as ‘my dove,’ ‘my flower,’ ‘my pheasant,’ ’my bright painted orange,’ addressed to the dead.  In the voceri it often happens that there are several interlocutors:  one friend questions and another answers; or a kinswoman of the murderer attempts to justify the deed, and is overwhelmed with deadly imprecations.  Passionate appeals are made to the corpse:  ’Arise!  Do you not hear the women cry?  Stand up.  Show your wounds, and let the fountains of your blood flow!  Alas! he is dead; he sleeps; he cannot hear!’ Then they turn again to tears and curses, feeling that no help or comfort can come from the clay-cold form.  The intensity of grief finds strange language for its utterance.  A girl, mourning over her father, cries:—­

  ’Mi l’hannu crucifissatu
  Cume Ghiesu Cristu in croce.’

Once only, in Viale’s collection, does any friend of the dead remember mercy.  It is an old woman, who points to the crucifix above the bier.

But all the voceri are not so murderous.  Several are composed for girls who died unwedded and before their time, by their mothers or companions.  The language of these laments is far more tender and ornate.  They praise the gentle virtues and beauty of the girl, her piety and helpful household ways.  The most affecting of these dirges is that which celebrates the death of Romana, daughter of Dariola Danesi.  Here is a pretty picture of the girl:  ’Among the best and fairest maidens you were like a rose among flowers, like the moon among stars; so far more lovely were you than the loveliest.  The youths in your presence were like lighted torches, but full of reverence; you were courteous to all, but with none familiar.  In church they gazed at you, but you looked at none of them; and after mass you said, “Mother, let us go.”  Oh! who will console me for your loss?  Why did the Lord so much desire you?  But now you rest in heaven, all joy and smiles; for the world was not worthy of so fair a face.  Oh, how far more beautiful will Paradise be now!’ Then follows a piteous picture of the old bereaved mother, to whom a year will seem a thousand years, who will wander among relatives without affection, neighbours without love; and who, when sickness comes, will have no one to give her a drop of water, or to wipe the sweat from her brow, or to hold her hand in death.  Yet all that is left for her is to wait and pray for the end, that she may join again her darling.

But it is time to return to Ajaccio itself.  At present the attractions and ornaments of the town consist of a good public library, Cardinal Fesch’s large but indifferent collection of pictures, two monuments erected to Napoleon, and Napoleon’s house.  It will always be the chief pride of Ajaccio that she gave birth to the great emperor.  Close to the harbour, in a public square by the sea-beach, stands an equestrian statue of the conqueror, surrounded by his four brothers on foot.  They are all attired in Roman fashion, and are turned seaward, to the west,