Far above all signs of cultivation on these
arid peaks, you still may see villages and ruined castles, built
centuries ago for a protection from the Moorish pirates. To these
mountain fastnesses the people of the coast retreated when they
descried the sails of their foes on the horizon. In Mentone, not very
long ago, old men might be seen who in their youth were said to have
been taken captive by the Moors; and many Arabic words have found
their way into the patois of the people.
There is something strangely fascinating in the sight of these ruins
on the burning rocks, with their black sentinel cypresses, immensely
tall and far away. Long years and rain and sunlight have made these
castellated eyries one with their native stone. It is hard to trace
in their foundations where Nature's workmanship ends and where man's
begins. What strange sights the mountain villagers must see! The vast
blue plain of the unfurrowed deep, the fairy range of Corsica hung
midway between the sea and sky at dawn or sunset, the stars so close
above their heads, the deep dew-sprinkled valleys, the green pines! On
penetrating into one of these hill-fortresses, you find that it is
a whole village, with a church and castle and piazza, some few feet
square, huddled together on a narrow platform. We met one day three
magnates of Gorbio taking a morning stroll backwards and forwards,
up and down their tiny square. Vehemently gesticulating, loudly
chattering, they talked as though they had not seen each other for ten
years, and were but just unloading their budgets of accumulated news.
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