Sardinia

“ The hills seemed so untouched, dark-blue, virgin-wild, the hollow cradle of the valley was cultivated like a tapestry away below. And there seemed so little outlying life: nothing. No castles even. In Italy and Sicily castles perching everywhere. In Sardinia none—the remote, ungrappled hills rising darkly, standing outside of life.
As we went back it was growing dark, and the little band was about to leave off its brass noise. But the crowd still surged, the maskers still jigged and frisked unweariedly. Oh the good old energy of the bygone days, before men became so self-conscious. ”

“ It is like Cornwall, like the Land's End region. Here and there, in the distance, are peasants working on the lonely landscape. Sometimes it is one man alone in the distance, showing so vividly in his black-and-white costume, small and far-off like a solitary magpie, and curiously distinct. All the strange [Pg 130] magic of Sardinia is in this sight. Among the low, moor-like hills, away in a hollow of the wide landscape one solitary figure, small but vivid black-and-white, working alone, as if eternally. There are patches and hollows of grey arable land, good for corn. ”

“ Southward, we have the coast, deeply indented, the blue Mediterranean, and, at about two hours from Sartene, the distant mountains of Sardinia, in faint outline. Now, there is in sight the grey tower of one of the old feudal castles, overgrown with wood, and rising among pinnacles of rock; vast forests clothe some of the mountain-sides, and everywhere we find the arbutus, the myrtle, and evergreen shrubbery. Here it contrasts well with the red and grey rocks we see around. That reddish rock is a compact granite, evidently admitting of a high polish. ”

“ There is one highly gifted man, who has long filled a distinguished place in the service of his sovereign and the eyes of the world, in whose hands the task of regenerating Sardinia, herculean as it may appear, would be not only a labour of love, but facile comparatively with any others on which it may devolve. ”

“ The island of Sardinia, placed in the great highway from the East, was a convenient station for the people who, in the first ages, were driven thence by a providential impulse towards the shores of the West, and, with the torch of civilisation in their hands, passed successively by Asia Minor and the islands of Crete, Sicily, and Sardinia to Greece, to Italy, and the other countries of the West. ”

“ All about us was the sea of great adventure, and below us, caught somewhere in its gleaming meshes, were the bones of nations and navies . . . . . nations and navies that gave youth its hope and made life something more than a hunger of the bowels. The unpeopled Sardinian coast unfolded gently before us, like something left over out of a world that was gone; a place that might well have had no later news since the corn ships brought the tidings of Actium.
"I shall never go to Sardinia," said Mrs. Ebbling. ”

“ Sardinia is nearly as large as Sicily, but has only a fourth of its population.117 Geographically it is more independent of Italy than the southern island, and a profound sea, more than 1,000 fathoms in depth, divides it from the African continent. Sardinia with Corsica forms a group of twin islands, which is separated from the Tuscan archipelago by a narrow strait only 170 fathoms in depth. {339} The geological structure of the two islands is identical, and there can be no doubt that the islands and rocks in the Strait of Bonifacio are the remains of an isthmus destroyed by the sea. ”

“ That Sardinia, with all her emotional and picturesque barbarism, has never produced a single artist is almost as strange as her barbarism itself.... Near the focus of European civilization, in the very spot which an à priori geographer would point out as the most favorable place for material and intellectual, commercial, and political development, these strange sister islands have slept their secular sleep, like nodes on the sounding-board of history. ”

“ Sardinia, occupying the center of the western Mediterranean, has figured in a varied series of political combinations,—with ancient Carthage, Rome, the Saracens of North Africa, with Sicily, Pisa, Aragon, Piedmont, and finally now with united Italy.877 To the land-bred Teutonic hordes which swept over western Europe in the early centuries of our era, a narrow strip of sea was some protection for Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta and the Balearic Isles. Hence we find these islands slow in succumbing to their non-maritime conquerors, and readily regained by the energetic Justinian. ”

“ They are amusing, these peasant girls and women: so brisk and defiant. They have straight backs, like little walls, and decided, well-drawn brows. And they are amusingly on the alert. There is no eastern creeping. Like sharp, brisk birds they dart along the streets, and you feel they would fetch you a bang over the head as leave as look at you. Tenderness, thank heaven, does not seem to be a Sardinian quality. ”

“ There is more life on the Campidano than in the mountains. Not that it is inhabited; there is scarcely a house on this whole plain, fifty or sixty miles in circumference. Not that there is much cultivation; here and there, at rare intervals, we see patches of a livelier green than the surrounding expanse of grass, and the young wheat just springing up, the strong blade and rich loamy furrow, remind us that Sardinia was reckoned in former times a granary of Rome. ”

“ Such we may justly presume, divested of poetical fiction, was the condition of the aborigines of the neighbouring island of Sardinia, the largest in the Mediterranean except Sicily, when the first foreign colonists landed on its coast. And such, after the lapse of more than thirty centuries, are the Sarde shepherds of the present day, generally lawless, sometimes robbers, making the caves of the rocks their shelter, and their flocks and herds providing them with food and clothing. ”

“ Sardinia will continue to be poor and uncivilised while vast tracts of country are open to almost promiscuous and lawless commonage, and while the occupation of the shepherd, with all its hardships, is esteemed preferable and more honourable than that of the tiller of the soil. ”

“ Till you have thoroughly traversed the country, if you stick to it so long; and then if you quit yourself well, we should commission you for Sardinia. What an opening for an idle man, though it would soon kill me--so little to do. ”

“ Vast open plains, such as that described in the preceding chapter, form a singular feature in the physical aspect of the island of Sardinia. There are few travellers, I think, of much experience who, in traversing such tracts of country, have not been struck at one time by the desolation of their depths of solitude, or been pleased, at another, by the glimpses of nomade life, their occasional accompaniments; and who would not be willing to admit that, in their general impressions on the imagination, they sometimes rival even mountain scenery. ”

“ Of the prevalence in Sardinia of the Egypto-Phenician mythology, in times the most remote, no one who has examined the large collection of relics in the Royal Museum at Cagliari, or who consults the plates attached to La Marmora's work, can entertain any doubt. But it is surprising to find, among the usages of the Sardes at the present day, a very exact representation of the rites of a primitive religion, introduced into the island nearly thirty-five centuries ago, though it now partakes rather of the character of a popular festival than of a religious ceremony. ”

“ Sardinia for the Sardes, was like the cry we often hear from our own sister island. Sala treats the subject with his usual temper and good sense. He admits the advantages of an administration conducted by natives possessing a knowledge of the country, conversant with its language and customs, and of a temper more conciliatory than foreigners invested with authority are likely to exhibit. He also admits that there is extreme mediocrity, and even ignorance, in the lower class of functionaries who arrive in the island with appointments obtained in Turin or Genoa. ”

“ I have before observed that the officers of the Sardinian navy are intelligent and gentlemanly, and appear to be well up to their profession. The crews are smart, and every thing aboard the ship was in the highest order and conducted with perfect discipline.
Steaming close in-shore along the eastern coast of Sardinia, remarkable principally for its bold and sterile character, there was a striking contrast in the appearance of the same coast of Corsica, which came in sight after crossing the mouth of the Straits of Bonifacio. ”

“ Many years since, the writer of these pages ventured to predict that the time must come when Sardinia would lead the van of Italian civilisation, and take proud place amongst the greater nations of Europe. In the great portion of this population there is visible the new blood of a young race; it is not, as with other Italian States, a worn-out stock; you do not see there a people fallen, proud of the past, and lazy amidst ruins, but a people rising, practical, industrious, active ”

“ Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia, a city containing upwards of 35,000 inhabitants, is seen to most advantage when approached from the sea, the campagna in the vicinity being neither fertile nor picturesque. Standing at [409] the head of a noble bay or gulf, twenty-four miles in depth and twelve across, with good anchorage everywhere, its advantageous position pointed out Cagliari as a seat of commerce from the earliest times. ”

“ Turin, then, are alive to one of the great wants of Sardinia,—an increased and industrious agricultural population. But General La Marmora desires that a part of the colonists should be maritime, drawn from La Madalena, Genoa, and other ports, and settled at the proposed new harbour of Terranova. ”

“ There is reason to believe that the light of civilisation first beamed on its shores from Sardinia—an island which some brief records, and, still more, its existing monuments, lead us to consider as civilised long before the period of authentic history. ”

“ Sardinia seems to have been as little explored by and known to the ancients, as it is to the moderns. The treaty between the Carthaginians and Romans, the year after the expulsion of the Tarquins, proves that the former nation possessed it at that time. Calaris, the present Cagliari, was the principal town in it. From the epithet applied to it by Horace, in one of his odes, Opima, it must have been much more fertile in former times than it is at present; and Varro expressly calls it one of the granaries of Rome. ”

“ Sardinia. XXI. The flourishing condition of Sardinia arose especially from the colonies which Carthage had planted in it. The population of this island rendered itself formidable to the Romans by its spirit of independence. [468] From 541 [469] to 580, 130,000 men were slain, taken, or sold. [470] The number of these last was so considerable, that the expression Sardinians to sell (Sardi venales) became proverbial. [471] Sardinia, which now counts not more than 544,000 inhabitants, then possessed at least{152} a million. ”

“ This kingdom came into existence in 1720, when Sardinia was ceded by Austria to the House of Savoy, in exchange for Sicily, the name being applied to the new combination of Savoy, Sardinia and Piedmont. It lasted until Victor Emmanuel became King of United Italy in 1861.
Sardinian Convention.
A convention, signed in 1855, by which the King of Sardinia undertook to furnish 15,000 men in aid of France and England in the Crimea, the troops to be transported by England. In return the allies guaranteed the integrity of the King’s dominions. ”

“ Sardinia has no mercantile marine. Signor Sala states that there are only four or five vessels belonging to natives, and, of these, two are the property of the same rich owner. Considering the advantages of her position, and the products the island is capable of supplying for an active commerce, he considers the want of a mercantile marine one of Sardinia's greatest misfortunes, and treats with much good sense of the means calculated to promote its establishment. ”

“ The men we saw on the road were in their sheepskins, and some were even walking with their faces shawl-muffled. Glancing back, we saw up the valley clefts the snow of Gennargentu once more, a white mantle on broad shoulders, the very core of Sardinia. The bus [Pg 230] slid to a standstill in a high valley, beside a stream where the road from Fonni joined ours. There was waiting a youth with a bicycle. ”

“ The country is picturesque, but roads and inns are still wanting. It appears to be the intention of the Piedmontese Government to render Sardinia similar to the States of Italy, but it will require much time to ascertain the inclinations of all classes for the new mode of existence. ”

“ RISE OF THE BED OF THE SEA TO THE HEIGHT OF 300 FEET, IN THE HUMAN PERIOD, IN SARDINIA. Count Albert de la Marmora, in his description of the geology of Sardinia, [7] has shown that on the southern coast of that island, at Cagliari and in the neighbourhood, an ancient bed of the sea, containing marine shells of living species, and numerous fragments of antique pottery, has been elevated to the height of from 230 to 324 feet above the present level of the Mediterranean. ”