Summer Cruise in the Mediterranean on board an American frigate

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Title: Summer Cruise in the Mediterranean on board an American frigate

Author: Nathaniel Parker Willis

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Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUMMER CRUISE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN ON BOARD AN AMERICAN FRIGATE ***

SUMMER CRUISE
IN
THE MEDITERRANEAN.

SUMMER CRUISE

THE MEDITERRANEAN

ON BOARD AN AMERICAN FRIGATE.

BY
N. PARKER WILLIS.

LONDON:
T. BOSWORTH, 215, REGENT STREET.
1853.

LONDON:
BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS

PREFACE.

* * * * *

Of one of the most delicious episodes in a long period of foreign
travel, this volume is the imperfect and hastily written transcript.
Even at the time it was written, the author felt its experience to be a
dream—so exempt was it from the interrupting and qualifying drawbacks
of happiness in common and working life—but, now, after an interval of
many years, it seems indeed like a dream, and one so full of unmingled
pleasure, that its telling almost wants the contrast of a sadness. Of
the noble ship, whose summer cruise is described, and her kind and
hospitable officers, the recollection is as fresh and grateful now, as
when, (twenty years ago,) the author bade them farewell in the port of
Smyrna. Of the scenes he passed through, while their guest, he has a
less perfect remembrance—relying indeed on these chance memoranda, for
much that would else be forgotten. It is with a mingled sense of the
real and the unreal, therefore, that the book is offered, in a new
shape, to the Public, whose approbation has encouraged its long
existence, and the author trusts that his thanks to the surviving
officers of that ship may again reach them, and that the kind favour of
the reading Public may be again extended to this his record of what he
saw in the company of these officers, and by their generous hospitality.

HIGHLAND TERRACE,
_October, 1852_.

CONTENTS.

* * * * *

LETTER I.

Cruise in the Frigate “United States”—Elba—Piombino—Porto
Ferrajo—Appearance of the Bay—Naval Discipline—Visit to the
Town Residence of Napoleon—His Employment during his
Confinement on the Island—His sisters Eliza and Pauline—His
Country House—Simplicity of the Inhabitants of Elba 1

LETTER II.

Visit to Naples, Herculaneum, and Pompeii 7

LETTER III.

Account of Vesuvius—The Hermitage—The famous Lagrima
Christi—Difficulties of the Path—Curious Appearance of the Old
Crater—Odd Assemblage of Travellers—The New Crater—Splendid
Prospect—Mr. Mathias, Author of the Pursuits of Literature—The
Archbishop of Tarento 16

LETTER IV.

The Fashionable World of Naples at the Races—Brilliant Show of
Equipages—The King and his Brother—Rank and Character of the
Jockeys—Description of the Races—The Public Burial Ground at
Naples—Horrid and inhuman Spectacles—The Lazzaroni—The Museum
at Naples—Ancient Relics from Pompeii—Forks not used by the
Ancients—The Lamp lit at the time of our Saviour—The antique
Chair of Sallust—The Villa of Cicero—The Balbi Family—Bacchus
on the Shoulders of a Faun—Gallery of Dians, Cupids, Joves,
Mercuries, and Apollos, Statue of Aristides, &c. 23

LETTER V.

Pæstum—Temple of Neptune—Departure from Elba—Ischia—Bay of
Naples—The Toledo—The Young Queen—Conspiracy against the
King—Neapolitans Visiting the Frigates—Leave the
Bay—Castellamare 32

LETTER VI.

Baiæ—Grotto of Posilipo—Tomb of Virgil—Pozzuoli—Ruins of the
Temple of Jupiter Serapis—The Lucrine Lake—Late of Avernus,
the Tartarus of Virgil—Temple of Proserpine—Grotto of the
Cumæan Sybil—Nero’s villa—Cape of Misenum—Roman villas—Ruins
of the Temple of Venus—-Cento Camerelle—The Stygian Lake—The
Elysian Fields—Grotto del Cane—Villa of Lucullus 38

LETTER VII.

Island of Sicily—Palermo—Saracenic appearance of the
town—Cathedral—The Marina—Viceroy Leopold—Monastery of the
Capuchins—Celebrated Catacombs—Fanciful Gardens 45

LETTER VIII.

The Lunatic Asylum at Palermo 51

LETTER IX.

Palermo—Fête given by Mr. Gardiner, the American Consul—Temple
of Clitumnus—Cottage of Petrarch—Messina—Lipari
Islands—Scylla and Charybdis 57

LETTER X.

The Adriatic—Albania—Gay Costumes and Beauty of the
Albanese—Capo d’Istria—Trieste resembles an American
Town—Visit to the Austrian Authorities of the
Province—Curiosity of the Inhabitants—Gentlemanly Reception by
the Military Commandant—Visit to Vienna—Singular Notions of
the Austrians respecting the Americans—Similarity of the
Scenery to that of New England—Meeting with German
Students—Frequent Sight of Soldiers and Military
Preparation—Picturesque Scenery of Styria 63

LETTER XI.

Gratz—Vienna 70

LETTER XII.

Vienna—Magnificence of the Emperor’s Manège—The Young Queen of
Hungary—The Palace—Hall of Curiosities, Jewelry, &c.—The
Polytechnic School—Geometrical Figures described by the
Vibrations of Musical Notes—Liberal Provision for the Public
Institutions—Popularity of the Emperor 76

LETTER XIII.

Vienna—Palaces and Gardens—Mosaic Copy of Da Vinci’s “Last
Supper”—Collection of Warlike Antiquities; Scanderburg’s Sword,
Montezuma’s Tomahawk, Relics of the Crusaders, Warriors in
Armour, the Farmer of Augsburg—Room of Portraits of Celebrated
Individuals—Gold Busts of Jupiter and Juno—The Glacis, full of
Gardens, the General Resort of the People—Universal Spirit of
Enjoyment—Simplicity and Confidence in the Manners of the
Viennese—Baden 82

LETTER XIV.

Vienna—The Palace of Liechstenstein 87

LETTER XV.

The Palace of Schoenbrunn—Hietzing, the Summer Retreat of the
Wealthy Viennese—Country-House of the American Consul—Specimen
of Pure Domestic Happiness in a German Family—Splendid Village
Ball—Substantial Fare for the Ladies—Curious Fashion of
Cushioning the Windows—German Grief—The Upper Belvidere
Palace—Endless Quantity of Pictures 92

LETTER XVI.

Departure from Vienna—The Eil-Wagon—Motley quality of the
passengers—Thunderstorm in the Mountains of
Styria—Trieste—Short Beds of the Germans—Grotto of
Adelsburgh—Curious Ball-Room in the Cavern—Nautical
preparations for a Dance on board the “United States” swept away
by the Bora—Its successful Termination 98

LETTER XVII.

Trieste, its Extensive Commerce—Hospitality of Mr. Moore—Ruins
of Pola—Immense Amphitheatre—Village of Pola—Coast of
Dalmatia, of Apulia and Calabria—Otranto—Sails for the Isles
of Greece 106

LETTER XVIII.

The Ionian Isles—Lord and Lady Nugent—Corfu—Greek and English
Soldiers—Cockneyism—The Gardens of Alcinous—English
Officers—Albanians—Dionisio Salomos, the Greek Poet—Greek
Ladies—Dinner with the Artillery Mess 110

LETTER XIX.

Corfu—Unpopularity of British Rule—Superstition of the
Greeks—Accuracy of the Descriptions in the Odyssey—Advantage
of the Greek Costume—The Paxian Isles—Cape Leucas, or Sappho’s
Leap—Bay of Navarino, Ancient Pylos—Modon—Coran’s Bay—Cape
St. Angelo—Isle of Cythera 115

LETTER XX.

The Harbour of Napoli—Tricoupi and Mavrocordato, Otho’s Cabinet
Councillors—Colonel Gordon—King Otho—The Misses
Armanspergs—Prince of Saxe—Miaulis, the Greek
Admiral—Excursion to Argos, the ancient Terynthus 122

LETTER XXI.

Visit from King Otho and Miaulis—Visit an English and Russian
Frigate—Beauty of the Greek men—Lake Lerna—The Hermionicus
Sinus—Hydra—Ægina 129

LETTER XXII.

The Maid of Athens—Romance and Reality—American Benefactions
to Greece—A Greek Wife and Scottish Husband—School of Capo
d’Istrias—Grecian Disinterestedness—Ruins of the most Ancient
Temple—Beauty of the Grecian Landscape—Hope for the Land of
Epaminondas and Aristides 134

LETTER XXIII.

Athens—Ruins of the Parthenon—The Acropolis—Temple of
Theseus—The Oldest of Athenian Antiquities—Burial-Place of the
Son of Miaulis—Reflections on Standing where Plato taught, and
Demosthenes harangued—Bavarian Sentinel—Turkish Mosque,
erected within the Sanctuary of the Parthenon—Wretched
Habitations of the Modern Athenians 139

LETTER XXIV.

The “Lantern of Demosthenes”—Byron’s Residence in
Athens—Temple of Jupiter Olympus, Seven Hundred Years in
Building—Superstitious Fancy of the Athenians respecting its
Ruins—Hermitage of a Greek Monk—Petarches, the Antiquary and
Poet, and his Wife, Sister to the “Maid of Athens”—Mutilation
of a Basso Relievo by an English Officer—The Elgin Marbles—The
Caryatides—Lord Byron’s Autograph—Attachment of the Greeks to
Dr. Howe—The Sliding Stone—A Scene in the Rostrum of
Demosthenes 145

LETTER XXV.

The Prison of Socrates—Turkish Stirrups and Saddles—Plato’s
Academy—The American Missionary School at Athens—The Son of
Petarches, and Nephew of “Mrs. Black of Ægina” 150

LETTER XXVI.

The Piræus—The Sacra Via—Ruins of Eleusis—Gigantic
Medallion—Costume of the Athenian Women—The Tomb of
Themistocles—The Temple of Minerva—Autographs 155

LETTER XXVII.

Mytilene—The Tomb of Achilles—Turkish Burying Ground—Lost
Reputation of the Scamander—Asiatic Sunsets—Visit to a Turkish
Bey—The Castles of the Dardanelles—Turkish Bath, and its
Consequences 160

LETTER XXVIII.

A Turkish Pic-Nic on the plain of Troy—Fingers v.
Forks—Trieste—The Boschetto—Graceful Freedom of Italian
Manners—A Rural Fête—Fireworks—Amateur Musicians 166

LETTER XXIX.

The Dardanelles—Visit from the Pacha—His Delight at hearing
the Piano—Turkish Fountains—Caravan of Mules laden with
Grapes—Turkish Mode of Living—Houses, Cafés, and Women—The
Mosque and the Muezzin—American Consul of the Dardanelles,
another “Caleb Quotem” 171

LETTER XXX.

Turkish Military Life—A Visit to the Camp—Turkish
Music—Sunsets—The Sea of Marmora 179

LETTER XXXI.

Gallipoli—Aristocracy of Beards—Turkish Shopkeepers—The
Hospitable Jew and his lovely Daughter—Unexpected
Rencontre—Constantinople—The Bosphorus, the Seraglio, and the
Golden Horn 184

LETTER XXXII.

Constantinople—An Adventure with the Dogs of Stamboul—The
Sultan’s Kiosk—The Bazaars—Georgians—Sweetmeats—Hindoostanee
Fakeers—Turkish Women and their Eyes—The Jews—A Token of
Home—The Drug Bazaar—Opium Eaters 190

LETTER XXXIII.

The Sultan’s Perfumer—Etiquette of Smoking—Temptations for
Purchasers—Exquisite Flavour of the Turkish Perfumes—The Slave
Market of Constantinople—Slaves from various Countries, Greek,
Circassian, Egyptian, Persian—African Female Slaves—An
Improvisatrice—Exposure for Sale—Circassian Beauties
prohibited to Europeans—First sight of one, eating a Pie—Shock
to Romantic Feelings—Beautiful Arab Girl chained to the
Floor—The Silk Merchant—A cheap Purchase 196

LETTER XXXIV.

The Bosphorus—Turkish Palaces—The Black
Sea—Buyukdere 201

LETTER XXXV.

The Golden Horn and its Scenery—The Sultan’s Wives and
Arabians—The Valley of Sweet Waters—Beauty of the Turkish
Minarets—The Mosque of Sulymanye—Mussulmans at their
Devotions—The Muezzin—The Bazaar of the Opium-eaters—the Mad
House of Constantinople, and Description of its inmates—Their
Wretched Treatment—The Hippodrome and the Mosque of Sultan
Achmet—The Janizaries—Reflections on the Past, the Present,
and the Future 207

LETTER XXXVI.

Sultan Mahmoud at his Devotions—Comparative Splendour of Papal,
Austrian, and Turkish Equipages—The Sultan’s Barge or
Caïque—Description of the Sultan—Visit to a Turkish
Lancasterian School—The Dancing Dervishes—Visit from the
Sultan’s Cabinet—The Seraskier and the Capitan Pacha—Humble
Origin of Turkish Dignitaries 215

LETTER XXXVII.

The Grand Bazaar of Constantinople, and its infinite Variety of
Wonders—Silent Shopkeepers—Female Curiosity—Adventure with a
Black-Eyed Stranger—The Bezestein—The Stronghold of
Orientalism—Picture of a Dragoman—The Kibaub-Shop—A Dinner
without Knives, Forks, or Chair—Cistern of the Thousand and One
Columns 223

LETTER XXXVIII.

Belgrade—The Cottage of Lady Montagu—Turkish
Cemeteries—Natural Taste of the Moslems for the Picturesque—A
Turkish Carriage—Washerwomen Surprised—Gigantic Forest
Trees—The Reservoir—Return to Constantinople 229

LETTER XXXIX.

Scutari—Tomb of the Sultana Valide—Mosque of the Howling
Dervishes—A Clerical Shoemaker—Visit to a Turkish
Cemetery—Bird’s-Eye View of Stamboul and its Environs—Seraglio
Point—The Seven Towers 234

LETTER XL.

Beauties of the Bosphorus—Summer-Palace of the
Sultan—Adventure with an old Turkish Woman—The Feast of
Bairam—The Sultan his own Butcher—His Evil Propensities—Visit
to the Mosques—A Formidable Dervish—Santa Sophia—Mosque of
Sultan Achmet—Traces of Christianity 240

LETTER XLI.

Unerring Detection of Foreigners—A Cargo of Odalisques—The
Fanar, or Quarter of the Greeks—Street of the
Booksellers—Aspect of Antiquity—Purchases—Charity for Dogs
and Pigeons—Punishment of Canicide—A Bridal
Procession—Turkish Female Physiognomy 245

LETTER XLII.

The Perfection of Bathing—Pipes—Downy
Cushions—Coffee—Rubbing Down—“Circular Justice,” as displayed
in the Retribution of Boiled Lobsters—A Deluge of Suds—The
Shampoo—Luxurious Helps to the Imagination—A Pedestrian
Excursion—Story of an American Tar, burdened with Small
Change—-Beauty of the Turkish Children—A Civilised
Monster—Glimpse of Sultan Mahmoud in an Ill-Humour 251

LETTER XLIII.

Punishment of Conjugal Infidelity—Drowning in the
Bosphorus—Frequency of its occurrence accounted for—A Band of
Wild Roumeliotes—Their Picturesque Appearance—Ali Pacha, of
Yanina—A Turkish Funeral—Fat Widow of Sultan Selim—A Visit to
the Sultan’s Summer Palace—A Travelling Moslem—Unexpected
Token of Home 257

LETTER XLIV.

Farewell to Constantinople—Europe and the East compared—The
Departure—Smyrna, the great Mart for Figs—An Excursion into
Asia Minor—Travelling Equipments—Character of the
Hajjis—Encampment of Gipsies—A youthful Hebe—Note—Horror of
the Turks for the “Unclean Animal”—An Anecdote 263

LETTER XLV.

Natural Statue of Niobe—The Thorn of Syria and its
Tradition—Approach to Magnesia—Hereditary Residence of the
Family of Bey-Oglou—Character of its present Occupant—The
Truth about Oriental Caravanserais—Comforts and Appliances they
yield to Travellers—Figaro of the Turks—The Pilaw—Morning
Scene at the Departure—Playful familiarity of a Solemn old
Turk—Magnificent Prospect from Mount Sypilus 268

LETTER XLVI.

The Eye of the Camel—Rocky Sepulchres—Virtue of an old
Passport, backed by Impudence—Temple of Cybele—Palace of
Crœsus—Ancient Church of Sardis—Return to Smyrna 274

LETTER XLVII.

Smyrna—Charms of its Society—Hospitality of Foreign
Residents—The Marina—The Casino—A narrow Escape from the
Plague—Departure of the Frigate—High Character of the American
Navy—A Tribute of Respect and Gratitude—The Farewell 279

SUMMER CRUISE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.

* * * * *

LETTER I.

I had come from Florence to join the “United States,” at the polite
invitation of the officers of the ward-room, on a cruise up the
Mediterranean. My cot was swung immediately on my arrival, but we lay
three days longer than was expected in the harbour, riding out a gale of
wind, which broke the chain cables of both ships, and drove several
merchant vessels on the rocks. We got under way on the 3rd of June, and
the next morning were off Elba, with Corsica on our quarter, and the
little island of Capreja just ahead.

The firing of guns took me just now to the deck. Three Sardinian
gun-boats had saluted the commodore’s flag in passing, and it was
returned with twelve guns. They were coming home from the affair at
Tunis. It is a fresh, charming morning, and we are beating up against a
light head-wind, all the officers on deck looking at the island with
their glasses, and discussing the character of the great man to whom
this little barren spot was a temporary empire. A bold fortification
just appears on the point, with the Tuscan flag flying from the staff.
The sides of the hills are dotted with desolate looking buildings, among
which are one or two monasteries, and in rounding the side of the
island, we have passed two or three small villages, perched below and
above on the rocks. Off to the east, we can just distinguish Piombino,
the nearest town of the Italian shore, and very beautiful it looks,
rising from the edge of the water like Venice, with a range of cloudy
hills relieving it in the rear.

Our anchor is dropped in the bay of Porto Ferrajo. As we ran lightly in
upon the last tack, the walls of the fort appeared crowded with people,
the whole town apparently assembled to see the unusual spectacle of two
ships-of-war entering their now quiet waters. A small curving bay opened
to us, and as we rounded directly under the walls of the fort, the tops
of the houses in the town behind appeared crowded with women, whose
features we could easily distinguish with a glass. By the constant
exclamations of the midshipmen, who were gazing intently from the
quarter-deck, there was among them a fair proportion of beauty, or what
looked like it in the distance. Just below the summit of the fort, upon
a terrace commanding a view of the sea, stood a handsome house, with low
windows shut with Venetian blinds and shaded with acacias, which the
pilot pointed out to us as the town residence of Napoleon. As the ship
lost her way, we came in sight of a gentle amphitheatre of hills rising
away from the cove, in a woody ravine of which stood a handsome
building, with eight windows, built by the exile as a country-house.
Twenty or thirty, as good or better, spot the hills around, ornamented
with avenues and orchards of low olive-trees. It is altogether a rural
scene, and disappoints us agreeably after the barren promise of the
outer sides of the isle.

The “Constellation” came slowly in after us, with every sail set, and
her tops crowded with men; and as she fell under the stern of the
commodore’s ship, the word was given, and her vast quantity of sail was
furled with that wonderful alacrity which so astonishes a landsman. I
have been continually surprised in the few days that I have been on
board, with the wonders of sea discipline; but for a spectacle, I have
seen nothing more imposing than the entrance of these two beautiful
frigates into the little port of Elba, and their magical management. The
anchors were dropped, the yards came down by the run, the sails
disappeared, the living swarm upon the rigging slid below, all in a
moment, and then struck up the delightful band on our quarter-deck, and
the sailors leaned on the guns, the officers on the quarter railing, and
boats from the shore, filled with ladies, lay off at different
distances, the whole scene as full of repose and enjoyment, as if we had
lain idle for a month in these glassy waters. How beautiful are the
results of order!

* * * * *

We had made every preparation for a pic-nic party to the country-house
of Napoleon yesterday—but it rained. At sunset, however, the clouds
crowded into vast masses, and the evening gave a glorious promise, which
was fulfilled this morning in freshness and sunshine. The commodore’s
barge took off the ladies for an excursion on horseback to the iron
mines, on the other side of the island—the midshipmen were set ashore
in various directions for a ramble, and I, tempted with the beauty of
the ravine which enclosed the villa of Napoleon, declined all
invitations with an eye to a stroll thither.

We were first set ashore at the mole to see the town. A medley crowd of
soldiers, citizens, boys, girls, and galley-slaves, received us at the
landing, and followed us up to the town-square, gazing at the officers
with undisguised curiosity. We met several gentlemen from the other ship
at the café, and taking a cicerone together, started for the
town-residence of the emperor. It is now occupied by the governor, and
stands on the fine summit of the little fortified city. We mounted by
clean, excellent pavements, getting a good-natured _buon giorno!_ from
very female head thrust from beneath the blinds of the houses. The
governor’s aide received us at the door, with his cap in his hand, and
we commenced the tour of the rooms with all the household, male and
female, following to gaze at us. Napoleon lived on the first floor. The
rooms were as small as those of a private house, and painted in the
pretty fresco common in Italy. The furniture was all changed, and the
fire-places and two busts of the emperor’s sisters (Eliza and Pauline)
were all that remained as it was. The library is a pretty room, though
very small, and opens on a terrace level with his favourite garden. The
plants and lemon-trees were planted by himself, we were told, and the
officers plucked souvenirs on all sides. The officer who accompanied us
was an old soldier of Napoleon’s and a native of Elba, and after a
little of the reluctance common to the teller of an oft-told tale, he
gave us some interesting particulars of the emperor’s residence at the
island. It appears that he employed himself, from the first day of his
arrival, in the improvement of his little territory, making roads, &c.,
and behaved quite like a man who had made up his mind to relinquish
ambition, and content himself with what was about him. Three assassins
were discovered and captured in the course of the eleven months, the
first two of whom he pardoned. The third made an attempt upon his life,
in the disguise of a beggar, at a bridge leading to his country-house,
and was condemned and executed. He was a native of the emperor’s own
birthplace in Corsica.

The second floor was occupied by his mother and Pauline. The furniture
of the chamber of the renowned beauty is very much as she left it. The
bed is small, and the mirror opposite its foot very large, and in a
mahogany frame. Small mirrors were set also into the bureau, and in the
back of a pretty cabinet of dark wood standing at the head of the bed.
It is delightful to breathe the atmosphere of a room that has been the
home of the lovely creature whose marble image by Canova thrills every
beholder with love, and is fraught with such pleasing associations. Her
sitting-room, though less interesting, made us linger and muse again. It
looks out over the sea to the west, and the prospect is beautiful. One
forgets that her history could not be written without many a blot. How
much we forgive to _beauty_! Of all the female branches of the Bonaparte
family, Pauline bore the greatest resemblance to her brother Napoleon:
but the grand and regular profile which was in him marked with the stern
air of sovereignty and despotic rule, was in her tempered with an
enchanting softness and fascinating smile. Her statue, after the Venus
de’ Medicis, is the chef d’œuvre of modern sculpture.

We went from the governor’s house to the walls of the town, loitering
along and gazing at the sea; and then rambled through the narrow streets
of the town, attracting, by the gay uniforms of the officers, the
attention and courtesies of every smooched petticoat far and near. What
the faces of the damsels of Elba might be, if washed, we could hardly
form a conjecture.

The country-house of Napoleon is three miles from the town, a little
distance from the shore, farther round into the bay. Captain Nicholson
proposed to walk to it, and send his boat across—a warmer task for the
mid-day of an Italian June than a man of less enterprise would choose
for pleasure. We reached the stone steps of the imperial casino, after a
melting and toilsome walk, hungry and thirsty, and were happy to fling
ourselves upon broken chairs in the denuded drawing-room, and wait for
an extempore dinner of twelve eggs and a bottle of wine as bitter as
criticism. A farmer and his family live in the house, and a couple of
bad busts and the fire-places, are all that remain of its old
appearance. The situation and the view, however, are superb. A little
lap of a valley opens right away from the door to the bosom of the bay,
and in the midst of the glassy basin lies the bold peninsular promontory
and fortification of Porto Ferrajo, like a castle in a loch, connected
with the body of the island by a mere rib of sand. Off beyond sleeps the
main-land of Italy, mountain and vale, like a smoothly-shaped bed of
clouds; and for the foreground of the landscape, the valleys of Elba are
just now green with fig-trees and vines, speckled here and there with
fields of golden grain, and farm-houses shaded with all the trees of
this genial climate.

We examined the place, after our frugal dinner, and found a natural path
under the edge of the hill behind, stretching away back into the valley,
and leading, after a short walk, to a small stream and a waterfall.
Across it, just above the fall, lay the trunk of an old and vigorous
fig-tree, full of green limbs, and laden with fruit half ripe. It made a
natural bridge over the stream, and as its branches shaded the rocks
below, we could easily imagine Napoleon, walking to and fro in the
smooth path, and seating himself on the broadest stone in the heat of
the summer evenings he passed on the spot. It was the only walk about
the place, and a secluded and pleasant one. The groves of firs and brush
above, and the locust and cherry-trees on the edges of the walk, are old
enough to have shaded him. We sat and talked under the influence of the
“genius of the spot,” till near sunset, and then, cutting each a
walking-stick from the shoots of the old fig-tree, returned to the boats
and reached the ship as the band struck up their exhilarating music for
the evening on the quarter-deck.

* * * * *

We have passed two or three days at Elba most agreeably. The weather has
been fine, and the ships have been thronged with company. The common
people of the town come on board in boat-loads, men, women, and
children, and are never satisfied with gazing and wondering. The
inhabitants speak very pure Tuscan, and are mild and simple in their
manners. They all take the ships to be bound upon a mere voyage of
pleasure; and, with the officers in their gay dresses, and the sailors
in their clean white and blue, the music morning and evening, and the
general gaiety on board, the impression is not much to be wondered at.

Yesterday, after dinner, Captain Nicholson took us ashore in his gig, to
pass an hour or two in the shade. His steward followed, with a bottle or
two of old wine, and landing near the fountain to which the boats are
sent for water, we soon found a spreading fig-tree, and, with a family
of the country people from a neighbouring cottage around us, we idled
away the hours till the cool of the evening. The simplicity of the old
man and his wife, and the wonder of himself and several labourers in his
vineyard, to whom the captain gave a glass or two of his excellent
wines, would have made a study for Wilkie. Sailors are merry companions
for a party like this. We returned over the unruffled expanse of the
bay, charmed with the beauty of the scene by sunset, and as happy as a
life, literally _sans souci_, could make us. What is it, in this
rambling absence from all to which we look forward to in love and hope,
that so fascinates the imagination?

* * * * *

I went, in the commodore’s suite, to call upon the governor this
morning. He is a military, commanding-looking man, and received us in
Napoleon’s saloon, surrounded by his officers. He regretted that his
commission did not permit him to leave the shore, even to visit a ship,
but offered a visit on the part of his sister, and a company of the
first ladies of the town. They came off this morning. She was a
lady-like woman, not very pretty, of thirty years perhaps. As she spoke
only Italian, she was handed over to me, and I waited on her through the
ship, explaining a great many things of which I knew as much as herself.
This visit over, we get under way to-morrow morning for Naples.

* * * * *

LETTER II.

Visit to Naples, Herculaneum, and Pompeii.

I have passed my first day in Naples in wandering about, without any
definite object. I have walked around its famous bay, looked at the
lazzaroni, watched the smoke of Vesuvius, traversed the square where the
young Conradine was beheaded and Masaniello commenced his revolt,
mounted to the castle of St. Elmo, and dined on macaroni in a trattoria,
where the Italian I had learned in Tuscany was of little more use to me
than Greek.

The bay surprised me most. It is a collection of beauties, which seems
more a miracle than an accident of nature. It is a deep crescent of
sixteen miles across, and a little more in length, between the points of
which lies a chain of low mountains, called the island of Capri,
looking, from the shore, like a vast heap of clouds brooding at sea. In
the bosom of the crescent lies Naples. Its palaces and principal
buildings cluster around the base of an abrupt hill crowned by the
castle of St. Elmo, and its half million of inhabitants have stretched
their dwellings over the plain towards Vesuvius, and back upon Posilipo,
bordering the curve of the shore on the right and left, with a broad
white band of city and village for twelve or fourteen miles. Back from
this, on the southern side, a very gradual ascent brings your eye to the
base of Vesuvius, which rises from the plain in a sharp cone, broken in
at the top, its black and lava-streaked sides descending with the
evenness of a sand-hill, on one side to the disinterred city of Pompeii,
and on the other to the royal palace of Portici, built over the yet
unexplored Herculaneum. In the centre of the crescent of the shore
projecting into the sea by a bridge of two or three hundred feet in
length, stands a small castle built upon a rock, on one side of which
lies the mole with its shipping. The other side is bordered, close to
the beach, with the gardens of the royal villa, a magnificent promenade
of a mile, ornamented with fancy temples and statuary, on the smooth
alleys of which may be met, at certain hours, all that is brilliant and
gay in Naples. Farther on, toward the northern horn of the bay, lies the
mount of Posilipo, the ancient coast of Baiæ, Cape Mysene, and the
mountain isles of Procida and Ischia, the last of which still preserves
the costumes of Greece, from which it was colonised centuries ago. The
bay itself is as blue as the sky, scarcely ruffled all day with the
wind, and covered by countless boats fishing or creeping on with their
picturesque lateen sails just filled: while the atmosphere over sea,
city, and mountain, is of a clearness and brilliancy which is
inconceivable in other countries. The superiority of the sky and climate
of Italy is no fable in any part of this delicious land—but in Naples,
if the day I have spent here is a fair specimen, it is matchless even
for Italy. There is something like a fine blue veil of a most dazzling
transparency over the mountains around, but above and between there
seems nothing but viewless space—nothing like air that a bird could
rise upon. The eye gets intoxicated almost with gazing on it.

We have just returned from our first excursion to Pompeii. It lies on
the southern side of the bay, just below the volcano which overwhelmed
it, about twelve miles from Naples. The road lay along the shore, and is
lined with villages, which are only separated by name. The first is
Portici, where the king has a summer palace, through the court of which
the road passes. It is built over Herculaneum, and the danger of
undermining it has stopped the excavations of unquestionably the richest
city buried by Vesuvius. We stopped at a little gate in the midst of the
village, and taking a guide and two torches, descended to the only part
of it now visible, by near a hundred steps. We found ourselves at the
back of an amphitheatre. We entered the narrow passage, and the guide
pointed to several of the upper seats for the spectators which had been
partially dug out. They were lined with marble, as the whole
amphitheatre appears to have been. To realise the effect of these ruins,
it is to be remembered that they are imbedded in solid lava, like rock,
near a hundred feet deep, and that the city, which is itself ancient, is
built above them. The carriage in which we came, stood high over our
heads, in a time-worn street, and ages had passed and many generations
of men had lived and died over a splendid city, whose very name had been
forgotten! It was discovered in sinking a well, which struck the door of
the amphitheatre. The guide took us through several other long passages,
dug across and around it, showing us the orchestra, the stage, the
numerous entrances, and the bases of several statues which are taken to
the museum at Naples. This is the only part of the excavation that
remains open, the others having again been filled with rubbish. The
noise of the carriages overhead in the streets of Portici was like a
deafening thunder.

In a hurry to get to Pompeii, which is much more interesting, we
ascended to daylight, and drove on. Coasting along the curve of the bay,
with only a succession of villas and gardens between us and the beach,
we soon came to Torre del Greco, a small town which was overwhelmed by
an eruption thirty-nine years ago. Vesuvius here rises gradually on the
left, the crater being at a distance of five miles. The road crossed the
bed of dry lava, which extends to the sea in a broad, black mass of
cinders, giving the country the most desolate aspect. The town is
rebuilt just beyond the ashes, and the streets are crowded with the
thoughtless inhabitants, who buy and sell, and lounge in the sun, with
no more remembrance or fear of the volcano, than the people of a city in
America.

Another half-hour brought us to a long, high bank of earth and ashes,
thrown out from the excavations; and passing on, we stopped at the gate
of Pompeii. A guide met us, and we entered. We found ourselves in the
ruins of a public square, surrounded with small low columns of red
marble. On the right were several small prisons, in one of which was
found the skeleton of a man with its feet in iron stocks. The cell was
very small, and the poor fellow must have been suffocated without even a
hope of escape. The columns just in front were scratched with ancient
names, possibly those of the guard stationed at the door of the prison.
This square is surrounded with shops, in which were found the relics and
riches of tradesmen, consisting of an immense variety. In one of the
buildings was found the skeleton of a new-born child, and in one part of
the square the skeletons of sixty men, supposed to be soldiers, who, in
the severity of Roman discipline, dared not fly, and perished at their
post. There were several advertisements of gladiators on the pillars,
and it appears that at the time of the eruption, the inhabitants of
Pompeii were principally assembled in the great amphitheatre, at a show.

We left the square, and visiting several small private houses near it,
passed into a street with a slight ascent, the pavement of which was
worn deep with carriage-wheels. It appeared to have led from the upper
part of the city directly to the sea, and in rainy weather must have
been quite a channel for water, as high stones at small distances were
placed across the street, leaving open places between for the
carriage-wheels. (I think there is a contrivance of the same kind in one
of the streets of Baltimore.)

We mounted thence to higher ground, the part of the city not excavated.
A peasant’s hut and a large vineyard stand high above the ruins, and
from the door the whole city and neighbourhood are seen to advantage.
The effect of the scene is strange beyond description. Columns, painted
walls, wheel-worn streets, amphitheatres, palaces, all as lonely and
deserted as the grave, stand around you, and behind is a poor cottage
and a vineyard of fresh earth just putting forth its buds, and beyond,
the broad, blue, familiar bay, covered with steamboats and sails, and
populous modern Naples in the distance—a scene as strangely mingled,
perhaps, as any to be found in the world. We looked around for a while,
and then walked on through the vineyard to the amphitheatre which lies
beyond, near the other gate of the city. It is a gigantic ruin,
completely excavated, and capable of containing twenty thousand
spectators. The form is oval, and the architecture particularly fine.
Besides the many vomitories or passages for ingress and egress, there
are three smaller alleys, one used as the entrance for wild beasts, one
for the gladiators, and the third as that by which the dead were taken
away. The skeletons of eight lions and a man, supposed to be their
keeper, were found in one of the dens beneath, and those of five other
persons near the different doors. It is presumed that the greater
proportion of the inhabitants of Pompeii must have escaped by sea, as
the eruption occurred while they were nearly all assembled on this spot,
and these few skeletons only have been found.[1]

We returned through the vineyard, and stopping at the cottage, called
for some of the wine of the last vintage (delicious, like all those in
the neighbourhood of Vesuvius), and producing our basket of provisions,
made a most agreeable dinner. Two parties of English passed while we
were sitting at our out-of-doors table. Our attendant was an uncommonly
pretty girl of sixteen, born on the spot, and famous just now as the
object of a young English nobleman’s particular admiration. She is a
fine, dark-eyed creature, but certainly no prettier than every fifth
peasant girl in Italy. Having finished our picturesque meal, we went
down into the ancient streets once more, and arrived at the small temple
of Isis, a building in excellent preservation. On the altar stood, when
it was excavated, a small statue of Isis, of exquisite workmanship (now
in the museum, to which all the curiosities of the place are carried),
and behind this we were shown the secret _penetralia_, where the priests
were concealed, who uttered the oracles supposed to be pronounced by the
goddess. The access was by a small secret flight of stairs,
communicating with the apartments of the priests in the rear. The
largest of these apartments was probably the refectory, and here was
found a human skeleton near a table, upon which lay dinner utensils,
chicken bones, bones of fishes, bread and wine, and a faded garland of
flowers. In the kitchen, which we next visited, were found cooking
utensils, remains of food, and the skeleton of a man leaning against the
wall with an axe in his hand, and near him a considerable hole, which he
had evidently cut to make his escape when the door was stopped by
cinders. The skeleton of one of the priests was found prostrate, near
the temple, and in his hand three hundred and sixty coins of silver,
forty-two of bronze, and eight of gold, wrapped strongly in a cloth. He
had probably stopped before his flight to load himself with the
treasures of the temple, and was overtaken by the shower of cinders and
suffocated. The skeletons of one or two were found upon beds, supposed
to have been smothered while asleep or ill. The temple is beautifully
paved with mosaic (as indeed are all the better private houses and
public buildings of Pompeii), and the open inner court is bordered with
a quadrilateral portico. The building is of the Roman Doric order. (I
have neither time nor room to enumerate the curiosities found here and
in the other parts of the city, and I only notice those which most
impressed my memory. The enumeration by Madame Stark, will be found
exceedingly interesting to those who have not read her laconic
guide-book.)

We passed next across a small street to the tragic theatre, a large
handsome building, where the seats for the vestals, consuls, and other
places of honour, are well preserved, and thence up the hill to the
temple of Hercules, which must have been a noble edifice, commanding a
superb view of the sea.

The next object was the triangular forum, an open space surrounded with
three porticoes, supported by a hundred Doric columns. Here were found
several skeletons, one of which was that of a man who had loaded himself
with plunder. Gold and silver coins, cups, rings, spoons, buckles, and
other things, were found under him. Near here, under the ruins of a
wall, were discovered skeletons of a man and a woman, and on the arms of
the latter two beautiful bracelets of gold.

We entered from this a broad street, lined with shops, against the walls
of which were paintings in fresco, and inscriptions in deep-red paint,
representing the occupations and recording the names of the occupants.
In one of them was found a piece of salt-fish, smelling strongly after
seventeen centuries! In a small lane leading from this street, the guide
led us to a shop, decorated with pictures of fish of various kinds, and
furnished with a stove, marble dressers, and earthern jars, supposed to
have belonged to a vender of fish and olives. A little further on was a
baker’s shop, with a well-used oven, in which was found a batch of bread
burnt to a cinder. Near this was the house of a midwife. In it were
found several instruments of a simple and excellent construction,
unknown to the moderns, a forceps, remains of medicines in a wooden box,
and various pestles and mortars. The walls were ornamented with frescoes
of the Graces, Venus, and Adonis, and similar subjects.

The temple of the pantheon is a magnificent ruin, and must have been one
of the choicest in Pompeii. Its walls are decorated with exquisite
paintings in fresco, arabesques, mosaics, &c., and its court is one
hundred and eighty feet long, and two hundred and thirty broad, and
contains an altar, around which are twelve pedestals for statues of the
twelve principal deities of the ancients. Gutters of marble are placed
at the base of the triclinium, to carry away the blood of the victims. A
thousand coins of bronze, and forty or fifty of silver, were found near
the sanctuary.

We passed on to the _Curea_, a semi-circular building, for the
discussion of matters of religion by the magistrates; a temple of
Romulus; the remains of a temple of Janus; a splendid building called
the _chalcidicum_, constructed by the priestess Eumachea and her son,
and dedicated as a temple of concord, and came at last, by a regular
ascent, into a large and spacious square, called the _forum civile_.
This part of the city of Pompeii must have been extremely imposing.
Porticoes, supported by noble columns, encompassed its vast area; the
pedestals of colossal statues, erected to distinguished citizens, are
placed at the corners; at the northern extremity rose a stately temple
of Jupiter: on the right was another temple to Venus; beyond, a large
public edifice, the use of which is not known; across the narrow street
which bounds it stood the Basilica, an immense building, which served as
a court of justice and an exchange.

We passed out at the gate of the city and stopped at a sentry-box, in
which was found a skeleton in full armour—a soldier who had died at his
post! From hence formerly the road descended directly to the sea, and
for some distance was lined on either side with the magnificent tombs of
the Pompeians. Among them was that of the Vestal virgins, left
unfinished when the city was destroyed; a very handsome tomb, in which
was found the skeleton of a woman, with a lamp in one hand and jewels in
the other (who had probably attempted to rob before her flight), and a
very handsome square monument, with a beautiful _relievo_ on one of the
slabs, representing (as emblematic of death) a ship furling her sails on
coming into port. Near one of the large family sepulchres stands a small
semi-circular room, intended for the funeral feast after a burial; and
here were found the remains of three men around a table, scattered with
relics of a meal. They were overwhelmed ere their feast was concluded
over the dead!

The principal inn of Pompeii was just inside the gate. We went over the
ruins of it. The skeleton of an ass was found chained to a ring in the
stable, and the tire of a wheel lay in the court-yard. Chequers are
painted on the side of the door as a sign.

Below the tombs stands the “suburban villa of Diomed,” one of the most
sumptuous edifices of Pompeii. Here was found everything that the age
could furnish for the dwelling of a man of wealth. Statues, frescoes,
jewels, wine, household utensils of every description, skeletons of
servants and dogs, and every kind of elegant furniture. The family was
large, and in the first moment of terror, they all retreated to a wine
vault under the villa, where their skeletons (eighteen grown persons and
two children) were found seventeen centuries after! There was really
something startling in walking through the deserted rooms of this
beautiful villa—more than one feels elsewhere in Pompeii, for it is
more like the elegance and taste of our own day; and with the brightness
of the preserved walls, and the certainty with which the use of each
room is ascertained, it seems as if the living inhabitant would step
from some corner and welcome you. The figures on the walls are as fresh
as if done yesterday. The baths look as if they might scarce be dry from
use. It seems incredible that the whole Christian age has elapsed since
this was a human dwelling—occupied by its last family _while our
Saviour was walking the world_!

It would be tedious to enumerate all the curious places to which the
guide led us in this extraordinary city. On our return through the
streets, among the objects of interest was the _house of Sallust, the
historian_. I did not think, when reading his beautiful Latin at school,
that I should ever sit down in his parlour! Sallust was rich, and his
house is uncommonly handsome. Here is his chamber, his inner court, his
kitchen, his garden, his dining-room, his guest-chamber, all perfectly
distinguishable by the symbolical frescoes on the wall. In the court was
a fountain of pretty construction, and opposite, in the rear, was a
flower-garden, containing arrangements for dining in open air in summer.
The skeleton of a female (supposed to be the wife of the historian) and
three servants, known by their different ornaments, were found near the
door of the street.

We passed a druggist’s shop and a cook-shop, and entered, treading on a
beautiful mosaic floor, the “house of the dramatic poet,” so named from
the character of the paintings with which it is ornamented throughout.
The frescoes found here are the finest ancient paintings in the world,
and from some peculiarity in the rings upon the fingers of the female
figures, they are supposed to be family portraits. With assistance like
this, how easily the imagination repeoples these deserted dwellings.

A heavy shower drove us to the shelter of the wine-vaults of Diomed, as
we were about stepping into our carriage to return to Naples. We spent
the time in exploring, and found some thirty or forty earthen jars still
half-buried in the ashes which drifted through the loop-holes of the
cellar. In another half-hour the black cloud had passed away over
Vesuvius, and the sun set behind Posilipo in a flood of splendour. We
were at home soon after dark, having had our fill of astonishment for
once. I have seen nothing in my life so remarkable as this disentombed
city. I have passed over, in the description, many things which were
well worth noting, but it would have grown into a mere catalogue else.
You should come to Italy. It is a privilege to realise these things
which could not be bought too dearly, and they cannot be realised but by
the eye. Description conveys but a poor shadow of them to the fancy.

-----

[1] “The number of skeletons hitherto disinterred in Pompeii and its
suburbs is three hundred.”—_Stark._

* * * * *

LETTER III.

Mounted upon asses much smaller than their riders, and with each a
bare-legged driver behind, we commenced the ascent of Vesuvius. It was a
troublesome path worn through the rough scoria of old eruptions, and
after two hours’ toiling, we were glad to dismount at “the hermitage.”
Here lives a capuchin friar on a prominent rib in the side of the
volcano, the red-hot lava dividing above his dwelling every year or two,
and coursing away to the valley in two rivers of fire on either side of
him. He has been there twelve years, and supports himself, and probably
half the brotherhood at the monastery, by selling _Lagrima Christi_ to
strangers. It is a small white building with a little grass and a few
trees about it, and looks like an island in the black waste of cinders
and lava.

A shout from the guide was answered by the opening of a small window
above, and the shaven crown of the old friar was thrust forth with a
welcome and a request that we would mount the stairs to the parlour. He
received us at the top, and gave us chairs around a plain board table,
upon which he set several bottles of the far-famed wine of Vesuvius. One
drinks it, and blesses the volcano that warmed the roots of the grape.
It is a ripe, rich, full-bodied liquor, which “ascends me into the
brain” sooner than any continental wine I have tasted. I never drank
anything more delicious.

We remounted our asses and rode on, much more indifferent than before,
to the roughness of the path. It strikes one like the road to the
infernal regions. No grass, not a shrub, nothing but a wide mountain of
cinders, black and rugged, diversified only by the deeper die of the
newer streaks of lava. The eye wearied of gazing on it. We mounted thus
for an hour or more, arriving at last at the base of a lofty cone whose
sides were but slopes of deep ashes. We left our donkeys here in company
with those of a large party that had preceded us, and made preparations
to ascend on foot. The drivers unlaced their sashes, and passing them
round the waists of the ladies, took the ends over their shoulders, and
proceeded. Harder work could scarce be conceived. The feet had no hold,
sinking knee-deep at every step, and we slipped back so much, that our
progress was almost imperceptible. The ladies were soon tired out,
although more than half dragged up by the guides. At every few steps
there was a general cry for a halt, and we lay down in the warm ashes,
quite breathless and discouraged.

In something more than an hour from the hermitage we reached the edge of
the old crater. The scene here was very curious. A hollow, perhaps a
mile round, composed entirely of scoria (like the cinders under a
blacksmith’s window) contained in its centre the sharp new cone of the
last eruption. Around in various directions, sat some thirty groups of
travellers, with each their six or seven Italian guides, refreshing
themselves with a lunch after the fatigue of the ascent. There were
English, Germans, French, Russians, and Italians, each speaking their
own language, and the largest party, oddly enough, was from the United
States. As I was myself travelling with foreigners, and found my
countrymen on Vesuvius unexpectedly, the mixture of nations appeared
still more extraordinary. The combined heat of the sun and the volcano
beneath us, had compelled the Italians to throw off half their dress,
and they sat or stood leaning on their long pikes, with their brown
faces and dark eyes glowing with heat, as fine models of ruffians as
ever startled a traveller in this land of bandits. Eight or ten of them
were grouped around a crack in the crater, roasting apples and toasting
bread. There were several of these cracks winding about in different
directions, of which I could barely endure the heat, holding my hand at
the top. A stick thrust in a foot or more, was burnt black in a moment.

With another bottle or two of “lagrima Christi” and a roasted apple, our
courage was renewed, and we picked our way across the old crater,
sometimes lost in the smoke which steamed up through the cracks, and
here and there treading on beautiful beds of crystals of sulphur. The
ascent of the new cone was shorter, but very difficult. The ashes were
so new and light, that it was like a steep sand-bank, giving
discouragingly at the least pressure, and sinking till the next step was
taken. The steams of sulphur as we approached the summit, were all but
intolerable. The ladies coughed, the guides sneezed and called on the
Madonna, and I never was more relieved than in catching the first clear
draught of wind on the top of the mountain.

Here we all stood at last—crowded together on the narrow edge of a
crater formed within the year, and liable every moment to be overwhelmed
with burning lava. There was scarce room to stand, and the hot ashes
burnt our feet as they sunk into it. The females of each party sunk to
the ground, and the common danger and toil breaking down the usual stiff
barrier of silence between strangers, the conversation became general,
and the hour on the crater’s edge passed very agreeably.

A strong lad would just about throw a stone from one side to the other
of the new crater. It was about forty feet deep, perhaps more, and one
crust of sulphur lined the whole. It was half the time obscured in
smoke, which poured in volumes from the broad cracks with which it was
divided in every direction, and occasionally an eddy of wind was caught
in the vast bowl, and for a minute its bright yellow surface was
perfectly clear. There had not been an eruption for four or five months,
and the abyss, which is, for years together, a pit of fire and boiling
lava, has had time to harden over, and were it not for the smoking
steams, one would scarce suspect the existence of the tremendous volcano
slumbering beneath.

After we had been on the summit a few minutes, an English clergyman of
my acquaintance, to our surprise, emerged from the smoke. He had been to
the bottom for specimens of sulphur for his cabinet. Contrary to the
advice of the guide, I profited by his experience, and disappearing in
the flying clouds, reached the lowest depths of the crater with some
difficulties of foothold and breath. The cracks, which I crossed twice,
were so brittle as to break like the upper ice of a twice frozen pond
beneath my feet, and the stench of the exhaling gases was nauseating
beyond all the sulphuretted hydrogen I have ever known. The sensation
was painfully suffocating from the moment I entered the crater. I broke
off as many bits of the bright golden crystals from the crust as my
confusion and failing strength would allow, and then remounted, feeling
my way up through the smoke to the summit.

I can compare standing on the top of Vesuvius and looking down upon the
bay and city of Naples, to nothing but mounting a peak in the infernal
regions overlooking paradise. The larger crater encircles you entirely
for a mile, cutting off the view of the sides of the mountain, and from
the elevation of the new cone, you look over the rising edge of this
black field of smoke and cinders, and drop the eye at once upon Naples,
lying asleep in the sun, with its lazy sails upon the water, and the
green hills enclosing it clad in the indescribable beauty of an Italian
atmosphere. Beyond all comparison, by the testimony of every writer and
traveller, the most beautiful scene in the world, the loveliest water,
and the brightest land, lay spread out before us. With the stench of hot
sulphur in our nostrils, ankle deep in black ashes, and a waste of
smouldering cinders in every direction around us, the enjoyment of the
view certainly did not want for the heightening of contrast.

We made our descent by jumps through the sliding ashes, frequently
tumbling over each other, and retracing in five minutes the toil of an
hour. Our donkeys stood tethered together on the herbless field of
cinders, and we were soon in the clumsy saddles, and with a call at the
hermitage, and a parting draught of wine with the friar, we reached our
carriages at the little village of Resina in safety. The feet of the
whole troop were in a wretched condition. The ladies had worn shoes, or
slight boots, which were cut to pieces of course, and one very
fine-looking girl, the daughter of an elderly French gentleman, had,
with the usual improvidence of her nation, started in satin slippers.
She was probably lamed for a month, as she insisted on persevering, and
wrapped her feet in handkerchiefs to return.

We rode along the curve of the bay, by one of these matchless sunsets of
Italy, and arrived at Naples at dark.

* * * * *

I have had the pleasure lately of making the acquaintance of Mr.
Mathias, the distinguished author of the “Pursuits of Literature,” and
the translator of Spenser and other English poets into Italian. About
twenty years ago, this well-known scholar came to Italy on a desperate
experiment of health. Finding himself better almost against hope, he has
remained from year to year in Naples, in love with the climate and the
language, until, at this day, he belongs less to the English than the
Italian literature, having written various original poems in Italian,
and translated into Italian verse, to the wonder and admiration of the
scholars of the country. I found him this morning at his lodgings, in an
old palace on the Pizzofalcone, buried in books as usual, and
good-humoured enough to give an hour to a young man who had no claim on
him beyond the ordinary interest in a distinguished scholar. He talked a
great deal of America naturally, and expressed a very strong friendship
for Mr. Everett, whom he had met on his travels, requesting me at the
same time to take to him a set of his works as a remembrance. Mr.
Mathias is a small man, of perhaps sixty years, perfectly bald, and a
little inclined to corpulency. His head is ample, and would make a fine
picture of a scholar. His voice is hurried and modest, and from long
residence in Italy, his English is full of Italian idioms. He spoke with
rapture of Da Ponte, calling me back as I shut the door, to ask for him.
It seemed to give him uncommon pleasure that we appreciated and valued
him in America.

I have looked over, this evening, a small volume, which he was kind
enough to give me. It is entitled “Lyric Poetry, by T. I. Mathias; a new
edition, printed privately.” It is dated 1832, and the poems were
probably all written within the last two years. The shortest extract I
can make is a “Sonnet to the Memory of Gray,” which strikes me as very
beautiful.

“Lord of the various lyre! devout we turn
Our pilgrim steps to thy supreme abode,
And tread with awe the solitary road
To grace with votive wreaths thy hallowed urn.
Yet, as we wander through this dark sojourn,
No more the strains we hear, that all abroad
Thy fancy wafted, as the inspiring God
Prompted ‘the thoughts that breathe, the words that burn.’

“But hark! a voice in solemn accents clear
Bursts from heaven’s vault that glows with temperate fire;
Cease, mortal, cease to drop the fruitless tear;
_Mute though the raptures of his full-strung lyre,_
_E’en his own warblings, lessened on his ear,_
_Lost in seraphic harmony expire_.”

I have met also, at a dinner party lately, the celebrated antiquary, Sir
William Gell. He, too, lives abroad. His work on Pompeii has become
authority, and displays very great learning. He is a tall,
large-featured man, and very commanding in his appearance, though lamed
terribly with the gout.

A friend, whom I met at the same house, took me to see the archbishop of
Tarento yesterday. This venerable man, it is well known, lost his gown
for his participation in the cause of the Carbonari (the revolutionary
conspirators of Italy). He has always played a conspicuous part in the
politics of his time, and now, at the age of ninety, unlike the usual
fate of meddlers in troubled waters, he is a healthy, happy, venerated
old man, surrounded in his palace with all that luxury can give him. The
lady who presented me took the privilege of intimate friendship to call
at an unusual hour, and we found the old churchman in his slippers, over
his breakfast, with two immense tortoise-shell cats, upon stools,
watching his hand for bits of bread, and purring most affectionately. He
looks like one of Titian’s pictures. His face is a wreck of commanding
features, and his eye seems less to have lost its fire, than to slumber
in its deep socket. His hair is snowy white—his forehead of prodigious
breadth and height—and his skin has that calm, settled, and yet healthy
paleness, which carries with it the history of a whole life of
temperance and thought.

The old man rose from his chair with a smile, and came forward with a
stoop and a feeble step, and took my two hands, as my friend mentioned
my name, and looked me in the face very earnestly. “Your country,” said
he, in Italian, “has sprung into existence like Minerva, full grown and
armed. We look for the result.” He went on with some comments upon the
dangers of republics, and then sent me to look at a portrait of Queen
Giovanna, of Naples, by Leonardo da Vinci, while he sat down to talk
with the lady who brought me. His secretary accompanied me as a
cicerone. Five or six rooms, communicating with each other, were filled
with choice pictures, every one a gift from some distinguished
individual. The present king of France has sent him his portrait! Queen
Adelaide has sent a splendid set of Sèvres china, with the portraits of
her family; the Queen of Belgium had presented him with her miniature
and that of Leopold; the King and Queen of Naples had half-furnished his
house; and so the catalogue went on. It seemed as if the whole continent
had united to honour the old man. While I was looking at a curious
mosaic portrait of a cat, presented to him on the death of the original,
by some prince whose name I have forgotten, he came to us, and said he
had just learned that my pursuits were literary, and would present me
with his own last work. He opened the drawer of a small bureau and
produced a manuscript of some ten pages, written in a feeble hand.
“This,” said he, “is an enumeration from memory of what I have not seen
for many years, the classic spots about our beautiful city of Naples,
and their associations. I have written it in the last month to wile away
the time, and call up again the pleasure I have received many times in
my life in visiting them.” I put the curious document in my bosom with
many thanks, and we kissed the hand of the good old priest and left him.
We found his carriage, with three or four servants in handsome livery,
waiting for him in the court below. We had intruded a little on the hour
for his morning ride.

I found his account of the environs merely a simple catalogue, with here
and there a classic quotation from a Greek or Latin author, referring to
them. I keep the MS. as a curious memento of one of the noblest relics I
have seen of an age gone by.

* * * * *

LETTER IV.

I have been all day at “the races.” The King of Naples, who has a great
admiration for everything English, has abandoned the Italian custom of
running horses without riders through the crowded street, and has laid
out a magnificent course on the summit of a broad hill overlooking the
city on the east. Here he astonishes his subjects with _ridden_ races,
and it was to see one of the best of the season, that the whole
fashionable world of Naples poured out to the campo this morning. The
show of equipages was very brilliant, the dashing liveries of the
various ambassadors, and the court and nobles of the kingdom, showing on
the bright greensward to great effect. I never saw a more even piece of
turf, and it was fresh in the just-born vegetation of spring. The
carriages were drawn up in two lines, nearly half round the course, and
for an hour or two before the races, the king and his brother, Prince
Carlo, rode up and down between with the royal suite, splendidly
mounted, the monarch himself upon a fiery grey blood-horse, of uncommon
power and beauty. The director was an Aragonese nobleman, cousin to the
king, and as perfect a specimen of the Spanish cavalier as ever figured
in the pages of romance. He was mounted on a Turkish horse, snow-white,
and the finest animal I ever saw; and he carried all eyes with him, as
he dashed up and down, like a meteor. I like to see a fine specimen of a
man, as I do a fine picture, or an excellent horse, and I think I never
saw a prettier spectacle of its kind, than this wild steed from the
Balkan and his handsome rider.

The king is tall, very fat, but very erect, of a light complexion, and a
good horseman, riding always in the English style, trotting and rising
in his stirrup. (He is about twenty-three, and so surprisingly like a
friend of mine in Albany, that the people would raise their hats to them
indiscriminately I am sure.) Prince Charles is smaller and less kingly
in his appearance, dresses carelessly and ill, and is surrounded always
in public with half a dozen young Englishmen. He is said to have been
refused lately by the niece of the wealthiest English nobleman in Italy,
a very beautiful girl of eighteen, who was on the ground to-day in a
chariot and four.

The horses were led up and down—a delicate, fine-limbed sorrel mare,
and a dark chestnut horse, compact and wiry—both English. The bets were
arranged, the riders weighed, and, at the beat of a bell, off they went
like arrows. Oh what a beautiful sight! The course was about a mile
round, and marked with red flags at short distances; and as the two
flying creatures described the bright green circle, spread out like
greyhounds, and running with an ease and grace that seemed entirely
without effort, the king dashed across the field followed by the whole
court; the Turkish steed of Don Giovanni restrained with difficulty in
the rear, and leaping high in the air at every bound, his nostrils
expanded, and his head thrown up with the peculiar action of his race,
while his snow-white mane and tail flew with every hair free to the
wind. I had, myself, a small bet upon the sorrel. It was nothing—a pair
of gloves with a lady—but as the horses came round, the sorrel a whip’s
length ahead, and both shot by like the wind, scarce touching the earth
apparently, and so even in their speed that the rider in blue might have
kept his hand on the other’s back, the excitement became breathless.
Away they went again, past the starting-post, pattering, pattering on
with their slender hoofs, the sorrel still keeping her ground, and a
thousand bright lips wishing the graceful creature success. Half way
round the blue jacket began to whip. The sorrel still held her way, and
I felt my gloves to be beyond peril. The royal cortège within the ring
spurred across at the top of their speed to the starting-post. The
horses came on—their nostrils open and panting, bounding upon the way
with the same measured leaps a little longer and more eager than before;
the rider of the sorrel leaning over the neck of his horse with a loose
rein, and his whip hanging untouched from his wrist. Twenty leaps more!
With every one the rider of the chestnut gave the fine animal a blow.
The sorrel sprang desperately on, every nerve strained to the jump, but
at the instant that they passed the carriage in which I stood, the
chestnut was developing his wiry frame in tremendous leaps, and had
already gained on his opponent the length of his head. They were lost in
the crowd that broke instantly into the course behind them, and in a
moment after a small red flag was waved from the stand. My favourite had
lost!

The next race was ridden by a young Scotch nobleman, and the son of the
former French ambassador, upon the horses with which they came to the
ground. It was a match made up on the spot. The Frenchman was so
palpably better mounted, that there was a general laugh when the ground
was cleared and the two gentlemen spurred up and down to show themselves
as antagonists. The Parisian himself stuffed his white handkerchief in
his bosom, and jammed down his hat upon his head with a confident laugh,
and among the ladies there was scarce a bet upon the grave Scotchman,
who borrowed a stout whip, and rode his bony animal between the lines
with a hard rein and his feet set firmly in the stirrups. The Frenchman
generously gave him every advantage, beginning with the inside of the
ring. The bell struck, and the Scotchman drove his spurs into his
horse’s flanks and started away, laying on with his whip most
industriously. His opponent followed, riding very gracefully, but
apparently quite sure that he could overtake him at any moment, and
content for the first round with merely showing himself off to the best
advantage. Round came Sawney, twenty leaps ahead, whipping unmercifully
still; the blood of his hired hack completely up, and himself as red in
the face as an alderman, and with his eye fixed only on the road. The
long-tailed bay of the Frenchman came after, in handsome style, his
rider sitting complacently upright, and gathering up his reins for the
first time to put his horse to his speed. The Scotchman flogged on. The
Frenchman had disdained to take a whip, but he drove his heels hard into
his horse’s sides soon after leaving the post, and leaned forward quite
in earnest. The horses did remarkably well, both showing much more
bottom than was expected. On they came, the latter gaining a little and
working very hard. Sawney had lost his hat, and his red hair streamed
back from his redder face; but flogging and spurring, with his teeth
shut and his eyes steadily fixed on the road, he kept the most of his
ground and rode away. They passed me a horse’s length apart, and the
Scotchman’s whip flying to the last, disappeared beyond me. He won the
race by a couple of good leaps at least. The king was very much amused,
and rode off laughing heartily, and the discomfited Frenchman came back
to his party with a very ill-concealed dissatisfaction.

A very amusing race followed between two midshipmen from an English
corvette lying in the bay, and then the long lines of splendid equipages
wheeled into train, and dashed off the ground. The road, after leaving
the campo, runs along the edge of the range of hills, enclosing the
city, and just below, within a high white wall, lies the _public
burial-place of Naples_. I had read so many harrowing descriptions of
this spot, that my curiosity rose as we drove along in sight of it, and
requesting my friends to set me down, I joined an American of my
acquaintance, and we started to visit it together.

An old man opened the iron door, and we entered a clean, spacious, and
well-paved area, with long rows of iron rings in the heavy slabs of the
pavement. Without asking a question, the old man walked across to the
farther corner, where stood a moveable lever, and fastening the chain
into the fixture, raised the massive stone cover of a pit. He requested
us to stand back for a few minutes to give the effluvia time to escape,
and then, sheltering our eyes with our hats, we looked in. You have
read, of course, that there are three hundred and sixty-five pits in
this place, one of which is opened every day for the dead of the city.
They are thrown in without shroud or coffin, and the pit is sealed up at
night for a year. They are thirty or forty feet deep, and each would
contain perhaps two hundred bodies. Lime is thrown upon the daily heap,
and it soon melts into a mass of garbage, and by the end of the year the
bottom of the pit is covered with dry white bones.

It was some time before we could distinguish anything in the darkness of
the abyss. Fixing my eyes on one spot, however, the outlines of a body
became defined gradually, and in a few minutes, sheltering my eyes
completely from the sun above, I could see all the horrors of the scene
but too distinctly. Eight corpses, all of grown persons, lay in a
confused heap together, as they had been thrown in one after another in
the course of the day. The last was a powerfully made, gray old man, who
had fallen flat on his back, with his right hand lying across and half
covering the face of a woman. By his full limbs and chest, and the
darker colour of his legs below the knee, he was probably one of the
lazzaroni, and had met with a sudden death. His right heel lay on the
forehead of a young man, emaciated to the last degree, his chest thrown
up as he lay, and his ribs showing like a skeleton covered with skin.
The close black curls of the latter, as his head rested on another body,
were in such strong relief that I could have counted them. Off to the
right, quite distinct from the heap, lay, in a beautiful attitude, a
girl, as well as I could judge, of not more than nineteen or twenty. She
had fallen on the pile and rolled or slid away. Her hair was very long,
and covered her left shoulder and bosom; her arm was across her body,
and if her mother had laid her down to sleep, she could not have
disposed her limbs more decently. The head had fallen a little away to
the right, and the feet, which were small, even for a lady, were pressed
one against the other, as if she were about turning on her side. The
sexton said that a young man had come with the body, and was very ill
for some time after it was thrown in. We asked him if respectable people
were brought here. “Yes,” he said, “many. None but the rich would go to
the expense of a separate grave for their relations. People were often
brought in handsome grave-clothes, but they were always stripped before
they were left. The shroud, whenever there was one, was the perquisite
of the undertakers.” And thus are flung into this noisome pit, like
beasts, the greater part of the population of this vast city—the young
and the old, the vicious and the virtuous together, without the decency
even of a rag to keep up the distinctions of life! Can human beings thus
be thrown away?—men like ourselves—women, children, like our sisters
and brothers? I never was so humiliated in my life as by this horrid
spectacle. I did not think a man—a felon even, or a leper—what you
will that is guilty or debased—I did not think anything that had been
human could be so recklessly abandoned. Pah! It makes one sick at heart!
God grant I may never die at Naples!

While we were recovering from our disgust, the old man lifted the stone
from the pit destined to receive the dead on the following day. We
looked in. The bottom was strewn with bones, already fleshless and dry.
He wished us to see the dead of several previous days, but my stomach
was already tried to its utmost. We paid our gratuity, and hurried away.
A few steps from the gate, we met a man bearing a coffin on his head.
Seeing that we came from the cemetery, he asked us if we wished to look
into it. He set it down, and the lid opening with a hinge, we were
horror-struck with the sight of _seven dead infants_! The youngest was
at least three months old, the eldest perhaps a year; and they lay
heaped together like so many puppies, one or two of them spotted with
disease, and all wasted to baby-skeletons. While we were looking at
them, six or seven noisy children ran out from a small house at the
road-side and surrounded the coffin. One was a fine girl of twelve years
of age, and instead of being at all shocked at the sight, she lifted the
whitest of the dead things, and looked at its face very earnestly,
loading it with all the tenderest diminutives of the language. The
others were busy in pointing to those they thought had been prettiest,
and none of them betrayed fear or disgust. In answer to a question of my
friend about the marks of disease, the man rudely pulled out one by the
foot that lay below the rest, and holding it up to show the marks upon
it, tossed it again carelessly into the coffin. He had brought them from
the hospital for infants, and they had died that morning. The coffin was
worn with use. He shut down the lid, and lifting it again upon his head,
went on to the cemetery, to empty it like so much offal upon the heap we
had seen!

I have been struck repeatedly with the little value attached to human
life in Italy. I have seen several of these houseless lazzaroni
literally dying in the streets, and no one curious enough to look at
them. The most dreadful sufferings, the most despairing cries, in the
open squares, are passed as unnoticed as the howling of a dog. The day
before yesterday, a woman fell in the Toledo, in a fit, frothing at the
mouth, and livid with pain; and though the street was so crowded that
one could make his way with difficulty, three or four ragged children
were the only persons even looking at her.

* * * * *

I have devoted a week to the museum at Naples. It is a world! Anything
like a full description of it would tire even an antiquary. It is one of
those things (and there are many in Europe) that fortunately _compel_
travel. You must come abroad to get an idea of it.

The first day I buried myself among the curiosities found at Pompeii.
After walking through the chambers and streets where they were found, I
came to them naturally with an intense interest. I had visited a
disentombed city, buried for seventeen centuries—had trodden in their
wheel-tracks—had wandered through their dining-rooms, their chambers,
their baths, their theatres, their market-places. And here were gathered
in one place, their pictures, their statues, their cooking utensils,
their ornaments, the very food as it was found on their tables! I am
puzzled, in looking over my note-book, to know what to mention. The
catalogue fills a printed volume.

A curious corner in one of the cases was that containing the articles
found on the toilet of the wealthiest Pompeian’s wife. Here were pots of
rouge, ivory pins, necklaces, ear-rings, bracelets, small silver
mirrors, combs, ear-pickers, &c. &c. In the next case were two loaves of
bread, found in a baker’s oven, and stamped with his name. Two large
cases of precious gems, cameos and intaglios of all descriptions, stand
in the centre of this room (among which, by the way, the most
exquisitely done are two which one cannot look at without a blush).
Another case is filled with eatables, found upon the tables—eggs,
fish-bones, honey-comb, grain, fruits, &c. In the repository for ancient
glass are several cinerary urns, in which the ashes of the dead are
perfectly preserved; and numerous small glass lachrymatories, in which
the tears of the survivors were deposited in the tombs.

The brazen furniture of Pompeii, the lamps particularly, are of the most
curious and beautiful models. Trees, to which the lamps were suspended
like fruit, vines, statues holding them in their hands, and numerous
other contrivances, were among them, exceeding far in beauty any similar
furniture of our time. It appears that the ancients did not know the use
of the fork, as every other article of table service except this has
been found here.

To conceive the interest attached to the thousand things in this museum,
one must imagine a modern city, Boston for example, completely buried by
an unexpected and terrific convulsion of nature. Its inhabitants mostly
escape, but from various causes leave their city entombed, and in a
hundred years the grass grows over it, and its very locality is
forgotten. Near two thousand years elapse, and then a peasant, digging
in the field, strikes upon some of its ruins, and it is unearthed just
as it stands at this moment, with all its utensils, books, pictures,
houses, and streets, in untouched preservation. What a subject for
speculation! What food for curiosity! What a living and breathing
chapter of history were this! Far more interesting is Pompeii. For the
age in which it flourished and the characters who trod its streets, are
among the most remarkable in history. This brazen lamp, shown to me
to-day as a curiosity, was lit every evening in the time of Christ. The
handsome chambers through which I wandered a day or two ago, and from
which were brought this antique chair, were the home of Sallust, and
doubtless had been honoured by the visits of Cicero (whose villa,
half-excavated, is near by,) and by all the poets and scholars and
statesmen of his time. One might speculate endlessly thus! And it is
that which makes these lands of forgotten empires so delightful to the
traveller. His mind is fed by the very air. He needs no amusements, no
company, no books except the history of the place. The spot is peopled
wherever he may stray, and the common necessities of life seem to pluck
him from a far-reaching dream, in which he had summoned back receding
ages, and was communing, face to face, with philosophers and poets and
emperors, like a magician before his mirror. Pompeii and Herculaneum
seem to me visions. I cannot shake myself and wake to their reality. My
mind refuses to go back so far. Seventeen hundred years!

I followed the cicerone on, listening to his astonishing enumeration,
and looking at everything as he pointed to it, in a kind of stupor. One
has but a certain capacity. We may be over-astonished. Still he went on
in the same every-day tone, talking as indifferently of this and that
surprising antiquity as a pedlar of his two-penny wares. We went from
the bronzes to the hall of the papyri—thence to the hall of the
frescoes, and beautiful they were. Their very number makes them
indescribable. The next morning we devoted to the statuary—and of this,
if I knew where to begin, I should like to say a word or two.

First of all comes the _Balbi family_—father, mother, sons, and
daughters. He was pro-consul of Herculaneum, and by the excellence of
the statues, which are life itself for nature, he and his family were
worth the artist’s best effort. He is a fine old Roman himself, and his
wife is a tall, handsome woman, much better-looking than her daughters.
The two Misses Balbi are modest-looking girls, and that is all. They
were the high-born damsels of Herculaneum, however; and, if human nature
has not changed in seventeen centuries, they did not want admirers who
compared them to the Venuses who have descended with them to the “Museo
Borbonico.” The eldest son is on horseback in armour. It is one of the
finest equestrian statues in the world. He is a noble youth, of grave
and handsome features, and sits the superb animal with the freedom of an
Arab and the dignity of a Roman. It is a beautiful thing. If one had
visited these Balbis, warm and living, in the time of Augustus, he could
scarcely feel more acquainted with them than after having seen their
statues as they stand before him here.

Come a little farther on! Bacchus on the shoulders of a faun—a child
delighted with a grown-up playfellow. I have given the same pleasure to
just such another bright “picture in little” of human beauty. It moves
one’s heart to see it.

Pass now a whole gallery of Dians, Cupids, Joves, Mercuries, and
Apollos, and come to the presence of Aristides—him whom the Athenians
exiled because they were tired of hearing him called _The Just_. Canova
has marked three spots upon the floor where the spectator should place
himself to see to the best advantage this renowned statue. He stands
wrapped in his toga, with his head a little inclined, as if in
reflection, and in his face there is a mixture of firmness and goodness
from which you read his character as clearly as if it were written
across his forehead. It was found at Herculaneum, and is, perhaps, the
simplest and most expressive statue in the world.

* * * * *

LETTER V.

Salvator Rosa studied the scenery of La Cava—the country between
Pompeii and Salerno, on the road to Pæstum. It is a series of natively
abrupt glens, but gemmed with cottages and hanging gardens, through
which the wildness of every feature is as apparent as those of a savage
through his trinkets. I was going to Pæstum with an agreeable party, and
we came out upon the bluffs overhanging Salerno and the sea, an hour
before sunset.

We darted down upon the little city lying in the bend of the bay, like a
bird’s descent upon her nest. The road is cut through the side of the
precipice, and runs to the bottom with a single sweep. We were to pass
the night here, and go to Pæstum the next morning, see the ruins, and
return here to sleep once more before returning to Naples.

We were five or six miles from Salerno before sunrise, and entering upon
the dreary wastes of Calabria. The people we passed on the road were
dressed in skins with the wool outside, and the country looked abandoned
by nature itself, scarce a flourishing tree or a healthy plant within
the range of the sight. We turned from the main road after a while,
crossed a ruinous bridge, and tracked a broad, waste, gloomy plain, till
my eyes ached with its barrenness. In an hour more, three stately
temples began to rise in the distance, increasing in grandeur as we
approached. A cluster of ruined tombs on the right—a grass-grown and
broken city wall, through a rent of which passed the road—and we stood
among them, in the desert, amid temples of inimitable beauty!

There seemed to be a general feeling in the party that silence and
solitude were the spirits of the place. We separated and rambled about
alone. The grand temple of Neptune stands in the centre. A temple in the
midst of the sea could scarce seem more strangely placed. I stood on the
high base of the altar within and looked out between the columns on
every side. The Mediterranean slept in a broad sheet of silver on the
west, and on every other side lay the bare, houseless desert, stretching
away to the naked mountains on the south and east, with a barrenness
that made the heart ache, while it filled the imagination with its
singleness and grandeur. I descended to look at the columns. They were
eaten through and through with snails and worms, and all of the same
rich yellow so admirably represented in the cork models. But their size,
and their noble proportion as they stand, cannot be represented. They
seem the conception and the work of giant minds and hands. One’s soul
rises among them.

We walked round the ruins for hours. A little towards the sea, lie the
traces of an amphitheatre, filled with fragments of statuary, and parts
of immense friezes and columns. We all assembled at last in the great
temple, and sat down on the immense steps towards the east in the shadow
of the pediment, speculating on the wonderful fabric above us, till we
were summoned to start on our return. To think that these very temples
were visited as venerable antiquities in the time of Christ! What events
have these worm-eaten columns outlived! What moths of an hour, in
comparison, are we?

It is difficult to conceive how three such magnificent structures, so
near the sea, the remains of a great city, should have been lost for
ages. A landscape-painter, searching for the picturesque, came suddenly
upon them fifty years ago, and astonished the world with his discovery!
It adds to their interest now.

We turned our horses’ heads towards Naples. What an extraordinary
succession of objects were embraced in the fifty miles between—Pæstum,
Pompeii, Vesuvius, Herculaneum!—and, added to these, the thousand
classic associations of the lovely coast along Sorrento! The value of
life deepens incalculably with the privileges of travel.

* * * * *

WRITTEN ON BOARD THE FRIGATE “UNITED STATES.”—We set sail from Elba on
the 3rd of June. The inhabitants, all of whom, I presume, had been on
board of the ships, were standing along the walls and looking from the
embrasures of the fortress to see us off. It was a clear summer’s
morning, without much wind, and we crept slowly off from the point,
gazing up at the windows of Napoleon’s house as we passed under, and
laying on our course for the shore of Italy. We soon got into the
fresher breeze of the open sea, and the low white line of villages on
the Tuscan coast appeared more distant, till, with a glass, we could see
the people at the windows watching our progress. Fishing-boats were
drawn up on shore, and the idle sailors were leaning in the half shadow
which they afforded; but with the almost total absence of trees, and the
glaring white of the walls, we were content to be out upon the cool sea,
passing town after town unvisited. Island after island was approached
and left during the day; barren rocks with only a lighthouse to redeem
their nakedness: and in the evening at sunset we were in sight at
Ischia, the towering isle in the bosom of the bay of Naples. The band
had been called as usual at seven, and were playing a delightful waltz
upon the quarter-deck; the sea was even, and just crisped by the breeze
from the Italian shore; the sailors were leaning on the guns listening;
the officers clustered in their various places; and the murmur of the
foam before the prow was just audible in the lighter passages of the
music. Above and in the west glowed the eternal but untiring teints of
the summer sky of the Mediterranean, a gradually fading gold from the
edge of the sea to the zenith, and the early star soon twinkled through
it, and the air dampened to a reviving freshness. I do not know that a
mere scene like this, without incident, will interest a reader, but it
was so delightful to myself, that I have described it for the mere
pleasure of dwelling on it. The desert stillness and loneliness of the
sea, the silent motion of the ship, and the delightful music swelling
beyond the bulwarks and dying upon the wind, were such singularly
combined circumstances! It was a moving paradise in the waste of the
ocean.

* * * * *

Sail was shortened last night, and we lay-to under the shore of Ischia,
to enter the bay of Naples by daylight. As the morning mist lifted a
little, the peculiar shape of Vesuvius, the boldness of the island of
Capri, the sweeping curves of Baiæ and Portici, and the small promontory
which lifts Naples toward the sea, rose like the features of a familiar
friend to my eye. It would be difficult to have seen Naples without
having a memory steeped in its beauty. A fair wind set us straight into
the bay, and one by one the towns on its shore, the streaks of lava on
the sides of its volcano, and, soon after, the houses of friends on the
street of the Chiaga became distinguishable to the eye. There had been a
slight eruption since I was here; but now, as before, there was scarce a
puff of smoke to be seen rising from Vesuvius. My little specimen of
sulphur which I took from the just hardened bosom of the crater now
destroyed, lies before me on the table as I write, more valued than
ever, since its bed has been melted and blown into the air. The new and
lighter-coloured streak on the right of the mountain, would have
informed me of itself that the lava had issued since I was here. The
sound of bells and the hum of the city reached our ears, and running in
between the mole and the castle, the anchor was dropped, and the ship
surrounded with boats from the shore.

* * * * *

The heat kept us on board till the evening, and with several of the
officers I landed and walked up the Toledo as the lazzaroni were
stirring from their sleep under the walls of the houses. With the
exception of the absence of the English, who have mostly flitted to the
baths, Naples was the same place as ever, busy, dirty, and gay. Her
thousand beggars were still “dying of hunger,” and telling it to the
passenger in the same exhausted tone; her gay carriages and skeleton
hacks were still flying up and down, and dashing at and over you for
your custom; the cows and goats were driven about to be milked in the
street; the lemonade-sellers stood in their stalls; the money changers
at their tables in the open squares; puncinello squeaked and beat his
mistress at every corner; the awnings of the cafés covered hundreds of
smokers and loungers; and this gay, miserable, homeless, out-of-doors
people, seemed as degraded and thoughtless, and, it must be owned, as
insensibly happy as before. You would think, to walk through the Toledo
of Naples, that two-thirds of its crowd of wretches, and all its horses
and dogs, were at their last extremity, and yet they go on, and, I was
told by an Englishman resident here, who has been accustomed to meet
always the same faces, seem never to change or disappear, suffering, and
groaning, and dragging up and down, shocking the eye and sickening the
heart of the inexperienced stranger for years and years.

We passed the _prima sera_, the first part of the evening, as most men
in Italy pass it, eating ices at the thronged café, and at nine we went
to the splendid theatre of San Carlo to see _La Sonnambula_. The king
and queen were present, with the dissolute old queen-mother and her
gray-headed lover. I was instantly struck with the alteration in the
appearance of the young queen. When I was here three months ago, she was
just married, and appeared frequently in the public walks, and a fresher
or brighter face I never had seen. She was acknowledged the most
beautiful woman in Naples, and had, what is very much valued in this
land of pale brunettes, a clear rosy cheek, and lips as bright as a
child’s. She is now thin and white, and looks to me like a person fading
with a rapid consumption.

Several conspiracies have been detected within a month or two, the last
of which was very nearly successful. The day before we arrived, two
officers in the royal army, men of high rank, had shot themselves, each
putting a pistol to the other’s breast, believing discovery inevitable.
One died instantly, and the other lingers to-day without any hope of
recovery. The king was fired at on parade the day previous, which was
supposed to have been the first step, but the plot had been checked by
partial disclosure, hence the tragedy I have just related.

The ships have been thronged with visitors during the two or three days
we have lain at Naples, among whom have been the prime minister and his
family. Orders are given to admit every one on board that wishes to
come, and the decks, morning and evening, present the most motley scene
imaginable. Cameo and lava sellers expose their wares on the
gun-carriages, surrounded by the midshipmen—Jews and fruit-sellers hail
the sailors through the ports—boats full of chickens and pigs, all in
loud outcry, are held up to view with a recommendation in broken
English—contadini in their best dresses walk up and down, smiling on
the officers, and wondering at the cleanliness of the decks, and the
elegance of the captain’s cabin—Punch plays his tricks under the
gun-deck ports—bands of wandering musicians sing and hold out their
hats, as they row around, and all is harmony and amusement. In the
evening, it is pleasanter still, for the band is playing, and the better
class of people come off from the shore, and boats filled with these
pretty, dark-eyed Neapolitans, row round and round the ship, eying the
officers as they lean over the bulwarks, and ready with but half a nod
to make acquaintance and come up the gangway. I have had a private pride
of my own in showing the frigate as American to many of my foreign
friends. One’s nationality becomes nervously sensitive abroad, and in
the beauty and order of the ships, the manly elegance of the officers,
and the general air of superiority and decision throughout, I have found
food for some of the highest feelings of gratification of which I am
capable.

We weighed anchor yesterday morning (the twentieth of June), and stood
across the bay for Castellamare. Running close under Vesuvius, we passed
Portici, Torre del Greco, and Pompeii, and rounded-to in the little
harbour of this fashionable watering-place soon after noon. Castellamare
is about fifteen miles from Naples, and in the summer months it is
crowded with those of the fashionables who do not make a northern tour.
The shore rises directly from the sea into a high mountain, on the side
of which the king has a country-seat, and around it hang, on terraces,
the houses of the English. Strong mineral springs abound on the slope.

We landed directly, and mounting the donkeys waiting on the pier,
started to make the round of the village walks. English maids with their
prettily dressed and rosy children, and English ladies and gentlemen,
mounted, like ourselves on donkeys, met us at every turn as we wound up
the shady and zigzag roads to the palace. The views became finer as we
ascended, till we look down into Pompeii, which was but four miles off,
and away toward Naples, following the white road with the eye along the
shore of the sea. The paths were in fine order, and as beautiful as
green trees, and shade, and living fountains, crossing the road
continually, could make them. In the neighbourhood of the royal casino,
the ground was planted more like a park, and the walks were terminated
with artificial fountains, throwing up their bright waters amid statuary
and over grottoes, and here we met the idlers of the place of all
nations, enjoying the sunset. I met an acquaintance or two, and felt the
yearning unwillingness to go away which I have felt on every spot almost
of this “delicious land.”

We set sail again with the night-breeze, and at this moment are passing
between Ischia and Capri, running nearly on our course for Sicily. We
shall probably be at Palermo to-morrow. The ship’s bell beats ten, and
the lights are ordered out, and under this imperative government, I must
say, “good night!”

* * * * *

LETTER VI.

Baiæ—Grotto of Posilipo—Tomb of Virgil—Pozzuoli—Ruins of the
Temple of Jupiter Serapis—The Lucrine Lake—Lake of Avernus,
the Tartarus of Virgil—Temple of Proserpine—Grotto of the
Cumæan Sybil—Nero’s villa—Cape of Misenum—Roman villas—Ruins
of the Temple of Venus—Cento Camerelle—The Stygian Lake—The
Elysian Fields—Grotto del Cane—Villa of Lucullus.

We made the excursion to Baiæ on one of those premature days of March
common to Italy. A south wind and a warm sun gave it the feeling of
June. The heat was even oppressive as we drove through the city, and the
long echoing grotto of Posilipo, always dim and cool, was peculiarly
refreshing. Near the entrance to this curious passage under the
mountain, we stopped to visit the tomb of Virgil. A ragged boy took us
up a steep path to the gate of a vineyard, and winding in among the just
budding vines, we came to a small ravine, in the mouth of which, right
over the deep cut of the grotto, stands the half-ruined mausoleum which
held the bones of the poet. An Englishman stood leaning against the
entrance, reading from a pocket copy of the Æneid. He seemed ashamed to
be caught with his classic, and put the book in his pocket as I came
suddenly upon him, and walked off to the other side whistling an air
from the _Pirata_, which is playing just now at San Carlo. We went in,
counted the niches for the urns, stood a few minutes to indulge in what
recollections we could summon, and then mounted to the top to hunt for
the “myrtle.” Even its root was cut an inch or two below the ground. We
found violets, however, and they answered as well. The pleasure of
visiting such places, I think, is not found on the spot. The fatigue of
the walk, the noise of a party, the difference between reality and
imagination, and, worse than all, the caprice of mood—one or the other
of these things disturbs and defeats for me the dearest promises of
anticipation. It is the recollection that repays us. The picture recurs
to the fancy till it becomes familiar; and as the disagreeable
circumstances of the visit fade from the memory, the imagination warms
it into a poetic feeling, and we dwell upon it with the delight we
looked for in vain when present. A few steps up the ravine, almost
buried in luxuriant grass, stands a small marble tomb, covering the
remains of an English girl. She died at Naples. It is as lovely a place
to lie in as the world could show. Forward a little toward the edge of
the hill some person of taste has constructed a little arbour, laced
over with vines, whence the city and bay of Naples is seen to the finest
advantage. Paradise that it is!

It is odd to leave a city by a road piercing the base of a broad
mountain, in at one side and out at the other, after a subterranean
drive of near a mile! The grotto of Posilipo has been one of the wonders
of the world these two thousand years, and it exceeds all expectation as
a curiosity. Its length is stated at two thousand three hundred and
sixteen feet, its breadth twenty-two, and its height eighty-nine. It is
thronged with carts and beasts of burden of all descriptions, and the
echoing cries of these noisy Italian drivers are almost deafening.
Lamps, struggling with the distant daylight as you near the end, just
make darkness visible, and standing in the centre and looking either
way, the far distant arch of daylight glows like a fire through the
cloud of dust. What with the impressiveness of the place, and the danger
of driving in the dark amid so many obstructions, it is rather a
stirring half-hour that is spent in its gloom! One emerges into the
fresh open air and the bright light of day with a feeling of relief.

The drive hence to Pozzuoli, four or five miles, was extremely
beautiful. The fields were covered with the new tender grain, and by the
short passage through the grotto we had changed a busy and crowded city
for scenes of as quiet rural loveliness as ever charmed the eye. We soon
reached the lip of the bay, and then the road turned away to the right,
along the beach, passing the small island of Nisida (where Brutus had a
villa, and which is now a prison for the carbonari).

Pozzuoli soon appeared, and mounting a hill we descended into its busy
square, and were instantly beset by near a hundred guides, boatmen, and
beggars, all preferring their claims and services at the tops of their
voices. I fixed my eye on the most intelligent face among them, a
curly-headed fellow in a red lazzaroni cap, and succeeded, with some
loss of temper, in getting him aside from the crowd and bargaining for
our boats.

While the boatmen were forming themselves into a circle to cast lots for
the bargain, we walked up to the famous ruins of the temple of Jupiter
Serapis. This was one of the largest and richest of the temples of
antiquity. It was a quadrangular building, near the edge of the sea,
lined with marble, and sustained by columns of solid cipolino, three of
which are still standing. It was buried by an earthquake and forgotten
for a century or two, till in 1750 it was discovered by a peasant, who
struck the top of one of the columns in digging. We stepped around over
the prostrate fragments, building it up once more in fancy, and peopling
the aisles with priests and worshippers. In the centre of the temple was
the place of sacrifice, raised by flights of steps, and at the foot
still remain two rings of Corinthian brass, to which the victims were
fastened, and near them the receptacles for their blood and ashes. The
whole scene has a stamp of grandeur. We obeyed the call of our
red-bonnet guide, whose boat waited for us at the temple stairs, very
unwillingly.

As we pushed off from the shore, we deviated a moment from our course to
look at the ruins of the ancient mole. Here probably St. Paul set his
foot, landing to pursue his way to Rome. The great apostle spent seven
days at this place, which was then called Puteoli—a fact that attaches
to it a deeper interest than it draws from all the antiquities of which
it is the centre.

We kept on our way along the beautiful bend of the shore of Baiæ, and
passing on the right a small mountain formed in thirty-six hours by a
volcanic explosion, some three hundred years ago, we came to the Lucrine
Lake, so famous in the classics for its oysters. The same explosion that
made the Monte Nuovo, and sunk the little village of Tripergole,
destroyed the oyster-beds of the poets.

A ten minutes’ walk brought us to the shores of Lake Avernus—the
“Tartarus” of Virgil. This was classic ground indeed, and we hoped to
have found a thumbed copy of the Æneid in the pocket of the cicerone. He
had not even heard of the poet. A ruin on the opposite shore, reflected
in the still dark water, is supposed to have been a temple dedicated to
Proserpine. If she was allowed to be present at her own worship, she
might have been consoled for her abduction. A spot of more secluded
loveliness could scarce be found. The lake lay like a sheet of silver at
the foot of the ruined temple, the water looking unfathomably deep
through the clear reflection, and the fringes of low shrubbery leaning
down on every side, were doubled in the bright mirror, the likeness even
fairer than the reality.

Our unsentimental guide hurried us away as we were seating ourselves
upon the banks, and we struck into a narrow footpath of wild shrubbery
which circled the lake, and in a few minutes stood before the door of a
grotto sunk in the side of the hill. Here dwelt the Cumæan sybil, and by
this dark passage, the souls of the ancients passed from Tartarus to
Elysium. The guide struck a light and kindled two large torches, and we
followed him into the narrow cavern, walking downward at a rapid pace
for ten or fifteen minutes. With a turn to the right, we stood before a
low archway which the guide entered, up to his knees in water at the
first step. It looked like the mouth of an abyss, and the ladies refused
to go on. Six or seven stout fellows had followed us in, and the guide
assured us we should be safe on their backs. I mounted first myself to
carry the torch, and holding my head very low, we went plunging on,
turning to the right and left through a crooked passage, dark as Erebus,
till I was set down on a raised ledge called _the Sibyl’s bed_. The lady
behind me, I soon discovered by her screams, had not made so prosperous
a voyage. She had insisted on being taken up something in the
side-saddle fashion; and the man, not accustomed to hold so heavy a
burden on his hip with one arm, had stumbled and let her slip up to her
knees in water. He took her up immediately, in his own homely but safer
fashion, and she was soon set beside me on the sibyl’s stony couch,
dripping with water, and quite out of temper with antiquities.

The rest of the party followed, and the guide lifted the torches to the
dripping roof of the cavern, and showed us the remains of beautiful
mosaic with which the place was once evidently encrusted. Whatever truth
there may be in the existence of the sybil, these had been, doubtlessly,
luxurious baths, and probably devoted by the Roman emperors to secret
licentiousness. The guide pointed out to us a small perforation in the
rear of the sybil’s bed, whence, he said (by what authority I know not),
Caligula used to watch the lavations of the nymph. It communicates with
an outer chamber.

We reappeared, our nostrils edged with black from the smoke of the
torches, and the ladies’ dresses in a melancholy plight, between smoke
and water. It would be a witch of a sybil that would tempt us to repeat
our visit.

We retraced our steps, and embarked for Nero’s villa. It was perhaps a
half mile further down the bay. The only remains of it were some vapour
baths, built over a boiling spring which extended under the sea. One of
our boatmen waded first a few feet into the surf, and plunging under the
cold sea-water, brought up a handful of warm gravel—the evidence of a
submarine outlet from the springs beyond. We then mounted a high and
ruined flight of steps, and entered a series of chambers dug out of the
rock, where an old man was stripping off his shirt, to go through the
usual process of taking eggs down to boil in the fountain. He took his
bucket, drew a long breath of fresh air, and rushed away by a dark
passage, whence he reappeared in three or four minutes, the eggs boiled,
and the perspiration streaming from his body like rain. He set the
bucket down, and rushed to the door, gasping as if from suffocation. The
eggs were boiled hard, but the distress of the old man, and the danger
of such sudden changes of atmosphere to his health, quite destroyed our
pleasure at the phenomenon.

Hence to the cape of Misenum, the curve of the bay presents one
continuation of Roman villas. And certainly there was not probably in
the world, a place more adapted to the luxury of which it was the scene.
These natural baths, the many mineral waters, the balmy climate, the
fertile soil, the lovely scenery, the matchless curve of the shore from
Pozzuoli to the cape, and the vicinity, by that wonderful subterranean
passage, to a populous capital on the other side of a range of
mountains, rendered Baiæ a natural paradise to the emperors. It was
improved as we see. Temples to Venus, Diana, and Mercury, the villas of
Marius, of Hortensius, of Cæsar, of Lucullus, and others whose masters
are disputed, follow each other in rival beauty of situation. The ruins
are not much now, except the temple of Venus, which is one of the most
picturesque fragments of antiquity I have ever seen. The long vines hang
through the rent in its circular roof, and the bright flowers cling to
the crevices in its still half-splendid walls with the very poetry of
decay. Our guide here proposed a lunch. We sat down on the immense stone
which has fallen from the ceiling, and in a few minutes the rough table
was spread with a hundred open oysters from Fusaro (near Lake Avernus),
bottles at will of _lagrima Christi_ from Vesuvius, boiled crabs from
the shore beneath the temple of Mercury, fish from the Lucrine lake, and
bread from Pozzuoli. The meal was not less classic than refreshing. We
drank to the goddess (the only one in mythology, by the way, whose
worship has not fallen into contempt), and leaving twenty ragged
descendants of ancient Baiæ to feast on the remains, mounted our donkeys
and started over land for Elysium.

We passed the villa of Hortensius, to which Nero invited his mother,
with the design of murdering her, visited the immense subterranean
chambers in which water was kept for the Roman fleet, the horrid prisons
called the Cento Camerelle of the emperors, and then rising the hill at
the extremity of the cape, the Stygian lake lay off on the right, a
broad and gloomy pool, and around its banks spread the Elysian fields,
the very home and centre of classic fable. An overflowed marsh, and an
adjacent corn-field will give you a perfect idea of it. The sun was
setting while we swallowed our disappointment, and we turned our
donkeys’ heads toward Naples.

We left the city again this morning by the grotto of Posilipo to visit
the celebrated Grotto del Cane. It is about three miles off, on the
borders of a pretty lake, once the crater of a volcano. On the way there
arose a violent debate in the party on the propriety of subjecting the
poor dogs to the distress of the common experiment. We had not yet
decided the point when we stopped before the door of the keeper’s house.
Two miserable-looking terriers had set up a howl, accompanied with a
ferocious and half-complaining bark, from our first appearance around
the turn of the road, and the appeal was effectual. We dismounted and
walking toward the grotto, determined to refuse to see the phenomenon.
Our scruples were unnecessary. The door was surrounded with another
party less merciful, and as we approached, two dogs were dragged out by
the heels, and thrown lifeless on the grass. We gathered round them, and
while the old woman coolly locked the door of the grotto, the poor
animals began to kick, and after a few convulsions, struggled to their
feet and crept feebly away. Fresh dogs were offered to our party, but we
contented ourselves with the more innocent experiments. The mephitic air
of this cave rises to a foot above the surface of the ground, and a
torch put into it was immediately extinguished. It has been described
too often, however, to need a repetition. We took a long stroll around
the lake, which was covered with wild-fowl, visited the remains of a
villa of Lucullus on the opposite shore, and returned to Naples to
dinner.

* * * * *

LETTER VII.

Island of Sicily—Palermo—Saracenic appearance of the
town—Cathedral—The Marina—Viceroy Leopold—Monastery of the
Capuchins—Celebrated Catacombs—Fanciful Gardens.

FRIGATE UNITED STATES, _June 25_.—The mountain coast of Sicily lay
piled up before us at the distance of ten or twelve miles, when I came
on deck this morning. The quarter-master handed me the glass, and
running my eye along the shore, I observed three or four low plains,
extending between projecting spurs of the hills, studded thickly with
country-houses, and bright with groves which I knew, by the deep
glancing green, to be the orange. In a corner of the longest of these
intervals, a sprinkling of white, looking in the distance like a bed of
pearly shells on the edge of the sea, was pointed out as Palermo. With a
steady glass its turrets and gardens became apparent, and its mole,
bristling above the wall with masts; and, running in with a free wind,
the character of our ship was soon recognised from the shore, and the
flags of every vessel in the harbour ran up to the mast, the customary
courtesy to a man-of-war entering port.

As the ship came to her anchorage, the view of the city was very
captivating. The bend of the shore embraced our position, and the
eastern half of the curve was a succession of gardens and palaces. A
broad street extended along in front, crowded with people gazing at the
frigates, and up one of the long avenues of the public gardens, we could
distinguish the veiled women walking in groups, children playing,
priests, soldiers, and all the motley frequenters of such places in this
idle clime, enjoying the refreshing sea-breeze, upon whose wings we had
come. I was impatient to get ashore, but between the health-officer and
some other hindrances, it was evening before we set foot upon the pier.

With Captain Nicholson and the purser I walked up to the Toledo, as the
still half-asleep tradesmen were opening their shops after the _siesta_.
The oddity of the Palermitan style of building struck me forcibly. Of
the two long streets, crossing each other at right angles and extending
to the four gates of the city, the lower story of every house is a shop,
of course. The second and third stories are ornamented with
tricksy-looking iron balconies, in which the women sit at work
universally, while from above projects, far over the street, a grated
enclosure, like a long birdcage, from which look down girls and children
(or, if it is a convent, the nuns), as if it were an airy prison to keep
the household from the contact of the world. The whole air of Palermo is
different from that of the towns upon the continent. The peculiarities
are said to be Saracenic, and inscriptions in Arabic are still found
upon the ancient buildings. The town is poetically called the _concha
d’oro_, or “the golden shell.”

We walked on to the cathedral, followed by a troop of literally naked
beggars, baked black in the sun, and more emaciated and diseased than
any I have yet seen abroad. Their cries and gestures were painfully
energetic. In the course of five minutes we had seen two or three
hundred. They lay along the sidewalks, and upon the steps of the houses
and churches, men, women, and children, nearly or quite naked, and as
unnoticed by the inhabitants as the stones of the street.

Ten or twenty indolent-looking priests sat in the shade of the porch of
the cathedral. The columns of the vestibule were curiously wrought, the
capitals exceedingly rich with fretted leaf-work, and the ornaments of
the front of the same wild-looking character as the buildings of the
town. A hunchback scarce three feet high, came up and offered his
services as a cicerone, and we entered the church. The antiquity of the
interior was injured by the new white paint, covering every part except
the more valuable decorations, but with its four splendid sarcophagi
standing like separate buildings in the aisles, and covering the ashes
of Ruggiero and his kinsmen; the eighty columns of Egyptian granite in
the nave; the _ciborio_ of entire lapis-lazuli with its lovely blue, and
the mosaics, frescoes, and relievos about the altar, it could scarce
fail of producing an effect of great richness. The floor was occupied by
here and there a kneeling beggar, praying in his rags, and undisturbed
even by the tempting neighbourhood of strangers. I stood long by an old
man, who seemed hardly to have the strength to hold himself upon his
knees. His eyes were fixed upon a lovely picture of the virgin, and his
trembling hands loosed bead after bead as his prayer proceeded. I
slipped a small piece of silver between his palm and the cross of his
rosary, and without removing his eyes from the face of the holy mother,
he implored an audible blessing upon me in a tone of the most earnest
feeling. I have scarce been so moved within my recollection.

The equipages were beginning to roll toward the “Marina,” and the
sea-breeze was felt even through the streets. We took a carriage and
followed to the corso, where we counted near two hundred gay,
well-appointed equipages, in the course of an hour, What a contrast to
the wretchedness we had left behind! Driving up and down this half mile
in front of the palaces on the sea, seemed quite a sufficient amusement
for the indolent nobility of Palermo. They were named to us by their
imposing titles as they passed, and we looked in vain into their dull
unanimated faces for the chivalrous character of the once renowned
knights of Sicily. Ladies and gentlemen sat alike silent, leaning back
in their carriages in the elegant attitudes studied to such effect on
this side of the water, and gazing for acquaintances among those passing
on the opposite line.

Toward the dusk of the evening, an _avant-courrier_ on horseback
announced the approach of the viceroy Leopold, the brother of the King
of Naples. He drove himself in an English hunting-wagon with two seats,
and looked like a dandy whip of the first water from Regent Street. He
is about twenty and quite handsome. His horses, fine English bays, flew
up and down the short corso, passing and repassing every other minute,
till we were weary of touching our hats and stopping till he had gone
by. He noticed the uniform of our officers, and raised his hat with
particular politeness to them.

As it grew dark, the carriages came to a stand around a small open
gallery raised in the broadest part of the Marina. Rows of lamps,
suspended from the roof, were lit, and a band of forty or fifty
musicians appeared in the area, and played parts of the popular operas.
We were told they performed every night from nine till twelve. Chairs
were set around for the people on foot, ices circulated, and some ten or
twelve thousand people enjoyed the music in a delicious moonlight,
keeping perfect silence from the first note to the last. These heavenly
nights of Italy are thus begun, and at twelve the people separate and go
to visit, or lounge at home till morning, when the windows are closed,
the cool night air shut in, and they sleep till evening comes again,
literally “keeping the hours the stars do.” It is very certain that it
is the only way to enjoy life in this enervating climate. The sun is the
worst enemy to health, and life and spirits sink under its intensity.
The English, who are the only people abroad in an Italian noon, are
constant victims to it.

* * * * *

We drove this morning to the monastery of the Capuchins. Three or four
of the brothers in long grey beards, and the heavy brown sackcloth cowls
of the order tied round the waist with ropes, received us cordially, and
took us through the cells and chapels. We had come to see the famous
catacombs of the convent. A door was opened on the side of the main
cloister, and we descended a long flight of stairs into the centre of
three lofty vaults, lighted each by a window at the extremity of the
ceiling. A more frightful scene never appalled the eye. The walls were
lined with shallow niches, from which hung, leaning forward as if to
fall upon the gazer, the dried bodies of monks in the full dress of
their order. Their hands were crossed upon their breasts or hung at
their sides, their faces were blackened and withered, and every one
seemed to have preserved, in diabolical caricature, the very expression
of life. The hair lay reddened and dry on the dusty skull, the teeth,
perfect or imperfect, had grown brown in their open mouths, the nose had
shrunk, the cheeks fallen in and cracked, and they looked more like
living men cursed with some horrid plague, than the inanimate corpses
they were. The name of each was pinned upon his cowl, with his age and
the time of his death. Below in three or four tiers, lay long boxes
painted fantastically, and containing, the monk told us, the remains of
Sicilian nobles. Upon a long shelf above sat perhaps a hundred children
of from one year to five, in little chairs worn with their use while in
life, dressed in the gayest manner, with fanciful caps upon their little
blackened heads, dolls in their hands, and in one or two instances, a
stuffed dog or parrot lying in their laps. A more horribly ludicrous
collection of little withered faces, shrunk into expression so entirely
inconsistent with the gaiety of their dresses, could scarce be
conceived. One of them had his arm tied up, holding a child’s whip in
the act of striking, while the poor thing’s head had rotted and dropped
upon its breast; and a leather cap fallen on one side, showed his bare
skull, with the most comical expression of carelessness. We quite
shocked the old monk with our laughter, but the scene was irresistible.

We went through several long galleries filled in the same manner, with
the dead monks standing over the coffins of nobles, and children on the
shelf above. There were three thousand bodies and upward in the place,
monks and all. Some of them were very ancient. There was one, dated a
century and a half back, whose tongue still hangs from his mouth. The
friar took hold of it, and moved it up and down, rattling it against his
teeth. It was like a piece of dried fish-skin, and as sharp and thin as
a nail.

At the extremity of the last passage was a new vault appropriated to
women. There were nine already lying on white pillows in the different
recesses, who had died within the year, and among them a young girl, the
daughter of a noble family of Palermo, stated in the inscription to have
been a virgin of seventeen years. The monk said her twin-sister was the
most beautiful woman of the city at this moment. She was laid upon her
back, on a small shelf faced with a wire grating, dressed in white, with
a large bouquet of artificial flowers on the centre of the body. Her
hands and face were exposed, and the skin, which seemed to me scarcely
dry, was covered with small black ants. I struck with my stick against
the shelf, and startled by the concussion, the disgusting vermin poured
from the mouth and nostrils in hundreds. How difficult it is to believe
that the beauty we worship must come to this!

As we went toward the staircase, the friar showed us the deeper niches,
in which the bodies were placed for the first six months. There were
fortunately no fresh bodies in them at the time of our visit. The
stench, for a week or two, he told us, was intolerable. They are
suffered to get quite dry here, and then are disposed of according to
their sex or profession. A rope passed round the middle, fastens the
dead monk to his shallow niche, and there he stands till his bones rot
from each other, sometimes for a century or more.

We hurried up the gloomy stairs, and giving the monk our gratuity, were
passing out of the cloister to our carriage, when two of the brothers
entered, bearing a sedan chair with the blinds closed. Our friend called
us back, and opened the door. An old grey-headed woman sat bolt upright
within, with a rope around her body and another around her neck,
supporting her by two rings in the back of the sedan. She had died that
morning, and was brought to be dried in the capuchin catacombs. The
effect of the newly deceased body in a handsome silk dress and plaited
cap was horrible.

We drove from the monastery to the gardens of a Sicilian prince, near
by. I was agreeably disappointed to find the grounds laid out in the
English taste, winding into secluded walks shaded with unclipped trees,
and opening into glades of greensward cooled by fountains. We strolled
on from one sweet spot to another, coming constantly upon little Grecian
temples, ruins, broken aqueducts, aviaries, bowers furnished with
curious seats and tables, bridges over streams, and labyrinths of
shrubbery, ending in hermitages built curiously of cane. So far, the
garden, though lovely, was like many others. On our return, the person
who accompanied us began to surprise us with singular contrivances,
fortunately selecting the coachman who had driven us as the subject of
his experiments. In the middle of a long green alley he requested him to
step forward a few paces, and, in an instant, streams of water poured
upon him from the bushes around in every direction. There were seats in
the arbours, the least pressure of which sent up a stream beneath the
unwary visitor; steps to an ascent, which you no sooner touched than you
were showered from an invisible source; and one small hermitage, which
sent a _jet d’eau_ into the face of a person lifting the latch. Nearly
in the centre of the garden stood a pretty building, with an ascending
staircase. At the first step, a friar in white, represented to the life
in wax, opened the door, and fixed his eyes on the comer. At the next
step, the door was violently shut. At the third, it was half opened
again, and as the foot pressed the platform above, both doors flew wide
open, and the old friar made room for the visitor to enter. Life itself
could not have been more natural. The garden was full of similar tricks.
We were hurried away by an engagement before we had seen them all, and
stopping for a moment to look at a magnificent Egyptian Ibis, walking
around in an aviary like a temple, we drove into town to dinner.

* * * * *

LETTER VIII.

The Lunatic Asylum at Palermo.

PALERMO, _June 28_.—Two of the best conducted lunatic asylums in the
world are in the kingdom of Naples—one at Aversa, near Capua, and the
other at Palermo. The latter is managed by a whimsical Sicilian baron,
who has devoted his time and fortune to it, and, with the assistance of
the government, has carried it to great extent and perfection. The poor
are received gratuitously, and those who can afford it enter as
boarders, and are furnished with luxuries according to their means.

The hospital stands in an airy situation in the lovely neighbourhood of
Palermo. We were received by a porter in a respectable livery, who
introduced us immediately to the old baron—a kind-looking man, rather
advanced beyond middle life, of manners singularly genteel and
prepossessing. “_Je suis le premier fou_,” said he, throwing his arms
out, as he bowed on our entrance. We stood in an open court, surrounded
with porticoes lined with stone seats. On one of them lay a fat,
indolent-looking man, in clean gray clothes, talking to himself with
great apparent satisfaction. He smiled at the baron as he passed,
without checking the motion of his lips, and three others standing in
the doorway of a room marked as the kitchen, smiled also as he came up,
and fell into his train, apparently as much interested as ourselves in
the old man’s explanations.

The kitchen was occupied by eight or ten people, all at work, and all,
the baron assured us, _mad_. One man, of about forty, was broiling a
steak with the gravest attention. Another, who had been furious till
employment was given him, was chopping meat with violent industry in a
large wooden bowl. Two or three girls were about, obeying the little
orders of a middle-aged man, occupied with several messes cooking on a
patent stove. I was rather incredulous about his insanity, till he took
a small bucket and went to the jet of a fountain, and getting impatient
from some cause or other, dashed the water upon the floor. The baron
mildly called him by name, and mentioned to him, as a piece of
information, that he had wet the floor. He nodded his head, and filling
his bucket quietly, poured a little into one of the pans, and resumed
his occupation.

We passed from the kitchen into an open court, curiously paved, and
ornamented with Chinese grottoes, artificial rocks, trees, cottages, and
fountains. Within the grottoes reclined figures of wax. Before the altar
of one, fitted up as a Chinese chapel, a mandarin was prostrated in
prayer. The walls on every side were painted in perspective scenery, and
the whole had as little the air of a prison as the open valley itself.
In one of the corners was an unfinished grotto, and a handsome young man
was entirely absorbed in thatching the ceiling with strips of cane. The
baron pointed to him, and said he had been incurable till he had found
this employment for him. Everything about us, too, he assured us, was
the work of his patients. They had paved the court, built the grottoes
and cottages, and painted the walls, under his direction. The secret of
his whole system, he said, was employment and constant kindness. He had
usually about one hundred and fifty patients, and he dismissed upon an
average two-thirds of them quite recovered.

We went into the apartments of the women. These, he said, were his worst
subjects. In the first room sat eight or ten employed in spinning, while
one infuriated creature, not more than thirty, but quite gray, was
walking up and down the floor, talking and gesticulating with the
greatest violence. A young girl of sixteen, an attendant, had entered
into her humour, and with her arm put affectionately round her waist,
assented to everything she said, and called her by every name of
endearment while endeavouring to silence her. When the baron entered,
the poor creature addressed herself to him, and seemed delighted that he
had come. He made several mild attempts to check her, but she seized his
hands, and with the veins of her throat swelling with passion, her eyes
glaring terribly, and her tongue white and trembling, she continued to
declaim more and more violently. The baron gave an order to a male
attendant at the door, and beckoning us to follow, led her gently
through a small court planted with trees, to a room containing a
hammock. She checked her torrent of language as she observed the
preparations going on, and seemed amused with the idea of swinging. The
man took her up in his arms without resistance, and laced the hammock
over her, confining everything but her head, and the female attendant,
one of the most playful and prepossessing little creatures I ever saw,
stood on a chair, and at every swing threw a little water on her face,
as if in sport. Once or twice, the maniac attempted to resume the
subject of her ravings, but the girl laughed in her face and diverted
her from it, till at last she smiled, and dropping her head into the
hammock, seemed disposed to sink into an easy sleep.

We left her swinging and went out into the court, where eight or ten
women in the gray gowns of the establishment were walking up and down,
or sitting under the trees, lost in thought. One, with a fine,
intelligent face, came up to me and courtesied gracefully without
speaking. The physician of the establishment joined me at the moment,
and asked her what she wished. “To kiss his hand,” said she, “but his
looks forbade me.” She coloured deeply, and folded her arms across her
breast and walked away. The baron called us, and in going out I passed
her again, and taking her hand, kissed it, and bade her good-bye. “You
had better kiss my lips,” said she, “you’ll never see me again.” She
laid her forehead against the iron bars of the gate, and with a face
working with emotion, watched us till we turned out of sight. I asked
the physieian for her history. “It was a common case,” he said. “She was
the daughter of a Sicilian noble, who, too poor to marry her to one of
her own rank, had sent her to a convent, where confinement had driven
her mad. She is now a charity patient in the asylum.”

The courts in which these poor creatures are confined open upon a large
and lovely garden. We walked through it with the baron, and then
returned to the apartments of the females. In passing a cell, a large
majestic woman strided out with a theatrical air, and commenced an
address to the Deity, in a strain, which showed her possessed of
superiority both of birth and endowment. The baron took her by the hand
with the deferential courtesy of the old school, and led her to one of
the stone seats. She yielded to him politely, but resumed her harangue,
upbraiding the Deity, as well as I could understand her, for her
misfortunes. They succeeded in soothing her by the assistance of the
same playful attendant who had accompanied the other to the hammock, and
she sat still, with her lips white and her tongue trembling like an
aspen. While the good old baron was endeavouring to draw her into a
quiet conversation, the physician told me some curious circumstances
respecting her. She was a Greek, and had been brought to Palermo when a
girl. Her mind had been destroyed by an illness, and after seven years’
madness, during which she had refused to rise from her bed, and had
quite lost the use of her limbs, she was brought to this establishment
by her friends. Experiments were tried in vain to induce her to move
from her painful position. At last the baron determined upon addressing
what he considered the master-passion in all female bosoms. He dressed
himself in the gayest manner, and, in one of her gentle moments, entered
her room with respectful ceremony, and offered himself to her in
marriage! She refused him with scorn, and with seeming emotion he begged
forgiveness and left her. The next morning, on his entrance, she
smiled—the first time for years. He continued his attentions for a day
or two, and after a little coquetry, she one morning announced to him
that she had re-considered his proposal, and would be his bride. They
raised her from her bed to prepare her for the ceremony, and she was
carried in a chair to the garden, where the bridal feast was spread,
nearly all the other patients of the hospital being present. The gaiety
of the scene absorbed the attention of all; the utmost decorum
prevailed: and when the ceremony was performed the bride was crowned,
and carried back in state to her apartment. She recovered gradually the
use of her limbs, her health is improved, and, excepting an occasional
paroxysm, such as we happened to witness, she is quiet and contented.
The other inmates of the asylum still call her the bride; and the baron,
as her husband, has the greatest influence over her.

While the physician was telling me these circumstances, the baron had
succeeded in calming her, and she sat with her arms folded, dignified
and silent. He was still holding her hand, when the woman whom we had
left swinging in the hammock, came stealing up behind the trees on
tiptoe, and putting her hand suddenly over the baron’s eyes, kissed him
on both sides of his face, laughing heartily, and calling him by every
name of affection. The contrast between this mood and the infuriated one
in which we had found her, was the best comment on the good man’s
system. He gently disengaged himself, and apologised to his lady for
allowing the liberty, and we followed him to another apartment.

It opened upon a pretty court, in which a fountain was playing, and
against the columns of the portico sat some half dozen patients. A young
man of eighteen, with a very pale, scholar-like face, was reading
Ariosto. Near him, under the direction of an attendant, a fair, delicate
girl, with a sadness in her soft blue eyes that might have been a study
for a _mater dolorosa_, was cutting paste upon a board laid across her
lap. She seemed scarcely conscious of what she was about, and when I
approached and spoke to her, she laid down the knife and rested her head
upon her hand, and looked at me steadily, as if she was trying to
recollect where she had known me. “I cannot remember,” she said to
herself, and went on with her occupation. I bowed to her as we took our
leave, and she returned it gracefully but coldly. The young man looked
up from his book and smiled, the old man lying on the stone seat in the
outer court rose up and followed us to the door, and we were bowed out
by the baron and his gentle madmen as politely and kindly as if we were
concluding a visit with a company of friends.

* * * * *

An evening out of doors, in summer, is pleasant enough anywhere in
Italy: but I have found no place where the people and their amusements
were so concentrated at that hour, as upon the “Marina” of Palermo. A
ramble with the officers up and down, renewing the acquaintances made
with visitors to the ships, listening to the music and observing the
various characters of the crowd, concludes every day agreeably. A
terraced promenade twenty feet above the street, extends nearly the
whole length of the Marina, and here, under the balconies of the
viceroy’s palace, with the crescent harbour spread out before the eye,
trees above, and marble seats tempting the weary at every step, may be
met pedestrians of every class, from the first cool hour when the
sea-breeze sets in till midnight or morning. The intervals between the
pieces performed by the royal band in the centre of the drive, is seized
by the wandering _improvisatrice_, or the ludicrous _puncinello_, and
even the beggars cease to importune in the general abandonment to
pleasure. Every other moment the air is filled with a delightful
perfume, and you are addressed by the bearer of a tall pole tied thickly
with the odorous flowers of this voluptuous climate—a mode of selling
these cheap luxuries which I believe is peculiar to Palermo. The gaiety
they give a crowd, by the way, is singular. They move about among the
gaudily-dressed contadini like a troop of banners—tulips, narcissus,
moss-roses, branches of jasmine, geraniums, every flower that is rare
and beautiful scenting the air from a hundred overladen poles, and the
merest pittance will purchase the rarest and loveliest. It seems a clime
of fruits and flowers; and if one could but shut his eyes to the
dreadful contrasts of nakedness and starvation, he might believe himself
in a Utopia.

We were standing on the balcony of the consul’s residence (a charming
situation overlooking the Marina), and remarking the gaiety of the scene
on the first evening of our arrival. The conversation turned upon the
condition of the people. The consul remarked that it was an every-day
circumstance to find beggars starved to death in the streets; and that,
in the small villages near Palermo, eight or ten were often taken up
dead from the road-side in the morning. The difficulty of getting a
subsistence is every day increasing, and in the midst of one of the most
fertile spots of the earth, one half the population are driven to the
last extremity for bread. The results appear in constant conspiracies
against the government, detected and put down with more or less
difficulty. The island is garrisoned with troops from Italy, and the
viceroy has lately sent to his brother for a reinforcement, and is said
to feel very insecure. A more lamentably misgoverned kingdom than that
of the Sicilies, probably does not exist in the world.

* * * * *

LETTER IX.

Palermo—Fête given by Mr. Gardiner, the American Consul—Temple
of Clitumnus—Cottage of Petrarch—Messina—Lipari
Islands—Scylla and Charybdis.

PALERMO, _June 28th_.—The curve of “The Golden Shell,” which bends to
the east of Palermo, is a luxuriant plain of ten miles in length,
terminated by a bluff which forms a headland corner of the bay. A broad
neck of land between this bay and another indenting the coast less
deeply on the other side, is occupied by a cluster of summer palaces
belonging to several of the richer princes of Sicily. The breeze,
whenever there is one on land or sea, sweeps freshly across this ridge,
and a more desirable residence for combined coolness and beauty could
scarce be imagined. The Palermitan princes, however, find every country
more attractive than their own; and while you may find a dozen of them
in any city of Europe, their once magnificent residences are deserted
and falling to decay, almost without an exception.

The old walls of one of these palaces were enlivened yesterday, by a
_fête_ given to the officers of the squadron by the American consul, Mr.
Gardiner. We left Palermo in a long cavalcade, followed by a large
omnibus containing the ship’s band, early in the forenoon. The road was
lined with prickly pear and oleander in the most luxuriant blossom.
Exotics in our country, these plants are indigenous to Sicily, and form
the only hedges to the large plantations of cane and the spreading
vineyards and fields. A more brilliant show than these long lines of
trees, laden with bright pink flowers, and varied by the gigantic and
massive leaf of the pear, cannot easily be imagined.

We were to visit one or two places on our way. The carriage drew up
about eight miles from town, at the gate of a ruinous building, and
passing through a deserted court, we entered an old-fashioned garden,
presenting one succession of trimmed walks, urns, statues, and
fountains. The green mould of age and exposure upon the marbles, the
broken seats, the once costly but now ruined and silent fountains, the
tall weeds in the seldom-trodden walks, and the wild vegetation of
fragrant jasmine and brier, burying everything with its luxuriance, all
told the story of decay. I remembered the scenes of the Decameron; the
many “tales of love,” laid in these very gardens; the gay romances of
which Palermo was the favourite home; and the dames and knights of
Sicily, the fairest and bravest themes, and I longed to let my merry
companions pass on, and remain to realise more deeply the spells of
poetry and story. The pleasure of travel is in the fancy. Men and
manners are so nearly alike over the world, and the same annoyances
disturb so certainly, wherever we are, the gratification of seeing and
conversing with our living fellow-beings, that it is only by the mingled
illusion of fancy and memory, by getting apart, and peopling the
deserted palace or the sombre ruin from the pages of a book, that we
ever realise the anticipated pleasure of standing on celebrated ground.
The eye, the curiosity, are both disappointed, and the voice of a common
companion reduces the most romantic ruin to a heap of stone. In some of
the footsteps of Childe Harold himself, with his glorious thoughts upon
my lips, and all that moved his imagination addressing my eye, with the
additional grace which his poetry has left around them, I have found
myself unable to overstep the vulgar circumstances of the hour—“the
Temple of Clitumnus” was a ruined shed glaring in the sunshine, and the
“Cottage of Petrarch” an apology for extortion and annoyance.

I heard a shout from the party, and followed them to a building at the
foot of a garden. I passed the threshold and started back. A ghastly
monk, with a broom in his hand, stood gazing at me, and at a door just
beyond, a decrepit nun was see-sawing backward and forward, ringing a
bell with the most impatient violence. I ventured to pass in, and a door
opened at the right, disclosing the self-denying cell of a hermit with
his narrow bed and single chair, and at the table sat the rosy-gilled
friar, filling his glass from an antiquated bottle, and nodding his head
to his visitor in grinning welcome. A long cloister with six or eight
cells extended beyond, and in each was a monk in some startling
attitude, or a pale and saintly nun employed in work or prayer. The
whole was as like a living monastery as wax could make it. The mingling
of monks and nuns seemed an anachronism, but we were told that it
represented a tale, the title of which I have forgotten. It was
certainly an odd as well as an expensive fancy for a garden ornament,
and shows by its uselessness the once princely condition of the
possessors of the palace. An Englishman married not many years since an
old princess, to whom the estates had descended, and with much
unavailable property and the title of prince, he has entered the service
of the king of the Sicilies for a support.

We drove on to another palace, still more curious in its ornaments. The
extensive wall which enclosed it, the gates, the fountains in the courts
and gardens, were studded with marble monsters of every conceivable
deformity. The head of a man crowned the body of an eagle standing on
the legs of a horse; the lovely face and bosom of a female crouched upon
the body of a dog; alligators, serpents, lions, monkeys, birds, and
reptiles, were mixed up with parts of the human body in the most
revolting variety. So admirable was the work, too, and so beautiful the
material, that even outraged taste would hesitate to destroy them. The
wonder is that artists of so much merit could have been hired to commit
such sins against decency, or that a man in his senses would waste upon
them the fortune they must have cost.

We mounted a massive flight of steps, with a balustrade of
gorgeously-carved marble, and entered a hall hung round with the family
portraits, the eccentric founder at their head. He was a thin,
quizzical-looking gentleman, in a laced coat and sword, and had
precisely the face I imagined for him—that of a whimsical madman. You
would select it from a thousand as the subject for a lunatic asylum.

We were led next to a long, narrow hall, famous for having dined the
king and his courtiers an age or two ago. The ceiling was of plate
mirror, reflecting us all, upside down, as we strolled through, and the
walls were studded from the floor to the roof with the quartz diamond,
(valueless but brilliant), bits of coloured glass, spangles, and
everything that could reflect light. The effect, when the quaint old
chandeliers were lit, and the table spread with silver and surrounded by
a king and his nobles, in the costume of a court in the olden time, must
have exceeded faëry.

Beyond, we were ushered into the state drawing-room, a saloon of grand
proportions, roofed like the other with mirrors, but paved and lined
throughout with the costliest marbles, Sicilian agates, paintings set in
the wall and covered with glass, while on pedestals around, stood
statues of the finest workmanship, representing the males of the family
in the costume or armour of the times. A table of inlaid precious stones
stood in the centre, cabinets of lapis-lazuli and side tables, occupied
the spaces between the furniture, and the chairs and sofas were covered
with the rich velvet stuffs now out of use, embroidered and fringed
magnificently. I sat down upon a tripod stool, and with my eyes half
closed, looked up at the mirrored reflections of the officers in the
ceiling, and tried to imagine back the gay throngs that had moved across
the floor they were treading so unceremoniously, the knightly and royal
feet that had probably danced the stars down with the best beauty of
Sicily beneath those silent mirrors; the joy, the jealousy, the love and
hate, that had lived their hour and been repeated, as were our lighter
feelings and faces now, outlived by the perishing mirrors that might
still outlive ours as long. How much there is in an _atmosphere_! How
full the air of these old palaces is of thought! How one might enjoy
them could he ramble here alone, or with one congenial and musing
companion to answer to his moralising.

We drove on to our appointment. At the end of a handsome avenue stood a
large palace, in rather more modern taste than those we had left. The
crowd of carriages in the court, the gold-laced midshipmen scattered
about the massive stairs and in the formal walks of the gardens, the gay
dresses of the ship’s band, playing on the terrace, and the troops of
ladies and gentlemen in every direction, gave an air of bustle to the
stately structure that might have reminded the marble nymphs of the days
when they were first lifted to their pedestals.

The old hall was thrown open at two, and a table stretching from one end
to the other, loaded with every luxury of the season, and capable of
accommodating sixty or seventy persons, usurped the place of
unsubstantial romance, and brought in the wildest straggler willingly
from his ramble. No cost had been spared, and the hospitable consul (a
Bostonian) did the honours of his table in a manner that stirred
powerfully my pride of country and birthplace. All the English resident
in Palermo were present; and it was the more agreeable to me that their
countrymen are usually the only givers of generous entertainment in
Europe. One feels ever so distant a reflection on his country abroad.
The liberal and elegant hospitality of one of our countrymen at
Florence, has served me as a better argument against the charge of
hardness and selfishness urged upon our nation, than all which could be
drawn from the acknowledgments of travellers.

When dinner was over, an hour was passed at coffee in a small saloon
stained after the fashion of Pompeii, and we then assembled on a broad
terrace facing the sea, and with the band in the gallery above,
commenced dances which lasted till an hour or two into the moonlight.
The sunset had the eternal but untiring glory of the Italian summer, and
it never set on a gayer party. There were among the English one or two
lovely girls, and with the four ladies belonging to the squadron (the
commodore’s family and Captain Reed’s), the dancers were sufficient to
include all the officers, and the scene in the soft light of the moon
was like a description in an old tale. The broad sea on either side,
broke by the headland in front, the distant crescent of lights glancing
along the seaside at Palermo, the solemn old palaces seen from the
eminence around us, and the noble pile through whose low windows we
strolled out upon the terrace, the music and the excitement, all blended
a scene that is drawn with bright and living lines in my memory. We
parted unwillingly, and reaching Palermo about midnight, pulled off to
the frigates, and were under-weigh at daylight for Messina.

* * * * *

This is the poetry of sailing. The long, low frigate glides on through
the water with no more motion than is felt in a dining-room on shore.
The sea changes only from a glossy calm to a feathery ripple, the sky is
always serene, the merchant sail appears and disappears on the horizon
edge, the island rises on the bow, creeps along the quarter, is examined
by the glasses of the idlers on deck and sinks gradually astern; the
sun-fish whirls in the eddy of the wake, the tortoise plunges and
breathes about us; and the delightful temperature of the sea, even and
invigorating, keeps both mind and body in an undisturbed equilibrium of
enjoyment. For me it is a paradise. I am glad to escape from the
contact, the dust, the trials of temper, the noon-day sultriness, and
the midnight chill, the fatigue, and privation, and vexation, which
beset the traveller on shore. I shall return to it no doubt willingly
after a while, but for the present, it is rest, it is relief,
refreshment, to be at sea. There is no swell in the Mediterranean during
the summer months, and this gliding about, sleeping or reading, as if at
home, from one port to another, seems to me just now the Utopia of
enjoyment.

We have been all day among the Lipari islands. It is pleasant to look up
at the shaded and peaceful huts on their mountainous sides, as we creep
along under them, or to watch the fisherman’s children with a glass, as
they run out from their huts on the seashore to gaze at the uncommon
apparition of a ship-of-war. They seem seats of solitude and retirement.
I have just dropped the glass, which I had raised to look at what I took
to be a large ship in full sail rounding the point of Felicudi. It is a
tall, pyramidal rock, rising right from the sea, and resembling exactly
a ship with studding-sails set, coming down before the wind. The band is
playing on the deck; and a fisherman’s boat with twenty of the islanders
resting on their oars and listening in wondering admiration, lies just
under our quarter. It will form a tale for the evening meal, to which
they were hastening home.

* * * * *

We run between Scylla and Charybdis, with a fresh wind and a strong
current. The “dogs” were silent, and the “whirlpool” is a bubble to
Hurl-gate. Scylla is quite a town, and the tall rock at the entrance of
the strait is crowned with a large building, which seems part of a
fortification. The passage through the Faro is lonely—quite like a
river. Messina lies in a curve of the western shore, at the base of a
hill; and, opposite, a graceful slope covered with vineyards, swells up
to a broad table plain on the mountain, which looked like the home of
peace and fertility.

We rounded-to, off the town, to send in for letters, and I went ashore
in the boat. Two American friends, whom I had as little expectation of
meeting as if I had dropped upon Jerusalem, hailed me from the grating
of the health-office, before we reached the land, and having exhibited
our bill of health, I had half an hour for a call upon an old friend,
resident at Messina, and we were off again to the ship. The sails
filled, and we shot away on a strong breeze down the straits. Rhegium
lay on our left, a large cluster of old-looking houses on the edge of
the sea. It was at this town of Calabria that St. Paul landed on his
journey to Rome. We sped on without much time to look at it, even with a
glass, and were soon rounding the toe of “the boot,” the southern point
of Italy. We are heading at this moment for the gulf of Tarento, and
hope to be in Venice by the fourth of July.

* * * * *

LETTER X.

The Doge of Venice has a fair bride in the Adriatic. It is the fourth of
July, and with the Italian Cape Colonna on our left and the long, low
coast of Albania shading the horizon on the east, we are gazing upon her
from the deck of the first American frigate that has floated upon her
bosom. We head for Venice, and there is a stir of anticipation on board,
felt even through the hilarity of our cherished anniversary. I am the
only one in the ward-room to whom that wonderful city is familiar, and I
feel as if I had forestalled my own happiness—the first impression of
it is so enviable.

* * * * *

It is difficult to conceive the gay costumes and handsome features of
the Albanese existing in these barren mountains that bind the Adriatic.
It has been but a continued undulation of rock and sand, for three days
past; and the closer we hug to the shore, the more we look at the broad
canvass above us, and pray for wind. We make Capo d’Istria now, a small
town nestled in a curve of the sea, and an hour or two more will bring
us to Trieste, where we drop anchor, we hope for many an hour of novelty
and pleasure.

* * * * *

Trieste lies sixty or eighty miles from Venice, across the head of the
gulf. The shore between is piled up to the sky with the “blue Friuli
mountains;” and from the town of Trieste, the low coast of Istria breaks
away at a right angle to the south, forming the eastern bound of the
Adriatic. As we ran into the harbour on our last tack, we passed close
under the garden walls of the villa of the ex-queen of Naples, a lovely
spot just in the suburbs. The palace of Jerome Bonaparte was also
pointed out to us by the pilot, on the hill just above. They have both
removed since to Florence, and their palaces are occupied by English. We
dropped anchor within a half mile of the pier, and the flags of a dozen
American vessels were soon distinguishable among the various colours of
the shipping in the port.

* * * * *

I accompanied Commodore Patterson to-day on a visit of ceremony to the
Austrian authorities of the province. We made our way with difficulty
through the people, crowding in hundreds to the water-side, and
following us with the rude freedom of a showman’s audience. The
vice-governor, a polite but Frenchified German count, received us with
every profession of kindness. His Parisian gesture sat ill enough upon
his national high cheekbones, lank hair, and heavy shoulders. We left
him to call upon the military commandant, an Irishman, who occupies part
of the palace of the ex-king of Westphalia. Our reception by him was
gentlemanly, cordial, and dignified. I think the Irish are, after all,
the best-mannered people in the world. They are found in every country,
as adventurers for honour, and they change neither in character nor
manner. They follow foreign fashions, and acquire a foreign language;
but in the first they retain their heart, and in the latter their
brogue. They are Irishmen always. Count Nugent is high in the favour of
the Emperor, has the commission of a field-marshal, and is married to a
Neapolitan princess, who is a most accomplished and lovely woman, and
related to most of the royal houses of Europe. His reputation as a
soldier is well known, and he seems to me to have no drawback to the
enviableness of his life, except its expatriation.

Trieste is a busy, populous place, resembling extremely our new towns in
America. We took a stroll through the principal streets after our visits
were over, and I was surprised at the splendour of the shops, and the
elegance of the costumes and equipages. It is said to contain thirty
thousand inhabitants.

* * * * *

VIENNA.—The frigates were to lie three or four weeks at Trieste. One
half of the officers had taken the steamboat for Venice on the second
evening of our arrival, and the other half waited impatiently their turn
of absence. Vienna was but some four hundred miles distant, and I might
never be so near it again. On a rainy evening, at nine o’clock, I left
Trieste in the _eil-wagon_, with a German courier, and commenced the
ascent of the spur of the Friuli mountains that overhangs the bay.

My companions inside were a merchant from Gratz, a fantastical and poor
Hungarian count, a Corfu shop-keeper, and an Italian ex-militaire and
present apothecary, going to Vienna to marry a lady whom he had never
seen. After a little bandying of compliments in German, of which I
understood nothing except that they were apologies for the incessant
smoking of three disgusting pipes, the conversation, fortunately for me,
settled into Italian. The mountain was steep and very high, and my
friends soon grew conversable. The novelty of two American frigates in
the harbour naturally decided the first topic. Our Gratz merchant was
surprised at the light colour of the officers he had seen, and doubted
if they were not Englishmen in the American service. He had always heard
Americans were black. “They are so,” said the soldier-apothecary; “I
saw the real Americans yesterday in a boat, quite black.” (One of the
cutters of the “Constellation” has a negro crew, which he had probably
seen at the pier.) The assertion seemed to satisfy the doubts of all
parties. They had wondered how such beautiful ships could come from a
savage country. It was now explained. “They were bought from the
English, and officered by Englishmen.” I was too much amused by their
speculations to undeceive them; and with my head thrust half out of the
window to avoid choking with the smoke of their pipes, I gazed back at
the glittering lights of the town below, and indulged the never-palling
sensation of a first entrance into a new country. The lantern at the
peak of the “United States” was the last thing I saw as we rose the brow
of the mountain, and started off on a rapid trot towards Vienna.

I awoke at daylight with the sudden stop of the carriage. We were at the
low door of a German tavern, and a clear, rosy, good-humoured looking
girl bade us good morning, as we alighted one by one. The phrase was so
like English, that I asked for a basin of water in my mother tongue. The
similarity served me again. She brought it without hesitation; but the
question she asked me as she set it down was like nothing that had ever
before entered my ears. The count smiled at my embarrassment, and
explained that she wished to know if I wanted soap.

I was struck with the cleanliness of everything. The tables, chairs and
floors, looked worn away with scrubbing. Breakfast was brought in
immediately—eggs, rolls, and coffee, the latter in a glass bottle like
a chemist’s retort, corked up tightly, and wrapped in a snowy napkin. It
was an excellent breakfast, served with cleanliness and good humour, and
cost about fourteen cents each. Even from this single meal, it seemed to
me that I had entered a country of simple manners and kind feelings. The
conductor gravely kissed the cheek of the girl who had waited on us, my
companions lit their pipes afresh, and the postillion, in cocked hat and
feather, blew a stave of a waltz on his horn, and fell into a steady
trot, which he kept up with phlegmatic perseverance to the end of his
post.

As we get away from the sea, the land grows richer, and the farm-houses
more frequent. We are in the duchy of Carniola, forty or fifty miles
from Trieste. How very unlike Italy and France, and how very like New
England it is! There are no ruined castles, nor old cathedrals. Every
village has its small white church, with a tapering spire, large
manufactories cluster on the water-courses, the small rivers are rapid
and deep, the horses large and strong, the barns immense, the crops
heavy, the people grave and hard at work, and not a pauper by the post
together. We are very far north, too, and the climate is like New
England. The wind, though it is midsummer, is bracing, and there is no
travelling as in Italy, with one’s hat off and breast open, dissolving
at midnight in the luxury of the soft air. The houses, too, are ugly and
comfortable, staring with paint and pierced in all directions with
windows. The children are white-headed and serious. The hills are
half-covered with woods, and clusters of elms are left here and there
through the meadows, as if their owners could afford to let them grow
for a shade to the mowers. I was perpetually exclaiming, “how like
America!”

We dined at Laybach. My companions had found out by my passport that I
was an American, and their curiosity was most amusing. The report of the
arrival of the two frigates had reached the capital of Illyria, and with
the assistance of the information of my friends, I found myself an
object of universal attention. The crowd around the door of the hotel
looked into the windows while we were eating, and followed me round the
house as if I had been a savage. One of the passengers told me they
connected the arrival of the ships with some political object, and
thought I might be the envoy. The landlord asked me if we had potatoes
in our country.

I took a walk through the city after dinner with my mincing friend the
count. The low, two-story wooden houses, the sidewalks enclosed with
trees, the matter-of-fact looking people, the shut windows, and neat
white churches remind me again strongly of America. It was like the more
retired streets of Portland or Portsmouth. The Illyrian language spoken
here, seemed to me the most inarticulate succession of sounds I had ever
heard. In crossing the bridge in the centre of the town, we met a party
of German students travelling on foot with their knapsacks. My friend
spoke to them to gratify my curiosity. I wished to know where they were
going. They all spoke French and Italian, and seemed in high heart,
bold, cheerful, and intelligent. They were bound for Egypt, determined
to seek their fortunes in the service of the present reforming and
liberal pacha. Their enthusiasm, when they were told I was an American,
quite thrilled me. They closed about me and looked into my eyes, as if
they expected to read the spirit of freedom in them. I was taken by the
arms at last, and almost forced into a beer-shop. The large tankards
were filled, each touched mine and the others, and “America” was drank
with a grave earnestness of manner that moved my heart within me. They
shook me by the hand on parting, and gave me a blessing in German, which
as the old count translated it, was the first word I have learned of
their language. We had met constantly parties of them on the road. They
all dress alike, in long travelling frocks of brown stuff, and small
green caps with straight visors; but, coarsely as they are clothed, and
humbly as they seem to be faring, their faces bear always a mark that
can never be mistaken. They look like scholars.

The roads, by the way, are crowded with pedestrians. It seems to be the
favourite mode of travelling in this country. We have scarce met a
carriage, and I have seen, I am sure, in one day, two hundred passengers
on foot. Among them is a class of people peculiar to Germany. I was
astonished occasionally at being asked for charity by stout,
well-dressed young men, to all appearance as respectable as any
travellers on the road. Expressing my surprise, my companion informed me
that they were _apprentices_, and that the custom or law of the country
compelled them, after completing their indentures, to travel in some
distant province, and depend upon charity and their own exertions for
two or three years before becoming masters at their trade. It is a
singular custom, and I should think, a useful lesson in hardship and
self-reliance. They held out their hats with a confident independence of
look that quite satisfied me they felt no degradation in it.

We soon entered the province of Styria, and brighter rivers, greener
woods, richer and more graceful uplands and meadows, do not exist in the
world. I had thought the scenery of Stockbridge, in my own State,
unequalled till now. I could believe myself there, were not the women
alone working in the fields, and the roads lined for miles together with
military wagons and cavalry upon march. The conscript law of Austria
compels every peasant to serve _fourteen_ years! and the labours of
agriculture fall, of course, almost exclusively upon females. Soldiers
swarm like locusts through the country, but they seem as inoffensive and
as much at home as the cattle in the farm-yards. It is a curious
contrast, to my eye, to see parks of artillery glistening in the midst
of a wheat-field, and soldiers sitting about under the low thatches of
these peaceful-looking cottages. I do not think, among the thousands
that I have passed in three days’ travel, I have seen a gesture or heard
a syllable. If sitting, they smoke and sit still, and if travelling,
they economise motion to a degree that is wearisome to the eye.

Words are limited, and the description of scenery becomes tiresome. It
is a fault that the sense of beauty, freshening constantly on the
traveller, compels him who makes a note of impressions to mark every
other line with the same ever-recurring exclamations of pleasure. I saw
a hundred miles of unrivalled scenery in Styria, and how can I describe
it? I were keeping silence on a world of enjoyment to pass it over. We
come to a charming descent into a valley. The town beneath, the river,
the embracing mountains, the swell to the ear of its bells ringing some
holiday, affect my imagination powerfully. I take out my tablets. What
shall I say? How convey to your minds who have not seen it, the charm of
a scene I can only describe as I have described a thousand others?

* * * * *

LETTER XI.

Gratz—Vienna.

We had followed stream after stream through a succession of delicious
valleys for a hundred miles. Descending from a slight eminence, we came
upon the broad and rapid Muhr, and soon after caught sight of a distant
citadel upon a rock. As we approached, it struck me as one of the most
singular freaks of nature I had ever seen. A pyramid, perhaps three
hundred feet in height, and precipitous on every side, rose abruptly in
the midst of a broad and level plain, and around it in a girdle of
architecture, lay the capital of Styria. The fortress on the summit hung
like an eagle’s nest over the town, and from its towers, a pistol-shot
would reach the outermost point of the wall.

Wearied with travelling near three hundred miles without sleep, I
dropped upon a bed at the hotel, with an order to be called in two
hours. It was noon, and we were to remain at Gratz till the next
morning. My friend, the Hungarian, had promised, as he threw himself on
the opposite bed, to wake and accompany me in a walk through the town,
but the shake of a stout German chambermaid at the appointed time had no
effect upon him, and I descended to my dinner alone. I had lost my
interpreter. The _carte_ was in German, of which I did not know even the
letters. After appealing in vain in French and Italian to the persons
eating near me, I fixed my finger at hazard upon a word, and the waiter
disappeared. The result was a huge dish of cabbage cooked in some filthy
oil and graced with a piece of beef. I was hesitating whether to dine on
bread or make another attempt, when a gentlemanly man of some fifty
years came in and took the vacant seat at my table. He addressed me
immediately in French, and smiling at my difficulties, undertook to
order a dinner for me something less national. We improved our
acquaintance with a bottle of Johannesburgh, and after dinner he kindly
offered to accompany me in my walk through the city.

Gratz is about the size of Boston, a plain German city, with little or
no pretensions to style. The military band was playing a difficult waltz
very beautifully in the public square, but no one was listening except a
group of young men dressed in the worst taste of dandyism. We mounted by
a zigzag path to the fortress. On a shelf of the precipice, half way up,
hangs a small casino, used as a beer-shop. The view from the summit was
a feast to the eye. The wide and lengthening valley of the Muhr lay
asleep beneath its loads of grain, its villas and farm-houses, the
picture of “waste and mellow fruitfulness,” the rise to the mountains
around the head of the valley was clustered with princely dwellings,
thick forests with glades between them, and churches with white slender
spires shooting from the bosom of elms, and right at our feet, circling
around the precipitous rock for protection, lay the city enfolded in its
rampart, and sending up to our ears the sound of every wheel that rolled
through her streets. Among the striking buildings below, my friend
pointed out to me a palace which he said had been lately purchased by
Joseph Bonaparte, who was coming here to reside. The people were
beginning to turn out for their evening walk upon the ramparts which are
planted with trees and laid out for a promenade, and we descended to
mingle in the crowd.

My old friend had a great many acquaintances. He presented me to several
of the best dressed people we met, all of whom invited me to supper. I
had been in Italy almost a year and a half, and such a thing had never
happened to me. We walked about until six, and as I preferred going to
the play, which opened at that early hour, we took tickets for “Der
Schlimme Leisel,” and were seated presently in one of the simplest and
prettiest theatres I have ever seen.

“Der Schlimme Leisel” was an old maid who kept house for an old bachelor
brother, proposing, at the time the play opens, to marry. Her dislike to
the match, from the dread of losing her authority over his household,
formed the humour of the piece, and was admirably represented. After
various unsuccessful attempts to prevent the nuptials, the lady is
brought to the house, and the old maid enters in a towering passion,
throws down her keys, and flirts out of the room with a threat that she
“_will go to America!_” Fortunately she is not driven to that extremity.
The lady has been already married secretly to a poorer lover, and the
old bachelor, after the first shock of the discovery, settles a fortune
on them, and returns to his celibacy and his old maid sister, to the
satisfaction of all parties. Certainly the German is the most unmusical
language of Babel. If my good old friend had not translated it for me
word for word, I should scarce have believed the play to be more than a
gibbering pantomime. I shall think differently when I have learned it,
no doubt, but a strange language strikes upon one’s ear so oddly! I was
quite too tired when the play was over (which, by the way, was at the
sober hour of nine,) to accept any of the kind invitations of which my
companion reminded me. We supped _tête-à-tête_, instead, at the hotel. I
was delighted with my new acquaintance. He was an old citizen of the
world. He had left Gratz at twenty, and after thirty years wandering
from one part of the globe to the other, had returned to end his days in
his birthplace. His relations were all dead, and speaking all the
languages of Europe, he preferred living at a hotel for the society of
strangers. With a great deal of wisdom he had preserved his good humour
toward the world; and I think I have rarely seen a kinder, and never a
happier man. I parted from him with regret, and the next morning at
daylight, had resumed my seat at the _eil-wagon_.

Imagine the Hudson, at the highlands, reduced to a sparkling little
river a bowshot across, and a rich valley thridded by a road
accompanying the remaining space between the mountains, and you have the
scenery for the first thirty miles beyond Gratz. There is one more
difference. On the edge of one of the most towering precipices, clear up
against the clouds, hang the ruins of a noble castle. The rents in the
wall, and the embrasures in the projecting turrets, seem set into the
sky. Trees and vines grow within and about it, and the lacings of the
twisted roots seem all that keep it together. It is a perfect “castle in
the air.”

A long day’s journey and another long night (during which we passed
Neustadt, on the confines of Hungary) brought us within sight of Baden,
but an hour or two from Vienna. It was just sunrise, and market-carts
and pedestrians and suburban vehicles of all descriptions notified us of
our approach to a great capital. A few miles farther we were stopped in
the midst of an extensive plain by a crowd of carriages. A criminal was
about being guillotined. What was that to one who saw Vienna for the
first time? A few steps farther the postillion was suddenly stopped. A
gentleman alighted from a carriage in which were two ladies, and opened
the door of the diligence. It was the bride of the soldier-apothecary
come to meet him with her mother and brother. He was buried in dust,
just waked out of sleep, a three days’ beard upon his face, and, at the
best, not a very lover-like person. He ran to the carriage door, jumped
in, and there was an immediate cry for water. The bride had fainted! We
left her in his arms and drove on. The courier had no bowels for love.

There is a small Gothic pillar before us, on the rise of a slight
elevation. Thence we shall see Vienna. “Stop, thou tasteless
postillion!” Was ever such a scene revealed to mortal sight! It is like
Paris from the Barrière de l’Etoile—it seems to cover the world. Oh,
beautiful Vienna! What is that broad water on which the rising sun
glances so brightly? _The Danube!_ What is that unparalleled Gothic
structure piercing the sky? What columns are these? What spires?
Beautiful, beautiful city!

* * * * *

VIENNA.—It must be a fine city that impresses one with its splendour
before breakfast, after driving all night in a mail-coach. It was six
o’clock in the morning when I left the post-office, in Vienna, to walk
to a hotel. The shops were still shut, the milkwomen were beating at the
gates, and the short, quick ring upon the church bells summoned all
early risers to mass. A sudden turn brought me upon a square. In its
centre stood the most beautiful fabric that has ever yet filled my eye.
It looked like the structure of a giant, encrusted with fairies—a
majestically proportioned mass, and a spire tapering to the clouds, but
a surface so curiously beautiful, so traced and fretted, so full of
exquisite ornament, that it seemed rather some curious cabinet gem, seen
through a magnifier, than a building in the open air. In these foreign
countries, the labourer goes in with his load to pray, and I did not
hesitate to enter the splendid Church of St. Etienne, though a man
followed me with a portmanteau on his back. What a wilderness of arches!
Pulpits, chapels, altars, ciboriums, confessionals, choirs, all in the
exquisite slenderness of Gothic tracery, and all of one venerable and
time-worn dye, as if the incense of a myriad censers had steeped them in
their spicy odours. The mass was chanting, and hundreds were on their
knees about me, and not one without some trace that he had come in on
his way to his daily toil. It was the hour of the _poor man’s prayer_.
The rich were asleep in their beds. The glorious roof over their heads,
the costly and elaborated pillars against which they pressed their
foreheads, the music and the priestly service, were, for that hour,
theirs alone.

I seldom have felt the spirit of a place of worship so strong upon me.

The foundations of St. Etienne were laid seven hundred years ago. It has
twice been partly burnt, and has been embellished in succession by
nearly all the emperors of Germany. Among its many costly tombs, the
most interesting is that of the hero Eugene of Savoy, erected by his
niece, the Princess Therese, of Liechtenstein. There is also a vault in
which it is said, in compliance with an old custom, the entrails of all
the emperors are deposited.

Having marked thus much upon my tablets, I remembered the patient porter
of my baggage, who had taken the opportunity to drop on his knees while
I was gazing about, and having achieved his matins, was now waiting
submissively till I was ready to proceed. A turn or two brought us to
the hotel, where a bath and a breakfast soon restored me, and in an hour
I was again on the way with a _valet de place_, to visit the tomb of the
son of Napoleon.

He lies in the deep vaults of the capuchin convent, with eighty-four of
the imperial family of Austria beside him. A monk answered our pull at
the cloister-bell, and the valet translated my request into German. He
opened the gate with a guttural “Yaw!” and lighting a wax candle at a
lamp burning before the image of the Virgin, unlocked a massive brazen
door at the end of the corridor, and led the way into the vault. The
capuchin was as pale as marble, quite bald, though young, and with
features which expressed, I thought, the subdued fierceness of a devil.
He impatiently waved away the officious interpreter after a moment or
two, and asked me if I understood Latin. Nothing could have been more
striking than the whole scene. The immense bronze sarcophagi lay in long
aisles behind railings and gates of iron, and as the long-robed monk
strode on with his lamp through the darkness, pronouncing the name and
title of each as he unlocked the door and struck it with his heavy key,
he seemed to me, with his solemn pronunciation, like some mysterious
being calling forth the imperial tenants to judgment. He appeared to
have something of scorn in his manner as he looked on the splendid
workmanship of the vast coffin, and pronounced the sounding titles of
the ashes within. At that of the celebrated Empress Maria Theresa alone,
he stopped to make a comment. It was a simple tribute to her virtues,
and he uttered it slowly, as if he were merely musing to himself. He
passed on to her husband, Francis the First, and then proceeded
uninterruptedly till he came to a new copper coffin. It lay in a niche,
beneath a tall, dim window, and the monk, merely pointing to the
inscription, set down his lamp, and began to pace up and down the damp
floor, with his head on his breast, as if it was a matter of course that
here I was to be left awhile to my thoughts.

It was certainly the spot, if there is one in the world, to feel
emotion. In the narrow enclosure on which my finger rested, lay the last
hopes of Napoleon. The heart of the master-spirit of the world was bound
up in these ashes. He was beautiful, accomplished, generous, brave. He
was loved with a sort of idolatry by the nation with which he had passed
his childhood. He had won all hearts. His death seemed impossible. There
was a universal prayer that he might live, his inheritance of glory was
so incalculable.

I read his epitaph. It was that of a private individual. It gave his
name, and his father’s and mother’s; and then enumerated his virtues,
with a commonplace regret for his early death. The monk took up his lamp
and reascended to the cloister in silence. He shut the convent-door
behind me, and the busy street seemed to me profane. How short a time
does the most moving event interrupt the common current of life.

* * * * *

LETTER XII.

I had quite forgotten, in packing up my little portmanteau to leave the
ship, that I was coming so far north. Scarce a week ago, in the south of
Italy, we were panting in linen jackets. I find myself shivering here,
in a latitude five hundred miles north of Boston, with no remedy but
exercise and an extra shirt, for a cold that would grace December.

It is amusing, sometimes, to abandon one’s self to a _valet de place_.
Compelled to resort to one from my ignorance of the German, I have
fallen upon a dropsical fellow, with a Bardolph nose, whose French is
execrable, and whose selection of objects of curiosity is worthy of his
appearance. His first point was the emperor’s stables. We had walked a
mile and a half to see them. Here were two or three hundred horses of
all breeds, in a building that the emperor himself might live in, with a
magnificent inner court for a _manège_, and a wilderness of grooms,
dogs, and other appurtenances. I am as fond of a horse as most people,
but with all Vienna before me, and little time to lose, I broke into the
midst of the head-groom’s pedigrees, and requested to be shown the way
out. Monsieur Karl did not take the hint. We walked on a half mile, and
stopped before another large building. “What is this?”—“The imperial
carriage-house, Monseigneur.” I was about turning on my heel and taking
my liberty into my own hands, when the large door flew open, and the
blaze of gilding from within turned me from my purpose. I thought I had
seen the _ne plus ultra_ of equipages at Rome. The imperial family of
Austria ride in more style than his Holiness. The models are lighter and
handsomer, while the gold and crimson is put on quite as resplendently.
The most curious part of the show were ten or twelve state _traineaux_
or sleighs. I can conceive nothing more brilliant than a turn-out of
these magnificent structures upon the snow. They are built with aerial
lightness, of gold and sable, with a seat fifteen or twenty feet from
the ground, and are driven, with two or four horses, by the royal
personage himself. The grace of their shape and the splendour of their
gilded trappings are inconceivable to one who has never seen them.

Our way lay through the court of the imperial palace. A large crowd was
collected round a carriage with four horses standing at the side-door.
As we approached it, all hats flew off, and a beautiful woman, of
perhaps twenty-eight, came down the steps, leading a handsome boy of two
or three years. It was the young Queen of Hungary and her son. If I had
seen such a face in a cottage _ornée_ on the borders of an American
lake, I should have thought it made for the spot.

We entered a door of the palace, at which stood a ferocious-looking
Croat sentinel, near seven feet high. Three German travelling students
had just been refused admittance. A little man appeared at the ring of
the bell within, and after a preliminary explanation by my valet,
probably a lie, he made a low bow, and invited me to enter. I waited a
moment, and a permission was brought me to see the imperial treasury.
Handing it to Karl, I requested him to get permission inserted for my
three friends at the door. He accomplished it in the same
incomprehensible manner in which he had obtained my own, and introducing
them with the ill-disguised contempt of a valet for all men with dusty
coats, we commenced the rounds of the curiosities together.

A large clock, facing us as we entered, was just striking. From either
side of its base, like companies of gentlemen and ladies advancing to
greet each other, appeared figures in the dress and semblance of the
royal family of Austria, who remained a moment, and then retired, bowing
themselves courteously out backward. It is a costly affair, presented by
the landgrave of Hesse to Maria Theresa, in 1750.

After a succession of watches, snuff-boxes, necklaces, and jewels of
every description, we came to the famous Florentine diamond, said to be
the largest in the world. It was lost by a duke of Burgundy upon the
battle-field of Granson, found by a soldier, who parted with it for five
florins, sold again, and found its way at last to the royal treasury of
Florence, whence it was brought to Vienna. Its weight is one hundred and
thirty-nine and a half carats, and it is estimated at one million,
forty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-four florins. It looks
like a lump of light. Enormous diamonds surround it, but it hangs among
them like Hesperus among the stars.

The next side of the gallery is occupied by specimens of carved ivory.
Many of them are antique, and half of them are more beautiful than
decent. There were two bas-reliefs among them by Raphael Donner, which
were worth, to my eye, all the gems in the gallery. They were taken from
Scripture, and represented the _Woman of Samaria at the well_, and
_Hagar waiting for the death of her son_. No powers of elocution, no
enhancement of poetry could bring those touching passages of the Bible
so movingly to the heart. The latter particularly arrested me. The
melancholy beauty of Hagar, sitting with her head bowed upon her knees,
while her boy is lying a little way off, beneath a shrub of the desert,
is a piece of unparalleled workmanship. It may well hang in the treasury
of an emperor.

Miniatures of the royal family in their childhood, set in costly gems,
massive plate curiously chased, services of gold, robes of diamonds,
gem-hilted swords, dishes wrought of solid integral agates, and finally
the crown and sceptre of Austria upon red velvet cushions, looking very
much like their imitations on the stage, were among the world of
splendours unfolded to our eyes. The Florentine diamond and the
bas-reliefs by Raphael Donner were all I coveted. The beauty of the
diamond was royal. It needed no imagination to feel its value. A savage
would pick it up in the desert for a star dropped out of the sky. For
the rest, the demand on my admiration fatigued me, and I was glad to
escape with my dusty friends from the university, and exchange
courtesies in the free air. One of them spoke English a little and
called me “Mister Englishman,” on bidding me adieu. I was afraid of a
beer-shop scene in Vienna, and did not correct the mistake.

As we were going out of the court, four covered wagons, drawn each by
four superb horses, dashed through the gate. I waited a moment to see
what they contained. Thirty or forty servants in livery came out from
the palace, and took from the wagons quantities of empty baskets
carefully labelled with directions. They were from Schoenbrunn, where
the emperor is at present residing with his court, and had come to
market for the imperial kitchen. It should be a good dinner that
requires sixteen such horses to carry to the cook.

It was the hungry hour of two, and I was still musing on the emperor’s
dinner, and admiring the anxious interest his servants took in their
disposition of the baskets, when a blast of military music came to my
ear. It was from the barracks of the imperial guard, and I stepped under
the arch, and listened to them an hour. How gloriously they played! It
was probably the finest band in Austria. I have heard much good music,
but of its kind, this was like a new sensation to me. They stand, in
playing, just under the window at which the emperor appears daily when
in the city.

I have been indebted to Mr. Schwartz, the American consul at Vienna, for
a very unusual degree of kindness. Among other polite attentions, he
procured for me to-day an admission to the Polytechnic School—a favour
granted with difficulty, except on the appointed days for public visits.

The Polytechnic School was established in 1816, by the present emperor.
The building stands outside the rampart of the city, of elegant
proportions, and about as large as all the buildings of Yale or Harvard
College thrown into one. Its object is to promote instruction in the
practical sciences, or, in other words, to give a practical education
for the trades, commerce, or manufactures. It is divided into three
departments. The first is preparatory, and the course occupies two
years. The studies are religion and morals, elementary mathematics,
natural history, geography, universal history, grammar, and “the German
style,” declamation, drawing, writing, and the French, Italian, and
Bohemian languages. To enter this class, the boy must be thirteen years
of age, and pays fifty cents per month.

The second course is commercial, and occupies one year. The studies are
mercantile correspondence, commercial law, mercantile arithmetic, the
keeping of books, geography and history, as they relate to commerce,
acquaintance with merchandise, &c. &c.

The third course lasts one year. The studies are chemistry as applicable
to arts, and trades, the fermentation of woods, tannery, soap-making,
dying, blanching, &c. &c.; also mechanism, practical geometry, civil
architecture, hydraulics, and technology. The two last courses are given
gratis.

The whole is under the direction of a principal, who has under him
thirty professors and two or three guardians of apparatus.

We were taken first into a noble hall, lined with glass cases containing
specimens of every article manufactured in the German dominions. From
the finest silks, down to shoes, wigs, nails, and mechanics’ tools, here
were all the products of human labour. The variety was astonishing.
Within the limits of a single room, the pupil is here made acquainted
with every mechanic art known in his country.

The next hall was devoted to models. Here was every kind of bridge,
fortification, lighthouse, dry dock, breakwater, canal-lock, &c. &c.;
models of steamboats, of ships, and of churches, in every style of
architecture. It was a little world.

We went thence to the chemical apartment. The servitor here, a man
without education, has constructed all the apparatus. He is an old
grey-headed man, of a keen German countenance, and great simplicity of
manners. He takes great pride in having constructed the largest and most
complete chemical apparatus—now in London. The one which he exhibited
to us occupies the whole of an immense hall, and produces an electric
discharge like the report of a pistol. The ordinary batteries in our
universities are scarce a twentieth part as powerful.

After showing us a variety of experiments, the old man turned suddenly
and asked us if we knew the geometrical figures described by the
vibrations of musical notes. We confessed our ignorance, and he produced
a pane of glass covered with black sand. He then took a fiddle bow, and
holding the glass horizontally, drew it downward against the edge at a
peculiar angle. The sand flew as if it had been bewitched, and took the
shape of a perfect square. He asked us to name a figure. We named a
circle. Another careful draw of the bow, and the sand flew into a
circle, with scarce a particle out of its perfect curve. Twenty times he
repeated the experiment, and with the most complicated figures drawn on
paper. He had reduced it to an art. It wo

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