[Illustration: OUTLINE OF SARDINIA FROM BONIFACIO.]
Nearer the town stands the old church of the Templars, dedicated to St. Dominic, of fine Gothic architecture, full of interest for its armorial and other memorials of the knightly defenders of the faith, and of noble Genoese families. Over the edge of the cliff towers the massive _Torrione_, the original fortress of the Marquis Bonifacio, consecrated in memory as long the bulwark of the island against the incursions of Saracen corsairs. Here, is the spot where the hastily-built galley, with its adventurous crew, was lowered down the face of the cliff, to convey to Genoa the intelligence of the extremity to which the citizens of Bonifacio were reduced when besieged by Alfonso of Arragon. There, is a ladder of rude steps, cut in the chalk cliffs to the edge of the water, two hundred feet beneath, the descent of which it made one dizzy to contemplate. Perhaps, under cover of night, the now ruinous steps have been boldly trodden in a sally for surprising the enemy, or stealthily mounted by emissaries from without, conveying intelligence to the beleaguered party. Perhaps, in the Genoese times, some Romeo and Juliet, of rival families, found the means of elopement by this sequestered staircase. One could imagine shrouded figures gliding from the convent church close by—the perilous descent, the light skiff tossing beneath, with its white sails a-peak, waiting to bear off the lovers to freedom and bliss. For what legends and tales of romance, real or imaginary, have we materials here!
It is by sea only that one can escape from Bonifacio, except by miles of dreary road. To the sea we looked for ours. _En attendant_, we tried our wings to the utmost length of the chain which bound us to the rock. Procuring a boat, we pulled out of the harbour, and round the jutting points crowned by the fortress, half inclined to pitch the _padrone_ overboard, and make a straight course for the opposite coast of Sardinia. Not driven to that extremity, we wiled away the time pleasantly enough in a visit to the caverns worn by the sea in the chalk cliffs, which front its surges. Some of these are exceedingly picturesque. Their entrances festooned with hanging boughs, they penetrate far into the interior of the rocks, and the water percolating through their vaulted roofs, has formed stalactites of fantastic shapes. The boat glides through the arched entrance, and we find ourselves in the cool and grateful shade of these marine grottoes. Fishes are flitting in the clear water; limpid streams oozing through the rocks form fresh-water basins, with pebbly bottoms; and the channels from the blue sea, flowing over the chalk, become cerulean. These are, indeed, the halls of Amphitrite, fitting baths of Thetis and her nymphs. Poetic imagination has never pictured anything more enchanting.