As a rule, however, it is only the draught mules which are thus wounded; and the riding mules are generally whole and well-looking.
There is great excuse for the condition of the animals in the steep roads and the wretched pay received by their owners, the charettiers.
Forced to bring heavy loads of wood down mere mountain paths, dangerously steep and twisting, working often night and day for very insufficient pay, and often at risk of life and limb to themselves, these poor charettiers are constrained to overwork their mules, as they are themselves overworked, and have neither the power nor the inclination to spare them ill-usage.
Yet, I do not think the Corsican is often a voluntarily cruel driver. I never, or rarely, saw one of these wood-carters beating or personally ill-treating his mules. But all over the island there is a tacit indifference to animal suffering.
I wish the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would establish a branch for the service of mules and horses in Corsica. But they would probably find it hot work at first, as these are not a people who approve of interference in any quarter.
One lady, well known in Ajaccio, who took up a short time ago the cause of the poor mules, and made an effort to bring to justice one or two owners of ill-used animals, was rewarded by a small hornet's nest about her ears; and, I was told, had a note sent her anonymously "à l'Irlandais," in which she was informed that it was well for her she was of the weaker sex, or she might have suffered for her temerity!
As we approached the neighbourhood of Ajaccio, the mountains lowered their heads and soon gave place to wooded hills; and, beyond this, to fine rocks. Then, as the sun sank slowly towards the horizon, the fading sunlight fell upon a foaming river following the road, on one side, and lit up the upper part of the rich shrub-covered cliff which overhung it on the other.
We were now almost on level land, and a broad plain lay before us, about six miles long, marshy and malarious, at the end of which was the wide-stretching Mediterranean, blue and still, with a white tongue of land reaching out, and dotted with little houses sparkling in the last rays of evening sunshine.