrive at that high dignity by a lengthened exile from his home, by a series of attacks on him, and a consequent desperation in every act of defence or mode of obtaining a livelihood. Such characters as these have dwelt, from all times, in the recesses of the mountains and forests of Sardinia. As early as A.D. 22, mention is made of the coercendis illic latrociniis, by means of 4000 Jews expelled thither from Rome by Tiberius. The last grand battue of any importance of these unfortunate creatures, it is said, took place in 1735, during the reign of Carlo Emanuele III., by the viceroy, the Marchese di Rivarolo; but Mr. Tyndale informs us that Carlo Alberto has in reality done more for the suppression of the fuorusciti, than has been done since the days of the Roman emperor, and the island can now boast (?) of few regular banditi. The fugitives, from the arm of the law or from the consequence of vendétta, or revenge, constitute seven-eighths of the whole fuorusciti, but Jan.-VOL. LXXXV. NO. CCCXXXVII.

H

from no robbers of any class does it appear that the stranger or foreigner has reason to expect maltreatment.

Sassari, a goodly town, inclosed by a high wall and towers, erected by Don Pedro of Aragon, in 1362, has a population of about 25,000 souls, and what Mr. Tyndale says of the place, may be quoted as applying more or less to all other Sardinian towns.

One cannot walk sixty yards in the street, or be sixty minutes in a house, without meeting an ecclesiastic, or some of the living appendages of the church; and the numberless anecdotes of their influence, in the families of the highest as well as lowest classes, were confirmed by my own personal experience. Upwards of fifty Jesuits are now established there, and hold high positions in the schools and university. The society of Sassari, as composed of the nobility, government authorities, and employés, the members of the university, the learned professions, and the rich merchants, is subject to all the rivalries and jealousies of rank, power, talent, and wealth; for rarely finding a common outlet in external interests and affairs, they vegetate in their own importance, or their neighbours' insignificance; and as the steamer only arrives once a fortnight at Porto Torres, from Terra Ferma, to give any relief or excitement, the heavy interim is a most monotonous existence.

Ignorance and pride are naturally the besetting sins of a society in which a free press is unknown, where books are subjected to a blind censorship, visits to the continent are not permitted, and where the Jesuits do not allow the mind to be contaminated by useful knowledge. There are exceptions, but they are few; and courtesy and kindness to strangers seemed no less an obligation than a voluntary act of pleasure. Religious ceremonies in such a country partake far more of a theatrical character, than on the continent. Mr. Tyndale's account of the Easter processions force an involuntary smile from the reader. Two hundred men, enveloped in ladies' night-dresses, and a phalanx of little angels with pasteboard wings, introduce us on such occasions to Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, in gorgeous Oriental costumes, with brocaded garments and turbans, and black eunuchs to attend upon them!

Sassari has several interesting memorials of the past history of the town, especially in its castle, where the Aragon arms and the tower of the Inquisition, remain as records of the political and religious miseries of past times. The university and churches also contain many objects of interest, and the fountain of Rosello is deservedly an object of pride with the Sassarese. The town has also the character of being comparatively healthy, and living is excessively cheap; a large fowl costs 1d., and wine 1d. per bottle. The environs of the town abound in countryhouses, pleasure-grounds, and gardens. In the latter, myrtles grow to the size of forest trees, and almond, cherry, orange, and pomegranate blossoms lighten up the dark foliage over which the Roman pine and palm tower majestically. A single orange tree bears as many as 4500. oranges, so luxuriant is the climate.

Mr. Tyndale travelled from Sassari, in a north-east direction, to the district of Gallura. Among the most interesting objects on his way were the noraghe of Nulvi, and the town of Castel Sardo, the latter built by some of the Doria family about 1102, on a rocky promontory, and commanded by the castle from whence it takes its name. town and castle has been subjected, like other towns in Sardinia, to

This

great vicissitudes. As to its present condition, Mr. Tyndale speaks thus:

The Castellanese, ridiculously proud of their town-a pride apparently founded on the circumstance of its having had three different names-have now but little to boast of. The walls and bastions are irregular, and the castle itself devoid of all architectural beauty; there is not a single handsome house; the streets are narrow, and, built on a rather steep rock, rise one above the other in great confusion. But little can be said for their cleanliness, as there are no drains, sewers, or any accommodations of civilised life; and all the filth and ordure are thrown over one of the walls every evening at Ave-Maria. The population, according to the census of 1837, was 2235. Though poor, and simple in their mode of living, the women are said to indulge so much in dress and scandal, that the place has acquired the sobriquet of "il vespaio," "the hornet's nest."

In the Gallura country as in Ireland and other Roman Catholic countries that are overrun with priests, the hovels of the peasants have no windows, and a large door serves at once for the common entrance and exit of bipeds, quadrupeds, air, light, and smoke. Yet amid all this filth, poverty, and ignorance, superstition thrives, every village has three or four churches, and every church its relics of greater or less repute. A country of cork, wild-olive and pear-trees, with an undergrowth of asphodel, as in almost all the islands of the Mediterranean, led the way to the Perfugas and Coghinas rivers, in the former of which the trout showed themselves in shoals, averaging from three to four pounds weight. What a country to be so favoured by nature and so neglected by man! The Romans had two bridges over the Coghinas, the Sardes effect the passage in a small horse-boat, with a considerable annual loss of life in attempts to ford it.

A beautiful valley, winding by the banks of a clear stream, where oak, plane, cork, olive, and other trees overshadowed a rich underwood of arbutus, cystus, myrtle, and honeysuckle; with the rugged outline of the granitii Limbara overhanging the gorge and the ruins of Castel Doria in the distance, led the way to Tempio, the capital of the province of Gallura. The arrival of the king at the same time as our traveller gave him an opportunity of seeing the town and district under the most favourable circumstances. On the part of the Tempiese, it was the first time that they ever beheld a monarch. Mr. Tyndale remarks, that it would be impossible to describe the various costumes of the different villagers assembled on the occasion; but Tempio, in this festival, united more brilliancy, elegance, and originality of dress, than he had ever seen in any country. A shooting match took place, in which not only the long-bearded, long-haired, dark, wild mountaineers of Gallura took a part, but also their wives, sisters, and mothers, who in a country of vendettas can handle the gun as well as the distaff.

Excepting, however, the amusements peculiar to the occasion, there was little to be seen at Tempio. The streets are wide for a Sardinian town, but there are few remarkable buildings. Almost all the houses are of a grayish red granite, the cathedral is a mixture of styles, but is large and lofty, and besides the cathedral there are thirteen churches in the town and twelve in the environs, for a population of 9941 souls.

To such an extent is the vendetta system carried by the Gallurese, that it was only lately that a person had been found willing to undertake the

office of governor to the province. It is the custom, that whenever the vendétta alla morte-revenge even to death-is to be carried out, the party avenging himself shall give his adversary timely notice by throwing a bullet into his window, that he may either make immediate compensation or prepare himself for death. The new governor had already received two interesting notices of this kind, and his predecessors had all been put out of the way by this summary mode of obtaining an imaginary justice.

Next came Castel Doria, more relics of the by-gone glories of the house of Doria, almost impregnable in its high, isolated, rocky position; the mineral baths, with their reception-rooms of boughs and twigs, and forests of cork-tree and oak, ultimately led the way to the headlands and islands, of which latter Magdalena and Caprera are the largest. The last is inhabited by Ilvese, a distinct race from the Sardes, and who contribute the greater part of the fifteen sailors and two officers, the quota furnished

by Sardinia to the royal navy. La Magdalena was Nelson's favourite harbour, and the existence of which led him to covet so much the possession of Sardinia, which in a military and naval point of view, he considered to be far superior to Malta.

From Parao to Terranova Mr. Tyndale says his route lay over mountains and valleys through a continuous wilderness of forests and flowers. "Theocritus," he says, "may proclaim his native country to have been Flora's peculiar garden; and our early ideas are by his idyls and the praises of other poets, prejudiced in favour of Sicily; but any traveller who has visited both islands, would decidedly give a preference to Sardinia." Terranova, ancient Olbia, is in a state of decay, its harbour gradually becoming a lagoon, its walls and towers crumbling down, and its inhabitants (about 2000 in number) suffering from intemperie. Crossing the wild ranges of Monte Nieuddu, or Nero, so-called from the dark mantle of ilex, cork, and oak trees with which it is clothed, our traveller passed through Monti and Ala, villages inhabited by peasants in a state of great moral and physical degradation. To the west, and more in the centre of the island, was the fantastic ridge of Monte Lerno, rising to an elevation of 3586 feet, and covered with forests, richly stocked with deer, muffloni (long-horned wild sheep), boars, quails, partridges, and woodcocks.

A steep descent led by Budduso and Osidda to Benetutti, where are some renowned mineral waters, but the village is poor and sickly. This central tract is called the Goceano and Monte Rasu, its highest peak, attains an elevation of 4093 feet. In this district is also the secluded Castello di Goceano, the scene of many romantic incidents, related at length by Mr. Tyndale. The whole district is much affected by intemperie, and the general character of the people is lawless, fierce, and vindictive. Our traveller crossed the mountains by the Ozieri road, which, after passing several solitary churches and some villas, descended into the town of Oziesi, which has a population of about 8000 agriculturists and shepherds. The Oziesi are said to be a strong and healthy race, well to do in the world, and free from intemperie, one of the many instances, that where the country is cultivated and drained, that complaint is not prevalent.

Previously to visiting the southern parts of the island, Mr. Tyndale returned to Sassari, from whence he repaired by the Scala di Ciocca,

1005 feet high, and the Campeda plain, to the town of Macomer in the Monte Muradu, whence he proceeded by the wild and mountainous province of Barbagia (not without meeting banditi on his way) to Ogliastra, and he returned again to Macomer before visiting the fertile districts of Oristano, from whence a low, fertile, thickly populated and cultivated valley crosses the whole width of the island to Cagliari. During this extensive journey a great number of Noraghe, Tamuli, Sepolture, Perda lunga, and other monuments of olden time, were explored in a manner that cannot fail to prove of great value to future archæological inquiries. Into these matters, however, as well as into the author's interesting descriptions of towns, villages, and churches, and the objects of art which these contained; as well as of mountains and woods, stagni with their innumerable flocks of water birds, and the grottos and caverns which he met with in his way, it is impossible for us to enter. Mr. Tyndale's work is a complete epitome of knowledge, historical and antiquarian, geographical and philosophical, commercial and statistical, as far as refers to Sardinia. On such leading questions it will be necessary to refer to the book itself; but we hope we have given such a notion of his wanderings, as will serve to lay open to the curious a comparatively new country, peaceful and accessible, with proper precautions; neither expensive, nor dangerous, and yet replete with the most extraordinary resources to the sportsman, the antiquarian, the merchant, the artist, or the naturalist; with something, indeed, for every denomination of traveller, except the irascible, who had better not venture among people who have been, from time immemorial, in the habit of resenting insults in a most formidable manner.