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32X

THE

INNOCENTS ABROAD

A BOOK OF TRAVEL

PURSUIT OF PLEASURE.

MARK TWAIN,

TEE VOYAGE OUT. ,

C. R. CHISHOLM & BROS.

"?S

\Z\'^

A I liv.a.ji

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

CHAPTER I.

EOB months the great Pleasure Excursion to Europe
and the Holy Land was chatted about in the news-
papers everywhere in America, and discussed at countless
firesides. It was a novelty in the way of Excursions — its
like had not been thought of before, and it compelled that
interest which attractive novelties always command. It
was to be a picnic on a gigantic scale. The participants
in it) instead of freighting an ungainly steam ferry-boat
with youth and beauty and pies and doughnuts, and
paddling up some obscure creek to disembark upon a
grassy lawn and wear themselves out with a long summer
day's laborious frolicking under the impression that it was
fun, were to sail away in a great steamship with flags
flying and cannon pealing, and take a royal holiday beyond
the broad ocean, in many a strange clime and in many a
land renowned in history ! They were to sail for months
over the breezy Atlantic and the sunny Mediterranean ;
they were to scamper about the decks by day, filling the
ship with shouts and laughter — or read novels and poetry
in the shade of the smoke-stacks, or watch for the jelly-
fish and the nautMus, over the side, and the shark, the
whale and other strange monsters of the deep; and at
night they were to dance in the open air, on the upper
deck, in the midst of a ball-room that stretched mm
horizon to horizon, and was domed by the bending heavens
and lighted by no meaner lamps than the stars and the
magnificent moon — dance, and promenade, and awoke and

171391

I nK*iirfW*»* Hi*

t i it ldfc iMIiMii <III1IW|»I

THE INNOCEIiTS ABROAD.

sing, and make love, and search the skies for constellations
that never associate with the "Big Dipper" they were so
tired of; and they were to see the ships of twenty navies
— the customs and costumes of twenty curious peoples —
the great cities of half a world — they were to hob-nob
with nobility and hold friendly converse with kings and
princes, Grand Moguls, and the anointed lords of mighty
empires I

It was a brave conception ; it was the offspring of a
most ingenious brain. It was well advertised, but it hardly
needed it : the bold originality, the extraordinary charac-
ter, the seductive nature, and the vastness of the enterprise
provoked comment everywhere and advertised it in every
household in the land. Who could read the programme
of the excursion without longing to make one of the party ?
I will insert it here. It is almost as good as a map. As
a text for this book, nothing could be better :

i.,- \

EXCURSION TO THE HOLY LAND, EGYPT, THE CRIMEA,
GBEECE, AND INTERMEDIATE POINTS OF INTEREST. .

Bbookltn, February Ist, 1867.

The undersigned will make an excursion as above during the coming
season, and begs to submit to you the following programme :—

A first-«)la8S steamer, to be under hifl own command, and capable of
accommodating at least one hundred and fifty cabin passengers, will be
mlectcu, in which will be taken a select company, numbering not more
than three>fourths of the ship's capacity. There is good reason to be-
lieve «that this company can be easily niade up in this Immediate vicinity, <
of mutual friends and acquaintances.

The steamer wi'' ,& provided with every necessary comfort, including
library and musical instruments.

An experienced physician will be on board.

Leaving New York about June Ist, a middle and pleasant route will
be taken across the Atlantic, and passing through the group of Azores,
St. Michael will be reached in about tea days. A day or two will be
spent here, enjoying the fruit and wild scenery of these islands, and the
voyage coiitinued, and Gibraltar reached in three or four days.

A day or two will be spent here in looking over the wonderful sub-
terraneous fortifications, permission to visit these galleries being readily
obtained.

From Gibraltar, running along the coasts of Spain and Franoe, Mar-
seilles will be- reached in three days. Here ample time will be given
not only to look over the city, which was founded six hundred years
before the Christian era, and its drtiflcial port, the finest of the Viiikd in
the Mediterraneitn, but to visit J^icris during the Great Exhibition ; and
the be«ttt<|UI o^ty of L^ons, lying intermediate, from the heights of which.

A SEDUCTIVE PROGRAMME,

11 •

on a clear day, Mont Blano and tho Alps can be distinotly leen. Paa-
sengers who may wish to extend the time at Paris can do so, and
pasiung down through Switzerland, rejoin the steamer at tieikoa.

From Marseilles to Genoa is a run of one night. The excursionists
will have an opportunity to look over this, the " magnificent city of
palaces," and visit the birthplace of Columbus, twelve miles off, over a
beautiful road built by Napoleon 1. From this point, excursions may
be made to Milan, Lakes Como and Magglore, or to Milan, Verona
(ftmous for its extraordinary fortifications), Fadua, and Venice. Or, if
passengers desire to visit Farma (fttmous fbr Correggio's fl'escoes), and
Bologna, they can by rail go on to Florence, and r^oin the steamer at
Leghorn, thus spending about three weeks amid the cities most famous
for art In Italy .

From Genoa the run to Leghorn will be made along the coast in one
night, and time appropriated to this point in which to visit Florence,
its palaces and galleries ; Pisa, its Cathedral and " Leaning Tower,"
and Lucca and its baths, and Roman amphitheatre ; Florence, the most
remote, being distant by rail about sixty miles.

From Leghorn to Naples (calling at Civita Vecohia to land any who
may prefer to go to Rome A-om that point) tho distance will be made in
about thirty-six hours ; the route will lay along the coast of Italy, close
by Caprera, Elba, and Corsica. Arrangements have been made to take
on board at Leghorn a^ pilot for Caprera, and, if practicable, a call will
be made there to visit the home of Garibaldi.

Rome [by rail], Herculaneum, Pompeii, Vesuvius, Virgil's tomb, and
i)OB8ibly the ruins of Psestum, can be visited, as well as the beautlAil
surroundings of Naples and its charming bay.

The next point of interest will be Palermo, the most beautiful city of
Sicily, which will be reached in one night from Naples. A day will be
spent here, and leaving in the evening, the course will be taken towards
Athens.

Skirting along the north coast of Sicily, passing through the group of
.SjoMau Isles, in sight of Stromboli and Vuicania, both active volcanoes,
through 'the Strait? of Messina, with "Scylla" on the one hand and
" Charybdis" on the other, along the east coast of Sicily, and in sight of
Mount ^tna, along the south coast of Italy, the v:"»t and south coast
of Greece, in sight of ancient Crete, up Athen: Gulf, and into the
Pirnus, Athens will be reached in two and a half or ifiree days. After
tarrying here awhile, the Bay of Salamis will be crossed, and a day
given to Corinth, whence the voyage will be continued to Constanti-
nople, passing on the way through the Grecian Archipelago, the Darda-
nelles, the Sea of Marmora, and the mouth of the Golden Horn, and
arriving in about forty-eight hours from Athens.

After leaving Constantinople, the way will be taken out through the
beautiful Bosphorus, across the Black Sea to Sebastopol and Balulava,
a run of about twenty-fQur hours. Here it is proposed to remain two
days, visiting the harbours, fortifications, and battle-fields of the
Crimea ; thence back through the Bosphorus, touching at Constanti-
nople to take in any who may have preferred to remain there ; down
through the Sea of Marmora and the Dardanelles, alonsr the coasts of
ancient Troy and Lydia in Asia, to Smyrna, which wifl be reached in
two or two and a half days from Constantinople. A sufl9cient stay will
be made here to give opportunity of visiting Ephesus, filty miles distant
by rail.

TUB INNOCENTS ABROAD,

From Smyrna towards tho Holy Land tlio courso will lay through the
Oreoian Arohipelugo, oloso by thu Isle of PatmoH, alon^ tho ouatit of
Asia, anoiont Fampnylia, and the Isle of Cyprus. Beirout will be
reached in throe days. At Beirout time will be given to visit Damat*
ous ; after which the steamer will proceed to Joppa.

From Joppa, Jerusalem, the River Jordan, the Sea of Tiberias, Naza-
reth, Bethany, Bethlehem, and other points of interest in the Holy Land
can bo visited, and here those who may have preferred to make the
Journey ttora Beirout through the country, passing through Damascus,
Galilee, Capernaum, Samaria, and by tho Klvor Jordan and Sea of Ti-
berias, can rejoin the steamer.

Leaving Joppa, the next point of interest to visit will be Alexandria,
which will bo reached in twenty-four hours. The ruins of Ciesar's
Palace, Pompey's Pillar, Cleopatra's Needle, the Catacombs, and ruins
of ancient Alexandria, will bo found worth the visit. The Journey to
Cairo, one hundred and thirty miles by rail, can be made in a few hours,
and flrom which can be visited the site of anciont Memphis, Joseph's
Granaries, and the PyramidB.

From Alexandria tho route will be taken homeward, calling at Malta,
Cagliari (in Sardinia), and Parma (in Majorca), all magnificent harbours,
with charming scenery, and abounding in fruits.

A day or two will be spent at each place, and leaving Parma in the
evening, Valencia in Spam will be reached the next tnorning. A lew
days will be spent in this, the finest city of Spain.

From Valencia, the homeward course will be continued, skirting
along the coast of Spain. Alicant, Carthogena, Palos, and Malaga will
be passed but a mile or two distant, and Gibraltar reached in about
twenty-four hours.

A stay of one day will be made here, and the voyage continued to
Madeira, which will be reached in about three days. Captain Marryatt
writes : " I do not know a spot on the globe which so much aHtonishea
and delights upon first arrival as Madeira." A stay of one or two days
will be made here, which, if time permits, may be extended, and passing
on through the islands, and probably in sight of the Peak of Tenerifiie,
a southern track will be taken, and the Atlantic crossed within the lati-
tudes of the north-east trade windsi, where mild and pleasant weather,
and a smooth sea, can always be expected.

A call will be made at Bermuda, which lies directly in this route
homeward, and will be reached in about ten days flrom Madeira, and
after spendinff a short time with our friends the Bermudians, the final
departure wul be made for home, which will be reached in about
three days.

Already applications have been received firom parties in Europe wish-
ing to join the Excursion there.

The ship will at all ti'^es be a home, where the excursionists, if sick,
will be surrounded by &ind friends, and have all possible comfort and
sympathy.

Should contagious sickness exist in any of the ports named in the
programme, such ports will be passed, and others of interest sub-
stituted.

The price of passage is fixed at »1260, currency, for eaii^ adult
passenger. Choice of rooms and seats at the tables apportidned in
the order in which passages are engaged, and no passage considered
engaged until ten percent, of the passage money is deposited wtth the
treasurer. * •- -^b

ii l Mfii i^itifcMMMMfc—fcWI— fc— * *l ii.i>ii;lii ;^

A SFPUCTIVE PROGRAMME,

raflsengorfl can romRln on board of tho Btpftmor, at all portfl, If they
d«Hlre, without additional exponeo, and all boating at the expense of the
ship.

All passages must bo paid for when taken, in ordor that the most per*
foot arrangements be made for starting at tho appointed time.

Applications fbr passage must be approved bv the committee before
tickets are issued, and can be made to trie uudorsignod.

Articles of interest or curiosity, procured by the passengers during
the voyage, may be brought home in tho steamer fVee of charge.

Five dollars per day, in gold, it is believed, will be a fair calculation
to make for all travelling expenses on shore, and at the various points
where passengers may wish to leave the steamer for days at a time.

The trip can be extended, and the route changed, by unanivnovB vote
of tho passengers.

CHA8. C. DUNCAN,

117, Wall Street, New York,
R. R. G , Treasurer.

J. T. H-

COMMITTBE 0\ APPLIOATIONB.

-, Esq., R. R. G , Esq.,

C. C. DUNCAN.

Committee on belbotino Steamer.

Capt. W. W. S , Surveyor for Board qf Underwriter a,

C. W. C , Consulting Engineer for U. S. and Canada.

J. T. H , Esq.

C. C. DUNCAN.

P.S.— The very beautifhl and substantial side-whe«l steamsliip

?uaker City has boon chartered for the occasion, and will leave New
ork, June 8tli. Letters liave been issued by the Government com-
mending the party to courtesies abroad.

What was there lacking about that programme to make
it perfectly irresistible ? Nothing that any finite mind
could discover. Paris, Endand, Scotland, Switzerland,
Italy — Garibaldi ! The Grecian archipelago ! Vesuvius !
Constantinople! Smyrna! the Holy Land! Egypt and
** our friends the Bermudians !" People in Europe de-
siring to join the Excursion — contagious sickness to be
avoided — boating at the expense of the ship — ^physician on
board — the circuit ot* the globe to be made if the passen-
gers unanimously desired it — the company to be rigidly
selected by a pitiless " Committee on Applications"-^the
vessel to be as rigidly selected by as pitiless a " Committee
on Selecting Steamer." Human nature could not with-
stand these bewildering temptations. I hurried 'to the
Treasurer's office and deposited my ten per cent. I re-

TBE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

ioioed to know that a fow vacant state-rooms were still
left. I did avoid a oritioal personal examination into my
character by that bowelless committee, but I referred to
all the people of high standing I could think of in the
community who would be least likely to know anything
about me.

Shortly a supplementary programme was issued which
set forth that the Plymouth Collection of Hymns would
be used on board the ship. I then paid the balance of my
passage money.

I was provided with a receipt* and duly and officially
accepted as an excursionist. There was happiness in
that, but it was tame compared to the novelty of being
" select."

This supplementary programme also instructed the
excursionists to provide themselves with light musical
instruments for amusement in the ship ; with saddles for
Syrian travel ; green spectacles and umbrellas ; veils for
Egypt; and substantial clothing to use in rough pil-
gnmizing in the Holy Land. Furthermore, it was sug-
gested that although the ship's library would afford a fair
amount of reading matter, it would still be well if each
passenger would provide himself with a few guide-books,
a Bible, and some standard works of travel. A list was
appended, which consisted chiefly of books relating to the
Holy Land, since the Holy Land was part of the excursion,
and seemed to be its main feature.

Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was to have accompanied
the expedition, but urgent duties obliged him to give up
the idea. There wore other passengers who could have
been spared better, and would have been spared more
willingly. Lieut.-Gen. Sherman was to have been of the
party, also, but the Indian war compelled his presence on
the plains. A popular actress had entered her name on
the ship's books, but something interfered, and«Ae couldn't
go. The " Drummer Boy of the Potomac" deserted, and
l0| we had never a celebrity left I

However, we were to have a " battery of guns" from the
Navy Department (as per advertisemeiit), to be used in
answering royal salutes ; and the document furnished by

**<*..«>

AN OFFICIAL COLOSSl/S,

the Secretary of the Navy, which wa' to make ** Gen.
Sherman and party" welcome guests in the courts and
camps of the old world, was still left to us, though both
document and battery, I think, were shorn of somewhat
of there original august proportions. However, had not
we the seductive programme still, with its Paris, its Con-
stantinople, Smyrna, Jerusalem, Jericho, and " our friends
the Bermudians ?" What did we care ?

CHAPTER II.

OCCASIONALLY during the following month I
dropped in at 11, Wall-street, to inquire how the
repairing and refurnishing of the vessel was coming on ;
how additions to the passenger list were averaging ; how
many people the committee were decreeing not ^ select,"
every day, and banishing in sorrow and tribulation. I was
gfad to know that we were to have a little printing-press
OR board and issue a daily newspaper of our own. 1 was
glad to learn that our piano, our parlour organ and our
melodeon were to be the best instruments of the kind that
could be had in the market. I was proud to observe that
among our excursionists were three ministers of the gospel,
eight doctors, sixteen or eightoon ladies, several military
and naval chieftains with sounding titles, an ample crop of
** Professors" of various kinds, and a gentleman who had
" Commissioner op the United States of Amerioato
Europe, Asia, and Africa" thundering after his name in
one awful blast I I had carefully prepared myself to take
rather a back seat in that ship, because of the uncommonly
select material that would alone be permitted to pass
through the camel' ^ eye of that committee on credentials ;
I had schooled myself to expect an imposing array of
military and naval heroes, and to have to set that back seat
still further back in consequence of it, maybe ; but I state
frankly that I was all unprepared for this crusher.

I fell under that titular avalanche a torn and blighted
thing. I said that if that potentate must go over in our

..y»--

i«

fEE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

1: V:

1 ^1

^hip, why, I supposed he must — but that to my thinking,
when the United States considered it necessary to send a
dignitary of that tonnage across the ocean, it would be in
better taste, and safer, to take him apart and cart him over
in sections in several ships.

Ah ! if I had only known then that he was only a
common mortal, and that his mission had nothing more
overpowering about it than the collecting of seeds, and
uncommon yams and extraordinary cabbages and peculiar
bullfro,s;s for that poor, useless, innocent,mildewed old fossil,
the Smithsonianlnstitute,! would have felt so much relieved.

During; that memorable month I basked in the happi-
ness of being for once in my life drifting with the tide of
a great popular movement. Everybody was going to
Europe — ^I too was going to Europe. Everybody was
going to the famous Paris Exposition — I too was going
to the Paris Exposition. The steamship lines were
carrying Americans out of the various ports of the country
at the rate of four or five thousand a week, in the aggre-
gate. If I met a dozen individuals, during that month,
who were not going to Europe shortly, I have no distinct
remembrance of it now. I walked about the city a good
deal with a young Mr. Blucher, who was booked for the
excursion. He was confiding, good-natured, unsophisti-
cated, companionable ; but he was not a man to set the
river on fire. He bad the most extraordinary notions
about this European exodus, and came at last to consider
the whole nation as packing up for emigration to France.
We stepped mto a store in Broadway one day, where he
bought a handkerchief, and when the man could not make
change, Mr. B. said :

" Never mind, I'll hand it to you in Paris."

*'But I am not going to Paris." '

.** How is what did I understanrd you to say ?" .

" I said I am not going to Paris."

" Not going to Paris I Not g Well then, where in

the nation are you going to ?"

"Nowhere at all."

** Not anywhere whatsover ? — not any place on earth
but this?"

SEA-GOING LODGINGS.

" Not any place at all but just this — stay here all
summer."

My comrade took his purchase and walked out of the
store without a word — walked out with an injured look
upon his countenance. Up the street a piece he broke
silence and said, impressively : " It was a lie — that is my
opinion of it!"

In the fulness of time the ship was ready to receive
her passengers. I was introduced to the young p^entlemau
who was to be ray room mate, and found him to be intelli-
gent, cheerful of spirit, unselfish, full of generous impulses,
patient, considerate, and wonderfully good-natured. Not
any passenger that sailed in the Quaker City will withhold
his endorsement of what I have just said. We selected a
state-room forward of the wheel, on the starboard side,'
"below decks." It had two berths in it, a dismal dead-
light, a sink with a wash-bowl in it, and a long, sumptu-
ously cushioned locker, which was to do service as a sofa
— partly, and partly as a hiding-place for our things.
Notwithstanding all this furniture, there was still room
to turn round in, but not to swing a cat in, at least with
entire security to the cat. However, the room was large for
a ship's state-room, and was in every way satisfactory.

The vessel was appointed to sail on a certain Saturday
early in June.

A little after noon on that distinguished Saturday, I

reached the ship and went on board. All was bustle and

confusion. [I have seen that remark before, somewhere.]

The pier was crowded with carriages and men ; passengers

were arriving and hurrying on board ; the vessel's decks

I were encumbered with trunks and valises; groups of

excursionists, arrayed in unattractive travelling costumes,

I were moping about in a drizzling rain and looking as

droopy and woebegoHe as so many moulting chickens.

iThe gallant flag was up, but it was under the spell too,

[and hung limp and disheartened by the mast. Altogether,

it was the bluest, bluest spectacle ! It was a pleasure

[excursion — there was no gainsaying that, because the pro-

Igramme said so — it was so nominated in the bond — but it

mrely hadn't the general aspect of one.

W' ^/' ■

TB.E INNOCENTS AMOAD.

(•;

^-\

PI J

Finally, above the banging, and rumbling, and shouting,
and hissing of steam, rang the order to ''cast off!" — a
sudden rush to the gangways — a scampering ashore of
visitors — a revolution of the wneels, and we were off — the
picnic was begun ! Two very mild cheers went up from
the dripping crowd on the pier ; we answered them gently
from the slippery decks ; the flag made an effort to wave,
and failed ; the '' battery of guns" spake not — the ammu-
nition was out, , , , ,

We steamed down to the foot of the harbour and came
to anchor. It was still raining. And not only raining,
but storming. " Outside" we could see ourselves that
there was a tremendous sea on. We must lie still, in the
calm harbour, till the storm should abate. Our passen-
gers hailed from fifteen States ; only a few of them had
ever been to sea before; manifestly it would not do to
pit them against a full-blown tempest until they had got
their sea-legs on. Towards evening the two steam-tugs
that had accompanied us with a rollicking champagne-
party of young New Yorkers on board who wished to bid
farewell to one of our number in due and ancient form,
departed, and we were alone on the deep. On deep five
fathoms, and anchored fast to the bottom. And out in
the solemn rain, at that. This was pleasuring with a
vengeance.

It was an appropriate relief when the gong sounded for
prayer meeting. The first Saturday night of any other
pleasure excursion might have been devoted to whist and
dancing ; but I submit it to the unprejudiced mind if it
would have been in good taste for us to engage in such
frivolities, considering what we had gone through and the
frame of mind we were ii. We would have shone at a
wake, but not at anything more festive. ^^^ --

However, there is always a cheering influence about
the sea; and in my berth, that night, rocked by the
measured swell of the waves, and lulled by the murmur
of the distant surf, I soon passed tranquilly out of all
consciousness of the dreary experiences of the day and
damaging premonitions of the future.

CHAPTER III. '

ALL day Sunday at anchor. The storm had gone
down a great deal, but the sea had not. It was still
piling its frothy hills high in air " outside," as we could
plainly see with the glasses. We could not properly
begin a pleasure excursion on Sunday, we could not offer
untried stomachs to so pitiless a sea as that. We must lie
still till Monday. And we did. But we had repetitions of
church and prayer-meetings ; and so, of course, we were
just as eligibly situated as we could have been anywhere.

I was up early that Sabbath morning, and was early to
breakfast. I felt a perfectly natural desire to have a good,
long, unprejudiced look at the passengers, at a time when
they should be free from self-consciousness — which is at
breakfast, when such a moment occurs in the lives of
human beings at all.

I was greatly surprised to see so many elderly people —
I might almost say, so many venerable people. A glance
at the long lin^s of heads was apt to make one think it
was all grey. But it was not. There was a tolerably
fair sprinkling of young folks, and another fair sprinkling
of gentlemen and ladies who were non-committal as to
age, being neither actually old or absolutely young.

The next morning we weighed anchor and went to sea-
It was a great happiness to get away after this dragging,
dispiriting delay. I thought there never was such glad,
ness in the air before, such brightness in the sun, such
beauty in the sea. I was satisfied with the picnic then,
and with all its belongings. All my malicious instincts,
were dead within me ; and as America faded out of sight
I think a spirit of charity rose up in their place that was
as boundless, for the time being, as the broad ocean that
was heaving its billows about us. I wished to express
my feelings — I wished to lift up my voice and sing ; but
I did not know anything to sing, and so I was obliged
to give up the idea. It was no loss to the ship though,
perhaps.- ,,

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

m :('

i , . *

It was breezy and pleasant, but the sea was still very
fough. One could not promenade without risking his
neck ; at one moment the bowsprit was taking a deadly
aim at the sun in mid-heaven, and at the next it was
trying to harpoon a shark in the bottom of the ocean.
What a weird sensation it is to feel the stern of a ship
sinking swiftly from under you and see the bow climbing
high away among the clouds ! One's safest course that
day was to clasp a railing and hang on ; walking was too
precarious a pastime. .

By some happy fortune I was not ^ea-siok. That was a
thing to be proud of I had not always escaped before.
If there is one thing in the world that will make a man
peculiarly and insufferably self-conceited, it is to have his
stomach behave itself the first day at sea, when nearly all
his comrades are sea-sick. Soon a venerable fossil, shawled
to the chin and bandaged like a mummy, appeared at the
door of the after d«ck-house, and the next lurch of the
ship shot him into my arms. I said —

** Good-morning, sir. It is a fine day."

He put his hand on his stomach and said, " Oh my !"
and then staggered away and fell over the coop of a sky-
light.

Presently another old gentleman was projected from the
same door with great violence. I said —

*' Calm yourself, sir ; there is no hurry. It is a fine day,
sir.

He also put his hand on his stomach and said, *' Oh
my !" and reeled away I

In a little while another veteran was discharged
abruptly from the same door, clawing at the air for a
saving support. I said —

" Good morning, sir. It is a fine day for pleasuring.
You were about to say "

"O^my!"

I thought so. I anticipated him, anyhow. I stayed
there, and was bombarded with old gentlemen for an
hour perhaps ; and all I got out of any of them was,
"O^my!"

I went away then in a thoughtful mood.' I said, this

i^s

TRANSGRESSING THE LAWS.

is a good pleasure excursion. I like it. The passengers
are not garrulous, but still they are sociable. I like
those old people, but somehow they all seem to have the
** Oh my'* rather bad. ; j.

I knew what was the matter with them. They were

sea-sick ; and I was glad of it. We all like to see people

sea-sick when we are not, ourselves. Playing whist by the

I cabin lamps when it is storming outside, is pleasant;

walking the quaiter-deck in the moonlight, is pleasant;

smoking in the breezy foretop is pleasant, when one is not

[afraid to go up there ; but these are all feeble and common-

jpluce compared with the joy of seeing people suffering the

Imiseries of sea-sickness. • v "

I picked up a good deal of information during the af^er-

loon. At one time I was climbing up the quarter-deck

^hen the vessel's stern was in the sky. I was smoking

|a cigar and feeling passably comfortable. Somebody

ejaculated —

*' Come, now, that, wont answer. Read the sign up
there — No smoking abaft the wheel 1"

It was Captain Duncan, chief of the expedition. I went
forward, of course. I saw a long spy-glass lying on a desk
[n one of the upper-deck state-rooms back of the pilot-house,
md reached after it — there was a ship in the distance.
"Ah, ah — hands off 1 Come out of that I"
I came out of that. I said to a deck-sweep, but in a
)w voice —

" Who is that overgrown pirate with the whiskers and
the discordant voice ?"
" It's Captain Bursley— :executive ofl&cer — sailing-
laster."

I loitered about awhile, and then for want of something
itter to do, fell to carving a railing with my knife.
|omebody said, in an insinuating, admonitory voice —
" Now, say, my friend, don't you know any better than
be whittling the ship all to pieces that way? You
ight to know better than that."
I went back and found the deck-sweep.
" Who is that smooth-faced animated outrage yonder in
^6 fine clothes ?"

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

" That's Captain L , the owner of the ship — he's one

of the main bosses."

In the course of time I brought up on the starboard
side of the pilot-house, and found a sextant lying on a
bench. Now, I said, they " take the sun" thcough this
thing ; I should think I might see that vessel through it.
I had hardly got it to my eye when some one touched
me on the shoulder and said, deprecatingly —

" I'll have to get you to give that to me, sir. If there's
anything you'd like to know about taking the sun, I'd as
soon tell you as not — but I don't like to trust anybody

with that instrument. If you want figuring done

Ay, ay, sir!"

He was gone to answer a call from the other side. I
sought the deck-sweep.

"Who is that spider-legged gorilla yonder with the
sanctimonious countenance ?" > *# » ^^ ■.\'

" It's Captain Jones, sir, the chief mate."

" Well. This goes clear away ahead of snything I ever
heard of before. Do you — now I ask you as a man and a
brother — do you think I could venture to throw a rock
here in any given direction without hitting a captain of
this ship r

" Well, sir, I don't know — I think likely you'd fetch
the captain of the watch, maybe, because he's a-standing
right yonder in the way."

I went below — meditating, and a little down-hearted. I
thought, if five cooks can spoil a broth, what may not five
captains do with a pleasure excursion.

CHAPTER IV.

WE ploughed along bravely for a week or more, and
without any conflict of jurisdiction among the
captains worth mentioning. The passengers soon learned
to accommodate themselves to their new circumstances,
and life in the ship became nearly as systematically
monotonous as the routine of a barrack. I do not mean

.^.■v|*.v-

PILGRIM LIFE AT SEA.

lat it was dull, for it was not entirely so by any means —

it there was a good deal of sameness about it. As is

Iways the fashion at sea, the passengers shortly began to

bck up sailor terms — a sign that they were beginning to

W at home, ^alf-past six was no longer half-past six to

lese pilgrims from New England, the South, and the

lississippi Valley, it was "seven bells;" eight, twelve,

id four o'clock were " eight bells ;" the captain did not '

ike the longitude at nine o'clock, but at ''two bells."

[hey spoke glibly of the " after cabin," the '* for'rard

ibin," "port and starboard," and the ** fo'castle."

At seven bells the first gong rang ; at eight there was

reakfast, for such as were not too sea-sick to eat it.

[.fter that all the well people walked arm-in-arm up and

)wn the long promenade deck, enjoying the fine summer

kornings, and the sea-sick ones crawled out and propped

lemselves up in the lee of the paddle-boxes and ate their

Umal tea and toast, and looked wretched. From eleven

[clock until luncheon, and from luncheon until dinner at

in the evening, the employments and amusements were

prions. Some reading was done; and much smoking

id sewing, though not by the same parties ; there were

|e monsters of the deep to be looked after and woiftlered ""

strange ships had to be scrutinized through opera-

isses, and sage decisions arrived at concerning them ;

|d more than that, everybody took a personal interest in

nng that the flag was run up and politely dipped three

les in response to the salutes of those strangers ; in the

[oking-room there were always parties of gentlemen

lying euchre, draughts, and dominoes, especially domi-

;s, that delightfully harmless game ; and down on the

^in deck, " for'rard" — ^for'rard of the chicken-coops and

cattle — we had what was called "horse-billiards."

^rse-billiards is a fine game. It afibrds good, active

Wcise, hilarity, an4 consuming excitement. It is a

tture of " hop-scotch" and shuffle-board played with a

Itch. A large hop-scotch diagram is marked out on the

[k with chalk, and each compartment numbered. You

id off three or four steps, with some broad wooden

ra before you on t^e deck, and these you send forward

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

n i

with a vigorous thrust of a long crutch. If a disc stops
on a chalk line, it does not count anything. If it stops in
division No. 7, it counts seven ; in 5, it counts five, and so
on. The game is a hundred, and four can play at a time.
That game would be very simple played on a stationary
floor, but with us, to play it well, required science. We
had to allow for the reeling of the ship to the right or the
left. Very often one made calculations for a heel to the
right and the ship did not go that way. The consequence
was that the disc missed the whole hop-scotch plan a
yard or two, and then there was humiliation on one side
and laughter on the other.

When it rained the passengers had to stay in the house,
of course— or at least the cabins — and amuse themselves
with games, reading, looking out of the windows at the
very familiar billows, and talking gossip.

By seven o'clock in the evening dinner was about over ;
an hour's promenade on the upper deck followed; then
the gong sounded and a large majority of the party re-
paired to the after cabin (upper), a handsome saloon fifty!
or sixty feet long, for prayers. The unregenerated called'
this saloon the ''Synagogue." The devotions consisted |
only ef two hymns from the ''Plymouth Collection," and;
a short prayer, and seldom occupied more than fifteen i
minutes. The hymns were accompanied by parlour organj
music when the sea was smooth enough to allow a per-
former to sit at the instrument without being lashed to hi^
chair.

After prayers the Synagogue shortly took the semblance!
of a writing/ school. The like of that picture was neverj
seen in a ship before. Behind the long dining-tables on!
either side of the saloon, and scattered from one end to!
the other of the latter, some twenty or thirty gentlemen!
and ladies sat them down under the swaying lamps, and!
for two or three hours wrote diligently in their journals.!
Alas ! that journals so voluminously begun should coniel
to so lame and impotent a conclusion as most of them didll
I doubt if there is a single pilgrim of all that host but caDl
show a hundred fair pages of journal concerning the first)
twenty days' voyaging in the Quaker City ; arid 1

'^ JACK'S journal:*

The semblance!

hiorally certain that not ten of the party can show twenty
pages of journal for the succeeding twenty thousand miles
of voyaging ! At certain periods it becomes the dearest
ambition of a man to keep a faithful record of his per-
formances in a book ; and he dashes at this work with an
enthusiasm that imposes on him the notion that keeping
a journal is the veriest pastime in the world, and the
pleasantest. But if he only lives twenty-one days, he will
find out that only those rare natures that are made up of
pluck, endurance, devotion to duty for duty's sake, and
invincible determination, may hope to venture upon so
tremendous an enterprise as the keeping of a journal and
not sustain a shameful defeat.

One of our favourite youths, Jack, a splendid young
fellow, with a head full of good sense, and a pair of legs
that were a wonder to look upon in the way of length, and
straightness, and slimness, used to report progress every
morning in the most glowing and spirited way, and say :

" Oh, I'm coming along, bully 1" (he was a little given
to slang in his happier moods.) *' 1 wrote ten pages in
my journal last night — and you know I wrote nine the
night before, and twelve the night before that. Why, it's
only fun I"

" What do you find to put in it, Jack ?"

" Oh, everything. Latitude and longitude, noon every
day ; and how many miles we made last twenty-four hours ;
and all the domino-games I beat, and horse billiards ; and
whales and sharks and porpoises; and the text of the
sermon, Sundays (because that'll tell at home, you know) ;
and the ships we saluted, and what nation they were ; and
which way the wind waS, and whether there was a heavy
sea, and what sail we carried, though we don't ever carry
an}/, principally, going against a head wind always —
wonder what is the reason of that ? — and how many lies
Moult has told — Oh, everything! I've got everything
down. My father told me to keep that journal. Father
wouldn't take a thousand dollars for it when I get it
done."

*'No, Jack; it will be worth more than a thousand
dollars — when you get it done."

TH^ INNOCENTS ABROAD^

■ ■•

" Do you ? — no, but do you think it will, though ?"

" Yes, it will be worth at least as muoh as a thousancl
dollars — when you get it done. May be, .more."

*' Well, I about half think so myself. It ain't no slouch
of a journal."

But it shortly became a most lamentable '^ slouch of a
jcarnal." One night in Paris, after a hard day's toil in
sight-seeing, I said :

'' Now I'll go and stroll around the cafis awhile, Jack,
and give you a chance to write up your journal, old fellow."

His countenance lost its fire. He said :

" Well, no, you needn't mind. I think I wont run that
journal any more. It is awful tedious. Do you know —
I reckon I'm as much as four thousand pages behind hand.
I haven't got any France in it at all. First I thought I'd
leave France out and start fresh. But that Wouldn't do,
would it ? The governor would say, * Hello, here — didn't
see anything in France?' That cat wouldn't fight, you
know. First I thought I'd copy France out of the guide-
book, like old Badger in the for'rard cabin who's writing
a book, but there's more than three hundred pages of it.
Oh, / don't think a journal's any use — do you ? They're
only a bother, aint they ?"

** Yes, a journal that is incomplete isn't of much use, but
a journal properly kept is worth a thousand dollars — when
you've got it done."

"A thousand 1 — ^well I should think so. / wouldn't
finish it for a million."

His experience was only the experience of the majority
of that industrious night-school in the cabin. If you wish
to inflict a heartless and malignant punishment upon a
young person, pledge him to keep a journal a year.

A good many expedients were resorted to to keep the
excursionists amused and satisfied. A club was formed,
of all the passengers, which met in the writing-school after
prayers and read aloud about the countries we were
approaching, and discussed the information so obtained.

Several times the photographer of the expedition
brought out his transparent pictures and gave us a hand-
some magic lantern exhibition. His views were nearly all

DANCING UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

n't no slouch

of foreign scenes, but there were one or two home pictures
among them. He advertised that he would '' open his
performance in the after-cabin at Hwo bells' (9 P.M.), and
show the passengers where they shall eventually arrive" —
which was all very well, but by a funny accident the first
picture that flamed out upon the canvas was a view of
Greenwood Cemetery 1

On several starlight nights we danced on the upper deck,
under the awnings, and made something of a ball-room
display of brilliancy by hanging a number of ship's lanterns
to the stanchions. Our music consisted of the well-mixed
strains of a melodeon which was a little asthmatic and apt
to catch its breath where it ought to come out strong ; a
clarinet which was a little unreliable on the high keys and
rather melancholy on the low ones ; and a disreputable
accordion that had a leak somewhere and breathed louder
than it squawked — a more elegant term does not occur to
me just now. However, the dancing was infinitely worse
than the music. When the ship rolled to starboard the
whole platoon of dancers came charging down to starboard
with it, and brought up in mass at the rail ; and when it
rolled to port, they went floundering down to port with
the same unanimity of sentiment. Waltzers spun around
precariously for a matter of fifteen seconds, and then went
skurrying down to the rail as if they meant to go over-
board. The Virginia reel, as performed on board the
Quaker City, had more genuine reel about it than any reel
1 ever saw before, and was as full of interest to the spec-
tator as it was full of desperate chances and hairbreadth
escapes to the participant. We gave up dancing, finally.

We celebrated a lady's birthday anniversary with toasts,
speeches, a poem, and so forth. We also had a mock trial.
No ship ever went to sea that hadn't a mock trial on board.
The purser was accused of stealing an overcoat from state-
room No. 10. A judge was appointed ; also clerks, a crier
of the court, constables, sheriffs; counsel for the State and
for the defendant ; witnesses were subpoenaed, and a jury
empanelled aft^r much challenging. The witnesses were
Stupid, and unreliable and contradictory, as witnesses
always are. The counsel were eloquent, argumentative,

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

ti' f

and vindictively abusive of each other, an waR characteristic
and proper. The case was nt last submitted, and duly
finished by the judge with an absurd decision and a ridi-
culous sentence.

The acting of charades was tried, on several evenings,
by the young gentlemen and ladies in the cabins, and
proved the most distinguished success of all the amutjement
experiments.

An attempt was made to organize a debating club,
but it was a failure. There was no oratorical talent in
the ship.

We all enjoyed ourselves — I think I can safely say that
• — ^but it was in a rather quiet way. We very, very seldoni
played the piano; we played the flute and the oloiiiiot
together, and made good music, too, what there wao of ic,
but wo always played the same old tune; it wpr very
pretty tune — how well I remember it — I wonder ivheu I
shall ever get rid of it. We never played either the
melodeon or the organ, except at devotionfc! — but I am too
fast : young Albert did kno\y part of a tune — something
about " Something-or-Otber How Sweet it is to Know
that he's his What's-his-Name" (I do not remember the
exact title of it, but it was very plaintive, and full of
sentiment) ; Albert played that pretty much all the time,
until we contractoei with him to restrain himself. But
nobody ever snng by moonlight on the upper deck, and
the congregational singing at church and prayers was not
of a superior order of architecture. I put up with it as long
as I could, jpind then joined in and tried to improve it, but
this encouraged young George to join in too, and that
made a failure of it : because George's voice was just
" turning," and when he was,singing a dismal sort of base,
it was apt to fly off the handle i.d startle everybody
with a most dip^rordant cackle oi' m^ ^PF ^tes.
George didn't know the tunes, €.'Hi^;, \.iiich waaalso a
drawback to his performance. I said :

"Come, now, George, dorCt improvise. It looks too
^tistical. It will provoke remark. Just stick to * Core-
icMon,' like the others. It is a good tune — you can't
i:-'|>for ' it ar^," just off-hand, in this way.

URUMBLKRi^,

" Why I'm not trying to improve it — and I ut>ibinging
liko tho others — ^just as it is in the notes."

And ho honestly thoup;ht ho was, too ; and so ho hacT
no one to blame but hiioHolf when his voice caught <»n
the centre ocoaHioiially •\u<i gav»^ him the lockjaw.

There were tlioso umoii^'^ the uuregencrat<;d who at-
tributed the uncea8ini?head-wiudu to our distrosHing choir-
musio. There were thont) who said openly that it was
taking ohanoes enough to have such p^hastly musio going
on, even when it was at its best ; and that to cxa^^gerate
th') crime by letting George help, was simply fl\ ing in tho
•^'aoe of Providence. These said that the choir would
'..)6p up their lacerating attempts at melodv ui\til they
would bring down a storm some day that would Hink the
ship.

There were even grumblers at the prayers. Tho
executive officer said the Pilgrims had no charity :

" There they are, down there every night at eight bells,
praying for fair winds — when they know as well as I do
that this is the only ship going east this time of the year,
but there's a thousand coming west — what's ?. fair wind
for us is a head wind to them — the Almighty's blowing a
fair wind for a thousand vessels, and this tribe wants Him
to turn it clear around so as to accommodate o.it, — and
she a steamship at that I It ain't good sense, it ain't good
reason, it ain't good Christianity, it ain't common human
charity. Avast with such nonsense !"

jf.

Vj 'si); it:>

?«y

CHAPTER V.

TAKING it " by and large," as the sailors say, we had
a pleasant ten days' run from New York to the Azores
islands — not a fast run, for the distance is only twenty -
four hundred miles — but a right pleasant one in the main.
True, we had head-winds all the time, and several stormy
experiences which sent fifty per cent, of the passengers
to bed, sick, and made the ship look dismal and deserted —
stormy experiences that all will remember who weathered

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

A :

1 ., i.

them on the tumbling dock, and caught the vast sheets of
spray that every now and then sprang high in the air from
the weather bow and swept the ship like a thnnder-
shower; but for the most part, we had balmy summer
weather, and nights that were even finer than the days.
We had the phenomenon of a full moon located just in
the same spot in the heavens at the same hour Qv&ty
night. The reason of this singular conduct on the part of
the moon did not occur to us at first, but it did after-
wards, when we reflected that we we^:e gaining about
twenty minutes every day, because we were going east so
fast — we gained just about enough every day to keep along
with the moon. It was becoming an old moon to the
friends we had left behind us, but to us Joshuas it stood
still in the same place, and remained always the same.

Young Mr. Blucher, who is from the Far West, and is
on his first voyage, was a good deal worried by the con-
stantly changing " ship-time." He was proud of his new
watch at first, and used to drag it out promptly when eight
bells struck at noon, but he came to look after a while
as if he were losing confidence in it. Seven days out
from New York he came on deck, and said with great
decision *

" This thing's a swindle !"

** What's a swindle ?"

" Why, this watch. I bought her out in Illinois — ^gave
SI 50 for her — and I thought she was good. And, by
George, she is good on shore, but somehow she don't keep
up her lick here on the water — ^gets sea-sick, may be. She
skips ; she runs along regular enough till half-past eleven,
and then, all of a sudden, she lets down. I've set that
old regulator up faster and faster, till I've shoved it clear
around, but it don't do any good ; she just distances every
watch in the ship, and clatters along in a way that's as-
tonishing till it is noon, but then eight bells always gets
in about ten minutes ahead of her any way. I don't
know what to do with her now. She's doing all she can
— she's going her best gait, but it wont save her. Now,
don't you know, there ain't a watch in the ship that's
jnaking better time than she is, but what does it signify ?

~:<e:^-~

<< LAND, HO r

When you hear them eight bells you'll find her just about
ten minutes short of her score — sure."

The ship was gaining a full hour every three days, and
this fellow was trying to make his watch go fast enough to
keep up to her. But, as he had said, he had pushed the
regulator up as far as it would go, and the watch was
'' on its best gait," and so nothing was left him but to fold
his hands and see the ship beat the race. We sent him
to the captain, and he explained to him the mystery of
"ship-time," and set his troubled mind at rest. This
young man asked a great many questions about sea-sick-
ness before we left, and wanted to know what its cha-
racteristics were, and how he was to tell when he had it.
He found out.

We saw the usual sharks, blackfish, porpoises, &c., of
course, and by-and-by large schools of Portuguese men-
of-war were added to the regular list of sea wonders. Some
of them were white and some a brilliant carmine colour.
The nautilus is nothing but a transparent web of jelly,
that spreads itself to catch the wind, and has fleshy-
looking strings a foot or two long dangling from it to keep
it steady in the water. It is an accomplished sailor, and
has good sailor judgment. It reefs its sail when a storm
threatens or the wind blows pretty hard, and furls it
entirely and goes down when a gale blows. Ordinarily it
keeps its sail wet and in good sailing order by turning
over and dipping it in the water for a moment. Seamen
say the nautilus is only found in these waters between the
35th and 45th parallels of latitude.

At three o'clock on the morning of the 21st of June
we were awakened and notified that the Azores islands
were in sight. I said I did not take any interest in
islands at three o'clock in the mornins:. But another
persecutor came, and then another and another, and
finally, believing that the general enthusiasm would permit ^
no one to slumber in peace, I got up and went sleepily on
deck. It was five and a half o'clock now, and a raw,
blustering morning. The passengers were huddled about
the smoke-stacks, and fortified behind ventilators, and
^U were wrapped in wintry costumes, and looking sleepy

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

and unhappy in the pitiless gale and the drenching
spray.

The island in sight was Flores. It seemed only a
mountain of mud standing up out of the dull mist of the
sea. But as we bore down upon it, the sun came out and
made it a beautiful picture — a mass of green farms and
meadows that swelled up to a height of fifteen hundred
feet, and mingled its upper outlines with the clouds. It
wa» ribbed i with sharp, steep ridges, and cloven with nar-
row canons, and here and there on the heights, rocky
upheavals shaped themselves into mimic battlements and
past|l^ ; and out of rifted clouds came broad shafts of sun-
light, that painted summit,^ and slope, and glen with bands
of fire, and left belts of sombre shade betweeu. It was
•tl^e aujro^a borealis,of the frozen pole exiled to a summer

, We skirted around two-thirds of the island, four miles
from £|hore, and all the opera-glasses in the ship were
called into requisition to settle disputes as to whether
mossy spots 9n the uplands were groves of trees or groves
pf weeds, or whether the white villages down by the sea
were really villages or only the clustering tombstones of
cemeteries. Finally, we stood to sea and bore away for
San Miguel, and Flores shortly became a dome of mud
again, and sftnl^ down among the mists and disappeared.
But to m^ny a sea-sick passenger it was good to see the
green hill's again, and all were more cheerful after this
episode than any body could have expected them to be,
. considering how sinfully early they had gotten up.

But yre had to change our purpose about San Miguel,
for a storm came up about noon that so tossed and pitched
the vessel that common sense dictated a run for shelter.
Therefore we steered for the nearest island of the group
— Fayal (the people there pronounce it Fy-all, and put
the accent on the first syllable.) We anchored in the open
roadstead of Horta, half a mile from the shore. The
town has 8000 to 10,000 inhabitants. Its snow-white
houses nestle cosily in a sea of fresh green vegetation,
and no village could look prettier or more attractive.
Jt sits in the lap of an amphitheatre of hills whicU urQ

'^ ON shore:'

a summer

:)00 to 700 feet high, and carefully cultivated clear to
their summits — not a foot of soil left idle. Every farm
and every acre is cut up into littlo square enclosures by
stone walls, whose duty it is to p:.otect the growing pro-
ducts from the destructive gales that blow there. These
hundreds of green squares, marked by their black lava
walls, make the hills look like vast checker-boards.

The island belongs to Portugal, and everything in Fayal
has Portuguese characteristics about it. But more of that
anon. A swarm of swarthy, noisy, lying, shoulder-
shrugging, gesticulating Portuguese boatmen, with brass
rings in their ears, and fraud in their hearts, climbed the
ship's sides, and vario'us parties of us contracted with
them to take us ashore at so much a head, silver coin of
any country. We landed under the walls of a little fort,
armed with batteries of twelve and thirty-two pounders,
which Horta considered a most formidable institution, but
if we were ever to get after it with one of our turreted moni-
tors, they would have to move it out in the country if
they wanted it where they could go and find it again
when they needed it. The group on the pier was a rusty
one — men and women, and boys and girls, all ragged, and
barefoot, uncombed and unclean, and by instinct, educa-
tion, and profession, beggars. They trooped after us, and
never more, while we tarried in Fayal, did we get rid of
them. We walked up the middle of the principal street,
and these vermin surrounded us on all sides, and glared
upon us ; and every moment excited couples shot ahead of
the procession to get a good look back, just as village boys
do when they accompany the elephant on his advertising
trip from street to street. It was very flattering to me to
be part of the material for such a sensation. Here and
there in the doorways we saw women, with fashionable
I Portuguese hoods on. This hood is of thick blue cloth,
attached to a cloak of the stuff, and is a marvel of
ugliness. It stands up high, and spreads far abroad, and
is unfathomably deep. It fits like a circus tent, and a
woman's head is hidden away in it like the man's who
I prompts the singers from his tin shed in the stage of an
)pera, There is no particle of trimming about this moa-

THE IKNOCENTS ABROAD.

1 \

strous capote, as they call it — it is just a plain, ugly, dead-
blue mass of sail, and a woman can't go within eight
points of the wind with one of them on ; she has to go
before the wind or not at all. The general style of the
capote is the same in all the islands, and will remain so
tor the next ten thousand years, but each island shapes its
capotes just enough differently from the others to enable
an observer to tell at a glance what particular island the
lady hails from.

The Portuguese pennies, or reis (pronounced rays) are
prodigious. It takes 1000 reis to make a dollar, and all
financial estimates are made in reis. We did not know
this until after we had found it out through Blucher.
Blucher said he was so happy and so grateful to b3 on
solid land once more, that he wanted to give a feast — said
he had heard it was a cheap land, and he was bound to
have a grand banquet. He invited nine of us, and we ate
an excellent dinner at the principal hotel In the midst
of the jollity produced by good cigars, good wine, and
passable anecdotes, the landlord presented his bill.
Blucher glanced at it and his countenance fell. He took
another look to assure himself that his senses had not
deceived him, and then read the items aloud, in a faltering
voice, while the roses in his cheeks turned to ashes : —

" ' Ten dinners, at 600 reis, 6000 reis I' Ruin and
desolation !"

" ' Twenty-five cigars, at 100 reis, 2500 reis!' Oh,
my sainted mother !"

" ^Eleven bottles of wine, at 1200 reis, 13,200 reis 1'
Be with us all !"

" * Total, twenty-one thousand seven hundred
EEis !' The suffering Moses ! — there ain't money enough
in the ship to pay that bill ! Go — leave me to my misery,
boys. I am a ruined community."

I think it was the blankest-looking party I ever saw.
Nobody could say a word. It was as if every soul had
been stricken dumb. Wine glasses descended slowly to
the table, their contents untasted. Cigars dropped un-
noticed from nerveless fingers. Each man sought his
?je}ghbou?'9 eye, but found in it no ray of hdoe^ »q

TEE HAPPY RESULT,

encouragement. At last the fearful silence was broken.
The shadow of a desperate resolve settled upon Bluoher's
countenance like a cloud, and he rose up and said : —

^' Landlord, this is a low, mean swindle, and I'll never,
never stand it. Here's a hundred and fifty dollars, sir,
land it's all you'll get— I'll swim in blood, before I'll pay
la cent more."

Our spirits rose and the landlord's fell — at least we
{thought so ; he was confused at any rate, notwithstanding
I he had not understood a word that had been said. He
glanced from the little pile of gold pieces to Bluoher
several times, and then went out. He must have visited
an American, for, when he returned, he brought back his
bill translated into a language that a Christian could
understand — thus :

10 dinners, 6000 reis, or $6.00

25 cigars, 2500 reis, or . . ; 2.50

XI bottles of wine, 13,200 reis, or . . . 13.20

Total 21,700 reis, or $21.70

Happiness reigned once more in Blucher's dinner pjCrty,
I More refreshments were ordered.

I ever saw.

CHAPTER VI.

I THINK the Azores must be very little known in
America. Out of our whole ship's company there was
I not a solitary individual who knew anything whatever about
them. Some of the party, well read concerning most other
lands, had no other information about the Azores than
[that they were a group of nine or ten small islands far out
tin the Atlantic, something more than half-way between
[New York and Gibraltar. That was all. These 7onsi-
iderations move me to put in a paragraph of dry facts just
there.

The community is eminently Portuguese — that is to say,
lit is slow, poor, shiftless, sleepy, and lazy. There is a civil
[governor, appointed by the King of PortugJ^ ; and alpo a

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

military governor, who can assume supreme control and
suspend the civil government at his pleasure. The islands
contain a population of about ^00,000, almost entirely
Portuguese. Everything is staid and settled, for the
country was one hundred years old when Columbus dis-
covered America. The principal crop is corn, and they
raise it and grind it just as tfeeir great-great-great-grand-
fathers did. They plough with a board slightly shod with
iron ; their trifling little harrows are drawn by men and
women ; small windmills grind the corn, ten bushels a
day, and there is one assistant superintendent to feed the
mill and a general superintendent to stand by and keep
him from going to sleep. When the wind changes they
hitch on some donkeys, and actually turn the whole upper
half of the mill around until the sails are in proper posi-
tion, instead of fixing the concern so that the sails could
be moved instead of the mill. Oxen tread the wheat from
the ear, after the fashion prevalent in the time of Methu-
selah. There is not a wheelbarrow in the land — they
carry everything on their heads, or on donkeys, or in a
wicker-bodied cart, whose wheels are solid blocks of wood
and whose axles turn with the wheel. There is not a
modern plough in the islands, or a thrashing-machine.
All attempts to introduce them have failed. The good
Catholic Portuguese crossed himself and prayed to God to
shield him from all blasphemous desire to know more
than his father did before him. The climate is mild ;
they never have snow or ice, and I saw no chimneys in
the town. The donkeys and the men, women, and chil-
dren all eat and sleep in the same room, and are unclean,
are ravaged by vermin, and are truly happy. The people
lie, and cheat the stranger, and are desperately ignorant,
and have hardly any reverence for their dead. The latter
trait shows how little better they are than the donkeys
they eat and sleep with. The only well-dressed Portu-
guese in the camp are the half a dozen well-to-do families,
the Jesuit priests, and the soldiers of the little garrison.
The wages of a labourer are twenty to twenty-fO(Ur cents
a day, and those of a good m jchanic about twice as much.
Thejr count it in reis at a thousand to the dollar, and this

^^m

k^^tW*

TEE CATHEDRAL.

makes them rich and contented. Fine grapes nsed to
grow in the islands, and an excellent wine was made and
exported. But a disease killed all the vines fifteen years
ago, and since that time no wine has been made. The
islands being wholly of volcanic origin, the soil is neces-
sarily very rich. Nearly every foot of ground is under
cultivation, and two or three crops a year of each article
are produced, but nothing is exported save a few oranges —
chiefly to England. Nobody comes here, and nobody
goes away. News is a thing unknown in Fayal. A thirst
for it is a passion equally unknown. A Portuguese of
average intelligence inquired if our civil war was over ? — '
because, he said, somebody had told him it was, or at
least it ran in his mind that somebody had told him
something like that I And when a passenger gave an
officer of the garrison copies of the Trihum^ the Herald,
and Times, \iQ was surprised to find later news in them
from Lisbon than he hadjust received by the little monthly
steamer. He was told that it came by cable. He said
he knew they had tried to lay a cable ten years ago, but
it had been in his mind, somehow, that they hadn't suc-
ceeded !

It is in communities like this that Jesuit humbuggery
flourishes. We visited a Jesuit cathedral' nearly two
hundred years old, and found in it a piece of the veritable
cross upon which our Saviour was crucified. It was
polished and hard, and in as excellent a state of preserva-
tion as if the dread tragedy on Calvary had occurred yes-
terday instead of eighteen centuries ago. But these
confiding people believe in that piece of wood unhesi-
tatingly.

In a chapel of the cathedral is an altar with facings of
solid silver — at least they call it so, and I think myself it
would go a couple of hundred to the ton (to speak aft or
the fashion of the silver miners), and before it is kept for
ever burning a small lamp. A devout lady who died, left
money and contracted for unlimited masses for the repose of
her soul, and also stipulated that this lamp should be kept
jlighted always, day and night. She did all this before she
died, you understand. It is a very small lamp, and a very

TEE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

I >

r.-*

dim one, and it could not work her much damage, I thlnk^
if it went out altogether.

The great altar of the cathedral, and also three or four
minor ones, are a perfect mass of gilt gimoracks and gin-
gerbread. And they have a swarm of rusty, dusty,
battered apostles standing round the filigree work, some
on one leg, and some with an eye out, but a gamey look
in the other, and some with two or three fingers gone,
and some with not enough nose left to blow — all of them
crippled and discouraged, and fitter subjects for the hos-
pital than the cathedral.

The walls of the chanoel are of porcelain, all pictured
over with figures of almost life-size, very elegantly
wrought, and dressed in the fanciful costumes of two cen-
turies ago. The design was a history of something or
somebody, but none of us were learned enough to read the
story. The old father, reposing under a stone close by,
dated 1686, might have told us if he could have risen.
But he didn't.

As we came down through the town, we encountered a
squad of little donkeys ready saddled for use. The saddles
were peculiar, to say the least. They consisted of a sort
of saw-buck with a small mattress on it, and this furni-
ture covered about half the donkey. There were no
stirrups, but really such supports were not needed — to use
such a saddle was the next thing to riding a dinner table
— there was ample support clear out to one's knee-joints.
A pack of ragged Portuguese muleteers crowded around
us, offering their beasts at naif a dollar an hour — more
rascality to the stranger, for the market price is sixteen
cents. Half a dozen of us mounted the ungainlv affairs,
and submitted to the indignity of making a ridiculous
spectacle of ourselves through the principal streets of a
town of 10,000 inhabitants.

We started. It was not a trot, a gallop, or a canter,
but a stampede, and made up of all possible or conceivable
gaits. No spurs were necessary. There was a muleteer
to every donkey, and a dozer, volunteers beside, and they
banged the donkeys with their goad-sticks, and pricked
them with their spikes, and shouted something that

TWf

THE CATASTROPHE.

Bounded like '' Sehhi-ydh /" and kept up a din and a
racket that was worse than Bedlam itself. These rascals
were all on foot ; but no matter, they were alw <i up to
time — they can outrun and outlast a donkey. Aicogether
ours was a lively and a picturesque procession, and drew
crowded audiences to the balconies wherever we went.

Blucher could do nothing at all with his donkey. The
beast scampered zigzag across the road and the others ran
into him ; he scraped Blucher against carts and the cor-
ners of houses ; the road was fenced in with high stone
walls, and the donkey gave him a polishing, first on one
side and then on the other, but never once took the
middle ; he finally came to the house he was born in and
darted into the parlour, scraping Blucher off at the door-
way. After remounting, Blucher said to the muleteer,
^' Now, that's enough, you know ; you go slow hereafter.'*
But the fellow knew no English, and did not understand,
so he simply said, " Sehki-yah /" and the donkey was off
again like a shot. He turned a comer suddenly, and
Blucher went over his head. And, to speak truly, every
mule stumbled over the two, and the whole cavalcade was
piled up in a heap. No harm done. A fall from one of
those donkeys is of little more consequence than rolling off
a sofa. The donkeys all stood still after the catastrophe,
and waited for their dismembered saddles to be patched up
and put on by the noisy muleteers. Blucher was pretty
angry, and wanted to swear, but every time he opened his
mouth his animal did so also, and let off a series of brays
that drowned all other sounds.

It was fun, skurrying around the breezy hills and
through the beautiful canons. There was that rare thing,
novelty, about it ; it was a fresh, new, exhilarating sen-
sation, this donkey riding, and worth a hundred worn and
threadbare home pleasures.

The roads were a wonder, and well they might be.
Here was an island with only a handful of people in it —
25,000 — and yet such fine roads do not exist in the United
States outside of Central Park. Everywhere you go, in
any direction, you find either a hard, smooth, level
I thoroughfare, just sprinkled with black lava sand, and

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

bordered with Jittla gutters neatly paved with small
smooth pebbles, or compactly paved ones like Broadway.
They talk much of the Russ pavement in New York, and
call it a new invention— yet here they have been using it
in this remote little isle of the sea for two hundred years !
Every street in Horta is handsomely paved with the
heavy Russ blocks, and the surface is neat and true as a
floor — not marred by holes like Broadway. And every
road is fenced in by tall, solid lava walls, which will last
a thousand years in this land where frost is unknown.
They are very thick, and are often plastered and white-
washed, and capped with projecting slabs of cut stone.
Trees from gardens above hang their swaying tendrils
down, and contrast their bright green with the whitewash
or the black lava of the walls, and make them beautiful.
The trees and vines stretch across these rurrow roadways
sometimes, and so shut out the sun that vou seem to be
riding through a tunnel. The pavements, the roads, and
the bridges are all Government work.

The bridges are of a single span — a single arch — of cut
stone, without a support, and paved on top with flags of
lava and ornamental pebble work. Everywhere are walls
walls, walls, and all of them tristeful and handsome, and
eternally substantial ; and everywhere are those marvellous
pavements, so neat, so smooth, and so indestructible. And
if ever roads and streets, and the outsides of houses, were
perfectly free from any sign or semblance of dirt, or
dust, or mud, or uncleanliness of any kind, it is Ho" a,
it is Fayal. The lower classes of the people, in their
persons and their domiciles, are not clean — but there it
stops — the town and the island are miracles of cleanliness.

We arrived home again finally, after a ten-mile excur-
sion, and the irrepressible muleteers scampered at our
heels through the main street, goading the donkeys,
shouting the everlasting ** Sekki-yahj^ and singing "John
Brown's Body" in ruinous English.

When we were dismounted and it came to settling, the
shouting and jawing, and swearing and quarrelling among
the muleteers and with us, was nearly deafening. One
fellow woiild demand a dollar an hour for the use of his

arch — of cat

SQUARING ACCOUNTS.

Idonkey; another olaimed half a dollar for pricking hitn
lup, another a quarter for helping in that service, and
laboat fourteen guides presented bills for showing us the
[way through the town and its environs ; and every
Ivagrant of them was more vociferous, and more vehement,
land more frantic in gesture than his neighbour. We
Ipaid one guide, and paid for the muleteer to each
[donkey.

The mountains on some of the islands are very high.
IWe sailed along the shore of the island of Pico, under a
stately green pyramid that rose up with one unbroken
sweep from our very feet to an altitude of 7613 feet^ and
thrust its submit above the white clouds like an island
I adrift in a fog 1

We got plenty of fresh oranges, lemons, figs, apricotS;
letc, in these Azores, of course. But I will desist. I am
(not here to write Patent-Office reports.

We are on our way to Gibraltar, and shall reach there
[five or six days out from the Azores.

CHAPTER VII.

A WEEK of buffeting a tempestuous and relentless sea ;
a week of seorsickness and deserted cabins; of lonely
quarter-decks drenched with spray — spray so ambitious

1 that it even coated the smoke-stacks thick with a white

[crust of salt to their very tops; a* week of shivering in
the shelter of the life-boats and deck-houses by day, and

I blowing suffocating '' clouds" and boisterously performing

I at dominoes in the smoking-room at night.

And the last night of the seven was the stormiest of all.

[There was no thunder, no noise but the pounding bows of
the ship, the keen whistling of the gale through the
cordage, and the rush of the seething waters. But the
vessel climbed aloft as if she would climb to heaven — then
paused an instant that seemed a century, and plunged

[headlong down again, as from a precipice. The sheeted
sprays drenched the decks like rain. The blackness of

1 ^i

THE INNOCENTS ABJROAD.

darkness was everywhere. At long intervals a flash of
lightning clove it with a quivering line of fire that re-
vealed a heaving world of water where was nothing before,
kindled the dusky cordage to glittering silver, and lit up
the faces of the men with a ghastly lustre 1

Fear drove many on deck that were used to avoiding
the night-winds and the spray. Some thought the vessel
could not live through the night, and it seemed Xem
dreadful to stand out in the midst of the wild tempest
and see the peril that threatened than to be shut up in the
sepulchral cabins, under the dim lamps and imagine the
horrors that were abroad on the ocean. And once out —
once where they could see the ship struggling in the
strong grasp of the storm^-once where they could hear
the shriek of the winds, and face the driving spray and
look out upon the majestic picture the lightnings disclosed,
they were prisoners to a fierce fascination they could not
resist, and so remained. It was a wild night — and a very,
very long one.

Everybody was sent scampering to the deck at seven
o'clock this lovely morning of the 30th of June with the
glad news that land was in sight ! It was a rare thing and
a joyful, to see all the ship's family abroad 'once more,
albeit the happiness that sat upon every countenance
could only partly conceal the ravages which that long
siege of storms had wrought there. But dull eyes soon
sparkled with pleasure, pallid cheeks flushed again, and
frames weakened by sickness gathered new life from the
quickening influence of the bright, fresh morning. Yea,
and from a still more potent influence: the worn casta-
ways were to see the blessed land again ! — and to see it
was to bring back that mother-land that was in all their
thoughts.

Within the hour we were fairly within the Straits of
Gibraltar, the tall yellow-splotched hills of Africa on our
right, with their bases veiled in a blue haze and their
summits swathed in clouds — the same being according to
Scripture, which says that " clouds and darkness are over
the land." The words were spoken of this particular
portion of Africa, I believe. On our left were the graolte-

GREETING A MAJESTIC STRANGER, 43

)nce more

ribbed domes of old Spiin. The Strait is only thirteen
miles widi in its narrowest part.

At short intervals, along the Spanish shore, were quaint-
looking old stone towers — Moorish, we thought — but
learned better afterwards. In former times the Morocco
rnsoolp used to coast along the Spanish Main in their boats
till a safo opportunity seemed to present itself, and then
dart in and capture a Spanish village, and carry oiF all the
pretty women they could find. It was a pleasant business,
and was very popular. The Spaniards built these watch-
towers on the hills to enable them to keep a sharper look-
out on the Moroccan speculators.

The picture on the other hand was very beautiful to
eyes weary of the changeless sea, and by-and-by the
ship's company grew wonderfully cheerful. But while
we stood admiring the cloud-cnpped peaks and the low-
lands robed in misty gloom, a finer picture burst upon us
and chained every eye like a magnet — a stately ship, with
canvas piled on canvas till she was one towering mass of
bellying saill She came speeding over the sea like a
great bird. AfVica and Spain were forgotten. All
homage was for the beautiful stranger. While everybody
gazed, she swept superbly by and flung the Stars and
Stripes to the breeze ! Quicker than thought, hats and
handkerchiefs flashed in the air, and a cheer went up 1
She was beautiful before — she was radiant now. Many a
one on our decks knew then for the first time how tame
a sight his country's flag is at home compared to what it
is in a foreign land. To see it is to see a vision of home
itself and all its idols, and feel a thrill that would stir a
very river of sluggish blood !

We were approaching the famed Pillars of Hercules,
and already the African one, *' Ape's Hill." a grand old
mountain with submit streaked with granite ledges, was
in sight. The other the great Rock of Gibraltar, was
yet to come. The ancients considered the Pillars of
Hercules the head of navigation and the end of the world.
The information the ancients didn't have was very volu-
minous. Even the prophets wrote book after book and
epistle after epistle, yet never once hinted at the existence

»ii.

-I

i ffli

TEE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

of a great continent on our side of the water ; yet the>
must have known it was there, I should think.

In a few moments a lonely and enormous mass of rock,
standing seemingly in the centre of the wide strait, and
apparently washed on all sides hy the sea, swung magni-
ficently into view, and we needed no tedious travelled
parrot to tell us it was Gibraltar. There could not be
two rocks like that in one kingdom.

The Rock of Gibraltar is about a mile and a half long, I
would say, by 1400 to 1500 feet high,and a quarter of a mile
wide at its base. One side and one end of it come about
as straight up out of the sea as the side of a house, the
other end is irregular, and the other side is a steep slant,
which an army would find very difficult to climb. At the
foot of this slant is the walled town of Gibraltar — or rather
the town occupies part of the slant. Everywhere — on
hillside, in the precipice, by the sea, on the heights —
everywhere you choose to look, Gibraltar is clad with
masonry and bristling with guns. It makes a striking and
lively picture, from whatsoever point you contemplate it.
It is pushed out into the sea on the end of a flat, narrow
strip of land, and is suggestive of a " gob" of mud on the
end of a shingle. A few hundred yards of this flat ground
at its base belong to the English, and then, extending
across the strip from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean,
a distance of a quarter of a mile, conies the *' Neutral
Ground," a space two or three hundred yards wide,
which is free to both parties. ' «* - -

" Are you going through Spain to Paris ?" That
question was bandied about the ship day and night from
Fayal to Gibraltar, and I thought I never could get so
tired of hearing any one combination of words again, or
more tired of answering, "I don't know." At the last
moment six or seven had sufficient decision of character
to make up their minds to go, and did go, and I felt a
sense of relief at once — ^it was for ever too late now, and I
could make up my mind at my leisure, not to go. I must
have a prodigious quantity of mind ; it takes me as much
as a week, sometimes, to make it up.

But behold how annoyances repeat themselves. We

" THE QUEEN'S CHAIR,"

had no sooner gotten rid of the Spain distress than the
Gibraltar guides started another — a tiresome repetition of
a legend that had nothing very astonishing about it, even
in the first place : ** That high hill yonder is called the
Queen's Chair ; it is because one of the Queens of Spain
placed her chair there when the French and Spanish troops
were besieging Gibraltar, and said she would never move
from the spot till the English flag was lowered from the
fortresses. If the English hadn't been gallant enough to
lower the flag for a few hours, one day, she'd have had to
break her oath or die up there.'*

We rode on asses and mules up the steep, narrow streets
and entered the subterranean galleries the English have
blasted out in the rock. These galleries are like apacious
railway tunnels^ and at short intervals in them great guns
frown out upon the sea and town through port-holes five or
six hundred feet above the ocean. There is a mile or so"
of this subterranean work, and it must have cost a vast deal
of money and labour. The gallery guns command the
peninsula and the harbours of both oceans, but they might
as well not be there, I should think, for an army could
hardly climb the perpendicular wall of the rock anyhow.
Those lofty port-holes afford superb views of the sea,
though. At one place, where a jutting crag was hollowed
out into a great chamber whose furniture was huge
cannon, and whose windows were portholes, a glimpse
was caught of a hill not far away, and a soldier said — "

*' That high hill yonder is called the Queen's Chair ; it
is because a Queen of Spain placed her chair there once,
when the French and Spanish troops were besieging
Gibraltar, and said she would never move from the spot
till the English flag was lowered from the fortresses. If the
English hadn't been gallant enough to lower the flag for a
few hours, one day^ she'd have had to break her oath or
die up there." ^ ^ *^'

On the topmost pinnacle of Gibraltar we halted a good
while, and no doubt the mules were tired. They had a
right to be. The military road was good, but rather
steep, and there was a good deal of it. The view from
the narrow ledge was magnificent j from it, vessels, seeming

(

5 . II

TUB INNOCENTS ABROAD.

like the tiniest little toy-boats, were turned into noble
ships by the telescopes ; and other vessels that were fifty
miles away, and even sixty, they said, and invisible to the
naked eye, could be clearly distinguished through those
same telescopes. Below, on one side, we looked down
upon an endless mass of batteries, and on the other
straight down to the sea. ►. .. , f j ? ' i 4 ^^ '

, While I was resting ever so comfortably on a rampart,
and cooling my baking head in the delicious breeze, an
officious guide belonging to another party came up and said —

"Senor, that high hill yonder is called the Queen's
Chair"—

" Sir, I am a helpless orphan in a foreign land. Have
pity on me. Don't now — don^t inflict that Riost in-:^:E;B.]SfAL
old legend on me any more to-day !" • . ..^ * »•" >^'

There — I had used strong language, after promising I
would never do so again, but the provocation was more
than human nature could bear. If you had been bored
so, when you had the noble panorama of Spain and Africa
and the blue Mediterr^ean spread abroad at your feet,
and wanted to gaze, and enjoy, and surfeit yourself with
its beauty in silence, you might have even burst into
stronger language than I did.

Gibraltar has stood several protracted sieges, one of them
of nearly four years' duration (it failed), and the English
only captured it by stratagem. The wonder is that any-
body should ever dream of trying so impossible a project
as the taking of it by assault — and yet it has been tried more
than once.

The Moors held the place twelve hundred years ago,
and a staunch old castle of theirs of that date still
frowns from the middle of the town, with moss-grown
battlements and sides well scarred by shots fired in battles
and sieges that are forgotten now. A secret chamber, in
the rock behind it, was discovered some time ago, which
contained a sword of exquisite workmanship, and some
quaint old armour of a fashion that antiquaries are not
acquainted with, though it is supposed to be Homan.
Eoman armour and Roman relics, of various kinds, have
been found ia a cave in the sea extremity of Gibraltar }

CURIOSITIES OF THE SECRET CAVERNS, 47

history says Rome held this part of the country about
the Cliristian era, and these things seem to confirm the
statement.

In that cave, also, are found human bones, crusted with
a very thick stony coating, and wise men have ventured
to say that those men not only lived before the flood, but
as much as ten thousand years before it. It may be true
— it looks reasonable enough — but as long as those parties
can't vote any more, the matter can be of no great public
interest. In this cave, likewise, are found skeletons and
fossils of animals that exist in every part of Africa, yet
within memory and tradition have never existed in any
portion of Spain save this lone peak of Gibraltar ! So the
theory is that the channel between Gibraltar and Africa
was once dry land, and that the low, neutral '^eck between
Gibraltar and the Spanish hills behind it was once ocean,
and of course that these African animals, being over at
Gibraltar (after rock, perhaps— there is plenty there), got
closed out when the great change occurred. The hills in
Africa, across the channel, are full^f apes, and there are
now, and always have been, apes on the rock of Gibraltar
— but not elsewhere in Spain ! The subject is an inters iting

one. ••*ii;^:! l" »i-7A; ,.'J-:^.,;<i;\;vy_ >• ■ 'Sn

There is an English garrison at Gibraltar, of 6000 or
7000 men, and so uniforms of flaming red are plenty j and
red and blue, and undress costumes of snowy white, and
also the queer uniform of the bare-kneed Highlander ;
and one sees soft-eyed Spanish girls from San Roque, and
veiled Moorish beauties (I suppose they are beauties) from
Tarifa, and turbaned, sashed and trousered Moorish mer-
chants from Fez, and long-robed, bare-legged, ragged
Mohammedan vagabonds from Tetouan and Tangier, some
brown, some yellow, and some as black as virgin ink — and
Jews from all around, in gaberdine, skull-cap and slippers,
just as they are in pictures and theatres, and just as they
were three thousand years ago, no doubt. You can easily
understand that a tribe (somehow our pilgrims suggest
that expression, because they march in a straggling pro-
cession through these foreign places with such an Indian-
Uke air of complacency and independence about them)

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

I UK >

like ours, made up from fifteen or sixteen States of the
Union, found enough to stare at in this shifting panorama
. of fashion to-day.

Speaking of our pilgrims reminds me that we have one
or two people among us who are sometimes an annoyance.
However, I do not count the Oracle in that list. I will
explain that the Oracle is an innocent old ass who eats for
four and looks wiser than the whole Academy of France
would have any right to look, and never uses a one-
syllable word when he can think of a longer one, and never
by any possible chance knows the meaning of any long
word he uses, or ever gets it in the right place ; yet he
will serenely venture an opinion on the most abstruse
subject, and back it up complacently with quotations from
authors who never existed, and finally when cornered will
slide to the other side of the question, say he has been
there all the time, and» come back at you with your own
spoken arguments, only with the big words all tangled, and
play them in your very teeth as original with himself. He
reads a chapter in the ^uide-books, mixes the facts all up,
with his bad memory, and then goes off to inflict the whole
mess on somebody as wisdom which has been festering in
his brain for years, and which he gathered in college from
erudite authors who are dead now, and out of print.
This morning, at breakfast, he pointed out of the window
and flaid: r ^/r» »h, u*

" Do you see that there hill out there on that African
coast ?— It's one of them Pillows of Herkewls, I should say
— and there's the ultimate one alongside of it."

" The ultimate bne — that is a good word — ^but the
Pillars are not both on the same side of the strait." (I
saw he had been deceived by a carelessly written sentence
in the Guide Book.) ;

"Well, it aint for you to say, nor for me. Some
.«uthors states it that way, and some stf^les it different.
Old Gibbons don't say nothing about it — just shirks it
complete — Gibbons always done that when he got stuck —
but there is Rolampton, what does he say ? Why, he says,
that they was both on the same side, and Trinculian, anc|
Sobaster, and Syraccus, and Langomarganbl—

ECCENTRIC SHIPMATES,

4»

; we have one

" Oh ! that will do — that's enough. If you have got
your hand in for inventing authors and testimony, I have
nothing more to say — let them he on the same side."

V/e don't mind the Oracle. We *ather like him. We
can tolerate the Oracle very easily ; but we have a poet
and a good-natured enterprising idiot on board, and they
do diistress the company. The one gives copies of his
verses to Consuls, commanders, hotel-keepers, Arabs,
Dutch — to anybody, in fact, who will submit to a grievous
infliction most kindly meant. His poetry is all very well
on shipboard, notwithstanding when he wrote an " Ode to
the Ocean in a Storm" in one half-hour, and an '* Apos-
trophe to the Rooster in the Waist of the Ship" in the
next, the transition was considered to be rather abrupt ;
but when he sends an invoice of rhymes to the Governor
of Fayal and another to the commander-in-chief and
other dignitaries in Gibraltar, with the compliments of
the Laureate of the Ship, it is not popular with the
passengers.

The other personage I have mentioned is young and
green, and not bright, not learned, and not wise. He will
be, though, some day, if he recollects the answers to all his
questions. He is known about the ship as the '^ Interro-
gation Point," and this by constant use has become
shortened to ** Interrogation." He has distinguished him-
self twice already. In Fayal they pointed out a hill and
told him it was eight hundred feet high and eleven
hundred feet long. And they told him there was a tunnel
two thousand feet long and one thousand feet high running
through the hill, from end to end. He believed it. He
repeated it to everybody, discussed it, and read it from his
notes. Finally, he took a useful hint from this remark
which a thoughtful old pilgrim made :

'' Well, yes, it %% a little remarkable — singular tunnel
altogether — stands up out of the top of the hill about two
hundred feet, and one end of it sticks out of the hill about
nine hundred!"

Here in Gibraltar he corners these educated British
officers, and badgers them with braggadocio about America
^nd t|ie wonders she can perform. He told one of th^ia 9,

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

I* 1

couple of our gunboats could come here and knock
Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea ! ,. i... .»..,.,

At this present moment, half a dozen of us are taking a
private pleasure excursion of our own devising. We form
rather more than half the list of white passengers on board
a small steamer bound for the venerable Moorish town of
Tangier, Africa. Nothing could be more absolutely
certain than that we are enjoying ourselves. One cannot
do otherwise who speeds over these sparkling waters, and
breathes the soft atmosphere of this sunny land. Care
cannot assail us here. We are out of its jurisdiction, f*.

We even steamed recklessly by the frowning fortress of
Malabat (a stronghold of the Emperor of Morocco) without
a twinge of fear. The whole garrison turned out under
arms, and assumed a threatening attitude — ^yet still we did
not fear. The entire garrison marched and counter-
marched, within the rampart, in full view — ^yet notwith-
standing even this, we never flinched.

I suppose we really do not know what fear is. I
inquired the name of the garrison of the fortress of Malabat,
and they said it was Mehemet Ali Ben Sancom. I said it
would be a good idea to get some more garrisons to help
him ; but they said no ; he had nothing to do but hold
the place, and he was competent to do that ; had done it
two years already. That was evidence which one could
not well refute. There is nothing like reputation.

Every now and then my glove purchase in Gibraltar last
night intrudes itself upon me. Dan and the ship's surgeon
and I had been up to the great square, listening to the
music of the fine military bands, and contemplating English
and Spanish female loveliness and fashion ; and at nine
o'clock were Qu our way to the theatre, when we met the
General, the Judge, the Commodore, the Colonel, and the
Commissioner of the United States of America to Europe,
Asia, and Africa, who had been to the Club House.^lft
register their several titles and impoverish the bill of faj;^ J
and they told us to go over to the little variety store, ne^-jf
the Hall of Justice, and buy some kid gloves. They sai4
they were elegant, and very moderate in price. It seemect
^ stylish thing to go to the theatre in kid gloves, and Wft

VANITY REB UKEB. x^v

acted upon the hint. A very handsome young lady in the
store offered me a pair of blue gloves. I did not want
blue, but she said they would look very pretty on a hand
like mine. The remark louched me tenderly. I glanced
furtively at my hand, and somehow it did seem rather a
comely member. I tried a glove on my left, and blushed
a little. Manifestly the size was too small for me. But I
felt gratified when she said :

" Oh, it is just right !" — yet I knew it was no such
thing.

I tugged at it diligently, but it was discouraging work.
She said: ^^rs^i-i jk,.t<-4 •\\it-\ -tr^.i^^Mm..

" Ah ! I sec you are accustomed to wearing kid gloves
— but some gentlemen are so awkward about putting them
on.

It was the last compliment I had expected. I only
understand putting on the buckskin article perfectly. I
made another effort, and tore the glove from the base of
the thumb into the palm of the hand, and tried to hide
the rent. She kept up her compliments, and I kept up
my determination to deserve them or die. >, h^i

"Ah, you have had experience!" [ A rip down tho
back of the hand.] *' They are just right for you — ^your
hand is very small — if they tear you need not pay for
them." [ A rent across the middle.] *' I can always tell
when a gentleman understands putting on kid gloves.
There is a grace about it that only comes with long prac-
tice." [The whole after-guard of the glove "fetched
away," as the sailors say, the fabric parted across the
knuckles, and nothing was left but a melancholy ruin.]

I was too much flattered to make an exposure, and
throw the merchandise on the angel's hands. I was hot,
vexed, confused, but still happy ; but I hated the other
boys for taking such an absorbing interest in the proceed^
ings. I wished they were in Jericho. I felt exquisitely
mean when I said, cheerfully :

" This one does very well ; it fits elegantly. I like a
glove that fits. No, never mind, ma'am, never mind ; I'll
put the other on in the street. It is warm here.'*
It wa§ warm. It was the warmest place I e^er was Iq.

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

I paid the bill, and as I passed on with a fasoinating bow^
I thought I detected a light in the woman's eye that was
gently ironical ; and when I looked back from the street,
and she was laughing all to herself about something or
other, I said to myself, with withering sarcasm, "Oh,
certainly ; you know how to put on kid gloves, don't you ?
— a self-complacent ass, ready to be flattered out of your
senses by every petticoat that chooses to take the trouble
to do it !" '

The silence of the boys annoyed me. Finally, Dan said,
musingly: •"'

" 8ome gentlemen don't know how to put on kid gloves
at all ; but some do."

And the doctor said (to the moon I thought) —

<' But it is always easy to tell when a gentleman is used
to putting on kid gloves."
, Dan soliloquized, after a pause: «•'' "'i^^mm ■^. ^

"Ah, yes; there is a grace about it that only comes
with long, very long practice."

** Yes, indeed, I've noticed that when a man hauls on a
kid glove like he was dragging 9. cat out of an ash-hole by
the tail, he understands putting on kid gloves : Ae'« had
ex "

" Boys, enough of a thing's enough I You think you
are very smart, I suppose, but I don't. And if you go and
tell any of those old gossips in the ship about this thing,
I'll never forgive you for it ; that's all."

They let me alone then for the time being. We always
let each other alone in time to prevent ill feeling from
spoiling a joke. But they had bought gloves, too, as I
did. We threw all the purchases away together this
morning. They were coarse, unsubstantial, fVeckled all
over with broad, yellow splotches, and could neither
stand wear nor public exhibition. We had entertained
an Ungel unawares, but we dicl not take her in. She did
that for us.

Tangier ! A tribe of stalwart Moors are wading into
tha sea to carry i;s ashore on their bac](s froip th6 ^n^all
boats, 5*

o: h

*mv

i) /r=1'iiXr>'; * .^i '.t'),'? ^i::i^'.

;••; . "ii -jvi-Si ■ ••;j'iMKv;;'»

.< !

CHAPTER VIII.

THIS is royal ! T i those who went up through Spain
make the best of it — these dominions of the Em-
peror of Morocco suit our little party well enough. We
have had enough of Spain at Gibraltar for the present.
Tangier is the spot we have been longing for all the time.
Elsewhere we have found foreign-looking things and
foreign-looking people, but always with things and people
intermixed that we were familiar with before, and so the
novelty of the situation lost a deal of its force. We wanted
something thoroughly and uncompromisingly foreign —
foreign from top to bottom — foreign from centre to cir-
cumference — foreign inside and outside and all around—
nothing anywhere about it to dilute its foreignness —
nothing to remind, us of any other people or any other
land under the sun. And lo 1 in Tangier we have found
it. Here is not the slightest thing that ever we have seen
save in pictures — and we always mistrusted the pictures
before. We cannot any more. The pictures used to seem
exaggerations — they seemed too weird and fanciful for
reality. But behold, they were not wild enough — they
were not fanciful enough — they have not told half the
story. Tangier is a foreign land if ever there was one ;
and the true spirit of it can never be found in any book
save the Arabian Nights. Here are no white men visible,
yet swarms of humanity are all about us. Here is a
packed and jammed city enclosed in a massive stone wall
which is more than a thousand years old. All the houses
nearly are one and two story ; made of thick walls of
stone ; plastered outside ; 'square as a dry-goods box ; flat
as a floor on top ; no cornices ; whitewashed all over — a
crowded city of snowy tombs ! And the doors are arched
with the peculiar arch we see in Moorish pictures ; the
floors are laid in vari-coloured diamond-flags ; in tesselated
many-coloured porcelain squares wrought in the furnaces
of Fez; in red tiles and broad bricks that time cannot
wear ; there is no furniture in the rooms {of Jewish

THE INNOCENTS ABR0A3.

dwellings) save divans — what there is in Moorish ones no
man may know ; within their sacred walls no Christian
dog can enter. And the streets are Oriental — some of
them three feet wide, some six, but only two that are over
a dozen ; a man can blockade the most of them bv extend-
inghis body across them. Isn't it an Oriental picture ?
• There are stalwart Bedouins of the desert here, and
stately Moors proud of a history that goes back to the
night of time ; and Jews, whose fathers fled hither centuries
upon centuries ago; and swarthy Riffians fVom the
mountains — born cut-throats — and original, genuine
negroes, as black as Moses; and howling dervishes, and
a hundred breeds of Arabs — all sorts and descriptions of
people that are foreign and curious to look upon.

And their dresses are strange beyond all description.
Here is a bronzed Moor in a prodigious white turban,
curiously enjbroidered jacket, gold and crimson sash of
many folds, wrapped round and round his waist, trousers
that only come a little below his knee, and yet have
twenty yards of stuiF in them, ornamented soimetar, bare
shins, stockingless feet, yellow slippers, and gun of pre-
posterous length — a mere soldier ! — I thought he was the
Emperor at least. And here are aged Moors with flowing
white beards, and long white robes with vast cowls ; and
Bedouins with long, cowled, striped cloaks, and negroes
and Riffians with heads clean shaven, except a k\nky
scalp-lock back of the ear, or rather up on the after
corner of the skull, and all sorts of barbarians in all sorts
of weird costumes, and all more or less ragged. And
here are Moorish womer* who are enveloped from head to
foot in coarse white robes, and whose sex can only be
determined by the fact that they only leave one eye
visible, and never look at men of their own race, or are
looked at by them in public. Here are five thousand
Jews in blue gaberdines, sashes about their waists, slippers
upon their feet, little skull-caps upon the backs of their
heads, hair combed down on the forehead, and cut straight
across the middle of it from side to side— the Self«same
fashion their Tangier ancestors have worn for I don't
know how many bewildering centuries. Their feet and

A CRADLE OF ANTIQVITT,

ankles are bare. Their noses arie all hooked, and hooked
aliko. They all resemble each other so much that one
could almost believe they were of one family. Their
women are plump and pretty, and do smile upon a
Christian in a way which is in the last degree com-
forting, "^i ;.ii4»^'oui.-'i.fi nu 'i^llif rniWrtt

What a funny old town it is 1 It seems like pi'ofa-
nation to laugh, and jest, and bandy the frivolous chat of
our day amid its hoary relics. Only the stately phrase-
ology and the measured speech of the sons of the
Prophet are suited to a venerable antiquity like this.
Here is a crumbling wall that was old when Columbus
discovered America ; was old when Peter the Hermit
roused the knightly men of the Middle Ages to arm for
the first Crusade ; was old when Charlemagne and his
paladins beleaguered enchanted castles and battled with
giants and genii in the fabled days of the olden time ; was
old when Christ and his disciples walked the earth ;
stood where it stands to-day when the lips of Memnon
Wire vocal, and men bought and sold in the streets of
ancient Thebes !

The Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the English, Moors,
Romans, all have buttled for Tangier — all have won it
and lost it. Here is a ragged, Oriental looking negro from
some desert place in interior Africa, filling his goat-skin
with water from a stained and battered fountain built
by the Romans twelve hundred years ago. Yonder is
a ruined arch of a bridge built by Julius Caesar nine-
teen hundred vears ago. Men who had seen the
infant Saviour in the Virgin's arms have stood upon it,
ma^ be.

Near it are the ruins of a dockyard where Caesar
repaired his ships and loaded them with grain when
he invaded Britain, fifty years before the Christian
era. -t

Here, under the quiet stnrs, these old streets seem
thronged with the phantoms of forgotten ages. My eyes
are resting upon a spot where stood a monument which
was seen and described by Roman historians less than two
thousand years ago, whereon was inscribed :

THE INNOCENTH ABROAD.

" We are the Canaanites. We are they that

HAVE BEEN DRIVEN OUT OF THE LAND OF OaNAAN BY

THE Jewish robber, Joshua."

Joshua drove them out, and they came here. Not many
leagues from here is a tribe of Jews whose ancestors fled
thither afler an unsuooessful revolt against King David, and
these their descendants are still under a ban and keep Mo
themselves.

Tangier has been mentioned in history for three
thousand years. And it was a town, though a queer one,
when Hercules, clad in his lion-skin, landed here, four
thousand years ago. In the streets he met Anitus, the
king of the country, and brained him with his club, which
was the fashion among gentlemen in those days. The
people of Tangier (called Tingis then) lived in the
rudest possible huts, and dressed in skins and carried
clubs, and were as savage as the wild beasts they were
constantly obliged to war with. But they were a gentle-
manly race, and did no work. They lived on the natural
products ofithe land. Their king's country residence was
at the famous Garden of Hesperides, seventy miles down
the coast from here. The garden, with its golden apples,
(oranges), is gone now — no vestige of it remains. Anti-
quarians concede that such a person as Hercules did
exist in ancient times, and agree that hp was an enter-
prising and energetic man, but decline to believe him a
good, bona fide god, because that would be unconsti-
tutional.

Down here at Cape Spartel is the celebrated cave of
Hercules, where that hero took refuge when he was
vanquished and driven out of the Tangier country. It
is full of inscriptions in the dead languages, which fact
makes me think Hercules could not have travelled much,
else he would not have kept a journal.

Five days journey from here — say two hundred miles
— are the ruins of an ancient city of whose history there
is neither record nor tradition. And yet its arches, its
columns, and its statues, proclaim it to have been built
by an enlightened race. | "

The general size of a store in Tangier is about that of

v. 1

WE BECOME WEALTHY,

an ordinary shower-bath in a civilizctl land. The Mo-
hamroedan merchant, tinman, shoemaker, or vendor of
trifles, sits cross-legged on the floor, and reaches after any
article vou may want to buy. You can rent a whole
block or these pigeon-holes for fifty dollars a month. The
market people crowd the market-place with their baskets
of figs, dates, melons, apricots, Sic, and among them file
trains of laden asses, not much larger, if any, than a New-
foundland dog. The scene is lively, is picturesque, and
smells like a police court. The Jewish money-changers
have their dens close at hand ; and all day long are
counting bronze coins and transferring them from one
bushel basket to another. They don't coin much money
now-a-days, I think. I saw none but what was dated
four or five hundred years back, and was badly worn and
battered. These coins are not very valuable. Jack went
out to get a Napoleon changed, so as to have money suited
to the general cheapness of things, and came back and
said he had '' swamped the badk; had bought eleven
quarts of coin, and the head of. the firm had gone on the
streets to negotiate for the balance of the change." I
bought nearly half a pint of their money for a shilling
myself. I am not proud on account of having so much
money, though. I care nothing for wealth.

The Moors have some squall silver coins, and also some
silver slugs worth a dollar each. The latter are exceed-
ingly scarce — m much so, that when poor ragged Arabs
see one they beg to be allowed to kiss it. ^^

They have alsc a small gold coin worth two dollars.
And that reminds me of something. When Morocco is in
a state of war, Arab couriers carry letters through the
country, and charge a liberal postage. Every now and
then they fall into the hands of marauding bands and
get robbed. Therefore, warned by experience, as soon
as they have collected two dollars' worth of money
they exchange it for one of those little gold pieces, and
when robbers come upon them, swallow it. The stra-
tagem was good while it was un,:iuspected, but after that
the marauders simply gave the sagacious United States
mail an emetic and sat down to wait.

<..\.

1^ TEE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

f^ . . ' ... - 1 .^A. €* -i- i-^^ i-^ -J-f Ik.. - ^:<i\ r*:

The Emperor of Morocco is a soti^lless despot, and the
great officers under him are despots on a smaller scale.
There is no regular system of taxation, but when the
Emperor or the Bashaw want money, they levy on some
rich man, and he has to furnish the cash or go to prison.
Therefore, few men in Morocco dare to be rich. It is too
dangerous a luxury. Vanity occasionally leads a man to
display wealth, but sooner or later the Emperor trumps
up a charge against him — any sort of one will do — and
confiscates his property. Of course, there are many rich
men in the empire, but their money is buried, and they
dress in rags and counterfeit poverty. Every now and
then the Emperor imprisons a man who is suspected of the
crime of being rich, and makes things so uncomfortable
for him that he is forced to discover where he has hidden
his money.

'; Moors and Jews sometimes place themselves under the
protection of the foreign, consuls, and then they can flout
their riches in the Emperor's face with impunity.

ij- •'>*>

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^ik.Api t>4-.fy4^:--

UH'

K»*i-

CHAPTER IX

■.■.'^-,.;.vv

ABOUT the first adventure we had yesterday afternoon,
after landing here, came near finishing that headless
Blucher. We had just mounted some mules and asses,
and started out under the guardianship of the stately, the
princely, the magnificent Hadji Mohammed Lamarty (may
his tribe increase !), when we came upon a fine Moorish
mosque, with tall tower, rich with chequer-work of many-
coloured porcelain, and every part and portion of the edi-
fice adorned with the quaint architecture of the Alhambra,
and Blucher started to ride into the open doorway. A
startling ^' Hi-hi !" from our camp-foUowerS; and a loud
^' Halt !" from an English gentleman in the party, checked
the adventurer, and then we were informed that so dire a
profanation is it for a Christian dog to set foot upon the
sacred threshold of a Moorish mosque, that no amount of
purification can ever make it fit for the faithful to pray in

MOORISH PUNISHMENTS FOR CRIME. 59

again.

Had Blucber succeeded in entering the place, he
would no doubt have been chased through the town and
stoned ; and the time has been, and not many years ago
either, when a Christian would have been most ruthlessly
slaughtered, if captured in a mosque. We caught a
glimpse of the handsome tesselated pavements within, and
of the devotees preforming their aiblutions at the fountains ;
but even that we took that glimpse was a thing not re-
lished by the Moorish bystanders.

Some years ago the clock in the tower of the mosque
got out of order, l^he Moors of Tangier have so d^e-
nerated that it has been long since there was an artificer
among them capable of curing so delicate a patient as a
debilitated clock. The great men of the city met in so-
lemn conclave to consider how the difficulty was to be
met. They discussed the matter thoroughly, but arrived
at no solutio'n. Finally, a patriarch arose and said: —

" Oh, children of the Prophet, it is known unto you
that a Portuguee dog of a Christian clock-mender pol-
lutes the city of Tangier with his presence. Yq know
also that when mosques are builded, asses bear the stones
and the cement, and cross the sacred threshold. Now,
therefore, send the Christian dog on all fours, and bare-
foot, into the holy place to mend the clock, and let him
goasanassi"

And in that way it was done. Therefore, if Blucber
ever sees the inside of a mosque, he will have to cast aside
his humanity and go in his natural character. We visited
the gaol, and found Mooi'ish prisoners making mats and
baskets. (This thing of utilizing crime savours of civili-
zation.) Murder is punished with death. A short time
ago three murderers were taken beyond the city walls
and shot. Moorish guns are not good, and neither are
Moorish marksmen. In this instance, they set up the poor
criminals at long range, like so many targets, and practised
on them — kept them hopping about and dodging bullets
for half an hour before they managed to drive the centre.

When a man steals cattle, they cut off his right hand
and left leg, and nail them up in the market-place as a
warning to evierybody. Their surgery is not artistic.

..^\vt..

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

They slice round the hone a little, then break off the limb.
Sometimes the patient gets well ; but as a general thing he
don't. However, the Moorish heart is stout. The Moors
were always brave. These criminals undergo the fearful
operation without a wince, without a tremor of any kind,
without a groan 1 No amount of suffering can bring
down the pride of a Moor, or make him shame his dignity
with a cry.

Here marriage is contracted with the parents of the
parties to it. There are no valentines, no stolen inter-
views, no riding out, no courting in dim parlours, no
lovers' quarrels and reconciliations — no nothing that is
proper to approaching matrimony. The young man takes
the girl his father selects for him, marries her, and after
that she is unveiled, and he sees her for the first time. If
after due acquaintance she suits him, he retains her ; but
if he suspects her purity, he bundles her back to her
father ; if he finds her diseased, the same ; or if, after just
and reasonable time is allowed her, she neglects to bear
children, back she goes to the home of her childhood.

Mohammedans here, who can afford it, keep a good
many wives on hand. They are called wives, though I
believe the Koran only allows four genuine wives— the
rest are concubines. The Emperor of Morocco don't know
how many wives he has, but thinks he has five hundted.
However, that is near enough — a dozen or so, one way or
the other, don't matter.

Even the Jews in the interior hzrd a plurality of wives.

I have caught a glimpse of the faces of several Moorish
women (for they are only human, and will expose their
faces for the admiration of a Christain dog when no male
Moor is by), and I am full of veneration for the wia^om
that leads them to cover up such atrocious ugliness. ' ■ '

They carry their children at their backs, in a sack, like
other savages the world over.

Many of the negroes are held in slavery by the Moors.
But the moment a female slave becomes her master's /K>n-
cubine her bonds are broken, and as soon as a male slave
can read the first chapter of the Koran (which contains
the creed), he can no longer be held in bondage.

TBtfEE SUNDAYS IN A "WEEK.

They have three Sundays a week in Tangier. The
Mohammedans' comes on Friday, the Jews' on Saturday,
and that of the Christian Consuls on Sanday. The Jews
are the most radical. The Moor goes to his mosque about
noon on the Sabbath, as on any other day, removes his
shoes at the door, performs his ablutions, makes his sa-
laams, pressing his forehead to the pavement time and
again, says his prayers, and goes back to his work.

But the Jew shuts up shop ; will not touch copper
or bronze money at all ; soils his fingers with nothing
meaner than silver and gold ; attends the synagogue
devoutly ; will not cook or have anything to do with
fire ; and religiously refrains from embarking in any
enterprise. ^^ ;; _ _ _,/ ^ ^;-;;. ;.. ,^^x^^-,, ., . :' ^ ; ':.

The Moor who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca is
entitled to high distinction. Men call him Hadji, and he
is thenceforward a great personage. Hundreds of Moors
come to Tangier every year, and embark for Mecca.

3y go part of the way in English steamers ; and the ten
v.. twelve dollars they pay for passage is about all the trip
costs. They take with them a quantity of food, and when
the commissary department fails, they " skirmish," as Jack
terms it, in his sinful, slangy way. From the time they
leave till they get home again, they never wash, either on
land or sea. They are usually gone from five to seven
months, and as they do not change their clothes during all
that time, they are totally unfit for the drawing-room
when they get back.

Many of them have to rake and scrape a long time to
gather together the ten dollars their steamer passage costs ;
and when one of them gets back he is a bankrupt for ever
after. Few Moors can ever build up their fortunes again
in one short lifetime, after so reckless an outlay. In order
to confine the dignity of Hadji to gentlemen of patrician
blood and possessions, the Emperor decreed that no man
should make the pilgrimage save bloated aristocrats who
were worth a hundred dollars in specie. But behold
how iniquity can circumvent the law 1 For a considera-
tion the Jewish money-changer lends t^e pilgrim one

hundred dollars

long

enough

for him to swear himself

THE mNOCENTS AMQAfi^

, \if^ y.\,<j'».;9.,:i

througa, and then receives it back before the ship sails
out of the harbour ! Lm

Spnin is the only nation the Moors fear. The reason
is, that Spain sen«?s her heaviest ships of war and her
loudest guns to astonish these Moslems ; whil^ America
and other nations send only a little contemptible tub of a
gunboat occasionally. The Moors, like other savages,
learn by what they see ; not what they hear or read. We
hs , great fleets in the Mediterranean, but they seldom
touch at African ports. The Moors have a small opinion
of England, France, and America, and put their represen-
tatives to a deal of red tape circumlocution before they
grant them their common rights, let alone a favour. But
the moment the Spanish Minister makes a demand, it is
acceded to at once, whether it be just or not.

Spain chastised the Moors five or six years ago, about a
disputed piece of property opposite Gibraltar, and captured
the city of Tetouan. She co-npromised on an augmenta-
tion of her territory, twenty million dollars indemnity in
money, and peace. And then she gave iin the city. But
she never gave it up until the Spanish soldiers had eaten
up all the cats. They would not compromise as long tis
the oats held out. Spaniards are very fond of cats. On
the contrary, the Moors reverence cats as soniething sacred.
So the Spaniards touched them on a tender point that time.
Their unfeline conduct in eating up all the Tetouan cats
aroused a hatred toward them in the breasts of the Moors,
to which even the driving them out of Spain was tame and
passionless. Moors and Spaniards are foes for ever now.
France had a Minister here once who embittered the nation
against him in the most innocent way. He killed a couple
of battalions of cats (Tangier is full of them), and made a
parlour carpet out of their hides. He made his carpet 'n
circles — first a circle of old grey tom-cats, with their tails
all pointing towards the centre ; then a circle of yellow
cats ; next a circle of black cats and a circle of white ones ;
then a circle of all sorti^ of cats ; and finally, a centre-piece
of assorted kittens. It was very beautiful ; but the Moors
curse his memory to this day.

When we went to call on our American Consut-General

THE CONSUL'S FAMILY.

to-day, I noticed that all possible games for parlour amuse^
ment seemed to be represented on his centre-tables. I
thought that hinted at lonesomeness. The idea was correct.
His is the only American family in Tangier. There are
many foreign Consuls in this place, but much visiting is
not indulged In. Tangier is clear out of the world ; and
what is the use of visiting when people have nothiiuLpn
earth to talk about ? There is none. So each ConRl's^
family stays at home chiefly, and amuses itself as best it
can. Tangier is full of interest for one day, but after that
it is a weary prison. The Consul-General has been here
five years, and has got enough of it to do him for a century,
and is going home shortly. His family seize upon their
letters and papers when the mail arrives, read them over
and over again for two days or three, till they wear them out,
and after that, for days together, they eat and drink and
sleep, and ride out over the same old road, and see the
same old tiresome things that even decades of centuries
have scarcely changed, and say never a single word !
They have literally nothing whatever to talk about. The
arrival of an American man-of-war is a godsend to them.
*' Ob, Solitude ! where are the charms which sages have
seen in thy face ?" It is the completest exile that I can
conceive of. I would seriously recommend to the Govern-
ment of the United States, that when a man commits a
crimo so heinous that the law provides no adequate
punishment for it, they make him Consul -General to
Tangier.

I am glad to have seen Tangier — the second oldest
town in the world. But I am *wady to bid it good-by, I
believe.

We shall go hence to Gibraltar this evening or in the
morning; and doubtless the Quaker City will sail from
that port within the next forty-eight hours.

"-"*&<

•^ CHAPTER X.

WE passed the Fourth of July on board the Quaker
City, in mid-ocean. It was in all respects a char-
acfjMiptic Mediterranean day — faultlessly . beautiful. A
clol^ess sky ; a refreshing summer wind ; a radiant sun-
shii >hat glinted cheerily fron dancing wavelets instead
of Ca ested mountains of water ; a sea beneath us that was
so wonderfully blue, so richly, brilliantly blue, that it
overcame the dullest sensibilities with the spell of its
fascination.

They even have fine sunsets on the Mediterranean — a
thing that is certainly rare in most quarters of the globe.
The evening we sailed away from Gibraltar, that h ,rd-
featured rock was swimming in a creamy mist so rich, so
soft, so. enchantingly vague and dreamy, that even the
Oracle, that serene, that inspired, that overpowering
humbug, scorned the dinner-gong and tarried to worship !

He said, " Well, that's gorgis, ain't it 1 They don't
have none of them things in our parts, do they ? I con-
sider that them effects is on account of the superior
refragability, as you may say, of the sun's diramic combi-
nation with the lymphatic forces of the perihelion of
Jupiter. What should you think ?"
." Oh, go to bed 1" Dan said that, and went away.

" Oh, yes it's all very well to say go to bed when a man
makes an argument which another man can't answer. Dan
don't never stand any chance in an argument with me.
And he knows it too. What should you say. Jack ?"

" Now, doctor, don't you come bothering around me
with that dictionary bosh. I don't do you any harm^ do
I ? Then you let me alone."

" He's gone too. Well, them fellows have all tackled
the old Oracle, as they say, but the old man's most too
many for 'em. Maybe the Poet Lariat ain't satisfied with
them deductions ?"

The poet replied with a barbarous rhyme, and w^nt
below.

'ifc

THE ORACLE DELIVERS AN OPINION. 65

((

ur:

Pears that he can't qUalify, neither. Well, I didn't
it nothing out of Mm. I never see one of thetn iiBts
et that knowed anything. He'll go down now,^nd
grind out ahout four reams of the awfullest slush about
that old rock, and give it to a consul, or a pilot, or a
nigger, or anybody he comes across first which he qiMH
impose on. Pity but somebody 'd take that pog^gid
lunatic and dig all that poetry rubbage out of him. ^Wy
can't a man put his intellect into things that's some value?
Gibbons, and Hippocratus, and Sarcophagus, and all them
old ancient philosophers, was down on poets-

Doctor," I said, *' you are going to invent authorities
now, and I'll leave you too. I always enjoy your conver-
sation, notwithstanding the luxuriance of your syllables,
when the philosophy you offer rests on your o\ii a respon-
sibility ; but when you begin to soar — when you begin to
support it with the evidence of authorities who are the
creations of your own fancy, I lose confidence." " '-'-

That was the way to ^-^.tter the doctor. He considered
it a sort of acknowkdgix^cnt on my part of a fear to argue
with him. He was always persecuting the passengers with
abstruse propositions framed in language that no man
could understand, and ihey endured the exo nte torture
a minute or two and then abandoned the fiela. A triumph
like this, over half a dozen antagonists, was sufficient for
one day ; from that time forward he would patrol the decks
beaming blandly upon all comers, and so tranquilly, bliss-
fully happy.

But I digress. The thunder of our two brave cannon
announced the Fourth of July, at daylight, to all who
were awake. But many of us got our information at a
later hour, from the almanac. All the flags were sent
aloft, exccp' half a dozen that were needed to decorate
portions of the ship below, and in a short time the vessel
assumed a holiday appearance. During the morning
meetings were held, and all manner of committees set to
work on l^e celebration ceremonies. In the afternoon the
ship's company assembled aft, on deck, under the awnings;
the flute, the asthmatic melodeon, and the consumptive
clarionet trippled the ** Star Spangled Banner/* the choir

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD:

chased it to cover) and George came in with a peculiarly
locating screech on the fipal note and slaughtered it.

lao^t

NAdy mourned.

^e carried out the corpse on three cheers Tthat joke
was not intentional and I do not endorse it), and then the

isident, throned behind a cable-loqker with a national
^read over it, announced the ^' Reader," who rose up
id ^he same old Declaration of Independence which
we inive all listened to so often without paying any atten-
tion to what it said ; and after that the President piped
the Orator of the Day to quarters, and he made that same
old speech about our national greatness which we so re-
ligiously believe and so fervently applaud. Now came the
choir into court again, with the complaining instruments,
and assaulted ^' Hail Columbia ;" and when victory hung
wavering in the scale, George returned with his dreadful
wild-goose stop turned on, and the choir won of course.
A minister pronounced the benediction, and the patriotic
little gathering disbanded. The Fourth of July was safe,
as far as the Mediterranean was concerned.

At dinner in t!^e evening, a well-written original poem
was recited with spirit by one of the ship's captains, and
thirteen regular toasts were washed down with several
baskets of champagne. The speeches were bad — execrable,
almost without exception. In fact, without any exception
but one. Captain Duncan made a good speech ; he made
the only good speech of the evening. He said : —

" Ladies and Gentlemen — May we all live to a green
old age, and be prosperous and happy. Steward, bring up
another basket of champagne.''

It was regarded as a very abl^ effort.

The festivities, so to speak, close with anqther of those
miraculous balls on the promenade deck. We were not
used to dancing on an even keel, though, and it was only
a questionable success. But take it altogether, it was a
bright, cheerful, pleasant Fourth.

Towards nightfall the next evening we stc^^ int<^
the great artificial harbour of this noble city of )|||^8eiB«il^
and saw the dying sunlight gild its clustering i^fep and
ramparts, and flood its leagues of environing vercrate with

a m<

whit

[Coj

our

privi|

our

him
thwai

•->■

.v\

'JV

MARSEILLES,

a mellow radiance that touched with an added charm the
white villus, that flecked the landscape far and n^r.
[Copyright secured according to law.]

There were no stages out, and we could not get on the
pier from the ship. It was annoying. We were full of
enthusiasm — we wanted to see France ! Just at nightfall
our party of three contracted with a waterman for the
privilege of using hid boat as a bridge — its stem wa» at
our companion ladder and its bow touched the pier. We
got in and the fellow backed out into the harbour. I told
him in French that all we wanted was to walk over his
thwarts and steo ashore, and asked him what he went
away out there for ? He said he could not understand me.
I repeated. Still he could not understand. He appeared
to be very ignorant of French. The doctor tried him, but
he could not understand the doctor. I asked this boatman
to explain his conduct, which he did ; and then I couldu't
understand Mm. Dan said : — "*

" Oh, go to the pier, you old fool — that's where we want
to go 1"

We reasoned calmly with Dan that it was useless to
speak to this foreigner in English — that he had better*let
us oondnot this business in the French langafim imd not
let the stranger see how uncultivated he waat

"Well, go on, go on," he said, " don't mind mc I don't
wish to interfere. Only, if you go on telling him in your
kind of French he will never find out where we want to
go to. That is what I think about it."

We rebuked him severely for this remark, and said we
never knew an ignorant person yet but was prejudiced.
The Frenchman spoke again, and the doctor said —

^' There now, Dan, he says he is going to allez to the
douane. Means he is going to the hotel. Oh, certainly —
we don't know the French language."

This was a crusher, as Jack would say. It silenced
further ciiticism from the disaffected member. We coasted
past thQ sharp bows of a navy of great steamships, and
stopped at last at a government building on a stone pier.
It was easy to remember then, that the douane was the
custom-house, and not the hotel. We did not mention it.

TEE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

however. With winning French politeness, the officers
merely opened and closed our satbhels, declined to examine
our passports, and sent us on our way. We stopped at
the first cafi we came to, and entered. An old woman
seated us at a table and waited for orders. The doctor
said —

" Avez-vous dn vin ?"

The dame looked perplexed. The doctor said again,
with elaborate distinctness of articulation —

" Avez-vous du — vin I"

The dawe looked more perplexed than before. I
said— '*'" •""* '""'" '

'' Doctor, there is a flaw in your pronunciation some-
where. Let me try her. Madame, avez-vous du vin ? It
isn't any use, doctor — take the witness."

" Madame, avez-vous du vin — ou fromage — pain —
pickled pigs' feet — beurre — des oefs — du beuf — horse-\
radish, sour-crout, hog and hominy — anything, anything
in the world that will stay a Christian stomach 1"

She said —

^l Bless you, why didn't you speak English before ? — I
don't know anything about your plagued French!"

The humiliating taunts of the disaffected member spoiled
the supper, and we despatched it in angry silence and got
away as soon as we could. Here we were in beautiful
France — in a vast stone house oi' quaint architecture —
surrounded by all manner of curiously worded French
signs — stared at by strangely-habited, bearded French
people — everything gradually and surely forcing upon us
the coveted consciousness that at last, and beyond all
question, we were in beautiful France, and absorbing its
nature to the forgetfulness of everything else, and coming
to feel the happy romance of the thing in all its enchanting
delightfulness — and to think of this skinny veteran intrud-
ing with her vile English, at such a moment, to blow the
fair vision to the winds! It was exasperating.

We set out to find the centre of the city, inquirinjg the
direction every now and then. We never did succeed in
making anybody understand just exactly what we wanted,
and neither did we succeed in comprehending just exactly

((

the
thee

^\ i .

LOST.—FOUND.

what they said in reply ; but then they always pointed —
they always did that — and we bowed politely and said
'< Meroi, MonHieur," and so it was a blighted triumph over
the disaffected member, any way. He was resiivo under
these victories, and often asked — .,, , '^ j ,,. ;

"What did that pirate say?" ^ J^^

" Why, he told us which way to go to find the Grand
Casino. ',, ._.

" Yes, but what did he «ay ?" ' "^

" Oh, it don't matter what he suid — we understood
him. These are educated people^ — not like that absurd
boatman." * ' '■ S f

" Well, I wish they were educated enough to tell a man
a direction that goes some where — for we've been going
around in a circle for an hour. I've passed the same old
drug store seven times."

We said it was a low, disreputable falsehood (but we
knew it was not). It was plain that it would not do to
pass that drug store again, though — we might go on
asking directions, but we must cease from following finger-
pointings if we hoped to check the suspicions of the dis-
affected member. ^ .,;

^A long ^alk through smooth, asphaltum-paved streets
bordered by blocks of vast new mercantile housjes of
cream-coloured stone — every house and every block pre-
cisely like the other houses and all the other blocks for a
mile, and all brilliantly lighted — brought us at last to the
principal thoroughfare. On every hand were bright colours,
flashing constellations of gas-burners, gaily dressed men
and women thronging the side-walks — hurry, life, activity,
cheerfulness, conversation, and laughter everywhere ! We
found the Grand Hotel du Louvre et de la Paix, and
wrote down who we were, where we were born, what our
occupations were, the place we came from last, whether
we were married or single, how we liked *«, how
old we were, where we were bound for and when we
expected to get there, and a great deal of information
of similar importance — all for the benefit of the
landlord and the secret police. We hired a guide and
began the business of sight-seeing immediately. That

THE IJmOCENTS ABROAD.

■* •■

first night on Frenoli soil was a Istirring one. I cannot
think of half the places we went to, or what wo particu-
larly saw; we had no disposition to examine carefully
into anything at all — we only wanted to glance and go —
to move, keep moving I — The spirit of the country was
upon us. We sat down finally, at a late hour, in the
great Casino, and called for unstinted champagne. It is
so easy to he bloated aristocrats where it costs nothing of
consequence ! There were about five hundred people in
that dazzling place, I suppose, though the walls being
papered entirely with mirrors, so to speak, one could not
really tell but that there were a hundred thousand.
Young, daintily dressed exquisites, and young, stylishly
dressed women, and also old gentlemen and old ladies, sat
in couples and groups about innumerable ma.rble topped
tables, and ate fancy suppers, drank wine, and kept up a
chattering din of conversation that was dazing to the
senses. There was a i^tage at the far end, and a large
orchestra ; and every now and then actors and actresses
in preposterous comic dresses came out and sang the most
extravagantly funny songs, to judge by their absurd
actions ; but that audience merely suspended its chattef ,
stared cynically, and never once smiled, never once
applauded I I had always thought that Frenchmen were
ready to laugh at anything. . ' " ^ / , ' •

CHAPTER XI.

K/'M^

W£i are getting foreignized rapidly, and witL facility.
We are getting recondled to halls arid bed-
chambers with tinhomelike stone fiobfs and no carpets —
floors that ring to the tread of one's heels with a sharpness
that is death to sentimental musiiag. We are getting used
to tidy, noitoless waiters, who glide hither and thither and
hover about ybur back and your elbows like butterfties,
quick to comprehend orders, quick to fill them ; thankful
for a gratuity without tegard to the amottnt ; arid adWays
polite-— never otherwise than polite. That is the strai^gest

cuno
idiot,
centr
of vi
gentU

RINGING FOR SOAR

Qcn were

cariosity yet — a really polite hotel waiter wlio isn't an
idiot. We are getting used to driving right into the
central court of the hotel, in the midst of a fragrant cirole
of vines and flowers, and in the midst also of parties of
gentlemen sitting quietly reading the paper and smoking.
We are getting used to ioe frozen hv artificial process in
ordinary bottles — the only kind of ioe they have here.
We are getting used to all these things ; but we are not,
getting used to carrying our own soap.* We are sufF.
ciently civilized to carry our own combs and tooth-brushec :
but this thing of having to ring for soap every time we
wash is new ^o us, and not pleasant at all. We think of
it just after we get our heads and faces thoroughly wet, or
just when we think we have been in the bath-tiib long
enough, and then of course an annoying delay tbllows.
These Marseillaise make Maroeillaise hymns, and Ma
seilles vests, and Marseilles soap for all the world ; Ivt
they never sing their hymns, or w^r their vestS) or wash
with their soap themselv6s. . ' '* '

We have learned to go through the lingering routine of
the table d'hdte with patience, with serenity, With satisfac-
tion. We take soup ; then wait a few minutes for the
fish ; a few minutes more and the plates are changed,
and the roast beef comes ; another change and we take
peas ; change a»ain and we take lentils ; change and take
snail patties (I prefer grasshoppers) ; change and take
roast chicken and salad ; then strawb^try pie aind ice
cream ; then green figs, pears, oratnges, green almonds, &c. ;
finally cofl^ee. Wine with every cour«:i, <>f course, being
in France. With sUch a cargo on board, digestion is a
slow process, and we must sit long in the cool chambers
and smoke — and read French newspapers, which have a
strange fashion of telling a perfectly straight stoty till you
get to the *' nub" of it, and then a n^ord dtops in that no
man can translate, and that story is ruined. An embank-
ment fell on some Frenchmen y6Sterdfty, and the papers
are full of it to-day; but tehether thosd sufferers were
killed or crippled, or braised, or only scair^d, i^ morie than
I can possibly mak^ out, aind yet I ^ould just gi^e any-
thing to know.

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

I i

We were troubled a little at dinner to-day by the conduct
of an American, who talked very loudly and coarsely, and
laughed boisterously where all others were so quiet and
well-behaved. He ordered wine with a royal flourish, and
said : ** I never dine without wine, sir" (which was a
pitiful falsehood), and looked around upon the company to
bask in the admiration he expected to find in their faces.
All these airs in a land where they would as soon expect
to leave the soup out of the bill of fare as the wine ! — in a
land where wine is nearly as common among all ranks as
water 1 This fellow said : ^^ I am a free-born sovereign,
sif, an American, sir, and I want everybody to know it!"
He did not mention that he was a lineal descendant of
Balaam's ass ; but everybody knew that without his
telling it.

We have driven in the Prado, that superb avenue, bor-
dered with patrician mansions and noble shade-trees, and
have visited the Chateau Boarely and its curious museum.
They showed us a miniature cemetery there — a copy of
the first graveyard that was ever in Marseilles, no doubt.
The delicate little skeletons were lying in broken vaults,
and had their household gods and kitchen utensils with
them. The original of this cemetery was dug up in the
principal street of tiie city a few years ago. It had re-
mained there, only twelve feet underground, for a matter
0^ twenty-five hundred years, or thereabouts. Bomulus
was here before ]^e built Rome, and thought something of
founding a city on this spot, but gave up the idea. He
may have been personally acquainted with some of these
Phoenicians whose skeletons we have been examining.

In the great Zoological Gardens, we found specimens of
all the animals the world produces, I think, including a
dromedary, a monkey, ornamented with tufts of brilliant
blue and carmine hair — ^^a very gorgeous monkey he was—
a hippopotamus from the Nile, and a sort of tall, long-
legged bird with a beak like a powder horn, and close-
fitting wings like the tails of a dress coat. This fellow
8too4 up wi til his eyes shut and his shoulders stooped
forward a little, and looked as if he had his hands under his
coat tails. Sucli tranquil stupidity, such supernatural

STRAmE COMPANIONSHIP.

he conduct

arsely, and

quiet and

3urisb, and

lich was a

jompany to

bheir faces.

K)on expect

yine! — in a

,11 ranks as

sovereign,

know it!"

iscendant of

without his

,venUe, bor-
3-trees, and \
IS museum,
—a copy of
I, no doubt,
iken vaults,
tonsils with
; up in the
It had re-
br a matter
Romulus
)mething of
idea. He
le of these
lining.
)ecimens of
Encluding a
lof brilliant
he was^
tall, long-
and close-
'his fellow
}rs stooped
[sunder his
ipernatural

gravity, such self-righteousness, and such ineffable com-
placency as were in the countenance and attitude of thtit
grey-bodied, dark-ringed, bald-headed, and preposterously
uncomely bird I He was so ungainly, so pimply about the
head, so scaly about the legs, yet so serene, so unspeakably
satisfied I He was the most comical looking creature that
can be imagined. It was good to hear Dan and the
doctor laugh — such natural and such enjoyable laughter
had not been heard among our excursionists since our
ship sailed away from America. This bird Was a god-
send to us, and I should be an ingrate if I forgot to make
honourable mention of him in these pages. Ours was a
pleasure^ excursion, therefore we stayed with that bird an
hour, and made the most of him. We stirred him up
occasionally, but he only unclosed an eye and slowly closed
it again, abating not a jot of his stately piety of demeanour
or his tremendous seriousness. He only seemed to say,
" Defile not Heaven's anointed with unsanctified hands."
We did not know his name, and so we called him " The
Pilgrim." Dan said —
" All he wants now is a Plymouth Collection."
The boon companion of the colossal elephant was a
common cat I This cat had a fashion of climbing up the
elephant's hind legs, and roosting on his back. She would
sit up there, with her paws curved under her breast, and
sleep in the sun half the afternoon. It used to annoy the
elephant at first, and he would reach up and take her
down, but she would go aft and climb up again. She
persisted until she finally conquered the elephant's pre-
judices, and now they are inseparable frieoids. The cat
plays about her comrade's forefeet or his trunk often, until
dogs approach, and then she goes aloft out of danger. The
elephant Jias annihilated several dogs lately, that pressed
his companion too closely.

We hired a sail-boat and a guide and made an excursion
to one of the small islands in the harbour to visit the
Castle d'If. This ancient fortress has a melancholy history.
It has been used as a prison for political offenders for two
or three hundred years, and its dungeon walls are scarred
with the rudely carved names of many and many a captivQ

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

who fretted his life away here, and left no record of him-
self bat these sad epitaphs wrought with his own hands.
How thick the names were 1 And their long-departed
owners seemed to throng the gloomy cells and corridors
with their phantom shapes. "We loitered through dungeon
alter dungeon, away down '.nto the living rock below the
level of the sea, it seemed. Names everywhere I — some
plebeian, some noble, some even princely. Plebeian,
prince, and noble had one solicitude in common — they
would not be forgotten ! They could suflfer solitude,
inactivity, and the horrors of a silence that no sound ever
disturbed ; but they could not bear the thought of being
utterly forgotten by the world. Hence the carved names.
In one cell, where a little light penetrated, a man had
lived twenty-seven years without seeing the face of a
human being — lived in filth and wretchedness, with no
companionship but his own thoughts, and they were
sorrowful enough, and hopeless enough, no doubt. What-
ever his gaolers considered that he needed was conveyed
to his cell by night through a wicket. This man carved
the walls of his prison-house from floor to roof with all
manner of figures of men and animals, grouped in intri-
cate designs. He had toiled there year after year, at
his self-appointed task, while infants grew to boyhood —
to vigorous youth — idled through school and college —
acquired a profession— claimed man's mature estate —
married and looked back to infancy as to a thing of some
vague, ancient time almost. But who shall tell how many
ages it seemed to this prisoner ? With the one, time fiew
sometimes; with the other never — it crawled always. To
the one, nights spent in dancing had seemed made of minutes
instead of hours ; to the other, those self-same nights had
been like all other nights of dungeon life, and seemed made
of slow, dragging weeks, instead of hours and minutes.

One prisoner of fifteen years had scratched verses upon
the walls, and brief prose sentences — brief but full of
pathos. These spoke not of himself and his hard estate ;
but only of the shrine where his spirit fled the prison to
worship— of home and the idols that were templed there.
He never lived to see them.

DtTNGEON OF THE ''IRON MASKr 75

The walls cf these dungeons are ds thick as some bed-
chambers at home are wide — fifteen feet. We saw the
damp, dismal cells in which two of Dumas' heroes passed
their confinement — heroes of ''Monte Christo." It was
here that the brave Abbd wrote a book with his own
blood ; with a pen made of a piece of iron hoop, and by
the light of a lamp made out of shreds of cloth soaked in
grease obtained from his food ; and then dug through
the thick wall with some trifling instrument which he
wrought himself out of a stray piece of iron or table
cutlery, and freed Dantes from his chains. It was a pity
that so many weeks of dreary labour should have come to
naught at last.

They showed us the noisome cell where the celebrated
"Iron Mask" — that ill-starred brother of a hard-hearted
King of France — was confined for a season, before he was
sent to hide the strange mystery of his life from the
curious in the dungeons of St. Marguerite. The place
has a far greater interest for us than it could have had if
we had known beyond all question who the Iron Mask
was, Und what his history had been, and why this most
unusual punishment had been meted out to him. Mystery 1
That was the charm. That speechless tongue, tjiose
prisoned features, that heart so freighted with unspoken
troubles, and that breast so oppressed with its piteous
secret, had been here. These dank walls had known the
man whose dolorous story is a sealed book for ever ! There
was fascination in the spot.

CHAPTER XII.

WE have come five hundred miles by rail through
the heart of France. What a bewitching land it
is ! — What a garden ! Surely the leagues of bright green
lawns are swf»j:t and brushed and watered every day and
their grasses trimmed by the barber. Surely the hedges
are shaped and measured and their symmetry preserved by
the most architectural of gardeners. Surely the long straight

TBE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

rows of stately poplars that divide the beantifal landscape
like the squares of a checker-board are set with line and
plummet, and their uniform height determined with a
spirit level. Surely the straight, smooth, pure white turn-
pikes are jack-planed and sand-papered every day. How
else are these marvels of symmetry, cleanliness, and order
attained ? It is wonderful. There are no unsightly
stone walls, a/1 never a fence of any kind. There is no
dirt, no decay, oo rubbish anywhere — nothing that even
hints at untidiuess — nothing that ever suggests neglect.
All is orderly and beautiful — everything is charming to
the eye.

We had such glimpses of the Ehone gliding along be-
tween its grassy banks ; of cosy cottages buried in flowers
and shrubbery ; of quaint old red- tiled villages with
mossy mediaeval cathedrals looming out of their midst;
of wooded hills with ivy-grown towers and turrets of
feudal castles projecting above the foliage ; such glimpses
of Paradise, it seemed to us, such visions of faWed fairy-
la-.d 1

W<5 knew, then, what the poet meant when he sang of —

« t)iy cornfields Kreen, and sunny v^aes,

* O pleasant laud of France !"

And it is a pleasant land. No word describes it so
felicitously as that one. They say there is no word for
" home " in the French language. Well, considering that
they have the article itself in such an attractive aspect,
they ought to manage to get along without the word. Let
us not waste too much pity on "homeless" France. I
have observed that Frenchmen abroad seldom wholly give
up the idea of going back to France some time or other.
I am not surprised at it now.

We were not infatuated with these French railway oars,
though. We took first-class passage, not because we wished
to attract attention by doing a thing which is uncommon
in Europe; but because we could make our journey quicker
by so doing. It is hard to make railroading pleasant, in
any country. It is too tedious. Stage-coaching is in-
finitely more delightful. Once I crossed the plains and

SUMMER GARB OF TEE LANDSCAPE. 77

deserts and mountains of the West, in a stagC'Coach, from
the Missouri line to California, and since then all my
pleasure trips must be measured to that rare holiday
frolic. Two thousand miles of ceaseless rush and rattle
and clatter, by night and by day, and never a weary
moment, never a lapse of interest! The first seven
hundred miles a level continent, its grassy carpet greener
and softer and smoother than any sea, and figured with
designs fitted to its magnitude — the shadows of the clouds.
Here were no scenes but summer scenes, and no disposi-
tion inspired by them but to lie at full length on the mail
sacks, in the grateful breeze, and dreamily smoke the pipe
of peace — what other, where all was repose and content-
ment ? In cool mornings, before the sua was fairly up, it
was worth a lifetime of city toiling and moiling, to pei ;h
in the foretop with the driver and see the six mustangs
scamper under the sharp snapping of a whip that never
touched them ; to scan the blue distances of a world that
k)iew no lords but us ; to cleave the wind with uncovered
head and feel the sluggish pulses rousing to the spirit of
a speed that pretended to the resistless rush of a typhoon !
Then thirteen hundred miles of desert solitudes ; of limit-
less panoramas of bewildering perspective; of mimic cities,
of pinnacled cathedrals, of massive fortresses counterfeited
in the eternal rocks and splendid with the crimson and
gold of the setting sun ; of dizzy altitudes among fog-
wreathed peaks and never-melting snows, where thunders
and lightnings and tempests warred magnificently at our
feet and the storm-clouds above swung their shredded
banners in our very faces I

But I forgot. I am ir elegant France now, and not
skurrying through the great South Pass and the Wind
Biver Mountains, among antelopes and buffaloes, and
painted Indians, on the war path. It is not meet that I
should make too disparaging comparisons between hum-
drum travel on a railway and that royal summer flight
across a con^nent in the.^ stage coach. I meant in the
beginning to say that radway journeying is tedious and
tiresome, and so it is — though at the time I was thinking
particularly of a dismal fifty-hour pilgrimage between

•78

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

New York and St. Louis. Of course our trip through
France was not really tedious, because all its scenes and
experiences were new and strange ; but as Dan says, it
had its " discrepancies."

The cars are bu:*lt in compartraente tliaf hold eight
persons each. Er.ch compartment is p}?:ti;d!y subdivided,
and so there are two tolerably distinct pcr:l:s of four "a
it. Four face the other four. The soUh and \>^r^i'^ {».»*.
thickly padded and cushioned and are vory comfortable ;
you can smoke, if you wirtii; there ar^ no bothersome
peddlers ; you are saved the infliction of a multitude of
disagreeable fellow-paBsengers. So far, so well. But then
the conductor locks you in when the train starts ; there
is no water to drink in the car; thf^re is no Ilea ■ >g appa-
ratus for high t travel; if a drunken rowdy »^ouid get in,
you <<>iiid not remove a matter of twenty seats from him
or CTiier a!>;nhcr *^f.r ; but above all, if you are worn out
and must ^loep. you must sit up and do it in naps, with
cramped legs aid in a torturing misery that leaves you
withered and lii'eless the next day — for behold they have
not that culmination of all charity and human kindness,
a sleeping car, in all France. I prefer the American
sytstem. It has not so many grievous " discrepancies."

In France, all is clockwork, all is order. They make
no mistakes. Every third man wears a, uniform, and
whether he be a Marshal of the Empire or a brakeman,
he is ready and perfectly willing to answer all your
questions with tireless politeness, ready to tell you which
car to take, yea, and ready to go and put you into it to
make sure that you shall not go astray. You cannot pass
into the waiting room of the depot till you have secured
your ticket, and you cannot pass from its only exit till
the train is at its threshold to receive you. Once on
board, the train will not start till your ticket has been
examined — till every passenger's ticket has been inspected.
This is chiefly for your own good. If by any possibility
you have managed to take the wrong train, you will be
handed over to a polite official who will take you whither
you belong, and bestow you with many an affable bow.
your ticket will be inspected eVery now and then aloiig

th(

kn|

stul

th(

mol

plo]

rail

mei

" THIRTY MINUTES FOR DINNER ! " 79

the route, and when it is time to chancre cars you will
know it. You are in the hands of officials who zealously
study your welfare and your interest, instead of turning
their talents to the invention of new vnethods of discom-
moding and snuhhing you, as is very often the main em-
ployment of that exceedingly self-satisfied monarch, the
railroad conductor of America.

But the happiest regulation in French railway govern-
ment is — thirty minutes to dinner I No five-minute bolt-
ings of flabby rolls, muddy coffee, questionable eggs, gutta-
percha beef, and pies whose conception and execution are
a dark and bloody mystery to all save the cook that
created them ! No ; we sat calmly down — it was in old
Dijon, which is so easy to spell and is impossible to pro-
nounce, except when you civilize it and call it Demijohn
— and poured out rich Burgundian wines and munched
calmly through a long table-d'hote bill of fare, snail-
patties, delicious fruits and all, then paid the trifle it cost
and stepped happily aboard the train again, without once
cursing the railroad company. A rare experience, and
one to be treasured for ever.

They say they do not have accidents on these French
roads, and I think it must be true. If I remember rightly,
we passed high above waggon roads, or through tunnels
under them, but never crossed them on their own level.
About every quarter of a mile, it seemed to me, a man
came out and held up a club till the train went by, to
signify that everything was safe ahead. Switches were
changed a mile in advance, by pulling a wire rope that
passed along the ground by the rail, from station to
station. Signals for the day and signals for the night
^2lvq constant and timely notice of the position of
switches.

No, they have no railroad accidents to speak of in
France. But why ? Because when one occurs, somebody
has to bang for itl* Not hang, maybe, but be punished
at le*hst with such vigour of emphasises to make negligence

■*They f^o on tbe principle that it is better that one innocent man
1^01114 sviffertl^an five hundred.

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

a thing to be shuddered at by railroad officials for many a
day thereafter. " No blame attached to the officers" —
that lying and disaster-breeding verdict so common to our
soft-hearted juries, is seldom rendered in France. If the
trouble occurred in the conductor's department, that
officer must suffer if his subordinate cannot be proven
guilty; if in the engineer's department, and the case be
similar, the engineer must answer'.

The Old Travellers — those delightful parrots who have
'' been here before," and know more about the country
than Louis Napoleon knows now or ever will know — tell
us these things, and we believe them because they are
pleasant things to believe, and because they are plausible
and savour of the rigid subjection to law and order which
we behold about us everywhere.

But we love the Old Travellers. We love to hear them
prate and drivel, and lie. We can tell them the moment
we see them. They always throw out a few feelers ; they
never cast themselves adrift till they have sounded every
individual and know that he has not travelled. Then they
open their throttle-valves, and how they do brag, and
sneer, and swell, and soar, and blaspheme the sacred name
of Truth ! Their central idea, their grand aim, is to sub-
jugate you, keep you down, make you feel insignificant
and hum,bie in the blaze of their cosmopolitan glory!
They will not let you know anything. They sneer at your
most inoffensive suggestions; they laugh unfeelingly at
your treasured dreams of foreign lands ; they brand the
statements of your travelled aunts and uncles as the
stupidest absurdities; they deride your most trusted
authors and demolish the fair images they have set up
for your willing worehip with the pitiless ferocity of the
fan^|;ic iconoclast ! But still I love the Old Travellers.
I love them for their witless platitudes, for their super-
natural ability to bore; for their delightful asinine
vanity; for their luxuriant fertility of imagination; for
their startling, their brilliant, their overwhelming men-
dacity !

By Lyons and the Saone (where we sdw the lady of
Jjvons and thought little of her comeliness) ; b^ Ville^

rV..

■;^

r many a
fficers" —
)n to our
, ■ If the
3nt, that
e proven
case be

vho have
country
low — tell
they are
plausible
3r which

ear them
moment
rs; they
id every
len they
•ag, and
)d name
to sub-
nificant
glory !
|at your
igly at
nd the
as the
Itrusted
|set up
of the
sellers.
super-
^sinine
; for
mep-

|dy of

iVim

PARTS AT LAST.

Frnnca, Tonncre, venerable Sens, Melun, Fontainebleau
and scores of other beautiful cities we swept, always
noting the absence of hog-wallows, broken fences, cow lots,
unpainted houses and mud, and always noting as well the
presence of cleanlinefls, grace, taste in adorning and
beautifying, even to the disposition of a tree or the turning
of ii hedf,e, the marvel of roads in perfect repair, void of
rutfc and guiltless of even .m inequality of surface, we
boTvled along, hour after hour, that brilliant summer day,
and as nightfall appropched we enten^d a wilderness of
odorous flowers and shrubbery, sped through it, and then
excited, delighted and half persuaded that we were only
the sport of a beautiful dream, lo I we stood in magnificent
Paris 1

What excellent order they kept about that vast dep6t I
There was no frantic crowding and jostling, no shouting
and swearing, and no swaggering intrusion of services by
rowdy hackmen. These latter gentry stood outside, stood
quietly by their long line of vehicles and said never a
word. A kind of hackman-general seemed to have the
whole matter of transportation in his hands. Ho politely
received the passengers and ushered them to the kind of
conveyance they wanted, and told the driver where to
deliver them. There was no "talking back," no dissatis-
faction about overcharging, no grumbling about anything.
In a little while we were speeding through the streets of
Paris, and delightfully recognising certain names and
places with which books had long ago made us familiar.
It was like meeting an old friend when we read " Rue de
Rivoli " on the street corner ; we knew the genuine vast
palace of the Louvre as well as we knew its picture ; when
we passed by the Column of July we needed no one to
tell us what it was, or to remind us, that on its site once
stood the grim Bastile, that grave of human hopes and hap-
piness, that dismal prison-house, within whose dungeons
so many young faces put on the wrinkles of age, so many
proud spirits grew humble, so many brave hearts broke.

We secured rooms at the hotel, or rather we had three
beds put into Dne room, so that we might be together, and
theft ^e werit out to a restaurant, just after lamp-lighting,

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

and ate a comfortable, satisfactory, lingering dirmer. It
was a pleasure to eat where everything was ho tidy, tlie
food so well cooked, the waiters so polite, and the coming
and departing company so moustaohed, so frisky, so
affable, so fearfully and wonderfully Frcnchy ! All the
surroundings were gay and enlivening. Two hundred
people sut at little tables on the sidewalk, sipping wine
and coffee : the streets were thronged with light vohiclcH
and with joyous pleasure seekers ; there was music in the
air, life and action all about us, and a conflagration of
gaslight everywhere \

AftiJr dinner we felt lil«e seeing such Parisian specialities
as we might see without distressing exertion, and so we
sauntered through the brilliant streets and looked at the
dainty trifles in variety stores and jewellery shops. Occa-
sionally merely for the pleasure of being cruel, we put
unoffending Frenchmen on the rack with questions framed
in the incomprehensible jargon of their native language,
and while they writhed, we impaled them, we peppered
them, we sc iritied them, with their own vile verbs and
participles.

We noticed that in the jewellery stores they had some of
the articles marked " gold," and some labelled '* imitation."
We wondered at this extravagance of honesty, and in-
quired into the matter. We were informed that inasmuch
as most people are not able to tell false gold from the
genuine article, the Government compels jewellers to have
their gold work assayed and stamped officially according
to its fineness, and thoir imitation work duly labelled with
the sign of its falsity. They told us the jewellers would
not dare to violate this law, and that whatever a stranger
bought in one of their stores might be depended upon as
being strictly what it was represented to be. Verily, a
wonderful land is France !

Then we hunted for a barber-shop. From earliest
infancy it had been a cherished ambition of mine to be
shaved some day in a pa'atialTbarber-shop of Paris. I
wished to recline at full length in a cushioned invalid
chair, with pictures about me, and sumptuous furniture ;
with frescoed walls and gilded arches ajjove me, and vig^sj

of I

pel

shJ
Atl
linj

but
mai

:^.

'\,

A BARBAROUS ATKOCITT.

ner. It
tidy, tliG
■i coniini;^
isky, so
All tlic
hundred
ng vvino
voliicles
c in the
ation of

icialitics
i so wo
I at the
Occa-
we put
framed
nguage,
3ppered
m and

JO me of
ation."
id in-
smuch
tn the
) have
)rding
with
^ould
langer
)n as
|ily, a

rliest
to be
I
mlid
ire;
btaa

of Curinthian cohirari itretching far before me ; with
perfumes of Araby to intoxicate my senses, and the
slumbrous drone of distant noises to soothe me to sleep.
At the end of an hour I would wake up regretfully and
find my face as smooth and as soft as an infant's. Depart-
ing I would lift my hands above that barber's head and
say, " Heaven bless you, my son."

So we searched high and low, for a matter of two hours,
but never a barber, shop could we see. We saw only wig-
making establishments, with shocks of dead and repulsive
hair bound upon the heads of painted waxen brigands
who stared out from glass boxes upon the passer-by, with
their stony eyes, and scared him with the ghostly white of
their countenances. We shunned these signs for a time,
but finally we concluded that the wig-makers must of
necessity be the barbers as well, since we could find no
single legitimate representative of the fraternity. We
entered and asked, and found that it was even so.

I said I wanted to be shaved. The barber inquired
where my room was. I said, never mind where my room
was, I wanted to be shaved — there, on the spot. The
doctor said he would be shaved also. Then there was an
excitement among those two barbers ! There was a wild
consultation, and afterwards a hurrying to and fro, and a
feverish gathering up of razors from obscure places, and a
ransacking for soap. Next they took us into a little
mean, shabby back room ; they got two ordinary sitting-
room chairs and placed us in them, with our coats on. My
old, old dream of bliss vanished into thin air !

I sat bolt uprigut, silent, sad and solemn. One of the
wig-making villains lathered my face for tta terrible
minutes^ and finished by plastering a mass o! >3uds into ray
mouth. I expelled the nasty stuff with a strong English
expletive and said, '* Foreigner beware !" Then this outlaw
strapped his razor on his boot, hovered over me ominously
for six fearful seconds, and then swooped down upon me
like the genius of destruction. The first rake of his razor
loosened the very hide from my face, and lifted me out of
the chair. I stormed and raved, and the other boys enjoyed
Itr Their beards are not strong ai^4 thick. Let us dyaw

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

the curtain over this harrowinj< Bccno. SvifCce it thnt I
submitted, and went ^irough with the oru .' •niJi.tion of a
shave by a French barber; tears of exquisite ajijony
coursed down my cheeks now nnd then, but I survived.
Then the incipient uRsussin held a basin of water under
my chin and slopped its contents over my face, and into
my bosom, and down the back of my neck, with a mean
pretence of washing away the soap and blood. He dried
uiy features with a towel, and was going to comb my
hair ; but I asked to be excused. I said with withering
irony, that it was sufficient to be skinned — I declined to
be scalped.

I went away from there with my handkerchief about
my face, and never, never, never desired to dream of
palatial Parisian barber-shops any more. The truth is,
as I believe I have since found out, that they have no
barber-shops worthy of the name in Paris — and no barbers
either, for that matter. The impostor who does duty as
a barber, brings his pans and napkins and implements of
torture to your residence, and deliberately skins you in
your private apartments. Ah, I have suffered, suffered,
suffered here in Paris, but never mind, the time is coming
when I shall have a dark and bloody revenge. Some day
a Parisian barber will come to my room to skin me,
and from that day forth that barber will never be heard
of more.

At eleven o'clock we alighted upon a sign which mani-
festly referred to billiards. Joy I We had played billiards
in the Azores with balls that were not round, and on an
ancient table that was very little smoother than a brick
pavement — one of those wretched old things with dead
cushions, and with patches in the faded cloth and invisible
obstructions that made the balls describe the most astonish-
ing and unsuspected angles, and perform feats in the way of
unlooked-for and almost impossible '' scratches,'' that were
perfectly bewildering. We had played at Gibraltar with
balls the size of a walnut, on a table like a public square ;
and in both instances we achieved far more aggravation
than amusement. We expected to fare better here, but
^e were mistakep. The cushions were a good deal higher

heav]

aroui

OASTLT EXPERIENCE*

it thnfc I
tion of a

survived.
er under
and into
a mean
^Q dried
Jnob my
'ithering
slined to

3f about
ream of
ruth is,
have no
barbers
duty as
lents of
jou in
ufferod,
coming
me day
in me,
heard

mani-
Ilinrds
on an

brick

dead
risible
mish-
rayof

were

with

than the balls, and as the balls had a fashion of always
stopping under the cushions, we accomplished very little
in the way of caroms. The cushions were hard and un-
elastic, and the cues were so crooked that in making a
shot you had to allow for the curve, or you would in-
fallibly put the '' English" on the wrong side of the ball.
Dan was to mark while the doctor and I played. At the
end of an hour neither of us had made a count, and so
Dun was tired of keeping tally with nothing to tally, and
we were heated and angry and disgusted. We paid the
heavy bill— about six cents —and said we would cull
around some time when wo had a week to spend, and
finish the gime.

We adjourned to one of those pretty cafds and took
supper and tested the wines of the country, as we had been
instructed to do, and fouud them harmless and unexciting.
They might have been exciting, however, if we had
chosen to drink a sufficiency of them.

To close our first day in Faris cheerfully and pleasantly,

we now sought our grand room in the Grand H6tel du

Louvre and climbed into our sumptuous bed, to read and

sm ke — but alas !

It was plfifil,
In a whole oity-fUll
Gas we had none.

No gns to read by — nothing but dismal candles. It wos
a shame, ^/e tried to map our excursions for the mor-
row; we puzzled over French "Guides to Paris;" we
talked disjointedly in a vain endeavour to make head or
tail of the wild chaos of the day's sights and experiences ;
we subsided to indolent smoking ; we gaped and yp wned
and stretched — then feebly wondering if we were really
and truly in renowned Paris, and drifted drowsily away
into that vast mysterious void which men oil sleep.

* Joke by the Ductor.

vT,- , 2j,,,>. *,.-w- ^A,^^

r . fr ..r

,.f(St

CHAPTER XIII.

ri'^HE next morning we were up and dressed at ten

. o'clock. We went to the commissionriaire cf the hotel
- -I don't know what a commissionnaire is, but that is the
man wo went to — and told him we wanted a guide. He
said the great International Exposition had drawn such
multitudes of Englishmen and Americans to Paris that it
would be next to impossible to find a good guide unem-
ployed. He said he usually kept a dozen or two on hand,
but he only had three now. He called them. One looked
so like a very pirate that we let him go at once. The
next one spoke with a simpering precision of pronuncia-
tion that was irritating, and said —

*' If ze zhentlemans will to me make ze grande honneur
to me rattain in hees serveece, I shall show to him every
sing zat is magnifique to look upon in ze beautiful Parree.
I speaky ze Angleesh parfaitemaw." ,

He would have done well to have stopped there, because
he had that much by heart and said it right off without
making a mistake. But his self-complacency seduced him
into attempting a flight into regions of unexplored English,
and the reckless experiment was his ruin. Within ten
seconds he was so tangled up in a maze of mutilated verbs
and torn and bleeding forms of speech that no human in-
genuity could ever have gotten him out of it with credit.
It was plain enough that he could not **cpeaky" the
English quite as '' parfaitemaw" as he had pretended he
could.

The third man captured us. He was plainly dressed,
but he had a noticeable air of neatness about him. He
wore a high silk hat which was a little old, but had been
carefully brushed. He wore second-hand kid gloves, in
a;ood repair, and carried a small rattan cane with a curved
handle — a female leg, of ivory. He stepped as gently and
as daintily as a cat crossing a muddy street ; and oh ! he
was. urbanity ; he was quiet, unobtrusive self-possession ;
he was deference itself I He spoke softly and guardedly;

MONSIEUR BILLFINGER.

d at ten
the hotel
lat is the
de. He
iwn such
is that it
ie unem-
on hand,
le looked
je. The
onuncia-

honneur
im every
i Parree.

hccause
without
ced him

nglish,
nin ten
d verbs
man in-

credit.

the

ded he

fressed,
He
Id been
[ves, in

jurved
lly and
}h! he
Ission ;

ledly ;

and when he was about to make a statement on his sole
responsibility, or offer a sugp;estion, he weighed it by
drachms and scruples first, with the crook of his little stick
placed meditatively to his teeth. His opening speech was
perfect. It was perfect in construction, in phraseology, in
grammar, in emphasis, in pronunciation — everything. He
spoke little and guardedly, after that. We were charmed.
We were more than charmed — we were overjoyed. We
hired him at once. We never even asked him his price.
This man — our lackey, our servant, our unquestioning
slave though he was, was still a gentleman — we could see
that — while of the other two one was coarse and awkward,-
and the other was a born pirate. We asked our man
Friday's name. He drew from his pocket-book a snowy
iiitle card, and passed it to us with a profound bow :

• »jo\

A. BlLLFlNGER,

Guide to Paris, France, Germany,
Spain, &c., &c..
Grand HQttl du Louvre.

" Billfinger ! Oh, carry me home to die !"

That was an " aside" from Dan. The atrocious name
grated harshly on my ear too. The most of us can learn
to forgive, and even to like, a countenance that strikes us
unpleasantly at first ; but few of us I fancy, become re-
conciled to a jarring name so easily. I was almost sorry
we had hired this man, his name was so unbearable.
However, no matter. We were impatient to start. Bill-
finger stepped to the door to call a carriage, and then the
doctor said —

" Well, the guide goes with the barber-shop, with the
billiard-table, with the gasless room, and maybe with many
another pretty romance of Paris. I expected to have a
guide named Henri de Montmorency, or Armand de la
Chartreuse, or something that would sound grand in letters
to the villagers at home ; but to think of a Frenchman by
the name of Billfinger ! Oh ! this is absurd, you know.
This will never do! We can't say Billfinger i it is

'-. to

-•x . '' x : :,^ ^-A :t'ntti\mmmiim'mm

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

I I

nauseating. Name him over again : what had we better
call him? Alexis du Caulaincourt ?"

" Alphonse Henri Gustave de Hauteville," I suggested.
^ " Call him Ferguson," said Ban.

That was practical, unromantic good sense. Without
debate, we expunged Billfinger as Billfiuger and called
him Ferguson.

The carriage — an open barouche — was ready. Ferguson
mounted beside the driver, and we whirled away to break-
fast. As was proper, Mr. Ferguson stood by to transmit
our orders and answer questions. By-and-by he men-
tioned casually — the artful adventurer — that he would go
ind get his breakfast as soon as we had finished ours. He
knew we could not get along without him, and that we
would not want to loiter about and wait for him. We
asked him to sit down and eat with us. He begged, with
many a bow, to be excused. It was not proper, he said ;
he would sit at another table. We ordered him peremp-
torily to sit down with us.

Here ended the first lesson. It was a mistake.

As long as we had that fellow after that, he was always
hungry ; he was always thirsty. He came early ; he
stayed late ; he could not pass a restaurant ; he looked
with a lecherous eye upon every wine-shop. Suggestions
to stop, excuses to eat and to drink, were for ever upon
his lips. We tried all we could to fill him so full that he
would have no room to spare for a fortnight ; but it was a
failure. He did not hold enough to smother the cravings
of his superhuman appetite.

He had another " discrepancy" about him. He was
always wanting us to buy things. On the shallowest pre-
tences ho would inveigle us into shirt stores, boot stores,
tailor shops, glove shops — anywhere under the broad sweep
of the heavens that there seemed a chance of our buying
anything. Any one could have guessed that the shop-
keepers paid him a percentage on the sales; but in our
blessed innocence we didn't, until this feature of his
conduct grew unbearably prominent. One day Dun
hap[»ened to mention that he thought of buying three or
four silk dress patterns for presents. Ferguson's hungry

eye

mini

((|

bratl

us t(

" SOLDr

eye was upon him in an instant. In the course of twenty
minutes the carriage stopped. . , < ., i ,

" What's this ?"

•' Zis is ze finest silk magazin in Paris — ze most cele-
brate."

'' What did you come here for ? We told you to take
us to the palace of the Louvre."

" I suppose ze gentleman say he wish to buy some silk."
" You are not required to * suppose' things for the
party, Ferguson. We do not wish to tax your energies
too much. We will bear some of the burden and heat of
the day ourselves. We will endeavour to do such ' sup-
posing' as is really necessary to be done. Drive on." So
spake the doctor.

Within fifteen minutes the carriage halted again, and
before another silk store. The doctor said —

" Ah ! the palace of the Louvre : beautiful, beautiful
edifice I Does the Emperor Napoleon live here now,
Ferguson?" ; ,h„,, ,-,;:, , ,, . ^ .„.;.; ......^ ■

" Ah, doctor ! you do jest ; zis is not ze palace ; we
come there directly. But since we pass right by zis store,

where is such beautiful silk "

" Ah ! I see, I see. I meant to have told you that we
did not wish to purchase any silks to-day ; but in my
absent-mindedness I forgot it. I also meant to tell you
we wished to go directly to the Louvro ; but I forgot that
also. However, we will go there now. Pardon my
seeming carelessness, Ferguson. Drive on."

Within the half hour ' we stopped again — in front of
another silk store. We were ar -ry ; but the doctor was
always serene, always smooth- voiced. He said —

" At last ! How imposing the Louvre is, and yet how
small ! how exquisitely fashioned ! how charmingly

situated ! — Vener;able, venerable pile "

" Pairdon, doctor, zis is not ze Louvre —it is "

'* What \& it r

" I have ze idea — it come to mc in a moment — zat ze
silk in zis magazin

Ferguson, how heedless I am. I fully intended to tell
you that we did not wish to buy any silks to-day, and I

rmi

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

h I

also intended to tell you that we yearned to go immediately
to the palace of the Louvre, but enjoying the happiness of
seeing you devour four breakfasts this morning has so
filled me with pleasurable emotions that I negle^it the
commonest interests of the time. However, we will pro-
ceed now to the Louvre, Ferguson."

'' But doctor" (excitedly), '4t will take not a minute —
not but one small minute! Ze gentleman need not to buy
if he not wish to — but only look at ze ^Wk—look at ze
beautiful fabric." [Then pleadingly.] " Sair — just only
one leetle moment !'

Dan said, " Confound the idiot ! I don't want to sec
any silks to-day, and I wont look at them. Drive on."

And the doctor, "We need no silks now, Ferguson.
Our hearts yearn for the Louvre. Let us journey on —
let us journey on."

'' But, doctor ! it is only one moment — one leetle
moment. And ze time will be save — entirely save !
Because zere is nothing to see now — it is too late. It
want ten minute to four, and ze Louvre close at four —
only one leetle moment, doctor !"

The treacherous miscreant ! After four breakfasts and
a gallon of champagne, to serve us such a scurvy trick.
We got no sight of the countless treasures of art in the
Louvre galleries that day, and our only poor little satis-

faction was in the reflection that Ferguson sold not

solitary silk dress pattern.

I am writing this chapter partly for the satisfaction of
abusing that aocomplishe(i knave Billfinger, and partly to
sho«v whosoever shall read this how Americans fare at the
hands of the Paris guides, and what sort of people Paris
guides are. It need not be supposed that we were a
stupider or an 3asier prey than our countrymen generally
are, for we were not. The guides deceive and defraud
every American who goes to Paris for the first time and
sees its sights alone or in company with others as little
experienced as himself. I shall visit Paris again some
day, and then let the guides beware ! I shall go in my
war-paint- — I shall carry my tomahawk along.
I think we have lost but little time in Paris. We have

gone
the ri
didtl
we stl
last v|
wouI(
monst
It wa^
of all!
show.
I shoi
the ins
rested
centur
faces
once,
about
— watc
unconce
of a jei
under t
all the c
—but t
tattooed
their atl
several
modern
the Fre
hastenec
heard i
soldiers
movemei
all aboul
and the
five thoi
mediate!
men thai
Wed]
opposite
bridged

THE INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION 91

dif'tely
neas of
has so
3ct the
ill pro-

nute —

to buy

k at ze

.st only

to see
on."
jrguson .
)y on—

e leetle
y ■ save !
ate. It
b four —

ists and
trick,
t in the
le sutis-
not a

ition of

irtly to

at the

Paris

^ere a

Inerally

lefraud

le and

little

some

in my

have

gone to bed every night tired out. Of course we visited
the renowned International Exposition. All the world
did that. We went there on our third day in Paris — and
we stayed there nearly two hours. That was our first and
last visit. To tell the truth, we saw at a glance that one
would have to spend weeks — yea, even months — in that
monstrous establishment, to get .an intelligible idea of it.
It was a wonderful show, but the moving masses of people
of all nations we saw there were a still more wonderful
show. I discovered that if I were to stay there a month,
I should still find myself looking at the people instead of
the inanimate objects on exhibition. I got a little inte-
rested in some curious old tapestries of the thirteenth
century, but a party of Arabs came by, and their dusky
faces and quaint costumes called my attention away at
once, i watched a silver swan, which had a living grace
about his movements, and a living intelligence in his eyes
— watched him swimming about us comfortably and as
unconcernedly as if he had been born in a morass instead
of a jeweller's shop — watched him sc^ize a silver fish from
under the water and hold up his head and go through
all the customary and elaborate motions of swallowing it
— but the moment it disappeared down his throat some
tattooed South Sea Islanders approached and I yielded to
their attractions. Presently I found a revolving pistol
several hilndred years old which looked strangely like a
modern Colt, but just then I heard that the Empress of
the French was in another part of the building, and
hastened away to see what she might look like. We
heard martial music — we saw an unusual number of
soldiers walking hurriedly about— there was a general
movement among the people. We inquired what it was
all about, and learned that the Emperor of the French
and the Sultan of Turkey were about to review t',"}nty-
five thouiaud troops at the Arc de VEtoile. We im-
mediately departed. I had a greater anxiety to see these
men than I could have had to see twenty Expositions.

We dro^'e away and took up a position in an open space
opposite the American Minister's house. A speculator
bridged a couple of barrels with a board and we hired

TEE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

standing-places on it. Presently there was a sound of
distant music ; in another minute a pillar of dust came
moving slowly toward us; a moment more, and then,
with colours flying and a grand crash of military music,
a gallant array of cavalrymen emerged from the dust and
came down the street on a gentle trot. After them came
a long line of artillery; then more cavalry, in splendid
uniforms ; and then their Imperial Majesties Napoleon III.
and Abdul-Aziz. The vast concourse of people swung
their hats and shouted — the windows and house-tops in
the wide vicinity burst into a snow-storm of waving
handkerchiefs, and the wavers of the same mingled their
cheers with those of the masses below. It was a stirring
spectacle.

But the two central figures claimed all my attention.
Was ever such a contrast set up before a multitude till
then? Napoleon, in military uniform — a long-bodied,
short-legged man, fiercely moustached, old, wrinkled, with
eyes half closed, and such a deep, craftj , scheming expres-
sion about them !— Napoleon, bowing ever so gently to the
loud plaudits, and watching everything and everybody
with his cat-eyes from under his depressed hat-brim, as
if to discover any sign that those cheers were not heart-
felt and cordial.

Abdul- Aziz, absolute lord of the Ottoman Empire —
clad in dark green European clothes, almost without
ornament or insignia of rank ; a red Turkish fez on his
head — a short, stout, dark man, black-bearded, black-
eyed, stupid, unprepossessing — a man whose whole ap-
pearance somehow suggested that if he only had a cleaver
in his hand and a white apron on, one would not be at
all surprised to hear him say : '' A mutton-roast to-day,
or will you have a nice porter-house steak?"

Napoleon III., the repiesentative of the highest modern
civilization, progress, and refinement: Abdul-Aziz, the
representative of a people by nature and training filthy,
brutish, icnorant, un progressive, superstitious — ^and a
government whose Three Graces are Tyranny, Ks^acity,
Blood. Here in brilliant Paris, under this majestic Arch
of Triumph, the First Century greets the Nineteenth I

NAPOLEON III,

Napoleon III., Emperor of France ! Surrounded by
shouting thousands, by military pomp, by the splendours
of his capital city, and companioned by kings and princes
—this is the man who was sneered at, and reviled, and
called Bastard — yet who was dreaming of a crown and an
empire all the while; who was driven into exile — but
carried his dreams with him ; who associated with the
common herd in America, and ran foot-races for a wager
— but still sat upon a throne, in fancy ; who braved every
danger to go to his dying mother— and grieved that she
could not be spared to see him cast aside his plebeian
vestments for the purple of royalty ; who kept his faithful
watch and walked his weary beat a common policeman of
London — but dreamed the while of a coming night when
he should tread the loog-drawn corridors of the Tuileries;
who made the miserable fiasco of Strasbourg; saw his
poor, shabby eagle, forgetful of its lesson, refuse to perch
upon his shoulder ; delivered his carefully-prepared, sen-
tentious burst of eloquence unto unsympathetic ears ;
found himself a prisoner, the butt of small wits, a mark
for the pitiless ridicule of all the world — yet went on
dreaming of coronations and splendid pageants, as before ;
who lay a forgotten captive in the dungeons of Ham — and
still schemed and planned and pondered over future glory
and future power ; President of France at last ! A coup
<r4tat, and surrounded by applauding armies, welcomed
by the thunders of cannon, he mounts a throne and waves
before an astounded world the sceptre of a mighty empire !
Who talks of the marvels of fiction ? Who speaks of the
wonders ox romance ? Who prates of the tame achieve-
ments of Aladdin and the Magii of Arabia ?

Abdul-Aziz, Sultan of Turkey, Lord of the Ottoman
Empire! Born to a throne; weak, stupid, ignorant al-
most as his meanest slave ; cliief of a vast royalty, yet the
puppet of his Premier and the obedient child of a tyran-
nical mother ; a man who sits upon a throne — the beck of
whose finger moves navies and armies — who holds in his
hands the power of life and denth over millions — yet who
sleeps, sleeps, eats, eats, idles with his eight hundred con-
cubines, and when he is surfeited with eating and sleeping

I '

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

and idling, and woald rouse up and take the reins of
goyernmcnt and threaten to 6e a Sultan, is charmed from
his purpose by wary Fuad Pacha with a pretty plan for a
new palace or a new ship — charmed away with a new toy,
like any other restless child ; a man who sees his people
robbed and oppressed by soulless tax-gatherers, but speaks
no word to save them; who believes in gnomes, and
genii, and the wild fables of the Arabian Nights, but
has small regard for the mighty magicians of to-day, and
is nervous in the presence of their mysterious railroads
and steamboats and telegraphs ; who would see undone in
Egypt all that great Mehemet Ali achieved, and would
prefer rather to forget than emulate him; a man who
found his great Empire a blot upon the earth — a degraded,
poverty-stricken, miserable, infamous agglomeration of
ignorance, crime, and brutality, and will idle away the
allotted days of his trivial life, and then pass to the dust
and the worms and leave it ao ! ^

Napoleon has augmented tbc commercial prosperity of
France, in ten years, to such a degree that figures can
hardly compute it. He has rebuilt Paris, and has partly
rebuilt every city in the State. He condemns a whole
street at a time, assesses the damages, pays them, and re-
builds superbly. Then speculators buy up the ground
and sell, but the original owner is given the first choice
by the government at a stated price before the speculator
is permitted to purchase. But above all things, he has
taken the sole control of the Empire of France into his
hands, and made it a tolerably free land — for people who
will not attempt to go too far in meddling with govern-
ment affairs. No country oflfers greater security to life
and property than France, and one has all the freedom he
wants, but no licence — no licence to interfere with any-
body, or make any one uncomfortable.

As for the Sultan, one could set a trap anywhere and
catch a dozen abler men in a night.

The bands struck up, and the brilliant adventurer,
Napoleon III., the genius of Energy, Persistence, Ebter-
prise; and the feeble Abdul- zVziz, the genius of Ignorance,
Bigotry, and Indolence, prepared for the Forward — March !

TIJ

"We St
tached o
we saw-
satisfied.

to think
are. We
ment; it
tance an(
another, a
rich fronl
who had
ages. Tl]
the old d
third Cru
since that
down upor
the most
delighted
fellows sa
knights C(
heard the
tholoniew's
lowed ; lati
of the Rev
lion of two
that lords
to-day — an
until they
banners of
wish these <
worth theli
They saj
now stands,
turies ago—

THE CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE DAME. 95

Ire and

iturer,

IBtiter-

|>rance,

[arch !

We saw the splendid review, we saw the white-mous-
tached old Crimean soldier, Canrobert, Marshal of Franco,
we saw — well, we saw everything, and then we went home
satisfied.

■'. iV

■',\l

CHAPTER XIV.

"TTTE went to see the Cathedral of Notre Dame. We
▼ f had heard of it before. It surprises me sometimes
to think how much we do know, and how intelligent we
are. We recognised the brown old Gothic pile in a mo-
ment ; it was like the pictures. We stood at a little dis-
tance and changed from one poirit of observation to
another, and gazed long at its lofty square towers and its
rich front, clustered thick with stony, mutilated saints
who had been looking calmly down from their perches for
ages. The Patriarch of Jerusalem stood under them in
the old days of chivalry and romance, and preached the
third Crusade, more than six hundred years ago ; and
since that day they have stood there and looked quietly
down upon the most thrilling scenes, the grandest pageants,
the most extraordinary spectacles that have grieved or
delighted Paris. These battered and broken-nosed old
fellows saw many and many a cavalcade of mail-clad
knights come marching home from Holy Land ; they
heard the bells above them toll the signal for the St. Bar-
tholomew's Massacre, and they saw the slaughter that fol-
lowed ; later, they saw the Keign of Terror, the carnage
of the Revolution, the overthrow of a king, the corona-
tion of two Napoleons, the christening of the young prince
that lords it over a regiment of servants in the Tuileries
to-day — and they may possibly continue to stand thore
until they see the Napoleon dynasty swept away and the
banners of a great Republic floating above its ruins. I
wish these old parties could speak. They could tell a tale
worth the listening to.

They say that a pagan temple stood where Notre Dame
now stands, in the old Roman days, eighteen or twenty cen-
turies ago — remains of it are still preserved in Paris ; and

THE IJSNOCENTS ABROAD.

that a Christian Church took its plnco about a.D, 300; :,n'
other took the place of that in a.d. 500 ; and that the foi .•
dations of the present (cathedral were laid about a.d. 1 100.
The ground ouj^ht to be measurably nacred by this tim<^
ouo would think. One portion of this loble old edifice is
susgcstive of the qu<'.int fashions of ancient times. It was
built by Jean Sans-Peur, Duke of Burgundy, to set his
conscience at rest — ho had assassinated the Duke of Or-
leans. Alas! those good old times are gone, when a
murderer could wipe the stain from his name and soothe
his troubles tb sleep simply by getting out his bricks and
mortar and building an addition to a church.

The portals of the great western front are bisected by
square pillars. Thoy took the central one away in 1852,
on the occasion of thanksgivings for the re-institution of
the Presidential po-ver — but precious soon they had occa-
sion to reconsider that motion and put it back again ! And
they did.

We loitered through the grand aisles for an hour or
two> ataring up at the rich stained-glass windows embel-
lished with blue and yellow and crftuson saints and mar-
tyrs, aod scrying to admire the numberless great pictures
in the ehiijiels, and then we were admitted to the sacristy
and -t'owii the magnificent robes which the Pope wore
when he crowned Mapoleon I. ; a wagf^on-load of solid
gold and silver utensils used in the great public proces-
sion and ceremonies of the church ; some nails ■' tlio
true cross, a fragment of the cross itself, a part of the
crown of thorns. We had already seen a large piece
of the true cross in a church in the Azores, but no
nails. They showed us likewise the bloody robe which
that Archbishop of Paris wore who exposed his sacred
person and braved the wrath of the insurgents of 1848, to
mount the barricades and hold aloft the olive branch of
peace in the hope of stopping the slaughter. His noble
effort cost him his life. He was shot dead. They showed
us a cast of his face taken after death, the bullet that
killed him, and the two vertebrae in which it lodged.
These people have a somewhat singular taste in the matter
of relics. Ferguson told us that the silver cross which the

THE MORGUE.

proces-

f' tlic

'jjh into a room which
f doud men ; coarse
'arments of women

p:ood Archbishop wore at his girdle w:is seiznd and thrown
into the .Seine, where it lay embedded in the mud for
fifteen years, and then an an^el appeared to a priest and
told him where to dive for it ; ho did dive for it and got
it, and now it is there on exhibition at Notre Dame, to be
inspected by anybody who feels an interest in inanimate
objects of miraculous intervention.

Next we went to visit the Morgue, that horrible recep-
tacle for the dead who die mysteriously and leave the
manner of their taking off u <''smal secret. We stood
before a grating and lookd
was hung all about with tli
bl'uses, water '>oaked ; the .
and children ; putrician vestiucius, hacked and stabbed
and.staincd with red ; a hat that was crushed and bloody.
On a slanting stone lay a drowned man, naked, swollen,
purple ; clasping the fragment of a broken bush with a
grip which death had so petrified that human strength
could not unloose it — mute witness of the last despairing
effort to save the life that was doomed beyond all help.
A stream of water trickled ceaselessly over the hideous face.
We knew that the body and the clothing were there for
identification by friends, but still we wondered if '^ybody
could love that repulsive object or grieve for its ioN^i. We
grew meditative and wondered if, some forty years ago,
when the mother of that ghastly thing was dandling it
upon her knee, and kissing it, and petting it, and display-
ing it with satisfied pride to the passers-by, a prophetic
vision of this dread ending ever flitted through her brain.
I half feared that the mother, or the wife, or a brother of
the dead man might come, while we stood there, but
nothing of the kind occurred. Men and women came, and
some looked eagerly in, and pressed their faces against the
bars ; others glanced careiesfcly at the body, and turned
away with a disappointed look — people, I thought, who
live upon strong excitements, and who attend the ex-
hibitions of the Morgue regularly, just as other people
go to see theatrical spectacles every night. When one
of these looked in and passed on, I could not help
thiniking — ■

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33 WIST MAIN SHUT

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(716) t73-4S03

. -c^

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

" Now, this don't afford you any satisfaction — a party
with his head shot off is what you need."

One night we went to the celebrated Jardin Mahilley
but only stayed a little while. We wanted to see some of
this kind of Paris life, however, and therefore, the next
night, we went to a similar place of entertainment in a great
garden in the suburbs of Asnidres. We went to the rail-
road d^pdt, towards evening, and Ferguson got tickets for
a second-class carriage. Such a perfect jam of people I
have not often seen — but there was no noise, no disorder,
no rowdyism. Some of the women and young girls that
entered the train we knew to be of the demi-monde, but
others we were not at aU sure about.

The girls and women in our carriage behaved them-
selves modestly and becomingly, all the way out, except
that they smoked. When we arrived at the garden in
Asni^res, we paid a franc or two admission, and entered'a
place which had flower-beds in it, and grass plats, and
long, curving rows of ornamental shrubbery, with here and
there a secluded bower convenient for eating ice-cream in.
We moved along the sinuous gravel walks, with the great
concourse of girls and young men, aad suddenly a domed
and filigreed white temple, starred over and over and
over again with brilliant gas-jets, burst upon us like' a
fallen sun. Near by was a large, handsome house with
its ample front illuminated in the same way, and above its
roof floated the Star Spangled Banner of America.

" Well !" I said. " How is this ?" It nearly took my
breath away.

Ferguson said an American — a New Yorker — kept the
place, and was carrying on quite a stirring opposition to
the Jardin Mahille.

Crowds, composed of both sexes and nearly all ages,
were frisking about the garden or sitting in the open air
in front of the flag-staff and the temple, drinking wine and
coffee, or smoking. The dancing had not begun yet.
Ferguson said there was to be an exhibition. Tae famous
Blondin was going to perform on a tight-rope in another
part of the garden. We went thither. Here the light
was dim, and the masses of people were pretty closely

BLONDmmA FLAME,

ir
id

It.

\i> ■>

packed together. And now I made a mistake which any
donkey might make, but a sensible man never. I com-
mitted an error which. I find myself repeating every day
of my life. -^Standing right before a young, lady, I said —

*' Dan, just look at this girl, how beautiful she is I"

'' I thank you more for the evident sincerity of the com^
pliment, sir, than for the extraordinary publicity you have
given to it !" This in good, pure English.

We took a walk, but my spirits were very, very sadly
dampened. I did not feel right comfortable for some time
afterward. Why wiU people be so stupid as to suppose
themselves the only foreigners among a crowd of ten
thousand persons ?

But Blondin came out shortly. He appeared on a
stretched cable, far away above the sea of tossing hats and
handkerchiefs, and iti the glare of the hundreds of rockets
that .whizzed heavenwards by him he looked like a wee
insect. He balanced his pole and walked the length of his
rope — two or three hundred feet : he came back and got a
man and carried him across; he returned to the centre
and cbncod a jig ; next he performed some gymnastic and
balancing feats too perilous to afford a pleasant spectacle ;
and he finished by fastening to his person a thousand
Roman candles, Catherine wheels, serpents, and rockets
of all manner of brilliant colours, setting them on fire all
at once and walking and waltzing across his rope again in
a blindin|2; blaze of glory that lit up the garden and the
people's faces like a great conflagration at midnight.

The dance had b^un, and we adjourned to the temple.
Within it was a drinking saloon ; and all round it was a
broad circular platform for the dancers. I backed up
against the wall of the temple, and waited. Twenty sets
formed, the music struck up, and then — I placed my hands
before my face for very shame. But I looked through my
fingers. They were dancing the renowned " Can-can^
A handsome girl in the set before me tripped forward
lightly to meet the opposite gentleman — tripped back
again, grasped her dress vigorously on both sides with
her hands, raised them pretty high, danced an extraor-
dinary jig that had more activity and exposure about it

100

THE INmCENTS ABROAD,

than any jig I ever saw before, and then, drawing her
clothes still higher, she advanced gaily to the centre and
launched a vicious kick full at her vis-d-vis that must
infallibly have removed his nose if he had been seven feet
high, it was a mercy he was only six.

That is the can-can. The idea of it is to dance as
wildly, as noisily, as furiously as you can ; expose your-
self as much as possible if you are a woman; and kick
as high as you can, no matter which sex you belong to.
There is no word of exaggeration in this. Any of the
staid, respectable, aged people who were there that night
can testify to the truth of that statement. There was a
good many such people present. I suppose French
morality is not of that straitlaced description which is
shocked at trifles.

I moved aside and took a general view of the can-can.
Shouts, laughter, furious music, a bewildering chaos of
darting and intermingling forms, stormy jerking and
snatching of gay dresses, bobbing heads, flying arms,
lightning-flashes of white stockinged calves and dainty
slippers in the air, and then a grand final rush, riot, a
terrific hubbub and a wild stampede 1 Heavens I No-
thing like it has been seen on earth since trembling
Tarn O'Shanter saw the devil and the witches at their
orgies that stormy night in " AUoway's auld haunted
kirk."

We visited the Louvre, at a time en we had no silk
purchases in view, and looked at its miles of paintings by
the old masters. Some of them were beautiful, but at the
same time they carried such evidences about them of the
cringing spirit of those great men that we found small
pleasure in examining them. Their nauseous adulation
of princely patrons was more prominent to me and chained
my attention more surely than the charms of colour and
expression which are claimed to be in the pictures. Grati-
tude for kindnesses is well, but it seems to me that some of
those artists carried it so far that it ceased to be gratitude,
and became worship. If there is a plausible excuse ^r
the worship of men, then by all means let us forgive
Bubens and his brethren.

RESERVATION OF NOTED THINGS. 101

But I will drop the subject, lest I say something about
the old masters that might as well be left unsaid.

Of course we drove in the Bois de Boulogne^ that
limitless park, with its forests, its lakes, its cascades, and
its broad avenues. There were thousands upon thousands
of vehicles abroad, and the scene was full of life and
gaiety. There were very common hacks, with father and
mother and all the children in them ; conspicuous little
open carriages with celebrated ladies of questionable
reputation in them; there were dukes and duchesses
abroad, with gorgeous footmen perched behind, and
equally gorgeous outriders perched on each of the six
horses ; there were blue and silver, and green and gold,
and pink and black, and all sorts and descriptions of
stunning and startling liveries out, and I almost yearned
to be a flunkey myself, for the sake of the fine clothes.

But presently the Emperor came along and he out-
shone them all. He was preceded by a body guard of
gentlemen on horseback in showy uniforms, his carriage-
horses (there appeared to be somewhere in the remote
neighbourhood of a thousand of them) were bestridden
by gallant looking fellows, also in stylish uniforms, and
after the carriage followed another detachment of body
guards. Everybody got out of the way ; everybody bowed
to the Emperor and his friend the Sultan, and they wont
by on a swinging trot and disappeared.

I will not describe the Bois de Boulogne. I cannot do
it. It is simply a beautiful, cultivated, endless, wonderful
wilderness. It is an enchanting place. It is in Paris
now, one may say, but a crumbling old cross in one
portion of it reminds one that it was not always so. The
cross marks the spot where a celebrated troubadour was
waylaid and murdered in the fourteenth century. It was
in this park that the fellow with an unpronounceable name
made the attempt upon the Russian Czar's life last spring
with a pistol. The bullet struck a tree. Ferguson
showed us the place. "Now in America that interesting
tree would be chopped down or forgotten within the next
five years, but it will be treasured here. The guides will
point it out to visitors for the next 800 years, and when

' i

102

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

it decays and falls down they will put up another there
and go on with the same old story just the same.

CHAPTER XV.

ONE of our pleasantest visits was to P^re la Chaise, the
national burying-ground of France, the honoured
resting-place of some ot her greatest and best children, the
last borne of scores of illustrious men and women who
were boni to no titles, but achieved fame by their own
energy and their own genius. It is a solemn city of wind-
ing streets, and of miniature marble temples and mansions
of the dead gleaming white from out a wilderness of
foliage and fresh flowers. Not every city is so well
peopled as this, or has so ample an area within its walls.
Few palaces exist in any city Uiat are so exquisite in design,
so rich in art, so costly in material, so graceful, so beau-
tiful.

We had stood in the ancient church of St Denis, where
the marble effigies of thirty generations Of kings and
queens lay stretched at length upon the tombs, and the
sensations invoked were startling and novel; the curious
armour, thid obsolete costumes, the placid faces, the hands
placed- palm to palm in eloquent supplication — it was a
vision of grey antiquity. It seemed curious enough to be
standing face to face, as it were, with old Dagobert I., and
Clovis, and Charlemagne, those vague, colossal heroes,
those shadows, those myths of a thousand years ago 1 I
touched their dust<covered faces with my finger, but
Dagobert was deader .than the sixteen centuries that have
passed over him, Clovis slept well after his labour for
Christ, and old Charlemagne went on dreaming of bis
paladins, of bloody Boncesvalles, and gave no heed to me.

The great names of Pdre la Chaise impress one too, but
differently. There the suggestion brot^bt constantly to
his mind is, that this place is sacred to a nobler royal% —
theroyai^ of heart and brain. Every faculty of mind,
every noble trait of human nature, «very high ocoupaitiOn

name.
Masseni
and so
on the
great te
•went ou
to kindl
and pea
knew nc
origin at
who int
blessed
Prince <
Further
astro noi
here, ai
Balzac,
and 8C01
labours
tion as i
sleep in
But J
P^re la
youth
examin<
the hist
due the
bers th
This is
has bee
and suD
than ai
Saviour
people
of it ;
pointed
of tears
this shi
*'grit"

AMONG THE GREAT DEAD.

103

which men ensjnge in, seems represented by a famous
name. The effect is a curious mecttey. Bavoust and
Kassena, who wrought in many a battle-tragedy, are here,
and so also is Rachel, of equal renown in mimic tragedy
on the stage. The Abb^ Sioard sleeps here — the first
great teacher of the deaf and dumb — a man whose heart
went out to every unfortunate, and whose life was given
to kindly offices in their service ; and not far off, in repose
and peace at last, lies Marshal Ney, whose stormy spirit
knew no music like the bugle call to arms. The man who
originated public gas-lighting, and that other benefactor
who introduced the cultivation of the potato, and thus
blessed millions of his starving countrymen, lie with the
Prince of Masserano, and with exiled queens and princes of
Further India. Gay-Lussac the chemist, Laplace the
astronomer, Lnrrey the surgeon, de S^ze the advocate, are
here, and with them are Talma, Bellini, Rubini; de'
Balzac, Beaumarchais, B^ranger ; Moli^re and Lafontaine,
and scores of other men whose names and whose wprthy
labours are as fkmiliar in the remote by-places of civilizar
tion as are the historic deeds of the kings and princes that
sleep in the marble vaults of St. Denis.

But among the thousands and thousands of tombs in
P^re la Chaise, there is one that no man, no woman, no
youth of either sex, ever passes by without stopping to
examine. Every visitor has a sort of indistinct idea of
the history of its dead, and comprehends that homage is
due there, but not one in twenty thousand clearly remem-
bers the story of that tomb and its romantic occupants.
This is the grave of Abelard and Hcloise — a grave which
has been more revered, more widely known, more written
and sung about and wept over, for sQyen hundred years,
than any other in Christendom, save only that of the
Saviour. All visitors linger pensively about it ; all young
people capture and carry away keepsakes and mementoes
of it ; all Parisian youths and maidens who are disap-
pointed in love come there to bail out when they are full
of tears;, yea, many stricken lovers make pilgrimages to
this shrine from distant provinces to we«p and wail and
*' grit " their teeth over their heavy Arrows, andfiii ;pur<

104

TEE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

obase the sympathies of the chastened spirits of that tomb
with offerings of in^mortolles and biidding flowers.

Go when you ^ill, you find somebody snuffling over
that tomb. Go when you will, you find it furnished with
those bouquets and immortelles. Go when you will, you
find a gravel-train from Marseilles arriving to supply the
deficiencies caused by memento-cabbaging Vandals whose
affections have miscarried.

Yet who really knows the story of Abelard and He-
loise? Precious few people. The names are perfectly
familiar to everybody, and that is all. With infinite
pains I have acquired a knowledge of that history, and I
propose to narrate it here, partly for the honest informa-
tion of the public, and partly to show that public that they
have been wasting a good deal of marketable sentiment
very unnecessarily.

STORY OP ABELARD AND HEL0I8E. \

Heloise was born seven hundred and sixty-six years h<2;o.
She may have had parents. There is no telling. She
lived with her uncle Fulbert, a canon of the cathedral of
Paris. I do not know what a canon of a' cathedral is, but
that is what he was. He was nothing more than a sort of
a mountain howitzer, likely, because they had no heavy
artillery in those days. Suffice it, then, that Heloise lived
with her uncle, the howitzer, and was happy. — She spent
the most of her childhood in the convent of Argenteuil —
never heard of Argenteuil before, but suppose there was
really such a place. She then returned to her uncle, the
old gun, or son of a gun, as the case may be, and he
taught her to write and speak Latin, which was the lan-
guage of literature and polite society at that period.

Just at this time, Pierre Abelard, who had already
made himself widely famous as a rhetorician, came to
found a school of rhetoric in Paris. The originality of
his principles, his eloquence, and his great physical strength
and beauty, created a profound sensation. Hd saw Heloise,
and was captivated by her blooming youth, hcrV beauty,
and her charming disposition. He wrote to her; she
answered. {le wrote again ; she answered again: %^

was now i
her face \

His scl
to allow h
opportuni
absorb ki
him a cen

Fulberl
which is
answer fo
at that.

Abelan
often and
sentence t
hearted vi
dcbauchin

" I cannot
as muoh sun
wolf. Heloi
to love, anc
Books were
sopby, and k

And so
to his deg
unmanly
guest he
-—told oft
comprehei
the sacred
for the coi
heard the
Abelard t
come not
philosoph}
He dro^
secretly ar
his native
son, who,
^Willian
^ longed foi

VILLAINY.

105

Uready
ime to
ility of
trength
leloise,
beauty,
ir; she
i: He

was now in love. He longed to know her — to speak to
her faoe to face.

His school was near Fulbert's house. He asked Fulbert
to allow him to call. The good old swivel saw here a rare
opportunity : his niece, whom he so much loved, would
absorb knowledge from this tnan, and it would not cost
him a cent. Such was Fulbert — penurious.

Fulbert's first name is not mentioned by any author,
which is unfortunate. However, George W. Fulbert will
answer for him as well as any other. We will let him go
at that. He asked Abelard to teach her.

Abelard was glad enough of the opportunity. He came
often and staid long. A letter of his shows in its very first
sentence that he came under that friendly roof like a cold-
hearted villain as he was, with the deliberate intention of
debauching a confiding, innocent girl. This is the letter :

" I cannot cease to be astonished at the simplicity of Fulbert ; I was
as much surprised as if he had placed a lamb in the power of a hungry
wolf. Heloise and 1, under pretext of. study, gave ourselves up wholly
to love, and the solitude that love seeks our studies procured for us.
Books were open before us, but we spoke oftener of love than philo-
aopby, and kisses came more readily ttova. our lips than words."

And SO, exulting over an honorable confidence which
to his degraded instinct was a ludicrous '< simplicity/' this
unmanly Abelard seduced the niece of the man whose
guest he was. Paris found it out. Fulbert was told of it
— told often — ^but refused to believe it. He could not
comprehend how a man could be so dep.^ wed as to use
the sacred protection and security of hospitality as a means
for the commission of such a crime as that. But when he
heard the rowdies in the streets singing the love-songs of
Abelard to Heloise, the case was too plain — love-songs
come not properly within the teachings of rhetoric and
philosophy. ,» .

He drove Abelard from his house. Abelard returned
secretly and carried Heloise away to Palais, in Brittany,
his native country. Here, shortly afterward, she bore a
son, who, from his rare beauty, was surnamed Astrolabe
-—William G. The girFs flight enraged Fulbert, and he
longed for vengeance, but feared to strike lest retaliatioa

■■
■j

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

'rieit Heloise — for he still loved her tenderly. At length
Abelard offered to marry Heloise, but on a shameful con-
dition : that the marriage should be kept secret from the
world, to the end that (while her good name remained a
wreck, as before) bis priestly reputation might be kept
untarnished. It was like that miscreant. Fulbert saw
his opportunity and consented. He would see the parties
married, and then violate tho confidence of the man who
had taught him that trick ; he would divulge the secret,
and so remove somewhat of the obloquy that attached to
his niece's fame. But the niece suspected his scheme.
She refused the marriage, at first ; she said Fulbert would
betray the secret to save her, and besides, she did not
wish to drag down a lover who was so gifted, so honoured
by the world, and who had such a splendid career before
him. It was noble, self-sacrificing love, and charac-,
teristic of the pure-souled Heloise, but it was not good^
sense.

But she was overruled, and the private marriage took
place. Now for Fulbert I The heart so wounded should
be healed at last ; the proud spirit so tortured should find
rest again ; the humbled head should be lifted up once
lAore. He proclaimed the marriage in the high places of
the city, and rejoiced that dishonour had departed from
his house. But lo 1 Abelard denied the marriage !
Heloise denied it 1 The people, knowing the former cir-
cumstances, might have believed Fulbert, had only
Abelard denied it, but when the person chiefly interested
— the girl herself — denied it, they laughed despairing
Fulbert to scorn.

The poor canon of the cathedral of Paris was spiked
again. The last hope of repairing the wrong that had
been done his ^ouse was gone. What next ? Human
nature suggested revenge. He compassed it. The histo-
rian s^ys :

Bttfflani, bireA by Falbert, fell upon Abelard by nigbt, and inflicted
upon him a terrible and namelees mutilation." \

I aift seeking the last resting-place of those '' ruffians.''
When I find it I shall shed some tears on it, and stack np

some
some
by crin
just de
strict 1

Helo
world a
never h
tioned.
a life
a lettei
history,
address
to corre
ing aff(
rhetoric
jointed
delibera
ment.
love coi
of his :
abandoi

On a
some d
them, a
ment.
St. Gil<3
her hon
his brea
blow hii
little 01
which 1
'sufferini
di^posit
up a ¥
great fs
people,
rapidly
ness, ai
honour!

LOV£ AND INIDFFERENCE.

107

»>

some bouquets and immortelles, and oart away from it
some grayel whereby to remember that, howsoever blotted
by crime their lives may have been, these ruffians did one
just deed, at any rate, albeit it was not warranted by the
strict letter of the law.

Heloise entered a coovent and bade good-by to the
world and its pleasures for all time. For twelve years she
never heard of Abelard — never even heard his name men-
tioned. She had become prioress of Argenteuil, and led
a life of complete seclusion. She happened one day to see
a letter written by him, in which he narrated his own
history. She cried over it, and wrote him. He answered,
addressing her as his '' sister in Christ." They continued
to correspond, she in the unweighed language of unwaver-
ing affection, he in the chilly phraseology of the polished
rhetorician. She poured out her heart in passionate, dis-
jointed sentences ; he replied with finished essays, divided
deliberately into heads and sub-heads, premises and argu-
ment. She showered upon him the tenderest epithets that
love could devise ; he addressed her from the North Pole
of his frozen heart as the '< Spouse of Christ !*' The
abandoned villain !

On account of her too easy government of her nuns,
some disreputable irregularities were discovered among
them, and the Abbot of St. Denis broke up her establish-
ment. Abelard was the official head of the monastery of
St. Gildas de Buys, at that time, and when he heard of
her homeless condition a sentiment of pity was aroused in
his breast (it is a wonder the unfamiliar emotion did not
blow his head alT), and he placed her and her troop in the
little oratory of the Paraclete, a religious establishment
which he had founded. She had many privations and
'sufferings to undergo at first, but her worth and her gentle
disposition won influential friends for her^ and she built
up a wealthy and flourishing nunnery. She became a
great favourite with the heads of the church, and also the
people, though she seldom appeared in public. She
rapidly advanced in esteem, in good report and in useful-
ness, and Abelayd as rapibly lost ground. The Pope so
honoured her that he made her the head of her order.

108

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

Abelard, a man of splendid talents, and ranking as the
first debHter of his time, became timid, irresolute and dis-
trustful of his powers. He only needed a great misfortune
to topple him from tfie high position he held in the world
uf intellectual excellence, una it came. Urged by kings
and princes to meet the subtle St. Bernard in debate and
crush him, he stood up in the presence of a royal and
illustrious assemblage, and when his antagonist had finished
he looked about him, and stammered a commencement ;
but his courage failed him ; the cunning of his tongue was
gone : with his speech unspoken he trembled and sat
down, a disgraced and vanquished champion.

He died a nobody, and was buried at Cluny, a.d. 1144.
They remgved his body to the Paraclete afterward, and
when Heloise died, twenty years later, they buried her
with him, in accordance with her last wish. He died at^
the ripe age of si3&ty-four, and she at sixty-three. After
the bodies had remained entombed three hundred years,
they were removed once more. They were removed again
in 180Q ; and finally, seventeen years afterward, they were
taken up and transferred to P^re la Chaise, where they
will remain in peace and quiet until it comes time for them
to get up and move again.

History is silent concerning the last acts of the moun-
tain howitzer. Let the world say what it will about him,
/, at least, shall always respect the memory and sorrow for
the abused trust, and the bfoken heart, and the troubled
spirit of the old smooth-bure. Rest and repose be his I

Such is the story of Abelard and Heloise. Such is the
history that Lamartine has shed such cataracts of tears
over. But that man never could come within the influence
of a subject in the least pathetic without overflowing his
banks. He ought to be dammed — or leveed, I should
more properly say. Such is the history — not as it is
usually told, but as it is when stripped of the nauseous
sentimentality that would enshrine for our loving worship
a dastardly seducer like Pierre Abelard. I have\iiot a
word to say against the misused, faithful girl, and would
not withheld from her grave a single one of those simple
tributes which blighted youths and maidens offer to her

" ENGLTSn SPOKEN HERE:'

109

memory, but I am sorry enough that I have not timo and
opportunity to write four or five volumes of my opinion of
her friend the founder of the Poruohute, or the Paruolete,
or whatever it wa8.

The tons of sentiment I have wasted on that unprin-
cipled humbug in my ignorance 1 I shall throttle down
my emotions hereafter about this sort of people, until I
have read them up and know whether they are entitled
to any tearful attentions or not. I wish I had my immor-
telles back, now, and that bunch of radishes.

In Paris we often saw in shop windows the sign,
" English Spoken Here^''^ just as one sees in the windows
at home the sign, '* Id on parte Frangais.^^ We always
invaded these places at once, and invariably received the
information, framed in faultless French, that the clerk
who did the English for the establishment had just gone
to dinner, and would be back in an hour; would
Monsieur buy something ? We wondered '^'hy those
parties happened to take their dinners at such erratic and
extraordinary hours, for we never palled at a time when
an exemplary Christian would be in the least likely to be
abroad on such an errand. The truth was it was a base
fraud — a snare to trap the unwary — chaflf to catch fledg-
lings with. They had no English-murdering olerkc.
They trusted to the sign to inveigle foreigners into their
lairs, and trusted to their own blandishments to keep
them there till they bought something.

We ferreted out another French imposition — a frequent
Ign to this effect : — " All Manner op American Drinks
Artistically Prepared Here." We procured the ser-
vices of a gentleman experienced in the nomenclature
of the American bar, and moved upon the works of one of
' these impoetors. A bowing, aproned Frenchman skipped
forward and said:—

" Que voulez les messieurs ?" I do not know what '' Que
voulez les messieurs" means> but such was his remark.

Our General said " we will take a whisky^straight."

[A stare from the Frenchman.]

'^Well, if you don't know what that is, give us a
phampagne oopk-tail/'

110

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

[A stare and a shrug.]

" Well, then, give us a sherry cohhler."
- The Frenchman was checkmated. This was all Greek
to him.

" Give us a brandy smash !"
* The Frenchman began to back away, suspicious of the
ominous vigour of the last order — began to back away,
shrugging his shoulders and spreading his hands apolo-
getically.

The General followed him up and gained a complete
victory. The uneducated foreigner could not even
furnish a Santa Cruz Punch, an Eye-Opener, a Stone-
Fence, or an Earthquake. It was plain that he was a
wicked impostor.

An acquaintance of mine said the other day, that he was
doubtless the only American visitor to the Exposition who
had had the high honour of being escorted by the Em-^
peror's body guard. I said with unobtrusive frankness that
I was astonished that such a long-legged, lantern jawedy
unprepossessing-looking spectre as he should be singled
out for a distinction like that, and asked how it came
about. He said he had attended a great military review
in the Champ de Mars, some time ago, and while the
multitude about him was growing thicker and thicker
every moment, he observed an open space inside the rail-
ing. He left his carriage and went into it. He was the
only person there, and so he had plenty of room, and the
situation being central, he could see all the preparations
going on about the field. By-and-by there was a sound
of music, and soon the Emperor of the French and the
Emperor of Austria, escorted by the famous Cent Gardes^
entered the enclosure. They seemed not to observe him, but
directly, in response to a sign from the commander of the
Guard, a young lieutenant came toward him with a file of
his men following, halted, raised his hand and gave the
military salute, and then said in a low voice that he was
sorry to have to disturb a stranger and a gentleman ; but
the place was sacred to royalty. Then this New Jersey
phantom rose up and bowed and begged pardon ; then
with the officer beside him, the file of men ma^bin^

THE VER-ESTIMA TED GRISETTE, 111

behind him, and with every mark of respect, he was
escorted to his carriage by the imperial Cent Gardes !
The officer saluted again and fell back, the New Jersey
sprite bowed in return and had presence of mind enough
to pretend that he had simply called on a matter of
private business with those emperors, and so waved
them an adieu, and drove from the field !

Imagine a poor Frenchnian ignorantly intruding upon a
public rostrum sacred to some sixpenny dignitary in
America. I'he police would scare him to death, first with
a storm of their elegant blasphemy, and then pull him to
pieces getting him away from there. We are measurably
superior to the French in some things, but they are im-
measurably our betters in others.

Enough of Paris for the present. We have done our
whole duty by it. We have seen the Tuileries, the
Napoleon Columu, the Madeline, that wonder of wonders
the tomb of Napoleon, all the great churches and museums,
libraries, imperial palaces, and sculpture and picture
galleries, the Pantheon, Jardin des Flantes, the opera, the
circus, the Legislative Body, the billiard-rooms, the
barbers, the grisettes —

Ah, the grisettes ! I had almost forgotten. Tliey are
another romantic fraud. They were (if you let the books
of travel tell it) always so beautiful — so neat and trim, so
graceful — so naive and trusting — so gentle, so winning—
so faithful to their shop duties, so irresistible to buyers in
their prattling importunity — so devoted to their poverty-
stricken students of the Latin Quarter — so light-hearted
and happy en their Sunday picnics in the suburbs — and
oh, so charmingly, so delightfully immoral 1

Stuff ! For three or four days I was constantly saying : ^

" Quick, Ferguson! is that a grisette V^

And he always said " No."

He comprehended at last that I wanted to see a grisette.
Then he showed me dozens of them. They were like
nearly all the Frenchwomen I ever saw — ^homely. They
had large hands, large feet, large mouths ; they had pug
noses as a general thing, and moustaches that not even good
breeding could overlook ; they combed their hair straight

112

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

back without parting; they were ill-shaped, they were
not winning, they were not graceful; I knew by their
looks that they ate garlic and onions; and lastly and
finally, to my thinking it would be base flattery to call
them immoral.

Aroint thee, wench 1 I sorrow for the vagabond
student of the Latin Quarter now even more than formerly
I envied him. Thus topples to earth another idol of my
infancy.

We have seen everything, and tormorrow we go to
Versailles. We shall see Paris only for a little while as we
come back to take up our line of march for the ship, and
so I may as well bid the beautiful city a regretful farewell.
We shall travel many thousands of miles after we leave
here, and visit many great cities, but we shall find none
so enchanting as this.

Some of our party have gone to England, intending to\
take a roundabout course and rejoin the vessel at Leghorn
or Naples, several weeks hence. We came near going to
Geneva, but we have concluded to return to Marseilles, and
go up to Italy from Genoa.

I will conclude this chapter with a remark that I am
sincerely proud to be able to make, and glad as well that
my comrades cordially endorse it — to wit, by far the
handsomest women we have seen in France were born and
reared in America.

I feel now like a man who has redeemed a failing repu-
tation, and shed lustre upon a dimnaed escutcheon by a
single just deed done at the eleventh hour.

Let the curtain fall to slow music. ^^

of a|

niupi

bio*

end

flow^

and

broal

CHAPTER XVI.

YERSAILLES I It is wonderfully beautiful I You
gaze, and stare, and try to understand that it is real,
that it is on the earth, that it is not the Garden of Eden
— but your brain grows giddy, stupefied by the world of
ji^auty around you, and you half believe that you are the dupe

A WONDERFUL PARK.

113

of an exquisite dream. The scene thrills one like military
niup' ' A noble palace, stretching its ornamented front
bloi upon block away, till it seemed that it would never
end ; a grand promenade before it, whereon the armies
of an empire might parade ; all about it rainbows of
flowers, and colossal statues that were almost numberless,
and yet seemed only scattered over the ample space;
broad flights of stone steps leading down from the pro-
menade to lower grounds of the park — stairways that
whole regiments might stand to arms upon and have room
to spare ] vast mountains whose great bronze effigies dis-
charged rivers of sparkling water into the air and mingled
a hundred curving jets together in forms of matchless
beauty ; wide grass-carpeted avenues that branched hither
and thither in every direction and wandered to seemingly
interminable distances, walled all the way on either side
with compact ranks of leafy trees whose branches met
above and formed arches as faultless and as symmetrical
as ever were carved in stone ; and here and there were
glimpses of sylvan lakes with miniature ships glassed in
their surfaces. And everywhere — on the palace steps,
and the great promenade, around the fountains, among the
trees, and far under the arches of the endless avenues,
hundreds and hundreds of people in gay costumes walked
or ran or danced, and gave to the fairy picture the life
and animation which was all of perfection it Could have
lacked.

^ It was worth a pilgrimage to see. Everything is on so
gigantic a scale. Nothing is small — nothing is cheap. The
statues are all large ; the palace is grand ; the park covers
a fair-sized county ; the avenues are interminable. All
the distances and all the dimensions about Versailles are
vast. I used to think the pictures exaggerated thciiti
distances and these dimensions beyond all reason, and
that they made Versailles more beautiful than it was pos-
sible for any place in the world to be. I know now that
the pictures never came up to the subject in any respects,
and that no painter could represent Versailles on canvas
as beautiful as it is in reality. I used to abuse Louis XIV.
for spending two hundred millions of dollars in creating

114

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

this marvellous park, when bread was so scarce with some
of his subjects ; but I have forgiven him now. He took
a track of land sixty miles in circumfer^ice, and set
to work to make this park and build this palace and a
road to it from Paris. He kept 36,000 men employed
daily on it, and the labour was so unhealthy that they
used to die and be hauled oiF by cart-loads every night.
The wife of a nobleman of the time speaks of this as an
^^ inconvenience f" hvit naively remarks that ''it does not
seem worthy of attention in the happy state of tranquillity
we now enjoy."

I always thought ill of people at home, who trimmed
their shrubbery into pyramids and squares, and spires,
and all manner of unnatural shapes, and when I saw the
same thing being practised in this great park I began to
feel dissatisfied. But I soon saw the idea of the thing and
the wisdom of it. They seek the general effect. We\
distort a dozen sickly trees into unaccustomed shapes in
a little yard no bigger than a dining-room, and then surely
they look absurd enough. But here they take two hundred
thousand tall forest trees and set them in a double row ;
allow no sign of leaf or branch to grow on the trunk lower
down than six feet above the ground ; from that point the
boughs begin to project, and very gradually they extend
outward further and further till they meet overhead, and
a faultless tunnel of foliage is formed. The arch is mathe-
matically precise. The effect is then very fine. They
make trees take fifty different shapes, and so these quaint
effects are infinitely varied and picturesque. The trees in
no two avenues are shaped alike, and consequently the eye
is not fatigued with anything in the nature of monotonous
uniformity. I will drop this subject now, leaving it to
others to determine how these people manage to make
endless ranks of lofty forest trees grow to just a certain
thickness of trunk (say a foot and two-thirds) ; how they
make them spring to precisely the same height for miles ;
how they make them grow so close together; how they
compel one huge limb to spring from the same identical
spot on each tree and form the main sweep of the arch ;
^nd how ^U these things are kept exactly in the sam^

A WONDERFUL PARK.

115

condition, and in the same exquisite buapAlinoss and
symmetry month after month and year after year — for I
have tried to reason out the problem, and have failed.

We walked through the great hall of sculpture and the
one hundred and fifty galleries of paintings in the palace
of Versailles, and felt that to be in such a place was use-
less unless one had a whole year at his disposal. These
pictures are all battle-scenes, and only one solitary little
canvas among them all treats of anything but great French
victories. We wandered, also, through the Grand Trianon
and the Petit Trianon, those monuments of royal prodi-
gality, and with histories so mournful — filled, as it is,
with souvenirs of Napoleon the First, and three dead
Kings and as many Queens. In one sumptuous bed they
had all slept in succession, but no one occupies it now.
In a large dining-room stood the table at which Louis XIV .
and his mistress, Madame Maintenon, and after them
Louis XY ., and Pompadour, had set at their meals naked
and unattended — ^for the table stood upon a trap-door,
which descended with it to regions below when it was
necessary to replenish its dishes. In a room of the Petit
Trianon stood the furniture, just as poor Marie Antoinette
left it when the mob came and dragged her and the King
to Paris, never to return. Near at hand, in the stables,
were prodigious carriages that showed no colour but gold
— carriages used by former Kings of France on state
occasions, and never used now save when a kingly head is
to be crowned, or an imperial infant christened. And
with them were some curious sleighs, whose bodies were
shaped like lions, swans, tigers, etc. — vehicles that had
once been handsome with pictured designs and fine work-
manship, but were dusty and decaying now. They had
their history. When Louis XIV. had finished the Grand
Trianon, he told Maintenon he had created a Paradise for
her, and asked if she could think of anything now to wish
for. He said he wished the Trianon to be perfection —
nothing less. She said she could think but of one thing —
it was summer^ and it was balmy France— yet she would
like well to sleigh-ride in the lealy avenues of Versailles !
^k^ next morning found miles and miles of grassy avenuesi

116

th:e ijsnocfjvtjs abroad.

flpread thick with snowy salt and sugar, and a procession
of those quaint sleighs waiting to receive the chief concu-
l)ine of the gayest and most unprincipled court that France
has ever seen 1

From sumptuous Versailles, with its palaces, its statues,
its gardens and its fountains, we journeyed back to Paris
and sought its antipodes — the Faubourg St. Antoine.
Little narrow streets; dirty children blockading them ;
greasy, slovenly women capturing and spanking them;
filthy dens on first floors, with rag stores in them (the
heaviest business in the Faubourg is the chiffonier's) ;
other filthy dens where whole suits of second and third-
hand clothing are sold at prices that would ruin any pro*
prietor who did not steal his stock ; still other filthy dens
where they sold groceries — sold them by the half-penny-
worth — five dollars would buy the man out, goodwill and
all. Up these little crooked streets they will murder a man\
for seven dollars and dump the body in the Seine. And
up some other of these streets — most of them, I should
say — live lorettes.

All through this Faubourg St. Antoine, misery, poverty,
vice and crime go hand in hand, and the evidences of it
stare one in the face from every side. Here the people
live who begin the revolutions. Whenever there is any-
thing of that kind to be done, they are always ready.
They take as much genuine pleasure in building a bar-
ricade as they do in cutting a throat or shoving a friend
into the Seine. It is these savage-looking ruffians who
storm the splendid halls of the Tuileries occasionally,
and swarm into Versailles when a King is to be called to
account.

But they will build no more barricades, they will break
no more soldiers' heads with paving-stones. Louis Napoleon
has taken care of all that. He is annihilating the crooked
streets, and building in their stead noble boulevards as
straight as an arrow — avenues which a cannon ball could tra-
verse from end to end without meeting an obstruction more
irresistible than the flesh and bones of men — boulevards
whose stately edifices will never afford refuges and plotting-
places fov sta^rving, discontented revolution-breeders. Five

oftl

, — a

mod^

but

this

citie4

and

Al^ INTmNATlONAL COMBAT lit

of tliese great thoroughfares radiate from one ample centre
— a centre which is exceedingly well adapted to the accom-^
modation of heavy artillery. The mohs used to riot there,
but they must seek another rallying-place in future. And
this ingenious Napoleon paves the streets of his great
cities with a smooth, compact composition of asphaltum
and sand. No more barricades of flag-stones — no more
assaulting his Majesty's troops with cobbles. I cannot
feel friendly toward my quondam fellow- American, Na-
poleon III., especially at this time,* when in fancy I sec
his credulous victim, Maximilian, lying stark and stiff in
Mexico, and his maniac widow watching eagerly from her
French asylum for the form that will never come — but I
do admire his nerve, his calm self-reliance, his shrewd
good sense.

CHAPTER XVII.

WE had a pleasant journey of it seaward again. We
found that for the three past nights our ship had
been in a state of war. The first night the sailors of a
British ship, being happy with grog, came down on the
pier and challenged our sailors to a free fight. They
accepted with alacrity, repaired to the pier and gained—
their share of a drawn battle. Several bruised and bloody
members of both parties were carried off by the police,
and imprisoned until the following morning. The next
night the British boys c^me again to renew the fight, but
our men had strict orders to remain on board and out of
sight". They did so, and the beseeching party grew noisy,
and more and more abusive as the fact became apparent
(to them) that our men were afraid to come out. They
went away, finally, with a closing burst of ridicule and
offensive epithets. The third night they came again, and
were more obstreperous than ever. They swaggered up
and down the almost deserted pier, and hurled curses,
obscenity and stinging sarcasms at our crew. It was more

♦ July, 1867,

118

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

than human nature could bear. The executive officer
ordered our men ashore — with instructions not to fight«
They charged the British and gained a brilliant victory. I
probably would not have mentioned this war had it ended
differently. But I travel to learn, and I still remember
that they picture no French defeats in the battle galleries
of Versailles.

It was like home to us to step on board the comfortable
ship again, and smoke and lounge about her breezy decks.
And yet it was not altogether like home, either, because
so many members of the family were away. We missed
some pleasant faces which we would rather have found at
dinner, and at night there were gaps in the euchre-parties
which could not be satisfactorily filled. " Moult" was in
England, Jack in Switzerland, Charley in Spain. Blubber
was gone, none could tell where. But we were at sea
again, and we had the stars and the ocean to look at, and \
plenty of room to meditate in.

In due time the shores of Italy were sighted, and as
we stood gazing from the decks early in the bright
summer morning, the stately city of Genoa rose up out
of the sea and flung back the sunlight from her hundred
palaces.

Here we rest for the present — or rather, here we have
been trying to rest, for some little time, but we run about
too much to accomplish a great deal in. that line.

I would like to remain here. I had rather not go any
further.' There may be prettier women in Europe, but I
doubt it. The population of Genoa is 120,000; two
thirds of these are women, I think, and at least two-thirds
of the women are beautiful. They are as dressy, and as
tasteful, and as graceful as they could possibly be without
being angels. However, angels are not very dressy, I
believe. At least the angels in pictures are not — they
wear nothing but wings. But the Genoese women do look
so charming. Most of the young demoiselles are robed in a
cloud of white from head to foot, though many trick them-
selves out more elaborately. Nine-tenths of them linear
nothing on their heads but a filmy sort of veil, which f;^lis
down their backs like a white mist. They are very fair, and

many]
browi
ThI
fashic
in th<
and tl
two
Two
and gl
latest
amoni

THE HOME OF FEMALE BEAUTY. 119

many of them have blue eyes, but black and dreamy dark
brown ones are met with oftenest.

The ladies and gentlemen of Genoa have a pleasant
fashion of promenading in a large park on the top of a hill
in the centre of the city, from six till nine in the evening)
and then eating ices in a neighbouring garden an hour or
two longer. We went to the park on Sunday evening.
Two thousand persons were present, chiefly young ladies
and gentlemen. The gentlemen were dressed in the very
latest Paris fashions, and the robes of the ladies glinted
among the trees like so many snow-flakes. The multitude
moved round and round the park in a great procession.
The bands played, and so did the fountains ; the moon
and the gas-lamps lit up the scene, and altogether it was a
brilliant and an animated picture. I scanned every female
face that passed, and it seemed to me that all were hand-
some. 1 never saw such a freshet o^ loveliness before. I
do not see how a man of only ordinary decision of cha-
racter could marry here, because, before he could get
his mind made up he would fall in love with somebody
else.

Never smoke any Italian tobacco. Never do it on any
account. It makes me shudder to think what it must be
made of. You cannot throw an old cigar " stub" down
anywhere, but some vagabond will pounce upon it on the
instant. I like to smoke a good deal, but it wounds my
sensibilities to see one of these stub-hunters watching me
out of the corners of his hungry eyes and calculating how
long my cigar will be likely to last. It retainded me too
painfully of that San Francisco undertaker who used to go to
sick-beds witfi his watch in his hand and time the corpse.
One of these stub-hunters followed us all over the park last
night, and we never had a smoke that was worth any-
thing. We were always moved to appease him with the
stub before the cigar was half gone, because he looked so
viciously anxious. He regarded us as his own legitimate
prey, by right of discovery, I think, because he drove off
several other professionals who wanted to take stock
in us.

NoW; they surely must chew up those old stubs, and

120 THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

dry and sell them for smoking-tobaooo. Therefore, give
your custom to other than Italian brands of the article.

" The superb" and the ** Citv of Palaces" are namoH
which Genoa has held for centuries. She is full of palaces,
certainly, and the palaces are sumptuous inside, but they
Ui'e very rusty without, and make no pretensions to archi-
tectural magnificence. " Genoa, the Superb," would be a
felicitous title if it referred to the women.

We have visited several of the palaces — immense thick-
wallod piles, with great stone staircases, tesselated marble
pavements on the floors (sometimes they make a mosaic
work, of intricate designs, wrought in pebbles, or little
fragments of marble laid in cement), grand salons
hung with pictures by Rubens, Guide, Titian, Paul
Veronese, and so on, and portraits of heads of the family,
in plumed helmets and gallant coats of mail, and patrician
ladies, in stunning .costumes of centuries ago. But, o^'
course, the folks were all out in the country for the sum-
mer, and might not have known enough to ask us to
dinner if they had been at home, and so all the grand,
empty jsalons^ with their resounding pavements, their grim
pictures of dead ancestors, and tattered banners with the
dust of by-gone centuries upon them, seemed to brood
solemnly of death and the grave, and our spirits ebbed
away, and our cheerfulness passed from us. We never
went up to the eleventh story. We always began to
suspect ghosts. There was always an undertaker-looking
servant along too, who handed us a programme, pointed
to the picture that began the list of the salon he was in,
and then stood stiff and stark and unsmiling in his petri-
fied livery till we were ready to move on to the next
chamber, whereupon he marched sadly ahead and took up
another malignantly respectful position as before. I wasted
so much time praying that the roof would fall in on these
dispiriting flunkeys that I had but little left to bestow upon
palaces and pictures.

And besides, as in Paris, we had a guide. Perdition
catch all the guides ! This one said he was the most gifted
linguist in Genoa, as far as English was concerned, and that
only two persons in the city beside^ himself could talk

CUURCn MAGNIFICENCE.

. 121

up
isted
hese

tho lanp;uage at all. Ho showed us tho birthplace of
Christopher. Columbus, and after we had reflected in silent
awe before it for fifteen minutes, he said it was not the
birthplace of Columbus, but of Columbus's grandmother ! <
When we demanded an explanation of his conduct he only
shru^ed his shoulders and answered in barbarous Italian.
I shall speak further of this guide in a future chapter.
All the information we got out of him wo shall be able to
cjirry along with us, I think.

I have not been to church so often in a long time as I
have in the last few weeks. The people in these old lands
seem to make churches their speciality. Especially does
this seem to be the case with the citizens of Genoa. I
think there is a church every three or four hundred yards
all over town. The streets are sprinkled from end to
end with shovel-hatted, long-robed, well-fed priests, and
the church bells by dozens are pealing all the day long,
nearly. Every now and then otie comes across a friar of
orders grey, with shaven head, long, coarse robe, rope
girdle and beads, and with feet cased in sandals or entirely
bare. These worthies suffer in the flesh, and do ponance
all their lives, I suppose, but they look like consummate
famine-breeders. They are all fat and serene.

The old Cathedral of San Lorenzo is about as notable a
building as we have found in Genoa. It is vast, and has
colonnades of noble pillars, and a great organ, and the
customary pomp of gilded mouldings, pictures, frescoed
ceilings, and so forth. I cannot describe it, of course — it
would require a good many pages to do that. But it is
a curious place. They said that half of it — from the front
door half way down to the altar — was a Jewish Synagogue
before the Saviour was bom, and that no alteration had
' been made in it since that time. We doubted the state-
ment, but did it reluctantly. We would much rather
have believed it. The place looked in too perfect repair
to be so ancient.

The main point of interest about the Cathedral is the
little Chapel of St. John the Baptist. They only allow
women to enter it on one day in the year, on account of
the animosity they still cherish against the sex because of

122

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

the murdor of the Saint to gratify a oaprioo of Hcrodiafl.
In this Chapel is a marble chest, in which, they told U8,
were the ashes of St. John ; and around it Vas wound a
chain, which, they said, hbd confined him when he was v
prison. We did riot desire to disbelieve these statements,
and yet we could not feel certain that they were correct —
partly because we could have broken that chain, and so
could St. John, and partly because we had seen St. John's
ashes before, in another church. We could not bring
ourselves to think St. John had two sets of ashes.

They also showed us a portrait of the Madonna which
was painted by St. Luke, and it did not look half as oiH
and smoky as some of the pictures by Rubens. Wi c( u u
not help admiring the Apostle's modesty in m vev onzfn
mentioning in his writings that he could pnint.

But isn't this relic matter a little overdor^; ;' Wo iind
a piece of the true cross in every old chfirch we go ivi^j,
and some of the nails that held it together. I would liot
like to be positive, but I think we have seen as much hs a
keg of these nails. Then there is the crown of thorns ;
they have part of one in Saint Chapelle, in Paris, and part
of one, also, in Notre Dame. And as for bcues of
St. Denis, I feel certain we have seen enough of them to
duplicate him iT necessary.

I only meant to write about the churches, but I keep
wandering from the subject. I could say that the Church
of the Annunciation is a wilderness of beautiful columns,
of statues, gilded mouldings, and pictures almost countless,
but that would give no one an entirely perfect i<^ea of the
thing, and so where is the use ? One family built the
whole edifice, and have got money left. There is where
the mystery lies. We had an idea at first that only a mint
could have survived the expeL,<;.

These peopie here live in tl c }\t'r ; ' t, hipl i.^, broadest,
darkest, solidest houses one Cau luiagine. . Each one might
^' laugh a siege to scorn." A hundred feet front and a
hundred high is about the style, and you go up three
flights of stairs before you begin to come upon signs of
o<?^.upaD^}v. Everything is stone, and stone of the heaviest
— iloor, stairways, mantels, benches — everything. The

Mcrew.

HOW THEY LIVE,

123

wallH are four to fivo feet thick. The streets generally are
four or fivo to eight feet wide, and as crooked as a cork-
Horew. You go iilong one of these gloomy cracks, and look
up and behold tbo nky like a mere ribbon of light, ftur
above your hoad where the tops of the tall houses <m
either side of the stroot bend almost together. Vou %e\
as if you were at the ix>tlom of some tremendous abyss,
with all the world far above you. You wind in and out,
und here and there, in the most mysterious way, and have
no more idea of the points of the compass than if you wore
a blind man. You can never persuade yoursulf that these
I nro actually streets, and the frowning, dingy, monstrous
houses dwellings, till you see one of these beautiful,
prettil3'-dressed women emerge from them — see her
emerge from a dark, dreary-looking den that looks dun-
geon all over, from the ground away half-way up <»
heaven. And then you wonder that such a charming
moth could come from such a forbidding; shell as that.
The streets are wisely made narrow and the houses heavy
and thick and stony, in order that the people may be cool
in this roasting climate. And they arc cool, and stay so.
And while I think of it — the men wear hat ^ and have very
dark complexions, but the women wear no head-gear but
a flimsy veil like a gossamer's web, and yet are exceedingly
fair as a general thing, Singular, isn't it ?

The huge palaces of Genoa are each supposed to be
occupied by one family, but they could ac( ommodate a
hundred, I should think. They are relics of the grandeur
of Genoa's palmy days — the day when she was a great
commercial and maritime power several centuries ago.
Those houses, solid marble palaces though the\ be, are in
many cases of a dull pinkish colour outside, and from
, pavement to eaves are pictured with Genoese battle-scenes
with monstrous Jupiters and Cupids, and with familiar
illustrations from Grecian mythology. Where the paint
has yielded to age and exposure, and is peeling ofif in
flakes and patch<>^s, the effect is not happy. A noseless
Cupid, or a Jupiter with an eye out, or a Venus with a
fly-blister on the breast, are not attractive features in a
picture. Some of these painted walls reminded me some-

tju^-ni.f ■MiMfca

TEE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

what of the tall van, plastered with fanciful bills and
posters, that follows the band-waggon of a circus about a
country village. I have not read or heard tha the out-
sides of the houses of any other European city are frescoed
in this way.

I cannot conceive of such a thing as Genoa in ruins.
Such massive arches, such ponderous substructions as
support these towering, broad-winged edifices, we have
seldom seen before ; and surely the great blocks of stone
of which these edifices are built can never decay ; walls
that are as tbick as an ordinary American doorway is high,
cannot crumble.

The Republics of Genoa and Pisa were very powerful
in the middle ages. Their ships filled the Mediterranean,
and they carried on an extensive commerce with Constan-
tinople and Syria. Their warehouses were the great dis-
tributing depots from whence the costly merchandize of
the East was sent abroad over Europe. They were warlike
little nations, and defied in those days, governments that
overshadow them now as mountains overshadow mole-
hills. The Sarucens captured and pillaged Genoa nine
hundred years ago, but during the following century
Genoa and Pisa entered into an offensive and defensive
alliance, and besieged the Saracen colonies in Sardinia
and the Balearic Isles with an obstinacy that maintained
its pristine vigour, and held to its purpose for forty long
years. They were victorious at last, and divided their
conquests equably among their great patrician families.
Descendants of scnie of those proud families still inhabit
the palaces of Genoa, and trace in their own features a
resemblance to the grim knights whose portraits hang in
their stately halls, and to pictured beauties and pouting
lips and merry eyes whose originals have been dust and
ashes for many a dead and forgotten century.

he hotel we live in belonged to one of those great
orders of Knights of the Cross in the times of the Crusades,
and its mailed sentinels once kept watch and ward in its
massive turrets and woke the echoes of these halls and
corridors with their iron heels.

But Genoa's greatness has degenerated into an uneaten-

GRAVES FOR SIXTY THOUSAND. 125

tatious commerce in velvets and silver filagree work.
Tbey say that each European town has its speciality.
These filagree things are Genoa's speciality. Her smiths
take silver ingots and work them up into all manner of
graceful and beautiful forms They make bunches of
flowers from flakes and wires of silver, that counterfeit
the delicate creations the frost weaves upon a window
pane ; and we were shewn a miniature silver temple whose
fluted columns, whose Corinthian capitals and rich en-
tablatures," whose spires, statues, bells, and ornate lavish-
ness of sculpture were wrought in polished silver, and with
such matchless art that every detail was a fascinating
study, and the finished edifice a wonder of beauty.

We are ready to move again, though we are not really
tired yet of the narrow passages of this old marble cave.
Cave is a good word when speaking of Genoa under the
stars. When we have been prowling at midnight through
the gloomy crevices they call streets, where no footfalls
but ours were echoing, where only ourselves we^e abroad,
and lights appeared only at long intervals and at a distance,
and mysteriously disappeared again, and the houses at our
elbows seemed to stretch upward farther than ever toward
the heavens, the memory of a cave I used to know at home
was always in my mind, with its lofty passages, its silence
and solitude, its shrouding gloom, its sepulchral f I oes,
its flitting lights, and more than all, its sudden revelations
of branching crevices and corridors where we least ex-
pected them.

We are not tired of the endless processions of cheerful,
chattering gossipers that throng these courts and streets all
day long, either ; nor of the coarse-robed monks ; nor of
the " Asti" wines, which that old doctor (whom we call
the Oracle), with customary felicity in the matter of get-
ting everything wrong, mis-terms " nasty." But we must
go, nevertheless.

Our last sight was the cemetery (a burial place intended
to accommodate 60,000 bodies), and we shall continue to
remember it after we shall have forgotten the palaces. It
is a] vast, marble, collonaded corridor extending around a
great, unoccupied square of ground; its broad floor is

/?^,

126

THE imrOCENTS ABROAD.

marble, and on every slab is an inscription — for every
slab covers a corpse. On either side, as one walks down
the middle of the passage, are monuments, tombs, and
sculptured figures that are exquisitely wrought and are
full of grace and beauty. They are new and snowy ;
every outline is perfect, every feature guiltless of mutila-
tion, flaw, or blemish ; and therefore, to us these far-
reaching ranks of bewitching forms are a hundredfold
more lovely than the damaged and dingy statuary they
have saved from the wreck of ancient art, and set up in
the galleries of Paris for the worship of the world.

Well provided with cigars and other necessaries of life,
we are now ready to take the cars for Milan.

■'■tf\ :^H

; ( <

CHAPTER XVIII. " ' ^"^ t

ALL day long we sped through a mountainous country
whose peaks were bright with sunshine, whose hill-
sides were dotted with pretty villas sitting in the midst of
gardens and shrubbery, and whose deep ravines were cool
and shady, and looked ever so inviting from where we and
the birds were winging our flight through the sultry upper air.
** We had plenty of chilly tunnels wherein to check our
perspiration, though. We timed one of them. We were
twenty minutes passing through it, going at the rate of
thirty to thirty-five miles an hour.

Beyond Alessandria we passed the battle-field of Ma-

rengo.

Toward dusk we drew near Milan, and caught glimpses
of the city and the blue mountain-peaks beyond. But we
were not caring for these things — they did not interest us
in the least. We were in a fever of impatience ; we were
dying to see the renowned Cathedral ! We watched — in
this direction and that — all around — everywhere. We
needed no one to point it out — we did not wish any one
to point it out — we would recognise it, even in the desert
of the great Sahara.

At last, a forest of graceful needles, shimmering in the

ambi
as or
nacl^
sea-

H|
turall

And
of sol

only
a bre[
dernel
their

r every
:s down
bs, and
ind are
snowy ;
mutila-
2se far-
Iredfold
iry they
it up in

I of life,

vf !■-'>

'hi "'■Vi •

- \

country
ose hill-
midst of
ere cool
we and
Ipper air.
leek our
""e were
rate of

I of Ma-

flimpses

tut we

jrest us

re were

led — in

my one

desert

in the

mi! GItAm MILAN CATHEDRAL, 12l

amber sunlight, rose slowly above the pigmy house-tops,
as one sometimes sees in the far horizon a gilded and pin-
nacled mass of cloud lift itgelf above the waste of waves at
sea — the Cathedral ! We knew it in a moment.

Half of that night and all of the next day this architec-
tural autocrat was our sole object of interest. ' ""*

What a wonder it is I So grand, so solemn, so vast ^
And yet so delicate, so airy, so graceful I A very world
of solid weight, and yet it seems in the soft moonlight
only a fairy delusion of frost-work that might vanish with
a breath ! How sharply its pinnacled angles and its wil-
derness of spires were cut against the sky, and how richly
their shadow fell upon its snowy roof! It was a vision
— a miracle I — an anthem sung in Stone, a poem wrought
in marble! -'^-'■^''" .^^- ■ ^^ ^i^^^^r — -■""—-• •"«- ■-< -•/--

Howsoever you look at the great Cathedral, it is noble,
it is beautiful ! Wherever you stand in Milan, or within
seven miles of Milan it is visible — and when it is visible,
no other object can chain your whole attention. Tieave
your eyes unfettered by your will but a single instant and
they will surely turn to seek it. It is the first thing you
look for when you rise in the morning, and the last your
lingering gaze rests upon at night. Surely, it must be the
princeliest creation that ever brain of man conceived.

At nine o'clock in the morning we went and stood
before this marble colossus. The central one of its five great
doors is bordered with a bas-relief of birds and fruits and
beasts and insects, which have been so ingeniously carved
out of the marble that they seem like living creatures —
jwid the figures are so numerous and the design so com-
plex, that one might study it a week without exhausting
its interest. On the great steeple — surmounting the
myriad of spires — inside of the spires — over the doors, the
windows — in nooks and corners — everywhere that a niche
or a perch can be found about the enormous building, from
summit to base, there is a marble statue, and every statue
is a study in itself! Raphael, Angelo, Canova — giants
like these gave birth to the designs, and their own pupils
carved them. Every face is eloquent with expression, and
every attitude is full of grace. Away above, on the lofty

M!\\t6'

itnr ~f I liir m

-TTinimri nrrir.T

128

TEE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

roof, rank on rank of carved and fretted spires spring hijjb
in the air, and through their rich tracery, one sees the sky
beyond. In their midst the central steeple towers proudly
up like the mainmast of some great Indiaman^ among a
fleet of coasters. . ??-.;<: i.

We wished to go aloft. The sacristan showed us a
marble stairway (of course it was marble, and of the
purest and whitest — there is no other stone, no brick, no
wood, among its building materials), and told us to go up
one hundred and eighty-two steps and stop till he came.
It was not necessary to say stop; we should have done
that anyhow. We were tired by the time we got there.
This was the roof. Here, springing from its broad marble
flagstones, were the long files of spires, looking very tall
close at hand, but diminishing in the distance like the
pipes of an organ. We could see now that the statue on
the top of each was the size of a large man, though they
all looked lil;:e dolls from the street. We could see also
that from th(j inside of each and every one of these hollow
spires, from sixteen to thirty-one beautiful marble statues
looked out upon the world below.

From the eaves to the comb of the roof stretched in
endless succession great, curved, marble beams, like the
fore-and-aft braces of a steamboat, and along each beam
from end to end stood up a row of richly-carved flowers and
fruits, each separate and distinct in kind, and over 15,000
species represented. At a little distance these rows seem to
close together like the ties of a railroad track, and then
the mingling together of the, buds and blossoms of this
marble garden forms a picture that is very charming to
the eye.

We descended and entered. Within the church long
rows of fluted columns, like huge monuments, divided the
building into broad aisles, and on the figured pavement fell
many a soft blush from the painted windows above. I
knew the church was very large, but I could not fully
appreciate its great size until I noticed that the men
standing far down by the altar looked like boys, and
seemed to glide rather than walk. We loitered about^
gazing aloft at the monster win4pW9 all aglow with briU

-■r

AN UNPLEASANT ADVENTURE.

129^

long
d the
It fell

3. I

fully
men
and

)OUt,

briU

liantly-coloured scenes in the lives of the Saviour and his
followers. Some of these pictures are mosaics, and so
artistically -are their thousand particles of tinted glass or
stone put together, that the work has all the smoothness
and finish of a painting. We counted sixty panes of glass
in one window, and each pane was adorned with one of
these master achievements of genius and patience.

The guide showed us a coffee-coloured piece of sculp-
ture which he said was considered to have come from the
hand of Phidias, since it was not possible that any other
artist, of any epoch, could have copied nature with such
faultless accuracy. The figure was that of a man without
a skin ; with every vein, artery, muscle, every fibre and
tendon and tissue of the human frame, represented in
minute detail. It looked natural, because somehow it looked
as if it were in pain. A skinned man would be likely^
to look that way, unless his attention were occupied with
some other matter. It was a hideous thing, and yet there*
was a fascination about it somewhere. I am very sorry I
saw it, because I shall always see it now. I shall dream of
it sometimes. I shall dream that it is resting its corded
arms on the bed's head and looking down on me with its.
dead eyes ; I shall dream that it is stretched between the= s
sheets with me and touching me with its exposed muscle*
and its stringy cold legs.

It is hard to forget repulsive things. I remember yet
how I ran off from school once, wL^'n I was a boy, and then,
pretty late at night, concluded to climb into the window of
my father's office and sleep on a lounge, because I had a
delicacy about going home and getting thrashed. As I lay
on the lounge and my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness,
t fancied I could see a long, dusky, shapeless thing stretched
upon the floor. A cold shiver went through me. I
turned my face to the wall. That did not answer. I was
afraid that the thing would creep over and seize me in the
dark. I turned back and stared at it for minutes and
minutes — they seemed hours. It appeared to me that the
lagging moonlight never, never would get to it. I turned
to the wall and counted twenty to pass the feverish time
away. I looked— the pale square was nearer. I turned

130

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

■ m*

again and counted fifty — it was almost touching it. With
desperate will I turned again and counted one hundred,
and faced about, all in a tremble. A white human hand
lay in the moonlight 1 Such an awful sinking at the heart
•^such a sudden gasp for breath. I felt — I cannot tell
what I felt. When I recovered strength enough, I faced
the wall again. But no boy could have remained so with
that mysterious hand behind him. I counted again, and
looked — the most of a naked arm was exposed. I put my
hands over my eyes and counted till I could stand it no
longer, and then — the pallid face of a man was there, with
the corners of the mouth drawn down, and the eyes fixed
and glassy in death 1 I raised to a sitting posture and
glowered on that corpse till the light crept down the bare
breast — ^line by line — inch by inch — past the nipple — and
then it disclosed a ghastly stab ! ■ -^^ '^'■■■- ^^'«'

I went away from there. I do not say that I went
away in any sort of a hurry, but I simply went, that is^
sufficient. I went out at the window, and i carried the
'sash along with me. I did not need the sash, but it wad
handier to take it than it was to leave it, and so I took it.
I was not scared, but I was considerably agitated.

When I reached home they whipped me, but I enjoyed
it. It seemed perfectly delightful. That man had been
stabbed near the office that afternoon, and they carried
him in there to doctor him, but he only lived an hour. I
have slept in the same room with him often, since then —
in my dreams.

Now we will descend into the crypt, under the grand
altar of Milan Cathedral, and receive an impressive
sermon from lips that have been silent, and bands that
have been gestureless for three hundred years. >?vAAi

The priest stopped in a small dungeon and held up his
candle. This was the last resting-place of a good man, a
warm-hearted, unselfish man ; a man whose whole life was
given to succouring the poor, encouraging the faint-hearted,
visiting the sick, in relieving distress whenever and wher-
ever he found it. His heart, his hand, and his purse were
always open. With his story in one's mind he can almost see
his benignant countenance moving calmly among^e haggard

ing

A S^UMON FROM THE TOMB.

131

faces of Milan in the days when the plague swept the city,
brave where all others were cowards, full of compassion,
where pity had been crushed out of all other breasts by the
instinct of self-preservation gone mad with terror, cheer-
ing all, praying with all, helping all with hand and brain
and purse, at a time when parents forsook their children,
the friend deserted the friend, and the brother turned
away from the sister while her pleadings were still wailing
in his earS'

This was good St. Charles Borrom^o, Bishop of
Milan. The people idolized him ; princes lavished un-
counted treasures upon him. We stood in his tomb.
Near by was the sarcophagus, lighted by the dripping
candles. The walls were faced with bas-reliefs represent-
ing scenes in his life, done in massive silver. The priest
put on a short white lace garment over his black robe,
crossed himself, bowed reverently, and began to turn a
windlass slowly. The sarcophagus separated in two parts
lengthwise, and the lower part sank down and disclosed a
coffin of rock crystal as clear as the atmosphere. Within
lay the body, robed in costly habiliments covered with
gold embroidery and starred with scintillating gems. The
decaying head was black with age, the dry skin was drawn
tight to the bones, the eyes were gone, there was a hole
in the temple and another in the cheek, and the skinny
lips were parted as in a ghastly smile ! Over this dreadful
face, its dust and decay, and its mocking grin, hung a
crown sown thick with flashing brilliants ; and upon the
breast lay crosses and croziers of solid gold that were
splendid with emeralds and diamonds.

How poor, and cheap, and trivial these gew-gaws seemed
in presence of the solemnity, the grandeur, the awful
majesty of Death ! Think of Milton, Shakspeare, Washing-
ton, standing before a reverent world tricked '^ut in the
glass beads, the brass ear-rings and tin trumpery of the
savages of the plains !

Dead Bartolomdo preached his pregnant sermon, and
its burden was : You that worship the vanities of earth —
you that long for worldly honour, worldly wealth, worldly
fame — behold their worth 1

132

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

To us it seemed that so good a man, so kind a heart, so
simple a nature, deserved rest and peace in a grave sacred
from the intrusion of prying eyes, and believed that he
himself would have preferred to have it so, but perad-
venture our wisdom was at fault in this regard.

As we came out upon the floor of the church again,
another priest volunteered to show us the treasures of the
church. What, more? The furniture of the narrow
chamber of death we had just visited weighed six millions
of francs in ounces and carats alone, without a penny
thrown into the account for the costly workmanship
bestowed upon them ! But we followed into a large room
filled with tall wooden presses like wardrobes. He threw
them open, and behold the cargoes of " crude bullion'* of
the assay offices of Nevada faded out of my memory.
There were Virgins and bishops there above their natural
size, made of solid silver, each worth by weight from
eight hundred thousand to two millions of francs, and^
bearing gemmed books in their hands worth eighty
thousand ; there were bas-reliefs that weighed six hundred
pounds, carved in solid silver ; croziers and crosses, and
candlesticks six and eight feet high, all of virgin gold, and
brilliant with precious stones ; and beside these were all
manner of v>ups and vases, and such things, rich in pro-
portion. It was an Aladdin's palace. The treasures here,
by simple weight, without counting workmanship, were
valued at fifty millions of francs I If I could get the
custody of them for a while, I fear me the market price of
silver bishops would advance, shortly, on account of their
exceeding scarcity in the Cathedral of Milan.

The priests showed us two of St. Paul's fingers, and one
of St Peter's ; a bone of Judas Iscariot (it was black), and
also bones of all the other disciples ; a handkerchief in
which the Saviour had left the impression of his face.
Among the most precious *of the relics were a stone from
the Holy Sepulchre, part of the crown of thorns (they have
a whole one at Notre Dame), a fagment of the purple.robe
worn by the Saviour, a nail fro:n the Cross, and a picture of
the Virgin and Child painted by the veritable hand of St.
Luke. This i& the second of St. Luke's Virgins we l^ave

seel
oesl

FATE OF TEE ARCHITECT,

133

The

Once a year all these holy relics are carried in pro-
the streets of Milan.
I like to revel in the dryest details of the great cathedral.

seen.

cession through

building

is five hundred feet Ions / one hundred

and eighty wide, and the principal steeple is in the neigh-
bourhood of four hundred feet high. It has seven
thousand one hundred and forty-eight marble statues,
and will have upwards of three thousand more when
it is finished. In addition, it has one thousand five
hundred bas-reliefs. It has one hundred and thirty-six
spires ; twenty-one more are to be added. Each spire is
surmounted by a statue six and a half feet high. Every-
thing about the church is marble, and all from the same
quarry ; it was bequeathed to the Archbishopric for this
purpose centuries ago. So nothing but the mere work-
manship costs ; still that is expensive — the bill foots up six
hundred and eighty-four millions of francs, thus far, (con-
siderably over a hundred millions of dollars), and it is
estimated that it will take a hundred and twenty years yet
to finish the cathedral. It looks complete, but is far from
being so. We saw a new statue put up in its niche yes-
terday, alongside of one which had been standing these
four hundred years, they said. There are four staircases
leading up to the main steeple, each of which cost a hundred
thousand dollars, with the four hundred and eight statues
which adorn them. Marco Compioni was the architect
who designed the wonderful structure more than five
hundred years ago, and it took him forty-six years to work
out the plan and get it ready to hand over to the builders.
He is dead now. The building was begun a little less than
five hundred years ago, and the third generation hence will
not see it completed.

The building looks best by moonlight, because the older
portions of it, being stained with age, contrast unpleasantly
with the newer and whiter portions. It seems somewhat
too broad for its height, but maybe familiarity with it
might dissipate this impression.

They say that the Cathedral of Milan is second only to
St. Peter's at Rome. I cannot understand how it can be
second to anything made by human hands.

'■ I;
i't

!H I

134

rHE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

We bid it good-bye now-^possibly for all time. How
surely, in some future day, when the memory of it shall
have lost its vividness, shall we half believe we have seen
it in a wonderful dream, but never with lyaking eyes !

f«:v>>-i« a*f!l' ,t?-

A-

CHAPTER XIX.

T^O you wis zo haut can be ?"

-xty

iMf,

That was what the guide asked, when we were
looking up at the bronze horses on the Aroh of Peace. It
meant, do you wish to go up there ? I give it as a specimen
of guide-English. These are the people that make life a
burthen to the tourist. Their tongues are never still.
They talk for ever and for ever, and that is the kind of
Billingsgate they use. Inspiration itself could hardly com-
prehend them. If they would only show you a master-
piece of art, or a venerable tome, or a prison-house, or a
battle-field, hallowed by touching memories or historical
reminiscences, or grand traditions, and then step aside and
hold still for ten minutes and let you think, it would not
be so bad. But they interrupt every dream, every pleasant
train of thought, with their tiresome cackling. Some-
times, when I have been standing before some cherished
old idol of mine that I rem^/^mber years and years ago
in pictures in the geography at school, I have thought I
would give a whole world if the human parrot at my side
would suddenly perish where he stood and leave me to
gaze and ponder, and worship.

No, we did not " wis zo haut can be." We wished to
go to La Scala, the largest theatre in the world, I think,
they call it. We did so. It was a large place. Seven
separate and distinct masses of humanity — six great circles
and a monster parquette. i

We wished to go to the Ambrosian Library, and we did
that also. We saw a manuscript of Virgil, with annota-
tions in the handwriting of Petrarch, the gentleman who
loved another man's Laura, and lavished upon her all
through life a love which was a clear waste of the raw
material. It was sound sentiment, but bad judgment. It

LVCREZJA BORGIA.

135

brought both parti«8 fame, and creatod fountai of cow
niiserution for them in sentimental brou^iH that runnir :
yet. But who 8ays a word in behalf of poor Mr. Laui '
(I do not know his other name.) Who glorifies liii *
Who bedews him with tears ? Who writes poetry about him /
Nobody. How do you suppose Ae liked the state of things
that has given the world so much pleasure ? How did he
enjoy having another man following his wife everywhere
and making her name a familiar word in every garlio-
exterminating mouth in Italy with his sonnets to her pre-
oniptcd eyebrows ? They got fame and sympathy — he got
neither. This is a peculiarly felicitous instance of what is
called poetical justice. It is all very fine; but it does
not chime with my notions of right. It is too one-
sided — too ungenerous. Let the world go on fretting
about Laura and Petrarch if it will \ but as for me, my
tears and my lamentations shall be lavished upon the
unsung defendant.

We saw also an autograph letter of Lucrezia Borgia, a
lady for whom I have always entertained the highest
respect, on account of her rare histrionic capabilities, her
opulence in solid gold goblets made of gilded wood, her
high distinction as an operatic screamer, and the facility
with which she could order a sextuple funeral and get the
corpses ready for it. We saw one single coarse yellow hair
from Lucrezia's head likewise. It awoke emotions, but we
still live. In this same library we saw some drawings by
Michael Angelo (these Italians call him Mickel Angelo),
and Leonardo da Vinci. (They spell it Vinci and pro-
nounce it Vinchy ; foreigners always spell better than they
pronounce). We reserve our opinion of these sketches.

In another building they showed us a fresco represent-
ing some lions and other beasts drawing chariots; and
they seemed to project so far from the wall that we took
them to be sculptures. The artist had shrewdly heightened
the delusion by painting dust on the creatures' backs, as
if it had fallen there naturally and properly. Smart
fellow — if it be smart to deceive strangers.

Elsewhere we saw a huge Roman amphitheatre, with
its atone seats still in good preservation. Modernized, it

: h I

13G

TlfE mNOCENTS ABROAD.

ifi now tlio Hccno of more peaceful recreations than tlio
exhibition of a parly of wild beasts with Christians for
dinner. Part of the time, the Milanese use it for a race
track, and at other seasons they flood it with water an<l
have spirited yachtinjij regattas there. The guide told
us these things, and he would hardly try so liazardous
an experiuiont as the telling of a falsehood, when it is nil
he can do to speak the truth in English without gottinjji;
.the lock-jaw.

In another place wo were shown a sort of summer
arbour, with a fence before it. We said that was nothing.
We looked again, and saw, through the arbour, an end-
less stretch of garden, and shrubbery, and grassy lawn.
We were perfectly willing to go in there and rest, but it
could not be done. It was only another delusion — a
painting by some ingenious artist with little charity in his
heart for tired folk. The deception was perfect. No one
could have imagined the park was not real. Wo even
thought we smelled the flowers at first.

We got a carriage at twilight and drove in the shaded
avenues with the other nobility, and after dinner we took
wine and ices in a fine garden with the great public. The
music was excellent, the flowers and shrubbery were
pleasant to the eye, the scene was vivacious, everybody was
gont«el and well-behaved, and the ladies were slightly
moustached, and handsomely dressed, but very homely.

We adjourned to a caf<6 and played billiards an hour,
and I made six or, seven points by the doctor pocketing
his ball, and he made as many by my pocketing my ball.
We came near iuaking a caroin sometimes, but not the one
we were trying to make. The table was of the usual
European style — cushions dead and twice as high as the
balls ; the cues in bad repair. The natives play only a
sort of pool on them. We have never seen anybody
playing the French three-ball game yet, and 1 doubt if
there is any such game known in France, or that there
lives any man mad enough to try to play it on one of
these European tables. We had to stop playing, finally,
because Dan got to sleeping fifteen minutes between the
counts and paying no attention to his marking.

THE CHARM OF EUROPEAN LIFE. 137

mn iTio
ians for
r a ruco
iter ami
ide told
izardous
it iH nil
Rottinjr.

8umtncr
nothing,
an eiid-
jy lawn.
it, but it
ision — a
ty in his
No one
^0 even

e shaded
we took

ic. The

Afterward we walked up ond down one of the most
popular Htreets for some time, enjoying other people's
comfort uud wishing wo could export some of it to our
restlesfl, driving, vitality-consuming marts at home. Just
in this one matter lies the main charm of life in Europe
— comfort. In America, we hurry — which is well ; but
when the day's work is done, we go on thinking of losses
and ^ains, we plan for the morrow, we even carry our
business cares to bed with us, and toss and worry over
them when we ought to be restoring our racked bodies
and brains with sleep. We burn up our energies with
these excitements, and either die early or drop into a
loan and mean old age at a time of life which they call a
man's prime in Europe. When an acre of ground has
produced long and well, we let it lie fallow and rest for a
season ; we take no man clear across the continent in the
same coach he started in — the coach is stabled somewhere
on the plains and its heated machinery allowed to cool
for a few days ; when a razor has seen long service and
refuses to hold an edge, the barber lays it away for a few
weeks, and the edge comes back of its own accord. We
bestow thoughtful care upon inanimate objects, but none
upon ourselves. What a robust people, what a nation of
thinkers we might be, if we would only lay ourselves on
the shelf occasionally and renew our edges ! "1

I do envy these Europeans the comfort they take. When
the work of the day is done, they forget it. Some of them
go, with wife and children, to a beer hall, and sit quietly
and genteelly drinking a mug or two of ale and listen-
ing to music ; others walk the streets, others drive in the
avenues ; others assemble in the great ornamental squares
in the early evening to enjoy the sight tnd the fragrance
of flowers, to hear the military bands pity — no Ejiropean
city being without its fine military music at eventide ;
and yet others of the populace sit in the open air in front
of the refreshment houses and eat ices and drink mild
beverages that could not harm a child. They go to bed
moderately early, and sleep well. They are always
quiet, always orderly, always cheerful, comfortable, and
appreciative of life and its manifold blessings. One never

I I MHpMl^iMMIi

aan

138

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

sees a drunken man among them. The change that, has
come over our little party is surprising. Day by day we
lose some of our restlessness and absorb some of the
spirit of quietude and ease that is in the tranquil atmo-
sphere about us and in the deameanour of the people. We
grow wise apace. We begin to comprehend what life
is for.

We have had a bath in Milan, in a public bath-house.
They were going to put all three of us in one bath-tub,
but we objected. Each of us had an Italian farm on his
back. We could have felt affluent if we had been officially
surveyed and fenced in. We chose to h&ve three bath-
tubs, and large ones — tubs suited to the dignity of aris-
tocrats who had real estate, and brought it with them.
After we were stripped and had taken the first chilly
dash, we discovered that haunting atrocity that has em-
bittered our lives in so many cities and villages of Italy
and France — there was no soap. I called. A woiiikaQ
answered, and I barely had time to throw myself against
the door — she would have been in, in another second.
I said — ' f'

" Beware, woman I Go away from here — go away,
now, or it will be the worse foi you. I am an unpro-
tected male, but I will preserve my honour at the peril of
my life I"

These words must have frightened her, for she skurried
away very fast.

Dan's voice rose on the ear — >t '^ • ^'n ^^v ti^-
u^r* " Oh, bring some soap, why don't you !" - j '■

The reply was Italian. Dan resumed —

" Soap, you know — ^soap. That is what I want — soap.
S-o-a-p; soap; so-p-e, soap; s-o-u-p, soap. Hurry up!
I don't^know how you Irish spell it, but I want it. Spell
it to suit yourself, but fetch it. I'm freezing."

I heard the doctor say, impressively —

*' Dan, how often have we told you that these foreigners
cannot understand English ? Why will you not depend
wpon us ? Why will you not tell us what you want, and
let us ask for it in the language of the country ? It
would save us a great deal of the humiliation your repre-

T',

BLUCHERS NOTE.

139

that has
day we
of the
lil atmo-
jl'e. We
(irhat life

th-house.
bath-tub,
m on his
I officially
ree bath-
y of aris-
ith them.
irst chilly
t has em-
BS ol Italy
A woiAsin
Blf against
pr second.

go away,
in unpro-
e peril of

skurried

\i — soap.
irry up !
It. Spell

)reigners
|t depend
rant, and
fry ? It
ir repre-

hensible ignorance causes us. I will address this person
in his mother tongue : ' Here, cospetto ! corpo di Bacco ;
Sacramento ! Solferino ! — Soap, you son of a gun I* Dan,
if you would let us talk for you, you would never expose
your ignorant vulgarity."

Even this fluent discharge of Italian did not bring the
soap at once, but there was a good reason for it. There
was not such an article about the establishment. It is my
belief that there never had been. They had to send far
up town, and to several differeni places before they finally
got it, so they said. We had to wait twenty or thirty
minutes. The same thing had occurred the evening be-
fore at the hotel. I think I have divined the reason for
this state of things at last. The English know how to
travel comfortably, and they carry soap with them ; other
foreigners do not use the article.

At every hotel we stop at we always have to send out
for ^oap, at the last moment, when we are grooming our-
selves for dinner, and they put it in the bill along with the
candles and other nonsense. In Marseilles they make half
the fancy toilet soap we consume in America, but the
Marseillaise only have a vague theoretical idea of its use,
which they have obtained from books of travel, just as
they have acquired an uncertain notion of clean shirts,
and the peculiarities of the gorilla, and other curious
matters. This reminds me of poor Blucher's note to the
landlord in Paris:— f;^"^^-) = >^ -^ ^ .^ . -.

^'♦'^ ''^^ ' "Paris, le7JuiUet.4

,i^-'

" Monsieur le Landlord— Sir : Pourquoi don't you mettez some savon in
your bed-ehambers ? Est-ce que vous pensez I will steal it ? Xa nuit
2)ass4 you charged me pour deux chandelles when 1 only had one ; fiier
vous avez charged me avec glace when I had none at all ; tous lea jours
you are coming some fresh game or other on me, nuiis vous ne pouvez
pas play this savon dodge on me twice. Savon is a necessary de la vie
to anybody but a Frenchman, et je I'aurai hors de cet hotel or make

trouble. You hear me. AUons.

" Bluohkb."

I remonstrated against the sending of this note, because
it was so mixed up that the landlord would never be
able to make head or tail of it; but Bluoher said he
guessed the old man would read the French of it and
average the rest. ^ . ..., .^.

::'V

140

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

Blucher's French is bad enough, but it is not much
worse than the English one finds in advertisements all
over Italy every day. For instance, observe the printed
card of the hotel we shall probably stop at on the shores
ofLakeComo:— .^i. ',,?.-* ,. r.,..;^- ...

^, ...
••I-

" NOTISH.
"This hotel which the best it is in Italy and most
superb, is handsome locate on the best situation of
the lake, with the most splendid view near the Villas
Melzv, to the King of Belgian, and Serbelloni. This
hotel have recently enlarge, do offer all commodities
on moderate price, at the strangers gentlemen who
whish spend uie seasons on the Lake Come."

How is that for a specimen ? In the hotel is a hand-
some little chapel where an English clergyman is employed
to preach to such of the guests of the house as hail from
England and America, and this fact is also set forth in
barbarous English in the same advertisement. Wouldn t
you have supposed that the adventurous linguist who
framed the card would have known enough to submit it
to that clergyman before he sent it to the printer ?

Here in Milan, in an ancient tumbledown ruin of a
church, is the mournful wreck of the most celebrated
painting in the world — " The Last Supper," by Leonardo
da Vinci. We aj-e not infallible judges of pictures, but of
course v?e went there to see this wonderful painting, once
sf beautiful, always so worshipped by masters in art, and
for ever to be famous in song and story. And the first
thing that occurred was the infliction on us of a placard
fairly reeking with wretched English. Take a morsel of
it—

" Bartholomew (that is the first figure on the left-hand side of the
spectator), uncertain and doubtful about what he thinks to have heard,
and upon which he wants to be assured by himself at Christ and by no
others."

Good, isn't it ? And then Peter is described as '* argu-
menting in a threatening and angrily condition at Judas
Isoariot."

AJ^r ILLUSTRIOUS PAINTING,

141

This paragr ph recalls the picture. " The Last Supper
is painted on the dilapidated wall of what was a little
chapel attached to the main church in ancient times, I
suppose. It is battered and scarred in every direction,
and stained and discoloured by time, and Napoleon's
horses kicked the legs off most the disciples when they (the
horses, not the disciples), were stabled there more than
half a century ago. : ;^ii;nm. *> hhtuki ;o' -tir : •'

I recognised the old picture in a moment— the Saviour
with bowed head seated at the centre of a long rough
table with scattering fruits and dishes upon it, and six
disciples on either side in their long robes, talking to each
other — the picture from which all engravings and all
copies have been made for three centuries. Peirhaps no
living man has ever known an attempt to paint the Lord's
Supper differently. The world seem., to have become
settled in the belief, long ago, that it is not possible for
human genius to outdo this creation of Da Vinci's. I
suppose painters will go on copying it as long as any of
the original is left visible to the eye. There were a dozen
easels in the room, and as many artists transferring the
great picture to their canvases. Fifty proofs of steel
engravings and lithographs were scattered around too.
And, as usual, I could not help noticing how superior the
copies were to the original, that is, to my inexperienced
eye. Wherever you find a Eaphael, a Rubens, a Michael
Angelo, a Carracci, or a Da Vinci (and we see them every
day), you find artists copying them, and the copies are
always the handsomest. Maybe the originals were hand-
some when they were new, out they are not now.

This picture is about thirty feet long, and ten or twelve
feet high, I should think, and the figures are at least life
size. It is one of the largest paintings in Europe.

The colours are dimmed with age; the countenances
are soalled and marred, and nearly all expression is gone
from ftthem ; the hair is a dead blur upon the wall, and
there is no life in the eyes. Qnly the attitudes are
certain.

People come here from all parts of the world, and
glorify this masterpiece. They stand entranced before it

142

TEE INNOGEyTS ABROAD,

):>;*{* r^:

"-i>; ■(;■•<■

:'■>■^

•'<■>

"with bated breath and parted lips, and when they speak,
it is only in the catchy ejaculations of rapture —

<'0, wonderful 1"

" Such expression 1" ' ?>;■

" Such grace of attitude 1" ,

« Such dignity !"

** Such faultless drawing 1"
Such matchless colouring !"
Such feeling !" i^;

: " What delicacy of touch !"

" What sublimity of conception I"

"A vision I a vision!"^

I only envy these people ; I envy them their honest
admiration, if it be honest — their delight, if they feel
delight. I harbour no animosity toward any of them.
But at the same time the thought will intrude itself
upon me, How can they see what is not visible ? What
would you think of a man who looked at some decaye(^,
blind, toothless, pock-marked Cleopatra, and said — " What
matchless beauty! What soul 1 What expression !" What
would you think of a man who gazed upon a dingy, foggy
sunset and said — *' What sublimity ! What feeling! What
richness of colouring !" What would you think of a man
who stared in ecstasy upon a desert of stumps and said —
" Oh, my soul, my beating heart, what a noble forest is
here!" ■ jim.- ::>p»^w. '-■^■->

You would think thatlhose men had an astonishing talent
for seeing things that had already passed away. It was
what I thought when I stood before the " Last Supper"
and heard men apostrophizing wonders, and beauties, and
perfections which had faded out of the picture and gone, a
hundred years before they were born. We can imagine
the beauty that was once in an aged face ; we can imagine
the forest if we see the stumps ; but we cannot absolutely
see these things when they are not there. I am willing to
believe that the eye of the practised artist can rest, upon
the " Last Supper" and renew a lustre where only a hint
of it is left, supply a tint that has faded away, restore an
expression that is gone ; patch, and colour, and add to
the dull canvas until at last its figures shall stand before

VmNSPIRED CRITICS, t

143

speak,

„ . i

honest
ey feel
P them.
e itself

What
ecayed,
=* What
' What

h foggy

! What
a man
Raid —

■brest is

him aglow with the life, the feeling, the freshness, yea, with
all the noble beauty that was theirs when first they came
from the hand of the master. But / cannot work this -^
miracle. Can those other uninspired visitors do it, or do ^
they only happily imagine they do '

After reading so much about it, I am satisfied that the
<' Last Supper" was a miracle of art once. But it was
three hundred years ago.

It vexes me to hear people talk so glibly of " feeling,"
" expression," '* tone," and those other easily acquired and
inexpressive technicalities of art that make such a fine
show in conversations concerning pictures. There is not •
one man in seventy-five hundred that can tell what a ;
pictured face is intended to express. There is not one
man in five hundred that can go into a court-room and be
sure that he will not mistake some harmless innocent of a
juryman for the black-hearted assassin on trial. Yet such
people talk of "character," and presume to interpret " ex-i
pression" in pictures. There is an old story that Mathews,!
the actor, was once lauding the ability of the human face t-
to express the passions and emotions hidden in the breast, i
He said the countenance could disclose what was passing
in the heart plainer than the tongue could.

"Now," he said, "observe my face — what does it
express?" .

" Despair 1" % ^ ...^ .«s^

" Bah, it expresses peaceful resignation ! What does
</iis express ?" .^^^^^'^,i '.A\^-'^.\'ri'^W ^¥^-^ "^^
'• Rage !"n'sm<fc4''^fj :.«^ i1^n*;jl^*ii^§

*' Stuff! it means terror 1 Tim T^ m^- '^r^'^-^^''^^'^'
"Imbecility!" c^f «i ^jjy? n^w '?*Rm ^

" Fool ! It is smothered ferocity 1 Now this /" i ,*iiiii
"Joy!" • ^^

"Oh, perdition! Any ass can see it means in-
sanity !"

Expression I People coolly pretend to read it who
would think themselves presumptuous if they pretended to
interpret the hieroglyphics on the obelisks of Luxor— *-yet
they are fully as competent to do the one thing as the
other. I have heard two very intelligent critics speak of

■SI

144

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

Murillo's Immaculate Conception (now in the museum at.
Seville) within the past few days. One said —

" Oh, the Virgin's face is full of the ecstasy of a joy
that is complete — that leaves nothing more to be desired
on earthl" '^'>'' >*?•)' yu"-LN!'i. v:>r:c(','i

The other said— ^ ■■ * ,'f 'iu4^ li'.-rtiK y^. ^\\n^--i s.. ■■'^

" Ah, that wonderful face is so humble, so pleading-^it
says as plainly as words could say it — * I fear ; I tremble ;
I am unworthy. But Thy will be done ; sustain Thou
Thy servant V "

The reader can see the picture in any drawing-room ;
it can be easily recognised : the Virgin (the only young
and really beautiful Virgin that was ever painted by one
of the old masters, some of us think) stands in the crescent
of the new moon, with a multitude of cherubs hovering
about her, and more coming ; her hands are crossed upon
her breast, and upon her uplifted countenance falls a glory
out of the heavens. The reader may amuse himself, if
he chooses, in trying to determine which of these gentle-
men read the Virgin's " expression" aright, or if either of
them did it.

Any one who is acquainted with the old masters will
comprehend how much the " Last Supper " is damaged
when I .say that the spectator cannot really tell now
whether the disciples are Hebrews or Italians. These
ancient pninters never succeeded in denationalizing them-
selves. The Italian artists painted Italian Virgins, the
Dutch painted Dutch Virgins, the Virgins of the French
painters were Frenchwomen— none of them ever put into
the face of the Madonna that indescribable something
which proclaims the Jewess, whether you find her in New
York, in Constantinople, in Paris, Jerusalem, or in the
Empire of Morocco. I saw in the Sandwich Islands once
a picture, copied by a talented German artist from an en-
graving in one of the American illustrated papers. It was
an allegory, representing Mr. Davis in the act of signing a
secession act or some such document. Over him hovered
th« ghost of Washington in warning attitude, and in the
background a troop of shadowy soldiers in Continental
uniform were limping with shoeless, bandaged feet through

THE WONDERFUL ECHO.

145

a driving snow-storm. Valley Forge was suggested, of
course. The copy seemed accurate, and yet there was a
discrepancy somewhere. After a long examination I dis-
covered what it was — the shadowy soldiers were all
Germans ! Jeff. Davis was a German ! even the hovering
ghost WPS a German ghost ! The artist had unconsciously
worked his nationality into the picture. To tell the truth,
I am getting a little perplexed about John the Baptist and
his portraits. In France I finally grew reconciled to him
as a Frenchman ; here he is unquestionably an Italian.
What next? Can it be possible that the painters make
John the Baptist a Spaniard in Madrid and an Irishman
in Dublin ? •-'" ^ ■ •*• j '• ■•*«'-

Wo took an open barouche and drove two miles out of
Milan to " see ze echo," as the guide expressed it. The
road was smooth, it was bordered by trees, fields, and
grassy meadows, and the soft air was filled with the odour
of flowers. Troops of picturesque peasant girls, coming
from work, hooted at us, shouted at us, made all manner
of game of us, and entirely delighted me. My long-
cherished judgment was confirmed. I always did think
those frowsy, romantic, unwashed peasant girls I had read
so much about in poetry were a glaring fraud.

We enjoyed our jaunt. It was an exhilarating relief
from tiresome sight-seeing.

We distressed ourselves very little about the astonishin
echo the guide talked so much about. We were growing
accustomed to encomiums on wonders that too often proved
no wonders at all. And so we were moat happily disap-
pointed to find in the sequel that the ^uide had even failed
to rise to the magnitude of his subject.

Wo arrived at a tumbledown old rookery called the
Palazzo Simonetti — a massive, hewn-stone affair, occupied
by a family of ragged Italians. A good-looking young
girl conducted us to a window on the second floor which
looked out on a court walled on three sides by tall build-
ings. She put her head out at the window and shouted.
The echo answered more times than we could count. She
took a speaking trumpet and through it she shouted, sharp
and quick, a single

■ '•fl«t.-«;«.T'a»"'r>ri;-("*>t -iA/f't-KT^Xt • -1*,*i;' ^_*.-»«'>f^*-«(«»^*

146

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

"Hal" The echo answered — r- -

^ "Hal hal hal —ha! — hal -hal ha!

h-a-a-a-a-a 1" and finally went off into a rollicking convul-
sion of the joUiest laughter that could be imagined. It
was so joyful — so long continued — so perfectly cordial and
hearty, that everybody was forced to join in. There was
no resisting it.

Then the girl took a gun and fired it. We stood ready
to count the astonishing clatter of reverberations. We
could not say one, two, three, fast enough, but we could
dot our note-books with our pencil points almost rapidly
enough to take down a sort of short-hand report of the
result. I could not keep up, but I did as well as I
could.

I set down fifty-two distinct repetitions, and then the
echo got the advantage of me. The doctor set down sixty-
four, and thenceforth the echo moved too fast for him also.
After the separate concussions could no longer be noted,
the reverberations dwindled to a wild, long-sustained
clatter of sounds such as a watchman's rattle produces. It
is likely that this is the most remarkable echo in the world.

The doctor, in jest, offered to kiss the young girl, and
was taken a little aback when she said he might for a
franc 1 The commonest gallantry compelled him to stand
by his offer, and so he paid the franc and took the kiss.
She was a philosopher. She said a franc was a good thing
to have, and she did not care anything for one paltry kiss,
because she had a million left. Then our comrade, always
a shrewd business man, offered to take the whole cargo at
thirty days, but that little financial scheme was a failure.

CHAPTER XX.

WE left Milan by rail. The Cathedral sit or seven
miles behind us — vafit, dreamy, bluish, snow-clad
mountains twenty miles in front of us — ^these were the
accented points in the scenery. The more immediate
scenery consisted of fields and farm-houses outside the car,

^'FUMIGATEDy

*' 'i

'sy<

147

and a monster-headed dwarf and a moustaohed woman
inside it. These latter were not show people. Alas !
deformity and female beards are too common in Italy to
attract attention.

' »t'rt '

.iii'Vh—-^h •'-.\i^

•'^V*!-

Wo passed through a lange of wild, picturesque hills,
steep, wooded, cone shaped, with rugged crags projecting
here and there, ctnd with dwellings and ruinous castles
perched away up toward the drifting clouds. We lunched
at the curious old town of Como, at the foot of the lake,
and then took the small steamer and had an afternoon's
pleasure excursion to this place — Bellaggio.

When we walked ashore, a party of policeman (people
whose cooked hats and showy uniforms would shame the
finest uniform in the military service of the United States)
put us into a little stone cell anH locked us in. We had
the whole passenger list for company, but their room
would have been preferable, for there was no light, there
were no windows, no ventilation. It was close and hot.
We were much crowded. It was the Black Hole of Cal-
cuUa on a small scale. Presently a smoke rose about our
feet — a smoke that smelt of all the dead things of earth,
of all the putrefaction and corruption imaginable. <;

We were there five minutes, and when we got out
it was hard to tell which of us carried the vilest
fragrance.

These miserable outcasts called that '' fumigating" us,
and the term was a tame one indeed, They fumigated us
to guard themselves against the cholera, though we hailed
from no infected port. We had left the cholera far behind
us all the time. Howe\er, they must keep epidemics away
somehow or other, and fumigation is cheaper th!;n soap.
They must either wash themselves or fumigate other
people. Some of the lower classes had rather die than
wash, but the fumigation of strangers causes them no
pangs. They need no fumigation themselves. Their
habits make it unnecessary. They carry their preventive
with them ; they sweat and fumigate all the day long. I
trust I am a humble and a consistent Christian. I try to
do what is right. I know it is my duty to " pray for them
that despitefully use me ;" and therefore, hard as it is, "^

148

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

shall still try to pray for these fumigating, macaroni-
stuffing organ-grinders.

Our hotel sits at the water's edge — at least, its front
garden does — and we walk among the shrubbery and
smoke at twilight ; we look afar oflF at Switzerland and
the Alps, and feel an indolent willingness to look no
closer ; we go down the steps and swim in the lake ; we
take a shapely little boat and sail abroad among the re-
flections of the stars ; lie on the thwarts and listen to the
distant laughter, the singing, the soft melody of flutes and
guitars that comes flouting across the water from pleasuring
gondolas ; we close the evening with exasperating billiards
on one of those same old execrable tables. A midnight
luncheon in our ample bedchamber; a final smoke in its
contracted verandah facing the water, the gardens, and the
mountains ; a summing up of the day's events. Then to
bed, with drowsy brains harassed with a mad panorama
that mixes up pictures of France, of Italy, of the ship, of
the ocean, of home, in grotesque and bewildering disorder.
Then a melting away of familiar faces, of cities, and of
tossing waves, into a great calm of IPorgetfulness and
peace. j^*- ^

After which, the nightmare.

Breakfast in the morning, and then the Lake.

I did not like it yesterday. I thought Lake Tahoe was
much finer. I have to confess now, however, that my
judgment erred somewhat, though not extravagantly. I
always had an idea that Como was a vast basin of water,
like Tahoe, shut in by great mountains. Well, the border
of huge mountains is here, but the lake itself is not a
basin. It is as crooked as any brook, and only from one-
quarter to two-thirds as wide as the Mississippi. There
is not a yard of low ground on either side of it — nothing
but endless chains of mountainri that spring abruptly from
the water's edge, and tower to altitudes varying from a
thousand to two thousand feet. Their craggy sides are
clothed with vegetation, and white specks of houses peep
out from the luxuriant foliage everywhere ; they are even
perched upon jutting and picturesque pinnacles a thousand
feet above your head.

Ag
seats,

water,

vine-h

LAKE OF COMO: ITS SCENERY,

149

■'■■'.+w

Again, for miles along tho shores handsome country
seats, surrounded by gardens and groves, sit fairly in the
water, sometimes in nooks carved by Nature out of the
vine-hung precipices, and with no ingress or egress save
by boat. Some have great broad stone staircases leading
down to the water, with heavy stone balustrades orna-
mented with statuary, and fancifully adorned with creep-
ing vines and bright-coloured flowers — for all the world
like a drop-curtain in a theatre, and lacking nothing but
long-waisted, high-heeled women and plumed gallants in
silken tights coming down to go serenading in the splendid
gondola in waiting.

A great feature of Como's attractiveness is the multi-
tude of pretty houses and gardens that cluster upon its
shores and on its mountain sides. They look so snug and
so homelike, and at eventide when everything seems to
slumber, and the music of the vesper bells comes stealing
over the water, one almost believes that nowhere else than
on the Lake of Como can there be found such a paradise of
tranquil repose. -v^ H^^<f]^

From my window here in Bellaggio I have a view of
the other side of the lake now, which is as beautiful as a
picture. A scarred and wrinkled precipice rises to a
height of eighteen hundred feet ; on a tiny bench half way
up its vast wall, sits a little snow-flake of a church, no
bigger than a martin-box apparently; skirting the base
of the cliff are a hundred orange groves and gardens,
flecked with glimpses of the white dwellings that are
buried in them ; in front three or four gondolas lie
idle upon the water — and in the burnished mirror of
the lake, mountain, chapel, houses, groves, and boats
are counterfeited so brightly and so clearly, that one
scarce knows where the reality leaves off and the reflection
begins I

The surroundings of this picture are fine. A mile
away a grove-plumed promontory juts far into the lake
and glasses its palace in the blue depths ; in midstream a
boat is cutting the shining surface and leaving a long
track behind, like a ray of light ; the mountains beyond
are veiled In a dreamy purple haze \ far in the opposite

150

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

direction a tumbled mass of domes and verdant slopes and
valleys bars the lake, and here indeed does distance lend
enchantment to the view — for on this broad canvas, sun
and clouds and the richest of atmospheres have blended u
thousand tints together, and over its surface the filmy
lights and shadows drift, hour after hour, and glorify it
with a beauty that seems reflected out of Heaven itself.
Beyond all question this is the most voluptuous scene we
have yet looked upon.

Last night the scenery was striking and picturesque.
On the other side crags and trees and snowy houses were
reflected in the lake with a wonderful distinctness, and
streams of light from many a distant window shot fur
abroad over the still waters. On this side, near at hand,
great mansions, white with moonlight, glared out from the
midst of masses of foliage that lay black and shapeless in
the shadows that fell from the oliflf above — and down in
the margin of the lake every feature of the weird visio^i
was faithfully repeated.

To-day we have idled through a wonder of a garden
attached to a ducal estate — ^but enough of description is
enough, I judge. I suspect that this was the same place
the gardener's son deceived the Lady of Lyons with, but I
do not know. You mayjhavo heard of the passage some-
where —

■jl5.

i\-j^r

V-**:

.,u.

i, "A deep vale.

Shut out by Alpine hillfl from the rude world,
Near a dear lake margined by fruits of gold
And whispering myrtles :
Glassiftff Hotltest skies, cloudless,
tiave with rare and roseate shadows;
A palace, lifting to eternal heaven its marbled walls,

From out a glossy bo wot (^coolest foliage musical with birds "

That is all 'very well, except the *' clear " part of the
lake. It certainly is clearer than a great many lakeis, but
how dull its waters are compared with the wonderful
transpai^ence of Lake Tahoe 1 I speak of the norfeh shore
of Tahoe, where one can count the scales on a trout at a
depth of a hundred and eighty feet. I have tried to get
this statement off at par here, but with no success ; so I
have beien obliged to negotiate it at fifty per cent discount*

rcce
hun

priv
tion

Bay

CO MO COMPARED WITH TAIIOE. 151

/as, Bun

At this rate I find HOino takers; perhaps the reader will
receive it on the same terms — ninety feet instead of one
hundred and eighty. But let it be remembered that those
are forced terms — Sheriff's sale prices. As far as I am
privately concerned, I abate not a jot of the original asser-
tion that in those strangely magnifying waters one may
count the scales on a trout (a trout of the large kind) at a
depth of a hundred" and eighty feet — may see every
pebble on the bottom — might even count a paper of dray-
pins. People talk of the transparent waters of the Mexican
Bay of Acupulco, but in my own experience I know they
cannot compare with those I am speaking of. I have fished
for trout in Tahoe, and at a measured depth of eighty-four
feet I have seen them put their noses to the bait, and
I could see their gills open and shut. I could hardly
have seen the trout themselves at that distance in the
open air.

As I go back in spirit and recall that noble sea, reposing
among the snow-peaks six thousand feet above the ocean,
the conviction comes strong upon me again that Como
would only seem a bedizened little courtier in that august
presence. "* ■ '^

Sorrow and misfortune overtake the Legislature that
still from year to year permits Tahoe to retain its un-
musical cognomen! Tahoe 1 It suggests no crystal
waters, no picturesque shores, no sublimity. Tahoe for a
sea in the clouds — ^a sea that has character, a'^d asserts it
in solemn calms at times, at times in savage storms ; a sea
whose royal seclusion is guarded by a cordon of sentinel
peaks that lift their frosty fronts nine thousand feet above
the level world ; a sea whose every aspect is impressive,
whose belongings are all beautiful, whose lonely majesty
types the Deity I

Tahoe means grasshoppers It means grasshopper
soup. It is Indian, and suggestive of Indians. They say
it is Pi-ute — ^possibly it is Digger. I am satisfied it was
named by the Diggers — those d^raded savages who roast
their dead relatives, then mix the human grease and aahes
of bones with tar, and *' e^aum" it thick aH over their
heads, and foreheads, and carS) and go caterwauling about

1 li

'!■

j ]l

4'i

j 1

' '^ 1

fl 1

'' '" 1

III

, _. ; ! .

' ■

152

vnv<

TEE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

the hills and call it mourning. These are the gentry that
named the lake.

People say that Tahoe means" Silver Lake" — " Limpid
Water" — " Falling Leaf." Bosh. It means grasshopper
soup, the favourite dish of the Digger trihe — and of the
Pi-utes as well. It isn*t worth while,lin these practical
times, for people to talk ahout Indian poetry — there never
was any in them — except in the Fenimore Cooper Indians.
But they are an extinct tribe that never existed. I know
the !Noble Red Man. . I have camped with the Indians ; I
have been on the war-path with them, taken part in the
ohase with them — ^for grasshoppers; helped them steal
cattle ; I have roamed with them, scalped them, had them
for breakfast. I would gladly eat the whole race if I had
<a chance. yv."i. j»f'k;.l*«if -ftt^^n? ■it-'i]i>-'??«H^iT ■■^•^^ Wrw*'-: 'a
;,, But I am growing unreliable. I will return to my
(Comparison of the Lakes. Como is a little deeper than
Tahoe, if people here tell the truth. They say it is\
eighteen hundred feet deep at this point, but it does not
look a dead enough blue for that. Tahoe is one thousand
five hundred and twenty-five feet deep in the centre, by
the State Geologist's measuremnet. They say the great
peak opposite this town is five thousand feet high ; but I
feel sure that three thousand feet of that statement is a
good honest lie. The lake is a mile wide here, and main-
tains about that width from this point to its northern
extremity, which is distant sixteen miles ; from here to
its southern extremity — say fifteen miles — it is not over
half a mile wide in any place, I should think. Its snow-
clad mountains one hears s^^ much about are only seen
occasionally, and then in the distance, the Alps. Tahoe
is from ten to eighteen miles wide, and its mountains shut
it in like a wall. Their summits are never free from snow
the year round. One thing about it is very strange^ — it
never has even a skim of ice upon its surface, although
lakes in the same range of mountains, lying in a lower
and warmer temperature, freeze over in winter.

It is cheerful to meet a shipmate in these out-of-the-
way places and compare potes with him. We have found
one of purs her&-^^n 0^4 spldi^r qf th^ war, who is seek-

■ '' If ■ " ^ ' ' . '■'
If * •

mg
thes^

. V!i

BLOODT SHRINES.

153

log bloodless adventures apd rest from his eampaigns, in
these sunny lands.*

CHAPTER XXt

WE voyaged by steamer down the Lago di LeocO)
through wild mountain scenery, and by hamlets and
villas, and disembarked at the town of Lecco. They said
it was two hours by carriage to the ancient city of BergamO)
and that we would arrive there in good season for the
railway train. We got an open barouche and a wild^
boisterous driver, and set out. It was delightful. We
had a fast team and a perfectly smooth road. There were
towering cliffs on our left, and the pretty Lago di Lecco
on our right, and every now and then it rained on us.
Just before starting the driver picked up in the street a
stump of a cigar an inch long, and put it in his mouth.
When he had carried it thus about an hour, I thought it
would be only Christian charity to give him a light. I
handed him my cigar, which I had just lit, and he put it
in his mouth, and returned his stump to his pocket ! I
never saw a more sociable man. At least, I never saw a
man who was more sociable on a shcM-t acquaintance.

We saw interior Italy now. The houses were of solid
stone, and not often in good repair. The peasants and
their children were idle, as a general thing, and the
' donkeys and chickens made themselves at home in draw-
ing-room and bedchamber, and were not molested. The
drivers of each and every one of the slow-moving markot-
oarts we met were stretched in the sun upon their mer-
chandise, sound asleep. Every three or four hundred
yards it seemed to me we came upon the shrine of some
saint or other — a rude picture of him built ;into a huge
cross or a stone pillar by the road side. Some of the
pictures of the Saviour were curiosities in their way.

* Col. J. Heron Foster, editor of a Pittsburgh Journal, and a most
estimable gentleman. As these sheets are being prepared for the press, I
am pained to learn of hiit decease shortly after nis return home.— M.T,

154

THB INNOCENTS ABROAD.

They represented him stretched upon the Cross, his coun^
tenance distorted with agony. From the wounds of the
crown of thorns, from the piereed side, from the mutilated
hands and feet, from the scourged body, from every hand-
breadth of his person streams of blood were flowing ! Such
a gory, ghastly spectacle would frighten the children out
of their senses, I should think. There were some unique
auxiliaries to the painting which added to its spirited
efifect. These were genuine wooden and iron implements,
and were prominently disposed round about the figure :
a bundle of nails; the hammer to drive them; the
sponge ; the reed that supported it ; the cup of vinegar ;
the ladder for the ascent of the Cross; the spear that
pierced the Saviour's side. The crown of thorns was
made of real thorns, and was nailed to the sacred head.
In some Italian church-paintings, even by the older
masters, the Saviour and the Virgin wear silver or gilded
crowns that are fastened to the pictured head with nailk.
The effect is as grotesque as it is incongruous.

Here and there, on the fronts of roadside inns, we found
huge, coarse frescoes of suffering martyrs like those in the
shrines. It could not have diminished their sufferings any
to be so uncouthly represented. We were in the heart
and home of priestcraft — of a happy, cheerful, contented
ignorance, superstition, degradation, poverty, indolence,
and everlasting unaspiring worthlessnesB.' And we said
fervently, it suits these people precisely ;'- let them enjoy
it, along with the other animals, and Heaven forbid
that they be molested. We fe^i no malice towards these
famigators. ^* ^ *£s»>

We passed through the strangest, funniest, undreamt-
of old towns, wedded to the customs and steeped in the
dreams of the elder ages, and perfectly unaware that the
world turns round ! And perfectly indifferent, too, as to
whether it turns round or stands still. They have nothing
to do but eat and sleep, and sleep and eat, and toil a little
when they can get a friend to stand by and keep them
awake. They are not paid for thinking — they are not
paid to fret about the world's concerns. They were not
respectable people — they were not worthy people— they

iSi

wets
their
that p
selves
We
thick

THRITjLING medieval romance. 166

Wete not loarned and wise, and brilliant people— but in
their breasts, all their stupid lives long, resteth a peace
that passeth understanding I How can men, calling them-
selves men, consent to be so degraded and happy.

We whisked by many a grejfr old mediaeval castle, clad
thick with ivy, that swung its green banners down from
towers and turrets, where once some old Crusader's flag had
floated. The driver pointed to one of these ancient for-
tresses, and said (I translate) : —

" Do you see that great iron hook that projects from
the wall just under the highest window in the ruined

tower ?*' ' *^*'^^ 'fmnn- inf:A'

We said we could not see it at such a distance, but had
ho doubt it was there.

" "Well," he said, " there is a legend connected with that
iron hook , Nearly seven hundred years ago, that castle
was the property of the noble Count Luigi Gennaro Guido
Alphonso di Genova "

" What was his other name?" said Dan.

" He had no other name. The name I have spoken was
all the name he had. He was the son of "

" Poor but honest parents — that is all right — never mind
the particulars — ^go on with the legend.'- «,

':»»■ ♦•f»i

THE LEGEND.

Well, then, all the world at that time was in a wild
excitement about the Holy Sepulchre. All the great
feudal lords in Europe were pledging their lands and
pawning their plate to fit out men-at-arms, so that they
might join the grand armies of Christendom and win re-
nown in the Holy Wars. The Count Luigi raised money,
like the rest, and one mild September morning, aimed
with battle-axe, portcullis, and thundering culverin, he
rode through the greaves and bucklers of his donjon-keep
with as gallant a troop of Christian bandits as ever stepped
in Italy. He had his sword, Excalibur, with him. His
beautiful countess and her young daughter waved him a
tearful adieu from the battering-rams and buttresses of the
fortress, and he galloped away with a happy heart.

156

THE INNOCENTS ABMOAP.

He made a ralu on a neighbouring baron, and completed
Ihiis outfit with the booty secured. He then razed the
castle tc the grouod, massacred the family, and moved on.
They were hardy fellows in the grand old days of chivalry.
Alas ! those days will never come again.

Count Luigi grew high in fame in Holy Land. He
plunged into the carnage of a hundred battles, but his
good Ezealibur always brought him out alive, albeit ofteu
sorely wounded. His face became browned by exposure
to the Syrian sun in long marches; he suffered hunger
and thirst; he pined in prisons; he la^*gnished in loath-
some plague-hospitals. And many and many a time he
thought of his loved ones at home, and wondered if all was
well with them. But his heart said : Peace, is not thy

brother watching over thy household ?

He H( ^ * ^ He

Forty-two years waxed and waned: the good fight
was won ; Godfrey reifrned in Jerusalem ; the Christiah
hosts reaped the banner of the Gross above the Holy
Sepulchre I

Twilight was approaching. Fifty harlequins, in flowing
robes, approached this castle wearily, for they were on
foot, and the dust upon their garmente betokened that they
had travelled far. They overtook a peasant, and asked
him if it were likely they could get food and a hospitable
bed there, for love of Christian charity, and if per-
chance a moral parlour entertainment might meet with
generous countenance ; *' for," said they, " this exhibi-
tion hath no feature that could offend the most fastidious
taste."

** Marry," quoth the peasant, " an' it please your
worships, ye had better journey many a good rood hence
with your juggling circus than trust your bones in yonder
castle."

**How now, sirrah 1" exclaimed the chief monk, "ex-
plain thy ribald speech, or by'r Lady it shall go hard with
thee."

" Peace, good mountebank, I did but utter the truth
that was in my heart. San Paulo be my witness that did
ye but find the stout Count Leonardo in his oups, sheer

THRILLING MEDIEVAL ROMANCE. J57

from the castle's topmost battlements would he hurl ye
all I Alack-a-day, the good Lord Luigi reigns not here
in these sad times." >- *' -^ ^^ ./

" The good Lord Luigi ?"

" Aye, none other, please your worship. In his day
the poor rejoiced in plenty, and the rich he did oppress;
taxes were not known ; the fathers of the Church waxed fat
upon his bounty ; travellers went and came, with none
to interfere; and whosoever would might tarry in his
halls in cordial welcome, and eat his bread and drink his
wine withal. But woe is me ! some two and forty years
agone the good count rode hence to fight for Holy Cross,
and many a year hath flown since word or token have we
had of him. Men say his bones lie bleaching in the fields
of Palestine."

" And now ?"

" Now ! God 'a mercy, the cruel Leonardo lords it in
the castle. He wrings taxes from the poor ; he robs all
travellers that journey by his gates ; he spends his days
in feuds and murders, and his nights in revel and debauch ;
he roasts the fathers of the church upon his kitchen spits,
and eojoyeth the same, calling it pastime. These thirty
years Luigi's oountess hath not been seen by any he in all
this land, and many whisper that she pines in the dungeons
of the castle, for that she will not wed with Leonardo,
saying her dear lord still liveth, and that she will die ere
she prove false to him. They whisper likewise that her
daughter is a prisoner as well. Nay, good jugglers^ seek
ye refreshment other wheres. 'Twere better that ye
perished in a Christian wajr than that ye plunged from off
yon dizzy tower. Give yo ^ood-day."

" God keep ye, gentle knave — farewell."

But heedless of the peasant's warning, the players moved
straightway toward the castle.

Word was brought to Count Leonardo that a company
of mountebanks besought his hospitality.

" 'Tis well- Dispose of them in the customary manner.
Yet stay ! I have need of them. Let them come hither.
Later, oast them from the battlements — or — -how many
priests have ye on hand ?"

•*.|l-'V. **■''.*? w

ti:

Ii58

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

" The day's resulla are meagre, good my lord. Au
abbot and a dozen beggarly friars is all we have."

<< Hell and furies ! is the estate going to seed? Send
hither the mountebanks. Afterward, broil them with the
priests. f*(.7 ;K«i*iirt ;i.*j«iN[irtv

; The robed and olose-oowled harlequins entered. The
grim Leonardo sat in state at the head of his oounoil board.
Ranged up and do^n the hall on either hand stood near a
hundred men-at-arms.

*^Ha, villains!" quoth the count, ''what can ye do to
irr the hospitality ye crave ?"

. '' Dread lord and mighty, crowded audiences have
greeted our humble efforts with rapturous applaiise.
Among our body count we the versatile and t>alented
U^olino ; the justly celebrated Rodolpho ; the gifted and
accomplished Boderigo, the management have spared
neither pains nor expense "

'' 'Sdeath ! what can ye do / Curb thy prating
tongue."

'' Good my lord, in acrobatic feats, in practice with the
dumb-bells, in balancing and ground and lofty tumbling
are we versed — ^^and sith your highness asketh me, I ven-
ture here to publish that in the truly marvellous and
entertaining Zampillaerostation "

'' Gag him! throttle him! Body of Bacchus ! am I a
dog that I am to be assailed with polysyllabled blasphemy
like to this ? But hold ! Lucretia, Isabel, stand forth !
Sirrah, behold this dame, this weeping wench. The first
I marry, within the hour ; the other shall dry her tears or
feed the vultures. Thou and thy vagabonds shall crown
the wedding with thy merry-makings. Fetch hither the
priest!"

The dame sprang toward the chief player.

''0, save me!" she cried; "save me from a fate far
worse than death ! Behold these sad eyes, these sunken
cheeks, this ^withered frame I See thou the wreck this
fiend hath made, and let thy heart be moved with pity !
Look upon this damsel ; note her wasted form, her halting
step, her bloomless cheeks, where youth should blush and
happiness e^ult in smiles ! Hear us 9ud |iave compassioot

i{:

THRILLING MEDIjEVAL ROMANCE. 159

This monster was my husband's brother. He who should
have been our shield against all harm, hath kept us shut
within the noisome caverns of his donjon-keep for lo these
thirty years. An.d for what crime? None other than that
I would not belie my troth, root out my strong love for
him who marches with the legions of the Cross in Holy
Land (for ,6, he is not dead 1) and wed wHh him 1 Save
us, 0, saye thy persecuted suppliants 1" f tt^ f- *' •,*- >

She flung herself at his feet and clasped his knees.

" Ha !-ha !-ha i" shouted the brutal Leonardo. " Priest,
to thy work !" and he dragged the weeping dame from heir
refuge. " Say once for all, will you be mine?— for by my
halidome, that breath that uttereth thy refusal shall be thy
last on earth!" .„ ^, ., , , . , ,. ,,,,,., _ ,,,;,,,,

"Ne-vee!"

'< Then die i" and the sword leaped from its scabbard.

Quicker ^han thought, quicker than the lightning's flash,
fifty monkish habits disappeared, and fifVy knights in
splendid armour stood revealed ! fifty falchions gleamed in
air above the men-at-arms, and brighter, fiercer than them
all, flamed Excali^ aloft, and cleaving downward struck
the brutal Leonardo's weapon from his grasp! .-it.»>

" A Luigi to the rescue ! Whoop!" ,,^ ^^^ ; i-^fiw^^a

" A Leonardo 1" tare an ouns !"

'' Oh God, oh God, my husband !"

" Oh God, oh God, my wife !" t

", My father l"vfi.«^-i.^;fe-j**:**>., *^..*v^>

" My precious 1" [ Tableau.^

Count Luigi bound his usurping brother hand and foot.
The practised knights from Palestine made holiday sport
of carving the awkward men-at-arms into chops and
steaks. The victory was complete. Happiness reigned.
The knights all married the daughter. Joy ! wassail 1
finis !

" But what did they do with the wicked brotW ?"

" Oh nothing 1 — only hanged him on that iron hook X
was speaking of. By the chin." ^qmwmdaiiti
" As how ?" wfAaj-mfim^ .n^ii im^^'^mnr--
*' Passed it up through his gills into his mouth,"
4^eave nim tnere (h,^cKr';i.-i^:i:^i u-'i^%._ -v,-*.,*:^^-?' af^i^.-'i^fftu^H ^'i^--

It:; f:

160

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

^ ' *< Couple of years." " . « ^

' " Ah !— is^is he dead ?"

<< Six hundred and Mtj years ago, or such a matter."
" Splendid legend — splendid lie^-ndrive on."
We reached the quaint old fortified city of Bergamo, the
renowned in history, some three quarters of an hour hefore
the train was. ready to start. The place has thirty or
forty thousand inhabitants, and is remarkable for being
the birthplace of harlequin. When we discovered that,
the legend of our driver took to itself a new interest in
our eyes.

Rested and refreshed, we took the rail happy and con-
tented. I shall not tarry to speak of the handsome Lago
di Gardi ; its stately castle that holds in its stony bosom
the secrets of an age so remote that even tradition goeth
not back to it; the imposing mountain scenery that en-
nobles the landscape thereabouts; nor yet of ancient Padua
or haughty Verona ; nor of their Montagues and Capulet^
their famous balconies and tombs of Juliet and Komeo
et al.j but hurry straight to the ancient city of the sea, the
widowed bride of the Adriatic. It was a long, long ride.
But toward evening, as we sat silent and hardly conscious
of where we were — subdued into that meditative calm
that comes so surely after a conversational storm — some
one shouted —
" Venice !"

And siire enough, afloat on the placid sea a league away,
lay a great city, with its towers and domes and steeples
drowsing in a golden mist of sunset.

negle<
Venic
great

are va
Her
of WJ
stagna
world.

■.p .i'h^M:M--'iiliS:'t':Si^i'r

i?',^iy>

CHAPTER XXII.

THIS Venice, which was a haughty^ invincible, magni-
ficent Republic for nearly fourteen hundred years ;
whose armies compelled the world's applause whenever
and wherever they battled ; whose navies well nigh held
dominion over the seas, and whose merchant fieets whitened
the remo^st OQcans with their sails and loaded these piers

IN SACKCLOTH AND ASHES.

161

with the products of every clime, is fallen a prey to poverty,
neglect, and melancholy decay. Six hundred years ago,
Venice was the Autocrat of Commerce ; her mart was the
great commercial centre, the distributing-house from
whence the enormous trade of the Orient was spread
abroad over the Western world. To-day her piers are
deserted, her warehouses are empty, her merchant fleets
are vanished, her armies and her navies are but memories.
Her glory is departed, and with her crumbling grandeur
of wharves and palaces about her she sits among her
stagnant lagoons, forlorn and beggared, forgotten of the
world. She that in her palmv days commanded the com-
merce of a hemisphere and made the weal or woe of
nations wi .h a beck of her puissant finger, is become the
humblest among the peoples of the eartli — a pedlar of
glass beads for women, and trifling toys aqd trinkets for
schoolgirls and children . ' * "^^ ^^^

The venerable mother of the republics is scarce a fit
subject for flippant speech or the idle gossiping of tourists.
It seems a sort of sacrilege to disturb the glamour of old
romance that pictures her to us softly from afar off as
through a tinted mist, and curtains her ruin and her deso-
lation from our view. One ought, indeed, to turn away
from her rags, her povertv, and her humiliation, and think
of her only as she was when fhe sunk the fleets of Charle-
magne, when she humbled Frederick Barbarossa, or
waved her victorious banner above the battlements of
Constantinople.

We reached Venice at eight in the evening, and entered
a hearse belonging to the Grand Hdtel d'Europe. At any
rate, it was more like a hearse than anything else, though
to speak by the card, it was a gondola. And this was the
storied gondola of Venice I — the fairy boat in which the '
princely cavaliers of the olden time were wont to cleave
the waters df the moonlit canals and look the eloquence of
love into the soft eyes of patrician beauties, while the gay
goidolier in silken doublet touched his guitar and sang as
only gondoliers can sing I This the famed gondola and
this the gorgeous gondolier! — the one an inky, rusty
old canoe, with a sable hearse-body dapped on to the

162

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

middle of it, and tho other a mangy, barefooted gutter-
snipe, with a portion of his raiment on exhibition which
should have been sacred from public scrutiny. Presently,
as he turned a corner and shot his he&rse into a dismal
ditch between two long rows of towering, untenanted
buildings, the gay gondolier began to sing, true to the
traditions of his race. I stood it a little while. Then I
said : —

" Now, here, Roderigo Gonzales Michael Angelo, I'm a
pilgrim, and I'm a stranger, but I am not going to have my
feelings lacerated by any such caterwauling as that. If
that goes on, one of us has got to take water. It is enough
that my cherished dreams of Venice have been blighted for
ever as to the romantic gondola and the gorgeous gondo-
lier ; this system of destruction shall go no farther ;«I will
accept the haarsc, under protest, and you may fly your
flag of truce in peace, but here I register a dark and
bloody oath that you shan't sing. Another yelp, a^d
overboard you go." ^^.^

I began to feel that the old Venice of song and story
had departed for ever. But I was too hasty. In a few
minutes we swept gracefully out into the Grand Canal,
and under the mellow moonlight the Venice of poetry and
romance stood revealed. Eight from the water's edge
rose long lines of stately palaces of marble ; gondolas were
gliding swiftly hither and thither and disappearing sud-
denly through unsuspected gates and alleys ; ponderous
stone bridges threw their shadows athwart the glittering
waves. There was life and motion everywhere, and yet
everywhere there was a hush, a stealthy sort of stillness,
that was suggestive of secret enterprises of bravoes and of
lovers; and clad half in moonbeams and lialf in mysterious
shadows, the grim old mansions of the Republic seemed
to have an expression about them of having an eye out for
just such enterprises as these at that same moment. Music
came floating over the waters — Venice was complete.

It was a beautiful picture — very soft and dreamy and
beautiful. But what was this Venice to compare with the
Venice of midnight? Nothing. There was a f$te — :a
grand f^te in honour of some saint ^ho ha4 been inst^u^

THE OBAND FETE BY MOONLIGHT. 163

your

: and

mental in checking the cholera three hundred years ago,
and all Venice was abroad on the water. It was no
common affair, for the Venetians did not know how soon
they might need the saint's services again, now that the
cholera was spreading everywhere. So in one vast space
— say a third of a mile wide and two miles long — were
collected two thousand gondolas, and every one of them
had from two to ten, and twenty, and even thirty coloured
lanterns suspended about it, and from four to a dozen
occupants. Just as far as the eye could reach, these
painted lights were massed together— like a vast garden
of many-coloured flowers, except that these blossoms were
never still ; they were ceaselessly gliding in and out, and
mingling together, and seducing you into bewildering
attempts to follow their mazy evolutions. Here and there
a strong red, green, or blue glare from a rocket that was
struggling to get away, splendidly illuminated all the
boats around it. Every gondola that swam by us, with
its crescents and pyramids and circles of coloured lamps
hung aloft, and lighting up the faces of the young and
the sweet-scented and lovely below, was a picture ; and
the reflections of those lights, so long, so slender, so
numberless, so many-coloured and so distorted and
wrinkled by the waves, was a picture likewise, and one
that was enchantingly beautiful. Many and many a party
of young ladies and gentlemen had their state gondolas
handsomely decorated, and ate supper on board, bringing
their swallow-tailed, white-cravatted varlets to wait upon
them, and having their tables tricked out as if for a bridal
supper. They had brought along the costly globe lamps
from their drawing-rooms and the lace and silken curtains
from the same places, I suppose. And they had also
brought pianos and guitars, and they played and sang
operas, while the plebeian paper-lanterned gondolas from
the suburbs and the back alleys crowded around to stare
and listen.

There was music everywhere — choruses, string bands,
brass bands, flutes, everything. I was so surrounded,
walled in with music, magnificence, and loveliness, that I
became inspired with the spirit of the scene, and sang qv^<^

164

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

tune mysolf. However, when I observed that the other
gondolas had sailed away, and my gondolier was preparing
to go overboard, I stopped.

Tho f<^te was magnificent. They kept it np the whole
night long, and I never enjoyed myself better than I did
while it lasted.

What a funny old city this Queen of the Adriatic is !
Narrow streets, vast, gloomy marble palaces, black with
the corroding damps of centuries, and all partly submerged ;
no dry land visible anywhere, and no sidewalks worth
mentioning ; if you want to go to church, to the theatre,
or to the restaurant, you must call a gondola. It must be
a paradise for cripples, for verily a man has no use for
legs here.

For a day or two the place looked so like an overflowed
Arkansas town, because of its currentless waters lavinp^
the very doorsteps of all the houses, and the cluster of
boats made fast under the windows, or skimming in aiid
out of the alleys and by-ways, that I could not get rid of
the impression that there was nothing the matter here but
a spring freshet, and that the river would fall in a few
weeks and leave a dirty high-wat>er mark on the houses,
and the streets full of mud and rubbish.

In the glare of day, there is little poetry about Venice,
but under the charitable moon her stained palaces are
white again, their battered sculptures are hidden in
shadows, and the old [city seemes crowned once more with
the grandeur that was here five hundred years ago. It is
easy, then, in fancy, to people these silent canals with
plumed gallants and fair ladies — with Shylocks in gaber-
dine and sandals, venturing loans upon the rich argosies
of Venetian commerce — with Othellos and Desdemonas,
with lagos and Boderigos — with noble fleets and
victorious legions returning from the wars. In the
treacherous sunlight we see Venice decayed, forlorn,
poverty stricken and commerceless — forgotten and utterly
insignificant. But in the moonlight, her fourteen cen-
turies of greatness fling their glories about her, and
once more is she the princeliest among the nation! '^
tihe earth, ^"^ ^

.< THE DOOE'S PALACE.

165

•r

" There !■ a fflorioni city In the le* : .< I >-

The sea la In the broad, the narrow street*,
Ebbing and flowlns ; and the salt>sea weed

; Clinn to the marble of her palaces.
No track of men, no footsteps to and fro,
Lead to her gates ! The patn lies o'er the soa,
Invisible ; and from the land we went, ,

As to a floating city— steering In,
And gliding up her streeta, as In a dream, '^ ?' i\-'}(; f y : tt/i'
So smoothly, silently— by many a dome,
Mosque-llke, and many a stately portico,
The statues ranged along an azure sky i
Bv many a pile. In more than eastern pride, .
or old the residence of merchant kings ;

\ The fronts of some, tho' time had shatter'd them,
Htill glowing with the richest hues of art,
As tho' the wealth within them had run o'er."

M' -iX

■ .VJ

'! 'tl'j*

W^at would one naturally wish to see first in Venice ?
The Bridge of Sighs, of course — and next the Church and
the Great Square of St. Mark, the Bronze Horses, and tho
famous Lion of St. Mark. - . .

We intended to go to the Bridge o( Sighs, but hap-
pened into the Ducal Palace first — a buiHi i^' which
necessarily figures largely in Venetian poetry and tradition.
In the Senate Chamber of the ancient Bopublic we weaned
our eyes with staring at acres of hist(>ricai paintings by
Tintoretto and Paul Veronese, but nothing struck ua
forcibly except the one thing that strikes all strangers
fbrcibly — a blank square in the midst of a gallery of por-
traits. In one long row, around the great hall, were
painted the portraits of the Do^es of Venice (venerable
fellows, with flowing white beards, for of the three hun-
dred Senators eligible to the office, the oldest was usually
chosen Doge*) and each had his complimentary inscription
attached — till you came to t»><i ;)lace that should have had
Marino Faliero's picture in it, and that was blank and
black — blank, except that it bore a terse inscription,
saying that the conspirator had died for .his crime. It
s(s Ikied cruel to keep that pitiless inscription still staring
fVom the walls after the unhappy wretch had been in his
grave five hundred years.

At the head of the Giant's Staircase, where Marino
.^^%iUero was beheaded, and where the Doges were crowned
' m ancient times, two small slits in the stone wall were

'I
4

'■,'i

166

THE tmOGENTS ABROAD.

pointed out — tTivo harmless, insignificant orificed tliat
would never attract a stranger^s attention — ^yet these were
the terrible Lions' Mouths t The heads Were gone
(knocked off by the French during their occupation of
Venice) but these were the throats down which went the
anonymous accusation, thrust in secretly at dead of night
by an enemy, that doomed many an innocent man to walk
the Bridge of Sighs and descend into the dungeon which
none entered and hoped to see the sun again. This was
in the old days when the Patricians alone governed Venice
' — the common herd had no vote and no voice. There
were one thousand five hundred Patricians ; from these
three hundred Senators were chosen ; from the Senators
a Doge and Council of ten were selected, and by secret
ballot the Ten chose from their own number a Council of
Three. All these were Government spies, then, and every
spy was under surveillance himself — men spoke in whis-
pers in Venice, and no man trusted his neighbour — not
always his own brother. No man knew who the Council of
Three were—not even the Senate, not even the Doge ; the
members of that dead tribunal met at night in a chamber
to themselves, masked, and robed from head to foot in
scarlet cloaks, and did not even know each other, unless
by voice. It was their duty to judge heinous political
crimes, and from their sentence there was no appeal. A
nod to the executioner was sufficient. The doomed man
was marched down a hall and out at a doorway into the
covered Bridge of Sighs, through it and into the dungeon
and unto his death. At no time in his transit was he visible
to any save h\?, conductor. If a man had an enemy in
those old days, the cleverest thing he could do was to slip
a note for the Council of Three into the Lion's Mouth,
saying, " This man is plotting against the Government."
If the awful Three found no proof, ten to one they would
drown him anyhow, because he was a deep rascal, since
his plots were unsolvable. Masked judges and masked
executioners, with unlimited power, and no appeal from
their judgments, in that hard, cruel age, were not likely
to be lenient with men they uuspected yet could not
convict.

THE PRISON.

16?

We walked through the hall of the Council of Ten,
and presently entered the infernal den of the Council of
Three.

The tahlo around which they had sat was there still,
and likewise the stations where the masked inquisitors
and executioners formerly stood, frozen, upright and
silent, till they received a bloody order, and then without
a word, moved off, like the inexorable machines they
were, to carry it out. The frescoes on the walls were
startlingly suited to the place. In all the other saloons,
the halls, the great state chambers of the palace, the walls
and ceilings were bright with gilding, rich with elaborate
carving, and resplendent with gallant pictures of Venetian
victories in war, and Venetian display in foreign courts,
and hallowed with portraits of the Virgin, the Saviour of
men, and the Holy Saints that preached the Gospel of
Peace upon earth — but here, in dismal contrast, were
none but pictures of death and dreadful suffering ! — not a
living figure but was writhing in torture, not a dead but
was smeared with blood, gashed with wounds, and dis-
torted with the agonies that had taken away its life !

From the palace to the gloomy prison is but a step —
one might almost jump across the narrow canal that in-
tervenes. The ponderous stone Bridge of Sighs crosses
it at the second story — a bridge that is a covered tunnel
— ^you cannot be seen when you walk in it. It is parti-
tioned lengthwise, and through one compartment walked
such as bore light sentences in ancient times, and through
the other marched sadly the wretches whom the Three
had doomed to lingering misery and utter oblivion in the
dungeons, or to sudden and mysterious death. Down
below the level of the water, by the light of smoking
torches, we were shown the damp, thick-walled cells where
many a proud patrician's life was eaten away by the long-
drawn miseries of solitary imprisonment — without light,
air, books; naked, unshaven, uncombed, covered with
vermin ; his useless tongue forgetting its office, with none
to speak to ; the days and nights of his life no longer
marked, but merged into one eternal, eventless night ; far
away from all cheerful sounds, buried in the silence of a

i .

168

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

tomb ; forgotten by bis belpless friends, and bis fate a
dark mystery to tbem for ever ; losing bis own memory at
last, and knowing no more who be was or bow be came
tbere ; devotiring tbe loaf of bread and drinking tbe water
tbat were tbrust into tbe cell by unseen bands, and
troubling bis worn spirit no more with hopes and fears
and doubts and longings to be free ; ceasing to scratch
vain prayers and complaints on walls where none, not even
himself, could see them, and resigning himself to hopeless
apathy, drivelling childishness, lunacy I Many and many
a sorrowful story like this these stone walls could tell if
they could but speak. ,^ i ^ « j v.^,

In a little narrow corridor near by, they showed us
where many a prisoner, after lying in the dungeons until
he was forgotten by all save his persecutors, was brought
by masked executioners and garotted, or sewed up in
a sack, passed through a little window to a boat, at dead
of night, and taken to some remote spot and drowned. ^

They used to show to visitors tbe implements of torture
wherewith the Three were wont to worm secrets out of
the accused — villainous machines for crushing thumbs ;
the stocks where a prisoner sat immovable while water fell
drop by drop upon his head till the torture was more than
humanity could bear ; and a devilish contrivance of steel,
which enclosed a prisoner's head like a shell, and crushed
it slowly by means of a screw. It bore the stains of
blood that bad trickled through its joints long ago, and
on one side it had a projection whereon the torturer rested
bis elbow comfortably and bent down his ear to catch the
meanings of the sufferer perishing within.

Of course we went to see the venerable relic of the
ancient glory of Venice, with its pavements worn and
uroken- by the passing feet of a thousand years of ple-
beians and patricians — the Cathedral of St. Mark. It is
built entirely of precious marbles, brought from the Orient
— nothing in its composition is domestic. Its hoary tra-
ditions make it an object of absorbing interest to even
the most careless stranger, and thus far it had interest for
me ; but no further. I could not go into ecstacies over
its coarse mosaics, its unlovely Byzantine architecture, or

THE GLORY OF VENICE,

169

its five hundred curious interior columns from as many
distant quarries. Everything was worn out — every block
of stone was smooth and almost shapeless with the polish-
ing hands and shoulders of loungers who devotedly idled
here in by-gone centuries and have died and gone to the
dev — no, no, simply died, I mean.

Under the altar repose the ashes of St. Mark — and
Matthew Luke, and John too, for all I know. Venice
reveres these relics above all things earthly. For fourteen
hundred years St. Mark has been her patron saint. Every-
thing about the city ssems to be named after him, or so
named as to refer to him in some way — so named, or
some purchase riQ,ged in some way to scrape a sort of
hurrahing acquaintance with him. That seems to be the
idea. To be on good terms with St. Mark seems to be
the very summit of Venetian ambition. They say St.
Mark had a tame lion, and used to travel with him, and
everywhere that St. Mark went the lion was sure to go.
It was his protector, his friend, his librarian. And so the
Winged Lion of St. Mark, with the open Bible under his
paw, is a favorite emblem in the grand old city. It
casts its shadow from the most ancient pillar in Venice, in
the Grand Square of St. Mark, upon the throngs of free
citizens below, and has so done for many a long century.
The winged lion is found everywhere ; and doubtless here
where the winged lion is no harm can come. run

St. Mark died at Alexandria, in Egypt. He was
martyred, I think. However, that has nothing to do with
my legend. About the founding of the city of Venice —
say four hundred and fifty years after Christ — (for Venice
is much younger than any other Italian city), a priest
dreamed that an angel told him that until the remains of
St. Mark were brought to Venice, the city could never
rise to high distinction among the nations ; that the body
must be captured, brought to the city, and a magnificent
church built over it ; and that if ever the Venetians
allowed the Saint to be removed from his new resting-place,
in that day Venice would perish from off the face of the
earth. The priest proclaimed his dream, and forthwith
Venice set about procuring the corpse of St. Mark. One

170

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

expedition after another tried and failed, but the project
was never abandoned during four hundred years. At
last it was secured by stratagem, in the year eight hundred
and something. The commander of a Venetian expedi-
tion disguised himself, stole the bones, separated them,
and packed them in vessels filled with lard. The religion
of Mahomet causes its devotees to abhor anything that is
in the nature of pork, and so when the Christian was
stoppe:^ by the oflp.cers at the gates of the city, they only
glanced once into his precious baskets, then turned up
their lao^es at the unholy lard and let them go. The
bones were buried in the vaults of the grand cathedral,
which had been waiting long years to receive them,
and thus the safety and the greatness of Venice were
secured. And to this day there be those in Venice who
believe that if those holy ashes were stolen away, the
ancient city would vanish like a dream, and its fouuda-
tions be buried for ever in the unrememberine sea. \

J^iX ;j::

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE Venetian gondola is as free and graceful in its
gliding movement as a serpent. It is fcwentg or
thirty feet long, and is narrow and deep like a canoe ; its
sharp bow and stern sweep upward from the water like
the horns of a crescent with the abruptness of the curve
slightly modified.

The bow is ornamented with a steel comb with a battle-
axe attachment which threatens to cut passing boats in
two occasionally, but never does. The gondola is painted
black because in the zenith of Venetian magnificence the
gondolas became too gorgeous altogether, and the Senate
decreed that all such display must cease, and a solemn
unembellished black be substituted. If the truth were
known it would doubtless appear that rich plebeians grew
too prominent in their aflectation of patrician show on
the Grand Canal, and required a wholesome snubbing.
BeTerence for the hallowed Pa^t and its traditions keeps

;il

''VIV

GONDOLIZING.

171

project
rs. At
liundred
expedi-
i them,
religion
? that is
;ian was
ley only
ned up
[). The
ithedral,
3 them,
ce were
lice who
^ay, the
founda-

1 in its
entg or
ice; its
iter like
e curve

i battle-
>oats in
painted
nee the
Senate
solemn,
h were
IS grew
low on
ubbino:.
s keeps

the dismal fashion in force now that the compulsion exists
no longer. So let it remain. It is the colour of mourn-
ing. Venice mourns. The stern of the boat is decked
over, and the gondolier stands there. He uses a single
oar — a long blade, of course, for he stands nearly erect.
A wooden peg, a foot and a half high, with two slight
crooks or curves in one side of it, and one in the other,
projects above the starboard gunwale. Against that peg
the gondolier takes a purchase with his oar, changing it
at intervals to the other side of the peg, or dropping it
into another of the crooks, as the steering of the craft
may demand ; and how in the world he can back and fill,
shoot straight ahead, or flirt suddenly around a corner,
and make the oar stay in those insignificant notches, is a
problem to me, and a never diminishing matter of interest.
I am afraid I study the gondolier's marvellous skill more
than I do the sculptured palaces we glide amt ig. He
cuts a corner so closley now and then, or misses another
gondola by such an imperceptible hair-breadth, that I
feel myself " scrooching" as the children say, just as one
does when a buggy wheel grazes his elbow. But he
makes all his calculations with the nicest precision, and
goes darting in and out among a Broadway confusion of
busy craft with the easy confidence of the educated hack-
man. He never makes a mistake.

Sometimes we go flying down Ihe great canals at such
gait that we can get only the merest glimpses into front
doovs, and again, in obscure alleys in the suburbs, we put
on a solemnity suited to the silence, the mildew, the stag-
nant waters, the clinging weeds, the deserted houses^ and
the general lifelessness of the place, and move to the spirit
of grave meditation.

The gondolier is a picturesque rascal, for all he wears
no satin harness, no plumed bonnet, no silken tights. His
attitude is stately ; he is lithe and supple ; all his move-
ments are ftiU of grace. When his long canoe, and his
fine figure towering from its high perch on the stern, are
cut against the evening sky, they make a picture that is
very novel and striking to a foreign e^e.

We sit in the cushioned carriage-body of a cabin, with

•i % '

:J^^<Hit'f-

172

THE JYNOCENTS ABROAD,

tk^^ibnrtt^ind drawD, and smoke, or read, or look out upon
the'^adsii;^ boats, the houses, the bridges, the people, and
enjoy ourselves much more than we could in a buggy
joltmg over our cobble-stone pavements at home. This is
the gentlest, pleasantest locomotion we have ever known.

But it seems queer, ever so queer, to see a boat doing
duty as a private carriage. We sec buwicefi*! n»oii come to
the front door, step into a gondola i''>>ilead of a street car,
and ii;o ofi down town to the counting room,

We see visiting young ladies Htand cr. ihe '>t';op, and
laugh, and kiss gocd-by, and flitt their fans, and say:
" Come soon, now f/o —youSc been just as mean as ever
you can be — rjiother's dying to see you — and -we' vs moved
into the new house, sucli a love of a placo ! — so conve-
nient to the post^ofl&ce, a^d th« chare) and the Young
Men'fci Christian Associatiou ; and w*; do odve such fishing,
and such carrying on, and, such swimming-matches in the
back yard oh, you must come ; no distance at all, and If
wj go down through by St, Mark's and the Bridge of
Bighs, and cut through the alley and come up by the
church of- Santa Maria dei Frari, and into the Grand
Canal, there isn't a hit of current — now do come Sally
Maria — by-by 1" and then the little humbug trips down
the steps, jumps into the gondola, says, under her breath,
''Disagreeable old thing, I hope she ioo»< /" goes skim-
ming away round the comer ; and the other girl slams
the street door, and says, " Well that infliction's over,
any way, but I suppose I've got to go and see her, tire-
some stuck-up thing!" Human nature appears to be just
the same all over the world. We see the diffident young
man, mild of moustache, affluent of hair, indigent of brain,
elegant of costume, drive up to her father's mansion, tell
his hack man to bail out and wait, start fearfully up the
steps, and meet " the old gentleman" right on the thres-
hold I — hear him ask what street the new British Bank is
in, as if that were what he came for — and then bounce
into his boat and skurry away with his coward heart in
his boots 1 — see him come sneaking around the corner
again directly, with a crack of the curtain open toward
the old gentleman's disappearing gondola, and out scam-

//■

SHOPPING BY WATER,

137

pers his Susan, witli a flock of little Italian endearments
fluttering from her Kps, and goes to drive with him in the
watery avenues down toward the Rial to.

We see the ladies go out shopping, in the most natural
way, and flit from street to street, and from store to store,
just in the good old fashion, except that they leave the
gondola, instead of a private carriage, waiting at the curb-
stone a couple of hours for them — waiting while they
make the nice young clerks pull down tons and tons of
silks, and velvets, and moire antiques, and those things ;
and theii they buy a paper of pins and go paddling away
to confer the rest of their disastrous patronage on some
other firm. And they always have their purchases sent
home just in the good old way. Human nature is very
much the same all over the world ; and it is so like my
dear native home to see a Venetian lady go into a store
and buy ten cents' worth of blue ribbon and have it sent
home in a scow. Ah, it is these little touches of nature
that move one to tears in these far-off foreign lands.

We see the little girls and boys go out in g'^ adolas with
their nurses for an airing. We see staid families, with
prayer-book and beads, enter the gondola dressed in their
Sunday best, and float away to church. And at midnight
we see the theatre break up and discharge its swarm of
hilarious youth and beauty ; we hear the cries of the
hackman-gondoliers, and behold the struggling crowd
jump aboard, and the black multitude of boats go skim-
ming down the moonlit avenues ; we see them separate
here and there, and disappear up divergent streets ; we
hear the faint sounds of laughter and of shouted farewells
floating up out of the distance; and then, the strange
pageant being gone, we have lonely stretches of glittering
water— -of stately buildings — of blotting shadows — of
weird stone faces creeping into the moonlight — of deserted
bridges — of motionless boats at anchor. And over all
broods that mysterious stillness, that stealthy quiet, that
befits so well this old dreaming Venice.

We have been pretty much everywhere in our gondola.

We have bought beads and photographs in the stores, and
. wax matches in the Great Square of St. Mark. The last

-1

174 THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

remark suggests a digression. Everybody goes to this
vast square in the evening. The military bands play in
the centre of it, and countless oouples of ladies and gentle-
men promenade up and down on either side, and platoons
of them are constantly drifting away toward the old Cathe-
dral, and by the venerable column with the Winged
Lion of St. Mark on its top, and out to where the boats
lie moored ; and other platoons are as constantly arriving
from the gondolas and joining the great throng. Between
the promenaders and the side-walks are seated tiundreds
and hundreds of people at small tables, smoking and
taking granita (a first cousin to ice-cream) ; on the side-
walks are more, enjoying themselves in the same way.
The shops in the first floor of the tall rows of buildings
that wall in three sides of the square are brilliantly
lighted, the air is filled with music and merry voices, and
altogether the scene is as bright and spirited and full of
cheerfulness as any man could desire. We enjoy it tho-
roughly. Very many of the young women are exceed-
ingly pretty, and dress with rare good taste. We are
gradually and laboriously learning the ill-manners of
staring them unflinchingly in the face — not because such
conduct is agreeable to us, but because it is the custom of
the country, and they say the girls like it. We wish to
learn all the curious, outlandish ways of all the different
countries, so that we can " show off" and astonish people
when we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our
untravelled friends with our atvange foreign fashions
which we can't shake off. All our passengers are pay-
ing strict attention to this thing, with the end in view
which I have mentioned. The gentle reader will never,
never know what a consummate ass he can become, until
he goes abroad. I speak now, of course, in the supposi-
tion that the gentle reader has not been abroad, and there-
fore is not already a consummate ass. If the case be
otherwise, I beg his pardon, and extend to him the cordial
hand of fellowship and call him brother. I shall always
delight to meet an ass after my own heart when I shall
have finished my travels.

On this subject let me remark that there are Americans

abroad
tongue
even wil
append
register

"John
" Wm.

Etnt» Un
"Georg
" Lloyd
"J. El

Amirlque,

I lov

telKs of

Paris,

old boso

tliough,

cahu't 1

French

got so u

of it;

entertaii

self to 1

any att

said he

address4

that he

He woi

salutati

called I

carried

from h

imperia

beholds

and in

oountal

it, he I

on enjc

been

Archit

Thii

AMERICAN SNOBS ABROAD & AT HOME. 1 75

Abroad in Italy who have actually forgotten their mother-
tongue in three months — forgot it in France. They cannot
even write their address in English in a hotel register. I
append these evidences, which I copied verbatim from the
register of a hotel in a certain Italian city —

"John p. Whitcovab, Etaia Utiis.

" Wm. L. Ainsworth, travailleur, (he meant traveller, I suppose,)

Etats Uni$.
" George P. Morton etflla, ^' imtrigue. ^

" Lloyd B. Williams, CiJ troi6 amis, vil/e de Boston, 'AmMrjve. ■ "
" J. Ellsworth Baker, tout de suite de France ; place Ue naissance

AmMque, deatination la Grande Bretagne."

I love this sort of people. A lady passenger of ours
tells of a fellow-citizen of hers who spent eight weeks in
Paris, and then returned home and addressed his dearest
old bosom friend Herbert as Mr. '* Er-bare !" He apologized
though, and said, " 'Pon my soul, it is aggravating, but I
cahii't help it. I have got so used to speaking nothing but
French my dear Erbare — damme, there it goes again I —
got so used to French pronunciation that I cahn't get rid
of it ; it is positively annoying, I assure you." This
entertaining idiot, whose name was Gordon, allowed him-
self to be hailed three times in the street before he paid
any attention, and then begged a thousand pardons, and
said he had grown so accustomed to hearing himself
addressed as " M'sieu Gor-r-c2ow^," with a roll to the r,
that he had forgotten the legitimate sound of his name !
He wore a rose in his button-hole ; he gave the French
salutation — two flips of the hand in front of the face ; he
called Paris Palrree in ordinary English conversation ; he
curried envelopes bearing foreign post-marks protruding
from his breast-pocket ; he cultivat<)d a moustache and
imperial, and did what else he could to surest to the
beholder his pet fancy that he resembled Louis Napoleon,
and in a spirit of thankfulness which is entirely unac-
countable, considering the slim foundation there was for
it, he praised his Maker that he was as he was, and went
on enjoying his little life just the same as if he really had
been deliberately designed and erected by the great
Architect of the Universe.

Think of our Whitcombs, and our Ainsworths, and our

176

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

Williamses writing themselves down in dilapidated French
in foreign hotel registers I We laugh at Knglishmen when
we are at home for sticking so sturdily to their national
ways and customs^ but we look back upon it from abroad
very forgivingly. It is not pleasant to see an American
thrusting his nationality forward obtrusively in a foreign
land, but ohl it is pitiable, to see him making of himself a
thing that is neither male nor female, neither fish, flesh,
nor fowl — a poor, miserable, hermaphrodite Frenchman.

Among a long list of churches, art galleries, and such
things, visited by us in Venice, I shpll mention only one^ —
the church of Santa Maria dei Frari. It is about five hundred
years old, I believe, and stands on twelve hundred thoupiind
piles. In it lie the body of Canova and the Heart of Titian,
under magnificent monuments. Titan died at the age of
almost one hundred years. A plague which swapt away
fifty thousand lives was raging ^t the time, and therd "s
notable evidence of the reverence in which the great painter
wa*? held, in the fact that to him alone the state permitted
a public funeral in all that season of terror and death.

In this church, also, is a monument to the doge Foscari,
• whose name a once resident of Venice, Lord Byron, has
made permanently famous.

The monument to the doge Giovnnni Pesaro in this
church, is a curiosity in the way of mortuary adornment.
It is eighty feet higji and is fronted like some fantastic
pagan temple. Against it stand four colossal Nubians, as
black as night, dressed in white marble garments. The
black 1^ are bare, and through rents in sleeves and
breeches, the skin, of shiny black marble, shows. The

artist was as

ingenious

as his funeral desisnas were

absurd. There are two bronze skeletons bearing scrolls,
and two great dragons uphold the sarcophagus. On
high, amid all this grotesqueness, sits the departed doge.

In the conventual buildings attached to this church are
the state archives of Venice. We did not see them, but
they are said to number millions of documents. " They
are the records of centuries of the most watchful, obser-
vant, and suspicious gov rnment that ever existed — in
which everything was written down and nothing spoken

. \

SEEING THE SIGHTS.

171

out." They fill nearly three hundred rooms. Among
them are manu ipts from the archives of nearly two
thousand families, monasteries and convents. The secret
history of Venice for a thousand years is here — its plots,
its hidden trials, its assassinations, its commissions of hire-
ling spies and masked bravoes — food, ready to hand, for
a world of dark and mysterious romances.

Yes, I think we have seen all of Venice. We have seen
in these old churches, a profusion of costly and elaborate
sepulchre ornamentation such as we never dreamt of
before. We have stood in the dim religious light of these
hoary sanctuaries, in the midst of long ranks of dusty-
monuments and effigies of the great dead of Venice, until
we seemed drifting back, back, back into the solemn past,
and looking upon the scenes and mingling with the peoples
of remote antiquity. We have been in a half-waking sort
of dream all the time. I do not know how else to describe
the feeling. A part of our being has remained still in the
nineteenth century, while another part of it has seemed
in some unaccountable way walking among the phantoms
of the tenth.

We have seen famous pictures until our eyes are weary
with looking at them and refuse to find interest in them any
longer. And what wonder, when there are twelve hundred
pictures by Palma the Younger in Venice and fifteen
hundred by Tintoretto ? And behold there are Titians
and the works of other artists in^proportion. We have
seen Titian's celebrated Cain and Abel, his David and
Goliah, his Abraham's Sacrifice. We have seen Tinto-
retto's monster picture, which is seventy-four feejt long
and I do not know how many f?et high, and thought it
a very commodious picture. We iiave seen pictures of
martyrs enough, and saints enoui^h, to regenerate the
world. I ought not to confess it, but still, since one
has no opportunity in America to acquire a critical judg-
ment in art, and since I could not hope to become educated
in it in Europe in a few short weeks, I may therefore as
well acknowledge with such apologies as may be due, that
to me it seemed that when I had seen one of these martyrs
I had seen them all. They all have a marked family re-

^*!

:ij'

(

■i

IB'

178

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

semblance to each other, they dress alike, in eoarse monkish
robes and sandals, they are all bnldhciided, they all stand
in about the same attitude, and \';J'aou'. <»xcoption thoy
are gazing heavenward with oouuUjnances which the
Ainsworths, the Mortons and the Williamaes, et fih, i!i-
forni me are full of ** expression." Tome there is nothinji;
tangible about those imaginary portraits, nothing that I
can grasp and take a living interest in. If great Titian
had only been gifted with prophecy, and had skipped a
martyr, and gone over to England and painted a portrait
of Shakspeare, even as a youth, which we could all have
confidence in now, the world down to the latest genera-
tions would have forgiven him the lost martyr in the
rescued seer. I think posterity could have spared one
more martyr for the sake of a great historical picture uf
Titian's time and painted by his brush — such as Columbus
returning in chains from the discovery of a world, for
instance. The old masters did paint some Venetiaii
historical pictures, and these we did not tire of looking at,
notwithstanding representations of the formal introduction
of defunct doges to the Virgin Mary in regions beyond
the clouds clashed rather harshly with the proprieties, it
seemed to us. u

But humble as we are, and unpretending, in the matter
of art, our researches among the painted monks and martyrs
have not been wholly in vain. We have striven hard to
learn. We have had%ome success. We have mastered
some things, possibly of trifling import in the eyes of the
learned, but to us they give pleasure, and we take as
much pride in our little acquirements as do others who
have learned far more, and we love to display them full as
well. When we see a monk going about with a lion and
looking tranquilly up to heaven, we know that that- is St.
Mark. When we see a monk with a book and a pen,
looking tranquilly up to heaven, trying to think of a word,
we know that that is St. Matthew. When we see a monk
sitting on a rock, looking tranquilly up to heaven, with
a human skull beside him, and without other baggage, we
know that that is St. Jerome. Because we know that he
always went flying light in the matter of baggage. When

EXPLANATION.

179

wo sec a party looking tranquilly up to heaven, un-
conscious that liis body is shot through and through with
arrows, we know that that is St. Sebastian. When wo
see other monks looking tranquilly up to heaven, but
having no trade-mark, we always ask who those parties
are. We do this because we humbly wish to learn. We
liave seen thirteen thousand St. Jeromes, and twenty-two
thousand St. Marks, and sixteen thousand St. Matthews,
and sixty thousand St. Sebastians, and four millions of
assorted monks undesignated, and wo feel encouraged to
believe that when we have seen some more of these various
pictures, and, had a larger experience, we shall begin to
take an absorbing interest in them like our cultivated
countrymen from Am^nque.

Now it does give mc real pain to speak in this almost
uniippreciative way of the old masters and their martyrs,
bec'iuse good friends of mine in the ship — friends who do
thoroughly and conscientiously appreciate them and are
in every way competent to discriminate between good
pictures and inferior ones — have urged me for my own
siike not to make public the fact that I lack this appre-
ciation and this critical discrimination myself. I believe
that what T have written and may still write about pictures
will give them pain, and I am honestly sorry for it. I
even promised that I would hide my uncouth sentiments
in my own breast. But alas ! I never could keep a
promise. I do not blame myself fbr this weakness, be.
cause the fault must lie in my physical organization. It >
is likely that such a very liberal amount of space was
given to the organ which enables me to make promises ,
that the organ which should enable me to keep them was
crowded out. But I grieve not. I like no half-way things.
I had rather have one faculty nobly developed than two
faculties of mere ordinary capacity. I certainly meant to
keep that promise, but I find 1 cannot do it. It is im-
possible to travel through Italy without speaking of pictures,
and can I see them through others' eyes ?

If I did not so delight in the grand pictures that are
spread before me every day of my life by that monarch of
all the old masters, Nature, I should come to believe some-

h.ifl

'i'l

180

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

times, that I had in me no appreciation of the beautiful
whatsoever.

It seems to me that whenever I glory to think that for
once I have discovered an ancient painting that is beautiful
and worthy of all praise, the pleasure it gives me is
an infallible proof that it is not a beautiful picture and
not in any wise worthy of commendation. This very
thing has occurred more times than I can mention, iti
V^enice. In every single instance the guide has crushed
out my swelling enthusiasm with the remark — •

" It is nothing — it is of the Renaissance^

I did not know what in the mischief the Renaissance
was, and so always I had «o simply say,

"Ah 1 so it is — I had not observed it before."

I could not bear to be ignorant before a cultivated
negro, the offspring of a South Carolina slave. But it
occurred too often for even my self-complacency, did that
exasperating "It is nothing — it is of the Renaissance.^^ ^ 1
said at last —

" Who is this Renaissance ? Whepe did he come from ?
Who gave him permission to cram the Republic with his
execrable daubs?" ^r 4- h v *>

We learned, then, that Renaissance was not a man ; that
renaissance was a term used to signify what was at best
but an imperfect rejuvenation of art. The guide said
that after Titian's time, and the time of the other great
names we had grown so familiar with, high art declined ;
then it partially rose again — an inferior sort of painters
sprang up, and these shabby pictures were the work of
their hands. Then I said, in my heart, that I " wished to
goodness high art had declined five hundred years sooner."
The Renaissance pictures suit me very well, though, sooth
to say, its schools were too much given to painting real men
and did not indulge enough in martyrs.

The guide I have spoken of is the only one we have had
yet who knew anything. He was born in South Carolina,
of slave parents. They came to Venice while he was an
infant. He has grown up here. He is \:q\\ educated.
He reads, writes, and speaks English, Italian, Spanish, and
French, with perfect facility ; is a wor/nipper of art, and

tl'.oroul
Venice
trious
and is I
white
go bacl
Ihaj
room til
on my
I was
I coulc
indoleni
asked r
tortures
would
for me,
I wr<
him sa''
"Dai
the shij
He SI
"Wl
shaving
Dan
"Wl
I wr(
"Do
anythir
My
Theba
was to(
"H(
I sa1
soaped
rake tl
out of
blood (
I sa
The
beyon(

'^ THE CONSPIRACY,

181

beautiful

that for
)eautiful
8 me is
ure and
lis very
tion, in
crushed

aissance

Itivatcd

But it

iid that

ce." 4

I from ?
ith his

a; that
at best
le said

great
lined ;
ainters
ork of
hed to
oner."

sooth
il men

e had
olina,
IS an
iated.
and
and

thoroughly conversant with it ; knows the history of
Venice by heart, and never tires of talking of her illus-
trious career. He dresses better than any of us, I think,
and is daintily polite. Negroes are deemed as good as
white people in Venice, and so this man feels no desire to
go oack to his native land. His judgment is correct.

I have had another shave. I was writing in our front
room this afternoon and trying hard to keep my attention
on my work and refrain from looking out upon the canal.
I was resisting the soft influences of the climate as well as
I could, and endeavouring to overcome the desire to be
indolent and happy. The boys sent for a barber. They
asked me if I would be shaved. I reminded them of my
tortures in Genoa, Milan, Como ; of my declaration that I
would suffer no more on Italian soil. I said : *^ Not any
for me, if you please. " -^ > * ? . -^'--^v ■

I wrote on. The barber began on the doctor. I heard
him say — & i-'i^n-

*' Dan, this is the easiest shave T have had since we left
the ship. "

He said again, presently —

" Why, Dan, a man could go to sleep with this man
shaving him. "

Dan took the chair. Then he said — "'-■*- ■ — -

" Why, this is Titian. This is one of the old masters."

I wrote on. Directly Dan said — u .^^ iii ;;♦ / ^yi^

*' Doctor, it is perfect luxury. The ship's barber isn*t
anything to him."

My rough beard was distressing me beyond measure.
The barber was rolling up his apparatus. The temptation
was too strong. I said —

*' Hold on, please. Shave me also."

I sat down in the chair and closed my eyes. The barber
soaped my face, and then took his razor and gave me a
rake that well nigh threw me into convulsions. I jumped
out of the chair : Dan and the doctor were both wiping
blood off their faces and laughing. ; ; •

I said it was a mean, disgraceful fraud.

They said that the misery of this shave had gone so far
beyond anything they had ever experienced before, that

... nt . T ^-

182

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

■\

they could not bear the idea of losing such a chance of
hearing a cordial opinion from me on the subject.

It was shameful. But there was no help for it. The
skinning was begun, and had to be finished. The tears
flowed with every rake, and so did the fervent execrations.
The barber grew confused, and brought blood every time.
I think the boys enjoyfid it better than anything they have
seen or heard since they left home.

We have seen the Campanile, and Byron's house, and
Balbi's, the geographer, and the palaces of all the ancient
dukes and doges of Venice, and we have seen their
effeminate descendants airing their nobility in fashionable
French attire in the Grand Square of St. Mark, and eatioj;
ices and drinking cheap wines, instead of wearing gallant
coats of mail and destroying fleets and armies, as their
great ancestors did in the days of Venetian glory. We
have seen no bravoes with poisoned stilettos, no masks, no
wild carnival; but we have seen the ancient pride of
Venice, the grim Bronze Horses that figure in a thousand
legends. Venice may well cherish them, for they are the
only horses she ever had. It is said there are hundreds of
people in this curious city who never have seen a living
horse in their lives. It is entirely true, no doubt.

And so, having satisfied ourselves, we depart to-morrow,
and leave the venerable Queen of the Republics to summon
her vanished ships, and marshal her shadowy armies, and
know again in dreams the pride of her old renown.

.'>'^r'>v;'p'ti

■ t

ii^W^

r'.'f

CHAPTER XXIV.

SOME of the Quaker City's passengers had arrived in
Venice from Switzerland and other lands before we
left there, and others were expected every day. We heard
of no casualties among them, and no sickness.

We were a little fatigued with sight-seeing, and so we
rattled through a good deal of country by rail without
caring to stop. I took few notes. I find no mention of
Bologna in my memorandum book, except that we arrived

there

which

Pist

Floi

the gr

sculpt I

wan del

statues

that St

not res

did noi

tried ii

andGl

quarrel

FJoreni

We ha(

our liti

three n

we wei

had see

people :

secrate(

the wc

heresy

world h

the list

That ^

in the

literati^

tomb in

his bod;

exiled \.

it there

to hers(

her plar

to testi:

that SCO

Magr

with art

in all

TOMB OF GALILEO. ,

183

there in good season, but saw none of the sausages for

which the place is so justly celebrated

Pistoia awoke but a passing interest. '

Florence pleased us for a while. I think we appreciated
the great figure of David in the grand square, and the
sculptured group they call the Rape of the Sabines. We
wandered through the endless collections of paintings and
statues of the Pitti and Ufizzi galleries, of course. I make
that statement in self-defence ; there let it stop. I could
not rest under the imputation that I visited Florence and
did not traverse its weary miles of picture galleries. We
tried indolently to recollect something about the Gueip .
and Ghibelines, and the other historical cut-throats whose
quarrels and assassinations make up so large a share of
Florentine history, but the subject was not attractive.
We had been robbed of all the fine mountain scenery on
our little journey by a system of railroading that had
three miles of tunnel to a hundred yards of daylight, and
we were not inclined to be sociable with Florence. We
had seen the spot, outside the city somewhere, where these
people had allowed the bones of Galileo to rest in uncon-
secrated ground for an age because his great discovery that
the world turned round was regarded as a damning
heresy by the Church ; and we know that long after the
world had accepted his theory and raised his name high in
the list of its great men, they had still let him rot there.
That we had lived to see his dust in honoured sepulture
in the church of Santa Croce, we owed to a society of
literally and not to Florence or her rulers. We saw Dante's
tomb in that church als( , but we were glad to know that
his body was not in it ; that the ungrateful city that had
exiled him and persecuted him would giro much to have
it there, but need not hope to ever secure that high honour
to herself. Medicis are good enough for Florence. Let
her plant Medicis and build grand monuments over them
to testify how gratefully she was wont to lick the hand
that scourged her.

Magnanimous Florence! Her jewelry marts are filled
with artists in mosaic. Florentine mosaics are the choicest
all the world. Florence loves to .have , that said.

184

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

Florence is proud of it. Florence would foster this
specialty of hers. She is grateful to the artists that bring
to her this high credit ahd fill her coffers with foreio;n
money, and so she encourages them with pensions. With
pensions ! Think of the lavishness of it. She knows that
people who piece together the beautiful trifles die early,
because the labour is so confining, and so exhausting :o
hand and brain, and so she has decreed that all these
people who reach the age of sixty shall have a pension
after that ! I have not heard that any of them have called
for their dividends yet. One man did fight along till he
was sixty, and started after his pension, but it appeared
that there had been a mistake of a year in his family
record, and so he gave it up and died.

These artists will take particles of stone or glass no
larger than a mustard-seed, and piece them together on a
sleeve button or a shirt stud, so smoothly and with such
nice adjustment of the delicate shades of colour the pieces
bear, as to form a pigmy rose with stem, thorn, leaves,
petals complete, and all as softly and as truthfully tinted
as though Nature had builded it herself. They will coun-
terfeit a fly, or a high-toned bug, or the ruined Coliseum,
within the cramped circle of a breastpin, and do it so deftly
and 80 neatly that any man might think a master painted it.
I saw a little table in the great mosaic school in
Florence — a little trifle of a centre table — whose top was
made of some sort of precious polished stone, and in the
fitone was inlaid the figure of a flute, with bell-mouth and
a mazy complication of keys. No painting in the world
could have been softer or richer ; no shading out of one
tint into another could have been more perfect ; no work
of art, of any kind could have been more faultless than this
flute, and yet to count the multitude of little fragments of
stone of which they swore it was formed would bankrupt
any man^s arithmetic ! I do not think one could have seen
where two particles joined each otber with eyes of ordinary
shrewdness. Certainly we could detect no such blemish.
This table- top cost the labour of one man for ten long
years, so they said, and it was for s§Je for thirty-five
thousand dollars. « ^ t ^ , t ? ,i

:,9-.yy,{,v^;,v

'"'Mlirf'.™

these

LOST AGAIN, : r^\

185

We went to the Church of Santa Croce from time to
time in Florence to weep over the tombs of Michael
Angelo, Kaphael, and Machiavelli (I suppose they are
buried there, but it may be that they reside elsewhere,
and rent their tombs to other parties — 'Such being the
fashion in Italy), and between times we used to go and
stand on the bridges and admire the Arno. It is popular
to admire the Arno. It is a great historical creek, with
four feet in the channel and somo scows floating around.
It would be a very plausible river if they would pump
some water into it. They all call it a river, and they
honestly think it is a river, do these dark and bloody
Florentines. They even help out the delusion by building
bridges over it. I do not. see why they are too good to
wade. • ■ ,. . . .^'■H^i;^ j. ^T,i;

How the fatigues and annoyances of travel fill one with
bitter prejudices sometimes! I might enter Florence
under happier auspices a month hence anc' find it all
beautiful, all attractive. But I do not care to think of it
now at all, nor of its roDmy shopa filled to the ceiling with
snowy marble and alabaster copies of all the celebrated
sculptures in Europe — copies so enchanting \o the eye,
that I wonder how they can really be shaped like the
dingy petrified nightmares they are the portraits of. I
got lost in Florence at nine o'clock one night, and staid
lost in that labyrinth of narrow streets and long rows of
vast buildings that look all alike, until towards three o'clock
in the morning. It was a pleasant night, and at first there
were a good many people abroad, and there were cheerful
lights about. Later I grew accustomed to prowling about
mysterious drifts and tunnels, and astonishing and inte-
resting myself with coming round corners expecting to
find the hotel staring me in the face, and not finding it
doing anything of the kind. Later still I felt tired. I
soon felt remarkably tired. But ther'> was no one abroad
now — not even a policeman. T walked till I was out of
all patience and very hot and thirsty. At last, somewhere
after one o'clock, I came unexpectedly to one of the city
gates. I knew then that I was very far from the hotel.
The soldiers thought I wanted to leave the city, a»d they

-^'

186

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

sprang up and barred the way with their musketS; I

" Hotel d'Europe."

It was all the Italian I knew, and I was not certain
whether that was Italian or French, The soldiers looked
stupidly at each other and at me, and shook their heads
and took me into custody. 1 said I wanted to go home.
They did not understand me. They took me to the guard-
house and searched me, but they found no sedition on me.
They found a small piece of soap (we carry soap with us
now), and I made them a present of it, seeing that they
regarded it as a curiosity. I continued to say Hotel
d'Europe, and they continued to shake their heads, until
at last a young soldier nooding in the corner roused up
and said something. Be said he knew where the hotel
was, I suppose, for the officer of tlie guard sent him away
with me. We walked a hundred, or a hundred and fii'ty
miles, it appeared to me, and then he got lost. He turned
this way and that, and finally gave it up and signified that
he was going to spend the remainder of the morning trying
to find the city gate again. At that moment it struck me
that there was something familiar about the house over
the way. It was the hotel !

It was a happy thing for me that there happened to be
a soldier there that knew even as much as he did ; for
thfey say that the policy of the government is to change
the soldiery from one place to another constantly, and
from country to city, so that they cannot become ac-
quainted with the people, and grow lax in their duties
and enter into plots and conspiracies with friends. My
experiences of Florence were chiefly unpleasant. I will
change the subject.

At Pisa we cli^nbed up to the top of the strangest
structure the world has any knowledge of — the Leaning
Tower. As every one knows, it is in the neighbourhood
of one hundred and eighty feet high — and I beg to observe
that one hundred and eighty feet reach to about the height
of four ordinary three-story buildings piled one on top of
the other; and is a very considerable altitude for a tower
of aniform thickness to aspire to, even when it etands

igest

THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA.

187

Upright— yet this one leans more than thittefin feet out of
the perpendicular. It is seven hundred years old, but
neither history nor tradition says whether it was built as it
is purposely, or whether one of its sides has settled.
There is no record that it ever stood straight up. It is
built of marble. It is an airy and a beautiful structure,
and each of its eight stories is encircled by fluted columns,
some of marble and some of granitCf with Corinthian
capitals that were handsome when they were new. It is
a bell tower, and in its top hangs a chinjc of ancient bells.
The winding staircase within is dark, but one always
knows which side of the tower he is on because of his
naturally gravitating from one side to the other of the
staircase with the rise or dip of the tower. Some of the
stone steps are foot-worn only on one end ; others only on
the other end ; others only in the middle. To look down
into the tower from the top is like looking down iniio a
tilted well. A rope that hangs from the centre of the top
touches the wall before it reaches the bottom. Standing
on the summit, one does not feel altogether comfortable
when he looks down from the high side ; but to crawl on
your breast to the verge on the lower side and try to
stretch your neck out far enough to see the base of the
tower makes your flesh creep, and convinces you for a single
moment, in spite of all your philosophy, that the build-
ing is falling. You handle yourself very carefully all the
time, under the silly impression that ii it is not falling,
your trifling weight will start it unless you are particular
'lot to *' bear down" on it.

The Duomo, close at hand, is one of the finest cathe-
drals in Europe. It is eight hundred years old. Its
grandeur has outlived the high commercial prosperity and
tlic political importance that made it a necessity, or rather a
possibility. Surrounded by poverty, decay, and ruin, it
conveys to us a more tangible impression of the former
greatness of Pisa than books could give us.

The Baptistery, which is a few years older than the
Leaning Tower, is ii stately rotunda, of huge dimensions,
and was a costly structure. In it hangs the lamp whose
measured swing duggested to Galileo the pendujum. It

188

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

looked an insignifioant thing to have conferred upon the
world of science and mechanics such a mighty extension
of their dominions as it has. Pondering in its suggestive
presence, I seemed to see a crazy universe of swinging
discs, the toiling children of this sedate parent. He
appeared to have an intelligent expression about him of
knowing that he was not a lamp at all ; that he was a
Pendulum ; a pendulum disguised for prodigious and
inscrutable purposes of his own deep devising, and not a
common pendulum either, but the old original patriarchal
Pendulum — the Abraham Pendulum of the world.

This Baptistery is endowed with the most pleasing echo
of all the echoes we have read of. The guide sounded two
sonorous notes, about half an octave apart ; the echo
answered with the most enchanting, the most melodious,
the richest blending of sweet sounds that one can imagine.
It was like a long-drawn chord of a church organ, IlA-
nitely softened by distance. I may be extravagant in this
matter, but if this ihe case, my ear is to blame — not
my pen. I am describing a memory, and one that will
remain long with me.

The peculiar devotional spirit of the olden time, which
placed a higher confidence in outward forms of worship
than in the watchful guarding of the heart against sinful
thoughts, and the hands against sinful deeds, and which
believed in the protecting virtues of inanimate objects
made h«ly by contact with holy things, is illustrated in a
striking manner in one of the cemeteries of Pisa. The
tombs are set in soil brought in ships from the Holy Land
ages ago. To be buried in such ground was regarded by
the ancient Pisans as being more potent for salvation than
many masses purchased of the church and the vowing of
many candles to the Virgin.

Pisa is believed to be about three thousand years old.
It was one of the twelve great cities of ancient Etruria ;
that commonwealth which has left so many monuments in
testimony of its extraordinary advancement, and so little
history of itself that is tangible and comprehensible. A
Pisan antiquarian gave me an ancient tear-jug, which he
averred was full four thousand years old. It was found

pon the
tension
5gestivQ
wringing
it. He
him of
was a
us and
id not a
riarchal

ng echo
ded two
lie echo
ilodious,
magine.
;an, iLfi'
b in this
ne — not
lat will

I, which
worship
it sinful
i which
obiects

id in a

The

ly Land

rded by

m than

ing of

irs old.

truria ;
lents in
Id little

)le. A

lich he
found

A FALLEN REPUBLIC.

189

among the ruins of one of the oldest of the Etruscan cities.
He said it came from a tomb, and was used by some be-
reaved family in that remote age when even the Pyramids of
Egypt were young, Damascus a village, Abraham a prattling
infant, and ancient Troy not yet dreamt of, to receive the
tears wept for some lost idol of a household. It spoke to us in
a language of its own ; and with a pathos more tender than
any words might bring, its mute eloquence swept down
the long roll of the centuries with its tale of a vacant
chair, a familiar footstep missed from the threshold, a
pleasant voice gone from the chorus, a vanished form ! —
a tale which is always so new to us, so startling, so ter-
rible, so benumbing to the senses, and behold how thread-
bare and old it is ! No shrewdly-worded history could have
brought the myths and shadows of that old dreamy ago
before us clothed with human flesh ond warmed with
human sympathies so vividly as did this poor little unsen-
tient vessel of pottery.

Pisa was a republic in the middle ages, with a govern-
ment of her own, armies and navies of her own, and a great
commerce. She was a warlike power, and inscribed upon
her banners many a brilliant fight with Genoese and
Turks. It is said that the city once numbered a popula-
tion of four hundred thousand ; but her sceptre has passed
from her grasp now, her phips and her armies are gone,
her commerce is dead. Her battle-flags bear the mold
and the dust of centuries, her marts are deserted, she has
shrunken far within her crumbling walls, and her great
population has diminished to twenty thousand souls. She
has but one thing left to boast of, and that is not much,
viz. : she is the second city of Tuscany. ' 1^

We reached Leghorn in time to see all we wished to see
of it long before the city gates were closed for the evening,
and then came on board the ship.

We felt as though we had been away from home an age.
We never entirely appreciated before, what a very plea-
rant den our state-room is ; nor how jolly it is to sit at
dinner in one's own seat in one's own eabin, and hold
familiar conversation with friends in one's own language.
Oh, the rare happiness of comprehending eyer^ single

■• ! ., • I;

; I I V 1

•*

'1''

190

TUE INNOCLNTS ABROAD.

word that is said, and knowine; that every woi 3 one says
in return will be understood as well I We wou * \ talk our-
selves to death now, only there are only ah^ut ten passen-
j^ei out of the sixty-five to talk to. The others are
wandering, we hardly know ^ ti're. We shall not i'o
ashore in Leghorn. We are ourtiBited with Italian citi<'>
for the present, and much prefer to walk the familiar
quarter-deck and view this one from a distance.

The stupid magnates of this Leghorn governuiont
cannot understand that so large a steamer as ours could
cross the broad Atlantic \^ith no other purpose thin to
indulge a party of ladies and gentlemen in a pleasure
excursion. It looks too improbable. It is suspicious,
they think. Something more important must bo hidden
behind it all. They cannot understand it, and they scorn
the evidence of the ship's papers. They have decided ^i'.
last that we are a battalion of incendiary, blood-thirsty
Graribaldians in disguise ! And in all seriousness they
have sent a*gun-boat to watch the vessel nighf. and day,
with orders to close down on any revolutionary movement
in a twinkling I Police boats are on patrol duty about us
ill the time, and it is as much as a sailor's liberty is worth
i^ ;how himself in a red shirt. These policemen follow
tJnf executive officer's boat from shore to shin and from

ship to shore, and watch his dark manoeuvres with a
vigilant eye. They will arrest him yet unless he assumes
an expression of countenance that shall have le s of carnage,
insurrection, and sedition in it. A visit paid in a friendly
way to General Garibaldi yesterday (by cordial invita-
tion) by some of our passengers, has gone far to confirm
the dread suspicions the government harbours towards us.
It is thought the friendly visit was only the cloak of a
bloody conspiracy. These people draw near and watch
us when we bathe in the sea from the ship's side. Do they
think we are ^communing with a reserve force of rascals at
the bottom ?

It is said that we shall probably be quarantined at
Naples. Two or three of us prefer not to run this risk.
Therefore, when we are rested, we propose to go in a
French steamer to Civita Vecchia, and from thence to

iv*8^. ■•immm'-

THE WORKS OF BANKRUPTCY, 191

Rome, and by rail to Naples. They do not quarantine the
cars, no matter where they got their passengers from.

i^,'

' ^ '•«'^,' r.'^X: CHAPTER XXV. . ' '^,' . ,.,,.,. ,

ri>HERB are a good many things about this Italy which
X I do not understand — and more especially I cannot
understand how a bani upt Government can have such
palatial railroad d^^ nd such marvels of turnpikes

Why, these latter .a as adamant, as straight as a

line, a» ^iuiooth us a li as white as snow. When it

is too dark to see any wlui . object, one can still see the
white turnpikes of France and Italy ; and they are clean
enough to eat from without a table-cloth. And yet no tolls
are charged.

As for the railways — we have none like them. The
cars slide as smoothly along as if they were on runners.
The dep6ts are vast palaces of cut marble, with stately
colonnades of the same royal stone traversing them from
end to end, and with ample walls and ceilings richly
decorated with frescoes. The lofty gate', '^s are graced
with statues, and the broad floors are all iaid in polished
flajfs of marble.

These things win me more than Italy's hundred galleries
of priceless art treasures, because I can understand the
one and am not competent to appreciate the other. In
the turnpikes, the railways, the dep6t3, and the new
boulevards of u inform houses in Florence t-nd other cities
here, I see the genius of Louis Napoleon, or rather, I see
wthe orks of that statesman imitated. But Louis has taken
care that in France there shall be a foundation for these
improvements — money. He has always the wherewithal
to back up his projects ; they strengthen France and never
weaken her. Her material prosperity is genuine. Biit
here the case is diflferent. This country is bankrupt.
There is no real foundation for these great works. The pros-
perity they would seem to indicate is a pretence. There
is no money in the, treasury, and so they enfeeble her

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THE INNOCJENTS ABROAD.

instead of stt^rigthening. Italy has achieved the dearest
wish of her heart and become an independent State — and
in so doing she has drawn an elephant in the political
lottery. She has nothing to feed it on. Inexperienced in
government, she plunged into all manner of useless ex-
penditure, and swamped her treasury almost in a day.
She squandered millions of francs on a navy which she did
not ne^d, and the first time she took her new toy into
action she got it knocked higher than Gilderoy's kite — to
uto the language of the Pilgrims.

But it is' fiii ill wind that blows noboJy good. A year
agOy when Itkly iaw utter ruin staring her in the face and
Eelr ^eenbacks hairdly worth the paper they were printed
on, her Parliament ventured upoti a coup de main that
would have appalled the stoutest of her statesmen under
less desperate circumstances. They, in a manner, co!|i"
fiscated the domains of the Church. This in prieSt-ridden
Italy ! This in a land which has groped in the midnight
of priestly superstition for sixteen hundred years ! Zt was
a rare good fortune for Italy, the stress of weather that
drdve herto break from this prison-house.

TheJ' do not call it confiscating the Church property.
Xhat would sound too harshly yet. But it amounts to
thdt. Inhere are thousands of churches in Italy, each with
untold millions of treasures stored away in its closets, and
each with its battalion of priests to be supported. And
then thene are the estates of the Church — league on league
of the richei^ lands and the noblest forests in all Italy — all
yielding immense revenues to the Church, and none
paying a cent in taxes to the State. In sodae great
disti*ictd the Church owns all the property — lands, water-
co^urses, woods, mills, and factories. They buy, they sell,
they manufacture, and since they pay no taxes, who can
hope to compete with them?

Wdl, the Qovemment has seized all this in e£fect, and
Will yet seize it in rigid and unpoetical reality, no doubt,
sotnethitig must be done to feed a starving trea^ry, and
tlv0re is'no other resource in all Italy — none but the riches
of the Ohtlrch. So the Government intends to take to
itself a greiit portion of the revenves arising from priestljr

ECCLESIASTICAL SPLENDOUR, 193

farms, factories, &o., and also intends to take possession ol
the churches and carry them on after its own fashion and
upon its own responsibility. In a few instances it will
leave the establishments of great pet churches undisturbed,
but in all others only a handful of priests will be retained
to preach and pray, a few will be pensioned, and the
balance turned adrift.

Pray glance at some of these churches and their em-
bellishments, and see whether the Government is doing
a righteous thing or not. In Venice, to-day a city of a
hundred thousand inhabitants, there are twelve hundred
priests. Heaven only knows how many there were before
the Parliament reduced their numbers. There was the great
Jesuit Ohuroh. Under the old regime it required sixty
priests to engineer it — the Government does it with five now,
and the others are discharged from service. All about that
church wretchedness and poverty abound. At its door a
dozen hats and bonnets were doffed to us,as many heads were
humbly bowed,and as many hands extended, appealing for
pennies — -appealing with foreign words we could not under^
stand, but appealing mutely, with sad eyes and sunken
cheeks, and ragged raiment, Uiat no words were needed to
translate. Then we passed within the great doors, and it
seemed that the riches of the world were before us I Huge
columns carved out of single masses of marble, and inlaid
from top to bottom with a hundred intricate figures
wrought in costly verde antique ; pulpits of the same ri(^
materials, whose draperies hung down in many a pictured
fold, the stony fabric counterfeiting the delicate work of
the loom ; the grand altar brilliant with polished facings,
and balustrades of oriental agate, jasper, verde antique,
and other precious stones, whose names even we seldom
hear; and idabs of priceless lapis lazuli lavished every-
where as recklessly as if the church had owned a quarry
of it. In the midst of all this magnificence, the solid gold
and silver furniture of the altar seemed cheap and trivial.
£ven the floors and ceilingf* cost a princely fortune.

Now where is the use of allowing all those riches to lie
idle, while half (^ thai community hardly know, &om d^y
to day, how they are going to keep body and soi;l to*

194

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

gether ? And where is the wisdom in permitting hundreds
upon hundreds of millions of francs to be locked up in
the useless trumpery of churches all over Italy, and the
people ground to death with taxation to uphold a perishing
Government ?

As far as I can see, Italy, for fifteen hundred years has
rturned all her energies, all her finances, and all her in-
dustry to the building up of a vast array of wonderful
•church edifices, and starving half her citizens to accomplish
it. She is to-day one vast museum of magnificence and
misery. All the churches in an ordinary American city
>put together could hardly buy the jewelled frippery in one
•of her hundred cathedrals. And for every beggar in
America, Italy can show a hundred, and rags and vermin
to match. It is the wretchedcst, princeliest land on
earth. \

Look at the G-rand Buomo of Florence — a vast pile, tnat
has been sapping the purses of her citizens for five hundred
years, and is not nearly finished yet. Like all other men,
I fell down and worshipped it, but when the filthy beggars
swarmed around me the contrast was too striking, too
suggestive, and I said, '^ 0, sons of classic Italy, i% the
spirit of entei-prise, of self-reliance, of noble endeavour,
utterly dead within ye ? Curse your indolent worthless-
ness, why don't you rob your Church ?"

Three hundred happy, comfortable priests, are c oyed
in that Cathedral.

And now that my temper is up, I may as well go on
and abuse everybody I can think of. Tbey have a grand
mausoleum in Florence, which they built to bu^y our
Lord and Saviour and the Medici family in. It sounds
blasphemous, but it is true, and here they act blasphemy.
The dead and damned Medicis, who cruelly tyrannized
over Florence, and were her curse for over two hundred
years, are salted away in a circle of costly vaults, and in
their midst the Holy Sepulchre was to have been set up.
The expedition sent to Jerusalem to seize it got into
trouble, and co>uld not accomplish the burglary, and so the
centre of the imausoleum is vacant now. They say the
leivtirp ipt^vi^obum was intended for the Holy Sepulohre,

GENERAL EXEC RAt ION.

195

and was only turned into a family burying place after the
Jerusalem expedition failed — ^but you will excuse me.
Some of those Medicis would have smuggled themselves
in sure. What they had not the effrontery to do was not
worth doing. Why, they had their trivial, forgotten
exploits on land and sea pictured out in grand frescoes
(as did also the ancient Doges of Venice) with the Saviour
and the Virgin throwing bouquets to them out of the
clouds, and the Deity himself applauding from his throne
in Heaven ! And who painted these things ? Why, Titian,
Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, Raphael — none other than the
world's idols, the " old masters."

Andrea del Sarto glorified his princes in pictures that
must save them forever from the oblivion they merited,
and they let him starve. Served him right. Raphael
pictured such infernal villains as Catherine and Marie de
Medicis seated in Heaven and conversing familiarly with
the Virgin Mary and the angels (to say nothing of higher
personages), and yet my friends abuse me because I am a
little prejudiced against the old masters, because I fail
sometimes to see the beauty that is in their productions.
I cannot help but see it now and then, but I keep on pro-
testing against the grovelling spirit that could persuade
those masters to prostitute their noble talents to the adu-
lation of such monsters as the French, Venetian, and
Florentine Princes of two and three hundred years ago all
the same.

I am told that the old masters had to do these shameful
things for bread, the princes and potentates being the only
patrons of art. If a grandly gifted man may drag his
pride and his manhood in the dirt for bread rather than
starve with the nobility that is in him untainted, the
excuse is a valid one. It would excuse theft in Wash-
ingtons and Wellingtons, and unchastity in women as
well.

But somehow I cannot keep that Medici mausoleum out
of my memory. It is as large as a church ; its pavement
is rich enough for the pavement of a King's palace; its
great dome is gorgeous with frescoes ; its walls are made
of— what ? Marble ^-^plastor ?-^wood ?— rpaper ? No.

196!

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

Red porphyry — verde antique — jasper— oriental agate —
alabaster'^— mother-of-pearl— chalcedony— red coral — lapis
lazali I All the vast walls are made wholly of these precious
stones, worked in and in, and in together in elaborate
patterns and figures, and polished till they glow like great
mirrors with the pictured splendours reflected from the
dome overhead. And before a statue of one of those dead
Medicis reposes a crown that blazes with diamonds and
emeralds enough to buy a ship-of-the-line almost. These
are the things the (Government has its evil eye upon, and
a happy thing it will be for Italy when they melt away in
the public treasury.

And now — However, another beggar approaches. I will
go out and destroy him, and then come back and write
another chapter of vituperation.

Having eaten the friendless orphan — ^having driven
away his comrades — having grown calm and reflective at
length — ^I now feel in a kindlier mood. I feel that after
tallung so freely about the priests and the churches, justice
demands that if I know anything good about either I
ought to say it. I have heard of many things that re-
dound to the credit of the priesthood, but the most
notable matter that occurs to me now is the devotion one
oS the mendieant orders showed during the {Hrevalence of
the cholera last year. I speak of the Dominican friars —
men who wear a coarse, heavy brown robe and a cowl, in
this hot climate, and go barefoot. They live on alms
altogether, I believe. They must unquestionably love
their religion to suffer so much for it. When the cholera
was raging in Naples ; when the people were dying by
hundreds and hundreds every day; when every concern
for the public welfare was swallowed up in selfish private
interest, and every citizen made the taking care of himself
his sole object, these men banded themselves together,
and went about nursing the sick and burying the dead.
Their noble efforts cost many of them their lives. They
laid them down cheerfully^ and w^ they might. \Gveedii
mathematically preoisCj and hair-splitting nioetieMr of
doctrine, are. absolutely necessary for the salvaiidn of
spme kinds of souls, but surely the charity, the purity, tho

CIVITA XEVCHIA TEE DISMAL, 107

tinselfisbness that are in the hearts of men like theae
would save their souls though they were bankrupt in the
true religion— *whioh is ours.

One4)f these fat bare-footed rascals oame here to Ciyita
Veochia with us in the little iFrenoh steamer. There were
only half a doien of us in the cabin « He belonged in the
steerage. He was the life of the ship, the bloody-minded
son of the Inquisition I He and the leader of the marine
band of a French man-of-war played on the piano and
sang opera turn about ; they sang duets together ; they
rigged impromptu theatrical costumes and gave us ex-
travagant farces and pantomimes^ We got along first-
rate with the friar, and were excessively conversational ^
albeit he could not understand what we said, and certainly
he had never uttered a word that We could guess the
meaning of.

This Civita Vecchia is the finest nest of dirt^ vermin and
ignorance we have found yet, except that African perdition
they call Tangier, which is just like it. The people here
live in alleys two yards wide, which have a smell about
them which is peculiar but not entertaining. It is well die
alleys are not wider, because they hold &i3 much smell now
as a person can stand, and of course, if they were wider they
would hold more, and then the people would die. These
alleys are paved with stone, and carpeted with deceased
cats, and decayed rags, and decomposed vegetable-tops,
and remnants of old boots, all soaked .with dish-water,
and the people sit around on stools and enjoy it. They
are indolent, as a general thing, and yet have few pastimes.
They work two or three hours at a time, but not hard,
and then they knock off and catch fiies. This does not
require any talent, because they only have to grab — if
they do not get the one they are after, they get another.
It is all the same to them. They have no partialities.
Whlchevei' one they get is the one they want.

They have other kinds of insects, but it does not make
them arrogant. They are very quiet, unpretending people.
They have more of these kind of things than other com-
munities, but they do not boast.

They are very uncleanly— these people — in face, in

198

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

person and dress. When they see anybody with a clean
shirt on, it arouses their scorn. The women wash clothes
half the day at the public tanks in the streets, but they
are probably somebody else's. Or may be they keep one
set to wear and another to wash; because they never
put on any that have ever been washed. When they
get done washing, they sit in the allevs and nurse their
cubs.. They nurse one ash-cat at the time, and the others
scratch their backs against the doorpost and are happy.

All this country belongs to the Papal States. They do
not appear to have any schools here, and only one billiard
table. Their education is at a very low stage. One
portion of the men go into the military, another into the
priesthood, and the rest into the shoe-making business.

They keep up the passport system here, but so they do
in Turkey. This shows that the Papal States are as fur
advanced as Turkey. This fact will be alone suffioienti to
silence the tongues of malignant calumniators. I had to
get my passport vised for Rome in Florence, and then
they would not let me come ashore here until a policeman
had examined it on the wharf and sent me a permit. They
did not even dare to let me take my passport in my hands
for twelve hours, I looked so formidable. They judged it
best to let me cool down. They thought I wanted to take
the town, likely. Little did they know me. I wouldn't
have it. They examined my baggage at the depdt They
took one of my ablest jokes and read it over carefully
twice and then read it backwards. But it was too deep
for them. They passed it around, and everybody specu-
lated on it awhile, but it mastered them all.

It was no common joke. At length a veteran officer
spelled it over deliberately and shook his head .three or
four times and said' that in his opinion it was itoditi^us.
That was the first time I felt alarmed. I immedtf^ly
said I would explain the document, and they cMrded
around. And so I explained, and explained, and e3
and they took notes of all I said, but the more |^
the more they could not understand it, and if\
desisted at last, I could not even understand i^&yself.
They said they believed it was an incendiary doimt^ttient;

OFF FOR ROME.

199

levelled at the Government. I declared solemnlv that it
was not, bnt they only shook their heads and would not be
satisfied. Then they oonsnlted a good while ; and finally
they confiscated it. I was very sorry for this, because I
had worked a long time on that joke, and took a good deal
of pride in it, and now I suppose I shall never see it any
more. I suppose it will be sent up and filed away among
the criminal archives of Rome, and will always be re-
garded as a mysterious infernal machine which would have
blown up like a mine and scattered the good Pope all
around, but for a miraculous^ providential interference.
And I suppose that all the time I am in Rome the police
will dog me about from place to place because they think
I am a dangerous character.

It is fearfully hot in Civita Yecchia. Tho streets are
made very narrow and the houses built very solid and
heavy and high, as a protection against the heat This is
the first Italian town I have seen which does not appear
to have a patron saint! I suppose no saint but the one
that went up in the chariot of fire could stand the
climate.

There is nothing here to see. They have not even a
cathedral, with eleven tons of solid silver archbishops in
the back room ; and they do not show you any mouldy
buildings that are seven thousand years old; nor any
smoke-dried old fire-screens which are chef-d^ceuvres of
Rubens or Simpson, or Titian or Ferguson, or any of
those parties ; and they haven't any bottled fragments of
saints, and not even a nail from the true cross. We are
going to Rome. There is nothing to see here.

:t 1

CHAPTER XXVI.

HAT is it that confers tjie noblest delight ? What
is that which swells a man's breast with pride above
that which any other experience can bring to him?
Discovery 1 To know that you are walking where none
others have walked ; that you are beholding what

200

THE mmOENTS ABROAD.

human eye has not seen before ; that you are breathing
a virgin atmoephere, To give birth to an idea^^to di))-
cover a great thought — an intelleotual nugget, right under
the dust of a field that many a brain*plow had gone over
before. To find -a new planet, to invent a new hinge, to
find the way to make the lightnings oarrv your messages.
To be the jrrt^— that is the idea. To do something, say
something) see something, before anybody else—* these are
the things that confer a pleasure compared with which
other pleasures are tame and commonplace) other eostacics
cheap and trivial. Morse, with his first message, brought
by his servant, the lightning ; Fulton, in that long-drawn
century of suspense, when he placed his hand upon the
throttle-valve and lo, the steamboat moved ; Jenner, when
his patient with the cow's virus, in his blood walked
through the small-poz hospitals unscathed ; Howe, when
the idea shot through his brain that for a hundred and
twenty generations the eye had been bored through the
wrong end of the needle ; the nameless lord of art who
laid down his chisel in some old age that is forgotten now,
and gloated upon the finished Laocoon ; Daguerre, when
he commanded the sun, riding in the senith, to print the
landscape upon his insignificant silvered plate, and he
obeyed ; Columbus, in the Pinta's shrouds, when ho
swung his hat above a fabled sea and gazed abroad upon
an unknown world ! These are the men who have really
Uved-^yfhohhyt actually comprehended what pleasure is
— 'who have crowded long lifetimes of ecstaoy into a single
moment.

What is therein Rome for me to see that others have
not seen before me ? What is there for me to touch that
others have not touched ? What is there for me to feel,
to learn, to hear, to know, thov shall thrill me before it
pass to others? What cau I discover? — Nothing. No-
thing whatsoever. One charm of travel dies here. But
if I were only a Roman I — if, added to my own I could be
gifted with modern Roman sloth, modern E<|iDan super-
stition, and modern Roman boundlessness of ignofance,
what bewildering worlds of unsuspecting wonders I would
discover. Ah! if I were only i^ habitant of the Cam-

THE! MODERN ROMAN' TRAVELETH, 201

pagna five and twenty miles from Rome. Then I would
travel.

I would' go to America, and Fee, and learn, and return
to the Campagna and stand before my countrymen an
illustrious discoverer. I would say —

" I saw there a country which has no overshadowing
Mother Church, and yet the people survive. I saw a
government which never was protected by foreign soldiers
at a cost greater than that required to carry on the govern-
ment itself. I saw common men and common women who
could read ; I even saw small children of common country
people reading from books ; if I dared think you would
believe it, I would say they could write also. In the cities
I saw people drinking a delicious beverage made of chalk
and water, but never once saw goats driven through their
Broadway, or their Pennsylvania Avenue, or their Mont-
gomery Street, and milked at the doors of the houses. I
saw real glass windows in the houses of even the commonest
people. Some of the houses are not of stone, nor yet of
bricks ; I solemnly swear they are made of wood. Houses
there will take fire and burn, sometimes — actually burn
entirely down, and not leave a single vestige behind. I
could state that for a truth upon my deathbed. And as
a proof that the circumstance is not rare, I aver that they
have a thing which they call a fire-engine, which vomits
forth great streams of water, and is kept always in readi-
ness, by night and by day, to rush to houses that are
burning. You would think one engine would be sufficient,
but some great cities have a hundred; they keep men
hired, and pay them by the month to do nothing but put
out fires. For a certain sum of money other men will
insure that your house shall not burn down ; and if it
burns they will pay you for it. There are hundreds and
thousands of schools, and anybody may go and learn to be
wise, like a priest. In that singular country if a rich man
dies a sinner, he is damned ; he cannot buy salvation with
money for massed. There is really not much use in being
rich there. Not much use as far as the other world is
concerned, but much, very much use, as concerns this;
because there, if a man be rich, he is very greatly honoured,

202

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

and can beoome a legislator, a governor, a generul, a
senator, no matter bow ignorant an ass he is — iust as in
our beloved Itoly the nobles hold all the great places, even
though sometimes they are born noble idiots. There, if a
man De rich, they give him costly presents, they ask him
to feasts, they invite him to drink complicated oeverpges ;
but if he be poor and in debt, they require him to do that
which they term to / settle.' The women put on a dif-
ferent dress almost every day ; the dress is usually fine,
but absurd in shape ; the very shape and fashion of it
changes twice in a hundred years ; and did 1 but covet to
be called an extravagant falsifier, I would say it changed
even ofbener. Hair does not grow upon the American
women's heads ; it is made for them by cunning workmen
in the shops, and is curled and frizzled into scandaloun and
ungodly forms. Some persons wear eyes of glass which
they see through with facility, perhaps, else they would toot
use them ; and in the mouths of some are teeth made by
the sacrilegious hand of man. The dress of the men is
laughably grotesque. They carry no muskot in ordinary
life, nor no long-pointed pole ; they wear no wide green-
lined cloaks; they wear no peaked black felt hat, no
leathern gaiters reaching to the knee, no goat-skin breeches
with the hair side out, no hob-nailed shoes, no prodigious
spurs. They wear a conical hat termed a "nail^kag;" a
coat of saddest black ; a shirt which shows dirt so easily
that it has to be changed every month, and in very trouble-
some; things called pantaloons, which are held up by
shoulder-straps, and on their feet they wear boots which
are ridiculous in pattern and can stand no wear. Yet
dressed in this fantastic garb, these people laughed at my
costume. In that country books are so common that it is
really no curiosity to see one. Newspapers alsio. They
have a great machine which prints such things by thou-
sands every hour.

'^ I saw common men, there — men who were neither
priests nor princes — who yet absolutely owned the luiid
they tilled. It wasi not rented from the church, nor from
the nobles. I am ready to take my oath of this. In that
country you might fall from a third-story window three

TEE MODERN ROMAN TRAVELETH. 203

Boveral times, and not mash either a soldier or a priest.—
The scarcity of such people is astonishing. In the cities
you will see a dozen civilians for every soldier, and as
many for every priest or preacher. Jews there are treated
just like human beings, instead of dogs. They can work
at any business they please ; they can sell bran new goods
if they want to ; they can keep drug- stores : they can
practice medicine among Ohristinns ; they can even shake
hands with Christians if they choose ; they can associate
with them, just the same as one human being does with
another human being ; they don*t have to stay shut up in
one comer of the towns ; they can live in any part of a
town they like best ; it is said they even have the privilege
of buying land and houses, and owning them themselves,
though I doubt that myself; they never have had to run
races naked through the public streets, against jackasses,
to please the people in carnival time ; there they never
have been driven by the soldiers into a church every
Sunday for hundreds of years to hear themselves and their
religion especially and particularly cursed; at this very
day, in that curious country, a Jew is allowed to vote, hold
office, yea, get np on a rostrum in the public street and
express his opinion of the government if the government
don't suit himi Ahl it is wonderful. The common
people there know a great deal; they even have the
effrontery to complain if they are not properly governed,
and to take hold and help to conduct the government them-
selves ; if they had laws like ours, which give one dollar
of every three a crop produces to the government for
taxes, they would have that law altered : instead of paying
thirty-three dollars in taxes, out of every one hundred
they receive, they complain if they have to pay seven.
They are curious people. They do not know when they
are well off. Mendicant priests do not prowl among them
with baskets, begging for the church, and eating up their
sul>stance. One hardly ever sees a minister of the gospel
going around there in his bare feet, with a basket begging
for subsistence. In that country the preachers are not
like our mendicant orders of friars — they have two or
three suits of clothing, and they waeh sometimes. In that

"'d

204

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

land are mountains far higher than the Alban mountains ;
the vast Eomun Campagna, a hundred miles long and full
forty broad, is really small compared to the United States
of America; the Tiber, that celebrated river of ours,
which stretches its mighty coarse almost two hundred miles,
and which a lad can scarcely throw a stone across at Rome,
is not so long, nor yet so wide, as the American Mississippi
— nor yet the Ohio, nor even the Hudson. In America
the people are absolutely wiser and know much more than
their grandfathers did. They do not plough with a
sharpened stick, nor yet with a three-cornered block of
wood that merely scratches the top of the ground. We
do that because our fathers did, three thousand years ago,
I suppose. But those people have no holy reverence for
their ancestors. They plough with a plough that ' . <*
sharp, curved blade of iron, and it cuts into the earth full
five inches. And this is not all. They cut their gra^in
with a horrid machine that mows down whole fields in a
day. If I dared I would say that sometimes they use a
blasphemous plough that works by fire and vapour and
tears up an acre of ground in a single hour — but — but —
I see by your looks that you do not believe the things I
am telling you. Alas I my character is ruined, and I am
a branded speaker of untruths 1"

Of course we have been to the monster Church of
St. Peter, frequently. I knew its dimensions. I knew it
was a prodigious structure. I knew it was just about the
length of the capitol at Washington — say seven hundred
and thirty feet. I knew it was three hundred and sixty-
four feet wide, and consequently wider than the capitol.
I knew that the cross on the top of the dome of the church
was four hundred and thirty-eight feet above the ground,
and therefore about a hundred or may be a hundred and
twenty-five feet higher than the dome of the capitol. Thus
I had one gauge. I wished to come as near forming a
correct idea of how it was going to look as possible ; I had
a curiosity to see how much 1 would err. I erred con-
sideiably. St. Peter's did not look nearly so large as the
capitol, and certainly not a twentieth part as beautiful,
from the outside.

THE GRANDEUR OF ST. PETER'S. 205

When we reached the door, and stood fairly within the
church, it was impossible to comprehend that it was k
very large building. I had to cipher a comprehension of
it. I had to ransack my memory for some more similes.
St. Peter's is bulky. Its height and size would represent
two of the Washington capitol set one on top of the other
— if the capitol were wider, or two blocks or two blocks
and a half of ordinary buildings set one on the top of the
other. St. Peter's was that large, but it could and would
not look so. The trouble was that everything in it and
about it was on such a scale of uniform vastness that there
were no contrasts to judge by — none but the people, and
I had not noticed them. They were insects. The statues
of children holding vases of holy water were immense,
according to the tables of figures, but so was everything
else around them. The mosaic pictures in the dome were
huge, and were made of thousands and thousands of cubes
of glass as large as the end of my little finger, but those
pictures looked smooth and gaudy of colour, and in good
proportion to the dome. Evidently they would not
answer to measure by. Away down toward the far
end of the church (I thought it was really clear at the
far end, but discovered afterward that it was in the centre,
under the dome) stood the thing they call the haldacchino
— a great bronze pyramidal framework, like that which
upholds a mosquito bar. It only looked like a consi-
derably magnified bedstead — nothing more. Yet I knew
it was a good deal more than half as high as Niagara Falls.
It was overshadowed by a dome so mighty that its own
height was snubbed. The four great square piers or
pillars that stand equidistant from each other in the
church, and support the roof, I could not work up to
their real dimensions by any method of comparison. I
knew that the faces ot each were about the width of a
very large dwelling-house front, (fifty or sixty feet), and
that they were twice as high as an ordinary three-story
dwelling, but still they looked small. I tried all the
difl^rent ways I could think of to compel myself to
understand how large St. Peter's was, but with small
success. The mosaic portrait of an Apostle who was

Nil

-'IF

206

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

writing with a pea six feet long seemed only an ordinary
Apostle.

But the people attracted my attention after a while.
To stand in the door of St. Peter's and look at men down
toward its further extremity, two blocks away, has a
diminishing effect on them ; surrounded by the prodigious
pictures and statues, and lost in the vast spaces, they look
very much smaller than they would if they stood two
blocks away in the open air. I ^< averaged " a man as he
passed me, and watched him as he drifted far down by
the haldacchino and beyond — watched him dwindle to an
insignificant schoolboy, and then, in the midst of the silent
throng of human pigmies gliding about him, I lost him.
The church had lately been decorated on the occasion of
a great ceremony in honour of St. Peter, and men were
engaged now in removing the flowers and gilt paper from
the walls and pillars. As no ladders could reach the great
heights, the men swung themself down from balustrades
and the capitals of pilasters by ropes, to do this work.
The upper gallery which encircles the inner sweep of the
dome is two hundred and forty feet above the floor of the
church — very few steeples in America could reach up to
it. Visitors always go up there to look down into the
church, because one gets the best idea of some of t)ie
heights and distances from that point. While we stood
on the floor one of the workmen swung loose from that
gallery at the end of a long rope. I had not supposed
before that a man could look so much like a spider. He
was insignificant in size, and his rope seemed only a
thread. Seeing that he took up so little space, I could
believe the stj^^'y then that ten thousand troops went to
St. Peter's once to hear mass, and their commanding
officer came afterward, and not finding them, supposed
they had not yet arrived. But they were in the church,
nevertheless — they were in one of the transepts. Nearly
fifty thousand persons assembled in St. Peter's to hear the
publishing of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
It is estimated that the floor of the church affords standing
room for — for a large number of people ; I have forgotten
the exact figures. But it is no matter — it is near enough.

A RENOWNED PANORAMA.

207

Tliey have twelve small pillars in St. Peter's, which
came from Solomon's T( pie. They have also — which
was far more interesting to me — a piece of the true cross,
and some nails, and a part of the crown of thorns. ^

Of course we ascended to the summit of the dome, and
of course we also went up into the gilt copper ball which
is above it. There was room there for a dozen persons,
with a little crowding, and it was as close and hot as an
oven. Some of those people who are so fond of writing
their names in prominent places had been there before us
— a million or two, I should think. From the dome of
St. Peter's one can see every notable object in Rome, from
the Castle of St. Angelo to the Coliseum. He can discern
the seven hills upon which Home is built. He can see the
Tiber, and the locality of the bridge which Horatius kept
" in the brave days of old," when Lars Porsena attempted
to cross it with his invading host. He can see the spot
where the Horatii and the Curatii fought their famous
battle. He can see the broad green Campagna, stretching
away toward the mountains, with its scattered arches and
broken aqueducts of the olden time, so picturesque in
their grey ruin, and so daintily festooned with vines. He
can see the Alban Mountains, the Appenines, the Sabine
Hills, and the blue Mediterranean. He can see a pano-
rama that is varied, extensive, beautiful to the eye, and
more illustrious in history than any other in Europe.
About his feet is spread the remnant of a city that once
had a population of four million souls; and among its
massed edifices stand the ruins of temples, columns, and
triumphal arches that knew the Caesars and the noonday
of Koman splendor; and close by them, in unimpaired
streugth, is a drain of arched and heavy masonry that
belonged to that older city which stood here before
Romulus and Remus were born or Rome thought of.
The Appian Way is here yet, and looking much as it did,
perhaps* when the triumphal processions of the emperors
moved over it in other days, bringing fettered princes
from the confines of the earths We cannot see the long
array of chariots and mail-clad men laden with the spoils
of conquest, but we can imagine the pageant, after a

i ''»

208

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

fasbion. We look out upon many objects of interest from
tbe dome of St. Peter's : and last of all, almost at our feet,
our eyes rest upon tbe building wbicb was once tbe Inqui-
sition. How times cbanged between tbe older ages and
tbe new ! Some seyenteen or eigbteen centuries ago, the
ignorant men of Rome were wont to put Christians in tbe
arena of tbe Coliseum yonder, and turn tbe wild beasts in
upon tbem for a sbow. It was for a lesson as well. It
was to teacb tbe people to abbor and fear tbe new doc-
trine tbe followers of Christ were teaching. Tbe beasts
tore tbe victims limb from limb, and made poor mangled
corpses of tbem in the twinkling of an eye. But when
tbe Christians came into power, when the holy Mother
Churcb became mistress of the barbarians, she taught
tbem tbe error of their ways by no such means. No, she
put tbem in this pleasant Inquisition, and pointed to tlie
Blessed Eedeemer, who was so gentle and so merciml
toward all men, and they urged the barbarians to love
Him ; and they did all they could to pei'suade them to
love and honour Him — first by twisting their thumbs out
of joint with a screw ; then by nipping their flesh with
pincers — red-hot ones, because they are tbe most com-
fortable in cold weather ; then by skinning tbem alive a
little, and finally by roasting tbem in public. They
always convinced those barbarians. The true religion,
properly administered, as tbe good Mother Church used
to administer it, is very, very soothing. It is wonderfully
persuasive also. There is a great difference between
feeding parties to wild beasts and stirring up their finer
feelings in an Inquisition. One is tbe system of degraded
barbarians, tbe other of enlightened, civilized people. It
is a great pity tbe playful Inquisition is no more.

I prefer not to describe St. Peter's. It has been done
before. The ashes of Peter, tbe disciple of tbe Saviour,
repose in a crypt under the haldacchino. We stood
reverently in that place j so did we also in tbe Mamertine
Prison, where he was confined, where be converted the
soldiers, and where tradition says he caused a spring of
water to flow in order that be might baptize tbem. But
when they showed us the print of Peter's face in tbe baid

TBE nUINED COLISEUM.

209

stone of the prison wall, and said he had made that by
falling up against it, we doubted. And when also the
monk at the ohuroh of San Sebastian showed us a
paving-stone with two great footprints in it, and said that
Peter's feet made those, we lacked confidence again. Such
things do not impress one. The monk said that angels
came and liberated Peter from prison by night, and he
started away from Rome by the Appian Way. The
Saviour met him and told him to go back, which he did.
Peter left those footprints in the stone upon which he
stood at the time. It was not stated how it was ever dis-
covered whose footprints they were, seeing the interview
occurred secretly and at night. The print of the face in
the prison was that of a man of common size ; the foot-
prints were those of a man ten or twelve feet high. The
discrepancy confirmed our unbelief.

We necessarily visited the Forum, where Caesar was
assassinated, and also the Tarpeian Rock. We saw the
Dying Gladiator at the capitol, and I think that even we
appreciated that wonder of art — as much perhaps as we did
that fearful story wrought in marble in the Vatican, the
Laocpon. And then the Coliseum.

Everybody knows the picture of the Coliseum ; every-
body recognises at once that " looped and windowed"
bandbox with a side bitten out. Being rather isolated, it
shows to better advantage than any other ©f the monu-
ments of ancient Rome. Even the beautiful Pantheon,
whose pagan altars uphold the cross now, and whose Venus,
tricked out in consecrated gimcracks, does reluctant duty
as a Virgin Mary to-day, is built about with shabby houses,
and its stateliness sadly marred. But the monarch of all
European ruins, the Coliseum, maintains that reserve and
tliat royal seclusion which is proper to majesty. Weeds
and flowers spring from its massy arches and its circling
s^ats, and vines hang their fringes from its lofty walls.
An impressive silence broke over the monstrous structure
where such multitudes of men and women were wont to
assemble in other days. The butterflies have taken the
places of the queens of fashion and beauty of eighteen
centuries ago, and the lizards sun themselves in the sacred

III

i^iiri- • ,

210

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

seat of the Emperor. More vividly than all the written
histories, the Coliseum tells the story of Home's grandeur
and Rome's decay. It is the worthiest type of hoth that
exists. Moving ahout the Rome of to-day, we might find
it hard to believe in her old magnificenoe and her millions
of population ; but with this stubborn evidence before us
that she was obliged to have a theatre with sitting room
for eighty thousand persons and standing room for twenty
thousand more, to accommodate such of her citizens as
required amusement, we find belief less difficult. The
Coliseum is over one thousand six hundred feet long, seven
hundred and fifty wide, and one hundred and sixty-five
, high. Its shape is oval.

In America we make convicts useful at the same time
that we punish them for their crimes. We farm them out
and compel them to earn money for the State by maHing
barrels and building roads. Thus we combine business
with retribution, and all things are lovely. But in ancient
Rome they combined religious duty with pleasure. Since
it was necessary that the new sect called Christians should
be exterminated, the people judged it wise to make this
work profitable, to the State at the same time, and enter-
taining to the public. In addition to the gladiatoria
combats and other shows, they sometimes threw members
of the hated sect into the arena of the Coliseum and turned
wild beasts in upon them. It is estimated that seventy
thousand Christians suffered martyrdom in this place.
, This has made the Coliseum holy ground, in the eyes of
the followers of the Saviour. And well it might ; for if
the chain that bound a saint, and the footprints a saint
has lefl upon a stone he chanced to stand upon^ be holy,
surely the spot where a man gave up his life iot his faith
is holy.

Seventeen or eighteen centuries ago this Coliseum was
the theatre of Rome, and Rome was mistress of the world.
Splendid pageants were exhibited here, in presence of the
Emperor, the great Ministers of State, the nobles, and vast
audiences ot citizens of smaller consequence. Gladiators
fought with gladiators, and at times with warrior prisoners
from many a distant land. It was the theatre of Rome—

THE COLISEUM IN ITS PRIME.

211

of the world — and the man of fashion who could not let
fall in a casual and unintentional manner something about
'' my private box at the Coliseum" could not move in the
first circles. When the clothing-store merchant wished to
consume the corner grocery man with envy, he bought
secured seats in the front row and let the thing be known.
When the irresistible dry goods clerk wished to blight
and destroy, according to his native instinct, he got him-
self up regardless of expense, and took some other fellow's
young lady to the Coliseum, and then accented the afiPront
Dy cramming her with ice cream between the acts, or by
approaching the cagQ and stirring up the martyrs with his
whalebone cane for her edification. The Roman swell was
in his true element only when he stood up against a pillar
and fingered his moustache, unconscious of the ladies ;
when he viewed the bloody combats through an opera-
glass two inches long ; when he excited the envy of pro-
vincials by criticisms which showed that he had been to
the Coliseum many and many a time, and was long ago
over the novelty of it ; when he turned away with a yawn
at'last, and said, —

^' He a star ! handles his sword like ar: apprentice
brigand 1 he'll do for the country, may be, but he don't
answer for the metropolis 1"

Glad was the contraband that had a seat in the pit at
the Saturday matinie^ and happy the Roman street-boy
who ate his peanuts and guyed the gladiators from the
dizzy gallery.

For me was reserved the high honour of discovering
among the rubbish of the ruined Coliseum the only play-
bill of that establishment now extant. There was a
suggestive smell of mint-drops about it still, a corner
of it had evidently been chewed, and on the margin, in
choice Latin, these words were written in a delicate female
hand : —

"Meet me fin the Tarpeian Jtock to-morrow evening, dear^ at sharp seven
Mother will be absent on a visit to her friends in the Saline Hills.

Claudia."

Ah, where is that lucky youth to-day, and where the

212

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

little hand that wrote those dainty lines ? Dust and ashes
these seventeen hundred years !

Thus reads the bill : — .

ROMAN COLISEUM.

UNPARALLELED ATTRACTION!

NEW PROPERTIES! NEW LIONS! NEW GLADIATORS/

Engagement of the renowned

MARCUS MABGELLUS VALEBIAN!

FOK SIX NIGHTS ONLY I

The management br>g leave to oifer to the public an entertninm^nt
surpassing in magniflcenoe anything that has heretofore been attempwl
on any stage. No expense has been spared to make the opening season
one which shall be worthy the generous patronage which the manage-
ment feel sure will crown their efforts. The management beg leave to
state that they have succeeded in securing the services of a

GALAXY OF TALENT!

such as has not been beheld in Rome before.
The performance will commence this evening with a

GRAND BROADSWORD COMBAT!

between two young and promising amateurs and a celebrated Parthiau
gladiator who has just arrived a prisoner from the Camp of Verus.
This will be followed by a grand moral

BArrLE-AXE ENGAGEMENT!

between the renowned Valerian (with one hand tied behind him) and
two gigantic savages from Britain.

Aner which the renowned Valerian (if he survive) will fight with the
broadsword,

Lbft-hadded !

against six Sophomores and a Freshman from the Gladiatorial College \
A long series of brilliant engagements will follow, in which the finest

talent ol the Empire will take part.
After which the celebrated Infant Prodigy, known as

"THE YOUNG ACHILLES,"

will engage four tiger-whelps in combat, armed with no other weapon
than his little spear! \

The whole to conclude with a chaste and elegant

GENERAL SLAUGHTER!

n which thirteen African Lions and twenty -two Barbarian FriEoners
will war with each other until all are exterminated.

ANCIENT ROMAN NEWSPAPER CRITIQUE. 213

BOX OFFICE NOW OPEN. ,

DreBR Circle One Dollar; Children and Servants half*price.
' An effloient police force will be on hand to prenorve order and keep
the wild beasts ftom leaping the railings and diacominoding the
audience.

Doori« open at 7: performance begins at 8.

POBITIVKLT NO FRBB-LIBT.

m i« /

Diodorus Job Press.

It was as singular as it was gratifying that I was also so
fortunate as to find among the rubbish of the arena, a
stained and mutilated copy of the Roman Daily Battle-Aixey
containing a critique upon this very performance. It
comes to hand too late by many centuries to rank as news,
and therefore I translate and publish it simply to show
how very little the general style and phraseology of
dramatic criticism has altered in the ages that have dragged
their slow length along since the carriers laid this one
damp and fresh before their Roman patrons : —

"The Opening Season.— Coliseum.— Notwithstanding the Inole-
menoy of the weather, quite a respectable number of the rank and
fashion of the city assembled last night to witness the ddbut upon
metropolitan boards of the youne tragedian who has of late been
winning such golden opinions in the amphitheatres of the provinces.
Some sixty thousand persons were present, and but for the fact that the
streets were almost impassable, It is fair to presume that the house
would have been full. His august Majesty the Emperor Aurelius
occupied the imperial box, and was the cynosure of all eyes. Many
illustrious nobles and generals of the Empire graced the occasion with
their presence, and not the least among them was the young patrician
lieutenant whose laurels, won in the ranKs of the ' Thundering Legion,'
are still so green upon his brow. The cheer which greeted his entrance
was heard beyond the Tiber !

" The late repairs and decorations add both to the comeliness and the
coihfort of the Coliseum. The new cushions are a great Improvement
upon the hard marble seats we have been so long accustomed to. The
present management det^erve well of the public. They have restored to
the Coliseum the gilding, the rich upholstery, and the uniform magni-
ficence which old Coliseum frequenters tell us Borne was so proud of
flfty years ago.

" The opening scene last night — tlie broadsword combat betwen two
young aitaateurs and a famous Parthian gladiator who was sent here a

Erisoner — was very fine. The elder ot the two young gentlemen handled
is weapon with a grace that marked the possession of extraordinary
talent H*" *''">l of thrustinff, followed instantly by a happily-delivered
blow wliiQh unhelmeted the Parthian, was received with hearty applause.
He wva not thoroughly up in the backhanded stroke, but it was very
gradfying to his numerous fHends to know that, in time, practice would

214

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

hftve OTcreome thlt deflBot. Bowerer. he wti klHed. His liiitoni, who
were present, expressed considerable regret. His mother left the
Collsnum. The other youth maintained the contest with such spirit aa
to call forth enthusiastic* hursts of applause. When at last he fisll a
corpse, his aged mother ran screaming, with hair dishevelled and tetra
itreaming f^om her eyes, and swooned away Just as her hands were
clutching at the railings of the arena. She was promptly removed by
the po1i<^. Under the olr umstancos the woman's conduct was pardon*
able, perhaps, hut we suggest that such exhibitions Interfere with tho
decorum which should he preserved during the performances, and are
highly improper in the presence of tho Emperor. J?he Parthian priaoner
fought bravely and well ; and well he might, for he was flgbtlng for both
liib and liberty. His wifle and children were there to nerve his arm with
their love, ana to remind him of the old home he should see again if he
conquered. When his second assailant fell, the woman clasped her
children to her breast and wept for Joy. But it was only a transiont
happiness. The captive staggered toward her, and she saw that the
liberty he had earned was earned too late. He was wounded unto
death. Thus the first act closed in a manner which was entirely satlR-
fkctory. The manager was called before the curtain and returned hU
thanks for the honour done him, in a speech which was replete with
wit and humour, and closed by hoping that his humble effbrts to aflford
cheerful and instructive entertainment would continue to meet with the
approbation of the Boman public.

"The star now appeared, and was received with vociferous applaura
and the simultaneous waving of sixty thousand handkerchiefli. slakus
Marcellus Valerian (stage name— his real name is Smith) is a splendid
specimen of physical development, and an artist of rare merit. His
management or the battle-axe is wondertbl. His gaiety and his play-
fulness are irresistible, in comic parts, and yet they are inferior to
his sublime conceptions in the grave realm of tragedv. When his axe
was describing fiery circles about the heads of the bewildered barbarians,
in exact time with nis springing body and his prancing legs, the audience

Save way to uncontrollable bursts of laughter; but when the back of
is weapon broke tho skull of one and almost at the same instant its
edge dove the other's body in twain, the howl of enthusiastic applsusu
that shook the building was the acknowledgment of a critical assemblage
that he was a master of the noblest department of his profession. If
he has a fkult (and we are sorry to even intimate that he has), it is that
of glancing at the audience, in the midst of the most exciting momenta
of the penormanoe, as if seeking admiration. The pausing in a fight
to bow when bouquets are thrown to him, is also in bad taste. In the
arreat left-handed combat he appeared to be looking at the audience half
the time, instead of carving his Adversaries ; and when he had slain all
the sophomores and was dallying wUh the freshman, he stooped and
snatched a bouquet as it fell, and offlBred it to his adversary at a time
when a blow was descending which promised fkvourably to be his
death-warrant. Such levity is proper enough in the provinces, we
make no doubt, but it ill suits the dignity of tne metropolis. We truat
our young firiend will take these remarks in good part, for we mean
them solefy for his benefit. All who know us are aware that although
we are at times Justly severe upon tigers and martyrs, we never inten-
tionally ofilsnd gladiators.

"The Infftnt Prodigy performed wonders. He overcame his four
tiger^whelps with ease, and with no other hurt than the loss of a

'^BUTCHERED TO MAKE A ROMAN HOLIDAY:'

Kortion of hlR sotlp. Tha General Slanffhter wati rendered with a
lithftalneti to detafls whloh reflects the higbeat credit upon the lata
participanta in it.

" Upon the whole, last nicht'ii jperformanoet shed honour not onlf
upon the management, but upon the city that eneourages aud suitaina
nuoh wholesome and instructive entertainments. We would simply
Huggest that the practice of vulgar young boys in the gallory of shying
peanuts and paper pellets at the tigers, and saying ' Hi-yi ! "^ and manf
festiug approbation or dissatisftiotion by such observations as ' Bully for
the lion ! ' 'Go it, Gladdy ! ' ' Boots ! ^ ' Speech ! ' ' Take a walk round
the block!' and so on, are extremely reprehensible, when the li^peror
ifl present, and ought to be stopped by the police. Several times last
nignt, when the supernumeraries entered the arena to drag out the
bodies, the young rufllans in the gallery shouted, ' Supe ! supe !' and
also, 'Oh, what a coat !' and ' Why don't you pad them shanks ?' and
made use of various other remarks expressive or deriaion. These thinga
are very annoying to the audience,

"A matinie for the little folks is promised for this afternoon, on
which occasion several martyrs will be eaten by the tigers. The
regular performance will continue every night till further notice.
Material change of programme every evening. Benefit of Valerian,
Tuesday, 29th, if he Ifyes."

I have been a dramatic oritio myself, in my time, and I
was oilten surprised to notice how much more I knew
about Hamlet than Forrest did; and it gratifies me to
observe, now, how much better my brethren of ancient
times knew how a broad-sword battle ought to be fought
than the gladiators.

CHAPTER XXVII.

SO far, good. If any man has a right to feel proud
of himself and satisfied, surely it is I. . For I have
written about the Coliseum, and the gladiators, the
martyrs, and the lions, and yet have never once used
the phrase '' butchered to make a Roman holiday." I am
the only free white man of mature age who has accom-
plished this since Byron originated the expression.

Butchered to make a Roman holiday sounds well for
the first seventeen or eighteen hundred thousand times one
sees it in^ print, but after that it begins to grow tiresome.
I find it in all the books concerning Rome; and here
latterly it reminds me of Judge Oliver. Oliver was a
young lawyer, fresh from the schools, who had gone out

216

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

to the deserts of Nevadft to be<;;in life. He found that
country, and our ways of life there, in those eurly days,
different from life in New England or Paris. But he put
on a woollen shirt and strapped a navy revolver to his
person, took to the baoon and beans of the country, and
determined to do in Nevada as Nevada did. Oliver
accepted the situation so completely that although he must
have sorrowed over many of his trials, he never com-
plained — that is, he never complained but once. He, two
others, and myself, started to the now silver mines in tlie
Humboldt mountains — he to be Probate Judge of-
Humboldt county, and we to mine. The distance wus
two hundred miles. It was dead of winter. We bought
a two-horse waggon, and put eighteen hundred pounds of
bacon, flour, beans, blasting-powder, picks and shovels in
it ; we bought two sorry-looking Mexican '' plugs," ¥^th
the hair turned the wrong way, and more corners on
their bodies than there are on the mosque of Omar ; we
hitched up and started- It was a dreadful trip ; but
Oliver did not complain. The horses dragged the waggon
two miles from town, and then gave out. Then we three
pushed the waggon seven miles, an^^ Oliver moved ahead
and pulled the horses after him by the bits. We com-
plained, but Oliver did not. The ground was frozen, and
it froze our backs while «we slept ; the wind swept across
our faces and froze our noses. Oliver did not complain.
Five days of pushing the waggon by day and freezing by
night brought us to the bad part of the journey — the
Forty Mv> Desert, or the Great American Desert, if you
please. Still this mildest-mannered man that ever was
had not complained. We started across at eigh^ :.i the
morning, pushing through sand thu! had no bottor?^ ; t/*'
ing all day long by the wrecks of a thousand wag^;i> \ in
skeletons of ten thousand oxen ; by waggons-tires enough
to hoop the Washington Monument to the top, and ox-
chains enough % girdle Long Island ; by human graves ;
with our thro&tk parched always with thirst ; lips bleed-
ing from the rIkjH last ; dungry, perspiring, and very,
very weary, !.hjiit w5«en we diopped in the sand every fifty
^ards to rest s lie horses, we could hardly keep from going

never c

THE UNCOMPLAL\im MAN,

217 -

to sleep — no complaiDts fVom Oliver - none the next morn-
ing at three o'clock, when we got •ci'>s8, tired to death.
Awakened tw )r three nights afterward at midnight, in a
narrow canon, hy the snow falliug ch our i'ii<y^fi, and
appalled at the imminent danger of being '' "^nowed in,"
we harnessed up and pushed on till ci^'ht in the morning,
passed the " Divide," and knew we were saved. No ooiu-
plaints. Fifteen days of hardship and fatigue brought us
to the end of the two hundred miles, and the Judge had
not complain 'd. We wondered if any thing could
exasperate !■ * We built a Humboldt house. It is
done in rhiH waj, : You dig a square in the steep base of
the muutiio' ' and set up two uprights and top them with
two j ists. Then you stretch a great sheet of " cotton
doiijobtic" from the point where the joists join the hill-side
down over che joists to the ground; this makes the roof
and the front of the mansion ; the sides and back are the
dirt walls your digging has left. A chimney is easily
mf»do by turning up one corner of the roof. Oliver was
sitting alone in this dismal den one night by a sage-brush
fire, writing poetry ; he was very fond of digging poetry
out of himself--K)r blasting it out when it came hard. Hje
heard an animal's footsteps close to the roof; a stone or
two and some dirt came through and fell by him. He
grew uneasy and said, '' Hi !— clear out from there, can't
you !" from time to time. But by and by he fell asleep where
he sat, and pretty soon a mule fell down the chimney I
The fire flew in every direction, and Oliver went over
backwards. About ten nights after that he recovered
confidence enough to go to writing poetry again. Again
he dozed o£f to sleep, and again a mule fell down the
chimney. This time, about half of that side of the house
cb aie in with the mule. Struggling to get up, the mule
kicked the candle out and smashed most of the kitchen
furniture, and raised oonsidorable dust. These violent
awakenings must have been annoying to Oliver, but he
never complained. He moved to a mansion on the
opposite side of the canon, because he had noticed the
mules did not go there. One night, about eight q'clock,
hei was endeavouring to finish his poem, whSr% '#;^

'\\

%^.

\\'.

218

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

rolled in — then a hoof appeared below the canvas — then
part of a cow — the after pai t. He leaned back in dread
and shouted " Hooyl hooy ! get out of thisl" and the
cow strujjgled manfully — lost ground steadily — dirt and
dust streamed down, and before Oliver could get well
away, the entire cow crashed through pn to the table and
made a shapeless wreck of everything !

Then, for the first time in his life, I think Oliver com-
plained. He said —

"7%is thing is growing monotonous /"

Then he resigned his judgeship and left Humboldt
country. ** Butchered to make a Koman holiday" has
grown monotonous to me.

In this connexion I wish to say one word about Michael
Angelo Buonarotti. I used to worship the mighty genius of
Michael Angelo — that man who was great in poetry,
painting, sculpture, architecture — ^great in everything\ he
undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast
— for luncheon — for dinner — for tea — lor supper — for be-
tween meals. I like a change occasionally. In Genoa he
designed everything; in Milan he or his pupils designed
everything ; he designed the Lake of Como ; in Padua,
Verona, Venice, Bologna, who did we ever hear of, from
guides, but Michael Angelo ? In Florence he painted
everything, designed everything, nearly, and what he did
not design he used to sit on a favorite stone and look at,
and they showed us the stone. In Pisa he designed every-
thing but the old shot-tower, and they would have attri-
buted that to him if it had not been so rwfully out of the
perpendicular. He designed the piers of Leghorn and the
custom-house regulations of Civita Vecchia. But here—
here it is frightful. He designed St. Peter's ; he designed
the Pope J he designed the Pantheon, the uniform of the
Pope's soldiers, the Tibei", the Vatican, the Coliseum, the
Capitol, the Tarpeian Rock, the Barberini Palace, St.
John Lateran, the Campagna, the Appian Way, the Seven
Hills, the Baths of Caracalla, the Claudian Aqueduct, the
Cloaca Maxima — the eternal bore designed the Eternal
City, and unless all men and books do lie, he painted
everything in it I Dan said the other day to the guide,

THE nOMAN GUIDE,

210

*' Enough, enough, enough f Say no more 1 Lump the
whole thing ! say that the Creator made Italy from
designs hy Michael Angelo 1*'

I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so tranquil
so filled with a hlessed peace, as I did yesterday, ^lien 1
learned that Michael Angelo was dead.

But we have taken it out of this guide. He has
marched us through miles of pictures and sculpture in
the vast corridors of the Vatican ; and througli miles of
pictures and sculpture in twenty other places; he has
shown us the great picture in tiie Sistiue Cliupel, and
frescoes enough to fresco the heavens — pretty much all
done by Michael Angelo. So with him we have played
that game which has vanquished so many guides for us —
imbecility and idiotic questions. These creatures never
suspect ; they have no idea of a sarcasm.

He shows us a figure and says: " Statoo brunzo."
(Bronze statue.) "^^ ';;,.:

We look at it indifferently and the doctor asks : " By
Michael Angelo?"

** No — not know who."

Then he shows us the ancient Roman Forum. The
doctor asks : ** Michael Angelo ?"

A stare from the guide. " No— thousanVyear before
he is born." * ^ * "

Then an Egyptian obelisk. Again : " Michael Angelo ?"

'* Oh, mon l)ieu, genteeluicu 1 Zis is two thousan' year
before he is born !"

He grows so tired of that unceasing question sometimes,
that he dreads to show us anything at all. Tlie wretch
has tried all the ways he can think of to make us com-
prehend that Michael Angelo is only responsible for the
creation of a j^a?-^ of the world, but somehow Jlie has not
succeeded yet. Relief for overtasked eyes andf 'Ibrain from
study and sight-seeing is necessary, or we shall become
idiotic, sure enough. Therefore this guide must continue
to suffer. If he does not enjoy it, so much the worse for
him. We do.

In this place I may as well jot down a chapter con-
cerning those necessary nuisances, European guides.

Ill m

220

THE mmCENTS ABROAD.

■M^

.■J.

A' •^-

Many a man has wished in his heart he could do without
his guide ; but knowing he could not, has wished he could
get some amusement out of him as a remuneration for the
affliction of his society. We accomplished this latter
matter, and if our experience can be ma4,e useful to others
they are welcome to it.

Guides know about enough English to tangle every-
thing up so that a man can make neither head nor tail of
it. They know their story by heart — the history of every
statue, painting, cathedral or other wonder they show you.
They know it and tell it as a parrot would — and if you
interrupt, and throw tb?m oflF the track, they have to go
back and begin over again. All their lives long they are
employed in showing strange things to foreigners, and
listening to their bursts of admiration. It is human nature
jto take delight in exciting admiration. It is what prompts
children to say '* smart'* things, and do absurd ones, arid
in other ways "show off " when company is present. It is
what makes gossips turn out in rain and storm to go and
be the first to tell a startling bit of news. Think, then,
what a passion it becomes with a guide, whose privilege
%t is every day to show to strangers wonders that throw
them into perfect ecstasies of admiration! He gets so
that he could not by any possibility live in a soberer
fittiiosphere. After we discovered this, we never went into
edsjtasies any more — we never admired anything — we
never showed any but impassible faces and stupid in-
difference in the preseqce of the sublimest wonders a guide
had to display. We had found their weak point. We
have made good use of it ever since. We have made
some of those people savage at times, but we have never
lost our own serenity.

The doctor asks the questions generally, because he can
keep his countenance, and look more like an inspired idiot,
and throw more imbecility into the tone of his voice than
any man that lives. It comes natural to him.

The guides in Genoa are delighted to secure an American
party, because Americans so much wonder, and deal so
much in sentiment and emotion before any relic of
Vi/olumbus. Our guide there fidgeted about as if he had

REMARKABLE PENMANSHIP,

221

swallowed a spring mattress. He was full of animation —
full of impatience. He said —

" Gome wis me, genteelmen ! — come ! I show you ze
letter writing by Christopher Colombo ! — write it himself !
— write it wis his own hand ! — come !"

He took us to the municipal palace. After much im-
pressive fumbling of keys and opening of locks, the stained
and aged document was spread before us. The guide's
eyes sparkled. He danced about us and tapped the
parchment with his finger.

" What I tell you, genteelmen ! Is it not so ? See I
handwriting Christopher Colombo ! — writeit himself!"

We locked indifferent — unconcerned. The doctor
examined the document very deliberately, during a
painful pause. — Then he said, without any show of
interest —

**Ah — Ferguson — what — what did you say was the
name of the party who wrote this ?"

" Christopher Colombo I ze great Christopher Co-
lombo !"

Another deliberate examination.

** Ah — did he write it himself, or — or how ?"

" He write it himself ! — Christopher Colombo ! he's
own handwriting, write by himself 1"

Then the doctor laid the document down and said —

" Why, I have seen boys in America only fourteen
years old that could write better than that.**

" But zis is ze great Christo "

" I don't care who it is ! It's the worst writing I ever
saw. Now you mustn't think you can impose on us be-
cause we are strangers. We are not fools, by a good
deal. If you have got any specimens of penmanship of
real merit, trot them out I — and if you haven't, drive
on !

We drove on. The guide was considerably shaken up,
but he made one more venture. He had something
which he thought would overcome us. He said —

" Ah, genteelmen, you come wis me I I show you
beautiful, 0, magnificent bust Christopher Coloml^ol— *
splendid, grand, magnificent I"

222

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

He brought us before the beautiful bust — for it was
beautiful — and sprang back and struck an attitude.

" Ah, look, genteelmen ! — beautiful, grand, — ^bust
Christopher Colombo ! — beautiful bust, beautiful pe-
destal 1"

The doctor put up his eye-glass — procured for such
occasions.

" Ah — what did you say this gentleman's name was ?"

" Christopher Colombo ! — ze great Christopher Co-
lombo !"

" Christopher Colombo — the great Christopher Colombo.
Well, what did ^c do ?"

''Discover America! — discover America. Oh, ze
devil!"

" Discover America. No — that statement will hardly
wash. We are just frorj America ourselves. We heard
nothing about it. Christopher Colombo — pleasant name
— is — is he dead ?"

" Oh, corpo di Baccho ! — three hundred year !"

"What did he die of?"

" I do not know ! — I cannot tell."

" Small-pox, think ?"

" I do not know, genteelmen ! — I do not know what he
die of!"

" Measles, likely ?"

" Maybe — maybe— I do not know — T think he die of
somethings."

((

Parents living ?"
Im-posseeble !"
" Ah — which is the bust and which is the pedestal !''
'* Santa Maria 1 — zis ze bust ! — zls ze pedestal !"
"Ah, I see, I see — ^happy combination— very happy
combination, indeed. Is — is this the first time this gentle-
man was ever on a bust?"

That joke was lost on the foreigner — guides cannot
master the subtleties of the American joke.

We have made it interesting to this Roman guide.
Yesterday we spent three or four hours in the Vatican,
again, that wonderful world of curiosities. We came
very near expressing interest, sometimes— even admira^'

A SURE TEINQ.

223

understood you to say
—Mummy I — 'Gyptian

tion — it was very hard to keep from it. We succeeded
though. Nobody else ever did in the Vatican museums.
The guide was bewildered — non-plussed. He walked his
legs off, nearly, hunting up extraordinary things, and ex-
hausted all his ingenuity on us, but it was a failure ; we
never showed any interest in anything. He had reserved
what he considered to be his greatest wonder till the last
— a royal Egyptian mummy, the best preserved in the
world perhaps. He took us there. He felt so sure
this time, that some of his old enthusiasm came back to
him —

" See, genteelmen I — Mummy ! Mummy !"

The eye-glass came up as calmly, as deliberately ai
ever.

" Ah — Ferguson — what did I
the gentleman's name was?"

" Name? — he got no nam« ! ■
mummy !"

" Yes, yes. Born here?'*

"No! 'G'yjJiiaw mummy!"

** Ah, just BO. Frenchman, I presume ?"

" No ! — not Frenchman, not Roman ! — born in
Egypta!"

" Born in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta before.
Foreign locality, likely. Mummy — mummy. How calm
he is — how self-possessed. Is, ah — ^is he dead ?"

" Oh, sacri hleu^ been dead three thousan' year !"

The doctor turned on him savagely —

" Here, now, what do you mean by such conduct as
this ! Playing us for Chinamen because we are strangers
and trying to learn 1 Trying to impose your vile second-
hand carcasses on us 1 — ^thunder and lightning, I've a
notion to — £o— if you've got a nice fresh corpse, fetch
him out — or by George we'll, brain you !"

"We make it exceedingly interesting for this Frenchman.
However, he has paid us back, partly, without knowing
it. He came to the hotel this morning to ask if we were
up, and he endeavoured as well as he could to describe
us, so that the landlord would know which persons he
gieant. He finished with the casual remark that we w^r^

224

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

lunatics. The observation was so innocent and so honest
that it amounted to a very good thing for a guide to say.

There is one remark (already mentioned), which never
yet has failed to disgust these guides. We use it always,
when we can think of nothing else to say. After they
have exhausted their enthusiasm pointing out to us and
praising the beauties of some ancient bronze image or
broken-legged statue, we look at it stupidly and in silence
for five, ten, fifteen minutes — as long as we can hold out,
in factr— -and then ask —

" Is— is he dead ?"

That conquers the serenest of them. It is not what they
are looking for — especially a new guide. Our Koman
Ferguson is the most patient, unsuspecting, long-suffering
subject we have had yet. We shall be sorry to part with
him. We have enjoyed his society very much. We
trust he has enjoyed ours, but we are harassed with
doubts.

We have been in the catacombs. It was like going
down into a very deep cellar, only it was a cellar which
had no end to it. The narrow passages are roughly hewn
in the rock, and on each hand, as you pass along, the hollowed
shelves are carved out, from three to fourteen deep ; each
held a corpse once. There are names, and Christian
symbols, and prayers, or sentences expressive of Christian
hopes, carved upon nearly every sarcophagus. The dates
belong away back in the dawn of the Christian era, of
course. Here, in those holes in the ground, the first
Christians sometimes burrowed to escape persecution.
They crawled out at night to get food, but remained under
cover in the daytime. The priest told us that St. Sebas-
tian lived underground for some time while he was being
hunted ; he went out one day, and the soldiery discovered
and shot him to death with arrows. Five or six of the
earlier Popes — those who reigbed about sixteen hundred
years ago — ^held their papal courts and advised with their
clergy m the bowels of the earth. During seventeen years
— from A.D. 235 to a.d. 252 — the Popes did not appear
above ground. Four were raised to the great office during
that period. Four years apiece or thereaoouts. It is very

suggei

yards

his e

Anotl

episco

Pope

There

each

RELIGIOUS EXPLOSION,

225

honest
say.

suggestive of the unhealthiness of underground grave-
yards as places of residence. One Pope afterward spent
his entire pontificate in the catacombs — eight years.
Another was discovered in them and murdered in the
episcopal chair. There was no satisfaction in being a
Pope in those days. There were too many annoyances.
There are one hundred and sixty catacombs under Rome^
each with its maze of narrow passages crossing and re-
crossing eaq]i other, and each passage walled to the top
with scooped graves its entire length. A careful estimate
makes the length of the passages of- all the catacombs com-
bined foot up nine hundred miles, and their graves number
seven millions. We did not go through all the passages
of all the catacombs. We were very anxious to do it, and
made the necessarv arrangements, but our too limited time
obliged us to give up the idea. So we only groped
through the miserable labyrinth df St. Callixtus, under
the Church of St. Sebastian. In the various catacombs
are small chapels rudely hewn in the stones, and here the
early Christians often held their religious services by dim
ghostly lights. Think of mass and a sermon away down
in those tangled caverns under ground I

In the catacombs were buried St. Cecilia, St. Agnes,
and several other of the most celebrated of the saints. In
the catacomb of St. Callixtus, St. Bridget used to remain
long hours in holy contemplation, and St. Charles Bor-
rom^o was wont to spend whole nights in prayer there. It
was also the scene of a very marvellous thing.

" Here the heart of St. Fl)ilip Neri was so inflamed with divine love
as to burst his ribs."

I find that ^rave statement in a book published in New
York in 1858, and written by Rev. William H. Neligan,
LL.D., M.A., Trinity College, Dublin ; Member of the
Archaeological Society of Great Britain. Therefore I
believe it. Otherwise I could not. Under other circum-
stances I should have felt a curiosity to know what Philip
had for dinner.

This author puts my credulity on its mettle every now
ftod ^hcQ, He tells of one St, Joseph -Calasanctius whosQ:

I i

i']

226

TEE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

house in Rome he visited ; he visited only the house — the
priest has been dead two hundred years. He says the
Virgin Mary appeared to this saint. Then he continues —

"His tongue and bis heart, which were found after nearly a century
to be whole, when the body was disinterred before his canonization,
are still preserved in a glass-case, and after two oenturies the heart is
still whole. When the French troops came to Rome, and when Pius YII.
was carried away prisoner, blood dropped from it."

To read that in a book written by a monk far back in
the Middle Ages, would surprise no one ; it would sound
natural and proper ; but when it is seriously stated in the
middle of the nineteenth century, by a man of finished
education, an LL.D., M.A., and an Archaeological mag-
nate, it sounds strangely enough. Still I would gladly
change my unbelief for Neligan's faith, and let him make
the conditions as hard as he pleased.

The old gentleman's undoubting, unquestioning sim^
plicity has a rare freshness about it in these matter-of-fact
railroading and telegraphing days. Hear him, concerning
the church of Ara Coeli : —

"In thereof of the church, directly above the high altar, is engraved,
* Regina Coelj laetare Alleluia.' In the sixth century Rome was visited by a
fearful pestilence. Gregory the Great xrged the people to do penance,
and a general procession was formed. It was to proceed from Ara
Coeli to St. Peter's. As it passed before the] mole of Adrian, now the
Castle of St. Angelo, the eound of heavenly voices was heard singing
(it was Easter morn), 'Regina Cceli, laetare ! alleluia! quia quern VMruiati
portare, alleluia ! resurrexit sicut dixit ; alleluia ." The PontiiT, carrying
in his hands the portrait of the Virgin (which is over the high altar and
is said to have been painted by St. Luke), answered, with the astonished
people, ' Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluia!' At the same time an angel was
seen to put up a sword in a scabbard, and the pestilence ceased ~on the
same day. There are four circumstances which confirm* this miracle :
the annual procession which takes place in the western church on the
feast of St. Mark; the statue of St. Michael, placed on the mole of
Adrian, which has since that time been called the Castle of St. Angelo;
the antiphon Regina Coeli, which the Catholic church sings during
pasphal time; and the inscription in the church."

* The Italics are mine.— M. T,

227

CHAPTER XXVIII.

^!"

FROM the sanguinary sports of tho Holy Inquisition ;
the slaughter of the Coliseum ; and the dismal tombs
of the Catacombs, I naturally pass to th(3 picturesque
horrors of the Capuchin Convent. We stopped a moment
in a small chapel in the Church to admire a picture of St.
Michael vanquishing Satan — a picture which is so beauti-
ful that I cannot but think it belongs to the reviled
^^Renaissance J ^ notwithstanding I believe they told us one
of the ancient old masters painted it — and then we
descended into the vast vault underneath.

Here was a spectacle for sensitive nerves I Evidently
the old master had been at work in this place. There
were six divisions in the apartment, and each division was
ornamented with a style of decoration peculiar to itselt^ —
and these decorations were in every instance formed of
human bones I There were shapely arches, built wholly
of thigh bones ; there were startling pyramids, built
wholly of grinning skulls ; there were quaint architectural
structures of various kinds, built of shin bones and the
bones of the arm ; on the wall were elaborate frescoes,
whose curving vines were made of knottedjhumanvertebrae ;
whose delicate tendrils were made of sinews and tendons ;
whose flowers were formed of knee-caps and toe-nails.
Every lasting portion of the human frame was represented
in these intricate designs (they were by Michael Angelo,
I think), and there was a careful finish about the work,
and an attention to details that betrayed the artist's love
of his labours as well as his schooled ability. I asked the
good-natured monk who accompanied us who did this?
And he said, " We did it" — meaning himself and his
brethren upstairs. I could see that the old friar to^ a
high pride in his curious show. We made him talkative
by exhibiting an interest we never betrayed to guides.

" Who are these people ?"

« We — upstairs — Mopka of the Capuchin prder — my
brethren,"

.'•

III

;.'■

228

TUE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

'' How many departed monks were required to uphoU
Hter these six parlours ?"

'' These are the bones of four thousand."

'' It took a long time to get enough ?"

" Many, many centuries."

" Their different parts are well separated — skulls in one
room, legs in another, ribs in another — there would be
stirring times here for a while if the last trump should
blow. Some of the brethren might get hold of the wron^
leg, in the confusion, and the wrong skull, and find them<
selves limping, and looking through eyes that were wider
apart or closer together than they were used to. You
cannot tell any of these parties apart, I suppose ?"

'' Oh yes, I know many of them."

He put his finger on a skull. << This was Brother
Anselmo — dead three hundred years — a good man.'* \

He touched another. '' This was Brother Alexander-
dead two hundred and eighty years. This was Brotlier
Carlo — dead about as long."

Then he took a skull and held it in his hand, and looked
reflectingly upon it, after the manner of the gravediggor
when he discourses of Yorick.

"This," he said, "was Brother Thomas. Ke was a
young prince, the scion of a proud house that traced its
lineage back to the grand old days of Rome well nigh two
thousand years ago. He loved beneath his estate. His
family persecuted him ; persecuted the girl as well. They
drove her from Rome ; he followed ; he sought her far
and wide ; he found no trace of her. He came back and
offered his broken heart at our altar and his, weary life to
the service of God. But look you. Shortly his father
died, and likewise his mother. The girl returned, re-
joicing. She sought everywhere tor him whose eyes had
used to look tenderly into hers out of this poor skull,
but jfhe could not find him. At last in this coarse garb
we wear, she recognized him in the street. He knew her.
It was too late. He fell where he stood. They took him
up and brought him here. He never spoke afterwards.
Within the week he died. You can see the colour of his
hair — faded, somewhat — by this thin shred that clings

A FESTIVE COMPANY FOR THE DEAD, 229

still to the temple. " This," [taking up a thigh bone,]
" was his. The veins of this leaf in the decorations over
jour head were ' his finger-joints, a hundred and fifty
year ago."

This business-like way of illustrating a touching story of
the heart by laying the several fragments of the lover
before us ^nd naming them, was as grotesque a perform
mance, and as ghastly, as any I ever witnessed. I hardly
knew whether to smile or shudder, There are nerves and
muscles in our frames whose functions and whose methods
of working it seems a sort of sacrilege to describe by cold
physiological names and surgical technicalities, and the
monk's talk suggested to me something of this kind.
Fancy a surgeon, with his nippers, lifting tendons, muscles,
and such things into view, out of the complex machinery
of a corpse, and observing, " Now this little nerve quivers
— the vibration is imparted to this muscle — from here it is
passed to this fibrous substance ; here its ingredients are
(separated by the chemical action of the blood — one part
goes to the heart and thrills it with what is popularly
termed emotion, another part follows this nerve to the
brain and communicates intelligence of a startling charac-
ter — the third part glides along this passage and touches
the spring connected with the fluid receptacles that lie in
the rear of the eye. Thus, by this simple and beautiful
process, the party is informed that his mother is dead, and
he weeps. " H orrible 1

I askcvt the monk if all the brethren upstairs expected
to be put in this place when they died. lie answered
quietly —

<* We must all lie here at last."

See what one can accustom himself to. — The reflection
that he must some day be taken apart like an engine or a
clock, or like a house whose owner is gone, and worked up
into arches and pyramids and hideous frescoes, did not
distress this monk in the least. I thou!i;ht he even looked
as if he were thinking, with complacent vanity, that his
own skull would look well on top of the heap, and his own
ribs add a charm to the frescoes which possibly they lacked
a present.

111!

230

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

Here and there, in ornamental alcoves, strotohcd upon
beds of bones, lay dead and dried-up monks, with lank
frames dressed in the black robes one sees ordinarily upon
priests. We examined one closely. The skinny hands
were clasped upon the breast; two lustreless tufts of hair
stuck to the skull ; the skin was brown and sunken ; it
stretched tightly over the cheek-bones and made them
stand out sharply ; the crisp dead eyes were deep in tlm
sockets ; the nostrils were painfully prominent, the end of
the nose being gone ; the lips hud Hhrivelled away from
the yellow teeth : and, brought down to us through tlic
circling years, and petrified there, was a weird laugh a full
century old 1

It was the jolliest lough, but yet the most dreadful, that
one can imagine. Surely, I thought, it must have been u
most extraordinary joke this veteran produced with his
latest breath, that he has not got done laughing at it y':it.
At this moment I saw that the old instinct was strong
upon the boys, and I said we had bettor hurry to St.
Peter's. They were trying to keep from asking, " Is — is
he dead?"

It makes me dizzy to think of the Vatican — of its wil-
derness of statues, paintings, and curiosities of every
description and every age. The " old masters" (especially
in sculpture) fairly swarm there. I cannot write about
the Vatican. I think I shall never remember anything I
saw there distinctly but the mummies, and the *' Trans
figuration," by Raphael, and some other things it is not
necessary to mention now. I shall remember the " Trans-
figuration" partly because it was placed in a room almost
by itself; partly because it is acknowledged by all to be
the first oil painting in the world ; and partly because it
was wonderfully beautiful. The colours are fresh and
rich, the " expression," I am told, is fine, the ** feeling" is
lively, the " tone" is good, the *' depth" is profound, and
the width is about four and a half feet I should judge.
It is a picture that really holds one's attention ; its beauty
is fascinating. It is fine enough to be a Renaissance. A
remark I made a while ago suggests a thought — and a
hope. Is it not possible that the reason I find such charms

THE GREAT VATICAN MUSEUM.

231

in this picture in because it is out of the crazy chaos of
the galleries ? If some of the others were set apart, uiight
not they be beautiful? If this were set in tne midst of
the tempest of pictures one finds in the vast galleries of
the Roman palaces, would I think it so handsome ? If up
to this time I had seen only one '' old master" in each
palace, instead of acres and acres of walls and ceilings
fairly papered with them, might I not have a more civilized
opinion of the old masters than I have now ? I think so.
When I was a schoolboy and was to have a new knife, I
could not make up my mind as to which was the prettiest
in the show-case, and I did not think any of them were
particularly pretty; and so I chose with a heavy heart.
But when I looked at my purchase, at home, where no
glittering blades came into competition with it, I was
astonished to see how handsome it was. To this day my
new hats look better out of the shop than they did in it
with other new hats. It begins to dawn upon me new,
that possibly what I have been taking for uniform ugliness
in the galleries may be uniform beauty after all. I
honestly hope it is, to others, but certainly it is not to me.
Perhaps the reason I used to enjoy going to the Academy
of Fine Arts in New York was because there y,zxQ but a
few hundred paintings in it, and it did not surfeit me to
go through the list. I suppose the Academy was bacon
and beans in the Forty Mile Desert, and a European
gallery is a state dinner of thirteen courses. One leaves
no sign after him of the one dish, but the thirteen frighten
away his appetite and give him no satisfaction.

There is one thing I am certain of, though. With all
the Michael Angelos, the Raphaels, the Guides, and the
other old masters, the sublime history of Rome remains
unpainted! They painted Virgins enough, and Popes
enough, and saintly scarecrows enough, to people Paradise
almost, and these things are all they .did paint. ''Nero
fiddling o'er burning Rome," the assassination of Gsesar,
the stirring spectacle of a hundred thousand people bend-
ing forward with rapt interest, in the Coliseum, to see two
skilful gladiators hacking away each other's lives, a tiger
springing upon a kneeling martyr — these and a thousand

'i i

232

M^ INNOCMTS ABROAD,

other matters which we read of with a living interest, must
be sought for only in books — not among the rubbish left
by the old masters — who are no more, I have the satisfac-
tion of informing the public.

They did paint, and they did carve in marble, one
historical scene, and one only (of any great historical con-
sequence). And what was it, and why did they choose it
particularly ? It was the " Rape of the Sabines," and
they chose it for the legs and busts.

I like to look at statues, however, and I like to look at
pictures also — even of monks looking up in sacred ecstasy,
and monks looking down in meditation, and monks skir-
mishing for something to eat — and therefore I drop ill
nature to thank the papal government for so jealously
guarding and so industriously gathering up these things ;
and for permitting me, a stranger, and not an entirely
friendly one, to roam at will and unmolested among th^j,
charging me nothing, and only requiring that I shall
behave myself simply as well as I ought to behave in any
other man's house. I thank the Holy Father right heartily,
and I wish him long life and plenty of happiness.

The Popes have long been the patrons and preserverr of
art, just as our new practical Republic is the encourager
and upholder of mechanics. In their Vatican is stored up
all that is curious and beautiful in art; in our Patent
Ofl5ce is hoarded all that is curious or useful in mechanics.
When a man invents a new style of horse-collar or dis-
covers a new and superior method of telegraphing, our
government issues a patent to hina that is worth a fortune ;
when a man digs up an ancient statue in the Gampagnu,
the Pope gives him a fortune in gold coin. We can make
, something of a guess at a man's character by the style of
nose he carries on his face. The Vatican and the Patent
Office are governmental noses, and they bear a deal of
character about th^m.

The guide showed us a colossal statue of Jupiter, in the
Vatican, which he said looked so damaged and rusty — so
like the God of the Vagabonds — because it had but re-
cently been dug up in the Campagna. He asked how much
we supposed this Jupiter was worth ? I replied, with in-

IMPROVED SCRIPTURE, \'

233

tbj

probably

telligent promptness,

four dollars — maybe four and a half. " A hundred
thousand dollars !" Ferguson said. Ferguson said further,
that the Pope permits no ancient work of this kind to
leave his dominions. He appoints a commissioii to exa-
mine discoveiies like this, and report upon the value ;
then the Pope pays the discoverer one-half of that assessed
value, and takes the statue. He said this Jupiter was dug
from a field which had just been bought for thirty-six
thousand dollars, so the firsjt crop was a good one for the
pew farmer. I do not know whether Ferguson always
tells the truth or not, but I suppose he does. I know that
an exorbitant export duty is exacted upon all pictures
painted by the old masters, in order to discourage the
sale of those in the private collections. I am satis-
fied also that genuine old masters hardly exist at all
in America, because the "heapest and most insignificant
of them are valued at the price of a fine farm. I pro-
posed to buy a small trifle of a Raphael myself, but
the price of it was eighty thousand dollars, the export
duty would have made it considerably over a hundred,
and so I studied on it awhile and concluded not to
take it. .

I wish here to mention an inscription I have seen, before",
I forget it — '

" Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth to men
OP GOOD WILL 1" It is not good scripture, but it is sound
Catholic and human nature.

This is in letters of gold around the apsis of a mosaic
group at the side of the scala santa^ church of St. John
Lateran, the Mother and Mistress of all the Catholic
churches of the world. The group represents the Saviour,
St. Peter, Pope Leo, St. Silvester, Constantino and Charle-
magne. Peter is giving the pallium, to the Pope, and a
standard to Charlemagne. The Saviour is giving the keys
to St. Silvester, and a standard ^o Constantino. No prayer
is oflfered to the Saviour, who seems to be of little impor-
tance anywhere in Rome ; but an inscription below says,
" Blessed Peter, give life to Pope LeOy and victory to King
Charles y It does not say, '* Intercede for us^ through tho

:1-

^:IP

! JH'

* ■

234

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

Saviour, with the Father, for this boon," but " Blessed
Peter, give i<us."

In all seriousness — without meaning to be frivolous —
without meaning to bo irreverent, and more than all,
without meaning to be blasphemous, — I state as my simple
deduction from the things I have seen, and the things I
have heard, that the Holy Personages rank thus in Rome :

First— '^ The Mother of God"— otherwise the Virgin

Second — The Deity. ^ . :«.■.> ^ •? -' ,

Third— VQiQV.
' Fourth — ^^Some twelve or fifteen canonized Popes and
martyrs.

Fifth — Jesus Christ the Saviour — (but always as an
infant in arms.) <fv-

I may be wrong in this — my judgment errs often, just
as is the case with other men's — ^but it is my judgment, be
it good or bad.

Just here I will mention something that seems curious
to me. There are no " Christ's Churches" in Rome, and
no " Churches of the Holy Ghost," that I can discover*
There are some four hundred churches, but about a
fourth of them seemed to be named for the Madonna and
St. Peter; There are so many named for Mary that they
have to be distinguished by all sorts of affixes, if I under-
stand the matter rightly. Then we have churches of St.
Louis, St. Augustine, bt. Agnes, St. Calixtus, St. Lorenzo
in Lucina, St. Lorenzo in Damaso, St. Cecilia, St. Athana-
sius, St. Philip Neri, St. Catherine, St. Dominico, and a
multitude of lesser saints whose names are not familiar in
thtt world— and away down, clear out of the list of the
churches, comes a couple of hospitals: one of them is
named for the Saviour and the other for the Holy Ghost !

Day after day and night after night we have wandered
among the crumbling wonders of Rome ; day after day
and night after night we have fed upon the dust and decay
of five-and- twenty centuries-^have brooded over them by
day and dreamt of them by night, till sometimes we
deemed mouldering away ourselves, and growing defaced
and cornerless, and liable at an} moment to fall a prey to

ASCENT OF VESUVim.

i^'-

235

some antiquary, and be patched in the lej2;s, and " re-
stored" with an unseemly nose, and labelled wrong, and
dated wronp^, and set up in the Vatican for poets to drivel
about and Vandals to scribble their names on for ever and
for evermore.

But the surest way to stop writing about Rome is to
stop. I wished to write a real " guide-book" chapter on
this fascinating city, but I could not do it, because I have
felt all the time like a boy in a candy-shop — there was
everything to choose from, and yet no choice. I have
drifted along hopelessly for a hundred pages of manuscript
without knowing where to commence. I will not com-
mence at all. Our passports have been examined. We
will go to Naples.

••f*j|'.

iW'

'.'>■■:>. t

:-<Vt^! <X--ni\ Ui'i'^r.B\x^r ;^ -iW^ti'

f ttf'.<'_

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE ship is lying here in the harbour of Naples —
quarantined. She has been here several days and
will ^main several more. We that came by rail from
Rome have escaped this misfortune. Of course no one is
allowed to go on board the ship or come ashore from her.
She is a prison now. The passengers probably spend the
long blazing days looking out from under the awnings at
Vesuvius and the beautiful city — and in swearing. Think
of ten days of this sort of pastime I We go out every
day in a boat and request them to come ashore. It soothes
them. We lie ten steps from the ship, and tell them how
splendid the city is; a.id how much better the hotel fare
is here than anywhere else in Europe ; and how qo(A it
is ; and what frozen continents of ice cream there are;
and what a time we are having cavorting about the
country and sailing to the islands in the Bay. This tran-
quillizes them.

ASCENT OP VESUVIUS.

I shall remember our trip to Vesuvius for many a day
— partly because of its sight-seeing experiences, but chiefly
on account of the fatigue of the journey. Two or three of
us had been resting ourselves among the tranquil and

238

TEE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

beautiful scenery of the island of Ischia, eighteen miles
out in the harbour, for two days ; we called it " resting,"
but I do not remember now what the resting consisted of,
for when we got back to Naples we had not slept for
forty-eight hours. We were just about to go to bed early
in the evening, and catch up on some of the sleep we had
lost, when we heard of this Vesuvius expedition. There
was to be eight of us in the party, and we were to leave
Naples at midnight. We laid in some provisions for the
trip, engaged carriages to take us to Annunciation, and
then moved about the oity, to keep awake, till twelve. We
got away punctually, and in the course of an hour and a
half arrived at the town of Annunciation. Annunciation
is the very last place under the sun. In other towns in
Italy the people lie around quietly and wait for you to ask
them a question or do some overt act that can be charged
for ; but in Annunciation they have lost even that frag-
ment of delicacy ; they seize a lady's shawl from a chair
and hand it to her and charge a penny ; they open a car-
riage door, and charge for it — shut it when you get out,
and charge for it ; thty help you to take off a duster-»-two
cents ; brush your clothes and make them worse than
they were before — two cents; smile uponyou-^two cents;
bow with a lickspittle smirk, hat in hand — two cents;
they volunteer alj information such as that the mules will
arrive piesently — two cents — warm day, sir — two cents —
take you four hours to make the ascent — two cents. And
80 they go. They crowd you — infest you — swarm about
you, and sweat and smell offensively, and look sneaking
and mean and obsequious. There is no office too degrading
for them to perform for money. I have had no oppor-
tunity to find out anything about the upper classes by my
own observation, but from what I hear said about them, I
judge that what they lack in one or two of the bad traits
the canaille have, they make up m one or two others that
are worse. How the people beg 1 — many of them very
well dressed too.

I said I knew nothing against the upper classes by per-
sonal observation. I must recall it. I had forgotten.
What I saw their bravest and their fairest do last night,

dMUNITY,

237

the lowest ii. - ^ould be scraped up out of the

purlieus of Chri^ jm would blush to do, I think.
They assembled by hundreds, and even thousands, in the
great Theatre of Sfen Carlo to do— what ? Why, simply
to make fuil of an old woman — to deride, to hiss, to jeer
at an actress tliOy once worshipped, but whose beauty is
faded now, and whose voice has lost its former richness.
Everybody spoke of the rare sport there was to be. They
said the theatre would be crammed because Frezzolini
was going to sing. It was said she could not sing well
now ; but then the people liked to see her, anyhow.
And so we went. And every time the woman sang they
hissed and laughed — the whole magnificent house — and as
soon as she left the stage they called her on again with
applause. Once or twice she was encored five and six
times in succession, and received with hisses when^she
appeared, and discharged with hisses and laughter when
she had finished — then instantly encored and insulted
again ! And how the high-born knaves enjoyed it ! White-
kidded gentlemen and ladies laughed till the tears came,
and clapped their hands in very ecstasy when that un-
happy old woman would come meekly out for the sixth
time, with uncomplaining patience, to meet a storm of
hisses ! It was the cruellest exhibition — the most wanton,
the most unfeeling. The singer would have conquered
an audience of American rowdies by her brave, unflinch-
ing tranquillity (for she answered encore after encore, and
smiled and bowed pleasantly, and sang the best she pos-
sibly could, and went bowing oflF, through iall the jeers
and hisses, without ever losing countenance or temper) ;
and surely in any other land than Italy her sex and her
helplessness must have been an ample protection to her —
she could have needed no other. Think what a multitude
of small souls were crowded into that theatre last night.
If the manager could have filled his theatre with Neapo-
litan souls alone, without the bodies, he could not have
cleared less than ninety millions of dollars. What traits
of character must a man have to enable him to help three
thousand miscreants to hiss, and jeer, and laugh at one
friendless old woman, and shamefully humiliate her ? He

H Ji " Jm:lWi, i »!J' »' )" ' .:' '' ^- ' -p!" ' . ' "lf'i".V"M» -,

238

THE IJSis

must have all the vile, mean i.. ^ My obser-

vation persuades me (I do not like uture beyond my

own personal observation) that the upf ^^ clasjjes of Naples
possess those traits of character. OtH^^'wise they may be
very good people ; I cannot say. ' r^

ASCENT OP VESUVIUS — CONTINUED.

'j:^>;' i.

In this city of Naples they believe in and support one
of the wretchedest of all the religious impostures one can
find in Italy — the miraculous liquefaction of the blood of
St. Januarius. Twice a year the priests assemble all the
people at the Cathedral, and get out this vial of clotted
blood and let them see it slowly dissolve and become
liquid — and every day for eight days this dismal farce is
repeated, while the priests go among the crowd and collect
money for the exhibition. The first day, the blood liquefies
in forty-seven minutes — the church is crammed then, and
time must be allowed the collectors to get around ; after
that it liquefies a little quicker and a little quicker every
day, as the houses grow smaller, till on the eighth day,
with only a few dozens present to see the miracle, it
liquefies in four minutes.

And here also they used to have a grand procession of
priests, citizens, soldiers, sailors, and the high dignitaries
of the City Government, once a year, to shave the head of
a made-up Madonna — a stufiTed and painted image, like a
milliner's dummy — whose hair miraculously grew and
restored itself every twelve months. They still kept up
this shaving procession as late as four or five years ago.
It was a source of great profit to the church that pos-
sessed the remarkable efl&gy, and the ceremony of the
public barbering of her was always carried out with
the greatest possible iclat and display, the more the
better, because the more excitement there was about it
the larger the crowds it drew, and the heavier the
revenues it produced ; but at last a day came when the
Pope and his servants were unpopular in Naples, ?ind the
City Government stopped the Madonna's Annual show.

There we have two specimens of these Neapolitans —
two of the silliest possible frauds, which half the popula*

AN JTALIAi^ TRAIT,

239

tion religiously and faithfully believed, and the other half
either believed also or else said nothing about, and thus
lent themselves to the support of the imposture. I am
very well satisfied to think the whole population believed
in those poor, cheap miracles — a people who want two
cents every time they bow . to you, and who abuse a
woman, are capable of it, I tfiink.

ASCENT OP VESUVIUS — CONTINUED.

These Neapolitans always ask four times as much
money as they intend to take ; but if you give them what
they first demand, thoy feel ashamed of themselves for
aiming so low, and immediately ask more. When money
is to be paid and received, there is always some vehement
jawing and gesticulating about it. One cannot buy and
pay for two cents' worth of clams without trouble and a
quarrel. One " course" in a two-horse carriage costs a
franc — that is law; but the hackman always demands
more, on some pretence or other, and if he gets it, he
makes a new demand. It is said that a stranger took a
one-horse carriage for a course — tariff, half a franc. He
gave the man five francs by way of experiment. He
demanded more, and received another franc. Again he
demanded more, and got a franc— demanded more, and it
was refused. He grew vehement — was again refused, and
became noisy. The stranger said, "Well, give me the
seven francs again, and I will see what I can do ;" and
when he got them, he handed the hackman half a franc,
and he immediately asked for two cents to buy a driuk
with. It may be thought that I am prejudiced. Perhaps
I am. I would be ashamed of myself if I were not.

ASCENT OF VESUVIUS — CONTINUED.

Well, as I was saying, we got our mules and horses,
after an hour and a half of bargaining with the population
of Annunciation, and started sleepily up the mountain,
with a vagrant at each mule's tail who pretended to be
driving the brute along, but was really holding on and
getting himself dragged up instead. I made slow head-
way at first, but I began to get di.3satisfied at the idea Qf

240

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

4
*

paying my minion five francs to hold my mule back by the
tail, and keep him from going up the hill, and so I dis-
charged him. I got along faster then.

We had one magnificent picture of Naples from a high
point on the mountain side. We saw nothing but the gas
lamps, of course — two thirds of a circle, skirting the great
Bay — a necklace of diamonds glinting up through the
darkness from the remote distance — less brilliant than the
stars overhead, but more softly, richly beautiful — and over
all the great city the lights crossed and recrossed each
other in many and many a sparkling line and curve. And
back of the town, far around and abroad over the miles
of level campagna, were scattered rows, and circles, and
clusters of lights, all glowing like so many gems, and
marking where a score of villages were sleeping. About
this time, the fellow who was hanging on to the tail of the
horse in front of me, and practising all sorts of unnecessary
cruelty upon the animal, got kicked some fourteen rods ;
and this incident, tc^ether with the fairy spectacle of the
lights far in the distance, made me serenely happy, and I
was glad I started to Vesuvius. ■

ASO£NT OF MOUNT VESUVIUS — CONTINUED.

This subject will be excellent matter for a chapter, and
to-morrow or next day I will write it. ,f^mif

imitUi-i

,<iu

CHAPTEK XXX.

ASCENT OF VESUVIUS — CONTINUED.

"QEE Naples and die." Well, I do not know that one
O would necessarily die after merely seeing it, but to
attempt to live there might turn out a little differently.
To see Naples as we saw it in the early dawn from far up
on the side of Vesuvius, is to see a picture of wonderful
beauty. At that distance its dingy buildings looked white
— and so, rank on r^nk of balconies, windows and roofs,
they piled themselves up from the blue ocean till the

NAPLES STREETS.

241

colossal castle of St. Elmo topped the grand white pyramid
and gave the picture symmetry, emphasis, and complete-
ness. And when its lilies turned to roses — when it blushed
under the sun's first kiss — it was beautiful beyond all
description. One might well say, the., ** See Naples and
die." The frame of the picture was charming itself. In
front, the smooth sea — a vast mosaic of many colours;,
the lofty islands swimming in a dreamy haze in the dis-
tance ; at our end of the city the stately double peak of
Vesuvius, and its strong black ribs and seams of lava
stretching down to the limitless, level campagna — a green
carpet that enchants the eye and leads it on and on, past
clusters of trees, and isolated houses, and snowy villages,
until it shreds out in a fringe of mist and general vague-
ness far away. It is from the Hermitage, there on the
side of Vesuvius, that one should ''see Naples and die."

But do not go within the walls and look at it in detail.
That takes away some of the romance of the thing. The
people are filthy in their habits, and this makes filthy
streets and breeds disagreeable sights and smells. There
never was a community so prejudiced against the cholera
as these Neapolitans are. But they have good reason to
be. The cholera generally , vanquishes a Neapolitan when
it seizes him, because, you understand, before the doctor
can dig through the dirt and get at the disease the man
dies. The upper classes take a sea bath every day, and
are pretty decent.

The streets are generally about wide enough for one
waggon, and how they do swarm with people ! It is
Broadway repeated in every street, in every court, in
every alley 1 Such masses, such throngs, such multitudes
of hurrying, bustling, struggling humanity ! We never
saw the like of it, hardly even in New York, I think.
There are seldom any sidewalks, and when there are, they
are not often wide enough to pass a man on without
caroming on him. So everybody walks in the street —
and where the street is wide enough, carriages are for
ever dashipg along. Why a thousand people are not run
over and crippled every day is a mystery that no man can
solve,

! \

. f '

ill

242 THE nmOGENTS ABROAD.

But if there is an eighth wonder in the world, it must
be the dwelling-houses of Naples. I honestly believe u
good majority of them are a hundred feet high ! And
the solid brick walls are seven feet through. You go up
nine flights of stairs before you get to the " first" floor.
No, not nine, but there or thereabouts. There is a little
birdcage of an iron railing in front of every window
clear away, up, up, up; among the eternal clouds, where
the roof is, and there is always somebody looking out of
every window — people of ordinary size looking out from
the first floor, people a shade smaller from the second,
people that look a little smaller yet from the third — and
from thence upward they grow smaller and smaller by a
regularly graduated diminution, till the folks in the top-
most windows seem more like birds in an uncommonly
tall martin-box than anything else. The perspective of
one of these narrow cracks of streets, with its rows y)f
tall houses stretching away till they come together in the
distance like railway tracks ; its clothes-lines crossing over
at all altitudes and waving their bannered raggedness over
the swarms of people below ; and the white-dressed women
perched in balcony railings all the way from the pavement
up to the heavens — a perspective like that is really worth
going into Neapolitan details to see.

ASOENT OF VESUVIUS — CONTINUED.

Naples, with its immediate suburbs, contains six hundred
and twenty-five thousand inhabitants, but I am satisfied
it covers no more ground than an American city of one
hundred and fifty thousand. It reaches up into the air
infinitely higher than three American cities, though, and
there is where the secret of it lies. I will observe here,
in passings that the contrasts between opulence and poverty,
and magnificence and misery, are more frequent and
more striking in Naples than in Paris even. One must
go to the Bois de Boulogne to see fashionable dressing,
splendid equipages and stunning liveries, and to the f^au-
bourg St. Antoine to see vice, misery, hunger, rftgs, dirt,
— ^but in the thoroughfares of Naples these things are all
mixed together. Naked boys of nine years, and the fancy^

SURPBISmO WAGES.

243

dressed children of luxury ; shreds and tatters, and brilliant
uniforms ; jackass-carts and state-carriages ; beggars,
princes and bishops, jostle each other in every street. At
six o'clock evciy evening all Naples turns out to drive on
the Riviere di Chiaja (whatever that may mean) ; and for
two hours one may stand there and see the motliest and
the worst mixed procession go by that ever eyes beheld ;
princes (there are more princes than policemen in Naples
— the city is infested with them) — princes who live up
seven flights of tairs and don't own any principalities, will
keep a carriage and go hungry ; and clerks, mechanics,
milliners and strumpets will go without their dinners and
squander the money on a hock-ride in the Chiaja; the
rag-tag and rubbish of the city stack themselves up, to the
number of twenty or thirty, on a rickety little go-cart,
hauled by a donkey not much bigger than a cat, and they
drive in the Chiaja ; dukes and bankers, in sumptuous
carriages and with gorgeous drivers and footmen, turn
out also, and so the furious procession goes. For two
hours rank and weal'h and obscurity and poverty clatter
along side by side in the wild procession, and then
home serene; happy, covered with glory !

I was looking at a magnificent marble staircase in the
King's palace, the other day, which, it was said, cost five
million francs, and I suppose it did cost half a million,
maybe. I felt as though it must be a fine thing to live
in a country where there was such a comfort and such
luxury as this. And then I stepped out musing, and
almost walked over a vagabond who was eating his dinner
on the kerbstone — a piece of bread and a bunch of grapes.
When I found that lliis mustang was clerking in a fruit
establishment (he had the establishment along with him in
a basket at two cents a day, and that he had no palace at
home where he lived, I lost some of my enthusiasm con-
cerning the happiness of living in Italy.

This naturally suggests to me a thought about wages
here. Lieutenants in the army get about a dollar a day, and
common soldiers a couple of cents. I only know one clerk
— he gets four dollars a month. Printers get six dollars
and a half a month, but I have heard of a foreman who gets

244

THE mmCENTS ABROA J).

thirteen. To be growing suddenly and violently rich, as
this man is, naturally makes him a bloated aristocrat.
The airs he puts on are insuft'crablo.

And speaking of wages reminds mo of prices of mur-
chandiso. In Paris you pay twelve dollars a dozen for
Jouvin's best kid gloves ; gloves of about as good quality
sell hero at three or four dollars a dozen. You pay iivo
and six dollars a piece for tine linen shirts in Paris ; here
and in Leghorn you pay two and a half. lu Marseiiks
you pay forty dollars for a first-class dress coat, made by
a good tai'or, but in Leghorn you can get a full dress suit
for the same money. Here you get handsome businc8.s
suits at from ten to twenty dollars, and in Leghorn you
can get an overcoat for fifteen dollars that would cost you
seventy in New York. Fine kid boots are worth eight dollars
in Marseilles, and four dollars here. Lyons velvets rank
higher in America than those of Genoa. Yet the bulk bi'
Lyons velvets you buy in the States are made in Genoa,
and imported into Lyons, where they receive the Lyons
stamp, and are then exported to America. You can buy
enough velvet in Genoa for twenty-five dollars to make u
five hundred dollar cloak in New York — so the ladies tell
me. Of course these things bring mo baok^ by a natural
and easy transition, to the

ASCENT OP TESUVIUS — CONTINUED.

And thus the wonderful Blue Grotto is suggested to
me. It is situated on the Island of Capri, twenty-two
miles from Naples. We chartered a little steamer, and
went out there. Of course, the police boarded us, and
put us through a health examination, and inquired into
our politics, before they would let us land. The airs
these little insect Governments put on are in the last
degree ridiculous. Tliey even put a policeman on board
of our boat to keep an eye on us as long as we were in the
Capri dominions. They thought we wanted to steal the
grotto, I suppose. It was worth stealing. The entrance
to the cave is four feet high and four feet wide, and is in
the face of a lofty perpendicular cliff — the sea wall. You
enter in small boats, and a tight squeeze it is, too. You

^jStHia

^■ 'l'-!Wg4! f J '

TUE POISONED ROT TO,

245

cannot go in at all when the tide is up. Onoc within
you find yourself in an archod ouvern about one hundred
und sixty foot long, one hundred and twenty wide, and
about seventy high. How deep it iH no man knows.
It goes down to the bottom of the ocean. The waters of
this placid subterranean lake arc the brightcHt, loveliest
blue that can be imagined. Thoy are as transparent as
plate glass, and their colour would shame the richest
sky that ever bent over Italy. No tint could be more
ravishing, no lustre more superb. Throw a stone into the
water, and the myriad of tiny bubbles that arc created
flash out a brilliant glare like blue theatrical fires. Dip
an oar, and its blade turns to a splendid, frosted silver,
tinted with blue. Let a man jump in, and instantly he
is cased in an armour more gorgeous than ever kingly
Crusader wore.

Then we went to Ischia, but I hud already been to that
island, and tired myself to death " resting" a couple of
days and studying human villainy, with the landlord of
the Grande Sentinelle for a model. So we went to Procida,
and from thence to Pozzuoli, where St. Paul landed after
he sailed from Samos. 1 landed at precisely the same
spot whore St. Paul landed, and so did Dan and the
others. it was a remarkable coiinrulence. St. Paul
preached to these people soven ^lays before he started to
Home.

Nero's Baths, the ruins of BaiaD, the Temple of Serapis ;
Cumae, where the Cumasan Sybil interpreted the oracles, the
Lake Agnan'^, with its ancient submciged city still visible
far down in its depths — these, and a hundred other points
of interest, we examined with critical imbecility ; but the
Grotto of the Dog claimed our chief attention, because we
had heard and read so much about it. Everybody has
written about the Grotto del Cane and its poisorous
vapours, faom Pliny down to Smith, and every tourist has
held a dog over its floor by the legs to test the capabilities
of the place. The dog dies in a minute and a half; a
chicken instantly. As a general thing, strangers who
crawl in there to sleep do not get up until they are called ;
and then they don't either. The stranger that ventures

246

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

to sleep there takes a permanent contract. I longed to see
this grotto. I resolved to take a dog and hold him myself ;
suffocate him a little, and time him ; suffocate him some
more, and then finish him. We reached the grotto at
about three in the afternoon, and proceeded at once to
make the experiments. But now an important difficulty
presented itself ; we had no dog.

ASCENT OF VESUVIUS — CONTINUED.

At the Hermitage we were about fifteen or eighteen
hundred feet above the sea, and thus far a portion of the
ascent had been pretty abrupt. For the next two miles the
road was a mixture — sometimes the ascent was abrupt and
sometimes it was not ; but one characteristic it possessed all
the time — without failure — without modification — it was
all uncompromisingly and unspeakably infamous. It was a
rough, narrow trail, and led over an old lava flow-7-a
black ocean which was tumbled into a thousand fantastic
shapes — a wild chaos of ruin, desolation, and barrenness —
a wilderness of billowy upheavals, of furious whirlpools,
of miniature mountains rent asunder — of gnarled and
knotted, wrinkled and twisted masses of blackness, that
mimicked branching roots, great vines, trunks of trees, all
interlaced and mingled together ; and all these weird shapes,
all this turbulent panorama, all this stormy, far-stretching
waste of blackness, with, its thrilling suggestiveness of
life, of action, of boiling, surging, furious motion, was
petrified ! — all stricken dead and cold in the instant of its
maddest rioting I — fettered, paralysed, and left to glower
at heaven in impotent rage for evermore !

Finally, we stood in a level, narrow valley, (a valley
that had been created by the terrific march of some old
time irruption), and on either hand towered the two steep
peaks of Vesuvius. The one we had to climb — the one
that contains the active volcano — seemed about eight
hundred or one thousand feet high, and looked almost too
straight-up-and-down for any man to climb, and certainly
no mule could climb it with a man on his back. Four of
these native pirates will carry you to the top in a sedan
chair if you wish it, but suppose they were to slip and let
YOU fall, is it likely that you would ever stop rolling?

THE CRATER,

247

on, was

Not this side of eternity, perhaps. We left the mules,
sharpened our finger nails, and began the ascent I have
been writing about so long at twenty minutes to six in
the morning. The path led straight up a rugged sweep
of loose chunks of pumice-stone, and for about every two
steps forward we took, we slid back one. It was so exces-
sively steep that we had to stop every fifty or sixty steps,
and rest a moment. To see our comrades we had to look
very nearly straight up at those above us, and very nearly
straight down at those below. We stood on the summit at
last — it had taken an hour and fifteen minutes to make
the trip.

What we saw there was simply a circular crater — a
circular ditch, if you please — about two hundred feet
deep, and four or five hundred feet wide, whose inner wall
was about half a mile in circumference. In the centre of
the great circus ring thus formed was a torn and ragged
upheaval a hundred feet high, all snowed over with a
sulphur crust of many and many a brilliant and beautiful
colour, and the ditch enclosed this like the moat of a
castle, or surrounded it as a little river does a little island,
if the simile i^ better. The sulphur coating of that
island was gaudy in the extreme — all mingled together in
the richest confusion were red, blue, brown, black,
yellow, white — I do not know that there was a colour, or
shade of a colour,or combination of colours, unrepresented ;
and when the sun burst through the morning mists and
fired this tinted magnificence, it topped imperial Vesuvius
like a jewelled crown I

The crater itself — the ditch — was not so variegated in
colouring, but yet, in its softness, richness, and unpreten-
tious elegance, it was more charming, more fascinating to
the eye. There was nothing " loud" about its well-bred
and well-dressed look. Beautiful? One could stand and
look down upon it for a week without getting tired of it.
It had the semblance of a pleasant meadow, whose slender
grasses and whose velvety mosses were frosted with a
shining dust, and tinted with palest green that deepened
gradually to the darkest hue of the orange leaf, and
deepened yet again into gravest brown, then faded into
orar^gC; then into brightest gold, and culminated in the

248

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

delicate pink of a new-blown rose. Where portions of
the meadow had sunk, and where other portions had been
broken up like an ice-floe, the cavernous openings of tlie
one, and ragged, upturned edges exposed by the other,
were hung with a lacework of soft-tinted crystals of
sulphur that changed their deformities into quaint shapes
and figures that were full of grace and beauty.

The walls of the ditch were brilliant with yellow banks
of sulphur, and with lava and pumice-stone of many
colours. No fire was visible anywhere, but gusts of
sulphurous steam issued silently and invisibly from a
thousand little cracks and fissures in the crater, and were
wafted to our noscj^ with every breeze. But so long as
we kept our nostrils buried in our handkerchiefs, there
was small danger of suffocation.

" Some of the boys thrust long slips of paper down in^o
holes, and set them on fire, and so achieved the glory o»f
lighting their cigars by the flames of Vesuvius, and others
cooked eggs over fissures in the rocks, and were happy.

The view from the summit would have been superb
but for the fact that the sun could only pierce the
mists at long intervals. Thus the glimpses we had of
the grand panorama below were only fitful and unsatis-
factory. ^iPSii

THE DESCENI.

The' descent of the mountain was a labour of only four
minutes. Instead of stalking down the rugged jath we
ascended, we chose one which was bedded knee-deep in
loose ashes, and ploughed our way with prodigious strides
that would almost have shamed the performance of him of
the seven-league boots.

The Vesuvius of to-day is a very poor affair compared
to the mighty volcano of Kilauea, in the Sandwich Islands ;
but I am glad I visited it. It was well worth it.

It is said that during one of the grand eruptions of
Vesuvius it discharged massy rocks weighing, many tonSj a
thousand feet into the air ; its vast jets of smoke and steam
ascended thirty miles toward the firmament, and clouds
of its ashes were wafted abroad and fell upon the decks of
ships seven hundred and fifty miles at sea ! I will take

THE BURIED CITY OF POMPEII 249

the ashes at a moderate di^'^ount, if any one will take the
thirty miles of smoke, but I do not feel able to take a
commanding Interest in the whole story by myself.

' !

CHAPTER XXXI.

THE BURIED CITY QF POMPEII,

frnpHE Y pronounce it Pom-^ay-e. I always had an idea
jL that you went down into Pompeii with torches, by
tthe way of damp, dark stairways, just as you do in silver
mines, and traversed gloomy tunnels with lava overhead
and something on either Hand like dilapidated prisons
; gouged out of the solid earth, that faintly resembled
houses. But you do nothing of the kind. Fully one-half
of the buried city,^ perhaps, is completely exhumed and
thrown open freely to the light of day ; and there stand
the long rows v,' r idly-built, brick houses (roofle^) just
as they stood e^^u ..en hundred years ago, hot with the
flaming sun ; and there lie their floors, clean swept, and
;not a bright fragment tarnished or wanting of the laboured
anosaics that pictured them with the beasts, and birds, and
;flowers which we copy in porishable carpets to-day ; -and
there are the Venuses, and Bacchuses, and Adonises,
^making love and getting drunk in many-hued frescoes on
the walls of saloon and bedchamber ; and there are the
;narrow streets and narrower sidewalks, paved with flagjj
of good, hard lava, the one deeply rutted with the chariot-
wheels, and the uther with the passing feet of the Pom-
peiians of bygone centuries ; and there are the bakeshops,
the temples, the halls of justice, the baths, the theatres —
all cleap scraped and neat, and suggesting nothing of the
nature of a silver mine away down in the bowels of the
earth. The broken pillars lying about, the doorless door-
ways and the crumbled tops of the wilderness of walls,
were wonderfully suggestive of the " burnt district" in
one of our cities ; and if there had been any charred tim-
bers, shattered windows, heaps of ddbris, and general
blackness and smokincss about the place, the resemblance

! !

250

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

would have been perfect. But no — the sun shines as
brightly down on old Pompeii to-day as it did when
Christ was born in Bethlehem, and its streets are cleaner
a hundred times than ever Pompeiian saw them in her
prime. I know whereof I speak — for in the great chief
thoroughfares (Merchant Street and the Street of Fortune)
have I not seen w' 'i my own eyes how for two hundred
years at least the pavements were not repaired 1 — how
ruts five, and even ten inches deep were worn into the thick
flag-stones by the chariot-wheels of generations of swindled
taxpayers? And do I not know by these signs that
Street Commissioners of Pompeii never attended to their
business, and that if they never mended the pavements
tqey never cleaned them ? And, besides, is it not the
inborn nature of Street Commissioners to avoid their duty
whenever they get a chance ? I wish I knew the nanjo
of the last one that held oflfice in Pompeii, so that I could
give him a blast. I speak with feeling on this subject,
because I caught my foot in one of those ruts, and the
sadness that came over me when I saw the first poor
skeleton, with ashes and lava sticking to it, was tempered
by the reflection that maybe that party was the Street
Commissioner.

• No — Pbtopeii is no longer a buried city. It is a city of
hundreds and hundreds of roofless houses, and a tangled
inaze of streets where one could easily get lost, without a
guide, and have to sleep in some ghostly palace that had
knov/n no living tenant since that awful November night
of eighteen centuries ago.

We passed through the gate which faces the Mediter-
ranean (called the " Marine Gate",) and by the rusty,
broken image of Minerva, still keeping tireless watch and
ward over the possessions it was powerless to save, and
went up a long street and stood in the broad court of the
Forum of Justice. The floor was level and clean, and up
and down either side was a noble colonnade of broken
pillars, with their beautiful Ionic and Corinthian columns
scattered about them. At the upper end were the vacant
seats of the Judges, and behind them we descended into
a dungeon where the ashes and cinders had found
two prisoners chained on that memorable November

FOOTPRINTS OF THE DEPARTED. 251

night, and tortured them to death. How they must have
tugged at the pitiless fetters as tho fierce fires surged
around them 1

Then we lounged through many and many a sumptuous
private mansion which wo could not have 'Entered without
a formal iGvitation in incomprehensible Latin, in the
olden time, when the owners lived there — and we probabiy
wouldn't have got it. These people built their houses a
good deal fiiike. The floors were laid in fanciful figures
wrought in mosaics of many-coloured marbles. At the
threshold your oyes fall upon a Latin sentence of welcome
sometimes . or a picture of a dog, with the legend " Be-
ware of the Dog," and sometimes a picture of a bear or a
fawn with no inscription at all. Then you enter a sort of
vestibule, where they used to keep the hat-ra6k, I suppose ;
next a room with a large marble basin in the midst and
the pipes of a fountain ; on either side are bedrooms ;
beyond tho fountain is a receptiOn-room, then a little
garden, dining- room, and so forth, and so on. The floors
were all mosaic, the walls were stuccoed, or frescoed, or
ornamented with bcs-reliefs, and here and there were
statues, large and small, and little fish-pools, and cascades
of sparkling water that sprang from secret places in the
colonnade of handsome pillars that surrounded the court,
and kept the flower-beds fresh and tho air cool. Those
Pompeiians were very luxurious in their tastes and habits.
The most exquisite bronzes we have seen in Europe came
from the exhumed cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii,
and also the finest cameos and the most delicate -engravings
on precious stones ; their pictures, eighteen or nineteen
centuries old, are often much more pleasing than the
celebrated rubbish of the old masters of three centuries
ago. They were well up in art. From the creation of
these works of the first clear, up to the eleventh century,
art seems hardly to have existed ' t all — at least no rem-
nants of it are left — and it was curious to see how far (in
sonje things, at any rate,) these old time pagans excelled
the remote generations of masters that came after them.
The pride of tho world in sculptures seem to be the
" Laocoon" and the " Dying Gladiator," in Rome. They are
as old as Pompeii, were dug from the earth like Pompeii ;

252

TEE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

but their exact age, or who made them, can only be con-
jectured. But worn, and cracked, without a history, and with
the blemishing stains of numberless centuries upon them
they still mutely mock at all efforts to rival their perfections.

It was a quaint and curious pastime, wandering through
this old silent city of the dead — lounging through utterly
deserted streets, wh 1 thousands and thousands of human
beings once bought ad sold, and walked and rode, and
made the place rewound with the noise and confusion of
traffic and pleasure. They were not lazy. They hurried
in those days. We had evidence of that. There was a
temple on one corner, and it was a shorter cut to go between
the columns of that temple from one street to the other
than to go around — and behold, that pathway had been
worn deep into the heavy flagstone floor of the build mg
by generations of time- saving feet I They would not go
around when it was quicker to go through. We do that
way in our cities.

Everywhere you see things that make you wonder how
old these old houses were before the night of destruction
-things too which bring back thof^e long dead in-

came-

habitants and place them living before your eyes. For
instance, the steps (two feet thick — :lava blocks) that lead
up out of the school, and the same kind of steps that lead
into the dress circle of the principal theatre, aro* almost
wo^n through ! For ages the boys hurried out of that
school, and for ages their parents hurried into that theatre,
and the nervous feet that have been dust and ashes for
eighteen centuries have left their record for us to read to-
day. I imagined I could see crowds of gentlemen and
ladies thronging into the theatre, with tickets for secured
seats in their hand, and on the wall I read the imaginary
placard,in infamous grammar," Positively no Free List,
EX^^EPT Members op the Press 1" Hanging about the
doorway (I fancied), were slouchy Pompeiian street-boys,
uttering slang and profanity, and keeping a wary eye out
for checks. I entered the theatre, and sat down in one of
the long rows of stone benches in the d^ess circle, and
looked at the place for the orchestra, and the ruined stage,
and around at the wide sweep of empty boxes, and thought
to myself, " This house won't pay." I tried to imagine

nary

1ST,

the
t)oys,

out
ne of

and
jtage,

FOOTPRINTS OF THE DEPARTED, 253

the music in full blast, the leader of the orchestra beating
time, and the ''versatile" So-and-So (who had "just
returned from a most successful tour in the provinces to
play his last and farewell engagement of positively six
nights only, in Pompeii, previous to his departure for
Herculaneum,") charging around the stage and piling the
agony mountains high — but I could not do it with such a
" house " as that ; those empty benches tied my fancy down
to dull reality. I said, these people that ought to be hero
have been dead, and still, and mouldering to dust for ages
and ageb, and will never care for the triflei: and follies of
life any more for ever — " Owing to circumstances, &c., &c.,
there will not be any performance to-night." Close down
the curtain. Put out the lights.

. \nd so I turned away and went through shop after shop
and store after store, far -down the long street of the mer-
chants, and called for the wares of Rome and the East, but"
the tradesmen were gone, the marts were silent, and
nothing was left but the broken jars i. 3et in cement of
cinders and ashes : the wine and the oil that once had filled
them were gone with their owners.

In a bakeshop was a mill for grinding the grain, and
the furnaces for baking the bread : and they say that here,
in the same furnaces, the exhumers of Pompeii found nice,
well-baked loaves, which the baker had not found time to
remove from the ovens the last time he left his shop, because
circumstances compelled him to leave in such a hurry.

In one house (the only building in Pompeii which no
woman is now allowed to enter), were the small rooms and
short beds of solid masonry, just as they were in the old
times, and on the walls were piictures which looked almost
as fresh.as if they were printed yesterday, but which no
pen could have the hardihood to describe ; and here and
there were Latin inscriptions — obscene scintillations of wit,
scratched by hands that possibly were uplifted to Heaven
for succour in the midst of a driving storm of fire before
the night was done.

In one of the principal' streets was a ponderous stone
tank, and a water-spout that supplied it ; and where the
tired, heated toilers from the Campagna used to rest their
right hands when they bent over to put their lips to the

254

THE INNOCENTS ABROAD,

spout, the thick stone was worn down to a broad groove
an inch or two deep. Think of the countless thousands
of hands that had pressed that spot in the ages that are
gone, to so reduce a stone that is as hard as iron !'

They had a groat public bulletin board in Pompeii — a
place where announcements^ for gladiatorial combats,
elections, and such things, were post-ed — not on perishable
paper, but carved in enduring stone. One lady, v^ho I
take it was rich and well brought up, advertised a dwell-
ing or 80 to rent, with baths and all the modern improve-
ments, and several hundred shops, stipulating that the
dwellings should not be put to immoral purposes. You
could find out who lived in many a house \n Pompeii by the
carved stone door-plates affixed to them : and in the same
way you can tell who they were that occupy the tombs.
Everywhere around are things that reveal to you som^-
th ng of the customs and history of this forgotten people.
But what would a volcano leave of an American city if
it once rained its cinders on it? Hardly a sign or a
symbol to tell its story.

In one of those long Pompeiian halls the skeleton of a
man was found, with ten pieces of gold in one band and a
large key in the other. He had seized his money and
started toward the door, but the fiery tempest caught him
at the very threshold, and he sank down and died. One
more minute of precious time would have saved him. I
saw the skeletons of a man, a woman, and two young girls.
The woman had her hands spread wide apart, as if in
mortal terror, and I imagined I could. still trace upon her
shapeless face something of the expression of wild despair
that distorted it when the heavens rained fire in these
streets so many ages ago. The girls and the man lay
with their faces upon their arms, as if they had tried to
shield them from the enveloping cinders. In one apart-
ment eighteen skeletons were found, all in sitting postures,
and blackened places on the walls still mark their shapes
and show their attitudes, like shadows. One of them, a
woman, still wore upon her skeleton throat a necklace, with
her name engraved i^on it — Julie di Diomede.

But perhaps the most poetical thing Pompeii has yielded
to modem research, was that grand figure of a Boman

THE BRAVE MARTYR TO DUTY, 255

soldier, clad in complete armour, who, true to his duty,
true to his proud name of a soldier of Rome, and full of
the stern courage which had given to that name its glory,
stood to Ms post by the city gate, erect &nd unflinching,
till the hell that raged around him burned out the daunt-
less spirit it could not conquer.

We never read of Pompeii out we think of that soldier.}
wecannnot write of Pompeii without the natural impulse
to grant to him the mention he so well deserves. Let us
remember that ho was a soldier — not a policeman — and so
praise him. Being a soldier he stayed — because the war-
rior instinct forbade him to fly. Had he been a police^
man, he would have stayed also — because he would have
been asleep.

There arc not half a dozen flights of stairs in Pompeii,
and no other evidences that the houses were more than
one story high. The people did not live in the clouds, as
do the Venetians, the Genoese, and Neapolitans of to-day..
We came out from under the solemn mysteries of {his
city of the Venerable Past — this city which perished, vith
all its. old ways and its quaint old fashions about i,
' remote centuries «go, when the Disciples were preaching
the new religion, which is as old as the hills to us now —
and wont dreaming among the trees that grow over acre?
and acres of its still buried streets and squares, till a shrill
whistle and the cry of — ^^ All aboard — last train for
Naples /" woke me up and reminded me that I belonged
in the nineteenth century, and was not a dusty mummy,
caked with ashes and cinders, eighteen hundred years old.
The transition was startling. The idea of a railroad train
actually running to oW, dead Pompeii, and whistling irre-
verently, and calling for passengers in the most bustling
and business-like way, was as strange a thing as one could
imagine, and as unpoetical and disagreeable as it was
strange.

Compare the cheerful life and the sunshine of this day

with the horrors the younger Pliny saw here, the 9th of

Novembcrj a.d. 69, when he was so bravely striving to

^ remove his mother out of reach of harm, while she begged

um, with all a mother's unsdfishness, to leave her to

>erish and save himself.

256

TEE INNOCENTS ABROAD.

I ^

" By thiR timo the murky darkoean had ro Inoroanfld, that ono miffht
have bulinvod himself abroad in a black and mounluHH iiiKht, or in a
chamber whore all the lightH had been extinffuiahed. Oii (<very hand
was heard the complaint8 of women, the wailing of children, and the
cries of men. Onu cuilled liis father, another liia son, and anotlior hiH
witb, and only by their voioofl could they know each other. Many la
their despair begged that deatit would come and end their dlHtress,

"Some implored the gods to succour thorn, and some believed that
this night wa8 the last, the eternal night which should engulf the
universe! ^

'* Even so it scorned to mo— and I consoled myself for the coming
death with the reflection: Bkuojld, tuk Would ib i'abbino away!"

******

After browsing among the stately ruins of Rome, of
Buiaa, of Pompeii, and after glancing down the long
marble ranks of battered and nameless imperial heads that
stretch down the corridors of the Vatican, one thing
strikes me with a force it never had before — the unsub-
stantial, unlasting character of fame. Men lived long
lives in the olden time, and struggled feverishly thrdyagh
them, toiling like slaves in oratory, in generalship, or in
literature, and then laid them down and died, haippy in the
possession of an enduring history and a deathless name.
Well, twenty little centuries flutter away, and what is left
of these i;hings ? A crazy inscription on a block of stone,
which scuflFy antiquarians bother over and tangle up and
make nothing out of but a bare name- (which they spell
wrong) — no history, no tradition, no poetry — nothing that
can give it even a passing interest. What may be left of
General Grant's great name forty centuries hence ? This
— in the Encyclopedia for a.d. 5868, possibly —

" Uriah S. (or Z.) Gbauwt— popular poet of ancient times in the
Aztec provinces of the United States of British America. Some authors
say flourished about a.d. 742; but the learned Ah-ah Foo-foo stateit

that he was a "'■ " °~'— '- *'- '^ — "•»■ — -♦ — -*

flourished about
instead of before

These thoughts sadden me. I will to bed.

THE END.

-"^^TtTTT— itsiiirMni I ■ -111-

ono might
?»it, or ill a
every hand
m, and the
linothor hiH
. Many in
trous.
jlieved that

ungulf tlio

tlie coming
iway!"

Homo, of
the long
loads that
ne thing
16 unsub-
ved long
thrdwgh
lip, or in
py in the
iss naruo.
lat is left
of stone,
J up and
hey spell
bing that
)e left of
I ? This

meg in the
me authors
-foo states
poet, and
i'ojaiv war^

.^':