Its high situation and exposure render Tempio healthy, and it is even said to be cold in winter, of which we found no symptoms in the month of November, when Limbara is supposed to assume its diadem of snow, retaining it till April.
[Illustration: THE LIMBARA, FROM TEMPIO.]
I hardly recollect anything finer of its kind than the panoramic view of the country between Tempio and the mountains on either side, as seen from its terraces. It combined great breadth, striking contrasts, and a most harmonious blending of colour. For a wide circuit round the town, gardens, orchards, vineyards, and a variety of small inclosures, occupying the slopes and hollows of the undulating surface, and well massed, give an idea of fertility one should not expect at this elevation. Here and there, a single round-topped pine, or a group of such pines, crowns a knoll, and breaks the flowing outlines. The open pastoral country beyond is linked to this cultivated zone by detached masses of copse and woods of cork and ilex, extending to the base of the mountains.
The Tempiese are a hardy and industrious people, exhibiting their spirit of activity in the careful cultivation about the town and the occupations of vast numbers of the population as shepherds, _cavallanti_, or _viandanti_. The dull town also shows some signs of life by a considerable trade in the country produce of cheese, fruits, hams, bacon, &c. They manufacture here the best guns in Sardinia, and know how to use them; being capital sportsmen, _cacciatori_, as well as formidable enemies in the vindictive feuds for which they have been celebrated, and not yet entirely extinct. A short time ago, two factions fought in the streets, and, though the bloody strife was quelled, they are said still to eye each other askance. Returning one night from the Casino, in company of the Commandant, he stopped on the piazza in front of the cathedral and related to us the circumstances of an assassination perpetrated a short time before on the very steps of the church.
The office of viceroy of Sardinia having been abolished, each of the eleven provinces into which the island is divided, the principal being Cagliari, Oristano, Sassari, and Tempio including the whole of Gallura, is administered by an _Intendente_, who communicates directly with the Ministers at Turin. The military districts correspond with the civil divisions of the island. We found two companies of the line, and a squad of _carabinieri_, mounted gendarmes, stationed at Tempio. Sardinia returns twenty-four members to the national parliament at Turin. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction is administered by three archbishops, filling the sees of Cagliari, Sassari, and Oristano, and eight bishops, seated in the other principal cities.