Chap. XXVI
Ferried over to the Main Island.—Start for the Mountain Passes of the Gallura.—Sarde Horses and Cavallante.—Valley of the Liscia.—Pass some Holy Places on the Hills.—Festivals held there.—Usages of the Sardes indicating their Eastern Origin.
The halt at La Madelena was only a step in our route to the main island. We had still to cross a broad channel, and landing at Parao, on the Sardinian shore, horses were to be waiting for us. This arrangement, kindly made by Captain Roberts, required a day’s delay. We were to proceed to Tempio, in the heart of the Gallura Mountains, under guidance of the courier in charge of the post letters.
Ferried across the channel in less than an hour, we found the horses tethered among the bushes. House there was none, which must be inconvenient when the weather is too tempestuous for crossing the strait from Parao. We took shelter from the heat under a rook, making studies of a group of picturesque shepherds, and amusing ourselves with some luscious grapes,—baskets of which were waiting for the return of the passage-boat to La Madelena,—while a pack-horse was loaded with our baggage.
The outfit for this expedition was more than usually cumbersome, as it comprised blankets and other appendages for camping out, if occasion required. The cavallante, however, made nothing of stowing it away, cleverly thrusting bag and baggage into the capacious leather pouches which hung balanced on each side of the stout beast, with a portmanteau across the pack-saddle. When all was done, the cavallante mounted to the top of the load, where he perched himself like an Arab on a dromedary.
The cavallo Sardo par excellence, such as the higher classes ride, is a strong spirited barb, highly valued. These horses are carefully broken to a peculiar step, called the “portante,” something between an amble and a trot, for which we have neither a corresponding word or pace. I cannot say that I admired the pace. It only makes four or five miles an hour, and, to my apprehension, might be described as a shuffle, not being so easy as a canter, nor having the invigorating swing of a trot. The natives, however, consider the movement delightful; and a writer on Sardinia says: “Il viaggiare in Sardegna è perciò la più dolce cosa del mondo; l’antipongo all’andare in barca col vento in poppa”—“The travelling in Sardinia is, on this account, one of the pleasantest things in the world; I prefer it to sailing in a vessel with the wind astern.”
The ordinary Sarde horse is a hardy, sure-footed animal, undersized, but capable of carrying heavy burthens. Great numbers of them are kept, as the poorest native disdains walking. They are ill fed, and have rough treatment. As pack-horses they convey all the commodities of home produce, or imported and interchanged, throughout the interior of the island, there being scarcely any roads, and consequently no wheel-carriages employed, except on the Strada Reale, through the level plains of the Campidano, between Cagliari and Porto Torres.
The viandanti who conduct this traffic are a numerous and hardy class of people, much enduring in the long and toilsome journeys through such a country as their vocation requires them to traverse. We found them civil, patient, and attentive, but hard at a bargain,—so that this mode of travelling is more expensive than might be expected,—and occasionally rather independent. A curious instance of this occurred at Tempio. We had made a bargain, on his own terms, with one of these people, for horses to proceed on our route, and they were brought to the door ready for loading up and mounting, when the cavallante refused to allow our using our English saddles. Not wishing to lose time, we took considerable pains to point out that the saddles being well padded would not wring his horses’ backs, conceiving that to be what he apprehended. But it was to no purpose; there seemed to be no other reason for the scruple than that a Sarde horse must be caparisoned à la Sarde, with high-peaked saddle and velvet housings. The cavallante, persisting, led his horses back to the stable, losing a profitable engagement rather than being willing to submit to their being equipped in a foreign fashion. After a short delay we procured others from a cavallante who made no such difficulties, and proved a very serviceable and attentive conductor.
After leaving Parao, and calling at a solitary stazza or farm, the track we pursued led through a wide plain watered by the Liscia. The river made many windings among meadows clothed with luxuriant herbage, and fed by numerous herds of cattle, and sheep, and goats; forming a pastoral scene of singular beauty, of which my companion’s sketch, here annexed, conveys a good idea. The valley is bounded by ridges of no great elevation, partially covered with a shrubbery of myrtle, cistus, and other such underwood, among rocks and cliffs worn by the waters into fantastic shapes. We occasionally crossed spurs of these ridges, commanding extensive views of the Straits of Bonifacio, with the mountains of Corsica in the distance on the one hand, and the nearer island of Madelena on the other.
Nearly all the province of Gallura, washed by the Mediterranean on three sides, consists of mountainous tracts, with valleys intervening, similar to this of the Liscia. There is scarcely any cultivation, and they are uninhabited; almost all the towns and villages of the Capo di Sopra lying on the coast. On these plains a few shepherds lead a nomad life during the healthy season, being driven from them by the deadly intempérie prevailing in summer and autumn. Until lately, the whole district was notorious for the crimes of robbery and vindictive murder, for the perpetration of which, and the security of the offenders, its solitudes and natural fastnesses afforded the greatest facilities.
Continuing our route we crossed some park-like glades, with scattered forest trees, and fringed by the graceful shrubbery, the macchia, common to both the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. At some distance on our left (south-east) appeared a beautifully wooded hill, with a chapel on the summit, Santa Maria di Arsachena, one of the sanctuaries held in great veneration by the Gallurese. To these holy places they flock in great numbers on certain festivals, when the lonely spots, often hill-tops, surrounded by the most wild and romantic scenery, witness devotions and festivities, to which the revels form the chief allurement.
There is a still holier place further to the south of our track, the Monte Santo, and I think its lofty summit, with a small chapel scarcely visible amid the dark verdure of the surrounding woods, was pointed out to us. It overhangs the village of Logo Santo, well described as the “Mecca of the Gallurese.” The sanctity of the place was established in the thirteenth century, the tradition being that the relics of St. Nicholas and St. Trano, anchorites and martyrs here a.d. 362, were discovered on the spot by two Franciscan monks, led to Sardinia by a vision of the Virgin Mary at Jerusalem. A village grew up round the three churches then erected in honour of the Saints and the Blessed Virgin, with a Franciscan convent, long stripped of its endowments, and fallen to ruin.
On the occurrence of the festivals celebrated at these holy places, the people of the neighbouring parishes assemble in multitudes, marching in procession, with their banners at their head; and the sacred flag of Tempio, surmounted by a silver cross, is brought by the canons of the cathedral and planted on the spot. The devotions are accompanied by feasting, dancing, music, and sports, the people prolonging the revels into the night, as many of them come from far, and the festivals occupy more than one day.
That Christian rites were, from very early times, blended with festivities accordant to the national habits of the new converts, with even some alloy of pagan usages, is understood to have been a policy adopted by the founders of the faith among semi-barbarous nations—a concession to the weakness of their neophytes. Our own village wakes and fairs, with their green boughs and flags, cakes and ale, originally held in the precincts of the church on the feast-day of the patron saint, partook of a similar character as the festivals of the Gallurese; but with us the religious element has been long extinct.
The festivals are not confined to the Gallura; they have their stations throughout the island, every district having some shrine of peculiar sanctity. Their celebration is distinguished by some peculiarities, which, in common with many other customs of the Sardes, and numerous existing monuments and remains, leave no doubt of Sardinia having been early colonised from the East. Traces may also be found in the customs of the Sardes of similarity with the Greek life and manners, derived indeed by the Greeks from the same common source.
Thus the usages of the Sardes afford, in a variety of instances, a living commentary, perhaps the best still existing, on the modes of life and thought recorded in Homer and the Bible. This they owe to their insular position, their slight admixture with other races, and the consequent tenacity with which they have adhered to their primitive traditions.
Of some of these indications of origin we may take occasion to treat hereafter, as they fall in our way. For our present purpose may we not refer to the worship in “high places” and in “groves,” to which the Sardes are so zealously addicted, as a relic of practices often denounced in the Old Testament, when the sacrifice was offered to idols? They appear also to have been common and legitimate in the patriarchal age and the earlier times of the Israelitish commonwealth, Jehovah alone being the object of worship. What more biblical, as far as the Old Testament is concerned, than the idea that worship and prayer are more acceptable to the Almighty when offered on certain spots, holy ground, remote, perhaps, from the usual haunts of the worshipper! What a living picture we have in the festivities of the religious assemblies at Logo Santo and Santa Maria di Arsachena, of the feasting and music, the songs and dances accompanying the rites of Israelitish worship in common with those of other eastern nations; not to speak of the festive character of Greek solemnities, derived, indeed, from the same source, vestiges of which, left by the Hellenic colonies, may also be traced.
However contrary these ideas and practices may be to the spirit and precepts of the Gospel, they are so inherent in the genius and traditions of the Sarde people, that I have heard it asserted that these festas give, at the present day, almost the only vitality to the ecclesiastical system established in the island. Their religious character has almost entirely evaporated, though the forms remain. The “solemn meetings,” instead of merely ending in innocent merriment, have degenerated into scenes of riot, and often of bloodshed.
I was informed by the same person who made the remark that the festas were the main prop of the priesthood in Sardinia—and a more competent observer could not be found—that, from his own observation, men of the most sober habits of life lost all command of themselves, became absolutely frantic when tempted by the force of example, and led by what may be called an instinctive national passion to participate in these religious orgies. And Captain Smyth, r.n., who gives an interesting account of one of these feasts, at which he was present44, after mentioning that “prayers, dances, poems, dinner, and supper concluded [occupied] the day,” remarks, “that the feast of Santa Maria di Arsachena has seldom been celebrated without the sacrifice of three or four lives.” “The year preceding my visit,” he states, “two of the carabiniere reale had been killed; and I was shown a young man who, on the same occasion, received a ball through the breast, but having thus satisfied his foe according to the Sarde code of honour, and fortunately recovering, was, with his wife and a beautiful child, now enjoying the gaieties of the day.”
Captain Smyth adds:—“I could not learn why there were no carabineers in attendance on this anniversary; but the consequence was a numerous concourse of banditti from the circumjacent fastnesses, notwithstanding the presence of a great many ‘barancelli,’45 who, it is known, will not arrest a man that is only an assassin.”
The themes suggested by wayside objects have led us away from our track, and we have still a long and rugged road to Tempio. We shall be in the saddle for hours after sunset. Let us devote another chapter to the continuation of our journey.