The Sardes, we are informed by Father Bresciani[68] still preserve a custom representing this initiation by fire, but, as in other Phenician rites and practices, without the slightest idea of their profane origin. In the first days of spring, from one end of the island to the other, the villagers assemble, and light great fires in the _piazze_ and at the cross-roads. The flames beginning to ascend, the children leap through them at a bound, so rapidly and with such dexterity, that when the flames are highest it is seldom that their clothes or a hair of their head are singed. They continue this practice till the fuel is reduced to embers, the musicians meanwhile playing on the _lionedda_ tunes adapted to a Phyrric dance. This, says the learned Father, is a representation of the initiation through fire into the mysteries of Moloch; and, singular as its preservation may appear through the vast lapse of time since such rites were practised, we see no reason to doubt his relation, exactly as he treats on this subject after repeated visits to the island, even if the account were not confirmed by other writers, as we find it is. Bresciani's recent work is almost entirely devoted, as we have already observed, to the task of tracing numerous customs still existing among the Sardes to their eastern origin. We may find future opportunities of noticing some in which the coincidence is most striking.
_Expedition to the Mountains.—Environs of Ozieri.—First View of the Peaks of Genargentu.—Forests.—Value of the Oak Timber.—Cork Trees; their Produce, and Statistics of the Trade.—Hunting the Wild Boar, &c.—The Hunters' Feast.—A Bivouac in the Woods.—Notices of the Province of Barbagia.—Independence of the Mountaineers._
The hunting excursion in the mountains south of Ozieri was in the order of the day, the expedition being on a much larger scale than that arranged by our honest Tempiese friends at the _Caffè de la Costituzione_. We were to camp out; and the party consisted of upwards of thirty horsemen, well mounted and armed, with the Conte di T—— and some other Oziese gentlemen for leaders. We had also a large pack of dogs, some of them fine animals, almost equal to bloodhounds.
