User:TheSkullOfRFBurton/Arabia, Egypt, India: A Narrative of Travel/Chapter I
FROM LONDON THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY.
AFTER a delightful year in England, publishing my last hook, in the gay season of 1875, and being feted by all my friends and relations enough to spoil me for ever, my husband, finding he had still six months' leave, asked me what I should like to do. I consulted my heart, and it answered, "India." He had been nineteen years in the Bombay Army, and eight of them on active service through all those exciting years from '42 to '49, ou the staff of Sir Charles Napier, whose fortunes as a soldier he may be said to have followed. Indeed, the old General's fate seems to have overshadowed him, and later on, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe had a like effect in the political line, of whose school, and whose fervent disciple in Eastern affairs, he was. Do not start. This book is not going to be "weighted with a grievance." This only serves to explain that I had never seen India, and that I proposed that he should take me there and show me all his old quarters. He liked the idea; so we got a map, cut India down the middle lengthways, from Cashmere to Cape Comorin, and planned out how much we could manage to see on the western side, leaving the eastern for another year; we were already too far advanced in the season for such an expedition.
The 4th December, 1875, was remarkable for being as black as midnight during the livelong day: thick snow lay upon the ground and covered every object; dense, murky fog filled the air, through which a dull red, lurid gleam just rendered the darkness visible—and horrible. In any sunny land we should have feared an earthquake, or the last judgment, but here (London) we only remarked that there must be something extra "odd " about the elements, with a passing smile at the unhappy foreigner who had come over to see London. Our dear "village" gloomed like a snow Inferno fit for Dante and Gustave Doré, and the "Squares" appeared like spectre Christmas Trees. "It looks," said my husband, "as if London were in mourning for some great national crime;" but I answered, "Let us try to think our Vaterland wears mourning for our departure into exile."
Everyone that day seemed ill and miserable; I felt as if I could never rise to face the day. To be sure we had been having a farewell dinner, which festivity devoted to leave-takings had been unduly prolonged to five o'clock a.m., and we were obliged to force ourselves to get up at nine, and put our shoulders to the wheel for our sins. We lunched with my father and family by lamp-light at one in the day, and set out, a large family party, by the 4.45 train to Folkestone; arriving cold and hungry, but merry, we enjoyed a delightful supper at one of the best hotels in the world, albeit somewhat expensive, and that is The Pavilion,—the redeeming point of Folkestone, for poor is the station through which so much wealth passes. There we found Carlo Pellegrini, of Ape celebrity, full of fun, who joined our family party. He was staying there some months for painting.
The next day, Sunday, the snow was eight feet deep, and we went with difficulty to the small pretty church, where the priest gave us a short, but sensible, sermon, in consideration of our pinched fingers and toes. All that day neighbouring friends and relations flocked 1 over to spend the day with us; and one act I shall never forget, and that was my cousin's wife, daily expecting her confinement, wading four miles in the snow not to miss wishing us God-speed, because no carriage could be got to undertake the journey. Heart and pluck like that aren't to be found out of the British Isles. Meanwhile the train stuck in the snow; the down train from Folkestone to Dover, usually an affair of twenty minutes, occupied from six till one p.m.—seven hours. The night train could not come in at all. The boat did not go, and it was "blowing great guns."
That night—the 5th of December—I bade adieu to all my friends and relatives, and one parting in particular still wrings my heart. I little thought to meet no more Rodolph Arundell, the last of four dear beautiful brothers, who have all died young by untoward accidents. The wrench costs me a feverish attack every time I leave, which is once in every three or four years; nor do age and experience steel the heart nor wither the ever green memory. On Tuesday, the 7th, my husband and I found ourselves in a sleigh, which took us over the snow from hotel to boat. The weather seemed to stay its fury for our crossing the Channel, or else we are so used to rough it that it seemed only a healthy breeze and a heavy swell. The snu once tried to peep from his couch of clouds, and one passenger gleefully pointed out to another passenger a square inch or two of pale blue sky, which of course was duly smiled at by us tropicals. How hard it is to leave home! I even linger over it on paper; but now I am across Channel, and the deed is done, I will brace myself up and not be so tedious.
In our company for a week was that remarkably clever and brilliant writer, Andrew Wilson, the author of "The Abode of Snow." The old port of Boulogne stretched out its two long lean arms to our cockle-shell of a steamer. We enter somewhat differently to the manner of the old time. There was a new regulation, which is an extreme disadvantage to the town,—that of landing on the gare side, to the right. So that instead of remaining a few days in the town, as in the old time, it is easier to jump into the train and find oneself at Paris—tant pis pour Boulogne! The fact is that the Railway, perhaps the most despotic power of our modern day, willed it so. The Municipality, foreseeing that their City would, to the great detriment of the hotel-keepers, become a mere station, a place of passage, a "half-way house" between Loudon and Paris, fought manfully against the change. The Railway simply said, " Either here or nowhere" and the Municipality was forced to yield.
Hotel Christol is a grand place iu Boulogne, but after The Pavilion it looked more than mesquin. Long, long ago, I passed two years of my school days in this town. My husband was then a young lieutenant on furlough from India. He was just beginning to spring into fame, after twelve years' service and his famous expedition with the Hajj to Mecca, and was staying with his family and writing a book. It was, therefore, interesting for us to stop a few days and visit all our old haunts, where we first met when we were young. The Church of St. Nicholas; Constantin, the fencing master, where "the Burton une-deux" is still taught, and which afterwards earned him his brevet de pointe. The present Cathedral, in the Haute Ville, was building: now, a magnificent, but slightly crooked and very badly proportioned, pile. Dear old Abbe Haffreingue was its author. He died happy in 1871, after devoting half of his eighty-six years to its erection; and in gratitude to the English, who gave the greater part of the money, the statue of Our Lady, on the summit, has her face turned towards England.
Then the old ramparts where we first made acquaintance, and where he used to follow us when we were sent out to learn our lessons alfresco, and he used to chalk up, "May I speak to you?" and I used to chalk back, "No, mother will be angry"—and mother found it, and was angry. The Rue de l'Ecu, the Grande Rue, the Quai, the Pier, where we used to come on summer evenings and hear some Swiss strollers play on the guitar or fiddle, and sing little jodelling nothings, and thought it heavenly. How lovely everything is when one is young! And what a dear, picturesque old town it is, this capital of old Morinie,—the City of Julius Cassar in ancient times, and of the Blessed Virgin in the present day, with its background of dull brown cliff, broken by the broad valley of the river Eln, Elna, Elnboga, now Liane! How many happy boating excursions we used to make upon that river when we were all young and living.
And then I hunted out my little brother's grave, and planted fresh rose trees. I visited Caroline, the Queen of the Poissardes, who used to be a friend of my childhood, a great ally of my brothers and sisters and self. She is still a beautiful and majestic creature in her costume. She reminded me of a promise I made her then, which I had long since forgotten, that if ever I went to Jerusalem I would bring her a rosary. I little dreamt then of marrying Richard Burton, who would be Consul of Damascus, and that I should ever go to Jerusalem; but things come about strangely, and I did go there fifteen years later; and now, to her great delight, I was able to fulfil my promise.
I often wonder that nobody writes the history of the Poissardes of Boulogne. They are a race apart, — a fine cross between Flemish and Spanish. They are the original stock, and the townspeople are a new and mongrel breed whom these despise and do not mix or intermarry with. The Poissardes have their own church on their hill-top, and their own town, laws, customs, manners, and habits, a separate register of births, deaths, and marriages, and they live under the rule of Caroline. The lower class are the shrimping girls,—and a rough lot too, but remarkable for their virtue. If they chaff the funny passing Britisher a little too much, a reference to Caroline brings them to order at once. On great feast-days and religions processions they form by far the prettiest part of it, with their lovely varied costumes, big white caps, embroidered white kerchiefs, and the huge gold ornaments that are heirlooms. Boulogne is materially changed since our time. It used to be a very fast place, full of amusing, but not all desirable, acquaintances, although there was a large sprinkling of happy exceptions. In fact, it was a City of Refuge, "The home of the stranger who's done something wrong," and the good people came either for economy or for the education of their families.
On the 10th we went up to Paris. The Ligne du Nord is the only comfortable line of railway in France,—the only one which has porters and civil officials ready to give yon the value of your "tip." We sped past the Dunes, loved of rabbits, where father nsed to shoot, faute de mieux, and I used to carry the bag and lunch; along the winding shore of ancient Picardy, through the peat beds leading to Abbeville, and over the utterly uninteresting plains of La Belle France, i.e., the northern section, till we rushed by the black silhouettes which denote the fortifications of the Capital. We compared them with the workmen's Cities outlying our own Babylon, and we felt grateful to that "streak of silver sea," our Channel. May they who propose to tunnel under it never see their folly carried out. Much better is it to allow a few old women to be sea-sick for a couple of hours, than to waste millions in constructing a thing at whose entrance we should always require a "Woolwich Infant." With our institutions, England placed in a continental position could not last a week. With our laws and customs, a foreign nation could not live a year. It is our birthright, a gift of God, that we are an island, and we want to sell it for the veriest mess of pottage,—a step which would be regretted but once and for ever as soon as it is irrevocable.
I found Paris terribly changed since the Franco-Prussian war. The weather was bad, for one thing, and that put one into an extra bad humour. Paris was full of Miss Blackford (" Fanny Lear ") and her sale,—her black-draped drawing-room hung with Imperial likenesses, and her funny meubles engraved with her family motto " Prends tout."
The only amusement I found was going to hear Rossi in Hamlet and Macbeth. My husband and I had for some time past taken an interest in reading together and studying the various acting and difference of opinion as to the interpretation of Shakespeare's tragedies. The quarrels and excitement occasioned by Salvini's appearance in England, with his Italian reading of Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello,[1] his magnificent voice and presence, and that of our own great tragedian Irving's appearance in these characters, with the latest, and perhaps truest, reading, gave the desired opportunity. It had become almost a party question amongst the dramatists, and we had entered warmly into it, visiting all these representations as often as we were at liberty; we were desirous of comparing these with Rossi, the only other great name at present in connection with Shakespeare in Europe, and so we went to "Les Italiens" every time he performed.
I found the scenery after London shabby to a degree, the dresses flashy and tinsel; there were no appliances for sensational effect. Rossi is a short man, with a bull throat, a chest suggestive more of fat than muscle, a big trunk upon incompetent legs, dark hands, a pale, unwholesome face, and light hair. He appeared to have colourless small eyes, and was obliged to shut them for passionate scenes. This on the stage; and us his pictures represent him as a fine, handsome, dark young man, I conclude it is the effect of the "make-up." In Hamlet he is too mad, and rants. He lacks the dignity, the finely-strung imagination and refinement and facial expression of Irving; nor has he the majesty and the glorious Tuscan Italian of Salvini, whose voice is like a Cathedral bell. And yet no Italian can help being artistic. Some of his actions are large, noble, and graceful, and he handles his sword like a man who lives with his weapon by his side. To say he cannot act would be absurd, but he can only rank as third. In Macbeth he was very good in the murder scene, from "Why have you left the chamber?" till" Wake Duncan with thy knocking." He has a pretty trick of looking at his blood-stained hands and hiding them, when he thought nobody was observing him; and again, when the Queen's death is announced, he looks sad for one instant only, and then, seizing what appears to me the true idea, that Macbeth would soon have poisoned her, to silence those somnambulisms and nightly tellings of his secret murders, gives himself a shake and casts his sadness off, as if he would have said, " Better so; what matters whether to-day or tomorrow?" Then, en revanche, he staggers like a drunken man to commit his murder, and in his conversation alone with his wife he treads upon his own cloak, and feigns to think it is the ghost of Banquo. Terrified by his guilty conscience, he flounders on his back like a turtle, his crown rolling away. Now, Shakespeare was an Englishman, and an Englishman rolling on his back from fright was never seen, nor could such an idea enter an English brain. Had he drawn his sword to cut the ghost down, it would have been more in tune with our ideas. His wife drags him off after the murder, pommelling him as a fish-wife would a drunken husband. The ghost scene, supper, and fright, were not merely a fiasco, but contemptible. In Hamlet, he danced upon his uncle's picture like a monkey. All that is neither English nor Shakespeare. I am a fanatic about Shakespeare, so I enter into these minor details con amore. The last story I heard in Paris concerning Rossi was a conversation between two petits crcves:—
A. As tu entendu Rossi?
B. Qui est Rossi ?
A. Comment! tu ne sais pas? Mais ce monsieur qui fait une conference sur un crdne.
And now for a serious bit of moralizing, from gay to grave. The radical changes of the last five years in Paris deserve chronicling and deep study. The War and the Commune have made a New World. "La nation la plus aimable la plus aimee et peut-etre la moins aimantejhas been translated—"The light and joyous character may lie below; but there is a terribly hard upper crust of sulkiness and economy run mad—rage for lucre, and lust pour la revanche. There is only the ancienne noblesse, the Faubourg St. Germain, the souls loyal to their King and to their Faith, who remain pure. So far, the Parisians are like the Irish Kelt,—a blathering, bumptious, bull-and-blunder loving race. The former have been converted in half-a-century by politics and polemics into a moping and melancholy brood. It is no longer the fashion in France to speak without an introduction. Men will sit side by side at table d'hote in dead silence for a month; they travel twenty-four hours in the railway without opening the mouth; and if a loud laugh be heard in public it is sure to come from some triste Anglais. Even the women, although they still fling the look of hate at a pretty toilette, seem to have abdicated the supremacy of the toilette. Once you never did, now you often see the absence of corsets upon figures that can't stand it. They are badly painted, and it is a sin to paint badly. They are outrees in their dress, and the neglect of these things is a bad sign in Paris. The middle and the lower classes, who used to be a quatre epingles, were mal coiffees, with their petticoats hanging below their dresses, as we were in the days of les Anglaises pour rire. We have learnt many things from our French friends, and amongst the good things, how to dress ; but dress never made our women's beauty—it did that of the French.
The theatres are clearing 27,000,000 of francs (1875), when during the palmiest days of the Empire they never exceeded 17,000,000. Except at the new Opera, the scenery and decorations are those of our penny gaffs. "Les Italiens" bears the palm of dowdyism, and actors and actresses seem to have decayed with the decorations. The cuisine, except in special instances, has notably fallen off. The bottles are all "kick," the famous bread-and-butter has lost caste. The cafe au lail is all chicory,— maximum water, minimum beans. Mammonolatry is rampant, and the grand problem of manufacture and dep6t, of store and shop, is how to charge the most for the worst article. Economy has now become a vice instead of a virtue, and 1,852,000 souls manage to pay 12,280,000 francs in taxes per annum.
It is impossible to pass a day in Paris without hearing and speaking politics. The French, I have said, are sulky, especially with the "Perfidious," because she had supplanted them in Egypt, where for so many years England had by a tacit convention supplied the material and France the personal. They question the wisdom of our last dodge. It is the first move in the coming Kriegspiel. I hate half-measures, and I would have bought the Canal wholly out and out, and put a fortress at each end and taken a mild nominal toll to show my right. I would protect Egypt and Syria, occupy the Dardanelles, and after that let the whole world wrangle as much as it pleased. What is the use of having a Navy superior to all the united Navies of the rest of the world, if we can't do this? The world will never be still till Constantinople returns to the old Byzantine kingdom; and we might put a Royalty there, say the Duke of Edinburgh, who, being married to the Czar's daughter, would unite the interests of Russia and England. Let the Turk live, but retire into private life; he is a good fellow there, and we can respect El Islam so long as he has nothing to butcher.
Let Austria become a mighty empire,—nineteen million Slavs, eight million Germans, five million Hungarians. Let Italy be satisfied with her Unity and Freedom, and Progress, and Prussia repose upon her Bismarck, and France keep quiet and look after her health. But as it is, the three Emperors may say to us, "Gentlemen, you have got what you want; we will follow suit— look on, and don't spoil sport." Taken per se, this Suez Canal measure is a patch of tinsel gold plastered upon the rags of foreign and continental policy which our Ins and Outs have kept up during the last decade, whilst under-authorities are apparently told off to declare periodically that England has lost none of her prestige abroad. Listen to the average politician of the multitude.[2] Were I a man I should fight once a day about the doings of my own party (I am a red-hot Conservative); but being a woman I can only use my tongue and drop hot caustic upon the unhappy offender who ventures too much upon hoping that, being only a woman, I do not see to the bottom of the well; and what irritates me more is that little as lie knows, there is sound truth in what he says.
The fact is that England has repudiated the grand old rule of Aristocracy which carried her safely through the Titan wars of the early Buonaparte ages, whilst she has not accepted the strong repulsive arm of Democracy, which enabled the Federal to beat down the Confederate. She rejects equally the refined minority and the sturdy majority; she is neither hot nor cold; she sits between two stools, and we all know where that leads to.
This Suez move would have been a homogeneous part of a strong policy,—that is, a policy backed by two millions of soldiers, by a preponderating fleet of ironclads, and by a school of diplomatists which has not been broken in to "effacing" themselves. Of our politicians generally, the less said the soonest mended; but I have unbounded confidence in our Premier, in our Navy, and the good heart, rough common sense, firmness, and esprit de corps of our British public. The next shake—and it will be heavy and soon—will give us the Euphrates Valley Railway, despite the cleverness of an Ignatieff. The first disaster will bring on a revival of the Militia Law, and I should not be surprised if we live to see ourselves revolve round again to a general conscription, and the "do nothings" will eventually go to the wall. It is a pity to tie the hands of so long-sighted a Premier.
Revenge is still the dream of Paris, and the dream is not of the wise. The three Emperors love the three Empires, and hate one another; the Government and the Lieges are blinded by jealousy; each wishes to be the first in the race, and to see the other two distanced. All are mounted upon a war footing au pied de guerre; which means that they intend fighting, and Germany especially must fight or she is lost; to her peace is more ruinous than war. France is cutting her up with the purse instead of the sword. The great Triad might alter the map of Europe. "The Sons of Hermann" would absorh Belgium and Holland; the Muscovite swallow Constantinople with its neighbouring appendages, and Austria convey ("the wise it call") the remainder of Turkey's Slavonic provinces. But they will do nothing of the kind. Germany has proved herself the natural guardian of the Eastern frontier of Europe.
A Franco-Russian alliance is now, in 1876, in everybody's mouth. France is for the moment safely republican, with a chance of M. Thiers, the Kingmaker, succeeding to the Presidency.[3] She casts the blame of the Communal excesses upon the Buonapartiats, because she fears them; but she has clean forgotten Legitimists and Orleanists. As regards the Franco-Russian alliance, opinions follow two courses. The sensible and far-seeing, which (like councils of war) never fights, would unite with Russia and temporarily keep the peace. The majority of hot heads and Hotspurs would use it for another " d Berlin" to attack Prussia from the east as well as the west.
Yet if truth be told, France is far less ready for war than England. She can hardly raise 400,000 men to defend her own frontiers. We assisted at various reviews, and inspected many of the camps; we saw artillery, cavalry, and infantry equally unfit to face an educated enemy. Every order given by an officer was answered or questioned by a private, — "Mais, ce rCest pas cela du tout, mon Capitaine." Guns, horses, and men were equally inefficient. True the chassepot is being changed for the fusil Gras, the sword bayonet is being supplanted by a neat triangular weapon unfit to cut cabbages and wood, and the six arms manufacturers of France are not wasting an hour. But after seeing the skirmishes and advances in line, one cannot help feeling certain that at this rate half a century will elapse before the Frenchman is ready to fight the Prussian. Meanwhile, every head of man, woman, and child here pay half a franc (fivepence sterling) per diem, and the Municipality of Paris spends, I am told, an income inferior only to the six great Powers of Europe.
The part of the Regal-Republican, Imperial-Republican Capital showing least change is that Conservative Quarter which may be called "Anglo-American Paris." This "West End" is bounded north by the Boulevarts des Italiens, and the Madeleine; south by the Rue Rivoli and the River (a mere ditch, but not so dirty as Father Thames), east by the Rue Richelieu, the Palais Royal, and Vefour, west by the Embassy and the Chapel, with the Venddme Column as a landmark. Here the northern and western barbarians have their King Plenipo, and their Consul, their Chaplain and Physician, their pet hotels, English (Meurice's), their club and library (Galignani's), their tavern (Byron's, famed for beer) their dentists, their pharmacies, and their shops labelled, "English (or American) spoken here,"—which generally means, "I'm a thief, you're a fool." We can tell a compatriot a mile off—the men by their billycock hats and tweed suits, their open mouths, hats well at back of head, and red guide-books; the women by their wondrous dress and hats, —for which there are especial shops,—their turned-up toes and noses, their manly strides, their taking men's arms,—one on each side,—and the glum faces of both sexes on the Sabbath, when the guide-book is exchanged for the Common Prayer Book and the Bible. In this region where the snuffle of the Yankee mixes with the /^aspirations of the Cockney, the really Parisianized Englishman is never seeu, and if compelled to pass through it he hurries with muffled face in trembling haste, like Mahomet rushing down the demon-haunted defiles of El Hidjr.
I was so glad to leave Paris at the end of a week, to move out of the raw white fog sunwards. This line from Paris to Modane is the worst in France; it bears the palm of badness. It is expensive, and yet parsimony haunts you. The night lamps are so scantily filled as to soon die out. At the buffet one pays a franc for a cup of hot milk. Discomfort is rampant. Every carriage must be filled before another is put on. Porters seem to be unknown. Lap-dogs are muzzled and put in a dirty cold dogbox, to howl out their miserable twenty-one hours thirty minutes. Orders never end; you are even ordered to remove the old labels from your travelling-boxes. At Modane when passing into the Custom pen I was gruffly addressed,—" On ne passe pas!" Comment on ne passe pas ?" On ne passe pas."
The only thing wanting, I afterwards ascertained, was a visiting card; but the opportunity of being safely insolent was too tempting to be passed over. Jacques Bonhomme can never wear a rag of uniform without becoming a " Jack in office." The Midi should reform its disreputable terminus; the Parisian station should be modelled on that of the Nord; Modane should be cleaned out and reorganized. The Company has little idea of what a delight it is to arrive at Modane, and to exchange the discomfort and petty official tyranny and rudeness of the petits employes of the France of the Republic, for the dear, good-natured Italians and civil, gentlemanly Austrians. What would have happened if these braves had reached Berlin? Europe would have been uninhabitable. France as a second-rate Power or as a Monarchy, would be charming; as a republic, she is detestable.
The journey was performed in twenty-three hours, and the Italian country passed through was Bardonnechia, Meana, Bnssolino, Borgone, Sant' Antonio, Condove, Sant' Ambrogio, Avigliana, Rosta, Alpignano, and Collegno. Turin showed us the sun of the Bel Paese at nine in the morning, and we stared like mineborn children, brought to the top for the first time, at the charming mixture of sun and frost,—the gold dust of the beams raining upon the pure ermine of the snow. After the long, dull brown plains of central France, the aspect of a silver-topped Alp was a relief to eye and heart; and we greatly enjoyed glimpses at Monte Viso and the Grand Paradis,—all was, in fact, a change for the better, except the presence of unclean paper money.
The site of Turin is a shelf between the mountains and the river Po, and the kidney-stones of the streets drain off the heaviest rains in a few hours. She has a tramway, which Rome and Milan have not (1876). She has her intellectual conquests, and can boast of being in the foremost rank of moder n Italian Cities. The Royal Academy of Sciences has enlisted the services of many great men. Amongst her bright particular stars are MM. Cristoforo Negri, President—founder of the Italian Royal Geographical Society, the most genial and least pugnacious of geographers; Professor Fabretti, the Etruscologist of the world; Professor Gastaldi, whom anthropologists love to honour; and last, because youngest, Guido Cora, originator, proprietor, and editor of the Cosmo.
After bath and toilette we breakfasted, and passed the day with these friends, and visited all our old haunts at Turin. The Museum here is almost unrivalled in Egyptology, and the prehistoric and Etruscan periods are of the highest importance. The sooner they are moved to the Palazzo Carignano the better. It is worth while to spend a week at the comfortable Hotel Feder, or the Europa, and see the churches and private galleries. There is a Roman Ruina Recente; a Jewish synagogue of Signor Antonchi, a modern imitation of the Tower of Babel, a Temple of Herod with double proportions, which has cost one million of francs, and which wants another five hundred thousand pounds;[4] and, finally, there is the drive to La Superga, with its glorious view of peak and plain. Here I had the honour of sending my "Inner Life of Syria" to the Principessa Margherita di Savoja (now Queen of Italy), and of receiving a gracious letter of thanks and approval.
On the 18th, provided with a mighty flask of Vermout di Torino—the best known—we proceeded to cross the fat flats of Northern Italy, which extend almost without a break as far as Istria and Trieste, passing through Chiavasso, Santhia, Vercelli, Novara, and Magenta. After the hills of Montferrat and historic Chiavasso, the Paduan valley supports a host of villages, which are towns in miniature,—most unlike the Alpine hovels, plastered against hillsides as wasps' nests stuck to a ruined wall. We passed and admired the Campanile towers and lantern of the Vercelli Cathedral, and laughed at the six-storied, pepper-box dome of Novara and the truncated obelisk of Magenta.
The lime quarries supply abundance of granite, black and white and red and white; so that even the humblest offices have their monolithic jambs. It is hard to explain the neglect of the vast turbaries of this rich region. Mottes of peat are sold at Venice, but no one has apparently started the exploitation, upon a large scale, . of a material which would be most valuable for the iron trade. Can the long arm of the Coal League extend thus far? And we philosophized upon the beggar-plague, which now begins to rage. Mendicancy, when it is not caused by actual want—as is often the case—appears to me the logical result of making poverty au ecclesiastical virtue. So in Syria, well-to-do villagers will exchange the Lebanon in winter for Beyrout, and beg, because such was the custom of "our Lord and the Apostles." Al fakro fahhri (Poverty is my pride), quoth Mahomet, who thus engendered the Fakir and the Dervish. Climate and scanty wants have something to do with this pest, for we see it increasing as we go further south; and yet Piedmont and Lombardy are not soft and sunny regions, though hotter than England; and the rosyfaced women, with big straw hats, working in the fields, show that industry, and the objects of industry, are not yet wanting. We threaded the watermeadows, which bear rice, and the rich pastures that produce the cheese familiarly known as Parmesan.
The approach to the most civilized and joyous town in Italy, where animals are not illtreated, namely Milan, is that of an Imperial City. The Oare, if not watertight, is at least ornamental, and the tracery is laid down by art. The Hotel de la Ville and the Feder are both good, and we installed ourselves in the former, which opens upon the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, the popular walk where, on Sundays and holidays, the world admires its neighbour's wife; where the Madamina (Milanese grisette) shows the fine stalwart Lombard figure;" where the English Ulster and the Pastrano cloak contrast with the black and scarlet cap of Turin; where the fan-like silver combs of the Brianzuola nurse compare with the Paddy-like tailcoat of the southern peasantry and with the huge green felt of the Tyrolese man. We both knew Milan well, so we revisited only the scenes most cared for, despite the cold of that nineteenth of December. For instance, who would pass through and miss a chance of gazing at that magnificent work of
sculpture, the Duomo? What more beautiful than the white marble of the Borromei, standing out against the pure turquoise sky of Italy? We went to the very top, and spent hours there, quietly enjoying the perspective of floriated flying buttresses, known as "the garden ;" of spires, pinnacles, statues, and lacework of marble. The interior is more Spanish than Italian. It commands a beautiful view, but we only caught sight of the tips of the mountains of Lecco through the mist, capped with snow, and rosy in the sun.
The City here becomes quite a panorama, and we could see at a glance its complicated system of irrigation. Two outlets, from the Lago Maggiore and the Como water, meet within the walls, and forming a fan, radiate southwards over the gentle slope leading some fifty miles down to the banks of Father Po. Then, of course, we went to look at Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" in the Dominican refectory of Nostra Signora delle Grazie, used in these heretical days as an artillery barrack. The old relic looked much more damaged than when I last saw it; to me a forecast of what Italy will become when she casts out Christ's Church. What a pity that there is no way of conserving this splendid wreck with more certainty. Now a stove has been built to dry the glorious fresco, whose colour began to fade even in the days of a contemporary (Lanuzzi).
We then went to the Brera, only to look again on Raffaelle's "Sposalizio" (or "Marriage of the Virgin"), with the rejected suitor breaking the rod,—his first style. Then to the tower called St. Gothardo of Azoni Visconti, where Gian Maria Visconti was murdered; and what a beautiful bit of Lombard architecture it is! Then to the hospital (Ospedale Maggiore), with its splendid facade of brick and mouldings wonderfully carved in terra cotta, and its cloistered court of the same material, showing that the genius of the Vicentine, Palladio, has not been ignored by the Milanese. Then to the Ambrogian Library, rich and rare in volume and manuscript Then to the little church, made of bones and skulls, which smells fearfully corpse-like. The Scala Theatre was not to be opened till the 26th. These things I visit every time I go to Milan: I love the little place. The streets are gay, the people are gay; the animals are happy, and not tortured. Yon see welldressed men and pretty women, who seem to belong to a world, —not ours, perhaps, but still a world. We finished up our amusements by dining with our genial colleague, Mr. (Consul) Kelly, who made our short stay so pleasant.
The Capital of Lombardy is a place where yon can dine, and the Rebecchino Trattoria has a national cuisine, and we had a delicious Milanese dinner, ravioli and all. This restaurant is evidently composed of a cortile, a court-yard roofed in by iron girders and glass. I wish we adopted this manner of enlarging space in England. The decoration is florid—in fact, that of Pompeii—and the white groundwork of the walls does not absorb the light. The menu? None! It is not Trattoria fashion, so we made it out in our memory. First, the cold hors dceuvres; trout, mixed with Mayonnaise cream; and a plate of sausage, jelly and gelantine stuffed with truffles and pistachios. Instead of soup, the Risotto a la Milanese, which the Italian loves ; the fish, boiled branzino; and for grosse piice, fillet of beef with ravioli, the prince of Italian pastes. The gem of the feast was a boudin d la Richelieu, here called Flambe di Selvaggiume—our game pudding; poulet d raise (chicken made easy), followed by ice pudding, by Goronzola, a cheese of the Stilton and Roquefort type, made, like Parmesan, about Milan; and lastly by dessert, in which grapes figured most. The wines are the Lombard GattLnara (whose fame we cannot accept), and the Piedmontese Barolo, the only Italian brand that resembles claret, though still far from its rosy bouquet. Vixi diem !—I know that we have dined.
Milan is bravely raising a monument to Napoleon III., whilst the popular feeling of young Italy runs strong against the French. The main reasons appear to be the abstraction of Nice, and the domineering tone assumed by the late Empire. Moreover, "the peoples" (Kossuth still lives at Turin) do not readily pardon their benefactors. Witness the aversion of Spain and Portugal for England since the days of the Peninsular War. In the next campaign the general voice of the younger and more fiery sort, and of that solid power, the Left Centre, will compel the constitutional Government of Victor Emmanuel, despite all his prepossessions and prejudices, to side with Germany against France. This was written two years ago, but it is, methinks, still true.
A few words touching the Italian character, which is so little appreciated by the stranger. Of course, the sentimental and moral element, the produce of the middle lobe, as opposed to the frontal or intellectual, is well known to all the world. Foreigners love him for his high spirits, his love of nature, of art, of music, of romance, of the picturesque; combined with a simplicity and a genuineness of feeling, and am absence of shyness, which to the grave, pompous Northern appears almost childlike, and proportionately charming. Few know the basis of his character,—an absolute Scepticism, which throws into the shade that of France, and a hard and rugged Realism, a rock crowned with flowers. We must not waste paper, but simply compare Dante's Commedia Divina with any other Epic. ,An iron purpose runs through the great poem; not a page but what tends to the real and material unity of Italy. Many a passage and a prophecy might head the chapters in " Italy Revisited," and the national worship of the Florentines led directly to "Ettore Fieramosca," the celebrated novel by the Marchese d'Azelio, the first blow struck by those who would be free.
Milan looks forward to the concurrence which the St. Gothard tunnel will cause, and aspires to piercing the Spliigen, which will connect the Lakes of Constance and Como. She has serious causes of complaint against the French Ligne du Midi. The minor employes are careless of her goods, and their masters, the directors —who were, unfortunately, left uncontrolled by convention—have placed an almost prohibitory tax of fourteen and a half cents per kilometre on each thousand kilogrammes. This arbitrary proceeding is done for the purpose of forcing trade vid Genoa and Marseilles and Paris, where the fourteen and a half cents are reduced to three cents. The St. Gothard will not be finished for, say, four years. Meanwhile we look forward to the day which will deliver us from the horrors of the Paris and Modane Stations.
Amongst the two hundred and sixty thousand souls, Milan numbers about one hundred and sixty English, children included.
Many families are here for economy, some for education, especially yonng people (American and British), hoping to make a musical carriere. They have their consul and chaplain and missionary, who advertises himself as follows: "Italian Evangelization (!) in connection with the Methodist Episcopal Church .... Christian friends passing through Milan are cordially invited to encourage the work of Evangelization by their presence, and will be thankfully welcomed by the Missionary and his family if visited at their home." For myself, I confess I do not understand what it means. Eoman Catholic processions are not allowed to go about the streets, but are confined within their own temple walls, and all the little churches are secularized so as to stamp out the national religion as much as possible.
At Milan we relapsed into the regular style of Italian society, so remarkable at once for the exquisite amenity of its old civilization,—as far as manners are concerned,—and for the stiffness and mediaeval semi-barbarism of its surroundings. We send our letters of introduction, with a visiting card, by the commissionaire, asking when we can call. The reply is " Va bene" (all right)—pleasant, but vague. We take heart of grace, and enquire at the door if the Signor Conte be visible. The janitor replies, "His Excellency receives at eight o'clock p.m." We reply that eight o'clock p.m. will find us on the railway. The domestic, whose movements are leisurely, leaves us in the hall, and dawdles upstairs to report the remarkable case. He returns, and, by order of the Padrone, shows us into the saloon. It is the usual huge, bare, tireless room, with a few ludicrous photographs and French prints; with that stiff, green sofa against the wall, and that semi-circle of chairs, also stiff and green, which suggest those horrors the conversazione, the tertulia, the "little music,"—in fact, the Southern equivalent of an English "tea fight." The Signor Conte keeps us waiting twenty minutes, whilst he shaves and exchanges his dressing-gown for that suit of sables, which is the correct, the only correct, raiment of the Latin race. Nothing can be more polished than his manners; he receives us with a cordiality and a bonhommie which at once win our hearts. But we are introduced to him by a bosom friend. Our pursuits and tastes are the same. Why, then, can't he ask us np to his cosy study, and give us a cup of coffee and a cigarette? Sarebbe proprio .indecente (it would be really too rude) is the reply, although both he and we would like it extremely. After the fifth or sixth visit we should, perhaps, be more fortunate; but how long it takes to arrive at cosiness! And so for want of time to crack this hard nut-shell, to get at the kernel, we are choked off. This style of gene grows like beggary as we go south, and will reach its zenith in Iberia and Greece.
On the 20th, another pleasant stretch of eight hours' travelling, fast for Italy, which separates the Capitals of Lombardy and the Venetian. The train passes through Treviglio, Bergamo,—which is built like Sao Paulo in Brazil,—Bresera, Desenanzo, Peschiera, with its extensive ramparts and battlements. We are now in the Mediterranean regions, where every feature of the landscape falls into picture as naturally as the figurante into pose. Very grand and gracious is the accompaniment of Alp, the Lecco, and the Spliigen,—those masses of polished steel and frosted silver, washed with gold and vermilion by the setting sun, as they advance upon and retire from the chocolate plain, based upon boulders and water-rolled pebbles, and bearing the mulberry, the poplar, and the vine, married to the elm. Foot of hill and face of lowland are dotted and lined with white cities and towns, hamlets, villages, and villas, churches, chapels, convents, and cypress-shaded cemeteries. After romantic Bergamo and Brescia, —which manufactures the sword,—we come suddenly upon the Lago di Garda and its artistic surroundings; a lovely country, with snowy mountains,—an old friend that I have sketched, and gladly see again, and now feel that I am in familiar lands. It looks the most peaceful of its kind; it enjoys absolute repose, as is shown by its washings of varied blue; it slumbers an enchanted sleep at the feet of its guardian, the tall snow-peaks to the east flushing fiery red in the last beams. Unfortunately it is three hours of rail from Milan, somewhat too distant for the villegiatura; and the consequences are an absence of country houses and the presence of pauper villages. Then we passed through Verona and Tavernelle, three hours' drive from Recoaro, in the Italian Dolomites. Recoaro is an iron-water drinking and bathing snuggery, which we go to occasionally for a mouth's refreshment in the waning summer. Then Vicenza, Padua, and Mestre, and, finally, dear old Venice.
Venice is our "happy hunting ground" whenever tired of Trieste, for it is only six hours from us by boat, and nine by rail. The "Silent City" took us to her damp bosom at dusk. It seemed, after the "flesh pots" of London, for which I was still sighing, so silent, so dark, so sad; and the plash of the Gondola, so often longed for when worn out and weary with the dissipated season or the busy world, sounded less soothing to me than I thought it would. Was I changed, or it? I suppose neither, really, for it took its effect at last. The mind is too much wound up sometimes, the nerves too finely strung; but the rest always brings one back. Try, reader, enduring great fatigues and anxieties, on a stretch, for a year and a half, and then come to Venice, and lie at the bottom of a Gondola, rowed about by a couple of Gondoliers, with a cushion for your head, half awake and half asleep in Dreamland. If you are not too unhappy to rest anywhere, you will find that do you good. It is the perfection of luxury and repose,—the plash of the oar is a lullaby.
However, nothing depends more upon complexion than the ex-Queen of the Adriatic; to-day she is enveloped in white fog, and we steamed up the Murazzi in a Scotch mist. The network of lagoons meanders through streets of the foulest mud,—a perfect Maleboge (see Dante), a wet place of punishment, with the domes and towers rising ghostly through the mist. But see Venice on a fine Adriatic day, when the blue sea dances to the bluer air; when the light of a golden sun picks out each beauty of detail, and when the horizontal cast of the landscape is set off by the misty forms of the Rheetian and the Julian Alps, towering like a monstrous Chinese wall, as if to keep out the "northern barbarian." Venice is, in fact, although the world in general does not know it, pre-eminently a sommerfrisch, a hot-weather City. In the winter, with her cold canals and wet alleys, her deep rains and dense mists, her huge unwarmed palaces, and her bare, draughty hotels, she is no better than she should be. Yet throughout the year her climate is essentially sedative, like that of Nice, of Madeira, and of G5rz (Gorizia), and most unlike the exciting, jumpy air of Trieste, of Istria, and of the east Adriatic shores in general. She is more composing than even Rome.
With such reflections we wend our noiseless way, awaking now and then a drowsy echo by a conventional grunt, as we plough round the corner of some narrower water-wynd. After a quarter of an hour we stand under the familiar Bridge of Sighs, and we emerge upon the splendour of the Riva dei Schiavoni, of the Slavs who founded Venice, and who supplied her with Mocenigos, Gradenigos, and all that ends in "igo." Here, upon a sandbank, rising barely above high tide, as you may see in the Piazza San Marco, when the pavement slabs are raised to repair the gaspipes, dwelt the fishermen, around whom clustered in course of time the big crannoge (pile village), which became "a noble and fantastic City."
We went to the Hotel Danielli. One should always go to the best, because second-rate inns are not only devoid of comfort, but in the long run are dearer than the best. I have a pencliant for the Europa, because I am old-fashioned: my husband likes Danielli. We paid only twelve Italian lire per diem, which can't be called dear, and all, save wine, included. Danielli (MM. Genovesi and Campi) also owns the chief restaurant at the Lido (the Littus, or shore), the great natural breakwater, seven miles long and one-and-a-half broad, which stands between the Adriatic and the lagoons. Here Byron used to ride and lunch when he lived and learned Orientalism with the "Doctors of Penitence," the Armenian brotherhood, now called after Abbot Mekhitar, the Consoler. The pious community makes the best liqueur in the world, called "Benedictine," and sells little books. To the Lido, in the hot season, crowds go to bathe, to drive, to pick up the "flowers of the sea," shells, and to gaze for hours on the lazy Adriatic, which looks in the moonlight like a vast sheet of quicksilver, albeit somewhat ragged about the edges. A small octavo, copiously illustrated, called "A Week in Venice," -shows you how to " do" the Sea City in ten days, but it is hard work. Dine, when tired, at the restaurant Fran^ais (Qnadri), on the north of the Piazza San Marco, and take your coffee and petit verre at the Cafd Florian, on the opposite side. To the west of the square is an excellent library (Munster's). There are several clubs, especially the Societa Quirina, which takes the newspapers of Europe; and the theatres open on the 26th December.
The first impression of the stranger at Venice, especially after a trip through the minor canals, is that the smells are abominable. A naturalized Englishman has obtained from the Municipality a commission for bringing in the waters of the Brenta river by an aqueduct into the city, and the abundant supply will speedily dilute the drainage. At present, water is carried from the rain cisterns by bigolante, as these Friuli girls, with men's felt hats, are called—after the bigolo, or yoke, which, passing over the shoulders, connects the two copper pots. The latter contain some twenty litres, costing five soldi, whereas M. Ritterbrandt proposes to supply one hundred for six soldi. The Brenta is rapidly silting up the lagoons, and threatening to make Venice, like Ravenna, an inland city. Against this evil two measures have been proposed: the first is to dredge away the deposit, a long task, which will cost millions of francs; the second is to favour the mud growth on the land side, and to reserve the clearing and cleaning for the main approach to the port.
Perhaps the most urgent improvement called for, is a reform of the Custom-House. Merchants and Skippers complain aloud of its vexatious formalities and immense delays. It is even whispered that, as soon as possible, the P. and O. will refuse to renew the postal contract. Why not make the old place a free port, and let Trieste and Venice be King and Queen of the Adriatic? There should be room enough for both. In the Piazza San Marco I met an Englishman who appeared to grow more and more bilious as he increased the distance from his native shore. He saw me, as usual, in a state of happy contemplation at the picturesqueness around me; so he began,—
"Eh! what! staring as usual at the Stones of Venice? Stuff! You're always staring, and one can't get a word from you. What are you thinking of? Look at the Doges' palace. How it has been bespattered with flattery! Why, it is a building turned upside down. The light, airy part is below, the solid and weighty is above. The whole affair looks top-heavy. And the fine marbles of the upper half havebeen cut so as to look exactly like bricks. Then that pudgy cathedral, which seems to be a Mosque gone mad, and its huge campanile contains as many square feet of accommodation as the cathedral itself. It slopes, you see; so do the two columns of the Piazetta,—so does every tower in Venice. They all lean in a languid way, without energy, like the monsters of Bologna. Look about you, and you won't see in all the masonry a tight joint or a straight line. By this general crookedness I explain the moral obliquity of Austrian policy in the socalled palmy days of the turbulent and treacherous 'Serenissima Republican The physical effect must have acted upon the morale. Now come to the Piazza dei Leoncini to see the Lionlets, to the north-west of the Cathedral, and stare at the classical patriarchal palace. I am glad that it looks upon Manin's tomb, though! and the St. Basso Church in another style of the classical. How they swear at that dwarf heap of Byzantine domes I Only one specimen of how incongruous is art in the ' Stones of Venice.' But it's all the same to the mob of sightseers and travellers. Like sheep, one takes the path, and the rest follow, too glad to save the trouble of thinking for themselves."
I saw he had the spleen, so I had the tact to turn the conversation upon himself, and gave him an opportunity to sfogarsi—in plain English, " to let off the steam."
There are few novelties in Venice. Some hideous iron bridges, veritable engineer's, as opposite to artist's, Art, which are found cheaper and more lasting than those of masonry. The flower girl, the minstrel boy, and the gondolier are still institutions. Picturesque figures still haunt the Rive, the red-capped and stockinged fisherman, the blue-capped peasant, and the mountaineers in the tightest of tights. But the old Venetian type of beauty—the Desdemona—is waxing ;rare, except in the two extremities of the City, north and south. Patrician dames of old used to bathe their locks in sea water and expose them to the burning sun. They didn't know of henna, perhaps. Now they prefer the raven's wing, and to rival the pretty Jewesses of to-day.
Here also I sought out and found some interesting Shakesperian memories; the dress of the Patrician of Venice in the 16th century, "II Costume Antico e Moderno di Guilio Ferrario," in the Biblioteca Marciana; see especially pages 700—925; 3 vols., coloured plates, published in Milan 1823, and to be found in our British Museum; and " Gli Abiti Antichi e Moderni," by Vicellio, published, Venice, 1598, and not found in England, I think gives all the costumes, and some of the manners and customs, of the days of Shakespeare and Othello. The original Desdemona was a fair specimen of the Venetian beauty of that day—blonde hair, dark brown eyes, thin, high, prominent nose, delicate small mouth, tall -and graceful figure, narrow shouldered, with small hands and feet, and a generally thorough-bred appearance and carriage. Othello's family is not yet extinct; Signor Moro-Lin represents the two houses, and has two stout folios in MSS., showing Cristofalo Moro, 67th Doge of Venice, in 1462, after his return from Cyprus, wearing the Phrygian cap of office, and all guiltless of his gentle wife's blood. Consult also the "Storia dei Doge di Venezia," Grinaldi: Venezia, 1867.
I had with me a German maid, who had never seen Venice, never heard of lake villages, nor seen Rotterdam, nor Pernambuco: she was swimming in a gondola for the first time, and was at the highest pitch of excitement at finding that all was water, and that she had to step into a gondola at the door, instead of a carriage, or trudging on terra firma. She marvelled at the absence of cabs and dust, and exclaimed perpetually, "Nothing but water, water, everywhere!" which we old hands naturally finished off by—" And not a drop to drink," till I believe she fancied that was the only thing we English ever think of. I took heart of grace to show her all the chief beauties of the place,— the Duomo, with its et ceteras; the Piazza San Marco, the Piazetta, the Doges' Palace; the Frari, Canova's tomb, the Scalzi full of marbles, the Prigioni, the Bridge of Sighs, the Lido and Rialto, —not forgetting Rietti's and several other people's curiosity shops and glass works, more interesting to her, probably, than the buildings.
Then I had the good fortune to make acquaintance with the Montalba family. The mother and two of the daughters were here. These interesting girls are so well known as sculptors and painters of high degree that I can only say what a treat it was to make their acquaintance, and how charming I found them.
I was astonished to find the Italianissimo feeling so rampant in Upper Italy, and the people so excited upon the subject, when their Government have set them an example of calmness, commonsense, moderation and constitutional spirit of compromise, which go far to redeem the character of the Latin race, even in this the darkest day of its history. Because Dante made the Quarnero Gulf finish Italy, and because Petrarch established the Alps as the surroundings of his fair land, their new geographical politicians would absorb Trieste and Istria; and when Jove shall wax wroth, he will probably grant them their silly prayer.
On the 23rd we left by the midnight boat, and all who knew us came to see us off; the plash of the gondola and the distant "good nights" dying away upon the water seemed to keep time like a glee. At seven a.m. next day (Christmas Eve) I was at Trieste, my much-loved home for four years and a half, which I found all to a hair as I left it a year ago. Christmas night was, however, a little sad, for my husband was not well, and I could not go to the various festivities to which I was invited and leave him alone. So, having ordered nothing at home, and having given the servants "leave of absence" to their respective families, I was obliged on this our greatest feast to dine alone on bread and olives, which was all I could find.
The remaining days of 1875 were spent in Christmas visits, Christmas boxes, Christmas cards, Christmas dinners. Our kind friends were as glad to see us back as we were to see them, and gave us a perfect ovation during our eight days' stay. Baron Pascotini, one of the most eminent public men here, presented me with a diploma from the Societa Zoofila (Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), electing me a life member; and, curiously enough, I was also the bearer of one for him on the part of our Society in Jermyn Street, which he richly deserved. He is a fiue old man, past eighty years of age, and aa active as a youth; ever prominent in all cases of humanity and charity. He is decisive in his judgment, and his great position in Trieste enables him to carry out the dictates of his noble heart. I was also elected, by unanimous vote, President of another Society, a religious and charitable reunion, numbering some ten thousand members in Trieste and its environs, enabling me to do some good work for the Church, and for the poor of all denominations. I had also the pleasure of presenting my "Inner Life of Syria" to the Civic Library of the town. These affectionate marks of goodwill and approval on the part of the Town and society in which we had lived for three years were a great source of pleasure and gratification. During my leisure I received and paid all my intivie visits and re-organized my house, unpacked from England, and repacked for India. On the last day of 1875 we were fully prepared for our Eastern tour, but with a feeling that we were starting two or three months too late, and would have to encounter some of the hot and fatal season to accomplish it; but, you know, " Consuls, as well as beggars, can't be choosers."
- ↑ It may not be uninteresting to remark that Salvini read Shakespeare with our respected and talented predecessor, Charles Lever, at Trieste, who expounded the author's hidden meanings to him.
- ↑ Written in 1876.
- ↑ This was written in 1876.
- ↑ It is noticed by the learned Mr. Ferguson, in his late work " The Temples of the Jews."