CORSICA ISLAND, FRANCE - In Ota, a cliffside village typical of Corsica's rugged interior, I climbed into the cabin of a rattling 4X4 pick-up and rode along a snaking mountain road with "Biribi," who never went anywhere without his gun and his dog.

Every Frenchman's Worst Nightmare

A retired construction worker in his late 50s, Biribi relished an excuse to break away from his chores as owner of a popular café-restaurant. A demanding clientele of ravenous hikers kept his wife and several grown daughters frantically busy at dinner hour serving heaping pots of thick minestrone soup and succulent sanglier (wild boar) slowly cooked in red wine sauce. In his paramilitant's uniform of camouflage fatigue pants, heavy boots and t-shirt, Biribi neatly fit every Frenchman's image of the anarchic, unruly Corsican.

According to the columnists and the cartoonists far way in Paris, Corsicans habitually conceal themselves like the wild boar in le maquis -- the sprawling mass of thyme, myrtle and other aromatic shrubs that covers most of the island and lends Corsica the romantic name of "the Scented Isle." Loyal only to their clans, Corsicans are supposed to live and die by the rule of "vendetta" (itself a Corsican word -- meaning a blood-feud among families -- that passed into French and English nearly a century and a half ago).

"This Is My Mountain"

A quest to plumb the true spirit of the Corsican people requires taking by foot, car, and narrow-gauge train to the the serpentine routes that mount several thousand feet from the sandy shoreline toward snow-crusted peaks deep in the interior. On such a trek, I followed in the footsteps of Corsicans throughout history. The island has long been a strategic plum for ambitious Mediterranean powers; ever since 565 B.C., Corsicans have endured seemingly endless waves of conquest by Greeks, Etruscans, Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Saracens, Pisans, Genoese, Spaniards and French.

In invasions, native populations typically ceded the prized coastline of secure harbors and sandy beaches to the interlopers, then withdrew to the mostly unfarmable mountains. Undoubtedly, Biribi was a Corsican partisan. Pointing across Les Gorges de Spelunca to where a trio of mountain goats clambered across granite outcroppings, he declared proudly, "There is my mountain, I know it like my pocket. I know all these mountains, every path, and where the wild boar cross."

He led me down a steep dirt path to a rustic hillside shed where his nephew, Xavier, tended a herd of 100 goats. Morning and night, Xavier milked his goats, then spent the rest of the day preparing brocciu (pronounced bro-cho; in Corsican, "u" is always pronounced "o"), a mild, soft cheese that's ubiquitous in local cooking, as an ingredient in everything from omelettes to pastry.

With a characteristic inclination for tradition, Biribi dismissed Xavier's use of rugged polyethylene buckets and asserted that putting the milk in finely woven wicker baskets produced a better cheese. Likewise, he batted away his nephew's description of a shepherd's (goatherd's?) hard life with the reminder that his grandfather rode a donkey and never owned an automobile.

When Biribi spoke with deep affection for his native countryside, his broad chest swelled. Like most Corsicans, though, his chauvinism was mostly practical, maybe a little sentimental, but not terribly political. "It is beautiful here, but the life is very hard," he told me. "You must have a great many skills to survive."

An Island Apart

The fourth largest island in the Mediterranean, Corsica lies 100 miles from Nice off the Riviera coast of France, to which is has been linked since 1769. Corsica is compact -- 3,352 square miles -- with a maximum width of 50 miles and resembles a clenched fist with thumb extended up. Remarkably, its tiny area (smaller than Connecticut) includes some 20 peaks exceeding 6,500 feet; the tallest, Monte Cinto, reaches 8,890 feet. Next to swimming in emerald green Mediterranean waters, hiking and walking are Corsica's principal outdoor activities. The island's most famous trail, the Grande Randonné 20 (known simply as the "GR20"), ranges more than 130 miles across the island and takes two weeks to complete.

Out on its own in the azure Mediterranean, yet never entirely left to chart its own course, Corsica has developed an enigmatic identity. Corsicans might bend, but they never were broken. While nominally under foreign control -- whoever the foreigners might be -- the hardy islanders preserved a large measure of autonomy by such retreats. The Genoese, in fact, who ruled Corsica from 1358 until the mid-18th century, allowed mountain-bound villagers to manage their affairs in plenary assemblies of elected representatives.

Not surprisingly, inhabitants respond to more than one name. I asked an elderly woman who kept a simple café -- one table and liquor-filled armoire in a front room of her house -- whether les Francais enjoy visiting Corsica, and was told strongly, "Monsieur, we are French here"; in another café, though, a farmer in mud-caked boots sharply corrected me: "On n'est pas francais, on est corse." To avoid further confusion, I quickly followed the natives' lead and called the French, "les continentaux" or "the Continentals."

Where Traditions Sing

There was no mistaking the character of some 60 inhabitants of Pigna, a medieval village haphazardly cobbled of stone and mortar to a hillside 15 miles east of Calvi. Many of Pigna's residents are loyalists of the Corsicado movement that arose in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Like American hippies retreating to the woods of Vermont or northern California, the Corsicados sought a simple life in Pigna and a renewed connection to the land and the culture which had sprung from it. They farmed organically, became potters and artisans, and opened cooperative stores to sell their goods.

The Corsicados also revitalized traditional Corsican music from the Baroque period, played on the cetera, a kind of lute, or sung in a polyphonic a cappella. On the terrace of Casa Musicale, where the best of Corsica's folk singers and musicians perform every Saturday evening, I exchanged toasts in Corsican -- "Pagé et saludé!" ("To peace and good health!") -- with musicians Gigi Casabianca and Jerome Casalonga.

We sat together in the mellow light of a early evening and sought to define the nature of Corsican music. The co-founder of Donninsulana (literally, "the women of the island"), an all-female a cappella group that has performed in the U.S., Europe and Japan, Casabianca warmed to the subject quickly. "It is not a music intended for a great spectacle," she explained, "but about the moments and rhythms of everyday life, when someone is born and when someone dies."

Jerome Casalonga noted that the latest generation of Corsican musicians have not only tried to preserve ancient songs heard at fairs and festivals, but also have "tried to open up the music and make it our own." Casabianca's round blue eyes widened as she nodded agreement. "It is music with its feet on the ground," she said. "Our lives are made of such music."

Diabolic Roads and Landscape

When I asked directions from Feliceto to Corte, I was told -- absolutely seriously -- that "the shortest way is the longest." With no guard rails anywhere and more twists in the roads than a corkscrew, I reflexively wore a seat belt, even after a Corsican warned me the practice was expressly forbidden. Breathtakingly beautiful stretches of road more than made up for the stomach distress and nervous tension. Not just once, I sucked wind on unexpectedly meeting with a group of cows or an oncoming truck.

Time for appreciating Corsica's natural beauty was limited, purely as a matter of survival. We fixed our eyes on the road, which had a nasty habit of taking a sharp turn and disappearing entirely. Best to keep in mind some native advice: "Qui va piano, va sano" -- "He who goes slowly, goes surely."

To the east of Calacuccia on the road to Corte, the deep gorges of Scala di Santa Regina were said to have been plowed by the devil. In an isolated portion of the island's sprawling Regional Park south of Corte, we hiked through les Gorges de la Restonica toward the 5,600-foot Monte Rotondo. Pleasant spring weather at the base gave way to a cooler climate near the summit, where crocus blossoms poked through lingering patches of snow. In another of the vast patchwork of protected areas that together form the Regional Park, the granite spires of Les Aiguilles de Bavella were named because they so obviously resemble needles (aiguilles). A jaunt in the nearby Bavella Forest, near Zonza, took us to view where erosion had cut a 15-foot "bomb hole" in a rock ledge, just as if a cannon ball had pierced the granite.

After spuntinu (Corsican for "lunch," and pronounced spon-tee-no) of cheese, prosciutto, bread and chocolate, a pair of local guides sang several languid Corsican ballads. The lyrics mourned unrequited love and the loneliness of the Corsican emigré.

Meeting "Napoléon"

Ajaccio, Corsica's capital, was the birthplace in 1769 of Napoléon Bonaparte. The vertically-challenged military genius was the son of a family descended from Tuscan nobility who emigrated to Corsica in the 16th-century when the island was under Genoese rule and who spelled their name "Buonaparte." Pilgrims with a Napoléon complex can ascend a marble pyramid with a striking view of the harbor, pose for snapshots at the base of the General's statue, then trek to the Buonaparte family home on rue St. Charles where the future Emperor of France was raised before leaving in 1778 for military school on the mainland.

Don't expect the locals to show much concern for the power and the glory that was France. Today, Napoléon interests Corsicans primarily as a convenient drawing card for visitors. He may be the island's most famous son to the outside world, but Paoli the nationalist receives considerably more approbation from modern Corsicans.

At the edge of Tavaco, a hillside village in la Vallée de la Gravona to the east of Ajaccio, I hopped onto the saddle of a gentle mare named Stella and trotted in line behind Jean-Marie Pasqualaggi, who operates a local riding club and is also maire or "mayor" of the town.

Tavaco was founded in the 15th century when Corsicans fled from the coast after an invasion by Barbary pirates from North Africa. Our mounts followed the Napoléon Route, a narrow trail cut through shoulder-high brush and woods of oak and pine. Fluffy clouds in the sky overhead and a breeze scented of herbs and wild flowers served to verify an appropriate Corsican proverb: "Neither the first of May nor the last of May is time for an overcoat."

Jean-Marie explained that during an ill-fated attempt by Corsicans to regain independence in 1793, Napoléon sided with France and was forced to flee into this valley, where he found refuge among shepherds and their families. Among those who had sheltered Napoléon in his hour of need was a family whom he later thanked with a large grant of land. In honor of their benefactor, this family named a son "Napoléon" and every generation in the two centuries since has upheld the tradition.

We found Napoléon Pinzuti -- better known as "Napo" -- in Peri at Bar l'Usteria, where he was relaxing after a day's farming on land given his family two centuries ago by his legendary namesake. His most prominent feature was a sharp chin that nearly came to a point above the collar of his black-and-white checked flannel shirt. "When I was young, it was special to have such a name, but I'm used to it now," he conceded humbly.

The story of his namesake, Napoléon acutely observed, is "a good one until he gets to Waterloo."

The chain of Napoléons in his family was recently extended one more link with the birth of his own son. "We will always respect the agreement my family made," Napoléon père said simply.

Isolated and insular by definition, Corsica has seemingly held back a tide that has otherwise swept clean across the Mediterranean in recent times, carrying with it the usual flotsam and jetsam of fast food restaurants, cute boutiques, and pre-fab vacation cottages.

Some credit is grudgingly due the rebels: not long ago, holiday villas for a Club Med facility were systematically detonated just as the project prepared to open. German, French and Italian tourists may still crowd ferry boats in July and August and spread themselves as thickly across Corsica's beaches as bees in a hive, but Corsica will never be the next la Côte d'Azur precisely because Corsicans don't want it to be.

Corsica Information

For further details about travel in Corsica, including accommodations, contact the French Government Tourist Office, 444 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10022, tel. 212-838-7800 or visit their web site at www.francetourism.com.

In Corsica, contact Agence du Tourisme de la Corse, tel. 95-21-56-56, fax. 95-51-14-40.

Transportation
American Airlines (tel. 800-433-7300) flies non-stop to Paris/Orly from Boston, Chicago, Dallas and New York City, and has connecting flights from many other major U.S. cities. From Paris and elsewhere in mainland France.

Air Inter flies direct to Ajaccio, Bonifacio and Calvi. If you plan to visit other parts of the country, inquire about "Le France Pass," which allows seven days unlimited air travel within France for a special discounted fare.

In the U.S., contact Air France, tel. 800-237-2747.