It was a favourite amusement with me to take a seat on the shore of the gulf, and to observe the passers-by. The women have all good figures, and their features are clear and delicate. I was often struck with the softness of their eyes and the fairness of their complexion. They wear the fazoletto, or mandile as a head-dress; on Sundays it is of white gauze, and contrasts well with the black faldetta. The peasant women generally wear round straw hats with very low crowns. Upon the straw hat they place a little cushion, and in this manner carry easily and conveniently very heavy burdens. The Corsican, like the Italian women, are distinguished by natural grace of deportment. I had frequent occasion to be delighted with the ease and grace of their movements. One day I met a young woman carrying fruit to the town. I requested her to sell me some. The maiden immediately removed her basket from her head, and, with the most perfect grace, requested me to take as much as I wished. With equal delicacy, she declined my offer of money. She was very poorly dressed. Afterwards, every time I met her in Ajaccio she returned my salutation with a grace which would have well become a lady of the noblest birth.
A man gallops past me. His pretty little wife has perhaps just gone before him, laden with a bundle of brushwood or fodder, while her indolent husband has come from the mountains, where he has been doing nothing all day but waiting for an opportunity to shoot some mortal enemy. When I see these half savages alone, or in companies of three or six, on horseback or on foot, all armed with their double-barrelled guns, I can hardly persuade myself that the country is not permanently in a state of war. Even the peasant, who sits on his hay-cart, has his gun slung upon his shoulder. I counted in half an hour twenty-six men armed with double-barrelled guns, who passed me on their way to Ajaccio. The people in the neighbourhood of Ajaccio are known to be the most quarrelsome in the island.
The appearance of these men is often bold and picturesque; often, too, frightfully hideous, and even ridiculous. You see them on their small horses, men of short stature—generally about Napoleon's height—with jet-black hair and beard, deep bronze complexion, in brownish-black jacket of a shaggy material, trowsers of the same sort, their double-barrelled gun on their shoulder, the round yellow zucca—usually filled with water—strapped to their back, the pouch of goat-skin or fox-skin, stuffed with bread, cheese, and other necessaries, the shot-belt buckled round the waist, with the leathern tobacco-pouch attached. Thus is the Corsican horseman equipped; and thus he lies all day in the field, while his wife is hard at work. I could never repress a feeling of annoyance and disgust when I saw these furious fellows—two generally on one horse, spurring him on unmercifully—pass me at a gallop, and turned to look upon the beautiful shores of the gulf, where not a single village is visible. The soil might produce a hundred kinds of fruit, while at present it is overgrown with rosemary, thorns, thistles, and wild olives.