Excerpt from Through Europe With Napoleon

To the south of Europe there lies a blue sea called the Mediterranean. Its name means in the middle of the land, and if you look on the map you will see that land shuts it in on every side, its only outlet to the ocean being by the Straits of Gibraltar. For this reason the ancients called 'it the sea in the middle of the land, the inner sea, or our sea, and to them it was the centre of trade of the world, for the lands of nearly all the world they knew lay about it.

The Mediterranean is very blue. This is partly because it lies in the south, and the sunny blue skies above it are reflected in its waters; partly because it is so deep. In places it is forty or fifty times deeper than our grey North Sea. It is far more salt, too. There are two reasons for this. First, because not many large rivers empty them selves into the Mediterranean; and second, because the warm sun of the south draws up a great deal of the water, leaving the salt behind.

In this sunny, blue sea lies the island of Corsica. It is a rugged and beautiful little island, full of high mountains. Except a strip of land on the eastern shore, looking towards Italy, there is hardly any plain in it. What plain there is, is very fertile, and much of the island is thickly wooded. Here are orange and lemon groves; here mulberries, olives, and beautiful grapes grow and ripen; and the trade of the island consists largely in the export of fruit and timber.

Corsica lies about fifty miles from the coast of Italy, and for hundreds of years the island belonged to the Republic of Genoa. The people are hardy and brave, and, like all mountain peoples, they love liberty. They hated to be ruled by Genoa, and at last, under a leader called Paoli, they rebelled and fought for freedom. So well did they fight that they nearly drove the Genoese out. Then the Genoese asked the French to help them, and at last, tired of the struggle, they sold the island to France.

At that the Corsicans were very angry. What right had the Genoese to sell them like cattle to a new master? They asked. So they went on fighting the French, as they had fought the Genoese.

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