IC-NRLF
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
PRESENTED BY
PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID
GLEANINGS
FROM
PICCADILLY TO PERA.
"LONDON :
A. and G. A. SPOTTISWOODE,
New-street- Square.
i> : ^
m
GLEANINGS
FROM
PICCADILLY TO PERA.
BY JOHN .OLDMIXON, ESQ.,
COMMANDER R.N.
LONDON:
LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.
1854.
PREFACE.
APOLOGIES for one's notions or one's nonsense, are
simply absurd; but I would fain say a few words,
not in extenuation of the errors and ignorances
which will be found plentifully sprinkled in the
following pages, but for the querulous, cynical tone
which unamiably pervades the whole ! in which I
view things through the cold, clouded atmosphere of
an unusually severe winter ; piqued by the peculiarly
unEnglish comforts and contrivances of the Continent.
It will, however, be a variety, from its strong contrast
to the invariable " couleur de rose" sunny pictures we
have of France, Italy, and the East.
Now that I have returned home, I laugh quite as
heartily as younger men at all the small miseries and
mishaps we must get through, without wincing, in our
wanderings about the world. They are exactly the
ups and downs, and joltings out of our drawing-room and
club easy chairs, we set out to enjoy !
A 3
VI PBEFACE.
But that which I am more seriously concerned at is,
what may be thought of the freedom of my strictures
on men and things ! The truth is, they were written
under the more modest veil of the anonymous, and
were meant to pass as impalpably harmless as the
editorial we of a daily newspaper.
Mine was a careless a too careless Diary, in which
I thought aloud, not calculating on the assuming and
egotistic look it puts on now that I have been reluc-
tantly obliged to subscribe a name to it obscure,
untitled, and unknown and find myself at. the foot
of that crowded, critical, ticklish tribunal, of a fine,
listless, indifferent, and unsympathetically fastidious
West-end world !
But let me beware of prematurely making a fuss, like
the duck in a puddle. I need not flatter myself with
the idea of being particularly noticed in any way ; but
pass on in the stream of the last things out apropos
of the Turks and the Mediterranean.
THE AUTHOR.
London, September 22nd, 1854.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Page
Start from Piccadilly. Bother with Cabs. Pavilion,
Folkestone. Boulogne. French Rail. Paris.
French Drama. New Rue de Rivoli. Tour St.
Jacques. Rail to Chalons. Fine young Lady.
Wretched Weather and Steamers down the Saone.
Lyons. - - - 1
CHAP. II.
The Rhone. Avignon. Inland Sea of the Berre.
Marseilles. Its Bastides and Cabanons. Commerce.
Police Courts. The People The Country
Toulon. The Dockyard and Port. - - 37
CHAP. III.
Quit Toulon. Draguinan. Cannes. Rich English
and their Villas, including Lord Brougham's.
Antibes. The Frontier of the Var. Nice. - 88
Vlll CONTENTS.
CHAP. IV.
Page
To Genoa by the Cornice. Look back at Nice. Its
Climate, Neglect, and Beggars. Arrive at Genoa.
The King. Consuls. Fetes. Opera. Review.
Regatta. Start for Leghorn by Steamer. Pisa by
Rail. On to Civita Vecchia. Its Port Can't land
without a Consul's Visa. Appearance of the Coast.
Tipsy Engineer and sick Captain. Stormy.
Ischia, Bay of Naples Mole. Landing at Cus-
tom House. Naples Villa Reale. Chaia.
Pompeii. Baiae. Music. Campo Santo. Toledo.
Mole. Opera. Goats. Europa Cafe. Flowers.
Markets - - 129
CHAP. V.
Leave Naples in the Screw " Sorento."< Coast of Cala-
bria. Paulo. Pizzo. Band on Board. Death
of Murat. Lipari Isles. Stromboli. Sicily.
Messina. Industry. Poverty. Tyranny. Two
Hotels. Marina. Beautiful Site of City. Reggio
opposite. Theatre. Ruins of Earthquakes, and
burnt Houses. Soldiers. Police. Passports.
Good Gloves and bad Living. Cycle of the Port
and Citadel. Hack Cabs. Fish Market. Wo-
men. Weaving. Trade Taormina. Giardina.
Chain Barriers. Cacti. Etna appears. Aci-
reale. Catania. Coronna d'Oro. Placido.
Greek Therme. Biscari's. Lava. Speronaros.
Scarcity. Padre Guardo - -226
CHAP. VI.
Leave Catania in Post Diligence. Cross the Plain and
CONTENTS. IX
Page
River. Leontinum. Etna follows ! Syracuse.
Albergo del Sole. Temples of Ceres and Minerva.
Washerwomen in Arethusa's Bath. Jack Robinson
and Sons. Embark. Schooner "Cassiopeia."
Skipper. Conjuror. Cape Passero. Calms.
Malta. Hotels. Troops. Transports. St.
John's. Good Friday. Religious Ceremonies and
Processions. Theatres. Cafes. Ices. Mids.
Palace. Clean Streets. Leave in " Arabian."
Horses. Mule. Goats' Milk. Dogs. Revolver
Practice and Rifle. Pass Cape Matapan. Snow-
capped Mountains of Greece. Siro. Mytilene.
Archipelago. Tenedos - - - 261
CHAP. VII.
Pera. Our Camp at Scutari. The great Cemetery.
Happy Flocks. A wet Review. The Sultan's
Palaces. Abdul-Medjid at Mosque. Good-natured
Turks. Above the Bridges. Unknown Tongues.
Galata Grog-shops. Dress of our Army. Pera
Gates shut. Christians in the Saddle. Sight-
seeing Firman. Old Palace and Mosques. Sultan's
Stud. Pages, Baths, Library. Ladies' Garden.
View from Windows. Our queer Dresses.
Library and Bed Armories. Mosques. St.
Sophia. Idle Intrusion. Massive Walls. Kitchen
Clock. Atmeidan. Sacred Pigeons. Mahmoud's
Mausoleum. Slave Markets. Banished Greeks.
General Apathy - ... 285
CHAP. VIII.
Turkish Women in Steamers. Turkish Economy.
Lodging-Houses. Jews' Cemetery. Downs.
X CONTENTS.
Page
Sweet Waters. Ideal Happiness. Constitutions.
Local Comparisons. One Banker one Shop. Burnt
Street. Horses. Burnouses. Crowded Solitude.
Cocks and Hens. Moslem Rule. Idle Visions.
- Turks mystified. Sterile Environs. Reform
Act Odd Pachas. Modern Turkish Army.
Complicated War. Dilatory Movements. Water-
side Scenes. Caique Fares. Extent of Pera.
Puzzling Currency. Delicacy of the Caiques.
Tophana Ferry. Build of Boats - -319
CHAP. IX.
Pera's Hills and Outlets. Dervishes Kiosk. Burnt
Tree. Bird's-eye View. Consolatory Comparisons.
- Passages Homewards. Queer Volunteers.
Letters essential. Way up to Pera. Turkish
Traits. Details of Pera. A Lobster Bargain.
Greek and Turkish Women. Austrian Ball.
Task in Music. Pera the West End. National
Garbs. Women with our Army. Pleasant Com-
panions. Nothing known. Scanty Supplies.
Landscape Attractions. Silly Curiosity. Hot Sun,
cold Winds. Treacherous Kindness. Quit Stam-
bpul. Confusion at Starting. Hadjis' Reception.
Salt water Amenity. Consular Forts. Call at
Smyrna. Look of the town. Imperative Backshish.
Self-exiled Ladies - 348
CHAP. X.
Leave Smyrna. Islands. Anchor at Alexandria.
The Shipping Town Light-house. Palace.
CONTENTS. XI
Page
Pacha, Donkey Boys. Cafe Exchange Rooms.
Square of Hotels. Bazaar. Canal. Pillar and
Needle. Load with Cotton. And cram with Pas-
sengers. Start for Malta. Coal On to Gibraltar.
Silent Changes. Spain. Passage Home. A
Word on- Ships and Steamers - 379
LIST OF PLATES,
PLATE I. The High Street, Pera, and Turkish
Women * - To face Title Page.
II. Barracks, Scutari - page 99
III. Seraglio Point, from Tophana - 305
IV. The outer floating bridge over the Golden Horn - 361
ERKATA.
Page 155., sixth line from bottom, for "custodium " read " custodian."
161., third line from top, for " Curlino" read " Carlino."
176., fourth line from bottom, for "custodium" read "custodian."
198., eighth line from top, for " low" read k! ton."
199., eighth line from bottom, for "/oca " read '* loco."
212., first line, dele " more."
262., fifth line from bottom, for " i " read " if."
403., third line from bottom, for "aggressions " read ; ' digressions."
GLEANINGS
FROM
PICCADILLY TO PERA
CHAPTER I.
START FROM PICCADILLY. BOTHER WITH CABS. PAVILION,
FOLKESTONE. BOULOGNE. FRENCH RAIL. PARIS. FRENCH
DRAMA. NEW RUE DE RlVOLI. TOUR ST. JACQUES. RAIL
TO CHALONS. FINE YOUNG LADY. WRETCHED WEATHER AND
STEAMERS DOWN THE SOANE. LYONS.
I AM leaving town already "the air bites shrewdly"
but it is fine, and the sun struggles bravely towards
nine o'clock, to get through the mass of housemaids'
fires and factory clouds of this whole county of brick,
London. I am midway in Hyde Park, near the
barracks of the Horse Guards, and yet I might as well
be in Thames Street for smoke and blacks.
I send for a cab, and make an effort to be off in time
for the South Eastern Railway express, f( twelve hours
2 BOTHER WITH CABS.
to Paris ; " but we are a lazy late people, up late at both
ends of the day ; so, no cabs are on the stands, except
by chance, at eight o'clock in the morning : but with us
every thing is left to chance the rule of thumb, and
glorious uncertainty ; as the fares are, when you do get
into a cab. Who is to decide as to a " fair quantity of
luggage " between you and Cabby ? or when you have
got to the end of a mile in our labyrinth of streets ?
and how can a man have the heart to take a cab even
within the mile (if he is knowing) for sixpence ?
What could have been more simple and efficacious than
to have followed the French plan, so much the course,
so much the hour ? As to the greater distances <f on the
stones," London, might simply have been divided in half
at Charing Cross, or Temple Bar ; or say, as a limit for
cabs, not more than three miles east or west, north or
south ; not that that would be unfair, even as far as our
streets (numbered) go, for, if in a " course" you go but
fifty yards, you pay the same thing ; as, by the hour,
you must reckon on going slow enough. This would
end all disputes and heartburns, and injustices, for very
often, after all, the cabmen are sometimes dealt hardly
by ; as in an instance lately of two ladies and the
Hammersmith magistrate who condemned a cabman
to a month's prison for saying to the ladies, "You
ought to be ashamed of yourselves" for giving only
sixpence (for two!). Who will say it was not ab-
UNMERCIFUL MAGISTRATES. 3
surdly too little, however lawful ? But is a man to be
put in prison for ill-manners, or mere insolence of
words, however improper or annoying?
It is certainly, I think, very unjust, very un-English.
This is the way we make vindictive scamps, and fill our
prisons. Magistrates sit to administer (seldom judici-
ously !) imbecile, mischievous laws, making our mob
worse, and our burthens greater I
My cabman (at last, by the half-past nine train) did
not dispute my reasonable quantum of luggage (a port-
manteau), and seemed content with half-a-crown, which
I knew was sixpence if not a shilling over his fare, for
I doubt whether it is more than three miles from the
barracks, Knightsbridge, to the London Bridge Station :
but to avoid disputes, and pay for the trouble of putting
in and out one's luggage, 'tis better to pay too much
than too little ; but this system, which we all fall into,
"makes calamity of so long life." It is our "public"
which ruins and imposes on the public. Each indi-
vidual will be more generous and magnificent than the
last, under the dreadful apprehension of being "no
gentleman ! " or, what is even worse, having a long dis-
pute, ending, perhaps, with a police officer.
We turn at the preposterous right angle below the
Red Hill Station, and down the Weald of Kent. The
country looks still beautiful; O land of my fathers!
where see such another, no matter what country ! but
B 2
4 FOLKESTONE.
Kent is charming : look at the oaks and walks about
Tunbridge Wells, and all the show places 1
The fields are dry and smiling ; last autumn all this
track was under water (along the Medway), and even
some of the crops floating about ! Our farmers are very
slow, and rather slovenly. I see a field ploughing with
four horses on end, pulling at one another: was ever any
thing so stupid, so slow, so un-econornical ! Landlords
should pinch their tenants less. Our small farmers are
as poor as day labourers, with the added anxiety !
What a difference the sunshine makes in every thing!
how beautiful these hills and downs about Folkstone !
and the viaduct across its pretty little valley and stream.
A new and large town has already started up about the old
church on the west cliff, and many families in the genteel
world already acknowledge this late smuggling and fish-
ing village as a watering place, more than a match for
Sandgate, two miles beyond.
Indeed, the whole town is mending daily, and im-
proving in spite of the lord of the manor streets
building, shops getting richer, smarter. The harbour
belongs to the railway company (bought out and out,
of the town, for 37,000/.); the rail crosses the harbour
by a pivot bridge, straight to the pier, and you step out
in the water- side station, close to the steamers : the whole
with the custom-house adjoining is extremely well ar-
ranged. The steamers alone are, as to size and ca-
THE PAVILION. 5
pacify, out of date ; puff them as they may (all round our
coast) as "splendid," "magnificent," &c. Our steamers
are every where sadly behindhand, still on the sharp, deep,
narrow, plan. They want breadth, size, and capacity
in every way ; they might be much larger, wider, flatter
floored, and, by drawing less water, go faster. They ought
to go over to Boulogne in an hour and a half, if only
twenty-seven miles; but they stick to "two hours" as
a great triumph, and not that in any sea; in a word,
they are not good sea boats, nor fit for our " still-vexed"
channel. This absurd sort of narrow sharp build was
carried to an imbecile excess in the " Wave Queen" a
most dangerous boat; she would have gone down off
Newhaven a year ago, had they been unable to run
her on shore !
I go to the Pavilion the well-known hotel. " The
Times" has, perhaps, done some little good by its
attack on hotel charges, but, after all, nothing is
changed materially ; the charges are much as in all
first-rate hotels. There is a table-d'hote at half-past
two; we had an excellent dinner soups, fish, flesh, and
fowl in variety, and dessert : certainly a much better
dinner, better cooked, and better served, than at any
hotel in Boulogne, perhaps in France, at 25. 6d. All
the arrangements and the whole house are admirable ;
great order, regularity, and civility ; a noble coffee-
room, reading, and billiard-room ; bedrooms and sit-
B 3
HOTEL CHARGES.
ting-rooms, along the great corridors of the wings,
excellent in every way; with twenty essentials, and
even luxuries, not known on the Continent : so, let us
not grumble at paying some 10s. or 12s. a day; the
servants, apart, Is. a day, except the first day, Is. 6d.,
to families, much less; and people may live at the
hotel at greatly reduced rate, if for any time. Some
families are staying here on this economical scale,
having the run of all the luxuries and comforts of this
vast establishment. The old men snap up the papers
as fast as they arrive (in the reading-room), and not
quite content with the ordinary at half-past two, which
is so uncommonly good, dine alone at six or seven, and
lunch on the Danube of " The Times."
The walks here are delightful ; the valley under the
viaduct on the east cliffs, and downs ; and nearer, on
the west cliff, where fine expensive villas already range
for a quarter of a mile, and are still prolonging. The
road with a notice, " private," goes up the face of the
cliff, from the street gate of the Pavilion, and is a good
constitutional breather, preparatory : one meets dashing,
handsome girls, linked in twos and threes, with an oc-
casional stray beau; but alas! the supply falls short.
How many of our charming lilies and roses " waste their
sweetness on the desert (watering-places) air !" at last,
any sort of two-legged animal is welcome.
There is a planked promenade at the end of the pier,
PRICE OF COALS. 7
close to the little lighthouse, where all the Folkestone
world promenade ; particularly of a Sunday evening, it
is crowded.
Coals and stone are unloading from two or three
brigs, the first at 225. the ton, " best ; " in London, we
may well growl at its being 32s. In vain "The Times "
inserts complaining letters of " Paterfamilias," and cuts
up that abomination, the corporation of London ; all
our anomalies and nuisances go on as a matter of
course from year to year who will outlive them?
The fishing-boats are coming in with herrings to
their homes all round the north face of the harbour.
This, and the whistling engines backwards and for-
wards across the pivot-bridge, give some life to the
scene: the town in its little valley, the cliffs on
each side, and the fine downs and hills beyond, in-
cluding the viaduct, are altogether very rich and pic-
turesque.
I slept delightfully in the western wing ; how good
the sleeping-rooms are all so clean, so handsome ! The
bright moon shed her last soft rays on my curtains ; the
day has been beautiful and calm, but towards morning
the surf on the beach began to murmur, and the wind
whistled down the chimney ; still fine, however.
Saturday) November 19th. Unless a man were
counting his minutes, I would not advise going to
Paris in " twelve hours." You must get up very
B 4
8 FRENCH DRAMA.
early be at extra trouble and you arrive at eleven
o'clock at night in Paris instead of half-past eight, that
is, fourteen hours and a half. But you may indeed
walk about Boulogne streets, or dine; as though you
may get there by two o' clock p. M. the same day, you
do not start by the train till five o'clock. I dined
with some of the fast travellers; we had a fine but
rather rough passage, which put one in mind how
much we want larger and swifter boats. Why are we
to be for ever behind our good go a-head cousins? we
were two hours and a half crossing ; a good hour too
much. While walking the deck, I tried to get into
chat with a triton of the minnows, a naval commander,
but this big man shook me off; great personages can-
not be too cautious, we carry this rule down to very
small fry indeed. Instead of hurrying on uncomfor-
tably with the flock of fast sheep, I went to the theatre
to see an opera (Galatea), and two clever one-act pieces, in
which the French so much excel, things we transplant
and spoil. The singing and acting both good ; the
music very difficult, without being at all charming. Most
of us have seen Handel's Galatea this is a very
funny affair : Pygmalion is indeed very much in earnest
(a good barytone, and splendid man); but the statue,
when she steps off her pedestal, is thin, ugly, and very
self-willed, drinks a great deal of wine, and will fall in
love only with her lover's slave Ganymede, a very lazy
FRENCH DRAMA.
fellow, who sings a capital yawning, sleepy song.
Midas, who comes to buy the statue, gets laughed at,
as " trop vieux et trop laid," loses his jewels to the lady,
who is running off with them and her sleepy choice,
when the terrible "artiste" catches them; then comes a
clever quartett, and the offended sculptor, to punish her,
replaces her once more, cold marble, on her pedestal.
They kept us till near midnight, a rare thing in
French country towns ; but what should engage our
especial notice, is the handsome way such things
are done in France, not like our starved, mean, mi-
serable country town theatres. There were thirty
musicians, all good, in the orchestra ; the theatre itself,
large and handsome ; the seats commodious, clean,
soft such as a lady well dressed requires ; much
better than even at our Princess's or Lyceum, or
indeed any of our best theatres in town, where one
finds all sorts of hard, dirty, green baize contrivances,
in narrow close benches, to pack people at the very
maximum of profit and discomfort, boxes and all. We
certainly are as fond of music and the drama as the
French, but in these grand essentials we improve very,
very slowly. Of course every thing is comparative ; we
are less ridiculously absurd than forty or fifty years
ago something less contemptible; but another wise
provision in France is the sum every town pays to
assist the respectability, at least, of its theatre. Bou-
10 FEENCH CUSTOM-HOUSE.
logne pays 12,000 fr., and the richer inhabitants take
boxes by the year ; this is true wisdom. In Paris, the
government, very properly, always supports three or
four of the leading theatres, thus insuring a certain excel-
lence, and does not leave such things to penniless adven-
turers, the vulgar, the tasteless, the ignorant, as with
us. It is truly a national concern; it has much to do
with our working mob; but when shall we take our
" genteel mob " who spoil every thing, into training.
Besides the lengthened chain you bear along with
you of a passport every where to be viewed, from the
moment one sets foot in France one feels no longer
quite at liberty. On landing you are rigidly passed
along between the ropes, and penned up in the search-
ing-room of the custom-house like culprits. Ladies,
however weak or delicate, still ill, it may be, and faint
from sea-sickness, all, even their children, are sternly
driven in and kept in often very long ; while all
the stronger push towards the passport and search-
ing counter, where three or four clerks and a commis-
saire inexorably sit and demand your passport where
your wrapper, your overcoat, even your pockets are
searched (felt). Ladies' small reticules do not escape.
If you cannot open whatever you have in your hand
instantly, it is taken from you and added to a heap
of small boxes, bundles, and carpet-bags which you
have brought on shore. All trunks and larger parcels
BOULOGNE. 1 1
are now charged a franc each, and you must return to
the baggage-room or send your keys by the commis-
sionaire for the further search of your trunks, often
very vexatiously done, things unpacked, and thrust
back anyhow they are not even as civil in manner
as our own searchers.
All this is an old story, but in a long series of
amicable years nothing of this senseless and disgust-
ing vexation is relaxed. Well, if we will travel, all
this must be expected, and a store of meekness and
philosophy laid in for the journey, together with an
unusually heavy purse.
I went to a small and rather comfortable hotel on
the quay, where they charged me within a very trifle
of as much as they did at the Pavilion, with a much
worse dinner. Boulogne is crammed full of hotels to
accommodate, us English especially. They reckon
about five thousand living constantly in the town ;
of course in all the best houses and apartments. Indeed,
for the last forty years Boulogne has been enormously
enriched by us English, and so far from any thanks
for it, we it is who are looked on as the obliged.
November 20th. The first class French railway
carriages are much more elegantly and comfortably fitted
up than ours; even the second class is well cushioned and
comfortable, and the fare not half what ours is first class
but 28 fr. (II. 2s. 6d.) to Paris, some 160 miles. They
12 BOULOGNE TO PARIS.
give us chaufpieds (long flat iron heaters) under our
feet, in addition to very comfortable sheepskins;
the heaters (the day so cold) changed at Amiens,
where the train stops twenty minutes, and passengers
breakfast or dine as they please.
I ran off across the " Boulevard de 1'Est " to have a
look at the beautiful cathedral, almost a mile off from
the " Gare " (station). A few miles on at Longeau
we are shunted and backed, and wait for the Lille
train, which is added to us. Sometimes the Boulogne
passengers are obliged to change carriages here. Just
here the country is very flat and wet, with long ponds
or pieces of still water, thence the name. The mea-
dows are covered by cloth, bleaching ; and heaps of
black peat contrast with the white cloth spread out in
long lines on the green.
Starting at half-past ten A. M. from Boulogne, we
arrive in Paris by five exactly, as promised, going along
the whole way very quietly and steadily, about twenty-
five miles the hour; the track up the valley of the
Lianne from Boulogne, through a tunnel under the hills
below Pontbrique, and along the lower sea levels of the
estuaries and small rivers of Montreuil and Abbe-
ville ; where it strikes off to Amiens, coming in on the
Oise at Beaumont, and along its banks by L'Isle Adam
and Pontoise ; all this country, as one approaches Paris
(on the Oise), is very rich and pretty, full of villages,
PARIS. 13
farms, and vineyards, which are first noticed towards
Creille and Beaumont : further north they hardly
answer.
At the station in Paris (just below Montmartre)
your trunks are searched again, not so rigidly, mine
was not opened but why searched at all? to see if
you have not by chance a goose, a shoulder of veal, or
any eatable thing, paying octroi, stowed away. Luckily
we foreigners are not so much suspected of this kind of
economy; but how absurd and vexatious for the French!
Our passports were not once asked for, a la bonne
heure ! I meant to have had a cabriolet, but an offi-
cious porter shouldered my trunk, and forced me into
an omnibus, a " specialite" to Meurice's Hotel, where it
drove into the court, and I paid a franc, but a citadine
would have taken me much better and quicker for
the same coin ; besides, I had to pay this officious,
ticketed, uniformed porter for handing up my luggage,
as the railway contrive not to do it by their own em-
ployes.
In this we are more liberal, and our porters are
extremely attentive. I suspect they rather expect
a small souvenir, though it is most expressly for-
bidden; in short, travellers will break through the
best rules, no matter about what, and victimise each
other.
Monday 2\st. I am as much at home in Paris as
14 HUE DE RIVOLI.
London. I am sorry to say here I have been doubly
ruined, by misfortune and by idleness, and lost all the
better chances in life, in a worldly sense. Its streets,
its hotels, and its people, how often have I seen changed !
I saunter along the Boulevards, or along the new street
de Rivoli opened now out to the ("Napoleon ") barracks,
just beyond the Hotel de Ville. It is like the shifting
scenes of a theatre ; one sits a melancholy spectator at
last, and about as comfortable and pleased as when the
play draws to its close in the last scene, of a cold or wet
night, you begin to draw on your great coat.
One must not talk of Paris, every body knows all
about it. Coming along (already this new street is
crowded with carriages, traffic, and people, even more, as
a thoroughfare, than the Boulevards), I stopped a moment
to admire the tower of St. Jacques : it is very beautiful
even in its dingy dilapidated state, like some long-lost
jewel just disinterred. They will soon repair and
brighten it up, so as to be in keeping with the facades
of the street.
I have just come from a grand musical festival in
aid of the Philanthropic Society of Musicians of the
Imperial Academy of Music. The band of ninety per-
formers and all the singers assisted ; the music Cheru-
bini's. The entrance to this treat only a franc, taken
within the church of St. Roch, for the best places and
seats. Those who could not or would not pay, still
MUSICAL FESTIVAL. 15
entered ; only kept outside certain barriers. Towards
the end the lady patronesses made a separate collection
in velvet purses (the quete) for the widows.
O how is the soul moved, rapt, at these grand, sweet,
solemn strains, within these noble domes, these hal-
lowed precincts, and amidst this pious, attentive crowd !
For me it was too much : tears betray a still-re-
curring anguish
" Whisper the
O'erfraught heart and bid it break."
Would that I could forget Forget ! such heartaches
cannot be forgotten. The worst of living long, beyond,
far beyond the ills flesh is heir to, is losing those we
love nay, even our tolerable friends and acquaintance.
Often of late years those beautiful lines haunt me
" Time, which steals something from us every day,
At last it steals us from ourselves away."
There was a grand mass at the same time at St.
Eustache, no doubt crowded as much as at St. Roch.
All such things are admirably arranged and conducted
in France ; no vulgar violence, no squeezing, pushing, or
scrambling ; every body behaves with an earnest, silent,
quiet decency. But if it were not so, it would be en-
forced by the gentlemen of the parish, in full dress,
wearing a chain; others with blue and silver bows and
staves, with the beadles and vergers "en grande tenue"
16 "THE EUROPEAN" BAZAAR.
This is rather the dull season, the court being at
Fontainbleau, and the weather cold and sombre. It
wants the sun and the carriages of the beau monde,
to set off the life of a great metropolis ; trooping the
guard too on the Place Carousel, and the music of a
morning, is missed ; so is the service at the Imperial
Chapel at the Chateau, of a Sunday morning, as under
the Bourbons. But the evenings are very gay, what
with the countless crowded restaurants, and cafes, and
theatres, all brilliantly lit up ; so many arcades and
bazaars, forming promenades just before and after six
o'clock (the great Parisian dinner hour).
There is a new bazaar, called " the European," in the
Passage Geoffroy, opposite the panorama on the Boulevard
de Gand,just opened, with a good many useful novelties
of every possible description; and a new restaurant,
called sl Diners de Paris," where two courses, dessert,
and a bottle of wine, all unusually good, are given for
three francs, five sous (2s. 8^.), so it is crammed to suf-
focation ; like a new play, every body about town must
go once at least. In the same way it is with a five-
act drama at the Gymnase, of young Dumas, entitled
" Diane de lys," creating a perfect furor ; happy those
who can pounce on a vacant pit stall at eight francs,
which I had to pay (the ordinary price about half).
The prodigious interest of this piece is derived, per-
haps, chiefly from the inimitable acting of Rose cherie
YOUNG DUMAS. 17
and Bressant ; but all the actors are excellent, and the
natural ease and ensemble perfect. The thing itself,
which ends in the husband shooting the lover dead on
the stage ! not in a duel, which he disdains, as beneath
him, with a painter is of thaj; kind which cannot well
be transplanted to our soil. It is indeed extremely
powerful; one might have heard a pin drop, every body
breathless now and then. The moral, however, quite
false, even absurd ; but it conies home to men's bosoms
and business here, thence the secret.
This young Dumas, like his father, revels in strange
and extravagant ideas, with an overweening vanity,
supported by great dramatic effect ; but very false
and mischievous. He wrote " La Dame aux Camelias "
to exalt the Lorettes ! and now he writes this to pull
down women of rank and station !
The somewhat stale clap-trap laudation of nobleness
in low life, and extraordinary merit, pride, and delicacy
in " artistes" with sensitive souls, peeps out rather crude,
in this as in most of the popular pieces of late years
we have tried it ; but it becomes a bore, and is indeed
a most flimsy conclusion.
The wonder of Paris for the moment, the prolonged
E-ue de Rivoli, ends at the handsome new barracks,
Napoleon, behind the Hotel de Ville. Many of the
shops are opened and houses finished, but it will take
another year to complete it. The immense masses of
c
18 TOUR ST. JACQUES.
houses, the old Hue de Cbatres, &c., in front of the
Palais Royal, are all swept off, and they are now pulling
down the whole block, on to the Rue St. Louis, and
Nicaise, where the great Napoleon (then First Consul),
was nearly stopped, by the infernal machine, going to
the Theatre Fran9ais. To the Rue St. Honore,and oppo-
site the public passages across under the Louvre, many
of these immense houses are quite new, or recently re-
decorated as restaurants, cafes, &c. ; but nothing stops
the Imperial edict, and this most useful embellishment
of the capital.
The tower of St. James is very fine ; it stands rather
in the way of the line of the street, and will be all the
more conspicuous : many interesting and curious stories
are attached to it, for which see guide books ; it must
be 200 feet high. I try to give some faint idea of this
Tour St. Jacques : I tried to sketch it at the opposite
corner board inclosures.
All along half the way is still encumbered by the
stones, plaster, &c. of the old streets, and the still strong
solid rafters and beams of the floors now sawing up,
with the notice " Bois a bruler."
All our papers have rung the changes on hotel
charges of late, ending with "Punch's" smartness; with
comparisons between ours and those of the Continent ;
but if one takes into account the miserable discomfort of
French or Italian hotels, and the greater cheapness of
FRENCH HOTELS. 19
their countries in every possible item, I really think our
own the most moderate, the least unconscionable. Here
is Meurices : one gets a dark, tile-floor'd, small bedroom,
half lit and aired (with abominable smells), on the small
dark court ; and as uncomfortable, uncarpeted a coffee
room, and no sitting room whatever, unless you take a
very expensive one. In fifty years' intimacy with our
wants and ways, the French still neither care for, nor in-
deed understand, that one cannot read or write in a cold
salle-a-manger with the tables always laid, no carpet, no
privacy, no any thing we think essential. We pay a
little less indeed for some things ; but if you dine here
it costs at least 8 or lOfr., 5 fr. for dinner alone, and
any tolerable wine as much more ; the " ordinaire " is
sad stuff, and you cannot have half a bottle : thus your
dinner is 8 or 10 fr., some wines ridiculously expensive;
Laffi tte or champagne, and not the best after all, often
excessively bad.
In short, avarice and meanness are the ruling con-
trivances at all hotels all over the world ; but at home
they cannot venture on the sang froid assurance of the
Continent ; where you are neither smiled on nor made
much of, as with us. Restaurants are even more ex-
travagant : my share in a party some years ago, at the
Rocher de Cancale, for a very quiet dinner (no cham-
pagne), and not a very good one either, was 38 fr.! At
c2
20 RAIL TO CHALONS.
the " Maison Dorde" now, or the " Trois Freres" the
reckoning is enormous.
One should not be later, if going south down the
Rhone, than September. It freezes, and all inevitable
discomforts of travel are made real sufferings. French
railway carriages are, however, very handsome, roomy,
and comfortable; to-day without chaufrettes> however,
and our feet very cold, to Chalons on the Saone; the fare
39 fr. 2 sous first class. We start at half-past ten, and get
there by nine at night, dining at Dijon at six ; so dark,
nothing could be seen of the town or surrounding coun-
try, as we thread the valleys of the Seine and Yonne.
About Tonnere it gets hilly and more picturesque, but
this is not a very hilly or interesting track. Murray
describes it, and was often referred to. We were all Eng-
lish except one young Frenchman, who kept his eyes
pretty constantly fixed on an " honourable " young lady,
who gave herself small exclusive airs towards us Eng-
lish as nobodies. This excessively provoked a fat
Devonshire lady, not particularly in the high world,
who was very curious to know who this little con-
temptuous girl could be, with her valet, her maid, and
fond papa ! Lord , going on a visit to his friend
Lord Brougham at Cannes.
There was another little episode which set me to think-
ing on the not very good-natured peculiarity of our
manners. The noble lord sat next Sir , M. P.
FINE YOUNG LADY. 21
for ; one of those ci-devant parliamentary friends
no doubt our ministers find it very essential to be civil to.
They chatted away together on the most friendly
footing, without the M.P.'s taking the slightest notice
of the young lady, who sat silent immediately opposite
and touching him. He was not introduced ; and so he
left them. When gone, she asked her father, in that
sort of tone only understood among ourselves, " Who is
that man?" All this is nothing, yet something ; it lets
one see that supercilious affectation, which goes on in-
creasing up to the throne ; taken up and dropt in the
most capricious way, according to the momentary figure
and power of individuals. Let us not talk of the
trifling and insincerity of the French : we certainly are
the most trifling, inconsistent people on earth, in our
higher circles, certainly. Yet I can well conceive
that, entirely free from the fear of sliding downwards,
nothing can be more charming, or more easy, or more
luxurious, than our most exclusive circle, nothing more
simple, true, and noble ; so entirely free from silly af-
fectations and restraints ; but this must be quite among
themselves. After all, this contemptible and insulting
pretension is much more bearable in our really high
people, than in that second set, our smaller gentry, and
still worse in that other supercilious, conceited set, the
writers of novels on our manners, whose affectation and
airs become infinitely more disgusting; who are tho
c3
22 SNOBS.
very people that keep up this childish up-turning of
noses, without that high breeding which rather softens
it in our nobility; who are eternally talking of "snobs,"
themselves the very greatest ; " fooling " those above
them, " to the top o' the bent." But I fear we are one
and all a nation of snobs, so prone are we to worship
any sort of title which carries with it a fine house in
town and country, fine carriages, and fine dinners.
The snob papers in " Punch " quiz those unfortunates
who attempt to get into the circle above them by
giving dinners they cannot afford, to be accepted by
even poor titled people as a monstrous favour ! The
thing is susceptible of being made ridiculous enough ;
one cannot help laughing at the small accompaniment
of agonising distresses; but to be cut by the very
people you would fain honour and court, begging their
good will and kindness on your knees, is sharper than
the serpent's tooth. The best of the joke is, that these
very "Punch" writers include themselves among the high
and mighty, asked to Major So and So's, or Mrs.
Colonel or General Blankcartridge's ball or " tea dan-
sante"
The really high world, with us, read all this, and have
acted occasionally the cutting part ; but to see it carried
out downwards into the society of writers, editors,
" artistes" and the smallest pretenders to gentility, seems
indeed the very acme of imbecility. Can one wonder
THE " THREE PHEASANTS.' 5 23
the lower world, always aping, always pretending,
should be treated like spaniels, at least they deserve it.
We dine very well at Dijon, 3 fr. a head and the
garqon. As we get towards the wine country, Bur-
gundy, &c., wine is not charged apart; a bottle of ordi-
naire is put between two, and very ordinary it is.
They kept us an unconscionable time at the Chalons
station, packing us in omnibuses, bag and baggage, and
we were driven about to various hotels. I would not go
to the " Park" because it was one of the advertised and
puffed ones, but slept at the " Three Pheasants" op-
posite, on the quay of the Saone, here a fine rapid river.
What the " Park " may be I know not, but let nobody
venture on the Pheasants Three. I had a damp bed, and
miserable breakfast in a dark, dank guinguette of a brick
floored room, smelling of smoke and wine, with every
thing dirty and of the worst sort.
Of a cold night the constant Carreau of this country
(tiled floors) and a damp bed, complete any other misery
of baggage or 'buses. I here caught a severe cold in my
head, of all things most inconvenient travelling. It is
never of any use asking if your bed is well aired, the
sheets dry ? The " Basin noire " only brought out the
latent humidity, and I had Hobson's choice.
I observe our knowing travellers go about with a
perfect load of coats, shawls, and woollen coverings,
strapped in immense bundles, which they have to lug
c 4
24 FRENCH STEAMERS.
about, adding to their other inevitable small troubles ;
but before I got rid of the cold weather I was obliged
to confess one could not have too much wool to put on,
however troublesome to lug about.
At Chalons, though flat near this town (on the right
bank of the Saone), the spurs of the Jura and the Alps
are seen, and we find it much colder than at Paris.
Next morning it snowed furiously ; no depth of winter
at Nova Zembla could be worse ; and thus we had to
embark at ten o'clock in the last of the three steam-
boats which start of a morning at five, at seven, and at
ten. Of all the modern stupid contrivances on water,
commend me to a French river steamer ; much in the
shape of a long horse-trough, so long as hardly to be
turned in the river, so narrow that you cannot stir on
deck or swing a cat in the cabins, so high and top-
heavy that they would infallibly upset at once were it
not for the paddle-wheels.
Of course in such weather all rushed to the cabin,
where we were packed like herrings, the side seats
barely leaving a passage to pass clear of the legs and
feet of the sitters ; this was the chief cabin, which cer-
tainly vied in villainous discomfort and cram with the
salle-a-manger before it, where half our live cargo betook
themselves, and where every body set to work " a la
fourchette" and " a la carte"
I made a merit of necessity ; and, giving up my most
ARRIVAL AT LYONS. 25
valuable cold seat (jammed between two bearded, Bur-
nous'd Frenchmen) to a handsome young English mar-
ried lady, was overwhelmed by thanks I little deserved.
Snowing all day, and boxed up in this way, who would
talk of the river or the scenery, of the various towns
and vine-covered hills we passed to Macon and on to
Lyons ; but even when I am delighted with landscapes
on sunny days, or combinations of the sublime or beau-
tiful, I shall rarely inflict descriptions on the gentle
readers I hope to have ; or with past histories of castles,
countries, and cities. Such things deserve a particular
study, are known sufficiently to most intelligent people ;
and besides, there are scores of books, particularly
Murray's, Bradshaw's, &c., in every body's hands.
Towards the evening it holds up; we creep on deck a
little in spite of the cold ; the scenery, one can see, is
growing more and more grand as we approach the hills
which border the Saone in its downward course, hills
covered with vines, the " Cote rotie" &c.
We arrive at Lyons in the dark, and make fast at a
kind of working pavilion of a custom-house on the right
bank of the Saone just above the stone bridge, where
the river falls in rapids, being low, over its rocky bed
in the suburb about opposite the centre of the city.
Here we were delayed an hour, in most admired con-
fusion, scrambling and squabbling in the freezing air
over the hold of the vessel, and only hindering each
26 HOTEL DE GENES.
other trying to get our luggage; the unhappy gentle-
men of many ladies and many trunks were to be most
pitied.
There seemed no sort of regulation whatever; the
crowd mixed with porters packed and struggling in the
dark to get a sight of the shape of each box, trunk, or
bag as they were slowly handed up on deck.
Luckily in this country, however dirty, rough, or
uncivil, there is no swell mob, no wilful mistakes ; so,
after an hour's misery, each got his things carried to the
" douane" where we were only asked if we had any
thing " a declarer" and allowed to pass on to the om-
nibuses (drawn up at each station). When seated, we had
to wait patiently another half hour while the last trunk
of the last traveller was put on the roof, enough to
break any ordinary omnibuses down ; and we are driven
across the bridge, and on across the Belle Cour Square,
the fashionable or west end, to the quays on the Rhone
side of the city.
I made a bad choice in going to the Hotel de Genes,
(strongly recommended by a touter on board), which I
found was rather a commercial Traiteur's, occupying the
entresol of a noble house certainly. Here the landlady
and Bonne were drying and ironing linen at the dining
tables ; most of the passengers were dropt at other hotels
on the way, particularly one nearly opposite, the Hotel
de 1'Europe ; but it is the custom at most of the hotels
LYONS. 27
to have a restaurant and talle-d'Jwte in the same room
and at the same hour, as you come south.
Lyons is a magnificent city, and its situation grand.
The houses on the river's sides along the quays are
mostly, as in the chief streets and squares, six and seven
stories high, looking, indeed, more rich and handsome
than on the Paris quays. But to have a clear idea of
the grandeur, extent, and beauty of the whole city and
landscape, one must recross the Saone over one of the
centre bridges (there are ten over the Saone, and six
over the Rhone), and go up the hilly suburb immediately
above the Cathedral of St. John's ; by the bye, cross
directly opposite, over the handsome stone bridge leading
from the Place de Belle Cour. The way is tortuous
and dirty enough upwards, up narrow, ill-paved streets
among the weavers, and under, as you ascend, immense
high old walls, backs of convents, and hospitals. Through
a terraced garden they have made a short cut recently,
up to the church of Notre Dame; the gilt statue
(colossal) of the Virgin Mary shines conspicuous, crown-
ing the spire. You pay a sou at the gate, and ascend to
the upper terrace of the garden, where you take breath,
and behold, looking eastward over the rivers, the city
and the near and distant mountains a view rich and
magnificent in the extreme. It was cloudy, and there
was some smoke from the numerous factories (for al-
ready there is an immense deal of coal burnt here), so
28 SUSPENSION BlilDGES.
that I could not see all quite so well as on a clearer day.
The hills following the Saone down on both sides, break
off on the east side, and range across the northern
suburbs over to the right bank of the Rhone, leaving a
four or five mile tongue of level land, on which the
body of the city stands between these fine rivers : not
that it occupies the whole space ; below the town, to
the confluence of the rivers, there is still a space of a
mile or two occupied by gardens, factories, and building
yards, &c., but these near hills are covered by villas and
terraced gardens, forts, citadels, arsenals, convents,
churches indeed the right bank of the Saone is a
densely populated suburb of the town, forming, as it
recedes above and below, the most beautiful feature as
you walk along the streets or quays. The suburbs
across the Rhone j;o the east, and the country beyond,
are flat and less attractive. I fancy few of us travellers
ever cross the old stone bridge of the Gillotiere. Almost
all the sixteen bridges are suspension ; all very neat and
handsome, of wire rope, looking much lighter than ours,
probably are even stronger ; loaded waggons cross most
of them. The lowest down over both rivers, in a direct
line and across the south-west end of the town, are among
the most recent improvements. They are named, in
compliment to the emperor, Cour et Pont Napoleon.
In a centre square forming here, they have just erected
a fine equestrian statue of the Great Napoleon.
IMPROVEMENTS IN FRENCH CITIES. 29
Nothing in French cities is more apparent than this
rapid improvement in every possible way of late years,
new streets, public buildings, bridges, municipal ar-
rangements for the public good, gardens, pavements,
roads of the environs, in spite of all their internal
troubles and ephemeral governments. It would appear
only to have tended to one end to make them richer
and stronger in every way as a nation than they ever
were. As to their increased budget and taxes, they are
at least equal and inevitable, and are, after all, a trifle
compared with ours.
The body of the town, its two great squares (Belle
Cour and Terreaux\ and its great arteries, the quays,
the streets if Bourbon " and " St. Dominique," and
central, north, and south, across the Place Belle Cour
to the Place Terreaux north, south to the new " Place
Napoleon," are soon mastered. They are the arteries,
the great thoroughfares of the body of the place ; an in-
tricate maze of narrow streets the sun hardly penetrates
even in midsummer.
There are about 16,000 troops in garrison here, and
the place is governed by their general, (at present the
prefecture is vacant). Just now it is Marshal Castellane,
a tall thin old soldier, who in full dress uniform generally
walks up and down near the band in the midst of the
crowd on the Belle Cour. He wears six or seven stars
and numerous clasps and crosses on his breast, quite a
30 REGIMENTAL BAND.
cuirass of shining honours. He was on his usual pro-
menade on Sunday, taking his hat off at every half
dozen steps to return salutes, and stopping occasionally
to speak to gentlemen and ladies of his acquaintance.
This sort of parade (not but that his carriage appeared
perfectly easy and free from affectation) may have its
uses politically, but the go-ahead "jeune France " have
very little respect for those in authority.
The young Commis, who thought " que mademoiselle
avait de beaux yeux et une belle chevelure " (the
honourable little Miss who left us at Dijon), and who I
met again on the Place, observed with a shrug, " tout
cela me fait pitie ! "
It was Sunday : the band (of one of the regiments)
consisted of about sixty, and played very fairly : I
could not but think of the difference between us and the
French in this. Here is a strictly economical French
regiment, has its music in this full handsome way; and
the equal and sensible orders of their Horse Guards
make it a pleasure the meanest may enjoy, far above
the caprice of colonels or lieut.-colonels. On their pro-
menades, as the day and hour fixed comes so does the
band, no matter what garrison, or if only one regiment
present. The contrast may not be so violent with our
regiments of the line ; but with our Guards, and in
London, of all places in the world ! who but must look
back with regret and contempt at their airs, and their
FRENCH AND GERMAN BANDS. 31
turn- out of some twenty or two dozen, when they do
condescend to play to our admiring crowds during the
season in Kensington Gardens ! Excessively mediocre as
is their playing (so feeble and thin, from want of requi-
site numbers), this same genteel, not fashionable, pub-
lic of " nobodies " are often disappointed, even at the
maximum of two fixed days each week ; this too, by
regiments which cost us, in officers and men, about ten
times as much as Continental ones ; whose officers be-
sides are all men of fortune (or should be, as they
affect to be), independent of their pay. It is useless
guessing at where the fault lies in particular ; govern-
ment should set all such things to rights. Few among
us know or care any thing about the matter. To be
sure every thing is comparative as to good, bad, and
indifferent, in this artificial world of ours, and ignorance
is indeed bliss. The French, though respectable in their
bands, are far inferior to the German ones in numbers
and in taste, if not in science.
One can never forget the rich harmony of a German
regimental band of ninety or one hundred strong
those glorious swells ! the crescendo, and the dimi-
nuendo.
The weather is very cold, and they say it has rained
a great deal ; and yet these two great rivers are un-
usually low. I walked through the Museum, round the
cloisters of its extensive court, full of well-arranged
32 MUSEUM AT LYONS.
relics of antiquity, tombs and inscribed marbles of the
Romans.
On the first floor a rich collection of coins and medals,
vases in terra cotta, women's ornaments, bracelets, rings,
in gold, statuettes in bronze, &c. This department on
the Rhone has been found rich in Roman remains. On
the second floor a very fair gallery of paintings by artists
of the town; many of them might well put to shame
some of our R. A.s. on our National Gallery walls,
who in thirty or forty years seem to do nothing but
repeat themselves, so that what merit they once had
becomes tiresome, even a defect.
But whether in painting or in statuary, in enlightened
taste of any sort, who would suspect that our Fine Arts
Commission, and those who lead, direct, and patronise
such things, were really wide awake ! that they had
ever been on the Continent had ever seen what is left
us of the Greeks and Romans and Egyptians, or even
the middle ages! Look at the frescoes and sculpture (after
all) of the chosen few in our new Houses of Parliament !
fit comment and corollary to the two small boxes all our
M. P.s cannot be crammed into, and our Peers can be
just found a scanty room for, and where they have
much ado to hear or see each other. To say nothing of
the vast sums thrown away to enable a quack in physics
to be a nuisance to both houses, by his blowings of hot
and cold, as if the architect had not sins enough of his
LYONS THEATRES. 33
own (on the whole) without this odious addition to
contend with; to delay, and to swell the hundreds of
thousands to the country only weakening and deform-
ing. But, setting aside the interior, no man with the
least eye to architectural effect can cross Westminster
Bridge, and riot at once perceive that the whole building
is too low platform, terrace, and all.
Its little elaborate frittering, particularly of the roof,
harmonises with nothing near it. It is pretty ; but we
should have had something grand noble. Immense
high towers will, I fear, only bring out its defects all the
more conspicuous.
But I am at Lyons. I went to the theatre, which is
large and handsome, with a band of at least sixty. I
am not orthodox in liking Robert le Diable much better
than the less melodious and sadder Huguenots, the music
of which is even more difficult. I thought it very well
performed ; but the French are inexorable critics. They
would only applaud the prima donna, Madame Barbot.
This is the grand theatre; there is a second, the " Celes-
tins" constantly filled; as are various concert-rooms,
professional and amateur.
Walking about a good deal, I see nothing of a squalid,
lean manufacturing population, as I rather expected ; on
the contrary, the crowd every where clean and comfort-
ably clothed, and not a beggar ! Begging is very properly
strictly forbidden in all French cities ; not as with us rrf
D
34 ENGLISH GRIEVANCES.
forbidden, and allowed to go on under the noses of our
latitudinarian police ; no doubt partly from the con-
tradictory orders they receive, at least the want of preci-
sion in them, partaking of that comfortable harum-
scarum which guides all our public affairs.
I am, as I write on, conscious of what is likely to be
remarked by my readers, where my comparisons, which
in truth I cannot help making, are so often against
ourselves : but, much as I love my country, much as I
enjoy many things still left in common among us, still
given us as blessings from heaven, yet would I rather
sin in underrating what may be a matter of taste or a
doubtful good, than run into that sort of insipid praise of
every thing left behind me, and contempt of all foreign
excellence, which too often marks the track of us
travelling English.
I can only glance comparatively at our brutalities,
our ignorances, our anomalies, corruptions, nuisances,
and absurdities, which any one among us reads of more
at large set forth in our morning papers with a minute-
ness, a truth, and fidelity which one would think could
allow of no difference of opinion so monstrous, so
mischievous, that one wonders any government, even
the most imbecile, corrupt, or barbarous, could allow them
to exist a single day. We are in the habit of setting off
our personal freedom, and " glorious constitution,"
under which no man has any choice whatever, more than
INDIFFERENCE OF PARLIAMENT. 35
on the Continent, where despotism, after all, only falls
now and then heavily on a very few of the upper class*
and is, at least, as years roll on, wisely and rapidly ex-
tending, as in France, amelioration to the million,
unobstructed by the interested efforts and clamour, of
certain classes as with us making reform of any
sort, or good to the whole, so difficult so impossible I
These miseries are not imaginary. They beset us in
our streets at our doors; they impoverish, poison, and
degrade London, and more or less all our cities, our
country towns, every village, every man !
In this enlightened age, we should naturally look to
the House of Commons and House of Peers for an
instant remedy for such crying evils. It lies with them
as positively as with the most powerful autocrat
and they do nothing nothing most essential. One
prime minister succeeds another, the mere automaton of
the day. He talks, indeed, is tired to death talking,
but session after session does nothing. Even the
attempt at any good is frittered away by opposition, and
the most eagerly desired blessings prayed for by the
multitude, are shelved.
And so we rub on, eat and drink (as we can), from
year to year, with full liberty to publish, and read, and
feel all our defects. But not to redress them ! there lies
the eternal ministerial difficulty.
D 2
36 REFORMS GENERALLY SHELVED.
We are now talking of a further reform, which, as I
write, is cunningly shelved.
Will any kind stickler for the powers, the mind, and
the things that be, tell me that these are mere specks
in the sun? that the whole civilised world is full of
nuisances? that nobody and nothing is perfect? Sir, I
am your most humble servant: who shall gravely answer
that?
Nay, am I not travelling amidst lots of miseries and
nuisances all equally wanting putting to rights? Yes,
yes ; it is a great consolation and an excellent apology
for ourselves 'tis enough.
37
CHAP. II.
THE RHONE. AVIGNON. INLAND SEA OF THE BERRE. MAR-
SEILLES ITS BASTIDES AND CABANONS. COMMERCE. POLICE
COURTS. THE PEOPLE. THE COUNTRY. TOULON. THE
DOCKYARD AND PORT.
LAST days of November. Very cold, but sunshiny.
The Rhone is so low that several sandbanks are dry
opposite the town, and the steamer is obliged this
morning to remain below the town on the Saone side,
instead of its usual place on the Rhone quays.
As usual, we are all packed in omnibuses, and put down
in the mud at the river side before daylight, always an
hour before starting. The boat of the same description
as those above from Chalons, and all the best places care-
fully taken possession of by the French ; we were a
good many of us English. The whole very crowded and
disagreeable from want of room ; as to any attention or
civility such as one finds in our worst-regulated steamers,
that was quite out of the question. This Rhone Steam
Company seem to give no orders to their servants of
that kind.
The hills on the right bank of the Saone still accom-
pany us down the Rhone, below the junction of the
two rivers, where we shoot under the viaduct, across the
D 3
38 ST. ETIENNE.
Saone, of the railway to St. Etienne, a town below,
famous for its ribbon factories. For some miles this
railway follows the river side. St. Etienne has grown
into great importance of late years ; its population now
exceeds 100,000. The trade between its manufactories
and those of Lyons very great, and the trains on its rail-
road, of fifteen leagues, very frequent, particularly in
goods. The railway follows the right bank of the Rhone
some distance down the river.
As we proceed downwards, the hills on the right
hand are responded to by others on the left, all with
more or less picturesque beauty and effect, most where
their rugged summits are bare rock; but they seem
every where cultivated in vines, maize, or grain of some
sort, wherever possible. As we proceed, particularly
after the ancient city of Vienne, these hills swell to
mountains, with their frequent towns, villages, and
castles on both banks, which I thought often as beautiful
as the Rhine. We very frequently pass under suspension
bridges, even at the smaller towns ; thrown across of
late years. The body of water and breadth of the
Rhone on the whole rather disappointed me, to be sure
it is said to be unusually low, we dragged over the
gravel more than once ; and at the mauvais pas of the
Pont de St. Esprit; the general breadth of the river, I
should say, was about five hundred yards, not more
than the Saone, or itself above their junction. A strong
ARRIVAL AT AVIGNON. 39
cold wind from the north has been following us all day,
increasing as we descend, and so sharp that few of us
can manage to keep on deck long at a time. By the
time we got down to Avignon it was almost a storm ;
this is the t{ mistral" which, sweeping down the valley of
the Rhone, is so much dreaded on the plains below,
about Marseilles, and all across to Montpellier west-
ward, as well as the country to the coast towards the
Alps.
In travelling, one should shake off all ideas of ordinary
comforts, they are out of the question ; but it is pro-
voking enough when one's discomforts are increased, as
in these boats, so stupidly and unnecessarily to say
nothing of their own peculiar unfitness for floating at all.
There is a large island which divides the river into two
branches opposite Avignon ; its left branch washes the
walls of the town, but, owing to the lowness of the water
just now, they are obliged to land the steam-boat pas-
sengers three miles off on the branch the furthest side of
the island, in a spot as wild as Australia. Being dark
by this time (past five), and bitter cold, the prospect of
what next, as nothing was explained, was any thing
but agreeable. On making fast to a temporary plank
jetty, a parcel of rough porters rush on board, and, as
at Lyons, make confusion worse confounded. We had
heard of these fellows demanding all sorts of unconscion-
able sums for carrying a trunk a few yards in this
D 4
40 AN UNFORTUNATE AMERICAN.
wilderness, that is, to where all the string of omnibuses
are drawn up in a meadow near this temporary landing.
However, it turned out better than we expected so far,
and patience perforce gets through a good deal. My
fellow was content with a franc for carrying my trunk
to the 'bus, where there was an immense confusion and
gabbling of unknown tongues. When at length seated,
I found it impossible not to laugh at some of the un-
happy ones, whose baggage was carried to the wrong
'buses, or they themselves thrust into the wrong one.
A woe-begone American youth in a knowing wide-
awake, a transatlantic Verdant Green, could not find his
luggage, being innocent of any French ; all his talk in
good Bostonian English, and explanations of kind
fellow travellers in bad French, only made matters
more hopeless. Next day, it turned out that he at last
walked the whole way across the island with one of his
boxes, paying a guide, who, in a dismal spot, he had
strong apprehensions, he said, would turn out what he
looked excessively like a real footpad ! All this, and
fifty mishaps of others, was duly related next morning
at the Hotel de 1'Europe, at breakfast ; however, being
safe and sound, our cousin found after all that he had lost
nothing beyond five francs, paid for hunting up his
missing baggage.
The whole country, as we descend towards the
Bouches du Rhone, is one immense flat, with the spurs
OLD PALACE AT AVIGNON. 41
of rocky mountains framing the picture. Avignon on
the river is sometimes flooded in the lower parts of the
town ; three years ago, the salles-a-manger in this hotel
were flooded half way up to the ceiling.
The old palace on the terrace, so long the Papal resi-
dence, is the most remarkable thing here ; it is now used
as a gaol, a barrack, and a church. I ran up to this
terrace; the morning a bright sunshine, though bitter
cold set off the fine surrounding view to great advan-
tage, one sees an immense distance on all sides. The
country rich in villages, country seats, and careful cul-
tivation ; besides the interest naturally attached to the
first look at any new spot, extended here by the im-
mense sweep over the plains west, to the borders of the
Durance, south, including the celebrated Vaucluse to
the north.
How different things turn out from all one's pre-
conceived notions of cities or countries ! how useless all
descriptions ! Truth itself is not always truth, every
thing depending on circumstances of infinite shades.
Thus, far from wishing to linger on the Rhone, I was
too happy to get into a first class carriage next morning
(full of English, indeed all along we have formed more
than half the first class travellers), on the railway to
Marseilles, by Terrascon and Aries ; of which towns we
have only a flying view, and now and then glimpses of
the river.
42 VEGETATION.
Flocks of sheep are fed on these plains, where nothing
but a stunted grass will grow ; this is the much es-
teemed prts saU mutton. We now begin to see the
mulberry tree, still in leaf, and looking very like our
apple trees, in the distance ; olive trees now thicken in
the landscape too. These, with the vine and a few
firs on the rocky hills, form the only shade of this whole
country. I forget the fig, but just now its bare crooked
branches scarcely catch the eye.
The exceedingly even surface and perfect level of this
vast plain, which divides the mouths of the Rhone, far
as the eye can reach to the distant blue mountains east
and west, is very remarkable ; in some spots it is covered
by pebbles, once rounded by the ocean's wave.
Nothing can be better than this railway; the time
kept to a minute, and this easy flight, stopping at Ter-
rascon and Aries but a few minutes, extremely agree-
able. At the former town one sees King Rene's chateau
very handsome it is : both these towns date from the
middle ages, and are remarkable for quaint, picturesque
old houses, towers, monasteries, and churches. This,
however, applies to the whole country ; every town and
village, if not rich in some Roman gateway, or viaduct,
aqueduct, or bridge, is still curious in its mediaeval walls
and ruins, with its story attached. The railway crosses
the Durance, and follows the line of the Rhone to Aries,
then across the plain to the rocky hills which encircle
GRAND VIEW NEAR MARSEILLES. 43
the inland sea, or Etang de Berre, a vast estuary or
lake.
Approaching Marseilles, the views on all sides, as we
get among the hills, grow more strikingly beautiful.
These hills increase in size, and their summits, limestone
rocks, crown the heights of rich valleys, particularly at
St. Hamas, near the lake, where there is a Roman gate-
way, or arch, and bridge still entire ; and below this (the
village on the hill side very pretty) extends the immense
estuary or salt lake an inlet of the Mediterranean,
closed, however, externally, but having all the appear-
ance, at first sight, of the sea itself.
In a few minutes more, as we fly along, we run under
the northern rocky hills which circle round Marseilles,
I think the longest tunnel in the world longer a
good deal than our Box tunnel. We now come in really
on the Mediterranean, the Bay of Marseilles, and, with
a gentle sweep of three or four miles among country
houses and gardens, reach the station, in an elevated
position of the city, above the Cour d'Aix, and tri-
umphal arch, and near a large cemetery (made in 1836).
The day beautifully bright and pleasant ; the varied
views of the sea, the rocks, the thousands of small villas
and country houses, here called bastides, with their
walled gardens, showing us an inexhaustible richness on
all sides, strike like magic on leaving the gloom of the
tunnel ; and only ending very a propos where we had
44 SITUATION OF MARSEILLES.
something else to think of, trunks and tickets, omni-
buses and hotels.
Continental views away from the sea-side never stand
taking in detail cannot bear inspection ; the illusion is
destroyed as you approach. A barn of a place, and
withered long grass, and high stone walls look all very
well in the far distance ; but soon one longs for our own
home, meadows, and lawns, our neatness, comforts,
luxuries: here, to be sure, we have grandeur one cannot
well fancy any thing finer than the site of Marseilles;
an inner and outer port, the bay sheltered by two
islands outside, the Ratonneau and Chateau d'Iff, with
a semicircle of rocky hills swelling to mountains framing
in the extensive suburbs and city. To see this grand
whole at a glance, sea, city, and country round, the
shortest and most pleasant way is to walk up the
' ' Cour " to the " Mount Buonaparte ; " to the left, over
the harbour's mouth and the Citadel St. Nicholas ; it is
indeed a glorious panorama. The inner harbour which
runs a mile into the heart of the city, as full as it can
cram of ships, the rocky circling coast to the north-
west, the countless garden houses rising from the
suburbs and extending on their hills on all sides for
miles to the picturesque rocky frame all round, steamers
and sailing vessels coming in and out, complete this
most magnificent scene.
This " Cour " or Boulevard Buonaparte is the nearest
MARSEILLES. 45
comeatable walk out of the upper end of the fashionable
street St. Feriol. The ascent is gentle at first, but pretty
steep when within the kind of garden, up which the
walks zig-zag to the column Buonaparte, now a broken
neglected pedestal. I came every day to enjoy this
beautiful view, which fine weather and flying clouds set
off to the greatest advantage ; besides, one gets clear of
the dirt, the smoke, and the most disagreeable smells of
the streets and harbour, which, having no current
through it, is made even a greater abomination than
our own poor dear Thames, in spite of good stringent
regulations.
Marseilles is full of fine houses, giving one, indeed, a
good idea of the riches of her merchants; but the streets
are very irregular, narrow, and dirty ; the foot pave-
ments neglected, hardly known of old, are still very
badly attended to, and whatever the sanitary regu-
lations may be, filth of all sorts meets you at every
step. At this season, the first week in December, there
is indeed more sheer mud and less of those dreadful
smells than in the warmer weather; but they are bad
even now I find occasionally. To add to all this, night
carts (there are no sewers, a grand one to encircle
the harbour is in contemplation) go about during the
day collecting from door to door : on them is painted
" salubrite publique"
The heart of the city round the harbour is very
46 ITS BASTIDES AND CABANONS.
densely peopled ; blind alleys and back streets, five
yards wide, with houses six stories high, intersect each
other, keeping out the sun, and keeping in all sorts of
noxious vapours. They have gone on increasing in
trade and riches even from the beginning of this our
present century, in spite of war, revolutions, dreadful
epidemics, even plagues; the city itself and suburbs
covers three times the ground it did forty years ago,
and its inhabitants are doubled at least, so that one
would at least expect something better for the " salu-
britd publique."
All the richer and leading people, however, have
their country seats close by on the terraced hills all round,
quite clear of these disagreeables : during the summer
they are only in town during business hours, the women
and children at their " Bastides," as their country boxes
are called. Omnibuses run up and down these hills in
all directions to a distance of three and four miles, so
that even the moderately well off easily get in and out :
some of these Bastides are very small, with but three or
four tiny rooms. A smaller set still, perched on their
walled terraces or bare rocks, with a fig, and vine, or
an olive are called Cabanons. Both the Bastides and
Cabanons are very generally shut up during the winter
season, when the families remove into town, for even the
rich practice a very exact economy ; one sees very few
private carriages in the streets, those above omnibuses
COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY AND TRADE. 47
taking cabs (mostly handsome broughams), and at the
same rate as the Paris ones. I find them behindhand
with their shops, except a few in the Rues St. Feriol
and Paradis, in furniture, silk mercers, ornamental por-
celain, and gilt bronze ; their grocers' are miserable dens,
tea is bought at their druggists': much as it was an
age ago.
The harbour's face on the north side is filled by slop
sellers, and grog shops as a matter of course, counting
and warehouses ; the quays, always a very active, busy
scene, crowded with curious groups of Greeks, Turks,
Arabs, and specimens of all the Mediterranean shores.
The commercial activity is very great, loading and
unloading, the shipping lying in tiers close packed,
their bows and sterns touching the wharves. On fine
days large spaces are occupied by men winnowing,
measuring, and sacking great piles of wheat with sieves
hung from a triangle ; all the produce of the East and
West is carrying in every possible way to and from the
ships and warehouses; dried fruits, cotton, liquors,
wines, hardware, china, and all the vast aggregate
called dry goods.
The chief trade lies with the Adriatic and Archi-
pelago, Spain and the United States, Algiers and
Alexandria, and some little with England ; with us, on
the contrary, there should be the greatest, to our mutual
benefit. It is a curious thing to find, so far on in the
48 FRENCH AND ENGLISH STATESMEN.
century, leading statesmen on both sides checking,
indeed hindering, that beneficent intercourse which
should reciprocally flow in ; but so it is. With us every
good move meets difficulties from bad laws and the
tender immunities of monopolies ; ministers can do
nothing without first sweeping off, by acts of Parlia-
ment, these barbarous hindrances which beset our ports
and damp the spirit of our sailors and merchants, hurt
our shipping, and raise the price of all good things to
us, while it blocks the outlet of our own manufactures
and natural products. Our free trade enactments are
yet far from free : the first step to a really free trade
would be sweeping off all custom-houses and that army
of drones, custom-house officers, vide that pleasant
lawsuit of last summer, the tyranny of our custom-
house triumphing, after all, over our long vexed and
impeded merchants.
The French of late, with an absolute government,
still keep up their old absurd and hurtful system
of enormous duties and prohibitions; any thing but
friendly, though our fleets are acting in concert, and
it is the fashion happily, at this moment, to pay each
other compliments, rather hollow, however. We per-
sist in not taking their wine and brandy, and they will
not have our iron, coal, and cotton ; and thus one sees
very little of our flag in their harbours : the Americans
have almost entirely superseded us.
However, as far as passengers go, we have a pretty
MEDITERRANEAN PACKETS. 49
brisk intercourse here, and a few of our merchantmen
are seen in the port occasionally. Indeed there is a
constant current of travellers across France to and from
the steam-boats here to all parts of the Mediterranean.
The French steamers start regularly for Algiers, Alex-
andria, the Adriatic, and Constantinople. There are
Spanish steamers too to the neighbouring Spanish ports
all round to Cadiz, a regular line of French steamers to
Italy, and another line of Italian steamers running to
Naples and Sicily ; of late we have a line of steamers
here too, rather larger than the French, every two
weeks making the passage round the Italian coast,
stopping at Genoa, Leghorn, Civita Vecchia, Naples,
and Malta.
Our own countrymen and women may, I think, stand
for a good third of their passengers, in all these various
boats, except perhaps to Algiers, to which shore we are
not particularly tempted as yet. I am told the English
boats are the best the Yectis and Valetta they cer-
tainly are the most liberal, as the passage is the same (6/.
to Naples) in both; the English boats including meals, the
French charging them additional. They make the
regulations too, on embarking, very expensive and vexa-
tious, by compelling passengers to take their clumsy, but
safe, roomy boats, and harbour watermen, who ply at
the stairs at the lower end of the Canebiere Street (the
head of the harbour), when one might so much easier
E
50 THE CANEBIERE.
walk on board! besides the usual passport, and "permit"
nuisance, which our consuls are so improperly allowed
to countenance, by deriving an additional fee from the
imposition ; in short, they (our consuls and the police)
play into each other's hands, to add, wantonly, one
would think, to the inevitable disgust of travelling on
the continent.
December 8th. The weather for this last week has
been constant sunshine, and just cool enough to make
walking pleasant. The body of the town is soon
known, and the few squares and streets most fre-
quented, all near the port itself.
The one great street and thoroughfare most crowded,
and, as a starting point, where all the great hotels and
cafes are, is the Canebiere, a short, wide street, opening
on the inner harbour. Of late years they have con-
structed an outer harbour (hardly yet completed), of great
capacity, for their increased trade, called the (De la)
Goliette, close to the north of the northern fort of
St. John, at the inner harbour's mouth. This outer
grand harbour is very extensive, stretching to the foot
of the rocky cliff of the old quarantine fort or lazaretto,
removed lately to the larger Island Ratonneau, outside
the Chateau tflff. The Place Royale, the Rue Paradis,
and the Rue St. Ferriol, open out on the Canebiere,
which, running in an easterly direction upwards, crosses
the Cour St. Louis (a sort of boulevard, stretching to the
ENVIRONS OF MARSEILLES. 51
triumphal arch, north), cutting the city in two, up
the narrow Rue de Noailles, and upwards along the
Allee Meilhan, into the new streets of the eastern
suburb, every where rather up hill all round, no matter
what street you may fancy to explore.
The bright sun gilds and makes every thing beau-
tiful. I have already talked of the great beauty of the
environs of Marseilles ; that is, when from any eminence
you take in the whole scene, far and near, framed by
the picturesque rocky hills and mountains, four and six
miles off. But when you get out of the dirty streets (as
is every where the case on the continent), you find your-
self in a muddy or dusty narrow road, shut in between
two high stone walls ; in vain you walk a mile or two
out any one suburb, you can see nothing. However,
by perseverance, and by taking various omnibuses
(fares 9 sous) running out of town, (their stands are
chiefly in the Cour St. Louis, and near the Canebiere)
to the distant villages, north to St. Louis, north-east
to La Ease, south-east to St. BarnaM (all saints), and
south to St. Margariteand the Prado, one manages at
last to get rid of these eternal stone walls and hanging
terraces. Some of the villas (bastides) are pretty
enough, in their small walled gardens shaded by firs,
vines, figs, and olive trees ; but grass plots and trim
lawns, as with us, are of course out of the question, all
such things are here very much in the rough. The
2
52 FOUNTAINS AND RESERVOIRS.
most wealthy seem to keep no gardener; and at this
season most of their country houses are shut up en-
tirely, and left to take care of themselves. I see a good
many to let and sell, and lots of inviting " lots " for
sale, freehold, to build on.
To be sure this is an extraordinary cold winter, but
in this hot climate, where every thing during summer
and autumn is burnt up, where the roads are an inch
or two thick in dust, and the white rocks every where,
together with stone walls, are reflecting back the sun's
rays that one great blessing of life, water, is very
ably aud abundantly supplied; fountains are every
where spouting in the streets, and the gutters rushing
beside you. The great aqueduct coming from the
north (beyond the range of rocky hills in sight, sup-
plied by the Durance), crossing at one spot " Roc
Favoured on stupendous arches 240 feet high, much
exceeding the grandeur of the " Pont du Garde ; " it is
led along a canal on the summit of the northern hills of
the " Aguelades," and is brought into reservoirs com-
manding the highest parts of the city, in a never-failing
abundance, paid for when laid on, but prodigally
supplied to every body in the streets : they have re-
cently made a vast covered filtering tank on the high
platform near the Colonne Bonaparte.
But such are the ample dimensions of this body of
water, that it supplies the villas in its passage, to all
M. DE CASTELANE. 53
who will be at the expense of pipes, and under certain
regulations. I saw it in great profusion in the gardens
of M. de Castelane, at Les Aguelades, and several of
his neighbours, and at the " Chalet " tavern and garden
near the village, where it is the fashion to go in parties
of pleasure.
This is one of the spots, a mile and half north of
St. Louis, cited for its fine coup d'oeil. M. de Cas-
telane (there is an omnibus up to his gate, which I
missed, and went a steeple chase across under the rail-
road) is quoted as one of the millionaires of the city ;
he is brother to the marshal. He comes out of town
every evening to his shades and cascades here ; but we
should call his grounds miserably kept ; the walks, the
parterres, the cascades, the flowers, a sort of negligent,
weedy wildness, not quite disagreeable, by way of
change, to an Englishman. They were, though so very
late in the year, making hay a precious thing in this
country in his meadow below his garden; through
which, by the way, he very liberally allows every body
to pass to and from the village beyond him. I could
only get snatches of the view here, so I continued on
up through the steep, dirty street of the place, to the
rocks and firs half a mile beyond, to a stone bridge over
the canal, whose waters, clear, deep and swift, were
hurrying on to the city, well able to afford all sorts of
garden fountains in its course along these hills ; here,
E 3
54 CEMETERY.
indeed, the view is delightful, but so it is wherever one
can reach any unobstructed, rising ground. It is a
bright sunny Sunday, people dressed, and many shops
shut, a custom gaining ground since the renewed
empire.
I take a fresh ramble every day. I have just been
musing, melancholy enough, about the cemetery, near
the railway station, in the upper part of the town,
beyond the arch (Porte d'Aix).
They were bringing in some poor creature's remains,
followed by a group of humble friends ; a priest and
cross headed the procession till it turned aside to the
<( fosse commune," where, an outward shell taken off, a
plain deal board coffin was quietly slid down into the
trench (filling by degrees, as is usual in the larger
towns).
Here we all bent our heads uncovered, while an old
man, apparently the nearest relative, said a short
prayer, and so an end. The priest's part of the cere-
mony had previously ceased, I conclude, at some church,
for he had left. The railway sweeps round this emi-
nence to the north, going under the hills near the defile
of " Les Egalades," under these hills runs the long
tunnel I have mentioned.
The front face of Marseilles is nearly north and
south to the sea, every where a steep rocky shore ; a
kind of indurated clay in some spots (though generally
OURSONS. 55
all these hills are limestone), mixed with ocean pebbles,
a conglomerate. Near the sea baths, about a mile out of
town, at the circle of the Octroi, guarded at every
quarter or half mile by a custom-house officer, I came
out on the rocks by the beach, where a fine stream
joins the sea. Here I observed several parties, ladies
and gentlemen, eating a curious kind of shell-fish called
" oursons" (bear's cubs), very much resembling a chesnut
bur in its outward black husk, for it is not a shell, but
a tough, black, prickly integument, which the fisherman
cuts open, and comes at the fish, a kind of reddish lobes,
like fish- row or blubber, or whatever it is; it clings to the
rocks, and people eat it, they say, to give an appetite !
Oysters here are scarce and dear, which may account for
this sort of queer substitute. I found it eaten all round
the coast of Italy to Naples, and every port badly sup-
plied with fish ; one hardly ever sees a lobster, prawn,
or crab, or turbot, brill, cod, or salmon, a sort of
coarse trout and whiting, and a few soles only. Besides
this stream to the north of the city, there is another
small river, the Garret, which, running round the
eastern suburbs, joins a third, the Haonne, and falls
into the sea on the south shore at the Prado, which is
the fashionable drive and promenade of the town ;
omnibuses go to it every half-hour, out the Rue St.
Ferriol: in this southern suburb, and onto the village of
St. Margarite, to the left, are said to be the most
V 4
56 THE STKEETS.
favoured " bastides " of the merchants. It is, indeed,
less hilly near the town, though leading to the highest
mountain, the Penne, and gives them more space for
larger gardens ; but those very bare, abrupt hills, and
bald, rocky precipices overhanging the sea, to the south
of the harbour, and under the high mount of " Notre
Dame de la Garde " (a thousand yards up the rocks,
above the garden and Colonne Buonaparte), it is, which
to me constitute the great charm of the spot.
Perhaps it is that I am tired of the fat, earthy, clayey,
dead level of London, and our market gardens, with
our smoke and damp. Thence, for a time at least,
these rugged, bare, health -breathing, lofty contrasts
delight. I ignorantly wonder at the bad taste of their
owners, shutting up their villas, and even their " ca-
banons " of perhaps two rooms, to go and begrime
themselves in the dirty narrow streets below in the city.
Nor are they without smoke ; of late coal is much
burned, and factory chimneys send forth their black
poisons in all directions, so that more than once, when
it has been rather calm, I found a tolerably thick
curtain of smoke hiding half the body of the town. It
was so at Lyons, and Paris itself is beginning to have
its clear skies tinged.
Few are interested about statistics, besides I have
no data to go by, and know not a soul to ask a question
of. I find this city now is said to contain 200,000
THE THEATRE. 57
souls; and, as to its commerce, one may guess it is
thriving, from the outward signs of its two harbours full
of shipping, and the constant coming and going of
merchantmen, and by the crowds daily collected at the
exchange on the Place Royale, even to overflowing, up
the Hue Paradis ; other signs of opulence may be seen
at the two theatres, filled nightly. The grand theatre
has an opera every other night. I went to see
" Moise " (Rossini's) excellently done in every way.
The singing, the dresses, the ballet, and the orchestra
of eighty to ninety musicians ! equal to our own Queen's
theatre ; the band more numerous ! This is a very
large, handsome house, and well filled by a well-dressed
audience. I looked round the premiere circle and
private boxes in search of an English face ; I think
there must have been a few, though our young men
abroad, by letting their beards grow, &c., make them-
selves doubtful at a distance ; yet I could detect here
and there one of ourselves, by a certain affected car-
riage, a want of repose! and a too marked use of the
opera glass. Don't let us fancy our manners are not
observed, and severely criticised by the Continent ; we
are certainly not conspicuous for ease or grace ; our
constant affectation of some sort at home contrasts very
lamely abroad in loquacious bad French or Italian ; an
incessant puerile bustle and curiosity, and a straining
after originality, much better let alone, as an "original"
58 BAD FKENCH.
is always said in contempt of any one in France. The
sooner we learn to be very quiet, and say very little,
the better.
A professor here remarked, that the " institute " were
indeed very good-natured to sit so long patiently under
the boring of a certain law lord's bad French, and most
uninteresting matter; but this is of a very great original,
who wanted to be a lord and a French citizen at the
same time !
Another sign of prosperity here is the total absence
of beggars, begging is indeed forbidden, but I do not
see such rags, such utter reckless destitution, in any of
the narrow meaner streets, or the more lonely suburbs,
as among ourselves; indeed I have not seen a single
being in rags, or unmistakeably a beggar. This sets
me to thinking on that line of Pope's about govern-
ments :
" Whate'er is best administered, is best."
Here is an active, unmistakeable comment on the
scribbling of the age among ourselves, of ten thousand
brilliant, but very worthless speeches in " both hovses."
In spite of various wars, civil wars, changes of dynas-
ties, in spite of much ignorance, much hot-headedness,
much religious superstition, and even, worst of all, much
scarcity this winter, both in bread and wine, here is a
land, whose government we affect to despise or pity, that
BEGGARS. 59
has infinitely more reason to despise or pity us ! They
retain at least the solid good to the poorest creature;
they have enough to eat, and are decently clothed ;
their police courts drag to light nothing approaching
the dire distress, nor the excessive, heartless brutality of
our lowest classes. What signifies diversity of ignorant
or prejudiced opinions ! It is indeed high time for us
to be awake to facts, our opinions would be too ridicu-
lous were they not too melancholy, but we love our
opinions, we live on and enjoy them : very well mean-
time " clothes, food, and fire" for the multitude becomes
every day a more and more serious question, only
helped a little of late by the tide of emigration. Crime
is multiplied even by the very laws made to redress it.
Beggars swarm in our streets, beset our doors; the
children of our back slums and blind alleys, left to run
wild, pour out and commit all sorts of petty mischief,
besides their noise, quite unchecked by the police, who
stalk about holding familiar conversations with pot-
boys, maid servants, or with the knots of idlers hanging
about our taverns and gin palaces, where there can be
no doubt they are too often treated by the most good
for nothing characters, and made safe!
It is now the middle of December, and though warm
in the sun occasionally, yet it is oftener very cold and wet.
To-day I attended a lecture, very thoroughly and well
given or rather a good honest lesson by the professor of
60 LECTURES.
Arabic here, M. de Salles. There were however only five
in his class, the government rather discouraging it,
though, indeed, if ever useful, it must be now the empire
includes Algiers, besides so much of the trade with the
East and the African shores. It lasted an hour and a
half. (There is no university, but professors give lec-
tures in philosophy, chemistry, astronomy, appointed
and paid by government.) From thence to the police
court, where, up behind the town hall (hotel de ville),
and close to the cathedral, is one of the courts of the
" Palais Imperial de Justice." This office corresponds
essentially with our London police offices, and as it is
nearly the same all over France, I will briefly describe
it. At the farther end of a large pannelled room, on a
raised platform, the president and two assistant judges,
with their black caps and gowns (entering from a door
at their end), took their seats behind their desks ; on
their right on one side sat the clerk and assistant, on
their left the deputy attorney-general, or avocat for
the crown, who generally explained, and allowed
nothing essential in law to be overlooked, for or
against the prisoners. In front of the judges, below
them on the floor, was a sort of counter the front
of it a seat for the accused, after their interrogation
or plea standing. Behind this counter stood an
avocat for the defence, in answer, where retained, to
whatever the attorney for the crown insisted on.
POLICE CO.UBT. 61
Several avocats, in their caps and gowns, came in and
out, and several gensdarmes. Benches with backs
occupied nearly half the room behind, and a further
good space was densely crowded by the standing
audience. The poorer classes were equally admitted
to the benches, where, on the left hand, the various
prisoners sat among their friends and others concerned,
the witnesses and principals being often mixed with the
mere spectators.
Where the crown did not prosecute, the plaintiff was
first called by the clerk, repeated by an active personage
in a black gown, the Huissier ; but an officer in more
authority, and of more consequence than our beadles.
He kept "silence," put people in their seats, and others,
when too full, out of the court, &c., handed in papers,
explained to the women, &c. At two o'clock the
judges were announced, and took their seats. The
plaintiff as well as defendant is addressed by the presi-
dent, asked their names, their profession, their age,
their residence, and the prisoner or defendant if ever
he has been " condemned." He is then told to relate
the facts, which done, he is told to resume his seat.
I forget that, previous to the complaint or defence, both
parties, as they stand alternately in front of the judge,
are reminded that they are there to speak the truth,
and nothing but the truth, to which they are told to
raise their hands and swear ! They answer, (< out, je le
62 FORM OF JUSTICE.
jure" extending their uplifted right hand. After the
accusation, and the plaintiff has retired to his seat, the
accused is called, and in the same way told to tell his
story. To both parties the president, and even the
attorney, occasionally make remarks as they proceed if
too prolix, or if contradictory or absurd clearing the
case of obscurity, &c. The accused is then told to sit
down (in front, on the prisoners' seat), a pause takes
place, the judges consult for a moment, or the president
asks a question of the attorney, if anything obscure or
contradictory to the written evidence, or he asks either
party for a further explanation, for or against them, refer-
ring to the Code Napoleon (that blessing to the nation!) ;
he pronounces sentence in the form, " attendu que" &c,
If a simple case of theft or ill conduct, resisting the
police, drunkenness and threats, &c., they were con-
demned to a week's or a month's prison ; boys under 1 6
to the house of correction for five years ! two cases for
stealing five francs from a little girl (who gave her evi-
dence wonderfully clear and well, at the, to her, awful
tribunal, as she stood in front of the president, and all
eyes on her) ; in another case for stealing rabbits from
a woman, so that these lads will be corrected, and
made honest men of, instead of being sent to prison, as
ours are, just long enough to harden and make them ten
times worse.
Most of the cases were quickly despatched two,
TREATMENT OF CASES. 63
however, were of more consequence : a gentleman was
complained of as threatening the harbour master, to
provoke him to a duel ; in this case, after the accused
was heard, the attorney pleaded warmly for the crown
against him, while his barrister replied in mitigation
much more at length. The whole thing seemed trivial
enough; a slight push had been given by the lieutenant
of the navy ; his opponent (on the stairs at his office-
door) had called him a " lache" our "coward," and
dared him to follow him to the street. There was a
longer consultation between the judges, the president
hesitated ; at length the defendant was told to stand
up, and the judge, addressing him, began with the con-
stant formula, " attendu que vous avez," &c. " la cour
vous condamne " to a month's imprisonment. This
seemed to me severe. In one case, where a young man
had no passport, and could not give a clear account of
himself, though he had done nothing wrong, and was
working about whenever he could get a job, he was
condemned to a week's prison, and told meantime to
write to his village or to somebody who might know
something about him. Two young men were condemned
as idle vagabonds, hanging on their poor relations, to
a week's prison, with a strict injunction to take to
better ways. They had taken some trifle from a cart,
not exactly a theft. Their mothers came in front in
tears, as did indeed the mothers of the boys, and they
64 FRENCH JUSTICE.
were listened to patiently, and answered mildly. In
one case, where a working man had behaved rudely to a
Commissaire de Police, who had detained his passport
for some reason, he was condemned to a month's prison,
the prison, by the way, is in the same building as the
court house, the temporary one at least.
In all this there is nothing but what one sees at home
in our own police courts, except the mixture of pleading,
the robes, and the greater ceremony.
French justice is condemned among us for sifting the
truth too closely; on the other hand, what can be so
absurd, so utterly silly, as warning accused parties not
to implicate themselves! as if on purpose to thwart the
ends of justice, and puzzle the clearest evidence.
Thence the monstrous verdicts so often given with us
against the clearest facts or rather the original clear
evidence be muddled, twisted, and obscured till at
last the jury can make neither head nor tail of it, and
the greatest villains are acquitted, and let loose afresh
on the town. In London this imbecile system gets
more mischievous and more dreadful every day ; hardly
a day passes that our daily papers have not to comment
on these imbecile and " most lame conclusions." Some-
times the judge, sometimes the jury, indeed our juries
get so bad, that the " TIMES," which never wants for
that strong male sense which seizes on the most probable
or true side of any mixed question, has more than once
FRENCH JUSTICE. 65
lamented the power of our ignorant or prejudiced juries
returning verdicts against the plainest evidence, against
facts, against probability ; in the same way as some
of our judges have directed and given as extraordinary
sentences. However, such is the inextricable con-
fusion and self-contradiction of our laws, that both
parties find an excuse in their endless obscure labyrinths.
Considering that this is supposed to be the most
turbulent city in France, next to Lyons, there was
another feature in this police court, filled by the
poorer classes, worth noting. They were all decently
dressed, prisoners and all ; all behaved with the
utmost decorum, all spoke clearly, and to the pur-
pose ; and, as in the case of the gentleman who had
threatened the harbour master, whatever we may think
of the severity of some of the sentences, not a word was
uttered by the suffering party. One equal law (good
or bad) was dealt, in form and in substance, to high and
low. After all, the consequences might have been
very serious, had the lieutenant waived his right of
appeal to the laws, and followed his man to the street
or the field; with us no gentleman would have been
even fined, much less imprisoned ; but have simply
given security not to repeat the hostile threat for six
months or a year.
In French towns all the regulations, all acts and gene-
ral public decisions, are in the name of the mayor ; the
F
66 COUNTRY KAMBLE.
prefect, though a superior authority, is only politically
so, connected with the Home Secretary. I see an order
issued to the bakers (on an understood arrangement) to
have ready, 10,000 kilogrammes (20,000 Ib.) of bread, to
be distributed to the poor, Christmas or New Year's Day,
instead of the usual cakes or presents to customers,
called pompes, which, it is presumed, their wealthier
patrons will be too happy to give up, for once, this
severe and scarce winter.
We are in some sort familiar with France and Italy,
with their towns, their manners, their customs ; but
not only every ten and twenty years things materially
change, but in fact we really know very little about the
matter. Any man might usefully write a volume of
Marseilles as it is, so little do we know about it. I am
asked if I have been to this church, seen this or that
picture: no ; I see none of the very obvious, oft de-
scribed, cut and dried sights. I ramble about the
wharfs, the shores, the nearest hills, watch the water-
courses, gather wild thyme on the hill sides.
" I know a bank where the wild thyme grows ! " ay,
beyond the Cabot, a hamlet a mile beyond the village
St. Marguerite, where a kind 'bus put me down in the
mud, and where, as at all their cabarets, " On sert a
boire et manger; " but I did not trouble them. On
this road, which here winds through these beauteous
mountains to the town of La Cassis, I followed a charm-
RURAL RETIREMENT. 67
ing watercourse newly made, to supply more rising
bastides in this quarter ; and plots of ground inclosing,
at the foot of these hills, freehold for sale. To get a
good look at the plain and city I left three or four miles
behind me I went up a hill to the right, whose summit
is crowned by a small chapel (St. Joseph's I think) ; not
that I shall tediously dwell on beautiful views, they are
multiplied at every step ; the immense network of stone
walls and inclosures making the distances mixed with
dark clumps of firs, all the richer. I filled my pockets
with sprigs of this universal sweet thyme, and fancied,
here, in some little nook, I could be content in a
tiny cabanon to pass what remains to me of declining
life far, far from the heart burnings, trifling distinc-
tions, contumelies, miseries, and nonsenses of our West
End ! of our modern England ; the clack and scandal
of our villages, or the second-hand airs of our genteel
watering-places; where no man must build or possess
anything not under the ground rent of lord this or that,
or squire this or that ; all with us so careful to let go no
inch of their many miles of manor.
But the weaknesses, the follies, the clack of these
villages, of these kind neighbours, are, mayhap, still the
same done into French ! not a doubt of it softened
of some of our extra-sectarian acerbity ! but one might
here shut them all out by a good high freehold wall ! and
commune only with this sweet thyme and the hum of
F 2
68 LIVING AT MARSEILLES.
its summer bees; drink in the smile of this laughing
landscape, or dwell on the ripple of the blue waters ;
which, clear as crystal, wash yon shores; easily reached
by a mile and a half's walk, or round by the walled
roads in a little coupe and pet nag, which would serve
to run in and out of town with, to market, or to
an opera or concert now and then, and perhaps, to bring
to one some not too mighty friend, who would not eat
one's dinner with that supercilious and critical mockery
only known amongst us modern English, pleasantly
shown off in the pages of Punch, or certain of our
weekly and monthly novelists ! One would think we
English are the most hollow, shallow, interested, selfish,
affected, foolish race of people just now in this world.
Where are our ten thousand virtues ! Oh ! we have
them all too ; the difficulty is got rid of when we confess
we are so excessively inconsistent never a week or a
day together the same thing.
Marseilles is called dear; house rent is, and shows a
rising wealth. It is not a land of butter and milk, yet
both can be had very tolerable and very reasonable, the
butter not very good, the milk chiefly supplied by goats
one sees in flocks in the streets and environs, tended by
their goatherds, even as in the most rural mountains.
There is great plenty of fine poultry, delicate lamb and
mutton the smallest legs I ever saw, and vegetables
and fruit of all kinds, all at a moderate rate, much less
CAF^S. 69
than the same thing in England anywhere, or even in
Paris or some of the northern towns. There are
several well supplied markets prolonged into the streets,
in the French way, on each side under slight sheds or
huge umbrellas. Chestnut roasters and boilers abound,
and women selling bits of coloured sugar-candy in trays
under the trees of the leading avenues or te cours" and
the Canebiere, which, together with the northern quays
or harbour side, is always crowded.
No French city, even the smallest, is without its gay
cafes ; but here amongst dozens, are two in the Canebicre,
which would be remarkable even in Paris : the Cafe
de rUnivers for its paintings, mirrors, classic figures, and
gilding ; and the Cafe Turc, which is one mass of
mirrors and rich gilding, ceiling and all, reflecting its
customers a thousand-fold in every direction.
All the cafes are full of an evening, without the least
distinction of rank. Privates can't afford it ; but corpo-
rals and sergeants of the garrison, carters, people in
blouses, country peasants, small shop-keepers and their
wives sit mixed with merchants and gentlemen of al]
kinds of pretensions. One is smothered, indeed, in a
cloud of smoke \ for every body smokes, in doors and out
of doors. It grows quite a madness you rarely ever
see a man without a cigar or a pipe in his mouth. I
find I must learn to smoke in my own defence! But
here they take snuff too, men and women. I was told
r 3
70 MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.
that some of the women even eat snuff! We hear
so very little of Marseilles, that my dwelling on a few
superficial things concerning it may be excused ; we
in England have but a confused idea of its being the
very hotbed of sanguinary revolutions, with an unruly,
unscrupulous, wretched population ! I find it the most
decent, orderly city possible ; the working classes salute
you on the slightest occasion, people universally wish
each other good day, and salute each other getting
in and out of their omnibuses. In all the mixtures and
crowds of the quays and the fair now going on, I have
not seen a single instance of quarrelling nor a drunken
person, the only exception was yesterday and, ah me !
an English sailor ! Every costume, men and women
decently dressed, and the great majority comfortably ;
no where any token of hunger unsatisfied.
The city I should say, like all French towns, is well
and most impartially governed by the prefect and the
mayor, who stand out in a position which does not allow
of either idle indifference to their duties, or that ignorant
selfishness which marks the direction of the most urgent
affairs of our municipal system ; where nobody is ac-
countable to anybody ; where one sees nothing whatever
done, except by private individuals for their own exclu-
sive benefit. It certainly with us beautifies and im-
proves in some sort as far as it goes ; but there is no
wise and general direction for the public good, nor any
IMPROVEMENTS. 71
one man of education, taste, and enlightened views, to
direct things. Our noblemen and gentry quite ignore
country towns ; they drive in and drive out, with no
more concern or interest in them, than if they were
Timbuctoos, without the curiosity.
Not that French cities advance rapidly in improve-
ments, as there is the most pinching economy in all
the city rates ; some of those not wise, the octroi for
instance ; but there is a most rigid account kept of all
moneys raised, the salaries of all public officers are on the
most economical scale, and much is done on very limited
means. Here of late, the outer harbour, of immense
magnitude and benefit ; the shifting of the Lazaretto,
many bridges and roads in the environs ; and above all,
the grand aqueduct, bringing the waters of the Durance
through the whole city. The arches of the Roc Favoure
are stupendous, a work worthy of antiquity ; it far sur-
passes indeed the Pont de Garde. Whatever is done,
is done with good taste, perfectly scientific, and of an
admirable solidity.
Their grand sewer, now in agitation, round the inner
harbour, will no doubt be carried out ; in the mean time,
there is a very strict regulation in such things. Nothing
that can possibly be prevented, is allowed to defile this
precious piece of water; one may imagine, literally
covered by ships and floating vessels as it is, how much
impurity it must suffer ; no current or tide helps it, or
F 4
72 CLIMATE.
but in a very trifling degree. There is a canal inside
the Fort St. John, at its mouth, leading to La Goliette
harbour outside, for the coasters to pass to and fro ; but
too far from the upper end to make any perceptible
cleansing current. Workmen are constantly blasting
the rocks away from the harbour side, and sea face,
gaining more ground where it is so precious, among the
mercantile warehouses and docks on the south side ;
and this same limestone is a inine of wealth for building
purposes. No doubt the leading people here are quite
alive to the imperious necessity for the most stringent
sanitary regulations; so that however one may be
annoyed by the street sides, (according to French cus-
tom from time immemorial, and as there are no outlets,
so there are no sewers ;) at least, the most offensive
impurities are carted beyond the suburbs. However,
the streets are nowhere kept so clean as they ought to
be, in spite of a good regulation for sweeping before
their doors the first thing of a morning.
After all, in travelling to the south, whether in
France, Spain, or Italy, one catches at a glance all
their advantages and disadvantages ; of climate, their
manner of living and of government; at least as we
should feel them, much of it nor this nor that. How
is it possible to speak positively as a truth of one or the
other, since such things must remain for ever a matter
of doubt and dispute ! We, at a distance, envy them
DESPOTISM. 73
their sun, their vines, their magnificent remains of
antiquity, their beautiful mountain distances, their
lighter taxes much of this charm flies on a nearer
approach. The summers are to us intolerably hot and
oppressive, myriads of insects, flies, and mosquitos, tor-
ment one night and day ; the whole country, except along
their watercourses, is burnt up ; there are no parks,
few cool shades of nature, no lawns, no gardens ; not a
thing we consider a luxury or comfort ; their roads
everywhere smothered with dust, for none are ever
watered, not even in the environs of their cities. They
dance of a Sunday and at fetes in a thick layer of fine
choking dust ! dancing on a green is unheard of.
With what longing do we look back on our deserted
lawns and flowers ! our especial comforts and luxuries
in doors and out ; no more felt and understood in any
part of the Continent, than fifty years ago, or a hundred
and fifty.
Of our own government, whether it helps or hinders
us is not so much the question as the provoking passport
nuisances abroad ; as galling as it is futile and absurd.
The centralisation and despotism we shudder at other-
wise, we find everywhere conducive to the general good,
in its vigour and impartiality ; their poor are no where
so very poor as our own, nor so miserably degraded,
while our own individual freedom dwindles to no general
good in any one great undertaking or amelioration ; all
74 JOURNEY TO TOULON.
our great wants as a people are, from year to year, left
untouched ; and the enormous wealth and energy of the
empire frittered away on nepotism, jobs, partialities,
and monopolies. If a great pride in, and innate love of
one's country did not make one feel indignant at such
strange perversities in our rulers, it would be easy to
join the richer flock of geese who fatten on the general
common, bare as it is pecked ! who hiss at all animals,
not of themselves.
CHRISTMAS EVE. The weather though fine grows
very cold: it freezes. I ran off this morning to secure a
seat in one of the four or five diligences running twice
daily to Toulon, about 40 miles (70 kilometres); at all
the offices but a single place left, and in the worst
part, the rotonde. Anxious to see as much of the
mountainous country as possible between these great
neighbouring cities, I avoided night travelling. This
Toulon diligence sets off punctually from the Cour
St. Louis at half-past eleven, well packed; seven of
us in the rotonde ; it was meant for six small persons,
but a good woman contrived to have her little daughter
of ten or eleven years old on her lap, into the
bargain, with various bundles. The fare is very
moderate only four shillings; baggage not weighed,
which I was surprised at, as well as nothing being ex-
pected by the conductor. We leave Marseilles passing to
the south east, by the village of St. Loup ; the road not
ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 75
bad, the country and views varying every moment,
delightful rocky mountains everywhere framed in the
picture ; along meadows, vineyards, stone walls and water-
courses. We relayed pretty often. At Aubonne, a
good large village, we begin to creep upwards to one of
the several mountain passes on this road, a pretty long
but not steep ascent. They have lately established an
electric telegraph on this road ; the fir poles, of about
twenty-five feet high, are in some places giving way to
the tension of the wires, where the angle was too acute ;
at such points it would have been easy to have set up
stouter poles; some of those giving way already were
braced to the nearest tree or rock by supporting wires ;
but it is evident this oversight must be made up for,
and at double trouble and expense.
This, the only highway connecting the coastline
between the two cities, has been of late years much
bettered in its zigzags of ascent and descent, by viaducts,
bridges, and blasting away rocks round some of the most
difficult places. All this coast round the Mediterranean
is mountainous, with very short intervals of plain, till
beyond the gulf of Spezzia it lowers to the valleys of
the Arno.
I was not sorry that we made no stop beyond
changing horses, anywhere: now and then, in the two
steepest passes, two or three additional horses were put to
(" renforts ") ; but the ascent was nowhere steeper than
76 CUGES.
what we should trot up or down ; in France, the least
rise in the road brings the horses to a walk.
One might be eloquent on the beauty and grandeur
of these mountains, were not eloquence itself tiresome
sometimes. What exquisite pictures for amateur
painters, if they could set up their easel, by the road side,
or perched on some gray limestone rock, among the
pines, the olives, and wild thyme of the hills ! All the
lower country as we came along is, however, well wooded
in oak, elm, chestnut, &c., but particularly the track of
the pretty river Olhonne, along the banks of which
our road lay as far as Aubonne.
From the top of the first defile we look down on the
plain and town of Cuges.
Here, for the first time in my life, I see them culti-
vating capers ; in small conical mounds, much as sweet
potatoes are in America. In all this route there is a most
careful industrious husbandry on all sides ; no half acre
of ground is anywhere lost, up to the vertical bare
rocks ; in terraces, on the slopes where the vine peeps out
through their loose stone walls ; between the rows of
vines, particularly on the plains, they sow a strip of
wheat or other grain, sometimes Indian corn or vege-
tables. The vines themselves, in their stumpy knotted
stems, look of an everlasting age ; self-supporting, and
not staked as in the north of France ; their last summer
shoots, now trailing bare on the ground, are cut down
TOULON. 77
at different periods during the winter, and made up into
small faggots to light fires with. Beyond Cuges, which
is not quite half way, we have another long ascent
along a very rich picturesque country dotted with
farms and hamlets, but above all made interesting by
the more distant mountains which increase in magni-
tude. Five miles short of Toulon, at Olioles, we descend
through their closing defiles, with the rocks close above
the road for hundreds of feet ; but here night closed in
on us, so that I could not make out the immediate
vicinity of Toulon ; all however partaking of the same
features. We did not arrive till after seven o'clock ; they
repeated fifty times most confidently that we should be
there by five ; but at coach and steamboat offices they
seem determined never to tell the truth ; they knew
very well we should be two hours longer, as a matter
of course. At a hamlet on the road we were asked for
our passports by a gendarme ; and at the gate of the
town were made to give them up, to be sent for next
day to the police office. This is the beginning of the
passport tyranny, which goes on getting more intense
and provoking up to its perfection of insolence at
Naples.
We were driven into a little square, "Place au
Foin," bordered with trees, and boasting a rustic foun-
tain, crown'd gracefully by intertwined dolphins, to the
coach office, next door to the (said to be) best hotel,
78 HOTEL.
the " Croix de Malte." M. Castan, the landlord, speaks
English very fairly, but does not understand it much,
as he has never been in England. This hotel is extra
French. Here all we English put up, recommended
by Murray's book ; and here come a good many
of the French naval officers ; as to the George at
Portsmouth. The house is very dark; bright as the
sun is, one cannot make out the various maps and
sketches hung up along the low entrance, nor read or
write in the salle a manger, if there were any means
or appliances for such a thing; but along the whole
length of its two low dining-rooms, as usual in France,
the various restaurant and table d'hote tables are always
laid. A sunshiny and bitter cold Christmas Day passes
off dull enough, without even the satisfaction of a good
fire or good dinner. The landlord has been connected
with forges or ironworks, and to my surprise tells me that
it is a mistake to suppose their iron-masters opposed to
free trade ! that on the contrary they wish it. This,
however, is certainly contradicted in all reports on the
subject, and forms the chief excuse for the French
government's exclusion of our iron and metals ; those
excessive and killing duties are however relaxing a
little, in the same way as ours on their wines.
Toulon is rather a small town; strictly confined on
three sides within its fortifications, opening out only on
the harbour face in a straight line of half a mile, on a
THE QUAY. 79
clean, well paved, broad quay ; at the north west end of
which is the arsenal or dockyard. About the middle of
the quay is the townhall ; and an old man of war, the
" Finisterre? moored ; fitted up as ah office for certain
naval authorities ; a kind of receiving-ship, a temporary
violon or lock up too for sailors, and as a mark beyond
which, towards the dockyard, merchantmen and coasters
must not make fast, load, or unload. At this spot there
is a handsome bronze colossal statue of the genius of
the sea, pointing with a fine determined expression to
seaward. On the pedestal are various figures in relief,
expressive of commerce, and tablets with the names of
distinguished navigators and inventive geniuses ; among
others I observed Watt, Davis, Cook, Drake, Dampier,
&c., others again stretching into the remote and classic
ages of Greece and Egypt.
This sunny quay is full of sailors (men of war's men)
just now the three decker screw " Napoleon" (flush upper
deck) has part of her men quartered in the dockyard
and they outnumber the others. A frigate-steamer,
the Montezuma, starts to-day for Senegal ; an old ad-
miral and two or three other naval friends come down
to bid the captain farewell, and his lady, I think ; kisses
on the cheek are returned all round ; the men toss up
their oars, of a double-banked cutter, and the coxswain
gives them the time with his call ; the third whistle is
"give way;" all the sailors are neatly and exactly
80 SCREW STEAMERS.
dressed in blue jacket and trowsers, the shirt down
over the collar, with anchor buttons, and black glazed
hats with the name of their ship on the band, the ends
hanging Jack-fashion behind ; all this they have taken
from us, but it is much more precise and regular.
Their sailor " cannoniers " have a blue tunic or frock
coat, their number and name worked in red. A large
frigate, the " Urania," has just anchored ; her captain
has come on shore in a large double-banked yawl or
cutter, sixteen oars ; the men in white shirts with the
collars trimmed with blue stripes; some lady relative
was sitting waiting his return in the stern sheets, made
more ample in its dimensions than any our frigates
possess. This boat must have been at least twenty-five
feet keel, and from eight to nine feet broad.
They are about to lengthen one of the line of battle
ships after our fashion, and have a screw fitted ; I doubt
very much the wisdom of lengthening men of war for
steam ; to say nothing of the enormous expense, as sea
boats they are made weaker and spoilt ; what they may
possibly gain in speed is hardly a set-off to make up
for it, or for a requisite handiness; besides, a man-of-war,
or any vessel, should have other qualities more essential
than mere swiftness.
I observe on our parts a general tendency towards
long, low, narrow structures for steamers ; in a heavy
sea-way it is the most helpless and unsafe build pos-
MEN-OF-WAR'S MEN. 81
sible; even in the smoothest river navigation, if they
gave them flatter floors and more beam it would be
infinitely better both for speed and safety : all our
new iron boats are detestable ; besides, their incapacity,
their speed is no great things. In violent contrast
with the general well-dressed and trim appearance of
the French men-of-war's men, I was sorry to see, where
indeed one would least expect it, the jolly-boat men (of
a schooner yacht at anchor a little way off) unshaved,
unwashed any how, in dirty banyans, as bad as if in a
collier clearing coals.
Thefast gentleman owner, and his lady, a fine tall girl,
stepped into his boat, just as the French man-of-war boat
pushed off. This, on a bright festival, Christmas Day !
We are the most anomalous creatures on earth! It
put me in mind of an eccentric lord some years ago
(looking, with his thin cane-coloured beard, very much
like good master Slender), going about our watering
places, out of his yacht, dressed up like his men, in a
frowsy red woollen banyan, and cap to match. But
surely, however such poor distinction may go down at
home, we should be careful about all sorts of affec-
tations abroad! Our yachtmen are generally smart
enough.
Here everything is naval and military, much as at
our Portsmouth ; but much more decent, orderly, and
strictly regulated than with us. All the Government
82 ST. MANDKIEB.
sailors uniformly and well dressed ; no drunkenness, no
quarrelling; nothing to be seen in the streets to shock
the most delicate sense of good manners and propriety.
Such indeed was the case at Marseilles. Here the
streets, however, are kept much cleaner, and lively
streams rush down the gutters from the fountains in
the leading thoroughfares the streets, "Royale," "La
Fayette," and " Chaudronier."
I am often asked by the little fellows who clean
boots and shoes in the streets (as is the fashion every-
where in France), if I want a commissionaire to go of
any errand. Here the girls clean shoes on the wharf
to me a new picture of female industry.
The watermen who ply on the quay are very civil,
and well regulated ; their boats strong and large, with
one lateen sail. These boats, like those at Mar-
seilles, are very high and broad, not easily upset or
swamped, with a row of paving stones for ballast ; but
such is their solidity and width, that it would be
very difficult to upset them under sail; and, though
three times as large as our wherries, it is remark-
able how well a single man manages them ; always
keeping his mast stepped, and yard up, ready to make
sail to the breeze, which generally prevails in the outer
harbour.
I was recommended to see St. Mandrier, hospital
and forts, on an outer point about four miles off, across
PATRON VINCENT. 83
the mouth of the outer harbour. The wind was pretty
fair, but blowing rather hard ; so by the time we got to
the left-hand fort opposite the outer guard-ship (vessels
entering pass close to, and are hailed by, this guardo, a
corvette), opening the harbour's mouth, which appears
land-locked from its centre, we found the sea rather
rough, as we cut through it, sending the spray over us.
In addition to this salt wetting, it came on to rain ; so
that, what with a December coolness in addition, I gave
up the pleasure of it ; we put about and returned.
I was glad to find no permit required ; my man answered
for me, passing the guard-house on the north wall of the
inner harbour. This trip, which lasted nearly an hour,
cost but a franc, which is the regulated fare by the
hour, not that I specified by the hour ; and the water-
man was well content.
So much for sensible, clear regulations; the good,
whatever it may be, (and the pleasure,) is enhanced on
both sides. Besides, in lighting on " Patron Vincent "
(my waterman), I found an intelligent fellow, not a bad
sea cicerone. He pointed out various things to me:
the " Murion " frigate (now the flag-ship), which
brought back Napoleon from Egypt ; the convict hulks
(they have 4000 " fo^ats " here, chiefly in the dock-
yard); showed me the fort on the opposite side of
the harbour's mouth on the hill, where early in life
Napoleon distinguished himself as captain of artillery ;
G 2
84 CAPE SICIE.
completing his battery in a single night. It appeared
to me too distant to be very dangerous to men-of-war
going in or out, but appearances are not always to be
trusted.
Looming in the distance beyond this tongue of land,
the famous Cape Sicie is seen, a cape, during our long
naval war with France, abhorred of British sailors,
from the frequent adverse gales off it, (our fleet watching
the Toulon fleet.)
I must try and give some general idea of this great
sea- port. The town itself, within its bastions, is on a
flat, which sweeps round the harbour westward, forming
the bay ; but the mountains rise immediately at the
back of it, almost in a semicircle, very grand and bold
in their outline, and rocky and sterile enough ; supplying
inexhaustible quarries : for about a mile in width towards
them, it is full of villas, gardens, vineyards, and country
houses, still on the rise, till meeting the small pines
which everywhere grow at the bases of the higher
ranges of rock. The city itself confined by its forti-
fications is small, and long suburbs have sprung up on
the roads east and west ; they talk of throwing down
the old walls, and taking extended lines, now much
required.
Most travellers, who will give themselves the trouble,
see the great lion here, the dockyard ; but the thing is
hedged round with so much formality, that it requires
A PLANTON. 85
some patience. The naval officers here, and indeed
wherever I have met them, show no wish to be civil or
assist one to anything ; they are not impolite, but they
only speak to each other. Here, in this hotel, day after
day, I sit near them at dinner; but though I am evi-
dently a stranger, and English, not one has opened his
mouth, nor can I well break the ice.
To see the dockyard a permit is required : given by
the captain at the " etat major " with the additional clog
of a " planton " or petty officer, to show you about, and
to expect a fee. It rained yesterday in the afternoon,
after I got the said permit, which, when I presented it,
was refused at the gate ; being without my bear-
leader or planton, who did not choose to come before
half-past twelve ; when, as it rained, I consulted my
own feelings, and did not return to the office. To-day
I betake myself once more to the Place d'Armes where
the office is, and find I must have a new permit, the
planton annoyed at my not returning in the rain yes-
terday. So cap in hand, once more to his excellency,
the triton of the minnows and sea captain.
Talking to his sea friends (other captains), he signs a
second, and in due time I get in, but the best part of
the day lost. My clog of a man began telling me that
two and two made four, I begged him just kindly and
simply to tell me if we came across anything new, but
in short, there was nothing new. All very well and
G 3
86 THE DOCKYARD.
neatly arranged ; and the warehouses, lofts, rope-walk,
building slips, admirably solid. The work-shops, steam
machinery, forges, all well adapted to their various
purposes. The armoury ingeniously arranged in pistols,
muskets, daggers, &c. ; but without the minie rifle. So
of the mast-houses, masts, yards, tops, spars. The rope
manufacture is by steam, and of great extent.
The model-room had nothing very striking ; all the
models old, and much entirely gone by. In the carving
branch, nothing new ; some of the old ornaments, how-
ever, fine, and in the best taste. No monstrosities in
wood by way of figure-head, such as one sees too often
laboriously deforming the cutwater of our men-of-war.
But the French are not so profuse of late years of
their beautiful figure-heads and carvings. Iron tanks,
chain cables, parks of guns, sixty and eighty pounders
(paixhans), shot in piles, &c., ranged on the north-west
side of the great basin, which has room for all their
fleet, great and small : several two and three deckers
and frigates lay in tiers, the steamers ranged on the
outer face ; all large fine vessels. Among the men-of-
war, I went on board of but one, the Napoleon, screw,
of 960 horse power. Sailor sentinels, bayonet in
hand, stopped us, till leave was obtained of the lieu-
tenant on deck. The engine-room seemed to me much
too confined, but they are at this moment making
alterations. One cannot judge of a man-of-war in dock
NATURAL FEATURES. 87
or repairing ; the decks lumbered, and everything
temporarily displaced : most things done afloat seem
copied originally from us.
They talk, as of a thing decided, enlarging the town
by razing the present curtains and bastions, and renewing
them in a more extended semicircle.
It is certainly much wanted, as its extent is insig-
nificant for a place of so much importance ; and how
magnificent its situation ! It seems to me impossible to
exaggerate the beauty and excellence in every way of
the sites of Marseilles and Toulon, both backed and
surrounded by noble mountains, forming inexhaustible
quarries for every possible building.
Both cities are supplied in profusion by an over-
flowing abundance of sparkling, clear fresh, water ;
Toulon, from springs from the rocks of the mountains
in the immediate vicinity. The land for miles round
the shore is fruitful enough, on its rocky bed, for all the
purposes of country seats and kitchen gardens ; without
that damp and exhalation of more extended arid fatter
plains and meadows, as with us. Hay and vegetables
are rather scarce and dear, and inferior to ours ; but
the comparison should be with our sea ports. How-
ever, in the absence of grass and hay, their horses have
plenty of corn of all sorts. Even in this cold scarce
winter, it is pleasant to see the good care they take
of their cattle.
G 4
88
CHAP. III.
QUIT TOULON. DRAGU1NAN. CANNES. RICH ENGLISH AND
THEIR VILLAS, INCLUDING LORD BROUGHAM'S. ANTIBES. THE
FRONTIER ON THE VAR. NICE.
WE have all heard so much of the sunny warmth of
Hyeres and its islands, though only twelve miles off on
this same rocky mountainous coast, and in sight from any
of these hills, that no wonder one fancies impossibilities ;
that the cold here and the discomfort of the hotels will
begot rid of. The magnificent Hotel of the Golden
Isles ("" les lies d? Or "), is spoken of as something very
fine and comfortable what a contrast it must be to this
Croix de Malte, where one vegetates under the iron and
copper rule of a most abominable cook, and sulky or
careless waiters. So, in spite of the civil blandishments
of the landlord, I paid my bill, and took my place in one
of the four diligences which run between the two places
daily, for four o'clock. At these hotels they never tell
you anything going on in the town ; in vain you ask
about what may be doing, or to see ; they never know
till too late, or after you have stumbled on the fact your-
self. I did not like going so late in the day : by chance,
at the Porte d'ltalie, I found a small diligence putting to
THE GOLDEN ISLES. 89
its horses at noon ; there was but a single place left be-
side the driver outside with a most piercing north-west
wind, it freezes hard in the shade) ; but I am tired to
death of freezing in Toulon, so I send for my things,
forfeit my four o'clock place, and get up beside my
Cocker luckily this cutting wind is in our backs; it is
but a two hours' drive, going at a very slow pace. Indeed,
as there are omnibuses as far la Vallette, a village a
third of the way on, to walk the rest of the distance and
beat this diligence ( ' a Depeche " would be no great feat.
I was recommended the Hotel d'Europe by M. Castan,
but it sounded very French and uncomfortable, besides
I was curious and fascinated about the " Golden Isles; "
and so in spite of my Jehu got down ; and he wouldn't
give me my baggage, but took it on to his bureau on
the place ; - as this very grand, good looking hotel is at
the entrance of the town, at its west end. The landlord
received me with that kind of equality-civility every-
where assumed on the Continent just as if lord Some-
body, or So and So, esq., at home, took it into his head
to let out his rooms and keep a table at so much a day
per head merely as a whim to please himself; but
here all similitude ends, for nothing can be more mean
or uncomfortable than a French hotel. They may live
by the English for a life, but never by any chance do
they stumble on, or condescend to understand, any of our
90 LANDLORDS' DEVICES.
ways, our habits, our manner of living, our ideas of com-
fort, our anything.
I soon left the Golden Islands. The turning to ashes of
the apples of the Dead Sea cannot be a greater disappoint-
ment ; the only good room I saw was the salle a manger
in this cold comfortless hotel, where the least possible
appearance of a tiny wood-fire flickered occasionally at
the further end ; the weather freezing, and the whole
house exposed to the full force of the north-west rushing
winds down the hill side. Wood is sold here at a most
exorbitant price, and perhaps tenfold more exorbitant
at these hotels.
By way of compelling you to have a fire in your bed-
room, they take care to have no fire anywhere else :
this was one of the cunning devices of the landlord.
There is a supposed salle de societe\ or drawing-room, for
the company- a small room feeling like a well, where
the miserable little wood-fire is lit a few minutes only
before we rise from table of an evening, and evidently
not meant to give the slightest particle of warmth ; as it
is allowed to go out in half an hour, if one has the re-
solution to sit starving before it so long. The table is
thoroughly French, as they all are, though more than
half the inmates are English ; and is nor bad nor good,
the wine included (worth four sous the half bottle) at
three francs and a half. One must eat of everything,
like it or not, half cold as it is, or get no dinner at all.
HYERES. 91
Thus, one begins with hot water as a soup, a bit of dry
beef, next a herring or mackerel, a cutlet (each portion
brought round, little more than a mouthful), then fried
potatoes. Next (second course), perhaps a capon, a
salad, a rice cake, an apple, a fig, cheese, and in this way
one sits and fills, to dine is quite impossible. The
French dine a la bonne heure, but us ! we unhappy devils
driven by fate or our own restless spirits to be victimised
on the Continent I by the bienveillance of the police and
hotel keepers. But I forget myself, and I forget Hyeres,
the delicious and rural Hyeres of the south of France,
on the sunny shores of the blue Mediterranean, true,
most true. The sun does shine more than in this
sombre season with us under our murky canopy of
smoke in London a little more than at Torquay; but
I deny that it is so warm the cold is intense, every
rivulet is frozen, one cannot face the wind. However,
this is an unusually severe winter ; here all the oranges
seen in the trees of the gardens beneath the town are
frozen and spoiled, still they look pretty ; so do the poor
palm trees on the little walk or place in the centre of
the town, and here and there in the gardens ; it speaks of
the east and of warmth ; so, too, the cactus, and a border
of roses here before the hotel terrace, though frozen
stiff.
Hyeres is a good large town (nestled under its hill, sur-
mounted by its pile of picturesque rocks, and ruins of a
92 THE SEA VIEW.
chateau) of, it is said, nine or ten thousand souls. You
see the sea and its islands, many miles in the distance
south ; the shore is at least three miles off, beyond the
plains ; which near the town is divided by stone walls
and narrow wretched lanes, all mud and ruts ; and next
into meadows, vineyards, pastures, and finally marsh.
Indeed most of this plain is a swamp, so that at least
during the winter there is no getting to the beach ex-
cept by the raised bank of the little river which runs
into the bay between the two salines (salt pans) or
lagunes, where they make salt ; that to the right being
the tongue of land running out to the Presque Isle. The
sea- side itself, though pretty wild, with its cattle, sheep
and goats, grazing in the border meadows, and a home-
stead or two, is prettier than the intermediate space.
Fishing boats come in to the little river's mouth, and a
dozen or two of coasters may be generally seen at anchor
near the eastern saline, or under sail in the bay. I
should say at once (and they confess the fact), this
extent of marsh below the town cannot be healthy, it
spoils Hyeres. As to the islands seen in the horizon,
nobody lives on them, beyond a few poor fishermen, &c.
They lie some six or eight miles off the coast, and are
not easily got at, even in summer excursions, of which
they make a great display here in printed bills stuck up ;
but contrive each promenade or excursion at as expensive
THE TOWN. 93
a rate as possible, whether on horseback, en voiture, or
by boat to seaward.
The French themselves acknowledge that, as far as
the town goes, no one thing is done to encourage the
residence of strangers, either for health or pleasure.
The streets on the hill-side are miserable, narrow alleys,
ill-paved and dirty ; even the main street through the
town is hardly passable beyond the "Place Royale."
The little stream down the valley, brought by an aque-
duct along the road, and supplying the gardens below
and the washerwomen, is the only nice thing one sees as
a public ornament and convenience. The houses are near-
ly all old and solid, but without a single beauty or con-
venience, except a few terraces facing the south, which
their owners have run out from the backs of their first
floors or roofs, by way of promenade for their invalid
guests. This "terrace au midi" is always advertised
as the one thing most attractive, nor can one be insensi-
ble to the attraction most especially this cold weather.
The sun is ever welcome its rays, though mid- winter,
are still felt most pleasantly, with the orange trees full
of their oranges looking beautiful, and a palm here and
there. Here and there too the dark green of the cypress
fir, and as usual the prodigality of stone walls, make a
rich coup d'oeil from one's window. I speak of hills,
but in fact all this part of France is mountainous, and
very beautiful in the distance they are here, too, they
94 HOTEL AMUSEMENTS.
come down to the shores, between distances of a few
miles of plain, as it is here ; they block the way by
diligences to the east ordinary travellers have to return
to Toulon and thence to Draguinan (" Chef Lieu") to get
at Cannes and Nice, by the high road, and common di-
ligences starting daily. After two weeks' endurance,
and affected cosmopolitan patience, in this the first
month of this blessed year 1854, half frozen except
when wrapped up in bed, I am getting rather tired
of Hyeres. I confess, had my hands and feet not been
so constantly benumbed, and my back be-iced, by the
draughts through the wide open doors, I might have ex-
tracted some amusement from some of the heterogeneous
French individuals at the Hotel d'Europe, where I
shifted, and where there was a kind of club, headed by
a dried up demi-solde vieux ddcore colonelo. Formally
introduced (paying for the same), here we sat between
the smoke of two fires, the miserable fire of roots, and
the fire of indefatigable pipes and cigars. Some played at
cards, some billiards : at night the chief fun was putting
sous on cards, as a lottery; the prizes consisting of phea-
sants, snipe, ducks, teal, &c. These were the standing
dishes not cooked, spread out on one of the tables. The
mirth and merriment consisted in winning ; and burst
out, though rarely, with surprising force. Another
small room of this hotel was devoted to reading, when
one could catch any papers or any fire ; both on the
THE VICINITY. 95
most attenuated scale. As this was the only one in the
town, an occasional Englishman came in to look at an
old Galignani ; but it would be ungrateful to forget a
little peppery French soi disant merchant, who kept me
from being quite torpid ; he was in a constant hot argu-
ment about everything with everybody ; he was particu-
larly knowing about us Englis, our manners, and customs,
and could say " ver well, sare," " I tank you ver mush ; "
but he decided against our bif sticks as not at all equal to
French ones, however, he thought better of our govern-
ment and constitution.
Never was there a more miserable town in so pretty a
country. There are no roads anywhere, no walks, ex-
cept in the mud down the lanes between stone walls, and
rushing side rivulets, which divide the road, such as it
is, with the deep ruts : they are never mended, or the
least thing done in the town for cleanliness or even
decency. There are, indeed, walks upwards to the
Chateau and rock above the town, and paths lead about
among the hills, scrambling along the rocks up and down ;
but climbing in this way, though very pleasant, to see
the views on every side infinitely varied at every step,
soon tires ; and after once or twice enough. The place
is anti-social. What the few English families may do, I
know not ; they have it all to themselves if delightful.
But were it only the marshy level which for three
miles cuts off the sea from the place, I'll none of it;
96 DECK PASSENGERS.
so, I get back to Toulon, preparatory to going further
on, to Draguinan^ the prefecture of the department,
quite out of the way among the hills; so as, round
about, to get at Cannes and Nice, as I have said.
Back to Toulon by half-past ten, and find no diligence
starts till seven in the evening ; mean time I take a boat
and pull out once more across the "petit rade " to look at
the town and surrounding mountains for an hour ; my
late boatman (Vincent) employed elsewhere, I take
another equally intelligent. He says the Murion
frigate flag guardo at the harbour's mouth, is not the
veritable frigate which brought Napoleon back from
Egypt. She was broken up, and this one takes her
name. That the Marine Hospital, chapel, gardens, and
defences at St. Mandrier, which I see outside near the
western point of the outer harbour or roads, are very
fine ; in fact, they occupy a large space, and are doubtless
considerable.
Once more on the sunny quay, I see and get into one
of the little quaint steamers (such machines !) going off
across the harbour to la Seym, a small town across the
bay. The deck is filled by about thirty persons : the
fare across four sous, not without music ; a little boy
tunes up his fiddle, and sings us a romance, collects
his sous, then sings a second; makes his bow and
descends into the cabin to his friend a sort of cabin
boy. Two men manage these boats ; with their small
LA SEYNE. 97
feeble engine, they go about as fast as one might walk,
perhaps five miles an hour the distance about four
miles across ; the captain told me it took an hour and
quarter to walk round by the road out of the town.
The town of La Seyne is a great building place for
their merchant ships and iron steamers ; there were six
in the little square harbour, afloat and building, and
three or four others on the stocks, of timber all fine
vessels one for the Spaniards. This little passage
steamer only remains half an hour.
Later in the afternoon, I walked out of the Porte
de France westward, round the new part of the dock-
yard recently added, called the arsenal " Castigneau "
(over the gate). It stretches about a mile along the
bay to the west ; the plain west of the town is all
marshy below the hills and mountains, from the defile
where we come out on it by the high road at Les
Olliouillesi there is an inlet or creek near the new
wall western boundary of the dockyard on its banks
I see they are carting earth, and forming detached
mounds for forts.
The workmen were coming out of the yard from work
(four o'clock) in good round numbers. But it is time
to take my place in the diligence so the day, though so
tedious, is at length too short impressed with many ex-
cellencies of this place, and a good many salient defects.
To lose one's rest or sleep is nothing, but to see
H
98 DKAGUINAN.
nothing of the country, to me the only pleasure, as we
creep along, is vexing enough. The fare to Draguinan
is very moderate, seven francs, baggage included ; strictly,
I believe, they could charge something, for my trunk is
not so light. We walk, creep, half our way the least
rise from a dead level brings a small trot to a creep.
In short, the diligences imperiales always go on getting
worse and worse, the farther off from Paris ; as to any
assured time, it is a farce. We got to Draguinan this
morning, 16th January, at eight o'clock, just thirteen
hours; nearly a level road; for we avoid all hills, leaving
them on either side. Were it worth while, they could
easily make a railroad to the " chef -lieu " of this depart-
ment of the Var. We drive into the yard of the Hotel
de la Poste a villanous bad one, where we get a vile
bason of cafe au lait, good bread and no butter and
are told that we shall go on by the next diligence, due
at ten, which comes another road direct from Marseilles.
All the morning lost waiting ; at twelve nearly, it does
really make its appearance. I walked about the town,
which is prettily situated in its valley at the foot of
picturesque hills a small, poor place, as a prefecture,
but it is improving ; there is a battalion of infantry ; the
band on parade strikes up as we leave the hotel. They
have their Palais de Justice (assizes just begun), their
gardens, Hotel de ville, theatre, jail, barracks, and all
those public buildings indispensable in their chief towns ;
plenty of running streams and fountains from the small
FREJUS. 99
river which runs through this valley. But who ever
hears of Draguinan I The French abuse it, as insuffer-
ably dull, of course still, dull indeed are all their towns :
this has perhaps fifteen thousand souls. The country round
is very pretty though I am getting rather tired of olive
trees the firs keep on the mountains; but I will not have
this out of the way place abused no, only the Hotel de
la Poste ; but not its pretty young landlady, whom I saw
returning from morning mass, very smart and smiling.
We are still little more than half way to Cannes, and
go back as we came for two mortal leagues ! still not on
the high road, the " route d' Italic," which we hit about
three o'clock (and a very good road it is), and shortly pass
through Frejus. They are planting their electric tele-
graph posts ready for the wires. We were an hour and
a half climbing, by very gentle ascents, zigzag, up the
Estrelles mountains ; about half way down them a
gendarme asks for our passports, and actually insists
on seeing them at Frejus, left behind, we had been
asked for them, but, more polite, the gendarme was con-
tent with seeing one or two how vexatious this ab-
surdity ! I always shirk it when I can; but this animal
was a new broom, I conclude he was little the wiser, after
delaying us ten minutes! Altogether, we did not drive
into Cannes, along its level plain, till ten at night past
all dining! past all remaining patience and yet was it
charming to see with what good humour a young French-
H 2
100 CANNES.
man took it, with his pretty young wife, his newly-come
little heiress, and their nurse and bonne ! This was a
delightful family group both husband and wife
wrapped up in their infant ! the respectful familiarity
of their servants: altogether I bid them a "bon voyage,"
as I got down at another Hotel de la Poste, with regret ;
their prospect of getting to Nice before three in the
morning, excellent as the road is, very slender; and
their little one and themselves, quite worn out by two
nights' and days' want of rest, packed up in the " inter ieur "
no trifle.
I hug myself at the idea of having escaped a dread-
fully severe winter at home, and in the north of France ;
yet here all is cold and comfortless I have run away
from good fires and carpets, to freeze on brick floors.
Who is it that has written, almost poetically, of this
little town of Cannes ; and the sun, and the sea, and
the country round it ? But hungry, at ten o'clock at
night one's patience and romance quite worn out
driven to a great barrack of a Hotel de la Poste, all
cold, comfortless carreau though indeed the ocean
breeze is rather mild who, I say, but must have all
his sunny, poetic ideas put to flight ?
O, the miseries, the abominations of a French hotel !
If they grow rich by us, after years of close-fisted and
very positive extortion, still they never, by any chance,
get one single English idea ! not a single thing, down
H6TEL DE LA POSTE. 101
to the smallest item, but remains virgin French or
Italian, as perfect as in the middle ages, or a century
or two ago. Here is a flagrant example ! this same
Cannes. The landlord explains that they don't want
fires, O no, it is only freezing! the sunny side of the
house, which hardly has ever a sunny side, blocked
out to the south by recent buildings our cash has
erected! "No chimneys the sunny side," quoth he,
" but behold," (after I have satisfied my hunger in a chilly
room, on the bare carreau, on a bit of gibelotte de lievre
which I hate, and not a vegetable, cold or hot,) "here,"
ushering me into the salle-a-manger t "here we have
a fire, as you see!" the usual fire of these precious
barracks of roots, heating the back of the fireplace, at
which sat a solitary Scotchman, in a white neck-cloth
perhaps in full dinner dress ! I forget to say this same
civil landlord had previously asked me " if I had dined
well!" (on the head and paw of a jugged hare, and
plenty of bread !) O ! " merci" all this by the way
not against the country round Cannes, its pretty sea face,
and bay, its mountains in the distance, westward the
Estrelies, capped by snow, and, adding to its beauty
the peculiar beauty of this whole southern shore of
France that is, rocky mountains, framing in various
valleys and plains, fertile in olives, mulberries, figs,
oranges, and grapes, striped with wheat few vege-
tables or esculent plants, fewer gardens, and a rich
H 3
102 ENGLISH RESIDENTS.
abundance of stone walls all round their towns, roads
and lanes.
Half way here the cork trees begin, and though the
olive, which everywhere forms the chief thing seen, is
rather dull and monotonous, and not pretty as a tree,
still here they are seen in great perfection, three times
the size they are about Hyeres, Toulon, or Marseilles.
Not only Lord Brougham, but several other rich
Englishmen, smitten by the place, or by his lordship's
propinquity, have, and are, building expensive villas
here ; the best houses are generally occupied (as they
are everywhere) by the resident English whose
fortunes, spent here, operate all that one sees of recent
improvements, and the better sort of new streets and
new houses ; besides a new mole they have run out to
shelter the west side of the harbour.
The whole bay outside is horseshoe shaped abrupt
mountains of the Estrelles chain west. Towards Nice
the level plain, off which, sheltering the bay to the east,
is seen the little Island of St. Margarite ; where 150
Arab prisoners (of Algiers) are still confined in a fort.
From the ruin of an old castle on a rock over this
mole, one sees the whole town and country. Lord
Brougham's villa and the rest of the English houses
westward, close in the suburbs their grounds, of no
great extent, walled in a sort of large gardens, shaded
by their fine olive trees; I see some few orange
GARDENS. 103
trees, but no palms, nor any lawns. In fact, the
summers of this clime burn every thing up lawns,
like our green Axminster carpets, roses, geraniums,
pinks, such as ours, in such beauty and infinite variety,
impossible still, of course, they have roses (mostly
Chinese), but nowhere does one see that constant and
exquisite care or neatness in any thing only seen in
dear old England. O, land of my fathers, how art
thou abused ! not by me, who love thee but too well :
thy sylvan shades, thy glens, thy fields, thy woods,
thy thickets, lawns, and streams ; thy myths through
the mists of fable ; thy sylvan shades, peopled by sha-
dows of our godlike bard fairies in the train of thy
loved Titania!
There, there the soul melts and anon roused to
anger at the lords of thy soil, at thy much cramped
and abused energies !
Not so, sayest thou! where then are our gay sylvan
scenes? where the garlanded May-pole, the manly
Morris dance? where the games of adolescent youth?
where the village dance on the village green? Yes, a
flock of poor geese, tended by an ill-fed, ill-clothed little
girl ! or, browsing, the skin-and-bone donkey of some
ragged poacher
" Our country's pride, when once destroyed,
Can never be supplied ! "
or idle, desperate youth, swiping in tobacco smoke at the
H 4
104 ENGLISH NOBILITY,
beershop, too lucky to be at last enlisted out of harm's way
yes, better than the workhouse, or poaching, or rob-
bing. Australia and the diggings are only for the easier
few, not quite beggars, who save and turn to cash their
little all, to pay their passage and leave at home the
impossible refuse of the land to plague and puzzle the
titled and rich few, who talk of morality and heaven !
Ye gods, how they can talk ! but they can see all this
in the streets, at their gates, as they sit on their
magistrate's bench to administer the law. Yes, there is
plenty of law, such as it is ; it fills our jails well, and
swells (as a sole revenge on aggressors) our town and
country rates from which some few escape here, and
all over the continent! Why not tax them for it?
that would be the last and wisest of our thousand taxes
good master chancellor of the exchequer ; cogitate a
little on a good tax on these selfish exiles who fatten
France ! I shall be well content to be included ; for I
have serious thoughts of being looked down on any-
where rather than at home why looked down on? why
mortified, humiliated? Why? is it not intolerable
to be despised, and banished our best, nay, our only
tolerable circle! to be a nobody to find title or riches
the only passport possible that a few hundreds a year
and a small street keeps one for ever at a distance from
every thing desirable. To see the same people prancing
AT HOME AND ABROAD. 105
for ever in the park, at the opera, at court, all strictly
exclusive !
" Whom not to know,
Argues yourself unknown."
And these are the best, the gentlest, the most noble of
the land : but I, and all the " nobodies " of dear old
England, had much better be German, French, or
Chickasaw, to have the smallest chance of a decent
reception. I, in my turn, despise a pains-taking, half
fellowship to shake hands, perchance, abroad, and be
cut at home ! or asked to dine with a difference ! that
sort of condescension, if vouchsafed capriciously to a
nobody, of all acquaintance the most intolerable,
which tells you your common Delf must not float
down the stream beside gilt porcelain. Well, the sun
shines, broad shadows flit over this rich scene, land and
sea. I bask in the sun, and " worship Nature, up to
Nature's God ! " Round the roads and rocks there are
many charming walks, both ways out of the town on
the road to Grasse too, and to Le Canne, a village
nestled under the hills to the north, clothed by firs,
above the olive orchards and orange gardens : sheltered
by these hills, the situation is even warmer than Cannes.
The snow-capped mountains peeping above all in this
direction, the spurs of the Alps.
I see certain trees for the first time. The Caroba and
106 BOOKS AND NEWSPAPERS.
the cork tree, which is a variety of the Ilex. How
wonderful, how bountiful the Almighty I Other trees
barked die this perhaps the sole exception. Many
of the olive trees are still full of olives, not ripe
yet, or not gathered, though autumn is the season ; it is
a tedious job, they beat them off the upper branches
with long rods, industriously, patiently women pick
them up.
It is in vain looking for a book or a paper in any
French country town ; they know nothing^ nor want to
know ; even of themselves : now here, at Cannes, our old
books tell one, if I could recollect, more of the pith of
things than our new. I don't know why I am rather
disappointed with this town; it was of course most
likely to be exactly what all French towns are ; the
site at any rate is charming its nice little harbour,
its granite hills behind capped by firs, with the more
distant ones up to Le Cannb. Then fine olive orchards,
and a good many orange trees in gardens ; the fig and
the vine in parterres for it loves a stony soil all
this gives a richness to the scene round the town. Then
the sea, and the abrupt mountains which close in the
bay on the west, and the island on the east. The town
itself, however, is miserable, except its one street, (the
high road through it,) with its half-dozen greedy, uncom-
fortable hotels. There is a pretty esplanade open to
the beach in front, full of boats, and lots of solid granite
THE ESPLANADE. 107
benches, where all the Cannes poor quiet world sun
themselves, great and small; here the women hold their
fish, and vegetable, and fruit market ; installed cobblers
and small hucksters squat over their benches and
baskets in rows. On the west side, on the quay proper,
is a row of large houses under the old castle ; at the fur-
ther end of which is the new mole or pier, of about two
hundred yards long ; solidly and handsomely constructed,
with its column lighthouse, just finishing, at the end of
it ; here, and at the west quay, lie a dozen polaccas or
coasters ; the bay outside is well sheltered too, except
to the south-west ; I see them unloading glazed tiles and
pottery of good shape, for common kitchen purposes, made
between this and Antibes the tiles from Marseilles.
The bells at the campanella, or slender tower of the
church (much here is quite Italian) are ringing in
various moods from morning till night for baptisms,
deaths, and merry peals, I conclude, for marriages no,
impossible but what are they thus day after day con-
stantly keeping up this clatter for? O, a mere noisy
custom, to add to the life of the town.
I saunter out on the high road westward, to have an-
other look at Lord Brougham's, and Mr. Leader's to the
right, Wolfield's and Sim's to the left next the water ;
a Nicard, a M. Favari, has a nice small pavilion and
tower for sale, opposite Sim's, with half an acre of the
hill side, and a right of path to the sea by the old fort
108 CASSIS.
here (where the Douaniers have a station on the rock,
over the sea) ; this is a very sweet spot, but he asks
36,000 frs. for it.
A Mr. Ripert, who calls himself Lord Brougham's
intimate friend, showed me an olive orchard close by,
of perhaps an acre ; dog cheap, he says, at 8,000 frs.
pretty well ! They all agree that land all about is
rising, and has risen a hundred per cent, within these
last seven or eight years; more now than ever, in
consequence of the stability of government and the
English building ; all of whom have made a good spec
by their earlier bargains, and others, residents in the
town ; but, after all, these prices are quite extravagant.
He showed me his terraces near his house (to let) of
cassis, the base, it seems, of most French perfumery ; a
single large bush, he said, gave him yearly 25 frs., and
generally this extraordinary plant, something like a very
large currant or gooseberry bush, yields 5 and 6 frs. profit
yearly it seems incredible, but may be true enough.
All those who have built here, a mile and a half out
of the town, have secured their strips down to the sea
(across the road), five hundred yards off, and have walled
it in ; generally the English have from one to three hun-
dred yards frontage each. Mr. Wolfield is now building a
second house, like a castle; finding his large house where
he is, too near the sea; the constant surge disturbing
them at night, on dit. But what a singular spectacle is
CANNE. 109
here a little English colony of rich nobodies (all but
one), sunning themselves in silence, and giving their
wealth to invigorate the town's currency, aided by other
English more or less birds of passage one finds this now
all over France and Italy. Cannes is full of delightful
walks, once out of the town to Canne, and here, west-
ward; towards Antibes eastward.
I walked up the valley to Canne yesterday very
early, the morning delightful; nothing can be more
varied and picturesque than these walks ; one sees the
mountains, covered with snow, just peeping over the firs
of the most distant hills, while the sun towards noon is
almost too hot.
Returning I overtook a handsome village belle, a
simple, sensible creature, half peasant half demoiselle ;
she spoke French well ; she had never been beyond
her own little Canne, except to Cannes ; she was quite
content at home, and little envied strange lords or
rich strangers, who have settled here in fine houses so
our discourse was quite philosophical and very common-
place; but I believe, in her, perfectly sincere. "You see,"
said I, " all greatness is glad at last of a small room, and
the sun in at his windows, and simple fare, and these
rocks and firs to meditate on, and yonder sea shut
out from the world the world of one of our many
lord chancellors, retired on 4,0007. or 5000Z. a year."
But, I fancy, not exactly this one and so, with a smile and
110 THE HOTELS.
a bow, we parted as we entered the street. Some country
woman (they all know each other, even from town to
town) had stopped her to talk patois, which I can't at
all make out; some of the words are Italian, some
French, some Spanish, but the jumble is Greek to me.
These hotels are enough to drive one away from a
paradise, or drive one mad ; so I pay my bill and wait
for the advent of the forenoon diligence from Marseilles.
Instead of seven, it did not arrive till near twelve at
noon, and in an evil moment of impatience I bespoke a
voiture of M. Renard, who keeps the cafe and diligence
bureau opposite ; and tells many fibs of the excellence
of his voiture; and particularly insisted on by his
good woman of a wife.
I was too hasty in closing my bargain seven francs
to St. Laurent, a small town on the french side of the
Var I should first have had a look at the turn out
such a rattletrap one rarely sees, even in France, and
his little horse so lazy, it required incessant beating the
whole way ; equally unpleasant with our snail's pace ;
however, it was too late to refuse, so off we went.
This M. Renard, pere, I found a most stupid creature,
even more fool than knave : I asked him one or two
questions as we went along, but I found it quite in
vain. The day, however, was lovely, and the road and
country : all the way by the sea-side.
We see Antibes across the bay afar, and its light-
JOURNEY TO ST. LAURENT. Ill
house on its high headland. Within a mile and a half
of it we pass a column erected where Napoleon, in 181-5,
got on the high road along a narrow path from the beach
where he landed ; not liking to trust the town, which is
inclosed by fortifications, with a detached fort very
conspicuous, just outside to the east.
The road runs by its gates, and from this point Nice
is seen at the extremity of another long sweep of the
ocean and land to the east. Two miles short of St.
Laurent (just beyond Cagne) the Antibes diligence over-
took us, and I was too glad to get rid of my villanous
vehicle, so shifted to it.
We were soon at this frontier town on the French
side of the Var, where a long wooden bridge crosses
this torrent river, and again changed coaches for a Nice
omnibus (a " correspondence "). Here comers and goers
are delayed an hour for passports (a viser) and luggage,
reciprocal on both sides ; with an absurd and most vex-
atious pertinacity and formality how encouraging to
travel !
Nice, it seems, is no longer a free port ; and so they
rumple, open, and displace all your things, and seize on
the smallest trifle, if new, or paying a duty. By the
way, I ever find the free governments or liberals on the
continent quite if not more vexatious about passports
and searching than the absolute Sardinia is no better
than Lombardy or Leghorn. The process too is enough
112 NICE.
to break one's back, stooping over the clay floor of this
precious custom-house at the Nice side. I had got a franc
in ray hand, ready to reward the searcher, whom I had
watched for some minutes manipulating every single
thing, down to the bottom, of a patient brother and co-
mate in exile, when it came to my turn that is, if he
would not insist on unpacking all my things. No ; this
must have been an immaculate new broom ; diving down,
he would open a tin case, in spite of my smiles depre-
catory and assurances ; so I repocketed my silver, and
only bestowed on him my benediction.
Well, all this has an end " time and the hour " ! It
was, however, dark when we got to Nice, and I was
anxious to arrive by daylight. We pass the long and
rather ugly western suburbs (the whole distance from
the Yar is about four miles), and enter the town by the
newer side of the botanic garden, built of late years ;
the body of the city being across the bridge over the
river Palione, and in five minutes one is in the heart of
it, in the square of the barracks. The Hotel York is
the coach office, and thither I betook myself, just in
time to sit down to dinner, which I thought all the
better for a good large dish of mashed potatoes, which
I perceived the French liked quite as well as us per-
fidious Albions.
Nice is on the shore of the ocean, exposed almost as
much as Brighton, with a grey, rough, shingle beach,
THE PALIONE. 113
where the surf plays incessant, more or less. The
river Palione steals into it, hardly perceptible ; serpen-
tining through the west suburb along its own broad,
dry gravel-bed, like all mountain torrent-streams, only
filling it when swelled by the snow melting, or au-
tumnal rains.
Washerwomen are everywhere now busy along its
edges. Walking about the town, one would never
suspect the small but excellent harbour on the east side ;
cut off by the Chateau Hill, which bounds the old
town, whose rocks come down perpendicular 300 feet
at the end of the Corso and terrace walk, the road round
their base being cut away just enough to pass round
them to the port ; which has lately been improved by a
solid, handsome pier, run out about two hundred yards
at its mouth.
This suburb communicates round the northern base
of this singular rock, with the streets and squares in
the northern part of the town ; and following on round
its base, you find yourself once more on the quays of
the Palione : much of this north side is, too, compara-
tively new; the old town being between the river,
and the terrace, and Corso; called, in marking the streets,
" isola " or block number so-and-so, a custom in other
Italian cities.
Passing along the Poncietti, the carriage-road round
the foot of the Chateau Rock to the port (all the
i
114 THE PONC1ETTI.
sea face, or southern aspects, have the finest houses,
and where now, on both sides of the river, may be
found most of the English residents here, and the
largest hotels), on the harbour side, a carriage-road
climbs this delightful rocky mound, which seems placed
here on purpose to give one an exquisite view of
the mountains round, the sea to Antibes, and the whole
town at one's feet.
I much enjoyed the ramble along its walks : once up,
it is a charming promenade, among its firs, its rocks,
and its small level plain on the summit, of about three
hundred yards square; where there is a sergeant's
guard, and two pieces of cannon are mounted facing the
west.
Subsequent to the middle ages this was the citadel,
and commanded the town as of old, but was blown up
early in this century when the French left it.
There is a wildness about the whole very refreshing,
after crowded streets and town life; and the walk up of
a morning more conducive to health and appetite, than
all the medical men put together : but this is only for
the strong, who are not here in search of health.
Nothing remains of this once " chateau" but a
block or two of its giant walls toppled down from
their elevations, and left where some jutting rock
caught them in transitu, just as it should be. I hate
castles and donjon keeps, except in ruins. Here and
MOUNTAIN SCENERY. 115
there on the plain, indeed, one can trace parts of the
substructure ; and, on the very highest point, there is
still some little of the wall left, holding fast to the
primitive rock; it forms a little square stand on the
west side, like an arm chair, from which the eye
plunges down on the roofs towards the river Palione.
The mountains, which are chiefly to the east and
north, form an amphitheatre, lowering as they come
round towards Yar : these are the spurs of the Alps.
The more distant and highest, the Col di Tende, &c.
peeping over, are capped by snow, enhancing the charm
of all mountain scenery.
As we approach the great range, of course they grow
higher, and so far Nice has something the advantage
of the French towns already passed on this shore:
otherwise the scenery here partakes very much of its
features at Marseilles, Toulon, Hyeres, and Cannes;
the country in the nearer suburbs, and the greener hills
before they reach the rocks, hardly so rich or fine as in
France; so it strikes me at first. Still I think the
olives grow larger. I now and then see them here of
great size, and bearing all the marks of very great age.
They are said to reach from three to five hundred years ;
and still vigorous, only the trunks hollow.
There is one thing certainly in favour of Nice to our
apprehensions, it is very clean compared with French
towns, pretty free from those constant abominations,
i 2
116 SIVORI.
everywhere such a nuisance in France, and which the
French themselves, from the bonne d'enfans up to the
polite world, seem totally insensible of.
Though Nice is so very near being a French town ;
full of French and us English in search of health, " or
a truant disposition, good my lord ! " yet is it like all
Italian towns, far behind the go-a-head age we live in.
The shops are poor things, so are their cafes, and the
two reading rooms and libraries, said to be expressly
for our accommodation, very indifferent indeed. A single
copy of the Times and Galignani is eagerly snatched
up, at Visconti's (corner of Corso at 5 fr. the month):
all these places are only intent on selling us things out
of their shops, at a dear rate, with much civility. I
must, however, except the Circle; the club where
strangers are politely admitted for a few days, or to
subscribe.
Little Sivori is here, and gives concerts at the York
Hotel. The room was filled, he, of all the great violin
players, puts one most in mind of his master and friend,
Paganini; his tone as fine; winding up with the Car-
nival de Venice, in a storm of applause. No wonder.
Even those who can't bear a fiddle are in ecstasies. O !
little body with a mighty soul is this same fiddle in
such hands ; how exquisite the tones, the modulation,
the variety of effect ! how astonishing the rapidity of
execution ! His one string (not that the other three
DOCTORS AND DUPES. 117
are taken off or touched) solo and harmonics seem as
perfect as his great Maestro's were. Some man sang
French mawkish romances, and a lady helped the pro-
gramma out ; but these interludes are all de trop, and
only keep one waiting.
I must leave this York Hotel ; my bed-room, north,
is cold and damp as a well. I get an apartment on
the Poncietti over the sea, where the rock is blasted
away perpendicular, a row of houses under it : lodg-
ings are dearer, if facing the sun, than in Paris. Yes,
we come here after the sun, and in search of health, or,
tired of everything, in search of variety; a variety we
are soon tired of in turn. As to health, it is simply a
mistake and a folly ; nobody recovers how should they ?
Nice nor any other spot can work miracles. Still, hope,
deceitful, beckons on ; and who would deny this last sad
consolation to the dying !
So they are buried here, or hurry home once more to
rest ; much less could ignoramuses enter into an argu-
ment with a physician, or accuse him of not telling the
truth ; they are here, as everywhere, labouring in their
vocation to make money. If you go to a doctor, you
must expect his story, his advice, and his medicine ; as
he in turn expects his fee.
There have been such things as a disinterested
medical man : a goose of this order, in a most absurd
sincerity, told an old lady who consulted him, that she
i 3
118 THE SUBURBS.
wanted nothing but exercise ; far from being grateful,
she sent for a rival, and he lost a good patient. How
things go on here with our poor consumptive invalids, I
know not ; but clearly all medicine or consultations are,
nine cases out of ten, utterly useless, if not absurd.
Besides the Circle and the two libraries, there is a
" Casino " beyond the west quay and botanic gardens,
which, by the way, is a little plot laid out at the mouth of
the river, and made green with trefoil or tares. These
Casino subscription rooms face the beach. There is a
carriage-drive along the shore to the west, called the
English road, by the garden-walls of the villas, whose
back fronts skirt the high road (the suburb street). These
gardens look inviting with their olive and orange trees,
their palmettos, and their roses and geraniums still in
flower; particularly that of Count Orestis; from the little
peep I had through his waterside gateway : torrent water-
courses between the garden walls (now dry) open out
to the sea. This same beach is very broad, of grey
flatish pebbles, with no smooth-water sand-margin as
with us, and. where the tides rise and fall ; here there is
very little change of tide. This fact alone seems to
deprive the Mediterranean of something of its ocean-
grandeur, though indeed all along this coast how beauti-
fully clear it is in its pellucid pale blue play among the
rocks ! Many pretty coves and nooks below the perpen-
dicular rocks here round to the harbour, invite one to
strip, and plunge in.
HOUSE BUILDING. 119
There is quite a new quarter springing up behind
the harbour, running into the road, along the channel of
the Palione : many fine streets and squares already built,
others building; trenching on the orange-groves of
suburban villas ; their owners finding more profit in
selling building lots. I watch their walls rising, and
their foundations, how solid, how honest, compared with
the things which rise in our London, or any of our
towns ! These foundations, a full yard or more in
breadth ; the mortar excellent, while ours is little better
than mud with rare exceptions in select houses. I am
absolutely afraid of my own flimsy gable end wall ; and
I am sure no district inspector ever once looked at it, as
the act directs !
But, compared with the continent, I find everything
among ourselves flimsy ! flash our whole world only
live for show. What sincerity or what merit is there
left among us, that is much cared for ? Gold, riches,
outward appearance, childish ostentation, reaches even
our villages, and flaunts it in a garden-chair and satins,
beside the miserable poor at 85. and 95. per week.
Even our clergy affect fashion, and allow their wives to
act the rural fine lady ! Instead of at once applying a
remedy to positive hideous evils, we amuse ourselves
denouncing agression, and discussing High and Low
Church ! I try to explain the pleasant training of our
young men at Oxford and Cambridge for the sacred
i 4
120 POLITICAL VENALITY.
office of priest (sinking the riding about after foxes,
and bagging game as a pastime!). But how explain
such awful absurdities ! I am met by an incredulous
stare.
I take up the Times at Visconti's. Do I want any
confirmation of our utter corruption and servility ? It
is stamped there, in its admirable leading articles, on
every possible subject, most on our ten thousand injus-
tices, absurdities and jobs. The Times can write about
it and about it, in an affected fearless candour things
that no minister, no man, should suffer to go on so for
a single day, or quit the helm.
Yet, this very able Times is the organ of this or that
very minister, and means that these dreadful things
should go on ; and they do go on. "VVoe be to that man
who dares lift his voice, and put his finger on the parti-
cular plague spot ! Like the M. P. of the Travellers,
he is instantly treated as an ass with that shri-
velling scorn, which is death politically ; and these too
apparently true mischiefs denied superciliously by a
Court sinecurist. This high-bred pooh-poohing by a crea-
ture of the Court, vouched for by the new Government
organ so improbable! but things come to pass, and
speak for themselves. Who is to prove an unconstitu-
tional intermeddling? where the watchword which
begirts the palace and the Castle and all office! is
silence ! Most of our journals, pro and con, are in turn
VILLAGERS. 121
bought and sold; and, as the organs of political truth,
are utterly contemptible.
I look with an anxious, inquiring eye on the particu-
lar good of the various places I come to what do
people get or enjoy here ? As to health, it is all non-
sense ; as to society, why it is, as it may be, a matter of
chance, to know pleasant people. Among the French
or Italians, we are ever mere blundering children ;
among ourselves, we had better be at Brighton or
Torquay.
Nice has a great many nice, nay, charming walks on
all sides towards the immediate hills, and round the
rocky shores to the east, once out of the dusty streets,
and from among its narrow stone-walled lanes: to
Villefranche, and when there, say in a carriage (it is but
two miles off) or on horseback, to take boat over across
its fine harbour to the other side, and then walk across
its olive orchards to St. John's ; where, coming out on
its cove, one finds oneself on the margin of the sea on
the edge of the cliff, very much resembling our own
dear Devonshire cliffs. All here is rural, shady, and
puts one much in mind of home, " sweet home ! "
There is, too, a rural innocence and simplicity about
the villagers, very charming civil, kind. The " Ion
jour? on meeting often the only pure French they
can master greets one at every turn. I thought the
women mostly handsome, too many of the young
122 VILLEFRANCHE.
girls fair and pretty. The town of Villefranche, on its
steep hill side, is remarkably clean ; many good houses.
There is, too, a garrison and considerable fortress here.
The harbour is magnificent, deep enough and capacious
enough for any fleet, and safe from all winds, except,
perhaps, the south-east, from whence gales are least
likely to blow.
At other times, alone, I range along the rocky path
round the rugged shore, beyond the harbour, which,
too, is excellent for all vessels not requiring more than
thirteen feet water; indeed, the port of Nice, though
small, is most secure, easy, and excellent, and quite large
and deep enough, in its clear rocky waters, for ten times
the commerce likely to be encouraged here ; since even
very lately they have strangled its growing importance
and usefulness. It is no longer a free port ! Its free-
dom transferred to Genoa ; such as it is, in which nothing
is free.
From these eastern rocks, where one must scramble
and jump for a footing here and there, keeping along
the sea side, the whole sweeping shore of the grey beach
along the front of the city, with its constant washer-
women's table cloths spread of drying clothes on the hot
pebbles, is seen and is unique. One fancies the beach
at Brighton allowed to be spread in this way, not that
it does any harm, even in the idea, for it rather agree-
ably relieves the dull grey at the edge of tho blue wave.
BEACH RAMBLES. 123
Nobody ever approaches ihisfagade (at the terrace side
a few fishing boats are hauled up on the beach), except
on the western part, towards the English shore drive
by the Casino, beyond the small " Jardin des Plantes"
this recent little square at the sea end, and the more
modern ranges of fine houses on the western side of the
Palione, only date some twenty years back.
But I am musing, seated on some kindly rock just
shut out from city, port, and all suburban villas, on this
east and savage side. All here is grand and wild, as in
time out of mind ! and oh, how infinitely beautiful, as the
sea lashes among the nooks and caves far below my feet !
This, indeed, speaks of heaven, and of eternity I here
I sum up my own little term of life drawing to a close.
" A puny insect, shivering at a breeze," indeed ! and
what are nations ! what their heroes, whose good deeds
have been the better inflicting death and mischief on
masses of us insects the brimstone of the bee-hive.
Fresh swarms burnt out, killed ! busy, busy bees.
I see by the "Times" that that extra busy bee, Lord B.,
has left his cell at Cannes, to buzz in that other larger
hive, the upper house. Well, I may thank my stars if
I can obscurely gather honey here innoxiously from
little wild flowers, which peep out and greet me from
their little moss cells in the time-worn crevices of these
marbles. How gloriously fantastic the shape of these
Worn rocks ! how beautifully and infinitely varied.
124 ON AETISTS.
Every farther step is a study for the mind, for a painter,
and to me it is astonishing we have so few " artists " (I
hate the word) who think it worth while to study new
forms and scenes, and vary their monotonous productions.
They seem but to go on copying themselves and each
other no matter how well it might be so much better.
No people, however, are so fond of the word " artiste " as
the French, so prone to dress them out as geniuses
universal ; where in fact, they have hardly conquered the
a, b, c, of their trade, and evidently haven't an idea be-
yond their brush, their voice, or their fiddle-stick. Let
them climb higher, and sit here awhile ; or, on our own
granite bulwarks round the Land's End.
How sad it is being sad to be by oneself, quite
alone, hardly speaking for days together ! My spirits flag.
Thus solitary, I have ample time to study external
things here: how widely different would they appear to
me, did I but know their people, and their language,
the patois of these shores.
Things -proper, down-right every-day things solid
as stone walls, felt as the sunshine, or the rain, change
their hue, like the chamelion, through the mind's mood.
I go in and out of the " Circle" where an acquaintance
has kindly put my name down, or at Visconti's,
where one sees groups reading, with no more interest
than groups of wax figures. How many of these men
have nice homes here, pleasant society, all that makes
life tolerable ! I have fled from it, to wander and observe ;
M. DE LA MARTIN E. 125
and commune with my own melancholy mind. 'Tis well
I can read things beyond the ephemeral interest of news-
papers, with all their pretensions, ignorances, and very
cleverness, to lie like truth, and mark their changes, like
the flying clouds.
I take up one of the last efforts of that prolific brain,
M. de la Martine ; his " Graziella " is a railway volume,
wherein he recounts his youthful loves at Naples, in a
charming style; the prose of poetry, and the poetry of
prose. His simple narrative harmonises exquisitely with
the beauty of the scene. The bay, the island of Procida,
an old fisherman's family in which he became one of
themselves for many months, in his eighteenth year
(about the year 1810, while Murat was king). What
a dream is this life I As we all do, De la Martine, in the
decline of life, at his chateau St. Point, amid his quiet
Burgundian vineyards, near Macon, looks back with an
aching heart on his youth on his once heartless ingra-
titude. For, dress up the story as he may, it is but too
plain on the face of it its internal evidence ; the whole
truth more leaks out in the anguish of a few poetic stanzas
at the end, than in the careful studied simplicity of the
tale. In those lines where the naked truth bursts out
in tears
" Allez * ou va mon ame ! allez, 6 mes pensees !
Mon cceur est plein ; je veux pleurer ! "
Yes, forty years too late ! I too am touched by the
* Ses pensees.
126
premature death of the beautiful child of nature and
the island. She who loved " not wisely but too well ; "
and tears fill my eyes, even while I know that all the
tender and most affecting part is but a poetic fiction ; ex-
cept her death. I will go to the Margellina, cross to
Procida in a fisherman's boat, try and find some trace
of poor Graziella's little cell. Mayhap speak to some
withered old woman among the Lazaroni, once the
blithe and beauteous companion of his heroine, once one
of the young girls of the fishing beach, in the suburbs
towards Pausilipo, the playmates in 1810, of poor Gra-
ziella. For there is no doubt it is true enough ; while
young and poor and obscure, this poet and wild vision-
ary statesman actually led the life of one of themselves
among their fishermen of the bay of Naples. Admir-
able school to enlarge and fortify the poetic soul of youth,
and what a strange eventful life has his been ; but even
from his own story he was cold and selfish at eighteen ;
a poetic dandy at thirty ; indeed, at forty, when Lady
Hester Stanhope sets him down as an affected fop, among
the cedars of Lebanon, before, poor fellow I he lost his
only child but how read unmoved his unaffected sor-
rows in the Holy Land, where he lays in her grave this
daughter snatched from him in her llth year! This
touches the chord of my own tender regrets I O, this
sinking of the heart, this bitterness of life to lose all
that makes life sweet ! years pass on in this triste medley
dream of life ! If susceptibility heightens the keenness
THE CONVENT OF THE CIMIE. 127
of enjoyment, so too does it aggravate our inevitable
miseries. Come, sweet oblivion next hope, heaven's
best balm.
One of the excursions here is up the nearer hills to
the convent of the Cimie. I put on my walking shoes
early, before the sun grows too hot (for already now, the
8th of February, it is very hot from 11 till 3), crossing
the old bridge, and along the road of the right bank of
the Palione, about three miles up the stream, where the
mountains close in a more narrow defile, I reach the
Abbey of <SY. Pons here too is a curious ruin of a
chapel, on the top of a perpendicular rock over the
road, just below the church of the monastery (now a
seminary), which, for the most part, is a large modern
building, church and all in one: the latter still left
unfinished in its stucco, with scaffolding holes in the
rough first coat of mortar, as so many of the continental
churches are.
Returning along the brow of these hills (they swell
higher to mountains, and the snowy Alps peep over all)
on a still higher point, along lanes and small paths,
among olive and orange orchards vineyards, in stripes
of wheat and beans ; a mile nearer Nice, I come to the
Convent of the Cimie ; the front portico of the chapel
fresh in fresco paintings of monastic martyrs, the Virgin
and our Saviour.
Through the iron gate, I see it encloses a cemetery,
128 LOCAL CHARACTERISTICS.
and I hear the buzzing of children at school all else
solitary and secluded.
In the level space in front, I was struck by the size
and beauty of the ever-green oaks, and a curious marble
pillar with spiral trunk, surmounted by a cross of the
middle ages: hereabout too, are the Roman remains of an
amphitheatre and temple ; which, after all, I did not see.
I say not enough or too much of Nice ; one in vain
describes the features of a town or the country. All this
coast is much alike, sunny shores, rocky hills and
mountains, here and there plains where their now dry
torrent rivers debouche. Every where the olive, orange,
and vine ; stone walls, and high massive houses, even in
the villages.
Narrow, dirty, ill-paved streets but plenty of foun-
tains, and water running along the gutters.
Then comes the details of particular cities from
Montpellier to Leghorn, or down to Calabria ; 'tis still
the same, with certain small modifications for you
get among the Italians in such an easy transition that
you are not much struck by any change. You may
speak French and Italian well, and still be among an
everlasting jargon ; the same patois running all round.
At Naples who can understand a word said, more than
here, or at Montpellier ! This Ni9ois language differs
little or nothing from the same patois in the whole south
of France ; to be sure it may get still a trifle more
Italian.
QUIT NICE. 129
CHAP. IV.
TO GENOA BY THE CORNICE. LOOK BACK AT NICE. ITS CLIMATE,
NEGLECT, AND BEGGARS. ARRIVE AT GENOA. THE KING.
CONSULS. FETES. OPERA. REVIEW. REGATTA. START FOR
LEGHORN BY STEAMER. PISA BY RAIL. ON TO CIVITA VECCHIA.
ITS PORT. CAN'T LAND WITHOUT A CONSUL'S VISA. AP-
PEARANCE OF THE COAST. TIPSY ENGINEER AND SICK CAPTAIN.
STORMY. ISCHIA. BAY OF NAPLES. MOLE. LANDING AT
CUSTOM-HOUSE. NAPLES. VILLA REALE. CHAIA. POMPEII.
BAL2E. MUSIC. CAMPO SANTO. TOLEDO. MOLE. OPERA.
GOATS. EUROPA CAFE. FLOWERS. MARKETS,
I AM off for Genoa, the small steamer which goes
there once a week charges thirty francs, while the
diligence (there are two) asks only twenty.
These last three days, though the sun is as hot and as
brilliant as it has remained this last month, have been
freezing ; though indeed one can see no ice nothing
but whirlwinds of dust; nor will the town water a single
street or road no, not for one hundred yards, until
spring or summer, when most of us strangers have left.
But, apropos of this unwise neglect, nothing is cared
for everything seems left to decay and look shabby,
130 TOWN NEGLECTED. BEGGARS.
as if the effort to build great rows of houses in the
Croix de Marbre quarter towards the Var, and the
suburb behind this chateau mount, were quite enough;
indeed nothing seems done by the town. The terrace
coping- wall is crumbling away and shabby ; the plaister
under foot, worn in holes, threatens the shops, restau-
rants, and cafes beneath on the Corso, to let in the rain,
when it does come only I believe they are too strong,
all vaulted : even the little square of the botanic garden,
full of dust, lies unfinished, with mere cane (roseau)
broken rails round the borders; all is left slovenly and
unfinished, as if in fact there were no government at
all ! Happily they are a quiet, merry people, and want
very little; but really the Intendant and Council stand
for nothing.
They say the city is very poor, at the price every-
thing is at ; almost, nay, quite equal to Paris ! Yet,
from a defective collection of that stupid contrivance
of the octroi, the city funds are low. Why not tax
the owners of these enormous houses and hotels, which
have no mercy in fleecing us travellers and sojourn ers !
Eight hundred or one thousand pounds, would alter
the face of everything.
Another drawback here, and I think the greatest
nuisance, are the regular beggars; they beset the
streets, the shop-doors, the walks, the promenades, and
whine and howl at every frequented place! They
CLIMATE. KESIDENCE. 131
even mount the stairs (the doors are always open
till ten at night), and ring at the bells, and groan and
whine at every door, up to the very top of the house.
People are afraid of them from superstition, and give,
and give, to continue the nuisance ; but it is scandalous
in the authorities' allowing it, it might be put a stop
to in a single day, and all these pests sent into one
poorhouse. But I am persuaded if they got an ink-
ling of such a kind provision, not one in twenty but
would run off, to avoid any sort of work. These
animals, like our own London regular street beggars,
are not the deserving destitute, and should be above all
strictly forbidden. After all, to a family, if for some
years or for life, a villa in its orange and olive gardens
or grounds in the environs, along towards the Var on
the south hill-sides, or by the Palione towards the
north, from one to three miles out of town, might be
got comparatively cheap, either to rent or purchase,
and be a desirable residence to those who like a con-
stant hot sun, and have nothing left at home to care
for. The theatre, easy access to society, balls, and the
more economical mode of life, are certainly attractions
beyond the reach of any of our own country towns;
one must, however, take into account, travelling, pass-
ports, and that kind of nothingness one must submit to
in a strange language and strange country : to begin
properly, one should master the patois du pays.
K2
132 SAKDINIA.
French and Italian is of little use beyond your draw-
ing-room, and will leave you for ever that most dismal
of all God's creatures a stranger.
Although the sun gains ground daily, these cold
north-easters are as obstinate as our spring east winds,
and very much colder. Genoa, farther north, in the
corner where the mountains turn south, met by the
range of the Apennines, may be better, can't be worse,
so I take my place; but these diligences are sad
creeping things, and begin by a creep up the moun-
tain north of the city, of a couple of hours' duration :
besides they are wretchedly horsed I It is the same
with the post-horses. I watched our Usher of the
Black Rod (one of our worthy admirals), with his two
carriages, starting for Genoa. The horses were so lean, so
miserable, that it must have been sad work to sit behind
them, to see them flogged by their brutes of postillions.
All this is the fault of Government. Sardinia is in
a transition state as yet certainly nothing for the
better ; and they are chattering of liberty ! such liberty
as will lead them to " il mio prigione!" For they
neither understand the right sort, nor can they conquer
it. Italian journals seem to me dull, drivelling non-
sense. Ignorant worn out platitudes on every theme :
or is it my own ignorance of the peculiar force of
their language ! To an Italian liberal they may seem
as strongly perspicuous as a Times leader ! I'll jog on.
ANNOYANCES IN TRAVELLING. 133
Adieu, good, pleasant, cheerful, primitive Nice! I
have never entered or walked about any large town so
perfectly easy and innocent !
There is a cheerful light-heartedness among the
young population, quite refreshing; rarely any squab-
bling or crime everybody seems content on very little,
and living on an industrious, pains-taking economy.
I speak of the people ; but indeed the richer and idle
world, mostly made up of foreigners, are comparatively
humble and rational. Driving about in their carriages
seems their greatest effort and luxury, but, I should
add, smoking, morning, noon, and night.
To forward their own mercantile speculations, which
after all are a mere nothing compared to their profits
in taking passengers, to enhance any danger and
difficulty there may be, and make the trip as dismal
and disagreeable as they can, all the steamers along
this coast start in the evening, and only run at night.
It cannot be more than fifty or sixty miles from Nice to
Genoa, a morning's run in any tolerable boat. The
Sardinian steamer, I see, is a small thing, and slow
enough; only one other plies to and from Marseilles,
and none of the other Mediterranean steamers even
touch here.
There are two diligences in the morning, at seven
and eight; they take twenty-eight hours. The road
lies along the southern edges of the Alps, most part
134 MONACO, VINTIMIGLIA, ETC.
of the way overhanging the sea; everywhere grand,
sublime. I find two Sardinian officers in the inte-
rior of the coach, both very agreeable. At the first
stage, La Turbid, a village just above Monaco, our
luggage was taken down and searched ! This is the
second time in constitutional Sardinia ! Of all the
vexatious contrivances of various Europe, this is the
worst; at least it disputes the palm with passports,
as if to disgust one with travelling. They ask us if
we have nothing " to declare" going from one of their
own towns to another. Nice ceases to be a free port ;
and yet their parliament are chattering about liberty
and enlightened ideas !
O, give me the enlightened despotism of one sensible
man ! I think the French but too well off; for at least
some things for the public good are promptly and
frankly done, without the delay, and being bandied
from one set of selfish talkers to another.
We dine at Mentone: this mountain road has less
climbing up and down than one might expect, but its
length is doubled by its following the gorges at the
edge of the cliffs ; so that it is a constant in and out,
sometimes overhanging the sea, then again among olive
orchards in the steep small glens or valleys. Monaco,
on its little peninsular rock, jutting into the sea, we
could see below us (like Villefranc at setting out) for
a couple of hours ; indeed, our progress, though often at
FELLOW TRAVELLERS. 135
a good smart trot, seems a mere snail's-pace, the eye
taking such a sweep over mountains and sea.
But I must not attempt description, it has been done
so often ; and this cornice road is pretty well known.
We pass various towns : Vintimiglia is large, and has
its dry -bedded torrent, like Nice ; St. Remo, too.
At St. Laurentia, which is a large town, there is
some trade in oil and wine ; and at all of them by the
sea-side I observed large boats, and vessels build-
ing on the beach, and a good many fishing-boats and
small coasters hauled up out of the surf; which, as the
day was windy from the west, rolled in, lashing the
rocks and sands in a continued foam.
A mass of clouds passed over us from the north,
and for an hour or two conquered the western wind.
This storm, with its smart shower, laid the dust a little.
The first rain I have seen for these six weeks, but the
weather remains cold.
We were soon uncomfortably packed in the diligence:
a stout old gentleman, " a ton of man," was the worst;
a soldier of the line faced him, and a country dame, with
something like a wallet, beside him. Everybody takes
snuff, and the offering was incessant, besides the smoking
as a matter of course. The soldier entered into the
conversation with the officers very familiarly, and per-
haps intelligently, but I cannot follow the Italian, much
less the jargon of the country.
K 4
136 ITALIAN STEAMERS.
Everybody, it seems, is going to Genoa, to the fetes
(the railroad to be inaugurated by the King), and for
the last days of the Carnival : not a bed to be had at
the hotels ; apartments exorbitant, &c. In short I
could not get to Genoa at a worse time, for I am tired
of shows and sight-seeing.
Sunday, 19th February, at length dawns on us. We
see Genoa for hours before we arrive, with the ranges
of mountains to the eastward ; indeed we could see its
lighthouse long before daylight. It looks quite close,
but the road lengthens as we advance.
After all, this short journey might be got over just
as easily in half the time, either by land or sea. But
in Italy everything is still behind-hand. Their steamers
are slow and very expensive. The fare, for instance,
from Nice, is thirty francs ; ten more than by the dili-
gence ! There is no sort of reason why it should be more
than five or six francs. In the same way they charge
one hundred and thirty francs (51. 105.) from Genoa
to Naples, a run of thirty hours; though it occupies
two days or more, as they call at Leghorn and Civita
Vecchia, remaining for hours for their own, rather
than their passengers' convenience.
To Malta the fare is two hundred and twenty-five
francs, out of all proportion to the distance ; so that,
by coming round the shores as far as Genoa, you are not
at all advanced on the score of economy; for the fare
GENOA. 137
is much the same to and from Marseilles, with all sorts
of contrivances to increase every kind of expense the
consuls, the boatmen, the stewards, the porters. At
the office they pretend to say you are found ; it turned
out only a very bad dinner each twenty -four hours; the
breakfast to be paid for, even more than at a hotel, and
all the cabin servants quite as greedy and impudent
while they are scarcely civil, except at the moment
they expect their present, which must be extravagant,
if it prevents parting insolence, both of word and look.
All this by the way ; it accumulates as we get towards
Naples, where it is intolerable ; but I anticipate.
All the young world read of Genoa "la Superba,"
lying at the foot of its amphitheatre of picturesque
mountains. It is now nearly forty years since, full of
youthful curiosity and admiration, I went the round of
all the show palaces in the vias Nuova, Nuovissima, and
Balbi. These three streets run into each other, and
form the main artery through the town : they are far
from wide enough to give the houses a fair chance of
being seen to advantage ; while those running across
them indeed all the rest are hardly wide enough for
a cart; in which, when you look upwards, you see a
narrow strip of sky between the cornices and roofs of
houses, everywhere five and six stories high. This con-
tinental build keeps out the too fiery sun in summer,
true ; but it has a gloomy damp effect.
138 OPENING OF A RAILWAY.
These forty years must have produced great changes,
yet, to my eye, there seems none. No doubt there are,
too, more houses on the hill-sides round, and they have
built a fine terrace on the harbour side along the quays,
the " Terragone ; " but the mole appears more dirty and
dilapidated than ever. Some reparations are going on
here and there, very slowly, in violent contrast to the
activity in erecting a wooden temple, statues, seats, and
decorations on the wharf at the end of the Terragone,
for the King's reception, and the railroad ceremony.
Indeed, nowhere do I see the least neatness or repair
of anything. The marble door-ways, cornices, windows,
everything not in constant use and wear, are hung
with cobwebs, and covered with dirt. Even the great
thoroughfare and great palaces are hardly an exception.
Other abominations are very much as in French cities
and suburbs. There is a villanous compound of most
disagreeable smells.
All the world are crowding the one long line of the
three streets, from the theatre to the railway terminus,
the whole length perhaps rather more than a mile.
The present King of Sardinia looks forty, is stout
and fair, wears large moustaches, is said to be popular,
and is a good deal a sans ceremonie kind of man. He has
a young family.
Genoa has taken a week's holiday everybody dressed
out, and the hotels and everything to be hired making
THE HOTELS OF GENOA. 139
a rich harvest. I went to the supposed best hotel, close
to the exchange, and near the harbour and quays the
Feder; but impossible to get a bed-room. I got one,
however, in the Vico St. Agnese, the very essence of
every species of discomfort, besides dirt and damp.
Hotels and lodgings are sure to take away one's last
lingering spice of romance attached to renowned names,
places, and antiquity on the Continent ! Traveller follows
traveller; nobody dares to remonstrate; indeed, now, it
would be useless. All our young fellows who escape
for a spring or winter seem in love with being fleeced ;
indeed they are the exact cause of the exaction every-
where. It is voted ungenteel to think of economy ; so
their sisters and mammas, and their governor (if they
are lumbered with any), are obliged to travel en Prince.
It is of little use talking of forty years since (as bad
as sixty), but it is a fact that we were infinitely better
treated then than we are now, better meals and less
greediness of servants; indeed, all sorts of inevitable
imposition much more modest. The dinners particularly.
They are now invariably mean and bad, the soup and
wine mere water, and no such thing to be seen as any
delicacy of the season !
To get at the hundreds of good things going, one
must make some stay, take a lodging and have your
own servants; indeed, go to market yourself. The
recent complaints about our hotels, and all the pro and
140 FETE AT GENOA.
con letters to the Times on extravagant charges, are not
dreamt of here on the Continent, where hotel-keepers
reign supreme lords of their own castles, doing you a
favour by robbing you at their good pleasure. At
home, if we are fleeced, at least we have great civility,
and generally great comfort and good cheer, for our
money.
Nothing need be more dull than the description of
fetes, except, perhaps, assisting at them ; but, as I saw
nothing, these four or five days are soon dismissed. The
King and Court were expected at twelve, and arrived
from Turin by an express train at half-past one. A
single line of rail was laid down for the occasion to the
temple and altar at the Tem^one, where all the high
world, who could get seats, sat waiting, and all the low
world crowded and jammed themselves in, in all direc-
tions. I went up to the walled terrace of a church in
the western suburb, a mile off, from whence there was a
good view of things at a distance below, on the harbour
side; where three Dutch men-of-war joined a Sardinian
war-steamer in saluting. So there was plenty of noise,
and smoke; and bell-ringing at all the churches. At night
there was a general illumination; the escaping gas in
the streets very offensive the dust smothering, from
the shuffling along of thousands ; and the carriages
there being no room for their circulation was of no
moment.
MARQUIS DI SERRA. 141
There was that stupid Verdi opera of the Trovatore
(Foundling) and a veglione at midnight.
Next day, at ten, a review of the whole garrison on
the glacis, out at the Porta del Sol, I think, to the east ;
under the bastion, where the mountain-torrent pours its
stream (when there is any), now nearly dry. The troops,
drawn up in three lines, waited an hour for his Majesty,
who at length rode on the parade at the head of his
brilliant cortege, &c. It had the merit of being soon
over ; when the king sent his soldiers to breakfast, and,
at a smart trot, crossed the Ponte Pia bridge, followed
by all his courtiers, somewhere into the country.
This eastern suburb is pretty, and, besides its kitchen
gardens, is the richest of the city. Here the town is
least hemmed in by the mountains, which rise pretty
steep elsewhere ; followed upwards, up stairs, by many
of the streets north of the great thoroughfare.
The richest noble here, the Marquis di Serra, gives a
grand ball, said to cost him one hundred thousand
francs. His palace, the most exquisite in taste and
modern art, will hold, he says, eight hundred, comfort-
ably; but, to oblige, he issues tickets for twelve hundred!
not that I could by any means get one of these cram-
ming additions, as our consul told me " the thing was
impossible," as persons of rank, his own immediate re-
lations, could not, with all his influence! Of this I
could not judge ; but I could, certainly, of a very rude
142 ENGLISH CONSULS AND ENVOYS.
reception by this old gentleman ; who is no doubt most
accustomed to receive captains of merchantmen and
their fees.
Apropos of our consuls (where they are English), and
our envoys and ambassadors ; they everywhere seem to
think that they need scarcely be civil to Englishmen
not having letters of introduction from some private
friend! so far do they stand aloof from helping a
countryman by their good offices ; as for any hospitality,
that seems out of the question ! Their high appoint-
ments are considered quite a close, private affair, made
for their own exclusive and particular convenience.
Perhaps they may plead the rush abroad of Tom,
Dick, and Harry, and of unmistakable Cockneys ;
but, in a broad sense, the excuse is very lame, and the
affectation of fashion, and of clique, contemptible; it is
worse it is mischievous. One of these persons I
applied to here made a great difficulty about a pre-
sentation to the king, when in fact there was none
whatever. There was a ball on the third night, at the
royal palace in the Strada Balbi : all officers in uniform
were received as a matter of course, a?id foreign officers
presented as a matter of course by their respective envoys.
The leading streets were illuminated every night,
very cleverly, by stars at certain distances, and, at the
Carlo Felice (the opera), a veglione after the opera; but
masking seems growing out of date, and vegliones get
SHIPPING. SHOPS. 143
proportionably dull affairs, in which a great crowd
amuse themselves, jostling and staring at each other in
silence, in a dusty, gaseous, atmosphere.
The fetes wound up with a regatta. A poor affair ;
half a dozen clumsy harbour-boats starting from out-
side the mole and rowing in to the goal (a hulk fitted
up). The King appeared for a few minutes in his barge :
the ships, all dressed in flags, manned yards, and saluted
twice. I went on board the only Genoa war-steamer,
bought of one of our steam companies, more for show
than use, as her heavy Paixhan guns would soon shake
her to pieces. I wished myself away from the deafen-
ing noise, but the Piedmontese ladies stood all this
thundering wonderfully well. The percussion of the
guns of the heavy Dutch frigate close to us, which we
felt very forcibly, drove very few of the women off the
paddle-boxes. None of the guns were wadded, the ships
lying so close to each other : formerly many accidents
happened from the hard wadding striking within a
certain range.
The mole is full of small traders, and a good deal of
activity going on at the wharves, unloading grain of all
sorts, and hides. I see very few English vessels : indeed,
the great mass are Sardinian coasters.
Genoa may have improved in her shops, but they are
very poor affairs still ; small, no show or taste displayed,
open in front in the simple way of the East, except a
144 BOATMEN AND CONSULS.
very few in the chief streets, and they are chiefly
French.
The visas one may get at home from ambassadors do
not at all shelter one from the rapacity of the various
consuls : a little rude animal of the Two Sicilies is
here, to make you pay six francs for his visa. Rome
has one, too, or you cannot land at Civita Vecchia ; and
Florence another. The steam-boat offices play into the
hands of these harpies, and will not book you or take
you without their good leave, and there is no help for
it.
In all their harbours the boatmen are let loose on
passengers, to impose on them as much as possible : there
is no exact fare, so you must bargain and bate them
down before you get into a boat, the steamers, as if
on purpose, never lying alongside the wharf, as they
might so easily do. However, the boatmen are gene-
rally civil fellows, and content with getting ten times
as much as if left to their own countrymen's patronage.
Having run the gauntlet of consuls, I embark for Na-
ples, in a rather good Neapolitan steamer, the Calabrese.
They take your passport at the office, and give you
merely a receipt for it and your one hundred and thirty
francs, which is in turn taken from you by the first
cabin servant you meet on deck ; so that at last you
have nothing whatever left to attest for one or the other,
and are in fact i;' u the mercy of the cabin boy ! not that
SIMILARITY OF DRESS. 145
he could have any interest in playing tricks ; but they
certainly take care that the security shall be all on one
side.
We were said to start at six ; but as the run to Leg-
horn, where they remain a day, is very short, we did
not weigh the anchor till ten at night. I say nothing
of Genoa, its general features are so well known, and
Murray's Hand-book is in everybody's hands. Those
three streets and its churches are magnificent. The
theatre is large and handsome, and the one cafe oppo-
site to it constantly crammed by officers and the dlite of
the town, all smoking they even smoke at table, be-
fore the ladies at the hotels retire ; nobody minds it.
All Europe dress alike now-a-days; there is very
little distinction left nothing odd, or picturesque, or
amusing, which is the worst part of it.
Here the trading class still retain their women's white
muslin scarf over the head, and crossed over the breast,
as in Spain ; but even that is giving way to the more
distingue bonnet the Paris chapeau. This scarf for
country women and lower classes is of cotton, in egre-
giously flaring colours.
The women struck me as well-grown and comely,
often handsome, with blue eyes and light hair ; so have
many of the men.
The better classes tall and handsome ; they all wear
beards and moustache, more or less, so that we English
L
146 RAILWAYS AND STEAMERS.
look like clipped fighting-cocks among them ; and I must
say (so prone is one to like whatever is the fashion of
a country) by no means to advantage ; but if there are
occasionally a few hundred English in any one Italian
city, they are quite lost in the crowd.
It so happened, that at the Feder most of the English
were small, and by no means prepossessing in appear-
ance perhaps invalids, while the Italians were tall,
handsome fellows. Why should we wonder at our tra-
velling girls occasionally falling in love with them, when
so often thrown together, besides the temptation of be-
coming contessas and marquisas !
I must not forget the railway to Turin, and another
to Novara ; so that of the Italian states Piedmont takes
the lead. They reach Turin in four or five hours ; the
first class fare twelve francs very moderate for the
distance.
A small steamer, I find, runs to Spezzia (in the neigh-
bouring gulf), from whence coaches ply to Tuscany,
&c. ; but the worst of many shiftings in travelling is
not only the harbour boats, porters, hotels, &c., but
fresh openings of trunks at the custom-houses, and
other vexations, " too tedious to mention."
To make sure of my passage, I go on board six
hours too soon. The weather is very fine ; a bright
sun every day, but the wind very cold still; however,
considering this winter, we have no right to find fault.
CABIN ACCOMMODATIONS. 147
We dine at eight o'clock, to give those passengers
time enough (coming from Marseilles) who are on shore
for the day, and in the hope of tiring out the patience
of the new comers, and save so much. Indeed, the
meanness and greediness of these boats is quite incon-
ceivable; agreeably relieved by pertness on the least
hitch or remonstrance.
We now find their meals e< included" to mean a very
shabby dinner only. You may order your breakfast,
and of course pay for it extra. The impudence of this
cheat is set off by a wonderful sang froid ; there is
nobody to appeal to. The captain is in his cabin, with
a sore head or leg ; the second captain and pilot are
mere sailors among the men. The engineer is a drunken
Englishman, swiping at his boiler; and our steward
and his myrmidons reign paramount, shuffling every
thing off with a " ma," and a shrug on the " company"
Luckily, this unhandsome fix does not last long ; and,
as far as the conduct of the boat goes, nothing could be
better. We glided out and in the harbours so quietly
and well, that it was hard to tell how the orders were
given or executed.
Among the crowd of ships in the harbour at Leg-
horn, there are more English than at Genoa. This
Tuscan has always been a stirring port. They have
now a railway to Pisa, straight as an arrow, and on to
Florence.
L 2
1 48 LEGHORN. PISA.
We all land, rattle through the Stracla Grande, a mile
outside the town and bastions, to the station, and go off
by rail to see the lions at Pisa. How many visions flit
before me, as in some half-remembered dream ! Here I
knew Madame de Stael, here danced at the gay balls
at the Mastiani's, here laughed at the odd pranks of
Professor Pachianni all gone to thin air asleep
in the campo santo.
I take a good look at those magnificent doors of the
cathedral, of the Bolognese John ; and once more wonder
at the strange freak of that tower, whether by design
or accident what matter ! The miniature ex voto chapel,
on the quay, methinks looks very much more dingy
and dirty than of old, and less beautiful, yet are forty
years as nothing here on the Arno, and this is the same
old Pisa.
At Leghorn they have made a new suburb square,
gateway, and drive, south of the town ; but here I
see nothing changed, unless a trifle more decayed.
The plain and distant Appenines, with their snowy
summits, are very fine.
At Pisa, I look, as I stroll along, at the outside of
these water-side palaces, whose interior I shall never see
again. The Felichis, and their astonishing fish-dinners
(careme), the easy conversaziones everywhere ! In
short, I dwell on the past charm of youth, which relished
BYRON AND SHELLEY. 149
everything; and now, after a long, common-place, un-
satisfactory life, and too near the dregs,
"How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable,
Seem to me the uses of this world! "
But if I suffer this sad feeling to get the better of me,
the first steamer direct home, to my own fire-side and
comforts, would be the wisest move ; no, I will take a
last look, and mark where I can the changes taking
place.
I am foolishly surprised at the nearness of the hills
which come down to the sea, south of Leghorn ; they
relieve the flatness all about very agreeably, and are
even within an easy walk, which I had forgotten.
I thought Elba could be seen to the south, perhaps
Gorgona, but there is nothing outside visible beyond
the beacon rock, Meloria, in the offing here.
Here Byron and Shelley are sure to be thought of, par-
ticularly the last: men have no business sailing about in
yachts and boats unless really good active seamen ; true,
his was an accident, but the result of not knowing
what to do. The sea is everywhere proverbially
treacherous, requiring a never-ceasing vigilance and
thorough knowledge.
After all, who ever knows what is for the best to
quit this world a little sooner or later? We must
confide in God's infinite goodness. "Whatever is is
L 3
150 CUSTOM-HOUSE AND POLICE-OFFICE.
right ! " for is it not guided and meant by the Al-
mighty !
Everybody scrambles on board by five o'clock, and
we are off very punctually. There is a very nice
roundhouse (though it is square) or deck-cabin in
this Calabrese, particularly grateful to lady passen-
gers not that it is quite free from the constant cigar.
It grew squally as the night wore on, with rain; by
Monday morning the wind increased as we approached
Naples; luckily it was off the land, which partially
sheltered us; from the south-west it would have been
very awkward, with the captain laid up in his cabin,
and a tipsy engineer, who swore he would not obey
orders, but keep full steam on when told to take it off!
However, there is a pilot, and by four o'clock we run
inside of Ischia, and into smoother water, anchoring in
the Mole by six o'clock.
The boatmen and various commissioners of the hotels
now come into play ; you name some hotel, and are bag
and baggage seized on, and rowed to the custom-house
and police-office, where your passport arrives before you,
and for which you get a kind of printed note, telling you
you must soon appear and get another, and pay six carlins
for it as a permit to reside, if only for a day or two.
A musical gentleman with his fiddle, I was told, had
to pay two piastres, about ten shillings, duty for it.
They smuggle any small thing ; but you must pay the
EXCHANGE OF MONEY. 151
smugglers almost as much as the duty, perhaps more !
The fellow who searched my trunk (a head-man behind
him looking on) held out his hand very frankly for his
fee ; and I put a franc in it quite openly after the trunk
was relocked, as I could not get it out at the instant. This
did not prevent my honest commissionaire, who made me
out a bill of two piastres, from charging a three carlini
fee (he never paid), three carlini the boat (he paid one
perhaps), and again three carlini for the cab the small
four-wheeled, open things of two seats, they scamper about
n now much less picturesque than the old fine-painted
and gilded caricoli, of half a century ago, but quite as
numerous ; there seems no set fare for these hacks, they
take anything; by the hour or the course, from one
carlin to a piastre. The exchange is everywhere so
much against France and England, that it is hard to tell
what a carlin is worth ! it should be fourpence or four-
pence half-penny, but it is now nearer sixpence.
I was obliged to pay nearly five francs for the ducat,
drawing on a Paris banker, losing near thirty francs on
three hundred (below par) ; they will take napoleons at
forty-four carlini, and five franc pieces at eleven carlini ;
the piastre, of nearly the same size (the dollar), is twelve
carlini; it is the old Spanish and Neapolitan colonnado. I
went to the Hotel des Etrangers, round beyond the
largo St. Lucia and clnatamone or hill towards the
Chiaia ; where they all speak English after a fashion,
L4
152 IMPROVEMENTS IN NAPLES.
and all the inmates were, I found, either English or
American.
Here their charges are quite first-rate, at any rate ;
bedroom six carlini, dinner nine carlini, very mean
and bad, and the wine to match, and breakfast five
carlini; now, for this cheap country, this exceeds
our worst London hotels, considering your fare and
your comfort.
It is very cold, and there is no fire, and not a room
even enjoying the short warmth of the sun ; so on the
third day I took a single room, at five carlini, in the
Palazzo Sedriana, on the Chiaia, close to the Royal
Garden gate, facing full south ; but here, though thought
the best situation in Naples, facing the garden and bay,
Sorrento, and Capri, the point and houses about
the Castel del Ovo (the chiatamone) block out Ve-
suvius, the rising sun, and the fine sweep of the
bay towards Portici. Indeed, the only good look now
from the town water-side is on the largo St. Lucia;
farther on, at the Royal Palace, the Castle Square, and
the Mole, the forts and more recent walls shut out the
view, except from the more distant suburbs east and
west. People now take lodgings, and there are hotels
as far as the Mergellina westward.
Although it is now the fifth of March, the weather
is very cold. Everybody says Naples is wonderfully
improved ; not that it strikes me so, yet no doubt I
CHARACTER AND DRESS OP THE NEAPOLITANS. 153
forget : the strada Toledo and Chiaia have been fresh
paved, some few houses built, others freshened up ; but
altogether it is still the same and, indeed, so I would
have it. All that is really fine and good is as old as the
hills.
Everything here is centred in the king, the police,
and the army. His Majesty is said to be an amiable
man, good husband, good father, good master, good
Christian ! all this in the interior of his palace. There
are sentinels everywhere.
Like Genoa, Naples shines as little as of old in shops
or cafes. There is only one of each of any show, or at all
fashionable the Europa, and Savarese's (their Howell
and James) both close to the Palace Square, at the end
of the Toledo. But one must walk about, and observe
narrowly, to be aware of the riches and the fine things
in a city like this, setting aside its museum, its anti-
quities and its churches, all containing infinite treasures.
No street but rejoices in some grand fountain, colossal
marble figures, portals, columns, monuments, which in
London would be a wonder : indeed, it is not till one
gets back home among our poor, little, mean, brick te-
nements, that the grandeur of the designs, and the size
and fine taste of the palaces here, and better houses in
almost every street, are recollected with interest, by
the violent contrast.
As to the people, T miss (or am T quite mistaken ?) the
154 EXORBITANT CHARGES.
crowds of street traders, except a few on the St. Lucia,
with their oysters and shells ; and along the Mergellina
one sees comparatively few even of their sunny water-
side people, with their red and brown woollen caps ; not
lazzaroni ; who are quite dispersed.
There is little of any peculiar dress left that of
the poorer classes is as heterogeneous as our own
whatever they can get to cover themselves with hats,
caps, jackets, shirt-sleeves, old coats, shod or bare-foot,
stockings or not, as it happens.
I see less too of the peculiar gobbling of boiled mac-
caroni, and the Toledo is quite cleared of the thousand
eating huckster's stands and stalls, and the crowds of
former days. On the Mole too I miss the funny im-
provisatori, mountebanks and charlatans, queer poets
ambulant, and singing groups ; indeed, I hear no music
at all, except a few organs and one bagpipe. In short,
there seems to be nothing merry left that meets the eye
in the streets; however, the whole world are intent
on making money honestly or not, from a grano up to
a hotel bill. You cannot buy the least thing that
you are not cheated in in the most absurd way. They
have no idea of any shame attached to asking ten times
what they might take, if beaten down. So everything
must be a matter of bargain, and they seem to thank
you quite as much for the smaller as the larger sum.
From giving four carlini for a ride, I found I could go
THE MUSEUM. 155
even farther for one, and from five and six by the hour,
I at last paid only two. In the shops, in the same way,
you can trust to nothing they say, even when " prezzi
Jissi" is stuck up at the door.
As to their going ahead of late years they too have
their railways to Pompeii, Casserta and Capua. The
station, a good way off in the east suburb, going along
the main strand and road by the Piliero and custom-
house.
I find the great cooking and maccaroni-eating place
now-a-days is below the Largo di Castello, and it goes
on among the multitude along the sea face of the city,
beyond the Piliero, on the way to Portici : poor things !
frugal is their fare, their lives one long abstinence, yet
are they merry perhaps happy.
I have just been to the museum, which contains end-
less treasures in sculpture, on the ground floor ; on the
first floor is the library, a suite of rooms with pictures,
and the antique bronzes from Pompeii, Herculaneum,&c.
This Museo Borbonico is open every day from nine to
three so it is after a fashion that is, each suite is
kept locked up by an officious custodium, who unlocks
for you or the party, and of course, sticking to you, ex-
pects a fee ; a late improvement.
I went partly round with a party of Italians : all
that is to be seen here would occupy a month of un-
tiring industry and the most undivided attention ; but
156 ANCIENT AND MODERN ART.
with one of these civil robbers at one's heels it soon
becomes rather a bore.
There is nothing very new except in the recent better
arrangement, and the fine mosaic discovered of late at
Pompeii. It is a battle on horseback and in cha-
riots, said to be of Alexander defeating Darius. A
warrior is down, pierced by the spear of a hostile horse-
man. The chief group are flying, while all the promi-
nent actors seem extremely interested at the fate of the
fallen chief Darius. Even the horses, which are ex-
tremely spirited, look concerned, turning their heads
towards him, in the most difficult positions : how supe-
rior were the ancients to everything one sees now-a-days,
even in their drawing and expression ! as to their statues
how inimitable I what a subdued expression of grief in
that sitting empress Agrippina! what beauty in that
exquisite figure of Bacchus ! what love and enjoyment in
that group of youth, their arms entwined ! what ma-
jesty in their Joves ! what strength in their Hercules,
and all this so infinitely varied I These marbles speak
not so modern imitations.
What things are our latest equestrian and other
statues, bronze or marble, stuck up in London, com-
pared with these ! and yet our botchers are paid
immense prices, and our fine arts' commission pay them !
But even here, with these treasures before their eyes,
there is a false, bad taste. I observed two painters
PICKPOCKETS. 157
copying a very defective head of a virgin half the
face in deep shade cut it in two ; another modelling
a head of Galba or Tiberius, or some excessively
repulsive Caesar : why choose that ! Farther on a
young lady was modelling a Yenus from a charming
statuette. She had reduced it, and was evidently
very clever ; her father and mother stood by her ; she was
tall and handsome.
This is all very well, but I would not have young
ladies make such a display of their art. Besides, hand-
ling and smearing with this bluish grey clay is by no
means elegant, nice, or inviting; the rosy fingers are
disgraced, one cannot forget it even after the washing.
I honestly set down the most trifling expenses as a
guide to others, not ashamed of economy. All the cab
fellows are content with a carlin from one end of the
town to the other. I took one to the police, to get my
passport ; it is on the Largo di Castello, in the range
of buildings devoted to the ministry (the secretaries of
state); here, delivering my first bit of printed paper, they
gave me my passport, very much stained and dirtied,
demanding two carlini and one grano, and that I was to
go (in good Italian I wouldn't understand) to our em-
bassy, get it vise, and return for a permit to dwell in the
city, &c.
A propos, I had heard of the adroitness of the pick-
pockets, and repented not taking a cab to the museum,
158 THE MERGELLINA.
one day ; for while I was losing my way, misdirected by
a priest and two cockedhatted abbots, some of the laity
picked my pocket of a favourite 'kerchief, which I had just
most agreeably scented, pluming myself on it, alas ! but,
setting aside my handerchief's ideal value, what can be
more awkward than being without one, and far from
home ! Vexed at this, which I found out when at last
I got to the museum, I determined to be excessively
resolute, and gave them not a single grano. The day is
lovely, and I begin to think the streets are crowded, as
in the olden time. Though in fact Naples, from various
causes, is not near so populous ; she had five or 'six
hundred thousand, now, they say, only three hundred
and seventy thousand souls.
Sight seeing even such beauteous things as these
is to me very tiring ; so I ran through, as fast as these
animals, who have charge of them, would let me. The
day is too fine to be caged in any walls ; so, being set
down for my carlin at the gardens, I walked on
to the Mergellina, which begins where the roads
separate ; the right hand, leaving the Chiaia be-
hind, goes through the tunnel (Groto di Pausi-
lippo). I kept on by the water's side, and passing
the fishermen's boats, drawn up on the beach, stopped
a moment to look at a party of young girls under
the bow of one of them, thinking of Lamartine's
" Graziella ! " Other groups of twos and threes, mothers
PKO VISIONS. 159
and daughters, caught my eye : but I cannot say in the
whole, or anywhere, I saw a single creature it would
be possible to fall in love with dingy, if not dirty
features and forms very so so.
The only rather pretty one (had she been well
washed and not in rags) was busy, at a very popular
employment here, looking after and destroying cer-
tain insects in her little brother's head! Now, M.
de Lamartine says nothing of these little episodes
in Mergellina life! But poets are bound by their
muse never to tell the truth not even in the dullest
prose. So now I am cured, and care not to go hunting
after poor dear Graziella's shade at Procida.
I rather inquired after a good harumscarum young
fellow, with an enormous beard, who generously gave
me a tiny bit of gold quartz he had brought all the way
from our Australian diggings anything from the anti-
podes becomes valuable, if only for bringing it so far.
He was on board the Calabrese, and talked of joining a
brother here, but for a few days, and off again to the
other side of the world, to scramble in that golden lottery.
I could not find him, and I was sorry, for I felt grateful ;
I love that impulse of good fellowship, un calculating, un-
genteel, unfashionable at least true and disinterested
only a hearty shake of the hand ! I, who could claim
nothing, feel myself his debtor, and long to repay it in
some way.
160 THEATRES.
Still rambling about, half-way up the Toledo, I
find a market ; the meat does not look inviting ;
butchers and their stalls dirty; plenty of poultry, but
either alive in baskets, or plucked in a very coarse
way; the eggs look well, a grano each, rather more.
Among vegetables, cauliflowers are fine and plentiful,
and I see green peas but neither are to be seen at
hotel tables ; the latter, fine and plentiful as they are,
rarely. The potatoes are better than they look ; young
onions, leeks, and radishes ; the turnips and carrots,
like those of France, are not so sweet as ours, and grow
longer, as if inclined to turn into radishes.
The fresh butter is very good, but dear, nine grani
for about two and a half ounces. At their grocers and
oilmen, such as they are, things are dearer than in
London. So at their pork-butchers, sausages, tongues,
&c. are at an extravagant rate extravagant for Italy !
The pastrycooking is even more mere paste and
sugar than in France ; one hardly sees the least thing
with fruit. They seem to have no such thing as jams and
jellies, none in their pastry. There are no sauces in
bottle, no herbs or savoury things preserved whatever,
nor capsicums, nor Cayenne pepper; no fruits preserved
in any way (no spices) ; in short, cooking resolves itself
into the most insipid boilings or fryings of meat or fish,
and maccaroni even among the upper world.
There are no less than ten theatres open every
MARKETS. MEN-OF-WAR. 161
night : the San Carlo and Del Fondo, royal ; Fer-
dinando, Parthenope, Mezzo Cannone, Amphitheatre,
Fiorentino, Nuovo, San Curlino, Fenice, and Sabeto ;
besides dioramas, shows, cabinets of curiosities, antiques,
&c. The concerts occur seldom, and the programme
of some piano player occasionally, not very inviting.
I find a kind of market-street for ready-cooked eatables
to the left of the Mole, behind the Piliero ; this is always
crowded one sees fried fish, Indian-corn bread, and
mush (polenta), fried in slices, boiled potatoes, but
less maccaroni than one would expect. All sorts of vege-
tables; apples and pears, and dried figs and raisins, and
a kind of yellow bean ; but there are many other eat-
ables I can't make out ; I see fennel is in as much fa-
vour as ever, though banished from the hotel tables;
they carry it about in baskets and by donkey-loads, as
they do cauliflowers,
Besides the excellent old mole harbour for smaller
coasters, steamers, and merchantmen, there is an outer
port, constructed of late years, immediately below the
Royal Palace, and below the castle and arsenal, by
running out a solid pier, defended by a breakwater to
the west : here all their men-of-war lie.
At present in port, there are three barque sloops-of-
war, and three steamers ; next the pier, five other
steamers, an old two-decker, a schooner, and three or
four old hulks: all these seem in ordinary, except
M
162 NAVAL OFFICERS.
perhaps half the steamers, which look ready for sea.
The castle contains the arsenal or dockyard, spars,
cannon, shot, &c., piled close below the palace ; and in
the fosse convicts are employed (as at other public
works) in a rope-walk, in full activity, but not worked
by steam, and but few ropemakers. Near them black-
smiths are breaking up old steam-boilers: a steam-
engine, I see, is employed, by the dense smoke of its
chimney, very near his majesty !
One now and then meets a naval officer or two, their
undress not unlike ours ; the gold lace on their cuffs
and caps in rings, like the French, each additional ring
denoting a step in rank. In their dress and manner
all Europe have more or less copied our navy, and our
way of doing duty. I observed at Genoa the midship-
men of the Dutch frigate seated in the stern sheets of
their boats very strictly ; and very good looking lads
they were ; hardly to be told from English middies. I
think ours would look better with an embroidered
anchor on the collar, like them, instead of our unmean-
ing white patch; and better still, the graceful aiguilette
of the French midshipmen, in gold for the mates, and
gold and blue alternate (bigarre) for the mids.
How much there is to alter all we see and feel, in
association and comparison I which of us but must have
been sadly disappointed with the very things that once
were thought beautiful or delightful? And so we
advance through life.
THE ROYAL GARDEN. 163
Witlings, new in the world, are very fond of sneer-
ing at querulous old age ! as if nothing could once have
been really better, and that we really do find com-
parisons more and more odious: to be sure certain
excellences should never be .compared. Things may
have a relative goodness or beauty not at all in-
herent in themselves. But a truce to common-place
here is this Royal Garden of the Chiaia (the Villa
Eeale), which I once thought quite an Arcadia, and
I now find it a long promenade, not half so picturesque
or beautiful as any of our squares say Cadogan, at
Chelsea. Its trees are poor things, and its shrubberies
are tangled and neglected, with a good undergrowth of
nettles. It is just fifty yards wide, and half a mile
long, and is the fashionable promenade about four
o'clock. While, on the pavement next the range of
houses, all the carriages of the gentry are rattling up
and down; those of the walkers drawn up on the
Victoria Square, at the entrance gate, where a board
shed, built up, conceals some statue in progress, I con-
clude. Next the sea a wall runs its whole length ; at
the further end it merges in an open avenue much
neglected; of trees, planted of late, for a couple of
hundred yards, where it reaches the open strand, and
fishermen's boats and nets, of the Mergellina.
To be sure this is winter still, and a very cold one
the sun grows hot enough, but no leaves; hardly a -
M2
164 DUSTY KOADS AND BEGGARS.
bud appears as yet, and the few geraniums and other
flowers here and there seem barely alive. A few
copies in marble of the most celebrated of the antique
grace the walk; and the lion fountain in the centre,
but it wants more water even for the ducks which
paddle in its basin. Clouds of dust sweep through the
air here, and along all the streets and roads ; watering
them is out of the question here and there small
patches are wet, as if with a watering-pot, about the
Royal Palace.
Beggars swarm in all directions, particularly about
the haunts of the English. All the best shop-doors
are beset by them ; it is a perfect infliction on us : the
Italians suffer it from a strong spice of superstition, not
at all from any charitable feeling. It is quite impos-
sible to exaggerate this everlasting nuisance in all the
towns round the coast, growing more intense the
farther we come round Italy.
Sulphur and soap are the two great staples here;
nothing can be less asked for in detail; but the coral
shops have a certain vogue, and our travellers are
induced to pay high prices for this very questionable
ornament, which can be worked into nothing but tiny
bits of things shirt buttons, brooches, hardly brace-
lets: and even the fashion of it is poor. I find the
deep red coral, which certainly looks the best, is not
considered the thing, it must be pale, as if faded in
LABOUH OF LIONISING. 165
the sun or not originally healthy; for this the prices
are extravagant, for the least thing. The Neapolitans,
like all the Italians, are ages behind in their jewellery :
they import from France.
They copy us in their carriages, and many have very
handsome turn-outs, as neat and knowing as at home.
One of the king's brothers drives a good four-in-hand
up and down the Chiaia, and contrives to take off' his
hat besides, pretty often, a feat our jehus are not
obliged to practice.
Those who come to Naples are expected to devour
certain lions, Vesuvius, Pompeii, Baia, besides the
hundred things in the town itself. It is seriously an
infliction, in which you are pursued worn out, by the
sturdy modern embodiment of the poet's fiction, sturdy,
ragged, real Harpies !
It was not quite new to me, but I unluckily took
a seat in one of their skimming dish carriages to Baia
cramped in position, and half choked by dust the
road all along two inches thick in fine white powder ;
even going through Pausilippo is by no means the
worst of it.
The arch is much higher at the east than the west
end ; nor has it that very close, dismal, damp feel of our
railway tunnels. This cuts off" one of the bay capes, and
a long ugly flat has to be got over, planted in trees
without branches, to which the vines are trained, in
M 3
166 CUMEAN SYBIL'S CAVE.
parts sown with crops of grain or vegetables beans (the
broad Windsor kind) are seen everywhere (all round
France and Italy), not yet in flower ; and some patches
of peas, looking already as if mostly gathered long since.
As we round the inlets of the bay, we come to the Monte
Nuovo and alight, to walk half a mile to the Lake
Avernus, beyond it, and visit the Sybil's Cave.
I wish we had let it alone : we were beset by all sorts
of greedy genii loci; some bearing whitewashed torches,
to light, for which they only asked a piastre (5s.) ; others
pestered us with pretended antiques figures, coins,
marbles most, if not all, recent manufacture. It was
in vain saying no or (< niente ; " they stuck to us, in
company with sheer importunate beggars men, women,
and children to the end of the day's chapter.
Everything is now fenced in and doors locked!
the fellow who had the key of the cave insisted on two
carlins. A courier of my friend's managed them
somehow, after a war of words for each thing. Then
came fellows to carry us curious simpletons in to the
Sybil's bath and boudoir a hole deeper still, to the
right, after we had advanced some hundred yards in
darkness visible and torch-smoke. One of the party
was thus carried through this puddle pickaback ; the
ladies, not quite so curious, declined, as did I, and we
waited for the return of the more adventurous gent.
To get away was a great relief. On the bank about the
TEMPLES PADLOCKED. 167
cave we picked violets. The water of the lake is clear as
crystal. We had a hot walk there and back, and met
other carriages coming, and more sybil hunters ; indeed
there is a constant string coming and going most fine
days.
Driving round (passing through Puzzuoli, and catching
a glimpse of the pier of Augustus, whose buttresses are
still above the sea below the town, forming a shelter
for the boats), we come to the port of Baia, where
are all three of the most interesting temples first, of
Diana, next Mercury, and farther on a few steps, next
the wharf, to the left of the road, that of Venus, which
is the most perfect, though it has no longer, like the
other two, even a part of its domed roof left ; that of
Diana has only half left, as if cut down the middle ;
the Mercury has an te envious rent" in the arch (they
are all circular, and supposed baths) : the echo of this last
is very perfect within ; it appears to be filled up to
its first arched niches or windows, yet is still of noble
proportions. In driving along the road, particularly
after leaving Puzzuoli, one everywhere sees the remains
of walls, arches, &c., in solid reticulated brickwork, on
both hands, on the hills, in the vineyards, and at the
water's edge all of undoubted antiquity and as interest-
ing as anything shown, to which names and stories are
attached, often on contradictory authority, or the whim
or hypothetical guesses of antiquaries.
M 4
168 VENUS'S BATH.
Close to the Mercury temple they show the bath or
boudoir of Yenus, a lofty square room, with beautiful
bas-reliefs in compartments round below the ceiling,
now blackened and disfigured by the torches held up to
them ; and after all, one sees little or nothing, as the
place is quite dark and we hurry round.
We then crossed the road to the Temple of Venus,
opposite, and almost on the wharf of the port the
coasters and boats close by. Except the roof, this is
the most perfect. Why not repair and preserve all
these beautiful remains ? Nothing whatever is done ;
and something is worn, broken, or degraded every day.
In future years they must disappear entirely. In all
these remains, attesting the power, the knowledge, and
the fine taste of antiquity, one is particularly struck by
the beauty and solidity of their brickwork ! and the
more than stone-like hardness of their stucco, which
still leaves their interior bas-reliefs as perfect as ever,
where not wantonly broken : it seems, too, in their
walls to outlast the layers of brick. These bricks, by
the way, are very large, square, and flat about a foot
square, and inch and half thick a kind of tile ; but
they are very various in shape, some forming the ver-
tical diamond pattern, others seem copied in our modern
tiles. Indeed, one meets with nothing, great or small,
public or private, that is not the most fit and most
admirable ; for even the smallness of their houses was
DANCING AND BEGGING. 169
doubtless from the best reasons. At the present day,
what better are the little rooms of modern Europe in
the largest street buildings ! meant to contain thou-
sands of the poorer people, five and six stories from the
earth ?
Surrounded by a begging rabble, young and old, in
the temples, we set some little girls to dancing ; the
tarantula they called it ; but it was a very tame, lame
affair. One of them beat a tambourine, and we all
laughed in concert ; it was a relief from the constant
whining accompaniment of our trip, wherever we
stopped for an instant ; so we gave them a larger sum
(five grani) for being merry, but they would insist on
saying they were all "dying of hunger" "mora di
fame."
Very often miserable objects do really present them-
selves, and cling to the carriage-doors, or fasten on
your sleeve, making the most stunning and hideous
noises. The whole district sends its destitute to the
road-side, where they know we forestieri are constantly
to be found. The very hucksters and small trades-
people in the towns can hardly refrain from openly
begging, and certainly set their children on from the
moment they can toddle after you ; but we it is, most
precious verdant-greens, who have created all this
pleasant running accompaniment at the heels of our
perpetual motion.
170 THE PROMONTORY OF MESSINUM.
From the port of Baia we ascend the hill to Baoli, a
small village on the promontory of Messinum, where,
having descended and admired the " Pescine Mirabile"
(the immense fresh-water reservoir), with its forty-eight
columns and arches underground, how everything
we look at should humble our modern conceit ! the
horses are taken out at a locanda just beyond it, in
the town, and we walk on, over the promontory, to
wkere there is a fine view of its extreme projection
towards the sea, where it ends in a singular wedge-
shaped bluff, only connected by a narrow strip of sand,
which forms a low beach to the north, inclosing a piece
of water, or small lagoon, called the Dead Sea the
ancient fish-preserve, as it is to this day, I believe.
This sheet of water, cut off from the sea, is in turn only
separated on the south side of the promontory from the
port itself of Messinum. Here oysters are propagated,
said to be the most delicate as of old.
There were, however, not above two or three fisher-
men's boats on the shore, not a sail in the bay, nor the
least activity anywhere within the vast range of the
eye, sea and land all barren, sterile beauty, including
Procida and the beautiful Ischia beyond it.
To the south, far as the eye can reach in the blue
hazy distance, across the deeper blue of the bay, lie
Capri and the coast about Sorrento and Salerno's cape.
However, it is but fair to say, that a few, very few,
DEAD STATE OF TRADE. 171
Latine coasters and fishermen's boats are generally to
be seen in the bay. Pity there are not a great many
more. The Mergellina and the Procida fishermen are not
nearly so numerous and stirring as even I can recollect
them, in the same way that the whole population of
Naples, if not of the kingdom, has declined of late
years. And as to trade in the port, it is extremely
languid. I hardly saw an English, French, or Ameri-
can flag among the brigs and sloops at the Mole.
While the custom-house and its branches on the
Piliera is large enough for the whole world ! Their
chief employment seems in rummaging unhappy tra-
vellers' trunks, making you pay a duty for any or every
trifle, even if evidently for your own use ; but liberal
Sardinia is just as bad !
This promontory ends excursions in carriages. We did
not walk down to the port, or to the Dead Sea (indeed,
we had left the carriage-road down), content to con-
template afar the ruins of one of Lucullus' villas, on a
tongue of rock which forms the east side of the port.
The sea breaking now and then on the hidden rocks
quite across the harbour's mouth, it is only fit for boats.
Nothing can be done without eating. Happily,
here there is no hotel ; but we had a spread under
the trellice of a peasant's cottage before the door:
people come here to refresh themselves, bringing
their own eatables to this sort of wine-house. The
172 HALF-STARVED ANIMALS.
vine (except its stalk) is nowhere visible as yet, and a
cloth supplied the want of its leafy shade, thrown over
the rafters. The sun at noonday now, even so early
in the spring, is very hot, though the nights and morn-
ings are cool enough.
A half-starved cat and dog shared our cold chicken
and tongue ; nor did a quiet donkey fail to taste of our
bread, which he gave evident tokens of liking better
than munching at a bundle of canes. It is certain that
all these people appear very poor and miserable ; and if
they do not absolutely want themselves, they care very
little about their poor dumb creatures, who must shift
for themselves the best way they can. One sees this
disposition at Naples a hardness towards their dogs,
cats, donkeys, quite equal to anything that may be
seen in England ; their cab and carriage horses quite as
ill fed, and almost as hardly treated. A Neapolitan
never gives his horse any respite, and they pile on
immense loads, quite indifferent to the capacity of the
poor beasts ; still it is a shade less atrocious than our
omnibus cruelties.
This is not the way to see anything to advantage ;
one should be alone on foot with ample time: indeed,
one should have a room at Baoli ; then take walks
further on round the coast, cross and recross to Procida,
which is quite close, and so well look at and consider a
thousand interesting ruins once, what ? Take some
BAOLI. 173
boatman into pay, and some peasant as a guide, making
them understand that attempts at extortion will be of
no use for they will of course cling to any possible
chance; since, not a doubt, they take us all for a pack of
fools, if not quite escaped from Bedlam ! and made of
piastres fresh from the mines of Peru (for they know
nothing of California or Australia!). But above all,
one should know something of the people's language.
Baoli is rich in ruins, very visible in their vineyards.
There is a kind of shop on the hill, full of vases,
lachrymals, urns, &c. Close beside the road, return-
ing, we pass the platform- vaulted roof of the "miracu-
lous " reservoir, and through certain low arches or holes
look down into the vaults below. Oh, that we had such
brickwork in London as one everywhere sees peeping
out among these sleepy, ignorant boors' figs and vines,
beans and peas. Wherever the women are at work,
it is either washing, or, at their primitive distaff, spin-
ning flaxen thread. The great art is to give it the
requisite whirl; but there is an art, and not an easy
one, in every acquirement, however easy or common it
may seem : we have but to try it, to be con vinced ! We
gallop about the world and do nothing. Could we but
hit the art intuitive, of admiring in the right place,
it would be something to say ; for as to facts, there is
little new to be struck out: it must lie in the telling.
We had Murray's book with us ; but who can read !
174 TAXES ON SIGHT-SEEING.
those who forget, must consult it ; but, were I equal
to it, a repetition here would be, indeed, stale as a twice-
told tale: but I know nothing I could not even cram
for the occasion.
After all we are poor weak creatures weak every
way. I felt an ecstatic relief on alighting from my
uneasy seat in the carriage, washing the dust out of
my eyes, and in the quiet absence of the worrying of
the whole day's pleasure ! But this is the heaviest tax
of sight-seeing every item of antiquity has its parti-
cular worry cicerone, beggars, dust, hours being
doubled up in the torture of a small carriage, the
inevitable expense, and final headache. Youth, and a
first time, makes a wonderful difference. It can afford
to laugh at everything ; a bath and a dinner adds to
each day's zest for novelty and excitement, besides new
mines of fresh ideas to work on !
Passing along the Largo di Palazzo, yesterday, I saw
a fat old lady leaning on the arm of an attendant dame,
limping with an air of authority round the balcony of
the palace some lady of the court; but though I have
been in Naples now two weeks, I have not yet once
seen the king out.
I fully meant to have been presented at court, but
Mr. (now Sir William) Temple is not here ; and,
besides, this is Lent, so I must give it up. Indeed I
have not yet found out the palazzo of our ambas-
THE CHIAIA AS A RESIDENCE. 175
sador ; it is not on the Chiaia nor indeed is the
Chiaia the most aristocratic residence. It is some-
thing like our Piccadilly or Pall Mall, for lodgings,
hotels, and travellers. And so it should be, shut out
from the palace side, Vesuvius, and the sweep of the
rich shores of Portici, and Torre del Greco, even to
Pompeii.
This kind of garden promenade (the Villa Reale),
and carriage drive, brings this way all the beau
monde towards four o'clock ; but our view is only to
the solitary sea ; Capri and Sorrentum in the distant
blue hazy horizon, for there are not even a few pleasure
boats. If any of the Mole or St. Lucia boatmen come
round, it is with some express fare, and back again, as a
matter of business; yet is there every facility for
landing stone steps, and very smooth water, con-
sidering this part is quite open to the outer bay. The
Mergellina fishing people, at the other end of the
garden, never come near, not even in their boats ; the
larger kind go well out in the bay, and round the
coast.
As I cannot turn courtier, I set off on my travels to
the city of the dead, in company with a young French-
man, who managed the thing admirably as to economy,
as he is pretty well versed in the lingo and tricks of
these good folks.
The weather continues sunny and fine the best
176 A CLOSE BARGAIN.
half of all excursions ; indeed indispensable, no matter
where. We were too late for the twelve o'clock train
(the trains are few, and far between the next in three
hours), so, after an immense war of bargaining words,
we hired a carriage near the station for a piastre
This I could see was a close bargain, even in the eyes
of our jehu, who asked two, and not very unconscion-
ably; however he consoled himself with an arriere
pensee to get rid of us on the road half-way back
Now, in truth, the distance must be ten miles, and to
wait for us and "bring us back to the Largo di
Castello ! " This shows what can be done by French
travellers.
The dust, and houses all along the road, take away
all the pleasure one anticipates in the drive round this
far-off, magnificent scenery. When not towns and
suburbs, then the villas and high walls shut out every-
thing on the sea side, and nearly all on the mountain
side. I forget what Pompeii was forty years ago ; but
there is no doubt it is of late years much more im-
proved than Naples itself much has been discovered,
and the whole is kept clean and in strict good order.
All the show temples and remarkable domiciles are
under lock and key, each with its custodium, who
separately expects a small fee, and some attendant imp
another, for sweeping off the inch or two thick of black
sand or ashes with which they take care to keep the
PUZZLING SPECULATIONS. 177
few mosaics left on the floors covered so that nothing
is to be seen " senza denari ; " besides the great fee
expected by the uniformed official who leads you about :
thus, it is best to go, if possible, in a large party, by
way of lightening the burthen. Whether these officials
give up these fees, I know not ; but they are meanly
saddled on the curious forestieri by government. There
is, too, a guard of soldiers and sentinels at both gates.
We did not, as of old, enter by the street of tombs,
but at the new gate further on east, and more towards
Castela Mare, which lies very prettily in sight, and a
straggling village half-way up the snow-capped moun-
tains, above it. Seen from any of the Pompeii street-
openings, this mountain view is most magnificent.
But our business is with these silent painted walls
these beautiful temples, still beautiful, even in their
ruins. One must not imagine that Pompeii is only
curious. How exquisite in colour and design, are many
of the small fresco paintings, still left ! for all the
very finest, as well as all the statues, and marbles, and
mosaics, possible, have been taken away, and are lodged
now in the Museum. Even the museum of treasures in
bronze, &c., once at Portici, is now at Naples.
But first of the history of this city. The thing is
settled that it was suddenly covered by ashes alone from
the eruption of Vesuvius, which is here very far from
it, in profile. I cannot understand it much less " sud-
N
178 INIMITABLE STUCCOES.
denly;" but then one must doubt the Latin historians.
The fact is plain enough there remains only the how
to puzzle one ! No matter ; this is no time to enter
into the laws of projectiles, though I have seen proofs
drawn from a ship's deck being powdered in the bay,
on some remarkable eruption rather a childish confir-
mation. Here it is, plain enough ; nature's modus ope-
randi never can be known exactly. The skeletons, the
keys, the bread already baked in the shops all as if
to impress the fact of the instant overwhelming only
puzzle me the more, from any possible quantity of
ashes thrown such a height, and falling so far off !
We were hurried along the mercury) the soap, and the
mercantile streets, and through the forums, theatres, and
temples and distinguished houses, so fast that there was
no time to observe or digest anything how describe it !
even if it had not been so often and so much better
done than I can attempt. I feel, indeed, that it would
require a month, nay, a year, living on the spot, and
untrammelled by officials, to read to any purpose these
silent, but most eloquent mementos ! Here, as every-
where, how admirable the brickwork, where stripped of
its stuccos ! those stuccos, in turn, how admirable ! and,
when painted, how exquisite ! except, I think, in the
larger ones the Ulysses and Penelope, the Diana
and Acteon, the grand hunt, and in some of the land-
scapes, looking a little Chinese. But where there are
small defects of drawing or perspective, the thing is
ELEGANT SHAPES OF THE AMPHORA. 179
even enhanced in interest, for, not to talk of the arts
then rising or declining, these are the citizens' houses
some employed cheaper and worse artists, others had no
taste themselves. Several grottos of shells, as fountains
or altars, though beautifully done, show a true citizen
taste, as one may see in the villas and small garden
ornaments about London nowadays. One, with little
comical marble statues and groups in a joyous circle,
presided over by Master Bacchus in his niche, is quite
charming ; and how well of them to have left it in its little
court, in its own veritable house! in the museum at
Naples it would have been lost nothing ; for the figures
are in a bad style of art, though in themselves inimi-
table, as showing us a domestic interior of the middle
classes.
None of the covered pavement mosaics are more than
curious. All the fine ones, at all moveable, have been
removed to Naples. They have put up a parcel of
paltry yellow-painted gates, under padlock, quite
enough to destroy all illusion, together with the
officials, and the rude, ignorant soldiery, who warned us
off as we approached some newly discovered and finely
painted apartments, in the north-east quarter (here I
marked one lovely angel with blue wings), in the di-
rection of the Grand Amphitheatre, beyond the sup-
posed walls, half a mile off; to which our stupid cicerone
refused to take us, pleading want of time ; and, in truth,
N 2
180 PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
it was as much as ever we could do, at a full trot, to go
over the chief places, reserving the doctor's house, the
baker's, the mills, the great arcaded caravansarai, or
inn, the end city wall, at the Street of Tombs, and the
Diomed Villa, to the last. His cellar is not unlike an
underground cloister of three sides: here are the
greatest number of wine-jars, or amphora, in triple
rows against the vault walls, standing on end, as if full of
wine, just as left. But these jars are seen in many of
the houses, of various shapes and sizes, some let into the
counters of the shops, for wine or oil ; some for water,
and of very elegant shapes, though so plain and so
common. How is it that, in all these last fifty years
(Italy has been always open to us), we have not copied
them more closely in our own domestic utensils?
we might so easily, to so much advantage, without
paying such exorbitant prices for mere beauty of shape
as we still do. By the bye, near Baoli, there is a store-
house full of charming vases, to be had reasonably
enough, if you don't come with a party and in a
carriage, or if you can talk enough to beat them down,
or if you can afford to load yourself with objects of
vertu.
The streets do not appear to me so narrow as they
once did, nor the houses so small the streets still
paved by the very flagstones, their curbs, and their
stepping-stones for rainy seasons, and the flagstones
EXPENSIVE GENTILITY. 181
marked by the track of the wheels. I find the breadth
of the carriage-way from ten to twelve feet, and the
side-walks five or six feet more than some of our
country towns can boast ; but even here, in this country
town, what noble dimensions in their Forum, the Halls of
Justice and Senators ! how magnificent in their columns
and ornaments, the strength of the walls, the profusion
of marble, the grandeur and solidity of their theatres,
their schools, nay, in everything, not to mention the
temples and baths, always unapproachable in beauty
and sublimity of conception, of which time itself and
barbarism have not robbed them !
From an absorbing interest from the most ennobling
and disinterested thoughts from the sublime we must
descend to the ridiculous ; from Diomed's House to the
modern wooden barrier of the Street of Tombs; this
via rnausolice to the sentinels, and to our payment of
our particular harpy. Gravely lifting his hat, my
friend presented him with four carlini, at which, so far
from being delighted, he grumbled and growled not a
little, saying there would be nothing left for himself! Do
they then give this up to the superior harpies, who, no
doubt, farm this dead city of the King ?
We had already shelled out two dozen grani among
the inferior sweeping imps and other key-keepers of
padlocks, and my French friend was quite inexorable,
well backed by myself, I confess. Time was when
> 3
182 THE FEW RICH AND THE MANY POOE.
four carlini would have perhaps been thought tolerable ;
but we travelling English, at any rate, run riot against
all ideas of economy, and give I know not what at all
these places, and are, indeed, ourselves the sole cause
of the universal increased greediness everywhere on our
track, at home or on the Continent.
The Americans, who feel bound to go ahead of us,
and beat us at everything " into the middle of next
week," even outdo us at the hotels, the cafes, and at
all the sight-seeing places, in tipping the servants.
The punishment for enjoying this petty distinction
recoils on us at the rebound, and serves us right.
There is a spice of malice at the bottom of this snob's
glory of " d ing the expense " of anything, to annoy
quieter people who must needs follow in his footsteps,
and can only be thought genteel by bleeding freely and
foolishly to avoid, however (as the mischief is done),
the plague and annoyance of debating the point, sour
looks, and muttered sarcasms, which follow close on the
heels of the most obsequious carriage, and " vostra Ex-
cellenza ! "
In all this there should be no surprise no wonder.
In this land the few are princes, marquises, counts, and
are bowed to and flattered as the only lords of creation.
There is no medium all who dress well, and ride in
carriages, are, or should be, great lords ; and travellers
serve a double purpose to be treated as princes! not
NEAPOLITAN WATERING-MACHINE. 183
only by the rabble, but the selling class : all are either
great seigneurs or nothing. There is hardly a citizen
class, and the idea of their ever quitting their small shop-
counters is preposterous. All is servile humility arid a
benign, smiling, patronising arrogance : a pure giving on
the one hand, and humble, fawning, begging, receiving,
on the other. The clergy are, too, supreme. They
strut and drive about much as the once French abbes,
or they follow the princely example of the Roman
cardinals and dignitaries as closely as possible. There
is hardly any middle, or merchant class, and they live
isolated, forming no sort of link between the high and
low.
How comparatively a very short distance over Europe,
up to our Isles, alters climate and the weather I now,
this whole winter has been, though unusually cold, yet
an almost constant bright sunshine, all round this coast
the north and north-east winds the coldest, of course.
Here now the days are quite fine ; they rarely begin
cloudy, or the opposite shores obscured : if calm, the sun
breaks out about ten or eleven, and is so hot at noon
and afternoon, as to make the shade welcome.
I have said there is no watering of the streets ; but,
as I watch from my window the goings-on in the Chiaia
below me, I this morning see what creates the two
slender strips of what I took to be done by a wateririg-
pot, for a few yards here, just at the entrance of the
N 4
184 MAGNIFICENCE OF THE PALAZZI.
Gardens and Chiaia. Two fellows have a barrel mounted
on wheels, on each side: at one end are bored two
auger-holes, and the water spirts out as they trot along
with it not a bad contrivance; if it is rather primi-
tive, it answers well enough for the very little bit they
do.
Here too (at the corner of the Strada St. Catarina),
in the square in front of the Garden-gate, there is a
stand of hack carriages and cabs, which bawl and make
signs to all usforestieri. Here are always violets made
up in bunches, and enormous bouquets for sale, of mig-
nonette, small Chinese roses, violets and camelias. The
fellows carrying them run after every carriage that
passes, and after every person on foot, if they look at all
English or foreign and they are wonderfully certain
of their game ; like the lads who hawk about walking-
sticks, they ask at least five times as much as they mean
to take, if beat down. They pretend to leave you, but
are sure to return, following you about like the cabs,
which run after you the moment you stir fresh ones
spying you out as you walk along, and insisting on
your taking them : in vain you shake your head. In
this way I found the minimum at which I could have
them, or get rid of them.
The flocks of goats driven, indeed, rather led, about
the streets, are very remarkable; so docile and obedient
to their goatherds, threading their way admirably in the
SCHOOLMASTERS AND SCHOLARS. 185
crowded streets, or all collecting quietly at some door.
Cows, their calves with them, are led about to milk in
the same way. The goats are even driven up and
down long flights of stairs I think I have heard them
in this house, up on the third floor. This, indeed, is not
at all a high range of houses the first on the Chiaia ;
and yet I think I am sixty feet above the street : in
fact the houses in all the leading thoroughfares are on
a grand scale ; the gateways of the palazzi and court-
yards magnificent in their proportions wide stone
staircases, vaulted rooms, antichambers, arcades.
The churches are, however, not at all very remarkable,
either in size or beauty of their interior far inferior
to the Genoese. Still, like most on the Continent,
there are many fine things in them columns, statues,
paintings and altars which are only not looked after or
admired, from the astonishing number and superior
beauty of the antique scattered here in such profusion.
I retract a little of what I say of this Chiaia garden
(" Villa Reale"): the farther end has two small temples;
it is more wild and shaded more like a garden ; then,
again, the Lion, Europa, and other fountains, are hand-
some, though they spout but driblets of water; and
the statues numerous ; few or no flowers, indeed,
except some stocks and camelias japonica; but this is
still hardly beyond winter, and I see they are planting
flowers, and dressing the beds. There is a cafe in it,
186 CLERICAL ATTIRE.
and two shops for the sale of views of Naples and the
bay, characteristics of the country, &c. ; but these
coloured prints are not only very inferior, but at high
prices, much more than they are worth: as mere
pictures they are very so-so.
In the streets I constantly meet schools, the boys
walking two and two, invariably followed in charge
of their schoolmaster a priest, in his immense shovel
hat (the Don Basilio of the stage is hardly a caricature
on their appearance their long black gowns, and sanc-
tified look ; the greater part of them very young men).
All these boy-scholars of their various seminaries are
invariably in uniform, much as in France and Pied-
mont blue frock-coats or tunics, and ornamented caps :
here, however, they all wear cocked-hats of a small, neat
shape, a little after the fashion of Napoleon's. The
navy, too, has its cadets at school, and they make a good
show. The King bestows some pains and money on
his steam navy.
Monks range the streets in their sandals and brown
cloaks and hoods, and that knotted cord not meant to
whip themselves with ! Of these, all sorts of orders,
some in white, whity-brown, and shovel hats very
smart walking on the promenade among the gay world,
together with those who seem to me the abbati, in
half-canonicals, breeches, and black silk stockings
Naples, indeed, swarms with these cure-less clergy ;
TREASURES OF THE MUSEUM. 187
the bishops in purple hose ; but I have not seen any
dignitaries on foot. Indeed nobody walks that can
afford any sort of vehicle, except us travellers occa-
sionally ; not that it is any longer very vulgar to
walk, but the Neapolitans, from the prince to the
beggar, love to ride. I constantly see their two-
wheeled cariolas crammed with a swarm of twelve or
fourteen clinging to it behind, before, and underneath ;
the driver behind, cracking his whip, and at a full trot ;
the shafts sticking away above the little horse's back, in
the air, and bells jingling. They are still very fond of
jingling sounds, and monstrous brass ornaments on the
harness, in the lower world.
The King has a Swiss regiment or two, and his own
Royal Guard are good-looking men, their uniform blue
and white lace (red trowsers), not unlike the Garde
Koyale of the Bourbons.
The artillery is horsed by mules : a couple of hun-
dred of them often pass the Chiaia for exercise. They
do not strike me as at all particularly fine not equal
to the Spanish or the American ; still they are a
hardy, excellent animal, and deserve to be in high
esteem. All the horses here are small, and spoiled
evidently by their riders, who are, one and all, miserable
horsemen : the show cavaliers on the Chiaia are, from
their fine air and awkward seat really funny.
I have been again to the Museum the oftener one
188 REMARKABLE MOSAICS.
goes, the more impressed one is by the endless treasures
it contains. Perhaps, to have the least idea the
least clear recollection of what meets the eye in such
profusion, in every excellence of art and beauty one
special suite of rooms should be a morning's study ; and
even then you cannot look at, examine, and wonder
and admire everything as it deserves : not a year would
suffice, perhaps not a life !
The most curious, from Pompeii alone, would take
one month of attentive industry. To-day I went into
the mosaics and paintings, on the left hand, as you
enter from the hall. To describe is impossible; but
here is proof, a thousand-fold, of their masterly drawing,
their command of colour, and their infinite taste and
variety, in every possible way, not a little in spirit and
expression life or still life men, women, or animals.
Here one sees (and from all antique art) how much
the moderns, back to the middle ages, stole from them,
without any sort of acknowledgment ! Well may one
say there is nothing new under the sun. How many
ideas of beauty and grace have they not given us I
But it is not alone the beauty, it is the prodigious
interest attached to the least thing the least perfect ;
indeed, one loses sight of the comparative perfection.
Then, again, in the groups, the heads, the arabesques,
the ornamental architecture, birds, beasts, fishes.
Some of the things are but sketches; others evi-
POMPEIIAN RELICS. 189
dently done by rapid hands, and inimitably, which did
not condescend to finish, or work up or it was done
at so much the room, by contract.
There are four remarkable mosaic columns, with
shells the Graces, in mosaic, and a young man, in the
first room, very remarkable : but it is in vain speaking
of any ones or twos. Their war galleys (in the border
of a room) are very spirited : here we see their shape,
steered by two rudders a single bank of oars. A sign
of a hotel or eating house, with fish, game, &c. A
man charming two cobra di capellos is very curious.
In this ground-floor suite of rooms are two tables set
out boards of green cloth : the one in the large outer
room is of great size ; and both with chairs round them
for the council or committee.
There are, too, four good modern pictures by Neapo-
litan artists (Bible subjects), and a recently modelled
monument or two, all excellently done but it seems
a profanation to bring them here ! Nor can I help
thinking (now that the bare walls are so carefully
locked and guarded), how much better it would have
been to have left these most interesting relics in the
very houses, courts, baths, temples, &c. where they
were found at Pompeii.
On the spot, and in their places, how infinitely more
the interest I The buildings are robbed, and these,
their ornaments, are ruthlessly cut away from their
190 THE BRONZE ROOMS.
proper places, and put in wooden frames. Each would
thus tell, how much more plainly! its own tale. To be
sure they are all numbered, and you may be referred, in
some catalogue, to its once whereabout ; but who can
wade through a catalogue, and refer, on a brief visit,
to it ? Besides, all these precious things are in a very
bad light we can see little or nothing of those under
the windows.
Mine was but a hasty glimpse. I could have lingered
untired for hours; but I wanted to see the bronzes up-
stairs and they are in thousands of every possible
thing, in every possible variety, and the most beautiful
shapes, even in the commonest tools and utensils.
Civilised mankind, as we know them to this day, have
done nothing but copy, clumsily and flimsily, some few
of their fine shapes ; while in the ornamental, chaste,
and elegant, we do not yet approach them. The
infinite variety of ornament in the same things, as well
as shape, is very striking ; from boilers, kettles, sauce-
pans, up to their tripods, candelabra, lamps, urns, lares
and penates, all the statuettes are exquisite.
In these bronze rooms are some of the floor-mosaics
of Pompeii that of the Medusa (the head) in the
last room : they were cleaning it. All the bronzes,
&c. are kept in glass cases, numbered, and in the
greatest regularity and order. In the last (the
Medusa room) are two soldiers' skulls, enclosed in their
own two helmets.
THE GOLD ORNAMENT ROOM. 191
Some of these helmets and swords are exquisite ;
many cases contain ivory bodkins, needles, and wooden
tools, and household things, still unhurt and sound
perfect.
I am betrayed into an attempt to describe but
volumes would not suffice ; and guide books, I believe,
(for I, unfortunately, am without Murray the best,)
mention all the very remarkable things if it were
possible to choose in such a rich profusion.
An opposite room, on the first floor (right hand
ascending), is the gold ornament room. The centre of
it (you step on the dog in the mosaic floor " cave
canem ") is wholly occupied by the richest collection of
bracelets, ear-rings, rings, chains ; in short, all sorts of
most beautiful women's ornaments cameos and in-
taglios by hundreds (all under glass cases), of incon-
ceivable variety and beauty, and in all the precious stones
except the diamond.
At the head of these last, swung between two
golden serpents, is the great onyx cameo : it is a basin,
at the bottom of which is the cameo (inside) the story
of Alexander, or the apotheosis of Ptolemy and the
propitious winds; the scene, Egypt: there are five
figures. On the opposite side (on the bottom) is a
Medusa's head, occupying the whole circle, perhaps ten
or eleven inches in diameter.
It would be nonsense to insist on its exquisite con-
192 EXTENT OF THE MUSEUM.
ception, execution, and finish to say nothing of the
value of the onyx : the world could not purchase such
another. But this may be said of thousands of things
here, at Rome, and all over Italy relics of our great
masters in everything : these same heathens, who
were innocent of steam and chemistry I
The gold ornaments divide one's admiration. What
delicate beauty ! what variety ! Some are in gold tissue
bands, wove of gold thread one found on a Moor
would eclipse anything at Hunt's or Howell and
James's ; but no single thing is without some peculiar
excellence.
What a treasure is here to enrich the ideas of
modern jewellers ! To be sure some few are copied
but how very few ! The modern jewellery in Naples
(mosaic, lava, and coral poorly set) is miserable stuff,
comparatively, without the shadow of an excuse
except stupidity. Even those we call barbarians ap-
proach nearer to this exquisite taste, delicacy, and
variety of the ancients, the Indians and Malays; and
that, too, with the rudest, most simple tools.
Round this room, in the cases, are some of the
greatest curiosities found at Pompeii : the purse
found with the coin in it, on the woman in Diomed's
house ; bread making, and made ; vegetables in their
kettles, and meats; onions; lumps of linen and of
clothes, some charred, some not ; a large piece of wood,
still sound.
FEES TO OFFICIALS. 193
Then, again, a number of paints, of all the colours,
found in a painter's shop. But I must have done :
one might be every day for a month in this single
room with exemplary diligence and industry, with
one's mind on the stretch, unflagging and yet not
know or appreciate a tenth of its contents, even
superficially. One leaves it, in this way, bewildered,
full of wonder, of admiration, and of humility.
I must no longer talk of this museum indeed, I
cannot : its arrangement, and the care taken of every-
thing, is perhaps the best possible.
All the various keepers of the keys, as they lock you
in and out, and follow you about, expect fees, and get
them, although there is a notice forbidding it. Not
only this, but their officiousness is a nuisance. If you
pass on and wish to see things quietly and alone, they
are sulky : you need give them nothing indeed, on
passing out; but our people, and now even the
Italians, all fee them, more or less and it becomes
peremptory. It is everywhere in public, what it is in
the houses of our nobility and gentry at home ; in vain
the servants may be told not to take gratifications in
vain the noble host may tell his friends of his invariable
rule, they will nay, they must do it.
On leaving, how are you to express your thanks
or your goodwill to housekeepers, valets, stablemen,
o
194: THE LIBRARY.
porters, chambermaids, &c. ? Mere smiling thanks
would be sneered at, and laughed at, as a sneaking
meanness, thanks, indeed oh cruel irony! But
these custodii have no claim on you whatever, except
what they officiously create in spite of you. The
museums indeed are not to be compared with show
houses. But I look back at home with great satisfac-
tion on our more liberal freedom in our own museums ;
and if at our show places, cathedrals, &c., it is just
as bad, at least it is not the fault of the servants so
much as of their masters and those in authority.
It appears that of late the King has taken this grand
national concern entirely to himself as his private pro-
perty. It belongs no longer to the public; it enters
by favour. I have glanced at the marbles ; and there is
a second suite of rooms of the Pompeian mosaics and
paintings, opposite the one I have mentioned on the
ground-floor at the entrance.
But all within its doors claims one's undivided, un-
qualified admiration the noble vestibule, the rivers
(allegorical), the colossal Jove and Hercules the
equestrian statues on each side are modern and faulty
the lion, between the double flight of the grand stair-
case; even the modern colossal statue of Ferdinando
Primo Borbonico, its founder or greatest patron.
The library is a noble room (the chief one), to which
all students have access under certain regulations,
THE STRADA CATARINA. 195
written in tablets on each side of the door at the centre
of the first landing.
I should say, if I can at all rely on a hasty glance, that
its modern pictures, or those of the middle ages, have
nothing particularly attractive though no doubt in-
teresting, had one but time! compared with what
are seen at Rome, Bologna, and Florence. But in
Italy you can go nowhere without some great attraction
in the fine arts, ancient or modern ; you become
fagged and oppressed by them, and long to rest your
eyes and your senses on the sea or a tree, or 1
escape into the streets.
The Strada Catarina, cutting across from the " villa
reale " (garden) gate to the palace end of the Toledo, is
one of the constantly crowded thoroughfares after the
Toledo, the most so. Then comes the Largo de Palazzo,
Largo de Castello, to the Mole, and the quay, leading
by the custom house, eastward, to the railway station
along the Piliero.
Out to the Porta de Capua is another crowded street,
eastward, near the top of Strada Toledo, and the broad
new road crossing it to the Campo Santo, running by the
museum. In this suburb there is a fine and immense
building, the Albergo Dei Poveri, the workhouse, or
Hotel Dieu. Two small movable bridges are seen in
the centre of this street, showing what torrents pour
o 2
196 BOATS AND BOATMEN.
along in the rains. There are two or three other narrow
long streets, constantly crowded, running across to the
upper and lower parts of the city ; but they are seldom
entered by strangers. Losing my way towards the
Porta de Capua, among the various narrow cross streets,
in one of my rambles, I got my pocket picked ! They
are said to be very expert, but I doubt much if they are
as au-fait as our own light-fingered gentry. Some of the
guide books tell you, your purse and your watch are not
safe as you walk along anywhere. Quite an exaggera-
tion. In my own case I was too careless ; and my hand-
kerchief, I am now convinced, was visible to any one
walking behind me, from the stupid way our tailors
have of leaving such immense openings to our coat
pockets.
I find the boatmen want five and six piastres to go
toProcida and Ischia at this rate, 'tis better to go by
the little steamboat which runs to them twice a-week ;
although the fare a piastre, four shillings and sixpence,
or indeed five shillings, as we get it now is nearly five
times as much as our steamers take us for the same dis-
tance : it is about fifteen miles from the Mole, round.
They return the next day and one must sleep at the
Hotel. To Capri these same boats charge two piastres
very little farther to see the blue grotto. This of the
three is the only island in sight from any part of Naples ;
lying south, off the Cape of Salerno, it forms the
GENEEAL DIET OF NEAPOLITANS. 197
ordinary passage for the ships and steamers along the
Calabrian coast to Messina, Malta, &c.
The Neapolitans are a good-natured, easy set of
creatures, content with very little ; for it is only those
in the principal streets, brought in contact with fo-
reigners, particularly us silly English, who are, one may
say, made greedy and unconscionable shop and lodging-
house keepers, hotels, cabs, and watermen. They make
an immense noise talking ; but I have seen no quarrelling,
nor any drunkenness ; indeed, few have the means for
more than the simplest wants of nature bread and
water; the last is sold about the streets in small
earthern jars I though there are plenty of running
fountains.
Indian corn bread, maccaroni, boiled potatoes,
chestnuts, fried fish, a sort of beans, melon seeds and
small nuts, large cockles oysters are a delicacy, and too
dear muscles, periwinkles, eels, blubber, and all sorts
of refuse of the sea raw, fried, boiled are the things
one sees as their relishes. Meat they can rarely touch of
any sort. Fruits in the season no doubt help out and
are the luxury ; the better vegetables in the same way
but just now the apples, bad as they are, and pears, at
two grani each, or grapes, are quite beyond their reach.
Dried figs, raisins, and chestnuts, all of the poorest, dirt-
iest, worst description, they can perhaps manage to taste
of sparingly ; and this, with a little bit of coarse bread
o 3
198 THE AMBASSADOR'S PALACE.
or Indian corn bread, or fried in cakes, is their dinner.
I question whether they can have more than one meal a
day. I mention their sheer and professional beggars ;
but, after all, unless you are in a carriage at some shop
door, they are easily shook off. There is, however, a
French pastry cook near this, a few steps up the Strada
de Chiaia, opposite the British consulate, frequented by
all the low, where it must surely be an infliction to eat
a cake or an ice the door and windows constantly
crowded by these wretched creatures, watching every
mouthful, whining, moaning, praying, supplicating !
I have indeed seen the French mistress of this pastry
cook's driving them off, when there were none of her
customers inside.
Our ambassador's, at the Palazzo Policastre, is back
up narrow streets, under the St. Ermo hill, off the
centre of the garden, and overlooking the cavalry
barracks ; a part of the town one does not immediately
suspect. Our church meets on Sundays in one of the
saloons of the consulate.
As there is only the secretary here, Mr. Lowther, and
as it is Lent, there is no chance of a presentation : all
the reception balls, &c., at the King's palace ended with
the carnival ; and his majesty is staying at the Favorita
palace, out of town.
For the view from your windows, decidedly the best
place in Naples is the St. Lucia, from the Strada de
SEAMEN'S BARRACKS. 199
Giganti to the King's Lodge, at the turn by the Ovo
castle. But then the St. Lucia is not considered fashion-
able, though so near the palace : it is full of small, mean,
dirty huckster shops - - fish salesmen, fishermen and their
nets, with a row along the wall, of tubs of oysters and
other shell fish, backed by ranges of very common shells
for sale. All the minor household occupations of the
rabble are going on on the side walk : clothes drying,
stockings mending and nets, eel pots making (very
neatly), and head hunting! in short, it is a second
Mergellina.
In one of the storehouses I see bread given to the
poor by tickets, and a very orderly crowd of poor
women still clamouring to be heard claim upon
claim decided by a superintendent. All this, I con-
clude, although there are a sprinkling of coral shops
and engravers mixed up, brings this very desirable
spot to a discount. However, here are the Hotels de
Russie and Rome, and very good-looking lodgings to
let, " qui si laca " or <( stanze mobiliate " stuck up to
entice lodgers.
Here, by the by, are the seamen's barracks, a large body
of them, and very good-looking men ; well dressed,
swords by their sides, they march about to the beat of
their drums I But everything in Naples is fierce, mili-
tary. They share what little swagger and consequence
there is with the Police.
o 4
200 CAMPO SANTO.
Already March has half fled. How time with active
wing dances on towards summer ! Nature revives, buds
put forth; the gardeners in the kitchen gardens on the
flat Capua road are all busy, and watering their beds
carefully not till required, for the weather remains very
dry, and the sun gets hotter and hotter, cold as the
winds and nights continue.
I drove out on the upper new road by the Museum, to
the brow of the hills which sweep partly close round
Naples to the Campo Santo, about four miles from
the Toledo. All this spot is entirely changed within
these last five-and-twenty years, when one saw nothing
but the horrid space down which, through the holes,
they threw the bodies one hole for every day in the
year. Vast buildings now inclose all this ; and the brow
of the hill, as it descends into the old Capua road, is now
very tastefully laid out and filled with monuments and
mausolea, after the manner of Pbre-la-chaise, or our own
cemeteries ; with a profusion of chapels. Some of the
monuments and tombs are very fine. Flowers and shrubs
are cultivated with great care ; indeed, there are more
flowers here than I have seen anywhere else the gera-
niums are particularly fine. I sauntered about among
these parterres, alleys, and groves inevitably sad !
And yet I would avoid all that puts me in mind of
my own particular misfortune. Oh, how vain are words !
how vain these marble mementos ! We must go hence
OUR COMMANDERS. 201
a few fleeting years, flying accelerated from beneath our
feet in age, and we are no more. If ambition, yonder
but a little way off in the palace, at the head of
regiments, or the fleet >will come some still hour and
walk here alone quite alone it might cure of too
much greediness !
And how, in this mood, all human greatness and pre-
tension sink to a contemptible nothing ! Well, at this
moment, that spoiled autocrat, barbarian of the north,
will rob others, and compels a war our troops across
the Mediterranean are rushing to battle I Old veterans,
after forty years in the lap of idleness and luxury, are
flattered by command, even with one foot in the grave
and Vane Londonderry not of them ! no, I see
he lies in some other quiet place. And youthful Cam-
bridge is to try his hand. What if the Duke could
burst his cerements, and see his secretary the Xeno-
phon of the day no, not the Xenophon, for retreat
is not contemplated !
Our fine new fleets, too, in the Bosphorus and at
Spithead are weighing their anchors for the attack ;
and Sir Charles, at seventy, the only tried man, takes
the lion's share of anxiety and danger. One must
wish, in spite of the Peace Society and our own tame-
ness, the crushing of that northern nest of Goths and
Vandals, who still will creep to the south, to conquer
and destroy ; as once in fair Italy.
202 THE DEAD.
But ask for conquering and conquered in a few brief
years! You shall find them as still as here, on this
hill side, with this rich plain and sea extended, still
smiling in the sun, the same the same, to the end of
the chapter ! Why, it was but yesterday Xelson and
his proud fleet rounded yon point ; there is Capri,
but where the fleet the living creatures ? Some few,
mayhap, hobbling about in old age " sans everything ; "
98 well ask for a fish of yesterday's haul.
Just let me glance, in this marble chamber, through
these fine brass doors, beneath this pompous eulogy !
This good man disdains company, and has all this pile
of stone to himself.
They sleep as well, and much less confined, on each
other pell-mell in the last day's paupers' hole higher up,
and the quicklime gets rid of long festering a horrid
idea ! and yet are we in love with it. Why do we not,
like the old Romans, burn our dead ? But we are a
degenerate race, and a more silly race. Why, any
grave is better than a regular modern one ! Far down
in the blue sea beautiful ! or your bones picked clean
under the odoriferous pine of some wild forest, or dried
inoffensive on the hot sands of the sweet desert ; but a
modern grave faugh !
This cemetery occupies the brow of the hill, just
below the chapel and buildings of the establishment.
Workmen are still enlarging, laying out, and extend-
FLOWER-SELLERS. 203
ing it downwards. I drove in from the upper road,
and returned down hill, through its chief avenue, to
the lower road; by which I entered Naples, by the
Porta di Capua. They are busy watering the kitchen -
gardens by the road-side; but nothing like our nurseries
or flower-gardens relieves the eye, or tufted foliage, or
green fields, or lawns anywhere all is glare and
dust.
In all Xaples I see but two itinerant, houseless, shop-
less flower-sellers. Nothing settled or numerous as with
us, at the gardens or at the shops of our florists, or at
all approaching the regular business it is in Paris. The
best here is under my window. On the Chiaia two
or three of these fellows make up their enormous
bouquets on the dwarf wall of the garden. This
is their early morning's work. Then all day they run
after the carriages, offering them at high rates, if
they can get them three, four, or six carlini; but if
not sold, they will take one or less, as they have no
sort of rule about price ; indeed, it must depend on
caprice or accident. Gentlemen with ladies (always
a catch) are found customers very often, as they will
run half down the Chiaia, holding on the carriage-
door; and can then exact any sum, particularly from
the English or French.
The one other place is a poor stand or stall-corner of
a house, a little way up the Toledo ; but the flowers
204 ENGLISH NOSEGAYS.
are more common, fewer camelias or roses, and they are
not made up into any sort of nosegay : this would be
all the better if one could stop in the street to do it
oneself. The Italian beaux stick bunches of violets
in their button-hole, and make a point of handling
their cigars magnanimously in yellow kids, as supreme
ton.
Altogether,! think the men at Naples handsome, more
so, comparatively, than the women; and their ample
dark beards and moustache become them. But now I
am on the theme of beauty and flowers, it must be
confessed that even the French in Paris, though they
exceed us in the number (and the excessive price too) of
their flower stalls, yet are their nosegays not half so
beautiful or odoriferous, nor set off anything like so
richly or tastefully as ours, in their lace-paper envelopes,
as we can get them at all seasons in Covent Garden,
and often all over town, at our greenhouses and fruit-
erers, besides those sold by poor girls in Regent and
Oxford Streets !
Nor can one anywhere on the Continent see the same
variety or profusion in summer ; to say nothing of our
unique and inimitable Chiswick and Botanic, &c. flower
shows, or of our thousands of public and private
gardens.
Paris in the summer, however, produces a prodigious
quantity of pinks I think the finest flower they have.
THE CONTINENTAL BOUQUET. 205
They used to be sold some six or eight years ago at the
railway stations, in great profusion.
In our eyes at least, how absurd is the prevailing taste
of the continental bouquet, as made up of precise rings of
flowers very formal, and not a leaf left to enhance its
beauty; as if the leaves of the flowers were not an
essential part of" their charm adding freshness and
vigour often an added perfume, such as the verbena,
oak-geranium, &c. ! In America, I see they have taken
up this tasteless mode of the Continent, and vie in this
formality and preposterous dimension. At the Nice
ball, the ladies' bouquets were quite a load, as if to
outdo each other in size alone.
Those thrown on the stage to favourite songstresses
are big enough and hard enough to knock them down,
and require a wheelbarrow to carry them all off the
stage : what mere grown-up spoiled children we all are !
And what a flitting shadow is taste never to be fixed
anywhere ! The true is instinctive, comes from the
soul, and is, as we live, imparted to some minds alone
by Nature herself is fixed, and never can be violated
is impressed at a glance, in a picture, a tone, a statue, a
palace, or a nosegay. I cannot imagine dull, tasteless
people (not the oi polloi) can ever have any great plea-
sure in anything ; but, as a set-off, neither have they
ever any sensitiveness, nor much sorrow. They are the
great beds of oysters of mankind, just as it should be ;
206 THE CHAPEL-ROOM.
only they give laws and rule in each generation, and
truth and nature are scouted or unknown.
We all meet of a Sunday at the chapel, a large room at
the consul's, close by, in the Piazza St. Catarina. This
street, as I have said, is the great thoroughfare, cutting
across under the Pizzo Falcone, the St. Ermo hill, once
prolonged to the Ovo castle and the bay. On the water-
side, by the castle at the Chiatamone, this rock comes
sliced down a hundred yards, at an angle of forty-five
degrees, to the street leading along the St. Lucia and
Strada di Giganti to the palace. Half-way up the Strada
Catarina there is a noble arch crossing the street,
where cut through the hill ; on one side of which a
public staircase leads to this upper part, the Pizzo
Falcone.
This St. Catarina street is the worst in Naples to
keep clear of the carriages, which all scour across by it,
whether on pleasure or business, from the Chiaia end
(the west end) to the Toledo, the Opera, the Palace,
and on, by the Largo di Castello, towards the Mole ;
thus cutting off the long round by St. Lucia and the
water side. But all the streets require to have one's
eyes about one. They drive fast ; and few have side
walks, but are paved quite across by broad flat stones.
Nothing is left for foot passengers but to get out of
the way warned or not; sometimes they are forced
into doorways to avoid the wheels.
BRITISH PATRONAGE. 207
This chapel-room at the consul's Palazzo is of
noble dimensions, but spoiled by being fitted up with
pews ! Why would not rush-bottom chairs have done
just as well avoiding all these ugly pews? An un-
mistakable Irish Rev. Somebody read prayers with a
good brogue, and the other young man read a dull,
commonplace sermon. There is a very Irish name at the
embassy Fagan. "What's in a name ! " The consulate,
too, is filled by an Irish name, Galway. I think, taking
the patronage of our government as a whole, Ireland
and Scotland cannot complain ; they fill more than two-
thirds of certainly all our smaller official stations, if not
the higher too. The singing was remarkably good ; a
beautiful young creature sitting next me, in mourning,
joined, in a most exquisite voice. How irresistible is
female beauty, when the charms of a sweet, melodious
voice are added ! But that my thoughts were bent on
high, I could have worshipped her : let me be pardoned
the profanation.
It rains in earnest for the first time this month,
but not enough to do the gardens much good. The air
is very cold, I think more so than at home ; nor do the
buds, first movement of spring, seem more forward than
in our March some vegetables are, but many of them
grow through the winter, or at least take their start ;
such as peas, carrots, radishes, young onions. Whatever
there is, is cultivated in the open gardens : they have
208 EUROPA CAFE.
no hothouses nothing rare or forced, as with us un-
less possibly in the gardens of the rich. There is no
Covent Garden, or higher fruiterers. I see them shelling
peas in the street ; yet one can have none, for none ever
appear at the hotels, tables-cPhote ; only at restaurants.
By the way, there is but one in all Naples considered
at all fit to dine at, the Europa Cafe, where men sit
dining on one side the same room, in the thick smoke of
cigars, while all the crowd are at coffee or ices at the
other. Their small tables are covered by a napkin : it
looks miserably unlike comfort or dining. This one
cafe and restaurant is much too small, is very cold and
comfortless ; crowded to excess, and everybody propor-
tionably expensively and ill-served.
March draws to a close, with a north wind though
the sun shines, still the weather is very cold; in short,
the weather, as it does with ourselves, and all over the
world, depends on the winds the centre belt of the earth
the only exception.
I go to the Museum again to see the right-hand
Pompeii room paintings, and to run through the suite
of statues on the ground-floor too, entering to the left.
These keepers lock all their gates, and follow each
fresh batch of visitors. It is cruel to dodge these
ground sharks, who rush open-mouthed after their
prey ! with one exception, as I have said the cameo
room. But it was not meant surely that we should
THE MUSEUM. 209
create this monstrous bore on our minds and pockets ;
for you are pestered into the bargain not allowed by
this greedy officiousness to contemplate or look at any-
thing properly ? As to the expense, I am convinced now,
that two piastres divided among all these animals would
not be thought a bit too much ! so that, instead of being
an agreeable, easy lounge, it has become an uneasy task
and tax.
They look on every foreigner who enters as their
lawful prize ! and of course feel very sulky nay, angry
(and as if defrauded) if they get nothing.
What wonders are here ! What exquisite things to
set one a-thinking ! to admire, to admire more and
more ! here, among these faded, spoiled, charred,
broken paintings, and stucco bas-reliefs ! How mas-
terly the outlines so often are, even when, it is clear, not
much pains can have originally been taken ! All these
paintings and mosaics (in the opposite room) were the
walls and floors of private houses, as we know. To
particularise would be endless, and indeed absurd ; for
there is nothing without its own particular interest,
not at all essentially in its perfection, often the contrary :
some are half done ; or done by inferior artists, at so
much the yard or the room, as we put paper on our walls.
But everywhere one marks the rapidity and ease of
these Pompeian painters in fresco ; often their excel-
210 THE FINE ARTS.
lence ; everywhere their spirit and fun their infinite
fancy and taste.
Some of the landscapes put one in mind of the
Chinese, but superior. Endymion, Diana, Ulysses, Dido,
Mars, Venus, Adonis, Hercules' labours, the Centaurs,
&c., are favourite episodes; Jupiter, Juno, Minerva,
and the Dii Majorum seldom interfere ; perhaps as
too complicated : marriage feasts and betrothals abound,
that primum mobile of all on earth, then as now.
A few beautiful outlined figures on small marble
slabs fruit, flowers, animals everything in life.
They are very correct and happy in their leaves ; trees
are not attempted, as hiding their subjects; always
conversational telling some story ; even in their bor-
dered arabesques ; where birds and beasts are perched
alternately with fauns, satyrs, and grinning masks.
The marbles are a severer study ; for they do indeed
approach perfection ; nay, are a greater, than we ever
witness, alive ! More richly, nobly, elegantly dressed,
than we moderns ever attempt, or have conceived. Two
artists were copying (modelling) the Agrippina re-
duced, very cleverly : what a settled grief marks her
features, her very attitude !
The drapery alone of many of the figures, particu-
larly the females (as in this), is, beyond expression rich
and graceful. The folds so infinite, so harmonious, so
perfectly true.
SCULPTURE. 211
I think we runners about the Continent say too
much of certain things set up by " connoisseurs " for
especial admiration . No doubt these things are ad-
mirable, but so are thousands of statues and other
things never mentioned at all! I must say I think
many of the statues and groups here, in art, quite equal
to the Hercules and the Farnese Toro (the Dirce),
made so much of: the last was impossible in marble; as
a group it is too much scattered ; and the bull is too
small ! or the human figures too large ! The dilettanti
cry out, " But think of the sublime difficulty ! " True,
I more wonder than admire : besides, it is only a ques-
tion of size ! It has been justly remarked that marble
is improper for rapid action and violence, or rather that
violent and sudden actions should never be attempted
in sculpture, in any substance to remain fixed.
Certain it is, all the groups and single statues in a
quiescent posture, not only have more truth and dig-
nity, but I think are every way more admirable. I
constantly am put in mind of this ; each visit the more
confirms it ; except perhaps in processions, and battles,
where the figures follow each other in bands, or pro-
duce an agreeable profusion and confusion. This rule
ought to hold good of painting. Waterfalls, even
Niagara, are the tamest things attempted.
I shall continue my heresies, and confess that much
as I admire the Apollo and the Venus, I prefer many
p 2
212 DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND.
others more, of youthful manliness, of female beauty :
some of the young shepherds and Bacchuses, or An-
tinous, and the colossal Venus and Cupid here; not
to mention many exquisite portraits in sculpture, where
great expression adds to their beauty of form, and
gracefulness of attitude and drapery. The Medicean
Venus has always struck me as affected, with no love-
liness of face, however Grecian or regular the features
may be a common property of all ideal statues, even
to a sameness that tires ; it is absolutely a pleasure to
come across the varied features of the portrait statues
and busts : in short, a slight irregularity of feature is
better, far better, than want of expression !
Going up the Toledo I met the Duke of Northumber-
land in his carriage, looking very well, very happy. My
features must have struck him as familiar (we have
indeed spoken), for I expected he would have nodded,
he looked so hard at me, and so good-naturedly ; his face
is the picture of goodness ! But our carriages (mine a
caricolo or cab at a carlin !) passed and made no sign.
I would have taken my hat off; but his presiding year
at the Admiralty " sicklied o'er the pale cast of thought,
and lost the name of action ! "
We are always unlucky in our naval men at the
helm ; as if they meant to stamp the silly pretence as a
truth, that sailors are unfit to be at the head of their
own profession as statesmen ! and that the naval power
CHARACTER OF NEAPOLITANS. 213
of England is much better under the guidance of any
other set of men, who certainly know nothing about it !
After all we are a people of strange anomalies : they
are the breath of our nostrils. We should die of ease,
and fun, and plenty, and ennui, if, unhappily, we had
more regularity, consistency, justice, and practical
good sense to guide the indomitable energies of our
little island.
I can talk of nothing but the streets : I see only the
outer world. It strikes me, with all their avidity, that
the Neapolitans, high and low, are an essentially good-
natured, witty, funny, laughter-loving people : a little
thing sets them at high words, but it is instantly ap-
peased. In this whole month I have not seen a serious
quarrel or a blow struck, nor a single drunken man.
Never was there a more peaceable, harmless population
To rule here should not be difficult.
Yet the whole town is full of barracks and soldiers.
Cocked hats and swords meet one at every turn : but
they all mix up very lovingly. Nobody is in any
trouble or grief that I can see : nobody meddled with.
The Government goes on very quietly and popularly,
for I believe it is liked by the million ; and that, if
the million hated anything, it would be a constitution
heretical !
We are not popular, and we never can be on the
Continent. Our religion alone is enough ! As to our
p 3
214 DISCOMFORT IN NAPLES.
power, even the middle class know as much of the
power of the Chinese. The Government know only
enough to dislike us both religiously and politically.
One may be certain our ministers abroad do nothing
to change this feeling ! There is a good household
article on our ambassadors in the " Household Words,"
which puts me in mind of their utility and worth to
the nation !
Who can resist the excessive discomfort of a solitary
life in a hotel, or in lodgings in Naples? Miserable cold
nights and no fire : no refuge but that crowded, smoky,
cold cafe the JEuropa, where I go and take my demi
tazza: or an ice, but they are afraid of fruit of any
kind, and their ices are only of chocolate or vanilla, and
their cakes and tarts all sugar and pasta paste indeed!
I dine here badly enough. One half the only room
down stairs is filled by men eating ices, sipping
coffee, and smoking at the same time. O how I long
for some of our own nice, savory, relishing dishes;
what would I not give for a curry, or good rump
steak and oyster sauce ? I had green peas ; but there
is no such thing as stuffed duck: all their dishes,
like the French, are only preeminently insipid : this
insipidity has crept round the coast from France of late
years. Thirty years ago the Italian dishes were very
much better ; they have even banished onions and most
herbs; sage, parsley, horse-radish, beet-root, not a thing
INSIPID COOKERY. 215
left : mock turtle, mulligatauny, white soup, or any of
our seasoned delightful soups are unheard of. So of any
dish. Roast beef, or mutton and currant jelly, or
boiled turnips, caper sauce, stuffed turkey or goose, any
of our homely hashes would be exquisite compared to
the messes they set before one ; and yet we travelled
English do talk such un-English nonsense of Con-
tinental cookery ! Yes, it is the fashion so and so
has a French cook gives capital dinners ; now, I
should say that would be the very reason why I would
by all means avoid his table, if I cared to eat any
dinner at all; still I might hope, in this continental
flood of tortured insipidities and affectation which so
likes it, that some despised English dish might smoke
on the sideboard.
The fish market is poorly supplied here. "When a
small fried sole appears, their only sauce for it, for
oysters, and every thing, is a lemon ; so I let fish alone :
nor is it of any use asking for tarts or puddings. There
are lobsters, poor little things.
The ordinaire wine is good for nothing, all foreign
at very high prices, far from good even then;
lachrymse Christi at two piastres, and champagne not
much less: instead, however, of their own numerous
good rich wines as of old, they now affect inferior
French wines. Beer of any kind is seldom touched.
They have come to mashed potatoes, but, like the
p 4
216 ITALIAN DISHES.
French, though they like them, they are made as insipid
as possible, not mashed with butter and milk but water,
and not even salted. Cauliflower is spoiled by their
cheese over it ! Cheese to their soup and maccaroni : at
this last solid stuffing they are at least quite at home.
An Italian gentleman begins with cramming as much
of it down as would fill to the throat past redemption
any ordinarily hungry Englishman. No wonder the
following "portions" in the restaurants and hotels are
so very small! Your miserable pretended beefsteak
cuts up into three or four mouthfuls.
In a word, though all this is a very old story and far
from new to me, I cannot get used to it, and really sigh
for my own fireside, early homely citizen's dinner, and
a cup of tea. I see a very fashionable German calls for
tea at the Europa such stuff.
I have mentioned the small steamer to Ischia and
Procida twice a week, and to Capri ; but I shall see
nothing of the islands I fear, beyond the distant view
on the horizon : the interesting ruins of the first two,
and the blue cavern of the last may be and are said and
sung : I must away to Malta ; but have some doubts
whether I shall be able to get a bed there, such a
deluge of young officers are pouring in at the head of
their battalions from England.
I wanted to see a favourite town, at least, in Sicily on
my way Messina ; but it seems the French steamers
PASSAGE VESSELS. 217
must not land passengers any where in this kingdom
taken on board here; so I must go by a Neapolitan
steamer, if at all.
The passage to Malta is one hundred and twenty
francs, and our passport must be vised at our embassy
and next at the police two days before departure ;
besides that, one should have a temporary passport
while remaining in Naples to be rechanged and paid for
half a piastre.
Sailing boats start most days about one o'clock, I
find, from near the custom-house steps in the harbour
(half way along the Piliero Strand) over to Sorento : a
pleasant sail across the bay of two or three hours is
better than the longer dusty road, if one has already
been on as far as Pompeii and Castelamare. There is
nothing, however, at Sorento but its varied and fine
views to repay the trouble.
If with a fair wind, or after a shower free from dust,
it would be a pleasure I shall regret when no longer
possible : so, too, not to have seen Paestum. As for
getting up and down Vesuvius it is a sheer fatigue and
worry, and about as childish as running down single--
tree hill in Greenwich Park : the crater is reduced to
half the size it was thirty years ago, and its smoke
hardly perceptible.
To travel by land and sea over Europe and along the
borders of Egypt and Asia one should be young and
218 VIEW FROM NAPLES.
very enthusiastic, otherwise it is most dreary work.
The charms which so invite us in distant countries,
whose language and ways of thinking and acting are
strange, and naturally difficult and disagreeable to us
(for we neither understand nor are understood) lie
wholly in the description : and to be sure how every-
thing on the way is dressed up for us as we lounge,
reading, in our arm chairs.
Well, I am now looking at these people, at these
things, for the last time; all round these shores the
distant views are superb, the sea forming so grand a
part everywhere.
Then these mountains capped with snow and this bay
will bear looking at every day ; yes, nature everywhere
delights never tires; and were it not for the stupid,
selfish inventions of man, one might even travel about
pleasantly; but of all the modern improvements, and
small robberies, and vexations, and tyrannies, commend
me to your passport system ! and its twin sisters the
custom-house and quarantine; one would think these
vexatious traps we are ruthlessly driven into were in-
vented on purpose to disgust people, and prohibit their
stirring from their own homes !
I have been this whole day trotting and dancing
attendance at our ambassadors, the police, and the office
of Foreign Affairs ; sent backwards and forwards from
one trap (where an insolent spider sits watching for
PASSPORT SYSTEM. 219
his silly flies !) to another ; first (nothing was said of not
going before to them for leave to remain at Naples) I
had to pay one of these scribblers and stampers five
carlins two grains (they are wonderfully conscientious
about a grain or two : it is not a halfpenny) ; then,
after standing waiting with crowds of others, commis-
sioners &c. from the hotels, a scrap of scribble is vouch
safed, and you are sent off to another office ; then are
you told to go next door to the police at four in the
afternoon for your passport.
I attend punctually, and am told to come back at six;
at last, in another large crowd, my number is called, and
I am told to pay a piastre, and at last I get the
miserable passport. Now what a farce the passport is
altogether, as one gets it at our Foreign Office. It is
evident our weight and authority abroad is despised,
and Lord Clarendon or Lord Palmerston mere nobodys
at Naples, his brother " Sir Temple " into the bargain !
Everywhere petty consuls are set on to interfere, and at
their good pleasure make out one's passport as good for
nothing without their signature, everywhere as a plea
for robbing you of four or five francs ; and our own act
in strict imitation of this kind solicitude to help us on.
When these vexations are past, one is inclined to
laugh at them. Yes, so one does at all troubles and
vexations past ; but why should we be so vexed, so
insolently robbed by the orders and contrivances of
220 APATHY OF ENGLISH GOVERNMENT.
governments we have kept in existence or allowed to
exist at all.
Was it for this that England spent so much blood
and treasure (some four or five hundred millions) in
our last senseless wars ; in which, without us, Spain,
Portugal, Sardinia, Home, Naples, would have been
blotted out or would have all changed hands.
I observed to the young man who vises our passports
over the stables at the Palazzo Polycastre (for secre-
taries and attaches are never visible to ordinary people)
that our ambassador should insist on a more easy footing
for Englishmen ; but I am convinced not only does
our government care nothing about the matter, but that
our envoys never make the least effort to smooth any-
thing; they even play into the hands of these petty
tyrants, and pretend that it must be submitted to.
Why, a small squadron and five thousand men would
in an hour knock these castles about their ears and take
the town.
We might have had Sicily over and over ; the people
would have been too happy to have us : we have been
supplicated to release them from bad government and
intolerable oppression. Lord P. coquetted with the
poor things in 1848-9, then left them to their fate; and
what have we got by our squinting forbearance there
or here ? Hate, insolence, a barely tolerated and utterly
useless embassy, no trade whatever worth naming : even
DISRESPECT TO THE ENGLISH. 221
the sulphur wrangled about ; and finally the name of
Englishman held so cheap as to invite discourteousness
from officials, insolence, and petty vexation.
To be respected it would be well to be called Ameri-
can ; it is evident they are more feared, if not more liked,
than ourselves. I observed when their officers come on
shore every respect paid them, no custom-house, no
petty forms on landing. This may be in common to all
nations in uniform on service. But there can be no
doubt that we are on the whole neither liked nor feared
all round these shores : we put up with it simply because
it does not reach our people in power ; anything is ex-
cused and complied with under the mask of an affected
moderation; but we can and do interfere and even
threaten occasionally in behalf of a private individual's
supposed wrong in a money transaction, and that man
not at all an Englishman (I allude to the Greek Jew some
years back at Athens), or about such wanton meddling
as Miss Cunningham's in Tuscany.
In a word, England's best interests at home and abroad
are betrayed, for their own idle selfish purposes, by her
leading people, who in turn are politically hated and
despised for their pains.
But let me turn to a more grateful theme ; for
people will still live and multiply through all sorts of
misgovernment.
It is certain there is no longer any class called laza-
222 LAZARONI.
roni here, the very poor swarm ; but it requires to
be completely without any sort of trade or calling to be
a lazaroni, a vagabond; but not exactly a beggar.
There may be still a few : they clean shoes, hold horses,
run about with flowers, hang on a little as occasional
porters or messengers about the hotels and wharfs,
offices, and public places : but after all, as a body, they
no longer exist ; nor is there anything in the dress or
manner of the crowd to distinguish it from the same
thing all round the coast from Marseilles : here, in-
deed, they are identically the same : the very tone of
voice in their street cries or driving their goats about
the streets.
The same customs and ways and the language itself
vary very little, the same kind of mixed jargon,
Spanish, French, and Italian : so that here at Naples,
they after all differ very little from the habits and ways
of the southern French towns. Many of the shops are
French, and their signs written in French. In the
upper world, nothing is at all English, except in their
very young men about town, who dress, and ride, and
drive in as close an imitation of our style as possible: so,
too, they study our language a good deal; many read it.
At the Europa, poor Galignani is torn to pieces
from hand to hand ; indeed it is the only print they
can catch the least glimmer from of what is going on
in the world ; all local politics are of course strictly
TWO IRON STEAMERS. 223
forbidden. If there is no other, there seems an appa-
rent good natural freedom in all that meets the eye ;
a give and take good nature ; much loud talk and ges-
ticulation, as if very interesting. I wish I could under-
stand it enough, to find it quite as dull and common-
place as at home ! Not to understand people raises
them wonderfully in the mind's eye I
Altogether, I long to get away from discomfort and
annihilation ! so I take a boat to look at two new screw
steamers just built in England (the Amalfi and So-
rento), and sent here to add to their stock. They are
poor cribs; we ought to be ashamed of them, if the
Italians are not. The Sorento had been across the bay,
with the King on board, and came rolling in, passing
close to us : though the water was too smooth to make
anything roll, not thoroughly defective in construction !
A precious contrast this to the Saranac American
war-steamer, laying now close off the mole. She towed
in the Cumberland frigate (one of their old ones, small
rather for American, and ugly). It appears steamers
are the king's hobby as well as his army, and that he
has really some fifteen afloat ; not fifty or sixty, as the
Sardinian minister said the other day : though I see
only six in the arsenal harbour, all of them looking
pretty well; but of no strength or force as men-of-
war, and none screw.
As we rowed round the pier head, an aquatic police,
224 NEAPOLITAN VESSELS.
j ack-in-office, hailed my boatman, and forbade his taking
me out, without a permit ! We begged his Dogberry
worship not to exert his high authority, as I was only
going a few yards outside (how avoid writing his
king down an ass !) to return immediately. Among
the packet steamers lying at the end of the mole, I
noticed the Parthenope, a small miserable screw, one
of two running to Messina; it calls going along at
Paulo, and at Pizzo in Calabria: the passage seven
piastres. The King and Court are at Caserta, so I
shall see nothing of either one or the other.
I was just too late to see him go on board the So-
rento this morning, when they went round the bay on
this trial trip. This would argue some activity in his
majesty, and some interest in nautical matters. It con-
firms what is said of his anxiety to possess a good many
war steamers. I observed all the sailing sloops-of-
war lying in the Royal Harbour outside the Mole are
barques. The steam- sloops or frigates, paddle-wheel ;
none as yet screw ; nor is this specimen of a packet
we have sent him very encouraging: but our iron
steamers are constantly built on a wrong model, with
no beam, no bearings, no stiff stability, sharp up and
down at the bows above the water line, and, like our
men-of-war, all drawing too much water, from this per-
vading sin of narrowness (a want of flatness of floor in
STEAM ENGINES. 225
the middle section well carried out), whereby they are
invariably too much under water, and too little above it.
Still our engines are the best in the world, and be-
coming more perfect every day by spirited experiments
and new inventions. The engines of the Sorento were
on the oscillating principle, the crank playing directly
on the shaft. On board the Sorento there was an
English engineer, a jolly good-natured young man.
He, very obligingly, pointed out this new variety of
engine to me.
Generally speaking, all the Mediterranean steamers
have English engineers, who seem to get on very well
under their foreign employers.
It would seem as if there was something either too
wearing, or too incessant, or too hard in such a life ;
making it still a difficult matter to do without our
English engineers and stokers, all round the coast,
whether French, Sardinian, Neapolitan, Austrian,
Egyptian or Turkish. Even the Russians depend still
on us. Some few came away from the Baltic and
Black Sea at the declaration of war; but, no doubt,
they will retain all they possibly can.
226
CHAP. V.
LEAVE NAPLES IK THE SCREW " SORENTO." COAST OF CALABRIA.
PAULO. PIZZO. BAND ON BOARD. DEATH OF MURAT.
LIP ARI ISLES. STROMBOLI. SICILY. MESSINA. INDUSTRY.
POVERTY. TYRANNY. TWO HOTELS. MARINA. BEAU-
TIFUL SITE OF CITY. REGGIO OPPOSITE. THEATRE. RUINS
OF EARTHQUAKES, AND BURNT HOUSES. SOLDIERS. POLICE.
PASSPORTS. GOOD GLOVES AND BAD LIVING. CYCLE OF
THE PORT AND CITADEL. HACK CABS. FISH MARKET.
WOMEN. WEAVING. TRADE. TAORMINA. GIARDINA. CHAIN
BARRIERS. CACTI. ETNA APPEARS. ACI-REALE. CATANIA.
CORONN A D'ORO. PLACIDO. GREEK THERME. BISCARl's.
LAVA. SPERON AROS. SCARCITY. PADRE GUARDO.
ON the whole the weather has been fine, though for
spring very cold ; some few days raw, rainy, and dis-
agreeable enough. Frequent high winds, now the
end of March.
It turns out that this same Sorento steamer is the one
to start to-day ; and to-day I have fixed on to be oflf, after
a whole month's vegetating ennui. It changes to stormy
and rainy ; but luckily blowing off the land, north-east.
At the steam office I ask particularly (as they take one's
passport) if I can now go on board without any further
interference from police or custom-house officers at the
TRICKS ON TRAVELLERS. 227
landing place. They solemnly assure me I can ; when
I drive up at two o'clock (for they insist on the pas-
sengers being on board not a moment later); and a
dozen boatmen rush on my baggage, squabbling who
shall have me up steps one of these custom-house
sharks, and significantly asks if I hav'n't something
liable to a duty I I wave him off, but he stops every-
thing ; even these boatmen recoil. I must go to the
office! Why so? He holds out his hand " a bot-
tiglia ! " I put a carlino in his claw, and he kindly
withdraws his veto; and now comes the tug I get
my things into the boat forthwith one of these salt-
water animals wants to know what my excellenza gives?
but at once says, putting me on board is to be six
carlinty the fare should be but one. They wont budge ;
it rains; but as this roused my ire, I insist on putting
my things once more on the steps.
After an immense uproar, the fiercest stickler (for
they work in pairs) jumps out ; and another, his
partner, gets hold of his oars.
Now, the distance is but a hundred yards; it is really
much worse than our fellows wanting a shilling, or one
shilling and sixpence, to or from the Tower Stairs.
At last I get on board, and give the waterman two
carlini ; but am fain to add another half, to spare a
torrent of words, then he kisses my hand.
By the way my porter's wife, as I left my lodgings,
Q 2
228 SOLDIERS AND BAND.
on giving her four carlini, would seize my hand and
kiss it.
The deck of the Sorento is crowded. The king,
when on board on Monday, went down in the engine-
room to see the engine (on a new and very simple
construction, the piston horizontal, working immediately
by a crank on the shaft). This is her first trip to
Messina.
Among our fellow passengers were many officers of
the 12th, and their band. Our two o'clock turns out
four o'clock. The weather still stormy with rain ; so
that we are forced. down in the cabin, till almost op-
posite Sorento, across the bay.
As night closes in, we pass between the point of
Salerno and Capri, opening the Gulf of Salerno, which
is pretty deep ; we have some little sea : altogether, our
Sorento behaves pretty well; and her sails keep her
steady : the shaft makes a good clatter at the stern ; the
more perhaps, that the screw is a foot or two out of the
water. She is slow, too, partly from the same reason ;
going not above seven or eight miles an hour. We
see the southern cape of the gulf, and steer wide of it,
to avoid certain rocks about two miles off its shore.
During the night, after a very tolerable dinner,
with only just motion enough to make a few sea-sick,
we carry away the fore-topmast in a squall. The
captain, a good looking young fellow, would carry on
CALABRIAN COAST. 229
through it ; and told us next morning, it was as well to
get rid of it thus, by way of forcing the owners to get
a stronger one.
All this shore is bold, steep too, with the crests
of its highest summits white with snow. The lights
and shadows of the ridges and ravines form the great
beauties of all mountain scenery. Their very sterility
adds to the fine effect. All the way down Calabria, at
all near the sea on the slopes, is dotted with houses
and villages ; some hanging on precipitous bluffs over
the sea ; sometimes on the steep face of the mountains.
The lower ranges next the sea tinged with green
crops here and there ; but few or no trees anywhere.
Their forests must range in the interior.
We call at Paulo (St. Francisco de Paulo), a small
town and garrison : here the band came on board,
and played several airs from Verdi's Trovatore; which,
thus cut off from the tedious whole of the opera, I
thought fine, so, must retract some of my criticism.
We keep close along the shore, crossing a still deeper
gulf or bay to Pizzo, a larger town on the steep side of
its rocky abrupt hills. Here there is more verdure,
and a few olive orchards. Here Murat put on shore
on a festive day, having lost his ships : he tried to raise
the peasantry was coldly received. Suspecting trea-
chery, he fled with his few followers down the hill, and
tried to regain his boats ; they had left the shore, and
230 DEATH OF MUKAT.
would not put back; whether by accident it doea not
appear; a party of the militia or police pursued and
took him ; he foolishly wearing rich jewels and other
signs of his rank, which they tore from his person !
This at the very town he had especially befriended as
king. O blind ingratitude !
His body lies buried in the town to this day, near
where he was shot ; holding in his hand the minia-
tures of his wife and children ! Forty years have made
us more just, to the dead at least! He was a great
benefactor to the two Sicilies, in laws, in improve-
ments of every kind ; and what has been gained by
this sanguinary ungrateful act !
Not only this, but how all our ideas and policy have
changed ; nay, of right and wrong ; but mankind are
surely consistent in nothing but inconsistency 1 No-
thing irritates me more than the mouthing of political
moralists and the public papers on international laws and
the principles of States both as changeable as the wind
according to the time and place, and the "eternal
fitness of things," as Philosopher Square has it.
Our passage is very pleasant, but slow ; the deck is
crowded by poor boys, striplings, recruits for the army,
in every shade of Calabrian and Neapolitan dress ; many
barefooted, their clothes very poor, but carefully
patched, with their peaked felt hats, and some attempts
at ornament ; each clutching a bit of bread ; and so a few
AFFECTION OF THE PEASANTRY. 231
mouthfuls, and to sleep all over the deck in the sun ;
where, huddled closely packed, they remain all night.
Some of our passengers going on shore at Pizzo, I
observe their servants or tenants, working people, who
come off in the boats to meet them, seize their hands
and kiss them fervently if suffered. Poor things ! they
are content and happy with very little.
There is a good deal of familiarity between the high
and low masters and servants but occasionally also
much harshness and little ceremony.
One stout fellow, a master of some of the boats which
came off with packages, and to take three horses on
shore, kicked and cuffed the boatmen unmercifully, and
without the least show of resentment on their parts.
We now see Stromboli and other of the Lipari
Islands. The weather is finer, and before night we see
Sicily in the extreme distance; at dark, the Faro or
light-house of Messina, and pass the once horrid Scylla
and Charybdis and so into the port about nine at night :
twenty-nine hours' passage. Anchoring in the inner
harbour, within the citadel, which narrows its entrance,
the lights along the front of the town forming a long
cheerful line ; but we are to remain on board ; as, after
sunset, pratique is not given, even from Naples, and
this is called a free port ! Here, too, our passports are
to be vised, and are just as if nothing had been done at
Naples, or this were a foreign city.
Q 4
232 LAND AT MESSINA.
A bright, joyous, beautiful morning, giving the
lights and shadows of these hills behind the town,
and the higher mountains clothed with snow across the
strait : a delicious effect. But Messina is not only ad-
mirably situated, it is a cheerful looking town ; its
range of houses along its harbour face for two miles
(the Marina), shine warmly out. A good many small
vessels are at its quays, but the variety and richness of
land and sea, the towns opposite of St. Giovanni and
Eeggio farther south the long tongue of land, village,
and Faro north ; distant Italy, blue beyond ; convents,
churches, forts, on the hill sides; hanging gardens,
terraces, and towers near the eye, altogether produce
that peculiar delight, only such things can give one
before one descends to the vulgar miseries of stewards,
boatmen, custom-houses, and passports.
Our treatment on board was liberal, and the cabin
servants content with half a piastre. The boatmen
were forced to be quiet with four carlini, and the
fellow who shouldered my baggage after a tremendous
noise as to who would or should get it, in a crowd of
idlers on the quay, modestly accepted four more car-
(near two francs), for his trouble. My passport
meantime is to be sent to the police by the captain,
and our names called over for the second time ; like so
many felons going to jail ; I am given a bit of paper, a
COMMERCE CRUSHED. 233
sort of ticket, to enable me to recover it at the police
office " within twenty-four hours."
The next difficulty was as to hotels only two pass-
able the Victoria and Villa Nuova; not a room to be
had at either, nor in three others I went to all full.
Too glad at last, after a round of hunting through the
streets, to share a room with a fellow-traveller at the
Villa Nuova ; both are on the quay near the landing ;
the entrance to them on the Strada Ferdinando ; a
handsome street running parallel to the harbour, behind
the first range of houses.
I think our last impression of this city and this beau-
tiful country is mixed up with the miserable massacres
of 1849 the burnings and the cruelties ! Messina is
now a free port, and they are building a wall round
it, to take care that the country without shall not
benefit by it ; if, indeed, any trade finds its way here
by some rare accident.
What, however, does a free port mean ? Both here
and at Genoa they have an immense avidity at search
for contraband something. What ! poor travellers'
trunks are tumbled about, but not a ship in port !
What little trade there is, is a small coasting one, in
grain, wine, and oil amongst themselves. Not a vessel
to Malta not an English flag here.
Our treaty with the Two Sicilies provides that the
English, for having given them the island, held it for
234 OUR TREATIES.
them, as well as preserving and retaking the kingdom
altogether, shall have all the advantages of their own
subjects ; who have none whatever !
In a word, we have contrived to load ourselves with
every species of vexation and insolence of passports and
custom-houses. No exchange with us of anything, an
ill-concealed hatred speaks the thanks for our fleet,
and our expensive mistaken measures early in this cen-
tury ! all this might be altered by a stroke of the pen.
This precious treaty expires, I understand, next
year. Shall we have any wiser statesmen for foreign
affairs ? This island, as they have always so much
wished, nay supplicated, might have been ours over and
over again.* To mouth about the rights of nations is
mere hypocrisy ; we have been dared and insulted!
what was to prevent us, when it was the choice, the
ardent wish, of these islanders. What a farce is all the
justice and moderation of nations towards each other!
But to poor Messina ; its inner harbour and the sea
face is awed by a strong citadel and forts a fleur
cCeau all round. The rest of the town is equally com-
manded by hill forts behind it, at every point.
It is quite a government of soldiery and police yet
* Witness the pleasant way the United States has seized on all
our north bank of the Columbia up to the 49th parallel ! and the
slice as insolently clipped from us, from the true boundary in Nova
Scotia! the wisdom of giving it up is not the question.
HANDSOME STREETS. 235
does its population increase in spite of all these ob-
stacles: it has now a hundred thousand souls; fifty
years ago it had not half that number.
One sees a great many houses in ruins, said to have
been burned ; but it has always been a town of ruins !
The Marina or strand face houses, are roofed in, half
built columns and all, just as of old; handsome de-
signs and parts only finished, meet one everywhere.
No plan carried out ; some, perhaps, from the fear of an
earthquake, which once nearly destroyed it entirely
other causes, sheer poverty, j: >revent many from repairing
or finishing. They rent the ground floor, or live in it,
and cover in with a temporary roof below the second
floor, or the house is deserted in toto ; so of some of
the churches : yet, spite of all this, Messina has three
or four fine streets and some noble buildings.
The Corso, above and parallel to the San Fernando,
the Strada del Porta de Catania and Strada Austria.
The theatre is very handsome, and the town-hall a
noble building. The hills come down close behind into
the poorer suburbs, where old forts and enormous walls
of castles and inclosures still mark their once tyrant
purposes.
Making my way up the narrower, poorer streets above
the Strada del Monasteri (composed of monastic
palaces), I observe one of the general employments of
the poor women is weaving linen : almost in every
236 BEGGARS LOCKED UP.
house of one or two rooms, there was a small simple
loom. Little girls of eight or nine were weaving tape
at the doors in the street, with an odd primitive little
loom (suspended), others everywhere spinning with the
distaff. Some men were making rope by the roadside.
They say, there is no particular thing manufactured
at Messina I should say, at any rate, flax is, into linen
of some sort. Their boots and shoes are good and
very cheap, as are their gloves, better than at Naples.
I am particularly struck by their lively, cheerful in-
dustry; and, as every where on the Continent, poor
things, they are content with very little indeed.
There is not a beggar in the town. I inquired and
find the town council have sent them all to the poor-
house ; how admirable ! a good lesson for us at home,
and the only way we shall ever get rid of those pests
street beggars by trade. The moment a person begs,
send him off to an asylum ; it soon winnows the chaff
off; and what a benefit and blessing it would be in
London, where it is tolerated to our infinite annoyance,
and under the noses of our police, who bring a few now
and then by way of sample to present to their worships,
the magistrates !
There is no market place, and the butchers look very
poor and dirty. However, there is a good supply of
fish, and cheap, so of butter and milk, and the bread is
excellent ; but the hotels keep, as usual, wretched
PALACES AND KUINS. 237
tables ; the Villa Nuova charging higher than the
Vittoria next door ; for worse breakfasts and dinners ;
but were these places ten times as bad, there is simply
Hobson's choice, and they know it. In Italy, by the
way, they add a porter to the tribe of expectants, who
always wish you a bon voyage ! though you may not
even have seen him before your exit.
In Sicily, the towns are a strange mixture of
palaces, ruins, and empty houses, without windows
or floors. One wonders who they belong to, if
the owner is dead, or ruined or banished ! or what
sort of succession there is to property. This holds
good in the best streets in the heart of the place, as
well as in the suburbs, particularly here ; added to this,
old walls and forts, in every direction, partly pulled
down or tumbling down.
To the west of the town, is an extensive flat, culti-
vated as kitchen gardens, olive and fig orchards, lemon
and orange ; but not a house or plaee repairing, except
the fort wall at the end of the Esplanade, next the sea ;
where the sentinels wont allow you to pass to the beach
through the open gate- way, but send you round a mule
track farther on, among the gardens. Sentinels seem
posted everywhere, to take care of nothing. In this
way one can hardly walk in any direction, without
popping on these poor paid tools of tyranny, in this go-
ahead age the year 1854. But what is this same
238 HYPOCRISY OF THE AGE.
tyranny? it is not here alone in Italy (where the tyrant
is said to be a very good sort of man) ; it ranges over the
whole earth, just as it did a hundred or a thousand years
ago ; it is not in this man or that, who is called King or
Emperor or Chief. It is in that animal Man, who will
tyrannise in some shape or other while he lives.
Tyrant kings are hedged round by a flock or the
flower, of the nation, who flatter and applaud him or her,
in pure senseless selfishness, to exalt themselves.
Are we free from this rank folly, ingratitude and in-
justice this suicidal process against the vigour and
life of the nation at large? Not a bit of it only
we call it law: very silly bad laws must be obeyed,
and they, by a pleasant fiction, are called the Queen
and Government. A host of the flower of our land
perpetuate these laws, and form a barrier round the
throne, sacred to selfishness and haughty silence !
Where the tyranny touches us proudly free citizens, it
comes in the shape of a lawyer and tax-gatherer ! A
comparatively new country, the United States, our
brother Jonathan, has set up the selfsame tyrants. In
a word, it is your highly civilised society preying on
each other; but it is nonsense talking of particular
tyrants nowadays. It is really only a question of
what sort of tyranny is most tolerable.
We cannot fly from ourselves from our detestable
civilised double-faced natures: we ransack the whole
BORE OF A LAWYER. 239
earth, and insist on poor, naked, comparatively innocent
savages in further ocean, adopting our vices, our miseries,
and our refinements. They must change their ideas
of God's good, or we kill them ; a pretext is never
wanting. Read the history of the world, even for
these last fifty years! up to, and to-day, when this
virtuous world are aghast at the tyrant Nicholas ! only
there is a monstrous difference of opinion, and there is
no end to notes and the contradictory reasonings of
statesmen, all professing the ft highest consideration "
and "profound respect" for their tyrants and for each
other. They can't agree, so their tools march, armed
in the most refined manner with the minie-musket.
In an evil moment I join an Italian party in a car-
riage (a vetturino, and three poor lean horses) for Catania
and we start from the Vittoria at eight A.M., sun very
hot and road very dusty the distant view of the coast-
hills and Calabria opposite the straits, and shipping
beating up against an east wind, one's only visible con-
solation. The journey excessively uncomfortable, and
the three Italians chattering away nothings I couldn't
join in ; but pestered every now and then by the bad
English of a selfish fat man a lawyer of Bologna
not to enlighten me, but to show off his acquirement
rendering confusion worse confounded ; he talked in
bad French and English and Italian incessantly ; making
it a rule not to listen, or help my Italian out. These
240 GREEK THEATRE.
are a kind of Italian bagmen, vulgar and vastly self-
sufficient.
We breakfast on the road at a wretched locanda, on
maccaroni and boiled mutton, (or goat rather) and
so on to Taormina. The country hills and mountains
on our right, more and more grand and picturesque ;
the sea, and Calabrian mountains on the other side of
the straits on our left hand.
Nothing can well exceed this grandeur and variety
of shape ; hill piled on hill up to Mola above, as we
turn the castle point, where rocks close in the cove or
bay at Taormina: below us, farther on, lies the village of
Giardina ; here, though already on a high cliff over the
sea, we turn off zigzag up the steep ascent to the
ruins of the antique Greek theatre.
This ascent alone occupied half our time : at the pic-
turesque town, where there are two monasteries in full
activity, or rather sloth, where every house has marks
of the Saracenic or mediaeval ages often very rich
though all in ruins more or less we get down and
walk up to the antiquary's shop, who shows the
theatre, and has a kind of studio filled with bits of
antique marbles the ornaments broken from the once
columns, &c. ; and his own plans and drawings of the
thing itself, as it now appears but so-so ; of the
country round, as seen from the theatre, but it is
much too vast, and too grand for his feeble pencil.
VILLAGE LOCANDAS. 241
Here we undergo the usual tedious details and ex-
planations ; made more intolerable by the silly questions
of the very clever bagman lawyer. The children of the
town followed us up, and a swarm of beggars ; from
the former I got half a dozen coins hap hazard I
fear some will turn out mere Tornesi, but I put in my
pocket a bit of brick and mortar undoubtedly
antique ! and a little flower of this spring ! What is
time? ages as a minute! could we but trace these
mountains before the Greeks, or the Phrcnicians
when they too had their ruins of ages lost in the mists
of time !
Who would believe that, spite of the numbers of
travellers who are constantly coming here to see it,
and spend their money yet not a person at Taor-
mina, the village on this mountain, has dreamt of
setting up a locanda! So we must unwillingly de-
scend from this grand height to the wretched village
of Giardina, on the beach, where there are two or three
miserable locandas, not a whit improved since the days
of Brydone except in cheating.
The landlord had three little stale fish for five of us
not a vegetable, not even an egg I no flesh of any sort,
a little bread and wine. He stood us out as to the
freshness of his fish, despite our nostrils ; luckily a fishing-
boat came in, and we got some whiting one of our
242 WRETCHED PEOPLE.
party ran to the boat and bought the fish ; for which he
made us pay much more twice over, by way of revenge.
His bill was extra impudently exorbitant ; our beds,
narrow little iron things, occupied the corners in the
only room. By good luck they were clean, however.
The smallest comfort of this kind, a clean bed, becomes
quite inestimable.
This is a stout village of sturdy beggars in general,
and time out of mind in particular, have these very
inns been fleecing travellers ; strictly from father to
son. An English party, just before us, had stopped at
the Britannia, a still smaller place, at the entrance of
the town they got one room, double-bedded ; none
have any sitting-room : but they were wiser than our-
selves, bringing their own meaty bread, wine, &c. with
them.
Milk is here out of the question still less is butter
heard of, when once you pass Messina. But this
Giardina seems pre-eminently poor, the landlords of
the two or three cheating taverns excepted. The half-
starved mob must gnaw at the fleshy cactus indeed,
its fruit is much eaten by the peasantry : it is not yet
in blossom. This spring is as unusually backward
as the winter has been severe.
Next morning we are off" after paying our bill, and
an Italian chaffing with mine host of the wretched
Vittoria Locanda. The weather is delightful the
FACE OF THE COUNTRY. 243
sun already very powerful, and the dust of the road
pretty troublesome. The cultivation, wherever possi-
ble, everywhere round the shores of the Mediterranean,
is very industrious and careful. The olive trees are
larger and more frequent than at Messina, where they
are more scarce. By the by, the oil is everywhere
bad.
The spring wheat enlivens the level vineyards and
terraces, where they are hoeing, and ploughing with
three oxen very cleverly and well ; beans and peas
often skirt the way, and latterly the bright green of
the almond tree increases the beauty of the landscape ;
for the fig, the mulberry, and other trees, are as yet
quite bare the vine just sprouting.
This is a charming season, but for the delicacies of
fruit and vegetables, the worst, as nothing is ripe
oranges, the only fruit one sees; a few dried figs, no
raisins anywhere : of course no grapes. Not to be
half-starved, one must acquire the Italian taste. Mac-
carom and bread and wine, they cannot even make a
decent salad; and every dish is a strict insipidity.
Their " dolces " are mere bon bons, and stale sweet
biscuits.
We have passed about a dozen barrier chains across
the road, to pay duty and toll ; and as many custom-
houses, mere cabins, where they stopped us holding out
it 2
244 ACI-REALE.
their hands, these dirty pleasant officers, for their fee
knowing well enough we can have nothing contraband :
a carlin or two satisfied each set but unless paid, they
would have stopped us, and searched each trunk and
carpet bag ! Can one conceive such a country ! a
country without trade and only infested by these
government robbers, planted at intervals on the road-
side to exact in this way !
As we approach Catania the country grows richer
and richer ; and yet how wretched the villages and the
people ! Poor things, lean, stunted ; the women every-
where spinning flax at their distaffs ; many of the fields
were in flax, now in flower.
We breakfast, after going to half a dozen cafes and
locandas in vain at the large town of Aci-reale ; the
nearest point to the summit of Etna; which, with its
noble mantle of snow, we have had in sight on our
right, since leaving Taormina. We are now in a
country of lava ; vast streams often intersect the road,
in wild desolation; beautiful in its rugged variety,
when most desolate when not too recent, giving vigour
to gardens and wildernesses of the cactus, which grows
to a gigantic size ; the fruit is the prickly pear of
tropical climates and a blessing on this track.
Near Messina the cactus lines the roads and gardens
as hedges ; but as we come on, the rocky hills are often
covered with it in great luxuriance, where nothing else
CATANIA. 245
will grow. It seems the first pioneer among the de-
serts of lava I
Within two or three miles of Catania, we pass the
last river of lava, sent down in 1852 ! A rugged band
of scoriae, black, rugged, desolate, as yet too recent
for the slightest vegetation, even of the cactus : this
mass of desolation poured across the fields, crossed the
road, nor stopped till in the sea, forming a small sort of
port, where lay a fishing-boat or two, and where we
fee our last custom-house brigand ; but not the last,
no they beset every road in Sicily. Nothing can be
well more melancholy than to see a whole country so
naturally fruitful, so rich in all the good gifts of nature,
with its people so utterly poor, so ragged, so dirty, so
seemingly ill-fed and miserable. The very words
trade, commerce, enterprise, are unknown, or a mere
mockery, if ever uttered ; and yet are these harpies let
loose on them.
Nothing loth, we drive into Catania, which is, after
Aci, the nearest city from the summit of Etna, situate
on a thirty-miles-long ascent or ridge of lava, formed
no doubt by eruptions beyond all history !
One wonders, indeed, how the lava could have pos-
sibly found its way here near forty miles! On one
more recent eruption, taking the longest bend too,
across the west end of the town, where one still sees it
in its pristine wild desolation, amid ruins of all sorts ;
s 3
246 HUMBUG HOTELS.
garden walls, and those of the town ; churches, villas,
streets ; to say nothing of its successive beds at the
port, and the lowest ground yet found, one sees a small
stream creeping along the floor of the Greek Thermae,
forty or fifty feet below the present level ; in the same
way in the higher parts of the city at the Greek
Theatre, and the more recently excavated Roman
Amphitheatre, of which a small part only has been
brought to light.
But even antiquities tire one at last, particularly
underground, in dirt, mud, water, and the smoke of
torches. Everybody goes to the Coronna cCOro Hotel
in the great street, the Corso; running to the west,
where for thirty-two years they have been taking in the
English ; where there is a manuscript book six inches
thick, filled with all sorts of foolish scribble ; and duly
signed; all agreeing as to its excellence, and the exceed-
ing kindness of the padrone Abbate; who, having died one
day lately, has left his inconsolable widow to carry on,
assisted by a son-in-law or two, very great men, who
say " lei" dropping the " signor " and third person
for why ? Are they not millionaires !
I read over part of this book with most especial
wonder ; it set me to thinking how insipid are praises
of this kind, so very little deserved ! All so very
"comfortable" so very "grateful" and such "kindness!"
Now, do we ever talk of a landlord's kindness at home I
THE FEAST OF REASON. 247
though treated ten times as well? and with every
luxury, every delicacy, very often ; and proportionably
paying not more than here : for we always forget that
this is an excessively cheap country ; where a dollar will
certainly obtain more of anything in the market than
a guinea at home, with very few exceptions. One may
thence judge of the greediness of all the continental
hotel keepers ; which increases, I think, as we come
south in Italy, owing partly to ourselves : we seem
to insist on paying for everything extravagantly, as one
sign of gentility !
My Italian travelling friends ordered dinner at six
carlini each. We had a little fried whiting, two tough
fowls, half a dozen small bad potatoes, and a dish of
very poor greens (called brocoli), and an orange a piece.
Now, what inn at home would not have given us a much
better, more handsome dinner, I say nothing of our
excellent vegetables, reckoned as nothing, for three
shillings a head ? no sauce, no pickles, no relish of
any kind, except lemon, which is the eternal season-
ing and sauce for fish, flesh, and fowl in Italy !
It is something however to sit in this fine lofty saloon ;
I like it. And there is under the painted ceiling a worn-
out piano ; at which our signora sang us an aria or two,
after our most wretched dinner, wretched to me,
to the Italian taste not so very bad ; for they only live
in this way ; nay, maccaroni alone is a dinner !
s 4
248
The meal despatched, when all is over, one may
forget the whole thing. Nature at least is satisfied :
but I envy the meals of my servants at home; and
long to have my breakfast and dinner once more, after
a continental fast of six months !
But I was going to say, these people have no butter
for breakfast, and hardly milk enough for four of us !
They ignore English tastes and mode of living, after
thirty years' experience, and a large fortune got out of
us: of course as wholly unnecessary after such a constant
torrent of eulogium in this folio ! Whose book have I
read, throwing a kind of charm over this part of the
island ; and making one long to tread the streets of
Catania, as the most pleasant town in all Sicily; from
its rich surrounding country, from its simple, hospitable
inhabitants ; where they run after an Englishman, and
kindly press forward to show him all sorts of atten-
tion?
This must mean where you have letters of introduc-
tion, or Catania is strangely altered; but in fact we have,
as utter strangers, no right to expect anything beyond
that one thing we take refuge in which is watching
for us ! the inevitable hotel, where you are every-
where driven to on the Continent. But here at the
Golden Crown, after thirty -years-long eulogistic scribble,
insipid as the dishes served up to us ! it is really
too much and too rich !
CONTRADICTIONS. 249
People's opinions of this or that I find for ever mis-
leading: there is nothing for it but to stick to facts,
dull facts of the day.
And yet there is a charm in the very name of Sicily ;
its ruins, ancient and modern, its Etna its torrents
of lava ; which have so often destroyed, wholly, or in
part, this very town. Its grapes, its vines, its plenty
most of all these pen-and-ink phantoms on paper. Not to
destroy at one fell swoop half one's loved ideas of the
romance, let us stay at home and read about it. Well,
no : one comes, and must for ever admire this grandeur
of nature and, in times long past, of art ; for the solidity
and richness of the architecture, dating back three to five
hundred years, are still admirable ; but what a miserable
set are its present possessors !
What ignorant meanness in the upper orders ! what
wretchedness in the lower ! what absurd superstition
everywhere! how many centuries behind half the
world! their shops, their dress, their ways their
everything. Yet are the Italians of the upper class a
smiling witty set fond of play and fun ; but so
very far from our ideas of things in general, that
it is a question whether any other sort of government,
beyond that of menials and children, would suit them ;
cunning not wisdom, superstition not piety, rules their
minds, and so down to the common and most importu-
nate street beggar.
250 FACTS AND FICTION.
How can we ever be properly estimated in the south
of the Continent, until we turn Roman Catholics;
speak the language of the people, grow Italian, get out
of our own peculiar ideas ! No ; we are English and
heretics,, and foredoomed.
We blink this part of the matter ; but it is the most
powerful cause why so few of our modern improvements
ever gain ground here. It is a mistake to think they
either like us or respect us, from that last sole
cause ; when they don't quite shudder at the bare sight
of us.
Our cash makes us tolerated at the hotels, where
alone we are known as existing at all, and as a
strange set of fools, from a cold island somewhere
about Nova Zembla. When Italians travel to us, they
are forced to say nothing about us; to write the truth,
even if they could feel it, is impossible : their own vanity
and customs overlaying anything they may see in
Piccadilly, Regent Street, or the Parks, or over the
face of our Island.
Thus, they know as little on their return as when
they set out, and care less ; only they will be very exag-
gerated and diffuse on our rain and London smoke,
and our want of maccaroni, and insipid minestras ;
mere steam or steam boats, and railways, are no longer
a novelty anywhere.
But to Catania. There are several good streets the
ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE. 251
Strada di Etna, or the "Stericorea" looking up to Etna,
which crosses the Corso at the Piazza du Duomo, is the
street: some noble churches and palaces, and parts of both
left off in the middle; and so grown old as if forgotten!
This kind of richness in ruins is very remarkable here ;
dirty squalid families and their rags hanging about marble
caryatides, exquisite pilasters, marble foliage, columns,
balconies, and doors and windows ; the richest tracery
or marble columns decorating a huckster's shop, and
bad cheese piled against torsi or inestimable fragments
of sculptured marble we would give our ears to possess
in Belgravia ; beside which, how vulgar, how flimsy,
how flat, our attempts at thejlorid or ornament of any
kind!
Well, to things stirring. As we recede from Naples so
do we see fewer and fewer private carriages : there are,
as at Messina, a few hacks and cabs (four wheels) on
the square above the Duomo at the Town Hall ; but
well-dressed people fall off; a few small cafes contain
the few young men about town a very green set,
dressed in strange trowsers and attempts at our or
rather the French last fashions.
The ladies wear black silk scarfs or cloaks in the old
Spanish mode. Extremely few women are ever seen
in the streets, where there seems only a population of
men; a sort of cafe was shown me quite empty, the
252 SUBTERRANEAN STREAM.
Stanzi del Nobili where alone the nobility can enter.
The Italians have no clubs in our sense.
The universal dinner hour seems one o'clock ; all the
shops are shut then for an hour or two, and business,
what little there may be, ceases ; you can dine nowhere
out of your hotel ; which may account for the bad fare
there. The Tratorias are dirty holes, meant for poor
bachelors or strangers to the town ; even such eating
houses are difficult to be found ; their cafes, as at Naples
and Messina, are poor little shops ; only one at all fre-
quented; here it is the "Sicilia" on the Duomo Square.
An arched portal (a ruin) leads out of this square on
the little harbour; within the pier are a few speronari ;
and without, half a dozen brigs: some few boats are
building on the wharves beyond the custom-house.
From two or three low arches on this Marina (water-
side), one sees a lively clear stream of fresh water issue,
bathing the feet of the usual congregation of industrious
dirty washerwomen : this little subterranean river passes
under the various beds of lava on which the city is built,
and is the greatest modern blessing they possess, though
they have an aqueduct, and a few fountains, supplied
from the same source in that belt of verdure of the
country which begins immediately at the outskirts of
the town, and forms the first ten or twelve miles of
agricultural fertility at Etna's feet; whose summit seems
quite close at the further end of the street, and from
ETNA LAVA. 253
the waterside! but as I advanced two miles to its upper
end, thinking to ascend the fertile belt, I found the
mountain seemed to have vanished, I could hardly see
his snow-capped head ! however, from a semicircular
platform at this upper end of the Strada d'Etna (the
last half a very poor suburb), one gets some idea of
the whereabouts, not only of Etna, but of the whole
city, on its gentle slope to the sea.
All their torrents of lava, and oft-repeated destroy-
ings, seem lost in the last great eruption of near two
hundred years ago ; coming twelve miles off from the
Monte Rosa (a " wart on Ossa "), from the flanks of Etna,
it broke into the west end of the town, filled up the
bay, and formed a kind of promontory, which is now as
bare, as savage, and almost as recent in appearance as
on the first day.
A few small walls of its own froth and scum have
been raised here and there for their miserable custom-
house abortive purposes, and officers guard this black
iron coast as if in mockery of nature's sublime desola-
tion.
Yesterday I took my way out of a breach in the wall
close above the west side of the port, where a few
workmen were loading lava (their only stone) in small
carts ; making my way over the fantastic crests, gullies,
precipices, of this semi- iron region, I came out, about a
mile off on the cliff, to the remains of a large house : its
254 SUBURB FIELD OF DESOLATION.
cellars remain ; but even this is a recent structure and
ruin. Parts of causeways and terraces were covered
(as if some partly submerged common) by verdure, a
short grass, and most welcome bit of green. I at first
thought it had been surrounded and destroyed by the
lava: not so; these bits of green on which a flock
of sheep were nibbling, have, in pity to its utter deso-
lation, been created since, though on the lava all about,
scarcely a particle of any mould or vegetable substance
exists.
I conclude these verdant parts were the ashes' streams,
propped up here and there since by walls, evidently
more modern. As I sat on various sharp ridges, the
crests of these iron waves over chasms, where it had
curled over, split, and fallen apart, &c., I picked up
detached pieces to strike with, and found it every-
where very sonorous, like a metal. I broke off a few
bits as hard and almost as tough as iron.
In some parts of this awful, interesting field, one sees
a vivid sulphur colouring on the top; but generally
one sombre dead black prevails, with tinted brownish
red in the larger fractures.
The fantastic shapes in this iron scene are very
curious ; mimic art cannot carry this away, except in
bits ; for the colour and confusion defy the art of a
painter, the lights, and shadows, and shapes so hope-
lessly confounded; though caverns, and fissures, and
ELOQUENT PREACHING. 255
hollows, and peaks appear on all sides. Each in itself
a picture, though indeed a sombre one.
Here one might meditate on the nothingness of that
little conceited animal, Man, and spout homilies on the
moral of our nature and of our existence : not, perhaps, in
a hot sun quite so eloquently as I heard an hour after
in a very animated sermon of the Padre Guardo; a
travelled friar, in the Duomo; to a congregation of all
the best-dressed men (not a woman) in the city, not
that the padre drew a single trope or illustration from
this stern past catastrophe. How eloquent are these
preachers, however ! how graceful the action I how ap-
posite, how various, how unaffected, natural, and easy !
One should be born Italian to feel whatever force it
had, but I can judge of a fine voice and the telling
variety of tone, if nothing else.
One might have heard a pin drop: I have no
doubt it accounts for half of his great popularity, even
though it might possibly have been sufficiently common-
place ; for I question whether a preacher dare quit one
common-place beaten track, enlivened by local and
domestic touches ! In England we are afraid of action,
and yet our greatest genius tells us to " suit the action
to the word." Even Disraeli, the most eloquent and
best speaker we have, is as stiff as a poker. Our clergy
never rise to eloquence of any kind: it cannot be,
reading as they do, painfully from a manuscript.
256 CHUECHES AND CURIOSITIES.
The lious here are the Greek theatre and baths,
both beneath beds of lava ; in the last, of some forty
feet depth (the level of the once city), where one sees
part of the stream I have mentioned stealing across a
cistern, where women descended for their jars of water.
The Duomo is a fine church ; so is that of the
Benedictine monastery a noble structure ; with its
large terraced flower garden, where some twenty or
thirty noble brothers lounge in learned leisure, like our
Oxford Fellows; with as many inferior brothers, as
servants. Of course women not admitted : so, a lady
with us was kind enough to sit in the church till
our return from the garden, from whence the gardener
took care we should present her with more than one
nosegay !
Here too, outside the walls, as it lies in the west
suburb, we traced the giant stream of lava, which ap-
pears to have encircled that part of the town before it
fell in the sea forming the promontory I visited on the
once wide sandy beach. The present wide wild sandy
beach is seen, a mile or two farther to the south-
west. The harbour itself, and all east of it, is quite
a rugged lava shore for miles.
But I must not forget the finest thing in Catania,
perhaps the most interesting, as in itself it contains
almost all sorts of remains of the town and surrounding
country : the Marquis di BiscarCs, whose palace is on
THE BISCARI COLLECTION. 257
the waterside; over a solid rustic basement, forming
an exquisitely rich wing of it, a jewel as a study.
The marquis must have spfcnt a long life making this
rare and most rich collection. Greek granite columns
and sarcophagi, marble statues, and a thousand rich
remains, Greek and Roman ; Etruscan vases, relics, in
short, of every description, coming down through the
middle ages from the most remote history of the island.
Coins of all the empires, and I believe in all the metals :
but of this profusion only a catalogue can give any
idea. We are led through, and so an end : it is a lesser
Museo-Borbonico ! attention slumbers, and one's head
aches, even from one's own intense attention. The
Marquis (of whom somebody, who had a letter to him
years past, has written so pleasantly or have I dreamt
it, in some book of travel ?) is dead, years ago : a nephew
now owns all this precious treasure. Would it were
in Great Russell Street ! I am convinced it might be,
for little more of our public money than is lavished on
bad pictures of very doubtful masters, for the wonder-
ment of our National Gallery going public. For five
thousand pounds we might have had Catlin's collection
of curiosities of an interesting race, fast passing away,
whose very history or reality will be doubted some day.
But it is one thing to allow our Academy president to
spoil good pictures, or buy bad ones, at five or ten
s
258 ELEPHANT FOUNTAIN.
thousand pounds, and another, to secure such things
really valuable and of interest to the nation.
A good large speronaro (lateen sailed boat) is starting
for Malta : had I wanted to take advantage of it im-
possible ! my passport has been carried off to the police,
thence to our vice-consul (who confirms all this needless
trouble and vexation !), then back again and in short
the whole day is lost getting it returned me visaed, with-
out which no boat or carriage dare take you off or on !
I must go to Syracuse ; and there the same process is
to be again gone through, though it has already been
viseed for these very places (and all Sicily and Malta)
three times over; this unhappy sheet of Foreign-office
paper, is nearly annihilated by stamps, scratchings, dirt,
and stains.
In this respect England's Foreign Secretary is re-
duced to a mere cipher, and every English subject in-
sulted and annoyed. In short, this passport passes one
nowhere : how glad I shall be to throw it into the
sea, which I intend, as a sacrifice to the free wave
the only touch of freedom kissing these iron shores !
There is a very curious fountain in the centre of the
Piazza di Duomo, an elephant bearing an antique
granite Egyptian obelisk, whose howda-cloth says it
punished certain rebels and remained victorious. Two
lines of Virgil mark this fountain at a very early date
POVERTY OP THE COUNTRY. 259
under good King Symethus a precious fount before
his day,
" Nomine rex olim tribuit mihi clara Symethus
Hie mea, sed post hac clarior unda fluit."
The whole has a slight iron rail round it; not enough
to keep the children from getting in, I see, and plucking
the roses and flowers round it. The whole is extremely
interesting from its great antiquity, and as marking
the spot, time out of mind, where a stream flowed dear
to the inhabitants.
But what of Sicily as a granary as the most
fertile of islands ! all her most immediate wants and
miseries may be perhaps thrown on the bad crops of
this last sad year. But it is impossible not to be
struck by the extreme poverty of supply, in fruit,
vegetables, fish, flesh, and fowl : here at Catania there
is no market ; oranges, which are good, seem the only
thing in abundance, but not so cheap as at Messina.
This want of every comfort goes on increasing round
the coast as one gets south. The villages are most
wretched, and yet here we are close to the great
and fertile plain which extends round Etna in a circuit
of a hundred and sixty miles.
This stern reality destroys all one's cherished illusion
about the fertility and abundance of Sicily ; or is it
this detestable government that ruins even open-
handed nature ? I understand that, besides vast tracts
s 2
260 LIFELESS CITY.
of the island for ages left to utter sterility, much good
land is abandoned by the wretched peasantry, from
the impossibility of paying the increased heavy taxes
on agricultural produce !
Here in Catania, as at Messina, walking about the
town, looking at the grandeur of the churches, public
buildings, and the many noble palaces, the public
fountains, the taste, beauty, and solidity of all that
earthquakes, lava, and the hand of time have spared, one
cannot help being struck by the insignificance of their
present possessors.
Whatever latent worth there may be, one hardly sees
a man dressed or looking like a gentleman ; nothing
bespeaks any kind of stirring or social intercourse ;
hardly a private carriage ; nothing appears neat, or kept
clean, or in repair ; not only the houses, so many left,
or lived in half built or half finished ; but everything
which meets the eye bears the same stamp of idleness,
penury, and neglect, one turns from the public square
of the Duomo, which contains all the idle life of the
place, to the little port, with its equally idle coasting-
boats hauled up on the beach, or waiting empty, on
some senseless restriction : everything, I repeat, smacks
of poverty and neglect.
261
CHAP. VI.
LEAVE CATANIA IN POST DILIGENCE. CROSS THE PLAIN AND
BIVER. LEONTINUM. ETNA FOLLOWS ! SYRACUSE. ALBERGO
DEL SOLE. TEMPLES OF CERES AND MINERVA. WASHERWOMEN
IN ARETHUSA'S BATH. JACK ROBINSON AND SONS. EMBARK.
SCHOONER " CASSIOPEIA." SKIPPER. CONJUROR. CAPE PAS-
SERO. CALMS. MALTA. HOTELS. TROOPS. TRANSPORTS.
ST. JOHN'S. GOOD FRIDAY. RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES AND PRO-
CESSIONS. THEATRES. CAFES. ICES. MIDS. PALACE.
CLEAN STREETS. LEAVE IN "ARABIAN." HORSES. MULE.
GOATS' MILK. DOGS. REVOLVER PRACTICE AND RIFLE.
PASS CAPE MATAPAN. SNOW-CAPPED MOUNTAINS OF GREECE.
SIRO. MYTELENE. ARCHIPELAGO. TENEDOS.
THE only diligence to Syracuse and Noto is the
Government mail; it starts in the morning, after the
Palermo mail arrives (crossing the Island). The fare
to Syracuse is two piastres, two-and-a-half carlins ;
and one fees the porter at the office, to be allowed to
carry any trunk beyond about sixty pounds' weight ;
it is winked at. The coachmen (three horses a-breast)
are to receive a buono mano of three carlins, for the
five relays in the fifty-one miles. I waited from eight
till ten at the office. The porter demanded two carlins
for winking at my trunk; it weighs a little more than
the regulation allows. The government conductor
s 3
262 APPEARANCE OF THE COUNTRY.
seats himself inside with us, in a great pair of jack
boots ; and at last we start.
Crossing the stream of lava I have mentioned, we
are soon in the plain ; partially cultivated in wheat,
vine, and the mulberry ; some fields of beans iii flower,
but without the delicious scent of ours in England.
We pass a large muddy stream, over a new temporary
wooden bridge on piles, lately thrown over.
Nothing can be more wretched than the people and
the huts along the road.
Following a rising stony ridge, a long ascent, we get
to Lentine (Leontinum) : a mile or two from it we see,
to the right, a small bare lake, with nothing to recom-
mend it but its reputed fish.
There are some antique remains here a castle; but
the ridge of rocky hills above the town (which lies at
the foot of a picturesque and rich glen) assume the
form, at this distance, of terraces and fortifications :
the strata of the rock everywhere on the heights, as
regular as if the work of art.
Once more engaged in mountain defiles, the country
is more interesting, indeed it grows richer in its
crops of wheat, beans, and its mulberry, fig, and olive
orchards ; with Etna behind us, towering over all, as i
overtaking our receding steps, for it is much plainer
and assumes grander proportions than at Catania. It
is seen thus, from the south, to much greater advan-
tage than from the north, coming from Messina, the
STRENGTH OF SYRACUSE. 263
steep mountain range at Taormina partly hides it; we
only catch glimpses in profile. This growing as one
recedes gives some idea of its real magnitude !
The high road quits the sea-side, though we get
sight of it every now and then. The city of Augusta,
its port and lighthouse, are seen for hours, below us
on the left hand. It is now a small town, utterly
neglected.
As at Catania there is only one hotel ever spoken of
to John Bull (the Crown), so at Syracuse we are all
sent to " il Sole " (the Sun), which is certainly a better
house, more comfortable, and with a better table :
with the additional luxuries of good butter and green
peas. Syracuse being the nearest, is the port most
connected with Malta, sending us fruit, and wines,
wood and oil, in small quantities ; but even this little
trade languishes.
It is quite wonderful the extent and strength of the
works we are driven through, before we get into the
streets of this now small town. Moats, ravelins, cur-
tains, immense walls, drawbridges, and sentinels! all
to guard and confine rather the minds than any sub-
stance left the poor inhabitants. Trade there is little or
none : in its fine land-locked harbour a few idle sloops,
and pains-taking speronari, all invoking the gods, and
murmuring at the enormous taxes the customs levy on
everything, out or in.
s 4
264 PASSAGE TO MALTA.
If this tavern of the Sun thrives, it is the only house
in the town that does; and they have fortune (f thrust
on them " by the English, those knights errant who
make the giro of the isle ; or, like myself, are deter-
mined not to retrace their steps, by way of getting out
of the clutches of the good King of Naples and his
ten thousand insolent police and custom-house officers.
One may, by roughing it, get away from any of
these towns in a speronaro to Malta, if in a hurry ;
as the regular steamers only touch at Messina. I was
very near taking my passage in one from Catania ; I,
however, found a schooner about to sail, but so early
in the next day (we did not reach Syracuse till dark
the night before) that it was impossible to see the
many interesting ruins of antiquity still visible here.
The whole place is a rock; and round above the
present town are seen the remains of the ancient one ;
hardly however to be distinguished from the regular
strata in terraces of the rock itself: some tombs mark
the way a mile out, the remains of an amphitheatre,
&c., for which see Murray. I think I was the only
Englishman in Italy without him, and I suffered for
the omission.
A little out of the modern town, round the harbour
cut in the rocky cliff, is the Ear of Dionysius : but,
more to my taste, in the fields over this circling cliff I
recollect in years long past the most delicious grapes,
BLIGHT OF THE GRAPE. 265
and nothing more. How like a dream, tracing back,
does one's past life seem !
But how are these smiling vineyards changed! It
appears for these five years past their grapes have been
attacked by a blight, as in France last year. Their
olives, too, have suffered, and other fruit trees. All
this has filled the measure of distress to poor Sicily.
The Sicilians seem to think of nothing but their cigars ;
smoking is the one great business of their lives.
I had just time, with Jack Robinson * and his two little
boys, who ran beside me, to take a hurried look at the
supposed Fountain of Arethusa, where the women
were washing and drying their clothes; and in two sub-
terranean holes near it, under the houses facing the port.
The effect of a swarm of these bare-legged crea-
tures dabbling away in these darkness-visible caves,
was curious enough. I looked down, smiled, and waved
my hand to apologise for the intrusion on their mys-
teries (I need not, perhaps, dread the fate of Action !).
Something one of the women said outside drew their
eyes on me, and I was hailed by a general chorus of
laughter good-natured I am sure, and of course in my
favour, as I had just bestowed a penny on an attendant
* An old English seaman turned Italian in spite of nature and
his stars : his two sons, interesting, handsome boys, spoke English
well, but were quite Sicilian : let me heartily recommend them as
the most interesting Ciceronis to be found.
266 TEMPLE OF CERES.
ragged nymph ! They beg, but not disagreeably, and
rather laugh than cry.
But this Fountain of Arethusa, thus sensibly and
usefully degraded into a public wash-house, is doubly
mythical. In the centre of the town are two granite
columns of the Greek temple of Ceres, lying outside,
broken, by the walls ; and twenty-three (of forty-six ? )
of the magnificent columns of the Temple of Minerva
still support the cathedral : they are partly built in,
and filled up; appearing along the wall on the north side ;
others support the dome within.
They are fluted, and of grand proportions seven or
eight feet in diameter at the base.
I saw no more, obliged to get on board ; and, with
light variable winds and a most lovely day, we steal
out of the harbour, and glide away towards Cape
Passaro.
The constant passport nuisance is in full vigour up to
the last moment, extending even beyond the shore, for
the Captain has now got possession of it, and has charge
of me ! The rapacious office made me pay a piastre and
a half (7s. 6d., exactly the Downing Street original price
for this precious passport, which passes me nowhere!),
although I had already paid for my exit at Naples,
and it has since been twice viseed in addition, all to the
same purpose. It is now so covered by stamps and
scribblings of these vile myrmidons that it is quite
CALMS TO MALTA. 267
impossible to say what it all means. Nor do I get
possession of this very valuable bit of paper, with
its ornament of the Queen's and Lord Clarendon's
arms, till put into my hands by the pratique officer at
Malta ; where, for the first time, for a couple of months, I
feel myself once more really a free man ; and desperately
resolved not to put myself into the clutches of these
harpies again ; but alas ! who can tell ! I must say,
with the Turks, Inshallah ! Allah Acbar !
As I hate steamers, and have any amount of patience
only with Dame Nature's beneficent tyrannies, I was
hardly discontented at two days and a half getting to
Malta (about eighty miles), in calms and light airs : our
little schooner, the Captain assures me, is a clipper. He
is a jolly fat fellow, Michael Cassia! and his craft the
constellation Cassiopeia. She sailed very well, though
loaded pretty deep, and the deck full of fire-wood
(olive); so, too, he managed her very well. It was,
indeed, pleasing to see how 1 uietly and brotherly every-
thing was done ; not an angry or loud word, except in
fun or laughter, the whole passage.
We were on very meagre fare. In this the skipper
took no notice of my not being Catholic perhaps meant
in compliment I I had laid out a dollar in bread, butter,
milk, onions, eggs, and a kind of curds, " Rigotte ; " but
had there been every delicacy, our devil of a cook would
infallibly have rendered them or it uneatable. It is
268 A YOUXG CONJUROR.
impossible to describe the dirty messes this animal served
up, on a most dirty table-cloth, on the skylight ; so that
I fell back on my bread and butter and a little country
wine poor stuff, such as they put on the table at all
the hotels, neither bad Bronte nor Marsala, nor any
other we know of; but known to the coast Sicilians.
I was not the only passenger Captain Michael Cassio
had picked up ; we had a young fellow as fat and as fair
as himself, the Wizard of Syracuse, going with his Man
Friday, a tall raw stripling, to astonish the Maltese,
and its temporary new-come army, by his renowned
tricks I
This young fellow, a go-ahead carbonaro and Syra-
cusan lothario, joins the trade of Improvisatore to that
of " Prestigiatore" and rather wondered at my not
having heard of his fame ! I told him of our egregious
Wizard of the North) of M. Robin, and many others,
who tire one to death in London, doing impossible
things ; but he doesn't seem to be much impressed by
their renown ; he can do it all. As a small specimen,
he converted a two-carlin piece for me into quicksilver,
through half-a-dozen folded green papers ; and slipped
a knot in the same clever way, without untying; both
which tricks exceedingly bothered our second in com-
mand, or mate of the good schooner Cassiopeia. II
Piloto, who served for boatswain and A. B. ; and who
piques himself on being knowing, created some fun by
MALTA. 269
his talent at dry jokes ; practised on Man Friday and
another raw youth. II Signor Vincenzo Maoti gives
an academia instanter in Malta, and bespeaks my good
offices, so I feel bound to mention hia conjurations.
Poor handsome young fellow, he was no conjuror as
to the ways of the world, where he is cast to struggle
on as he can. I met him once afterwards ; but heard
nothing more of his academia.
The captain rows us all on shore in his launch, to the
Pratique office, or harbour master's, where I at last
get possession of my useless passport ; but which, how-
ever, is so demoniacal that I begin to have a sort of
reverent awe of it, and put it carefully by. What, if
I come home by the way of Austria; it may still serve
as a peg on which to hang the usual insolent vexations.
The day delightful ; but very hot. Sweating up the
long ranges of street stairs, at Valetta, one admires the
rich look of its streets even after Catania ! from the
overhanging of the nice bay windows. But how clean
and neat is everything in Malta ; how sweet ! after the
abominations I have suffered through France and Italy.
It is Passion Week ; all the streets are crowded.
Stradas St. Lucia, upwards ; Stradas Reale and Mer-
canti, across, are the chief streets.
We pass a procession, wherein the Yirgin and Judas
Iscariot figure, and long lines of men, draped in sheets,
looking through hoods with two eye-holes (horrid),
270 THE GOVERNOR.
bearing crosses and tapers ; and lots of boys carrying
lanterns : a band of music heads this procession (the eve
of Good Friday).
Malta I find comparatively quiet and empty. Our
ten thousand troops have sailed for Scutari, and only
the Guards left waiting for the arrival of Lord B-aglan
and the Duke of Cambridge. Colonel Sir William
Reid is governor, and one might (if very young) envy
him his fine palace, his command, and his title of ex-
cellency. Let us envy no one ; nothing is worth envy-
ing that man can either give or take ; so, I dare say,
thinks the good governor by this time. I myself am
particularly easy, when I think of Malta in the dog
days ! * The spring, however, and autumn of the Medi-
terranean is abruptly variable, from oppressive heat
it turns suddenly cold.
An east wind next day, 15th, lashes the sea into the
harbour's mouth; how beautifully it plays on the rocks,
seen far down, from these curtains and bastions ! Walk
where you will about these vast fortifications, our
soldier sentinels let you alone ; not, like the animals
I have just left, waving you off from any approach to
their ramparts so very sacred and valuable ! You
must not even look over the glacis, or through an em-
* Malta used to be famous for ices at the cafes not so now.
I found the one in vogue on the Palace Square full of mids
calling for grog and cigars.
TROOPS AND STEAMERS. 271
brasure. At the castle of St. Ermo at Naples, I stepped
on the grass of the glacis which borders the road, and
straight was waved off. I entered the gate next, and
had quite a row with a corporal who forbade my looking
right or left.
Steamers, postal and passenger, come and go very
often ; three ran in before us yesterday. The ,
a large transport steamer lying here, goes round to the
Lazaretto harbour, ready to take the Guards off (the
only regiment still here), quartered on the other side.
Parties of men are constantly crossing on leave for the
day, landing on the Moscetta stairs.
There is a French general here, and his staff, and a
few artillerymen, the first of their nation, in uniform,
since their short possession half a century ago. Our
not giving up this same island caused all the havoc of
that thirteen years' long war !
It is now the 16th of April, and still there is nothing
new ! In this war, after forty years' peace, all as yet
lies behind the mystic veil of the future ! Hardly yet
begun who can tell, or even guess the end I both sides
confident; both sides invoking God to bless their arms !
Yet, if truth and justice in this world are indeed some-
thing beyond empty words, the cause of England and
France is now the just one to prevent, if not punish,
the hypocritical, grasping insolence of Russia.
There can be no doubt that Malta has improved in
272 SILENT CHANGES.
a thousand items within this century; in houses, streets,
public buildings, neatness indeed in most exact clean-
liness, for which it is now remarkable. However, the
great features are still the same. Endless rock, hot
walls, and guns peeping from their embrasures. The
palace, and many palaces, still the same : what are fifty
years or a hundred to them ! or the noble cathedral of
St. John's, which shines in its knightly marble inlaid
floor, more than ever richer than ever for I observe
it more ; and yet even in my time have two or three ge-
nerations of men passed away, governors, admirals,
generals, doctors, town-majors, and pleasant circles,
where once the glass went round, and pretty and
fine ladies made tea for us, and much of us ! All
gone ; all still ! " Where are now their gibes." Sad-
dened, I rub my eyes ; yes, yes, it is all right : still
these nix mangare stairs seem no longer the same
thing ; and yet here are the same piles of fruit, hag-
gling of customers, bawling of the crowd, and eager
boatmen.
A cold south-east wind has been blowing into the
mouth of the harbour for some days. This is the
sirocco, but its coolness puzzles me! We every day
hear the guards are to be embarked next day ; but the
day comes, and there is no move ; waiting, I hear,
for Lord Raglan.
Though this is pre-eminently a garrison town, and
INCONGRUOUS NAMES. 273
soldiers appear in all directions, yet there is seldom
any trooping of the guards, as at garrisons at home ;
only once a week, on the small square opposite the
governor's palace. I went this morning, amused, with
the crowd, at the music and the manoeuvres.
Luckily I hear, by accident, that a screw steamer, the
Arabian, has come in, and starts directly. I hurry
to the office of Rose Co., and get a ticket for a
passage to Constantinople; six pounds, only half the
fare of the Passenger Steam Company !
I should always dislike the whirling and jolting of
the screw (most obnoxious in the cabin) ; but, except
that, I found it preferable to the regular boats and
long crowded tables. She was coaling in the great
harbour close to the obelisk over Captain Spencer's
remains, and where sundry names of fancy ships have
been painted on the walls and rocks by poor Jack ;
the " Happy Terrible ! " When shall we cease giving
our ships ridiculous, or bad, or inappropriate names :
we have all heard of our Forty Thieves ; but we still
have our Viragos, Vixens, Avengers (she was miserably
wrecked), Revenges, Termagants, Furies, Furious, and
Spiteful! Well, the Terrible is happy notwithstand-
ing ; may she be terrible only to her enemies ! Ramsay
is a very good fellow.
As everywhere, we start many hours after the one
T
274 QUIT MALTA. MANUFACTURES.
named as the " very last ! " Coaling and getting horses
on board, it was evident : and lastly, the anchor being
foul of moorings, we did not get away till sun-set.
The Medway and Emperor steamers, touching here full
of troops, start at the same time, and soon leave us far
behind.
We are three passengers in the cabin : a young Jew,
a fellow of half-mad impulses, going to fight the
Russians, or anybody, in spite of his friends ! and a
Scotch quiet, cosmopolite Eastern traveller.
The captain is much like all others, and only tires one
by endless repetitions, exaggerations, and very shallow
silly boastings. However, he gets his vessel on well
enough, and presides over our horridly cooked loads of
meat and potatoes, morning, noon, and night. This is
a change, at least, from Italian soup and maccaroni.
Our deck passengers are three horses, a mule, two
bulldogs, and a poor goat, which gives us, kindly, lots
of milk.*
One naturally looks about for something, the pecu-
liar fabric of each place or country. Malta has her
silver filigree work, very pretty as settings for brooches
of lava, &c. ; and good sponges are not very expensive,
* They are frequently hired, at so much the voyage, by the
steamers ; poor things, they have a sad time of it ! At Malta, and
all round these shores, they are remarkably fine, and are the great-
est blessing the poor can boast of.
BARREN SHORES. 275
as with us ; a pretty good one, two shillings. Oranges
are good (Sicilian), and there is a much more plentiful
market of all the fruits and vegetables common to
(often from) Italy than one can see in the towns on
the spot ! particularly Sicily, where every species of
industry and enterprise seems crushed, and where this
year the scarcity among the very poor leaves them
hardly the common necessaries of life.
It is well we steam, though slow, for the wind
remains obstinate east against us the whole way, but
with fine weather. On the second day (in forty-two
hours) we see the Greek mountains on our left hand,
all capped by snow, their forms very fine ; in the
evening we pass between Cape Matapan and Cerigo
Island-; with smoother water: we have had a long
heavy swell all the way against us.
All these mountainous rocky shores of Greece are
barren : rarely one detects a little patch of green on
some hill-side, or a small village nestled in some hollow;
but I think what marks the lonely neglected aspect of
the land most is, that one sees no boats on the shores,
no fishermen, not a living thing, nor sheep, nor cattle,
nor even a goat, anywhere.
This holds good all the way up among the islands,
those near enough to distinguish objects, till we pass
the Dardanelles.
To be sure the sea is enlivened by numerous vessels
T 2
276 DARDANELLES.
in sight, small brigs and sloops, making their way up
and down. Nor is the matter mended on the Turkish
shores, Asia or Europe, till we approach Gallipoli,
where some cattle and sheep at length appear on the
flats : still, there is more appearance of cultivation,
woods crown some of the hills, and fruit trees are
scattered along the small valleys; the European side
is, however, the most sterile of the two.
We pass Tenedos, where there is a fort and village
and next, Besika Bay, which seems no bay at all,
but on these bold shores and deep seas affords good an-
chorage on the Asian side, close to the entrance of the
Dardanelles ; where large towns have sprung up be-
hind their castles. Four or five French sloops-of-war
and store-ships entered with us ; making the most of a
fine fair wind ; so essential in this passage, where the
current sets out so strong to the westward, and where
the breeze is always fickle, and calms frequent.*
As we passed up we saw a great many wrecks of
vessels lying on the shore on both sides. This, is the
greater pity, as they are evidently very little hurt,
perhaps, as sound as ever; but their poor owners, once
on shore, are unable to get them off, and any assistance
* These same castles, and those above, are more vexatious than
awful. They could stop nothing but peaceful trading vessels ;
war steamers and men-of-war would laugh at them, or knock them
to pieces. The strong current here alone makes them formidable.
CONSTANTINOPLE. 277
from the apathetic idle Turk, hopeless. On the other
hand, they remain intact, not broken up, and made
away with, as they would be elsewhere ; though, if
only as fire-wood in cold winters, they are still valuable.
In the Sea of Marmora we see the shores on all
sides, some of the more distant hills with snow still
lingering on them : we pass the Islands of Marmora ;
the two smaller are barren rocks.
With half-steam on, to give us run for the night,
by daylight we find ourselves off Seraglio Point, which
rounding carefully (for the current of the Bosphorus sets
strongly out), we anchor pretty close in at Tophana,
at the mouth of the Golden Horn, arriving before the
Emperor and Medway after all, on the old adage of
the hare and the tortoise.
The numerous minarets and domes of mosques re-
lieve the general monotony of the tiled roofs on both
sides ; closer to us, the labyrinth of buildings mixed with
the cypress at the Seraglio Palace pleases ; otherwise one
is more struck, I think, by the novelty than the beauty
of the whole, at Constantinople. The numerous vessels,
steamers, and boats in the Golden Horn help mate-
rially to enliven the scene. Outside the town of Scutari
opposite, the new barracks and hospital are conspicuous
objects ; it must be more than two miles across to it.
Small steamers now run backwards and forwards
T 3
278 CAIQUES.
and once a day up the Bosphorus to Bayukdery and
Therapia.
There are swarms of caiques or wherries, longer,
rather, than ours, and narrower, formed more like
a canoe, and all richly carved ; some of them a little
gilt and varnished ; but all kept with great care and
neatness ; nor do I find them so very ticklish as de-
scribed. You sit, one, two, or three, down in the
bottom on cushions, so that only the head and shoulders
of the sitters are seen. The effect is odd enough ; there
is no danger of upsetting ; only sit still.
The boatmen manage their oars very well ; these
sculls, for they are short, are poised by a swell in the
wood near the hand, which balances the longer blade
in the water; which always ends in a crescent shape
not round or pointed, as ours are. All these
caiques are much alike, about twenty feet long, and
three wide : on the whole they are very elegant, very
scientific, very efficient. The jolly crew of the Danubian
" Water Lily " may take a lesson from them ! There seems
no set fare, so one makes a bargain : on or off to the
nearest shipping, two piastres, sometimes, to a native,
half a piastre (a penny) : across to Scutari from three
to five piastres ; often much less, especially from the
Turks, Parties of Turkish women are rowed about in
them for a few paras. Indeed, in no one thing can
one ever get at what should be paid for anything ! we
LAND AT TOPHANA. 279
English, and travellers of all sorts, constantly giving
preposterous sums for everything ; so that now it is
enough to have a hat on, and not be understood, to be
marked as a good prize.
When I landed, the porters fought for my bag-
gage; and the commissioner of the Hotel de 1'Europe
made me pay three francs for the boat (though he had
hired it to come off in) and bringing my things up a
quarter of a mile from Tophana to the hotel. I may be
certain he did not pay them a quarter of it ; and still
paid perhaps rather more than usual, as it was a Greek
festival, and they are generally ready to sacrifice even
their self-interest to the fun of the day. The streets
are crowded, drums banging and pipes squeaking in
all directions.
I am agreeably surprised both at the houses and the
streets ; both so very much better than I imagined I
should find in a Turkish town ! nor are they at all so
low, so dark, or so small as I thought ; generally of
two stories, with bay windows, and projecting balconies
everywhere ; like our old houses of the middle ages, or
Elizabethan; in their comfortable recesses, niches, gal-
leries, and latticed windows.
Nothing of the dull, dead, white mud walls of
Egypt : all here is open and lively, with an air of
comfort, that is, dry wooden floors and stairs, even in
the poorest old tumble-down tenements ; and certainly
T 4
280 DIRTY ROUGH STREETS.
the greater number are in a rare picturesque state of
decay and dilapidation, the outer boards curled up by
the sun, broken, and looking as inflammable as tinder !
the greater part of these wood houses innocent
of paint, although perhaps fifty years old.
But if the wooden houses of Constantinople have
their good looks and their interior good qualities,
not so the lanes or streets. I was prepared for sand
and dirt, and no paving whatever; but unfortunately
they are paved ; but in a such a way as to make it
difficult to walk along at all as if stones of all sizes
had been thrown out of carts at intervals, and left to
find their own places.
Yet over this rough, execrable way, they drag their
odd primitive carriages, containing the richer Turkish
women, with their noses and foreheads muffled up most
disagreeably in a sort of muslin wrapper, rather than
veil the yak-mash.
Men ride along, the horses picking their way ; and
now and then one meets some great man getting well,
jolted in his low open phaeton and one horse. Most
of the coachmen walk at the horse's head ; so too, on
horseback, the groom walks beside his master the
pipe -bearer behind.
If bullock carts, or loaded mules, or asses are coming
along, of course you get out of the way, nor is it
difficult.
HARMLESS DOGS. 281
Walking about, I find a general civility ; and
though the streets are particularly crowded at this
Greek festival, yet jostling is everywhere avoided,
all pass on without notice or remark: no notice is
taken of Europeans, the Turks have got used to our
dress and our ways, and are too well-bred to laugh
openly at us, however strange or queer we may appear.
They may gently shrug up their shoulders, as we
pass them at their pipes, at the cafes in remote streets,
but there is no rude staring, nor any sneering ; though
I have no doubt they are often tempted. This, how-
ever, is a favourable moment, with some thousands of
our men encamped and in barracks at Scutari ; and
we are here as deliverers !
Still, very little of such a benefit is at all felt by the
million ! What do our London population know or
care for this or that squadron in distant seas, this or
that corps d'armee in distant lands ! even though a
Sunday paper's contents may be heard of by one out
of a dozen ! Now here, they know nothing beyond
their own immediate calling and concerns, nor ever, I
dare say, trouble their heads with anything not under
their noses, and in their hands : that, and prayer and
their pipe, fill up their quiet contented lives.
The next thing we have heard so much of in the
streets, are the dogs, a yellow-brown race, between a
wolf and jackal: hard is their lot, poor things ! They
are not at all troublesome.
282 PEKA PROPER.
Generally, in the day, they lie asleep about the
streets, under the people's and horses' feet, and, most
extraordinary, never get trod on ; so careful and gentle
are the Turks : true, they are half starved ; nobody
owns them, but nobody hurts them. It seems, how-
ever, our soldiers kill them for fun ! The example is
set by our young officers : one of these gentlemen at
the table d'hote was boasting of how many he had shot
already ! and, to diversify the fun, how many tame
pigeons! to the very natural anger and disgust of the
inhabitants. So much for our morals and our fun !
If their commanding officers do not put a stop to
this wanton cruelty this selfish, insolent disregard
for the feelings of others we are so prone to we
shall very soon not only be despised, but detested.
I was in hopes our men could not get spirits of any
kind, but I hear they can, by buying a bottle at a time,
of the Greeks at Scutari and Galata ; the consequences
will be drunkenness, and ill conduct of all kinds. It is
well only the sergeants and corporals get leave to cross
to Constantinople or Pera.
So much has been written about Constantinople,
that I am in despair of gleaning anything new. The
Pera side, where all we travellers land, is quite as much
Turk as the city itself across the Golden Horn, it is its
suburb : there are three wooden floating bridges ; Pera
is their Surrey side the water. You land at Tophana,
JEW AT BAZAAR. 283
close by the Mosque, the saluting battery, and the
arsenal : leaving Galata and the wharves near the first
or outer bridge far to the left, you ascend through queer
labyrinths of streets to the hotels. I went to the Europe
kept by Greeks; close to the Russian and Austrian
embassies ; still, in Tophana ; for Pera (proper) begins
higher up the hill and town ; where one long straggling
street leads along the top of the hill, and down, with
various windings, to the first bridge (at Galata).
On the west of this hill's crest lies an immense wood
of cypress, a Turkish cemetery : the only nice bit
to walk in to be found this wood is the best part of
Pera. Some of the hotels face it, much more pleasant
than the two most frequented (the " Angleterre" and
"Europe"), which are very expensive, and very bad in
every possible way.
It is quite impossible to stir without a Greek who
speaks Turkish : of course the Greeks, en masse, speak
nothing but Greek or Turkish; in vain you try
French or Italian. I, however, crossed the bridge alone,
passed the great mosque (the Yeni-jery) close to it,
and made my way upwards to the bazaar. An old
Greek Jew picked me up, who had previously picked
up enough French and Italian and English to make
confusion worse confounded. However, he showed me
the bazaar, and helped to cheat me.
Even the Turks ask as much again as they will
284 UNCERTAIN PRICES.
eventually take. Your offering half is no criterion,
for one is quite ignorant of what the prices should be.
I found Burnous's, slippers, amulets, attar of roses,
and cherry-stick pipes, with amber mouth-pieces, at
absurdly high prices. They may refuse your offer of
half (very dear at that), and smoke on in comfortable
apathetic silence. Not so the Greeks, Armenians and
Jews, whose outward appearance closely resembles the
Turks. They are all in commotion at the sight of John
Bull ; call out after us, pull you into their shops, insist
on your being seated, dispute with each other for you,
particularly in the silk stuffs and scarf quarters ; unfold
fifty things, and fairly astound one with their volubility
and impose on you by their tricks quite equal to our
Oxford Street dodges ! At one shop I bought some
rose water of the "first quality" mere water put into a
turpentine bottle, the cotton stopper of which they had
scented with attar of roses ! This was so atrocious, it
was impossible, however provoking when I found it out,
not to laugh.
285
CHAP. VII.
PERA. OUR CAMP AT SCUTARI. THE GREAT CEMETERY. HAPPY
FLOCKS. A WET REVIEW. THE SULTAN*S PALACES. ABDUL-
MEDJID AT MOSQUE. GOOD-NATURED TURKS. ABOVE THE
BRIDGES. UNKNOWN TONGUES. GALATA GROG-SHOPS. DRESS
OP OUR ARMY. PERA GATES SHUT. CHRISTIANS IN THE SAD-
DLE. SIGHT-SEEING FIRMAN. OLD PALACE AND MOSQUES.
SULTAN'S STUD. PAGES, BATHS, LIBRARY. LADIES' GARDEN.
VIEW FROM WINDOWS. OUR QUEER DRESSES. LIBRARY AND
BED. ARMOURIES. MOSQUES. ST. SOPHIA. IDLE INTRUSION.
MASSIVE WALLS. KITCHEN CLOCK. . ATMEIDAN. SACRED
PIGEONS. M AHMOUD'S MAUSOLEUM. SLAVE MARKETS. BAN-
ISHED GREEKS. GENERAL APATHY.
THE spring bursts on us suddenly : these last two
days have been melting, in the sun ; now towards the
end of April. To day, by hearsay (for nothing is ever
known certainly), was to be a review of our regiments
at Scutari, on the common beyond the great barracks
towards Kodukai, a village on the point below, in the
Sea of Marmora : so, too, it was said the Sultan would
be present ; in consequence, a good many of the Pera
idlers went over, but nothing took place ; put off,
it seems.
286 OUR CAMP AT SCUTARI.
I went over in one of the caiques with two others,
landing below the barracks, on the rocks. Here some
of the troops, just arrived, were landing from the trans-
ports, with baggage, horses, &c. One fine valuable
horse was killed by some mismanagement, and lay float-
ing about, poor thing, under the boats' keels.
We have lately seen our Camp at Chobham, so I did
not stop to see all the usual routine at the tents; some
just setting up, some of the men busy cooking in the
square of these new monster barracks.
Soldiers, and an army, are best seen drawn up, or
marching to their military band, with all the pomp and
circumstance of war ! By the by, this dilatory war is
said now to be once more on the point of not beginning
at all ! Some new proposal of the Czar.
Our embassy is in a large stone mansion on the top of
Pera hill; and nothing known there officially leaks out,
except to a favoured few who have the run of his Ex-
cellency's domicile.
Some of our regiments are encamped, some in these
barracks, a noble pile of building, quadrangular, with
a high tower at each corner, said to be capable of con-
taining ten thousand men ; the windows are placed
three and three, in groups (three stories). There is, too,
an extensive hospital, half a mile behind them : both on
the plain at the south-west outskirts of Scutari, and
exactly opposite the Seraglio point.
THE GREAT CEMETERY. 287
I strolled on above the town to where a cypress grove
marks the largest of the Turkish cemeteries. I tra-
versed its whole length : the high road, indeed seve-
ral roads, run for a mile through it, and down into the
middle of the town, which extends, perhaps, two miles
on the bank of the Bosphorus, upwards from the
barracks.
This burying-ground is a great curiosity. The
tombs, the marble pillars, slabs, turbans, erect and
broken, and strewed about, are thick as Vallambrosa's
leaves ! How many generations has it taken to fill this
enormous extent! so thickly strewed, that in the whole
mile or more (the breadth more than half a mile, up and
down hill, at the town end, mingled with the houses)
one cannot step clear of this chaos of marble! mostly
finely carved, while the richness of the Arabic cha-
racter, always in bas-relief, makes even the plainest
form handsome.
A great many are gilt and painted. Numbers of the
more modern have the dull-red fez ; the tassel gilt : some
of these are very small, for the children, of all diminu-
tive sizes, as if marking the age of the child. The
shape of the men's turbans is infinite a study ! but
what on earth is there that does not deserve a study !
Time hurries on, and I am forced to pass on by tomb-
sculptors and coffee-houses along the road. A large
flock of beautiful sheep cross my path ; their fleeces
288 HAPPY FLOCKS.
looking so clean many with extraordinarily large
twisted horns, feeding their way through this forest of
tombs.
Here they graze, under the shade of this funereal
forest. I sat on a broken turban, and watched their
shepherd ; he did not press them (they were crossing the
dusty road), but quietly let them get on ; and no dog
worried them.
I love the Turks for their toleration of, and gentle
kindness to all living things : thence it is one sees such
an easy familiarity with all the four-footed and feathered
tribe. Yet we call ourselves most civilised !
Following this road, turning back towards the Bos-
phorus, brought me into Scutari, a mile from where I
landed, under the barracks; so I threaded my way
among labyrinths of streets, met many Turkish women,
and a few men, but without observation passed on
back to the boat.
The small steamer which plies to the first or outer
Golden Horn Bridge, was ready to start; so, as my
Turk and caique had got some other fare, I went on
board (first in a small boat from the rocks), paying two
piastres, and landing on the bridge ; to cross which the
toll is five paras (half-quarter of a piastre, a farthing).
Scutari (the Turks call it Uscutar) lies very prettily on
its steep slopes to the water side ; and, thus inclined to
A WET REVIEW. 289
the north, away from the sun, is, I fancy, cooler than
here at Pera. I should prefer living there, clear of the
crowds and dirt of Pera or Galata.
Yesterday it rained hard all the afternoon, and the
review did take place. Only a few favoured of us
strangers in the land knew it, and crossed over to get
wet ; so, for once, there was nothing to regret.
It seems the Serctskier was present ; not the Sultan ;
and of course our Commander-in-chief, who has arrived.
To day, we hear, the Guards disembark (indeed, we
may see them from the hotel windows), and join the
rest of the army, in barracks or encamped.
This is Friday, and the Turkish Sunday ; the Sultan
goes to a small mosque, lately built, close to his palace
at Abasiktas, about two miles above Pera, on the Bos-
phorus. This is the Mahmoudieh Palace of his father.
The present Sultan has never lived at the renowned old
palace of the Sultans at Seraglio Point, in the city
itself neglected even in the last reign,
I took a Greek guide (George, one of the hangers-on
at the Europe), and got into a caique : it was a good
long pull, and against the current. The day very fine ;
but a cold wind from Olympus (south), which has got
a new covering of snow. This side, like the other, is
quite a string of villages, and good-looking water-side
houses, of the more opulent. First, we pass the
Sultan's new palace, of stone, not yet finished, though
u
290 THE SULTAN'S PALACES.
they have been at it for eight years. Some of the
rooms are, however, furnished from England and
France ; and he has had half a dozen architects of all
nations.
It is, like all the buildings, of no decided order ; but
certainly, what with terraces, balconies, and pillars, has
a very pretty, rich effect along its fasade, so has the
older wooden one where he lives, which has partly
served as a pattern, I conclude.
We pass the villages of Dulmabaxy, at the new
palace, then Fundokly and Ortakai, and land at the
palace boat-house, walking half a mile between the
palace-garden walls; which form a good approach to
the mosque.
I was too late to see him go, but had a very good
look at him, after waiting half an hour, on his
return. The hour is from twelve to one, and he goes
to most of the mosques alternately. His guards were
drawn out in a long double line from the palace-
gate to the mosque : besides the Officers at their posts,
about a dozen stood together at the head of the line,
and a great many high personages, about the Court,
stood in two lines outside the mosque entrance ; there
were few strangers, and but a few of the villagers. A
few women (Turkish) and children pushed in near the
soldiers ; and, indeed, loaded donkeys and labourers,
passing about their business, were allowed to break the
ABDUL-MEDJID AT MOSQUE. 291
line, while several dogs barked and played about very
irreverently.
We were pretty near. We could hear the chaunting
of the prayers within, in horrid discord ! much worse
than the Catholic chaunt. At length, the grand officers
drew near the steps; several led horses were walked past;
and, lastly, a black horse, with diamond and gold saddle-
cloth, on which he came ; then a grey, equally richly
caparisoned, was led to the steps, where a dark coloured
cloth had been carefully spread. His ministers and
high officers, lords, generals, &c., stood on each side.
The Sultan stepped out quickly rather than with any
state, and mounted exactly as any of us would do. He
wore a blue short cloak over his uniform, a blue frock,
embroidered collar, arid diamond star, with the same
dull-red Fez or scull-cap, and blue tassel hanging
behind, worn by everybody.
The band, stationed on the spot, struck up ; the
priests, and, I believe, all the retinue, raised the cry of
" Long live the Sultan ! "
There is no end to men's opinions ; the most diame-
trically opposite are instantly formed of the self-same
thing before our eyes ! Thus, many of the English,
catching it from each other, would say he was extremely
thin, and looked jaded and worn out ! To me he seemed,
on the contrary, to be of a good average stoutness ; his
features are marked, not handsome, and he appears
u 9,
292 GOOD-NATURED TURKS.
above the middle height rather. They said he looked
dejected jaded! How absurd to speculate in this
way on the constant serious deportment of a Turk ; all
are serious here it is particularly etiquette. Nor is
the paleness of his face any criterion of sickliness or
health ; most Moslems are so, among the higher ranks.
I think one of the most remarkable and loveable
things about the Turks is their gentle kindness to
every living thing about them ; there is no cutting
and worrying at their horses ; they drive or are followed
by their cattle or sheep as if of one family, and the
confidence of the whole lower creation in every shape
towards them is quite delightful to look at.
The very dogs which lie about under their feet in
the streets are never hurt or kicked; where one sees
any exception to this rule, it is sure to be a foreigner
or a Greek! These same poor dogs, though unavoid-
ably half-starved from their great numbers, yet are not
without being known, each in his own street; and
though not so much owned by anybody, are yet fed
more or less by all who have anything to spare, indeed
every eatable refuse is thrown to them.
From our ambassador's garden wall, to the north,
where you get rid of these wretched, dirty, narrow
streets, and where you infallibly lose yourself, and
walking down through the Grove Cemetery (the park of
Pera and its lungs), I got a caique on the wharf, near
ABOVE THE BRIDGES. 293
the Turkish barracks, below the dockyard, and pulled up
the Golden Horn, under the third bridge upwards. This
spot is above the second bridge, at the foot of the
grove : it opens out in a pretty valley ; and these hills
and valleys run on, forming the banks of the Golden
Horn up to its head, where it joins the Valley of Sweet
Waters ; a continued town near the water.
We first pass the dockyard, off which are moored
three old line-of-battle ships (one a three-decker) and
three very old frigates, all of them, indeed, unfit for
service.
The Turks are fond of an enormous gilt lion rampant
as figure-heads. Outside the yard were a string of small
floating guard-houses, each with its guard and sentinel ;
to what end I cannot make out. They were building a
small steamer, and a frigate (in her ribs) is begun on
its slip; but there seemed no activity of any kind. The
yard is small, and open to the water ; but no guns,
anchors, cables, tanks, or what are called stores, were
at all visible.
There is, however, a small range of store-houses,
with a handsome building or two for the officers, and
offices.
I did not go quite to the head, but rested to let my
Turk smoke his pipe ; holding on our caique to a pile on
the opposite side; I was not aware of any stream or
u 3
294 UNKNOWN TONGUES.
current running out; but so it is, and pretty strong just
here, as if a large river ran into it.
I must look for this river (the f< Sweet Waters 1 ') another
day: I have only heard of the " Sweet Waters" as a
small stream running through its valley.
I gave my boatman four piastres, and am vexed to
say he did me ; giving me a fifty para piece in change
instead of two piastres (eighty). I have a confidence in
the Turks, high and low ; and, not dreaming of being
tricked, and not knowing their marks on silver or notes,
I gave him a piastre by way of backshish to seal the
bargain. Well, I wont alter my mind for this one
little act of dishonesty, perhaps my own fault.
How miserable it is not to understand these people,
or be understood, or exchange a single word beyond yok
and evet this is a sad moral blindness we grope about
in ; so that we know in reality little or nothing of any
country's people beyond our own.
Landing near the outer bridge at Galata, I rambled
about its excessively dirty streets, as it rained hard
yesterday, and all the water and mud runs into this
lower part of the town.
I think this waterside the most extraordinary pic-
ture of old wooden houses, in every possible stage of
decay and tumble-down, it is possible to conceive :
some propped up ; some leaning at a good threatening
angle; others, the outer boards quite rotten, broken in
GALATA GROG SHOPS. 295
their sheds, balconies, verandahs, and cafes all
in the same state, and all full of people in full smoke,
or talk, or small trade ; a cadi, or a police officer,
was administering justice in one of them to a
crowd.
As one walks along the chief street at Galata, towards
the outer shipping, one gets among our own sailors
French, Italians, and Germans nothing can exceed
this scene in tippling and small depravities; those of
the lower world.
Jews, Greeks, and women, all bent on one object,
to get all the money they possibly can out of sailors
and soldiers: happily very few of our soldiers can
reach this side of the Bosphorus. A party of sailors from
the French steamer Pandore had evidently drunk a
great deal. As I ascended near the great Genoese tower,
another set of them had collected a crowd; two of
them were down on the ground quite drunk; another,
not quite so far gone, while helping his messmates to
tumble about, harangued the Greeks and Turks, telling
them, in good French, as how they had come to fight
for them with " les braves Anglais" and that they ought
to be very grateful to us : but I fear his talk was lost on
the astonished crowd ; they were, however, very intent
on this novel and disgraceful sight.
This is a part of our superior civilisation for them to,
wonder at. They know nothing about our goodness,
u 4
296 DRESS OF OUR ARMY.
or our virtue, but they see this. I myself was as-
tonished at seeing French sailors in such a pickle.
Continuing onwards through the high-street of Pera
I met Lord Raglan coming from our ambassador's,
surrounded by his staff, all on foot. He looks well and
his armless sleeve, warlike even graceful.
I wish, devoutly, our uniform were changed ; the
cock's feathers in triangle cocked hats, and the shell
jackets of our line officers, are both a mistake. There
is no grace, no meaning, no use in them. We continue
to dress our soldiers and sailors worse, and less hand-
somely, than all other powers (the Turks, perhaps,
excepted) ; and so it will be while our present system
goes on, and the present taste reigns.
Formerly we appeared superior in this to other
nations ; but the march of these last fifty years has
changed it all against us : we are far behind in many
things essential to a great country in this age.
Happily our men fight well under any disadvantage
when the look of the thing is not thought of. I see
our papers are beginning to make a stir about it ; but
why are the taste and intelligence of our Horse Guards
and Admiralty so far behind the everyday world ? " and
echo answers why ? "
The Turks have a very good and attentive police
on foot, with corps de garde in all the chief streets,
where sentinels two and two stand together on a little
PERA GATES SHUT. 297
board platform. Besides a patrole going the rounds
at night, watchmen keep wide awake, and, as they
walk the streets, strike their iron-shod staves on the
stones : this peculiar ringing sound is heard a long way
off; now and then they call out, but what they say I
know not.
Walking about after dark is not allowed without a
lantern ; indeed, without a moon, it would be difficult,
if not dangerous. Besides all this, no sooner is it dark
than they shut all the gates leading to the water-
side.
I was very nearly shut out one evening at about
seven o'clock, when it is now barely night. I conclude
a small fee and a good account of oneself would let
one in, with the chance, however, like "old Dan
Tucker," of knocking at the door in vain, if the guard
or porter were asleep, or out of hearing, or out of
humour. All these gates are of wood, very old, and
worn out; two or three strong men might easily break
them down: but the Turks seem never to calculate
on force; so strong is the law, so well a single word is
understood, so impossible to oppose the despo tic will,
that a hurdle across at any barrier would be quite
effective.
At this moment, the Greeks, Jews, Armenians, &c.,
of course are more at liberty, and presume more than
was ever even imagined half a century ago.
298 CHRISTIANS IN THE SADDLE.
Added to this peculiar war called religious and on
their behalf (on both sides!); yet, they are well aware
of their subordination, which habit, besides, has made
a second nature.
I see the Greeks are now allowed to ride horses :
there are always at the chief landing-places, and in
the suburbs, towards the artillery barracks (above
Pera), a good many of these hack horses, kept ready
saddled, at the rate of from a franc to five or six,
according to time and distance, the owner running
beside you as groom.
These horses are small (all the Arabs are), but often
very handsome, fine limbed, strong, and enduring, and
get over these impossible, rough, steep streets, without
stumbling or falling ; more than ours could, till inured
to such ways.
It leads one to think how ill-judged it is, our sending
horses out here at all : so far by sea half kills them ;
they get maimed, lamed, lost and never to return;
to say nothing of the enormous expense ! A regiment
of dragoons, I should think, would cost as much as any
three or four of the line, and after all be of doubtful
use ; for the enemy's cavalry must for ever out-number,
two to one, any possible force we can send, or the
French combined ; all battles are won or lost by the
foot. This may be disputed; but, at any rate, our
cavalry could be mounted here, quite, if not more
SIGHT- SEEING FIRMAN. 299
efficiently, at comparatively little expense the men
bringing their saddles, bridles, and arms.
The enormous sum which the sending of our small army
here has already cost us, while yet they have not marched
a step or fired a shot, is quite astounding ; as are some
of the mistakes already made. To be sure, war in good
earnest takes us by surprise, officers and soldiers were
few of them born when Waterloo closed the last: if
we except a poor old veteran here and there, the trade
has all to be learned over again ; and we shall have to
pay dearly for a new experience.
If one does not cram for the occasion before leaving
home, it is essential to have Murray's or some other
hand-book, describing what is best worth seeing ;
without this, the things themselves fail to awaken the
interest they deserve; and nowhere is all this more
essential than at modern Constantinople, though the
Turks do morally stand still. I will, however, set
down one of the firman days, as they arrange matters
now. The Sultan and his ministers may thank their
stars that we step in to rescue them from the Russians,
and may yield a few points to Christians, compelled by
the growing force of circumstances more than ambas-
sadors' notes, which always forget to open the mosques
or the palaces, or anything, to us, unpaid for : thus, to
see the few remaining antiquities, the Palace (Seraglio),
St. Sophia and other mosques, a firman is imperative,
300 OLD PALACE AND MOSQUES.
and is sold to certain Greeks, at a prime cost of ten or
twelve guineas. Now, when these undertakers can find
travellers, and the curious in sufficient numbers to pay
them well at so much a head, we are collected at the
various hotels, in one, two, or three parties, and taken
the round, across to the city ; beginning at the Seraglio.
It is at once mean and ungrateful ; for it is well
known that this tax falls on the English chiefly, joined
in fewer numbers by the French and Americans, the
only friends the Turks have !
It is the first of May, and a lovely day ; we muster
at the Hotel de I' Europe a party of some eighteen, in-
cluding two American ladies : the Angleterre hotel
turns out a party twice as numerous, which, passing
our hotel, gets the start of us. All on foot, away we go,
down to a wharf at Tophana, and get into caiques, two
and two (left to get across as we best can), with our
various Greek ciceroni (commissioners), who carry our
slippers, first bought of them for the occasion, at ten
piastres: we all pay our conductor (the Greek, who
gets the firman) ten shillings, all other expenses not
included, but they are trifling.
We land under the Seraglio walls opposite Tophana,
where there is a handsome green kiosk (pavilion), and
immediately ascend to the palace end of this vast en-
closure called the Seraglio, up slopes and walled-in
groves, where sheep are feeding, along immense but-
SULTAN'S STUD. 301
tresses, groves, passages, stairs, terraces, and courts
innumerable. As we pass along, there is nothing very
remarkable to arrest the attention beyond the mys-
terious stillness.
We pass an enclosed square, where the Sultans
formerly blessed certain caravans on departure, and a
long corridor above, leading from the Sultan's palace
to the Sultana's.
I must not attempt to describe, but mark a few
things on our way.
Coining up the first area green slope, an antique
column of Theodosius stands alone (the arts had then
declined) : of grand proportions, it is a good deal worn ;
the capital, a bad composite, puzzled our scholars who
had left their Murray behind them.
We then see the stables. There were about fifty or
sixty horses ; no unsocial stalls, but each horse fastened
by ropes round the hind feet, to prevent kicking, should
they differ in opinion.
They were rather larger horses than usual, but not
at all handsome ; nor showing much blood.
Indeed, the Arabs the Sultan rode on Friday to
mosque were far from being so handsome or spirited
as many we saw ridden by his young officers about the
streets.
We now entered the apartments of the palace ; the
rooms all looking up the Bosphorus, the view de-
302 PAGES BATHS LIBRARY.
lightful, perhaps, the best part of the show on the
whole, except one large saloon ; the ceiling rich in
gilding, but nothing exquisite not approaching the
beauty or luxury of our Brighton Pavilion. Indeed,
none of the rooms were either very curious or mag-
nificent, and all rather small ; the curtains to the
windows everywhere paltry and in the worst state ;
the furniture scanty and covered, but nothing in stuffs
beneath, or in shape or gilding, worth covering.
I should have begun by saying, that this vast palace,
and all its various buildings, is now comparatively
empty and neglected ; nobody of consequence lives
here: it is left in charge of certain officers, old ser-
vants, and eunuchs, a body or school of the Sultan's
pages, who are pretty numerous, and a corps of the
Sultan's guards: even these are scattered about over
this vast space in such a way, that, as we pass along,
all seems silent and solitary. The Sultan's bath is not
a bit too large there are no baths according to our
sense of the word, a plain marble floor, and two cocks
for hot and cold water ; his subsequent reposing room
is gloomy, and but so-so; and his bed room very
small (for a monarch) and plain : indeed, all the fur-
niture is plain, poor, and in bad taste, since nothing
is purely Turkish, but a mixed attempt at European
notions.
In the same way, on one side the long gallery leading
LADIES' GARDEN. 303
to the Sultana's and women's pavilion or serai are
hung mediocre engravings from England and France,
views, battles (many of Napoleon's eventful life,) such
as one sees so much of in Paris. Nor are any of them
apparently proof plates ! some very coarse and bad ;
the frames paltry.
Along another gallery above, leading to the Harem,
are Turkish attempts at drawings, buildings, groups,
landscape all poor things, but curious.
Mixed with these on the walls is the Sultan's
signature, in gilt oval frames (as it is on all the coins),
and in various other parts of the palace, together with
frequent quotations from the Koran, or moral sentences
proclaiming the goodness and power of God and the
Prophet.
Altogether, these handsome gold writings in the
Arabic character are the most harmonising and the
richest ornaments seen inside or outside their buildings.
We are next shown the Ladies' Garden and Palace.
However, all the gilding and ornaments, in good or bad
taste, are lavished on their lord and master, for here all
is plain, even to poverty. The same kind of grand
oval saloon, with nice matting and fine Turkey carpets,
raised (divans round) to the windows, overlooking
Scutari, Pera, and the waters. The view on all sides
on the Bosphorus and Golden Horn, far and near, is
very rich and beautiful, the extent and variety making
304 VIEW FROM WINDOWS.
up for a certain frittering sameness in their one orna-
mental tree the funereal cypress. There are, it is
true, other trees in the Seraglio, some fine immensely
large planes, and two or three grand spreading palm
pines ; but the cypress of the cemeteries and the
Seraglio is the one conspicuous thing everywhere,
only very good, in the absence of other trees; the
whole surrounding view being a rich mixture of cypress,
brown roofs, minarets, and mosques.
To add to this effect of scattered light, the waters are
covered by our shipping, their pointed masts and
funnels vying with the cypress and minaret needle-
shaped points. At length one sighs for a lawn, an elm,
or an oak, and the soft unbroken shadows of a common
English garden. How infinitely finer the broad
expanse of verdure, the clumps, and lovely green
meanderings of our own parks ; but comparisons, of
course, would be senseless. This is one beauty. Here
the eye, delighted, ranges round to the south by the
snow-tipped range of Olyrnpus and the mountains
bordering the sea of Marmora; then, sweeping over
Scutari to the more distant hills of the Bosphorus,
about Therapia, Buyukdere dwelling on the rich hills
about the Asiatic Sweet Waters, above Scutari. One
cannot see the Valley of the Golden Horn, Sweet
Waters, at its head, hidden by the hills and houses of
the northern part of Pera, which range northward for
OUR QUEER DRESSES. 305
miles up and down, more or less in streets and garden-
houses, as it does on the bank of the Bosphorus.
But I should not digress. We advance, following
the various people in charge, and a Turkish officer of
the palace, all impatient to get us along ; our party
straggling, and provokingly curious of course,
wandering about, some in the Ladies' Garden a very
formal one of little beds of tulips and stocks, not a
geranium in blow ! and rough white gravel walks.
We were allowed to pluck a few of these flowers :
indeed, our Greek attendants began, and one young
Turk obligingly gave me a small nosegay.
Across this garden we mount a high walled terrace,
which shuts it in to the west ; and, through courts and
portals, get to the library (the Sultan's), in a handsome
court-yard of many buildings and cloistered galleries ;
a tower, a handsome fountain always in the shape of a
square low pavilion, with Arabic sentences, sculptured
and gilt. Here we saw a good many young pages in
loose gowns, very slovenly, if not dirty. They stared
at us ourselves a motley group, some in hats, some
in wide-awakes, some in Fezes. One man, escaped from
his governor and city desk, very long-legged and hand-
some, was done up in a queer fanciful dress, neither
Turk, Greek, nor anything else. His long limbs were
encased in very tight trowsers, with long boots to match,
which he was forced to tug on and off at all the tombs,
x
306 LIBRAKY AND BED.
mosques, &c. By way of variety, he walked about in
his not very clean stockings, and was particularly te-
nacious of seeing everything, whether worth it or not ;
though not in our conductor's bond or programme
the mint, for instance, where there is nothing doing, and
some tomb as we passed on.
The library, as may be supposed, is very small ; the
room dark, the few books not bound, or perhaps in
parchment. Here is a rich bed the Sultans once sat
on when giving audience; and they unrolled a curious
map of the genealogical tree of the Sultans, the
portraits, eighteen of them, on the branches ; up to the
last Mahmoud. Oh ! could some of these worthies have
come to life and seen to what vile uses these sacred
precincts had come !
We advance to the next court (still going to the
westward and towards St. Sophia, which is at a short
distance beyond the outer grand portal the " Sublime
Porte "), along an avenue of cypress trees, a tower to
the right, and a range of kitchens to the left, whose
chimneys have a singular effect, like gigantic inverted
funnels.
Through a great gateway we come upon the largest
and best area or court (or rather the first, taking the
proper order of entrance, by the Sublime Porte). The
mint, a plain building, was on our right. Here the
most remarkable thing is an enormous plane tree
ARMOURIES. 307
there are two; but one must be near forty feet in
circumference, the trunk very short ; nor are the branches
in proportion, to be sure.
We now entered the Armoury. A silent Sultan, of
the times of the crusades (?), in complete chain armour,
stands on either hand. Like these effigies, all here is
borrowed from Europe ; pretty well arranged, and in
very decent order; but nothing new or interesting.
The muskets with percussion locks. Some ranges of long
pikes the only real Turkish thing.
From this court we see (close by, outside,) the new
Polytechnic School, now building in the European style,
large and handsome. This, the first school of the kind,
in imitation of the French, was in the chief Pera street,
opposite our ambassador's, and near the theatre, where
there is a corps de garde. It is now an open space, where
the guard is encamped within ; with here and there a bit
of the ruined walls left standing. It was burned down a
year or two ago. Two sentinels stand at the gate, on
the street, where a small marble portico, supported by
slender pillars, marks its former facade.
We were next shown the ancient armoury, which is
more curious in chain armour, steel skull caps, helmets,
iron maces ; gingles or musketoons ; great two-handed
swords no man could fight with, say what we will ! and
other offensive weapons of the middle ages.
From thence to the Sultan's collection of Greek
x 2
308 MOSQUES.
antiquities a few handsome sarcophagi in marble, and,
still more antique, in red granite Egyptian ? bits of
capitals of columns, and a few broken statues and
torsi ; some fragments of groups and foliage, showing
the high perfection of the arts before their greater
decline. Two of the sarcophagi, with groups in alto
relievo (particularly one outside), very rich.
Here were parts of columns, I think from Balbec and
Ephesus ; and the head of the brazen serpent, from the
broken bronze column, still between the two obelisks on
the Hippodrome (or Atmeidan), now close to us outside.
In cases were a few lamps, vases, urns, amphora?,
small lachrymatory vessels, Greek or Roman ; some in
bronze.
It 'speaks an advance out of their dense superstitions
to preserve these relics, in spite, I dare say still, of
their priests, dervishes and green turbans ; and yet
what thousands of handsome turbaned, post-like tombs
have they themselves sculptured ! but not the human
form, or any created living thing.
It was well they found St. Sophia ready built for
them ! Their own mosques are but mere copies of it ;
and, indeed, all their architecture is very Indian, but
inferior. The cross is still said to be visible here and
there, through the mosaic or painting in St. Sophia.
The extent of all this walled-in hill, forming the
south part of Constantinople, with its pavilions, palaces,
ST. SOPHIA. 309
fountains, kiosks, gardens, courts, towers, mosques, and
minarets, astonishes, while it fairly tires us out to run
through it.
%
Nothing loth, we now sally forth from the grand
entrance the Sublime Porte, where the heads of the
viziers and pachas used to be stuck up. This gate is,
indeed, grand, handsome, and lofty, with praises of the
Sultan and moral sentences over the portal and on each
side. On both sides of it, a handsome guard-house,
comfortable ottomans and mats for the guard and senti-
nels on duty, with a stand of arms carefully ranged at
hand.
We next pass on by a handsome pavilion fountain to
the St. Sophia Mosque, first mounting by its zigzag
covered way (which I thought would never cease
doubling) up to its broad galleries, running round three
sides of the interior. Advancing to the marble railing,
we look down on the noble area of this sublime temple,
where a few of the faithful, men and women, facing
the East, were kneeling in prayer on the rich Turkey
carpets which completely cover the whole immense
space, aisles and all.
Then, up to the prodigious dome, the whole effect
is surprisingly grand. No attempt at extraneous em-
bellishment lessens this inimitable whole ; for the shields,
pulpits and the enormous wax candles (large as pillars),
at the sides, are scarcely seen ; nor, in the " dim religious
x 3
310 IDLE INTRUSION.
light," is there anything to distract or divide our atten-
tion.
Except St. Peter's, I have seen nothing comparable
in grandeur, in the true sublime, within the reach of
the hands of man.
The gilt mosaic ceiling, the noble antique columns,
on all hands, arched windows, and colonnades on each
side, add to the richness of effect. The breadth of
these galleries I should think forty or fifty feet. At
this height this breadth is astonishing, so, beneath, is
the vastness of the arches and the aisles.
They were chanting prayers a single, shrill voice,
in the usual whining discord. We next descended,
and, putting on our slippers, our Greeks carrying our
boots, we trod the beautiful, clean (as if quite new)
carpets below, each of a pattern formed to make a long
quadrangle for each person, of about four feet by two,
the size of a small rug.
I felt our profane curiosity an intrusion, and could
well, in this frame of mind, pardon the pious fanaticism
of the sons of the Prophet. To them we must seem
like a troop of maniacs let loose, and led about by their
keeper !
Besides, is this running about in herds, while they are
absorbed in prayer, likely to give them any better idea
of us or our religion ? our women too ! The two
ladies with us I could have wished better dressed and
MASSIVE WALLS. 311
better looking, since they will boldly stand the gaze
of people who wonder at it; what signifies what we
think? We do not we cannot, impart our ideas of
right and wrong, fit and unfit, to them.
I could hear some of the Turkish women we passed,
as we went round, muttering something about us I
am certain not to our advantage ; but none of the men
seemed to notice us.
A Turk in the gallery offered a bit of the mosaic,
chipped off somewhere in the mosque, for sale; after some
little haggling sotto voce aside, my Greek got it for me.
It will help at home to put me in mind of St. Sophia.
By the way, a mate of one of our war-steamers had
found his way here, and joined our party going in ; but
entirely against rules and our bond. Farther on, at the
Tomb of Mahmoud, two officers of the line from Scutari
got in. They were obliged to pay bakshish to the Turk
attendants. How they all three got off with our Greek
entrepreneur I know not, for thus joining us was infring-
ing on his rights, unless they paid.
The outer walls leading to the platform of the St.
Sophia I should think thirty feet high, and of great
thickness, the outside richly traced in stucco and
marble lines. Everything betokens great richness and
strength. The celebrated bronze horses which once
adorned this temple are, as we know, at Venice ; the
original doors, of bronze too, taken away by greater
x 4
312 KITCHEN CLOCK.
barbarians, have been replaced by wooden ones. What
right had Venice to them beyond that of the French ?
There is, however, one very beautiful Greek antique
door still left.
Bound the walls are large shields or medallions with
great gilt names of Mahomed and his favourite saints ;
and at each quarter of the great dome, where intersected
by smaller ones, are the mysterious figures of angels
a sort of wings the face hid by a gilt star. f
I am sensible how very lame all this is, and that
guide books and fifty travellers have described things so
much better. I do but give a first impression, as we
are now hurried on.
I cannot pretend to details; such as, that these
columns, the most ancient of verde antique, are
originally of Ephesus ; those of porphyry from Balbec;
besides the whole history of this unique pile. There is
one little curious thing, perhaps, nobody notices a
common, old-fashioned, English kitchen or stair clock,
stuck up against the wall looking so diminutive as
hardly to catch the eye on the lower skirting of the
basement marbles ; it is a great curiosity here. It has
long marked, I dare say, the Turkish hours of prayer
to the faithful.
A singular feature of Turkish mosques are the im-
mense wax pillars their candles. They stand on each
side certain doors or shrines ; but I believe are never
ATMEIDAN. 313
lighted, if they even have a wick : small lamps and old
glass lustres are suspended for the lighting up at night,
not at all in keeping with the surrounding grandeur.
A priest was preaching, or expounding, from writings
before him, to a semicircle of men and women under
the dome (rather on one side on the floor), while a very-
few others were kneeling, scattered about.
From the Sophia we look in at the Tomb of Sultan
Achmet (I should rather say, the mosque-like monu-
ments over their remains, as they are all large- domed
buildings of marble, with gilt characters in compart-
ments, inside and out) ; but, as we were to see a finer
one, we hurried on ; besides, the day declined and the
whole party, particularly the ladies, were getting com-
pletely fagged. Nothing is more tiring, when not
tiresome, than sight-seeing ; and in this one day we
have to kill all the lions enough for a month to see
things to any purpose.
We next came on the Hippodrome. The small pillar
of bronze, the broken serpent, between the very ancient
Egyptian obelisk, and what seems an imitation of it in
brick, and in ruins' disappointed me. It is so small, and
the spiral lines of the serpent so close, that it has no
effect; it appears simply half a small bronze pillar
without pedestal.
This Hippodrome is a bare, open, oblong square, at
the north end of which we came to the mosque of
314 SACRED PIGEONS.
Mahomet, where the sacred pigeons are kept the de-
scendants of those which accompanied his flight from
Mecca.
They fly about the cloistered court of this mosque
in thousands. Their keeper threw a handful of corn to
them near us, and the rush from all sides, through the
air to the pavement, where they swarmed and piled
themselves in masses on each other, was extremely
curious. So tame and familiar are they, that some
women, who wanted to assist at the feeding, walked
among them, or rather stood, while they fluttered about
over their feet. Near this the burnt pillar is shown
an antique column, which we only saw at a distance.
So, too, previously, at a greater distance, over interven-
ing streets and houses, when up in the Sophia, we could
see parts of the ancient aqueduct, whose broken arches
divide great part of modern Constantinople, and were
just able to trace the outer wall and towers.
Close to this large mosque is the vast inclosure of the
Seraskier the minister of war ; his residence, offices,
barracks ; and the inclosing wall very high and strong; its
gates on three sides, with sentinels, &c.; in the area within
three or four companies of the Imperial Guard were
drilling. They stepped well together, but very slow.
How much against the grain and the genius of this
people are our dress and our drill ! They cut but a sorry
MAHMOUD'S MAUSOLEUM. 315
figure in our close frock and the new red fez. A Turk
o
without his robe and turban seems preposterous !
We next went to the grand sepulchre of the late
Sultan Mahmoud ; a fine domed building of pure white
marble. (We took off our boots, and put our slippers
on at all these mosques and tombs.) Inside, like that
of Achmet, only much finer, are grouped the sultan's,
the sultanas', and some of his children ; all descending
in size regularly, from the sultan's. These tombs are
green, covered by cashmere shawls, with rich railings
round each. On the sultan's fez, below the heron's
plume, I observed a diamond aigrette, the same he once
wore, doubtless.
I have omitted the large Achmet mosque near his
tomb; it is plain, and only remarkable for its enor-
mous columns supporting the dome; larger, but not
so rich as the clustered columns springing to the elliptic
(pointed) arches of our cathedrals of the middle ages.
These are thirty-six feet in circumference.
We finish our most fatiguing round with the large
Soleiman mosque ; remarkable as being the depot (in
the galleries) of all the trunks, boxes, bales, and worldly
goods of all pilgrims to Mecca ; and very odd they
look, piled up as in a warehouse. Here, too, are columns
of the Greek empire ; indeed, most of the mosques have
them, or something antique about them, within or
without.
316 SLAVE MARKETS.
From the platform-terrace of this mosque, which is
in the heart of the city, and not far from the bazaar,
there is a very perfect view over the city, the waters,
and the distant villages and hills far up the Bosphorus.
Here we rested ourselves a little, under the shade of
plane trees; then our party separated, and dispersed,
most of us strangers to each other.
The slave market is close to this mosque. We
passed one end of it, but missed seeing it. Here, how-
ever, there are only negroes, and there is a second slave
mart near the mosque of Mahmoud, farther on in this
direction. But white female slaves, Georgians, Cir-
cassians, or of Mingrelia, are sold in apartments not open
exactly to the public, or to the street, and it requires
some considerable trouble, at least, to see them.
Strangers and Christians are not allowed to purchase,
either black or white.
Though pretty tired, I went up a high tower within
the inclosure of the war office I have mentioned, with
two young Frenchmen ; for we English, as usual, are
wonderfully shy of each other, measuring our respec-
tive pretensions. All these towers are shut up, and
the guard takes care to exact so many piastres for
leave to mount ; here he insisted on ten. The
view from the cafe windows (there is always a cafe
at the top) is magnificent, commanding a complete
panoramic circle ; up the Bosphorus, the Sea of Mar-
BANISHED GREEKS. 317
mora, the Propontis, and passage out ; the snow-capped
Olympian range to the south: the Golden Horn, and hills
over and beyond its head, by the Valley of the Sweet
Waters, with all Stamboul and its suburbs (both large
cities) of Pera and Scutari ; and both covering the hills
and small valleys and hollows for miles. I say suburbs,
for, though the Bosphorus and Golden Horn separate
them, yet do they form a part of the vast whole of
Constantinople; and yet, with all this immense spread,
the population is not a quarter of our London one !
at most five or six hundred thousand.
They have lately sent away a great many of the
lower order of the Greek population all who were at
all likely to be troublesome, or could not get Turks to
answer for them, or had no assured way of earning
their daily bread ; amounting, it is said, to thirty
thousand.
Our merchant and passage steamers have helped to
carry them off, at so much a head, to Egypt, Greece,
and the Islands. But what a miserable step is this,
by way of precaution ! To be sure the Porte has very
few troops indeed left to suppress any outbreak here,
and is glad to get some very rough wild subjects of
Asia Minor to help. I saw several boat-loads of these
fellows, bashi-bazouks, brought by ours and Austrian
steamers, pass up the Golden Horn one day, in all
sorts of Egypto-oriental dresses and arms, looking like
318 GENERAL APATHY.
very irregular troops indeed ! One would not like to
be left to the tender mercies of such a set of raga-
muffins Greek, English, or French, would be all the
same to these robbers by trade, if of any trade :
not unlike the Bedouins, of whom we hear very little
of late years.
From day to day we may look over the waters hear
the music or muskets of our troops at Scutari, or
salutes from the shipping see arrivals and departures
and, being on the spot, should not be in total ignorance
and yet we at the hotels know little or nothing of
what is going on ; our embassy is as much shut to us
as the Sultan's palace. We hear, indeed, that Prince
Napoleon has arrived, but not the Duke of Cambridge
yet. Our war movements seem to creep on very slowly.
A general lethargy, a la Turk creeps over us we
stumble over the stones arid mud smoke cigars or
chibouks loll over the railing of the crowded floating
bridge, or cross to the bazaars or to see the smoking
ruins of the last fire or sit on some Turk's broken
marble turban, under the melancholy cypress, " chew-
ing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy "-but such a life
becomes intolerable.
319
CHAP. VIII.
TURKISH WOMEN IN STEAMERS. TURKISH ECONOMY. LODGING
HOUSES. JEWS' CEMETERY. DOWNS. SWEET WATERS. IDEAL
HAPPINESS. CONSTITUTIONS. LOCAL COMPARISONS. ONE
BANKER ONE SHOP. BURNT STREET. HORSES. BURNOUSES.
CROWDED SOLITUDE. COCKS AND HENS. MOSLEM RULE. IDLE
VISIONS. TURKS MYSTIFIED. STERILE ENVIRONS. REFORM ACT.
ODD PACHAS. MODERN TURKISH ARMY. COMPLICATED WAR.
DILATORY MOVEMENTS. WATER-SIDE SCENES. CAIQUE
FARES. EXTENT OF PERA. PUZZLING CURRENCY. DELICACY
OF THE CAIQUES. TOPHANA FERRY. BUILD OF BOATS.
I HAVE been rambling alone about the Constantinople
great bazaar, where it is very easy to be lost, impos-
sible to recollect the complicated avenues. Their best
customers, as to numbers, seem the Turkish women,
who, with their ugly muslin mufflers, go about in twos
and threes everywhere ; and always a couple of steamer-
loads of them may be seen about five o'clock at the
lower bridge, going up to Therapia, Buyukdere, &c.
These steamers return the next day.
All in all, everything worth having in the bazaar is
exc essively dear ; nor can you guess what to offer ! I
320 TURKISH ECONOMY.
wanted a burnous and capote. For coarse things thoy
ask four hundred and five hundred piastres, and will
not take two hundred or three hundred. Here they are
very scarce ; but I am told better ones are sold in
Egypt for sixty piastres not ten shillings. As to attar
of roses, in nothing are we more taken in ; it is mere oil
scented with perhaps a single drop of the real essence.
Their rugs or carpets, if good, are almost as expensive
as the same things in London.
Considering the want of cash, and the absolute
poverty in specie of the whole community, the wonder
is how these people live, this immense bazaar and
whole quarters and streets of trashy shops.
To be sure, all parties practise the most oriental
economy, and live a month on what even an English
labourer would spend in a day.
Their great people, their gentry, or their merchants
at all rich, even comparatively, are very few in number ;
but perhaps with more followers and dependents each
than we have, even with one quarter of our ordinary
incomes; as all the necessaries of life (except bread and
meat) are, as compared with us, as paras to pence.
One may judge by this of the extortion of these Greek
and French hotels, and the crew of Greeks who hang
about them, getting rich on our gullibility.
You are forced to remain at a hotel, for the few Greeks
who let lodgings ask a guinea a week for one small
LODGING HOUSES. 321
bed-room no attendance, no comfort, and fifty nui-
sances. As they speak nothing but Greek and Turkish,
you cannot make them understand the commonest want
till you hunt up some Greek rogue of an interpreter,
who speaks just Italian, or French, or English enough
to make all sorts of blunders and mistakes ; or, leagued
with them, he mistakes you wilfully, if it is to get your
cash. This last is a very common trick. They never
can understand, always mistake when it suits them, and
then will " outswear a Turk."
I know this by experience, as, after a week at the
Hotel # 'Europe, I took a small room at fifty francs for
ten days they would let it at nothing less as to
time or cash, to be paid down ; still I found it more
bearable than the wretched way we live in at the. hotels;
though the trattorias are miserable feeding places ; as I
do not object so much to a little bad living, or indeed
starvation, if not made to pay for it so unconscionably
ten and twelve shillings a day. The wine on
table not drinkable ; and that in bottle charged at the
highest prices. One of our officers who lunched one
day at the Hotel d'Angleterre, higher up in the Pera
high street, was charged eight shillings and six-
pence.
There the rate is twelve shillings a day. How-
ever, these are small vexations; each of us says to
Y
322 JEWS' BURYING GROUND.
himself well, never mind, I shall soon be off, 'tis only
once in one's life, &c. We have created this kind of
hotel extortion all over the world.
I have seen the famous valley of Sweet Waters at
a distance, and am extremely disappointed. Good
heavens what a fuss we travellers make about a trout
stream and a little valley or hollow we should not
deign to notice in England ! We have a thousand
sweet waters, a thousand times more beautiful.
Threading my way along by the water-side of Galata,
and up behind the dockyard, I cross one of the many
valley suburbs of Pera, through more cypress ceme-
teries, and opposite the third and upper bridge (over
the Golden Horn) come upon the hills, where they are,
like our commons, free from close streets, lanes, houses,
cypress cemeteries, or execrable roads. Here are only
foot-paths across, still advancing towards the head of
the Golden Horn, where it turns to the north-east and
receives these same sweet waters.
Descending a pretty steep rocky glen I mount the
last hill, where it is covered, all its crest and side, by the
grave-stones of the Jews, in slabs like ours none up-
right ; it looks like one immense sheet of broken marble,
studded thicker even than the Turks, and quite as
broken and neglected. All is open to the hills not
a cypress, not a shrub ; I stepped from slab to slab for
SWEET WATERS. 323
half a mile over this hill cemetery, and down the north
side of it to brick yards at the head of the Golden Horn.
There was a coffee-house crowded, to the left, and a
Greek wedding or holiday, or something of that kind,
going on, for there was quite a gathering of men and
women sitting on the tombstones, Greeks, and Turks,
and Jews.
Another party, headed by a Greek fiddler and guitar,
making a droning, monotonous noise, ambled through
the crowd. They seem to have no idea of any air or
melody ; in short, they were making merry, very
seriously, looking at each other, as at all other "fetes."
How flat and tiresome fetes are ! I sat down, too, for
a moment ; but the sun was descending below the
western hill, at the head of the Golden Horn, gilding
its opposite sides charmingly ; so I advanced over the
brow of this hill through its cemetery, and, lo ! below
me, a mile off, were the " Sweet Waters," that is, the
stream itself, where it empties itself above the tide. I
tried hard to make it out beautiful impossible. All
the valleys and hollows I had passed coming, were
prettier than this ; and these bare green hills, in their
bold, graceful outlines, much more attractive. At
Pera, one particularly feels the want of space and air,
room to breathe freely three or four miles off on
these bare downs we have it but no cultivation ; far
T 2
324 HAPPINESS IDEAL.
as the eye can stretch in the horizon over these hills, all
is barren exactly like our own commons, except that
here there is no furze nor peat ; but the land looks
every where of a good mould, and arable with little
trouble. This very bareness, with its spring-green tint,
with these swelling graceful outlines into the blue dis-
tance, is beautiful ; but how lamentable for a whole
people !
Badly as the world is every where governed, there is
always a " deeper still." These Turks for one, if not
outdone by the Russians farther east, who add war
to all other ills.
After all, governments might be very wise and very
good, without constitutions, which only shifts the same
evil from one man to a swarm of lawyers. You are
fleeced and oppressed by the law, and a confusion of
laws.
It is sheer nonsense talking of this or any people
wanting a constitution, even for ages still to come.
With all their ills they are quite as happy, if not more
so than our poor in England. I might almost include
America.
Our boasted/rmfojw on both sides amounts to nothing
to the day labourer. Is what we call happiness better
than theirs? I doubt it or our taste in the upper
world, or our ways ! How much of good under Heaven
is but matter of opinion ! If we laugh, let it be still at
DESPOTIC CONSTITUTIONS. 325
ourselves. We understand nothing of other nations,
their feelings, nor their reasoning.
The Turks would let one alone, nor ever ask for a
passport (they let me pass in the teeth of the officers
and guard of the customs landing, and did not even
examine my trunk), were it not for our ambassadors,
and their deputies the consuls, who take care to impose
this additional nuisance on one everywhere. This,
from England ! ! ! While we are chattering of freedom
in the Commons, our foreign Secretary is the humble
servant of all the despotisms, under the flimsy pretence
that we must comply with foreign customs !
We might, and ought to shake it off; and could as
easily, if indeed our government wished it, as the "dew-
drop from the lion's mane."
We have books on books about Constantinople if
time stood still! but neither morally nor physically
is it at all like what it was, even fifty years ago all is
changed. Turks and Greeks and others all wear the
universal red skull-cap and blue tassel, and wear their
hair long or not as they please. One cannot tell a
Turk from a Greek of the lower world or million,
except that Greeks speak both languages. Only a few
shaven heads or turbans, green or white, are seen ; a
still fewer mollahs or priests in their high white felt
chimney-pot shaped caps.
Everybody rides on horseback or in a carriage, that
Y 3
326 STAMBOUL AND LONDON".
can afford it, without distinction. All religions are
tolerated. I see Catholic priests and Sceurs de Charite
frequently in the streets. We have a chapel and a
burying-ground ; and, in short, the Pera Christian side
is nearly as large as the Turkish Byzantium, and is
of more consequence, as to money spent, shops, trade,
and fashion (even to Turks) than poor Stamboul !
This Pera and its suburb hills all the way (two
miles) to the Sultan's Palace is their west-end; the
Mahmoudieh is their Buckingham Palace. Therapia or
Buyukdere may stand for Hampton Court or Wind-
sor ; and beyond Scutari, on the other side, the palace,
village, and Asiatic sweet waters will do for Richmond.
There can be no doubt, on the whole, it has doubled
itself of late years in extent, if not in population :
French, Italians, above all, Greeks, form the great life
of the place. The Turks are comparatively nobodies
till, rising upwards, one reaches the Pachas, the cadis,
and civil officers, or those who wear a fine belt and
sword, in blue or brown sur touts. The police are
potent, of course, and the corps de garde, as far as they
can see ; but all these influence very little the indepen-
dent ways of the crowds in the streets, if I can at all
judge by the great thoroughfares on both sides, almost
made one by the three bridges like London.
The first or lower bridge over the Golden Horn is
always crowded. The Turks are very fond of sweets,
ONE BANKER, ONE SHOP. 327
and trays and baskets are carried about full of such
stuff as one sees at Naples nay at home lolly-pops,
coloured sugar, &c. Then again apples and oranges are
in great request the first by weight. The Turks
weigh everything all their larger loaves are cut up
and carefully weighed. I see rice is not much, if at all,
eaten. There are innumerable grocers ; their shops full
of everything, and all with large firkins and tubs full
of Russian rancid salt butter.
The English all go to one Stampa below the great
Genoese tower (going down to Galata), who keeps the
best shop an assortment of all our wants. Hansom's
bank is just above him close by always full of
travellers, and just now English officers, for the sinews
of war ! And hereabouts in Galata are all the steam-
boat offices. In the lower, dirty, water-side Galata
street, one meets our officers and soldiers rambling about
trying to make bargains generally with some Jew
or Greek, to help to get them cheated, under pretence
of translating between the high contracting powers.
This, in little, is a pretty close copy of the inter-
preting of Dragomen for ambassadors ! We blunder
on, superciliously confident nunky, John Bull, pays
for all.
There is no great market anywhere, but innumerable
small street ones. Fish is good and plentiful even
lobsters : a good large one a shilling (our shillings go
Y 4
328 BURNT-OUT IRONMONGERS.
for six piastres). Eggs very fresh and good at ten
paras, a half-penny. The whole of Pera is full of
poultry, kept in every house-yard. The cocks make a
famous crowing of a morning, and many hawks swoop
about to their terror all day. This army of cocks do
not crow in vain. The Turks and Greeks are very
early risers in itself a virtue, leading to many others :
would it were more attended to in our cities !
I yesterday went over the bridge. Going to the
bazaar I found a whole street burnt down, still
smoking ; it leaves hardly a wreck behind a few
were collecting anything iron left. I followed its
whole length, without seeing a single instance of any
particular visible concern or distress ! and yet the
owners and sufferers must have been among the crowd !
This happened last night with a high cold north wind;
a great and sudden change from extreme sultry heat the
day before. Most fortunate no greater spread of this
calamity occurred.
I looked for a Burnous (the brown and gold I have
seen, very elegant) ; but there are hardly any to be had,
and at ridiculous prices : that they are to be had so easily
in Egypt puzzles me. However, fearing I shall not
get there, I had Hobson's choice at a Turk's, where I
have been nibbling twice before ; and after much talk
and much bother, (an old Jew who sticks to me helped,)
I got this only precious one down to two hundred
BURNOUSES. HORSES. 329
piastres (he asked three hundred and fifty at first).
He yielded partly in consequence of the said Burnous
being completely riddled by moth holes ! but added,
very seriously, that it was nothing, and could be
easily darned !
From another shop I got some "pure " attar of
roses; thawed over a lamp first chop! mere scented
oil, poor stuff. It is impossible for us to get it pure,
even if it is to be had. Those little gilt long bottles
sold us hold nothing, and are good for nothing. Some
oil of sandal wood was better, sold by weight. The
Turks have the scales in their hands for ever.
It was a bad bazaar day the Turks' Sunday
(Friday) and some Greek holiday, so half the shops
were shut up.
In consequence of the demand, I conclude, for the
armies here, horses are selling at preposterous prices ; at
least twice as much as at Tattersall's, and very inferior.
True, one sees some fine animals under Turks and
Greeks, real full-blooded Arabs, but nothing like them
for sale. The horses near the landing at Tophana, kept
for hire, the owner running beside you all day if you
like, are some of them handsome, and all very enduring
and sure-footed scrambling up and down these towns
of steep hills, nimble as goats. On foot it is very
wearying ; of a very hot day, quite a Herculean labour !
One is infallibly bathed in perspiration.
330 CROWDED SOLITUDE.
I am in utter solitude I can bear to be alone
but this sort of life unable to speak or understand a
word puts one in mind of our penitentiary residences
or sing sing at New York.
To be sure I see lots of officers, in the long chief
Pera street, on the bridge, or in the bazaar. They
generally congregate at the Hotel d 'Angleterre, and in
the sort of pastry-cook's opposite, but no word is ex-
changed. I pass like any Greek or Turk : not for the
world would I address any of the Guards, Fusileer or
Grenadier; perhaps the Line might be civil : but all are
too intensely occupied with themselves to leave one
any hope of claiming a countryman in chit chat, sans
ceremonie.
The ambassador has an immense house and garden
on the top of Pera, overlooking the Golden Horn, across
the hill side and cemetery and distant hill suburbs I
have mentioned, at the back of Pera. With a letter,
or a title, one might have visions of an invite, a dinner,
a little ordinary civility.
I have left my card, which is not even returned ;
and so, if I should want a little hospitality or even as-
sistance, I will next knock at the door rather of
some native moslem : of this, or of mere indifference,
I do not complain, for I make no effort : my own
countrymen, officers or mere travellers, are no more un-
social than myself; but they are generally in pairs or
COCKS AND HENS. 331
in a party : one cannot I cannot, make advances :
besides, our rule is to cut people spoken to abroad
and I avoid the risk doing myself some violence
putting myself thus in training for a hermit's cell.
I have, however, made acquaintance with a Turkey,
a cock, and his dozen wives a true Turk! a pacha of
one tail ; he had a battle with his rival, and now keeps
him in durance vile. Oh ! unrelenting Turk ! I feed
the whole party under my window with bread crumbs ;
already they know my English " chick chick," though
I cannot beat a word of Italian or English into the
Greek servant lad here a great partisan of Russia ; as
are all the Greeks ! my landlady is still more densely
Greek.
Poor fowls how they bear being cooped up in a
little hole of a yard no place or stand to roost on !
The hens chuckle as when pleased, and they are
happy their only annoyance and terror the hawk !
but they are too close pent for that despot. The turkey
is all day making a gobbling and courting the hens,
who take no sort of notice of him and his fussy
manoeuvres. This is my amusement I study the
whole family, and take a lesson on happiness.
If I can at all believe my own eyes, here, at Pera,
and across the bridges at Constantinople, the Greeks,
Armenians, and Jews, exceed the Turks ten to one in
numbers; most people agree that the Turks are fast
332 MOSLEM KULE.
dwindling away, while the Christians are increasing
much as in the rest of Europe. This whole land
indeed, go where one will, proclaims from its barren
wastes, its deserted and ruined villages, its very ceme-
teries, which still point mournfully to a former dense
population, that in the midst of all varieties of bad
governments of mankind, that of the Turks is the very
worst.
In this large city one perhaps sees least of the
peculiar misery of the great mass of poor; their op-
pression is most hideous over the face of the country at
the distant Pachalicks.
But though they are quite unfit to govern, unfit to
possess so fine a country they have contrived to turn
into a barren waste, the difficulty seems to be as to
who can be installed masters in their place? The
Greeks themselves are too much Turks to do any
better ; those we have set up at Athens are not at
all encouraging as a sample of this kind of change ;
they have gained nothing, nor their miserably managed
country.
To do any real good, the great balancing powers
should divide at least the European half among them-
selves ; and let Constantinople be in our share, a
slice including the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmora,
and the Dardanelles !
To talk of the rights of any government indeed of
IDLE VISIONS. 333
any one nation has ever been, and ever will be, a mere
mockery : when they cease to be masters on their own
ground, there is, and there should be, an end of it.
The affectation of meddling by ambassadors on paper
only, while a country goes on to deeper ruin, while
a population of millions groans under a barbarous op-
pression, and implores some change from without, is
simply adding hypocrisy to folly ; nay, a hard-hearted
indifference to the sufferings of a whole people. But
this is Lord Aberdeen's business, and the three Em-
perors, who might easily settle it any fine morning.
The exodus of every Turk in Europe over to the
Asiatic side, led by the Sultan himself in his state
caique, would be felt as a very great blessing; judi-
ciously and justly managed, even by the Turks them-
selves ; who must be tired of fluttering between hawk
and buzzard, and are, I dare say, quite ready to fulfil
what they already consider their destiny.
Just now, we must first see our way by cutting the
claws of the Russian bear ; take Sevastopol and the
Crimea: that insolence checked, the high contracting
powers may do anything very much more easily and
cheaper than sending fleets and armies to support
what is, in every sense of the word, insupportable.
But people naturally ask, not for this or that man's
opinion, but what are the Turks like now? What
are they at ? And this too has been ably answered
334 TURKS MYSTIFIED.
by recent books ; and we have it fresh and fresh by a
dozen te correspondents " of our daily papers. Allah
Kerim ! What can I say ? Turkey, as he walks the
streets or sits in his caique, dresses more and more
after the fashion of friend Europe, who is always
taking him by the button, and bothering and boring
him. He opens his half-shut eyes on steam and
steamers ; tries to play at geology, chemistry, and the
stars ; yet, Allah Acbar ! comprehends nothing, and
sets it down, on regaining his pipe, turban, and robe,
as mere bosh ! He believes in the drilling of his Tac-
ticos, and sits patiently puzzled, listening to the ear-
wigging and contradictory ultimatums of a colony of
infidel ambassadors.
Never rightly understanding what they want of him,
what they would be at ; so carefully, and sublimely,
and mysteriously worded are the various notes (the
sense farther mystified in the translation) words
only meant " to conceal men's thoughts." For though
he is a sad tyrant and a fool, he is still honest honest
as Othello.
No, he has not imbibed, with all our mistaken pains,
one single European idea : what signifies the dressing
up of sleepy officials, and an army of Tacticos ridi-
culously, like ourselves ? It alters nothing really
essential ; and so far has done harm instead of good.
We must needs meddle; but we meddle at the wrong
STERILE ENVIRONS. 335
end, and in the wrong way ; as we do indeed all over
the world. In a long course of years we have not
made the Mussulman rulers one grain more acute,
more sensible, or more just : we do but palter with his
ft one virtue and a thousand crimes."
But let me drop idle speculations ; as I pass up along
the Pera high street, I look at these same Tactico
soldiers. Sentinels at their guard-house, standing two-
and-two on their low benches (to keep their half-bare
feet warm in cold weather), or I see them on parade,
what few there are left (the Sultan's guard), over at
the Seraskier's Square by the great tower at Con-
stantinople. Visions of the burly departed janissaries
flit before one ! Who but must laugh at these apes,
confined in short blue jackets and cross belts.
I turn round and behold these barren hills, close
round the capital, Heaven designed as blessed kitchen-
gardens, or the mind's eye ranges to Adrianople,
round the circle south to the Lebanon ; all is sterile
and miserable, under the iron rule of tyrant pachas.
Knowing what we know, who but must grieve ?
To be sure all countries have their own peculiar
ideas of good, better, best ; and if they only have enough
to eat, it is very probable they enjoy as much hap-
piness as the soi-disant more civilised nations north of
them. Even up to the end of last century they were
at least respectable. Europe, by injudicious meddling,
336 TURKISH REFORM ACT.
has made them contemptible ; we cannot say we have
done them one solitary good, of any kind whatever :
and now we are their champions once more ! To what
end? Yes, we have contrived to make them con-
temptible, even in their own eyes. They no longer
seem to care much about their own identity.
With their dress, customs, and quiescent routine
broken in on, their religion gives way ; they begin to
believe in nothing, for they cease to be fanatical.
The Tanzimaut (a constitutional farce) places on a
level in good earnest here in the streets, Greeks, Ar-
menians, Turks, and Jews. Cadis and government
officials must respect this recent law here, under the
Sultan's unwilling nose ; so, these Christian dogs gallop
about on fine Arabs, wear all the colours of the rain-
bow, and, backed by the presence of the English and
French troops (the latter at Gallipoli), nine-tenths of
the population may do whatever they please even to
throwing dirt on the beards of the Osmanlis !
It is indeed often difficult to know a Turk from a
Greek. To see an unsophisticated dignified tyrant of a
Turk at all, one must go at least as far as Broussa,
where may be found a good sample, though so near
the seat of government, of imbecile cruelty, grasping
confusion, and misrule.
Here, in the Belgravia of Pera, a troop of ambas-
sadors and consuls, rich travellers, hundreds of mer-
ODD PACHAS. 337
chants of all nations, backed by a fleet of steamers,
and loaded merchant ships, profuse tipsy sailors quite
confound the native authorities, great and small. The
Sultan himself seems nothing and nowhere, except
going to mosque of a Friday morning. . But as yester-
day, pachas, particularly of any tails, up to three, were
veritable Turks. The very name was a symbol of
Mahomedanism now, except perhaps at Aleppo,
" Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk,"
the name means nothing : it is English, French, Aus-
trian any whole or half-christian thing. Have we not
Omar Pacha) Slade Pacha) and Walker Pacha our
respected admiral eating white-bait dinners with their
lordships, and looking after our steamers! Ask for some
other Pacha, and you shall find him in white kids, in an
opera stall, or dancing at a court ball !
Good English pachas of one or three tails must be
very much like fish out of water or the Rajah of
Sarawak. It is a little less funny in the acting of the
French or Austrian doing less violence to their
natures.
But behold the real Rescind or Riza Pachas here on
the spot, armed with all the terrors of the Sublime
Porte ! and you find him a poor puppet, pulled at by
all the strings of all the ambassadors, bewildered by
a thousand conflicting, confused ideas, and stealing from
338 MODERN TURKISH ARMY.
painful audiences to the comforts of his pipe, and the con-
solations (in cash) of his Armenian banker, and farmer-
general of the oppressed million.
Whether the French Pacha will hold his own
at Kars is a question ; but here are our red-coats
and blue- coats on their way to help Omar Pacha (a
ci-devant German sergeant) to repulse the Russians
before Silistria.
Well, the Sultan's mixture of Tacticos and Baschi-
bazouks have done pretty well as yet on the Danube.
But it is quite impossible to think they will have any
chance in a pitched battle: against the Russians at
Oltenitza, from behind their walls and gabions they did
but hold their post at the quarantine station. The
Turkish army, raw as it is still, trying against the grain
to imitate European discipline and tactics, is scarcely
more than the shadow of its former self.
Once they could fight, in their own old savage fashion.
Those days have gone for ever ; as they are, even the
Egyptians scattered them like a flock of sheep. They
are not to be relied on ; we can only hope they will
hold their own stone walls, while we push on and take
Sevastopol and the Crimea, without which all our
fighting and all our expended millions will be to no
purpose.
We are in the field ; our fleets on the waters once more
after forty years' inaction, strong in our new alliance,
COMPLICATED WAR. 339
cannot we profit by experience, and follow the dictates
of a little common sense ?
Generals and admirals should be our only diplomatists.
Statesmen and ambassadors have constantly thrown
away the advantages gained by our armies and our
fleets ours most shamefully, above all others I Witness
the winding-up of our last war ! stripping ourselves,
and imbecilely leaguing the whole continent against us,
for whose interests alone we had been fighting I Time,
indeed, has something set this stupid blundering to
rights, and given us our greatest foe as our fastest friend.
But to come more home to our present affair, what a
precious imbroglio have " Foreign Affairs " and ambas-
sadors brought us to at this moment !
We are at one and the same time come as friends
to the few Turks, and enemies to the Greek and other
Christians ! who form nine tenths of the whole popula-
tion, and are to a man in favour of the Emperor of
Russia, and devoutly praying that we and their hard
task-masters may get well licked !
It is utterly useless explaining to them that we are
here to prevent the Czar and his Cossacks from over-
running the whole country, and sweeping every
Mahomedan from the face of the earth ! Why, that is
the very thing they want ! and the only possible escape
from their grinding bondage.
Truly we are in an unhandsome fix I We should wish
z 2
340 DILATORY MOVEMENTS.
to do the same thing, only more amicably allowing
the Turks still to impoverish and cruelly misgovern
only the Asiatic half of their wretched subjects. Any
other plan in the end will be only patching things up
for a few years, to the renewed disturbance of all Europe,
and bur especial loss in particular.
Meantime we are in no hurry ; weeks and months
are lost, nobody knows or cares how. The summer is
here, and the inert Osmanlis sit cross-legged smoking.
Our regiments are drilled in the barrack square, and
our authorities cogitate on the stiffness of stocks, and
the general cut and quality of the clothing of our
troops ! but not until our whole island has rung with
its defects, and our daily papers have pointed at the
extraordinary taste and savoirfaire of the Horse-guards,
and singular conscientiousness of our clothing Colonels
of regiments.
Compared with Christians, the Oriental nations
change but slowly in the lapse of ages ; and yet much
must have materially altered here at Pera and Con-
stantinople, at least in outward appearance, since the
days of Lady Mary Wortley. Nothing, perhaps, in
the mind of the Turks ; but in outward appliances ;
together with his half-and-half dress : one sees nothing
but the red skull-cap and the blue tassels dangling
behind. The few exceptions are among the priests, the
watermen, and the Hamals (porters): many of the
WATER-SIDE SCENES. 341
Turks wear their hair long like the Greeks, nor is there
any visible distinction to an unpractised eye.
In short, the old fashions of the last century are left
to the priests, old fanatics, and the very lowest order of
the poor a little more prevalent at Statnboul than
at Pera.
The watchmen at night, as they walk their rounds,
ring their iron-shod staves on the stones, heard at a
great distance in the stillness of the night. This, and
an occasional " Yangin-var" the alarm of fire is
relieved at daylight by the calling of the faithful to
prayer from the minarets, in the same kind of nasal
twang which delights in their chaunted prayers at the
mosques. Indeed, the same kind of doleful cadence in
the minor key is the monotonous note of all their street
cries, both of Greek and Turk, and is their only music.
I sometimes go down to the landing at Tophana, to
the police and custom-house railed-in wharf, where
most of the great personages land and embark, and
where official caiques and men-of-war's boats are made
fast.
On the adjoining common wharf, (all of worn-out
planks or piles, and tumbling down, as most of the
water-side jetties and tenements are,) I take my stand
among the crowd, and watch the departures and arrivals
to and from Scutari, up the Bosphorus, or the Golden
Horn. It is curious to listen to their bargaining, for
z 3
342 CAIQUE FARES.
no fare is settled. I find they ask us frank Giaours at
least quadruple what they take among themselves.
It varies for distance more than time: to Scutari,
five piastres ; seven or eight, if you agree to return by
them ; to go on board a steamer close by, from two to
three piastres, or to cross to Seraglio point ; to Aba-
siktas (the new palace), two miles up, five ; or up to
the top of the Golden Horn, about three miles, six
piastres ; but all this varies with the distances, so that
there is no exact rule.
Just now there is a great demand for them by our
army officers, over to the barracks, by the non-com-
missioned officers and servants, and numbers of the
natives, men and women, who cross to have a look at
our soldiers.
I find all these poor boatmen very honest, obliging,
and civil ; ever cheerful, easily pleased, and grateful
for the least favour ; indeed, the whole population is the
most quiet and orderly possible ; in the crowded streets,
you are rarely run against rudely, or hear an uncivil word.
At the same time they are, to a man, true repub-
licans ; no child of poverty ever shows the least defer-
ence to his fellow man, more than to his donkey or his
cat. If in the way, you must get out of it, and, in
your turn, have to glide on without fuss ; the more so,
as all explanation is impossible, should you run against
each other or get an awkward push.
The working part of the world, porters, watermen,
EXTENT OF PERA. 343
&c., are often athletic, strong fellows ; with their bam-
boos carrying immense loads casks and bales, slung
in a clever way ; when they stagger along the street
under their burthen, with a hurried step, every body is
glad to skip aside : however, they obligingly keep up an
incessant cry to " keep clear"
Pera, take it altogether, under various water-side
names, stretching nearly to the top of the Golden Horn
in one long, straggling hill and dale town, must be nearly
as large as Constantinople was a hundred years ago ;
both sides have spread upwards, but this side immea-
surably the most.
In all the higher and newer streets most of the
wooden houses are large and handsome their bay
windows, verandahs, balconies, give them a rich,
pleasing effect, at once curious and comfortable :
here and there they may be fairly called picturesque
and beautiful.
They have the advantage of greater comfort too in
the interior over most continental stone houses, where
all is stone and brick or tile, where you cannot rest
your arm, but on some marble slab, showy, but dis-
agreeable.
Speaking of wretched streets here only holds good
as to the dirty bad pavements, or rather holes and loose
stones, and the filth allowed to accumulate; and no
quarter is more disgusting than round our ambas-
z 4
344 PUZZLING CURRENCY.
sador's garden wall, and along the Pera High Street,
from one end to the other.
The streets have no names, or known only to the
inhabitants themselves, and branch off in so many
windings, lanes, alleys, and courts, that it requires
some care not to get lost ; then again, the whole place
is one precipitous up and down hill ; so steep generally
as to defy any carriage, even their own queer, little, low,
led things or any riding, except on their trained sure-
footed hacks.
I get a horse sometimes near the Tophana mosque,
(where there is a stand of them, and their clever, active
boy grooms and owners) to come up hill into Pera, per-
haps three quarters of a mile, for five piastres (a franc).
The greatest bore here in our every-day concerns
is the difficulty of getting any small change, paras or
piastres nobody has any or wants more; the poorest
hucksters refuse to part with their fruit or sweets, if
asked to change the smallest note, and the larger shops
demur at parting with their small silver ; in fact, these
wretched notes of ten and twenty piastres are at a dis-
count ; all the coin is alloyed, or copper silvered over :
the little that is new and good, silver and copper,
bearing the Sultan's autograph, is quite lost in the
ordinary wants of the day ; on the whole, the currency
is in as wretched a state as are the state finances.
Hiring a caique, above all, requires the exact small
change; they rarely ever have any, and are puzzled
DELICACY OF THE CAIQUES. 345
about the value of each coin! or pretend to be; some-
thing like our cunning fellows in the wherry and cab
line, who never have any change nothing new under
the sun !
These caiques, by the way, are not only quite unique,
but every way beautiful and good lined throughout;
the upper sides finely carved ; a cross rail at the bow
and stern, mostly gilt, in addition, with cushions and
carpet to sit on, (the natives always take off their shoes
and boots, and never step in with dirty feet, as we do) ;
more slender and fragile than our racing boats on the
Thames, these delicate things are easily broken. I stu-
pidly split a plank jumping in yesterday, coming down
rather heavy ; though I am always careful to have clean
feet. Poor fellow, it was but the smallest fracture ; yet his
face showed a deep concern, even after I had made him
amends in piastres for it : I had hired him to go off to
one of the steamers near the outer bridge of the Golden
Horn. I felt sorry, and ashamed of the accident, for
their boats are their all in all their pets: they buy
sponges to clean them most carefully with, and they
are scrubbed so clean one might eat off the floor lining.
On stepping gently in, you place yourself sitting at
the bottom near the stern, with your feet against the
stretcher-board at his feet ; this board is of the most
beautiful and delicate carved work. As he pulls, the
whole boat feels it, so slight and delicate are all its
parts.
346 TOPHANA FERRY.
The oars work in neat rope rings, or grummets, over
slender brass or iron pins on the gunwale : they care-
fully grease the part which plays at the fulcrum of the
oars, or rather sculls, which are extremely light and
slender ; not half the weight of our watermen's, with
a scientific swell near the handle balancing the longer
end and blade : on the whole, were these boats wider,
they would be perfect, a pattern for the jolly Water
Lilys crew to follow ! * as it is, they will bear a good
deal of heeling over, and carry quite as much as a small
wherry : sometimes eight or nine people get into them,
close packed in the one spot at the bottom, crossing
the frequently rough stream to Scutari: at ten and
twenty paras a-piece.
I often watch their filling at the wharf I have men-
tioned, at Tophana, with stray passengers, till their
number is completed, not putting off till the full number
are seated: to this end there is much bawling, and
coaxing, and bargaining: "now then, only two more
only one more " " Bir adam, iki adam ! " Nobody ever
sits on the raised part in the bow, or at the stern, or
* Because they xto, flatter floor* d, skimming on the top of the
water. The Pacific canoes, round to the Chinese sanpans and
fishing boats, should teach us this lesson. We build to plunge
under water, without bearings or buoyancy : from a racing gig to a
steam or sailing frigate, all are too narrow and too deep; not carry-
ing their guns high enough out of the water, while their keels are
too far by half under water.
BUILD OF BOATS. 347
very rarely a boy or child of little weight : all trunks
or packages are put in the bottom, behind the rower, a
little before the centre of the boat.
But no matter what the crowd,what the hurry, whe-
ther of passengers or luggage, all is done with the
nicest, gentlest management ; indeed, it is quite essen-
tial; while you get in the waterman steadies his caique
with his sculls, or holds by the wharf or the next boat.
Landing they always turn and push in stern fore-
most, as it is impossible, on rising from your seat, to
pass the waterman before you; or if you could, the
chances are a heavy man would break in the gunwale,
or split the thin lining of the ribs or the carve work
somewhere. Apropos of the little Water Lily (and her
admirable " log ! ") up the Rhine and down the
Danube. They need still less have feared the rapids
at the iron bridge, had their builder given her more
beam.
What can be more helpless or absurd than those
racing sculling boats we see our verdant greens pain-
fully pulling about the Thames ; at Eton, the Isis, or
the Cherwell ! with not enough of topsides to keep out
the mere ripple of the river, so narrow they dare not
stir, so low in the water they are obliged to have iron
outriggers or rowlocks ! The whole thing, from first to
last, useless, childish, and contemptible. Truly we have
much to learn from pure, poor, savages, something
from the Turks !
348
CHAP. IX.
PERA'S HILLS AND OUTLETS. DERVISHES' KIOSK. BURNT TREE.
BIRDS'-EYE VIEW. CONSOLATORY COMPARISONS. PASSAGES
HOMEWARDS. QUEER VOLUNTEERS. LETTERS ESSENTIAL.
WAY UP TO PERA. TURKISH TRAITS. DETAILS OF PERA. A
LOBSTER BARGAIN. GREEK AND TURKISH WOMEN. AUSTRIAN
BALL. TASTE IN MUSIC. PERA THE WEST END. NATIONAL
GARBS. WOMEN WITH OUR ARMY. PLEASANT COMPANIONS.
NOTHING KNOWN. SCANTY SUPPLIES. LANDSCAPE ATTRAC-
TIONS. SILLY CURIOSITY. HOT SUN, COLD WINDS. TREA-
CHEROUS KINDNESS. QUIT STAMBOUL. CONFUSION AT START-
ING. HADJIS' RECEPTION. SALT' WATER AMENITY. CONSULAR
FORTS. CALL AT SMYRNA. LOOK OF THE TOWN. IMPERATIVE
BACKSHISH. SELF-EXILED LADIES.
ALTHOUGH Pera is a congeries of hills, one can rarely
get a peep either over the Bosphorus or the Golden
Horn so rare are the openings, so narrow and closely
packed the streets. The only one I could find lies
on the right hand, passing upwards from Galata, a little
above the great Genoese tower, where a corner of the
great Pera cemetery and cypress grove comes in on
the main street. Here there is a mausoleum and grave-
yard of dancing dervishes, an endowed kiosk and foun-
tain, and a kind of " morgue" Under the marble arch
here, leading out on the hill side, you come across the
349
paved court and fountain, on a terrace which commands
a fine view over the Bosphorus, the Golden Horn (as
far as the first bridge), the Sea of Marmora, the [Pro-
pontis, the islands and distant Asiatic mountains.
To this open terrace, and its melancholy fine old
burnt plane tree (its charred black trunk carefully in-
closed) I make my way to get at the pure heavens' open
air, and revel in the magnificent view stretching to the
south, as far as the snowy Olympian range over Brousa.
The mouths of the Bosphorus and Golden Horn are co-
vered with steamers, merchant-men, troop and store-
ships just now but one man-of-war, a Turkish
frigate, lying opposite the Mahmoudieh Palace.
All this floating show is foreign to the scene : little
or nothing enlivens these useful and beautiful waters
larger than the caiques and a few lumber barges, if I
except a few small sloop coasters, of the clumsiest
rig and sails it is well possible to contrive. The clever-
ness of the Turks afloat seems all concentred in their
caiques.
Here, looking down on the roofs of the houses below,
and small walled-in gardens (we never suspect from
the streets), seated on some one of the ruined walls
of houses burned years ago, I find an agreeable
relief from my Greek lodging-house prison my silent
utter loneliness.
By the bye, I should say a word of Greek houses and
350 CONSOLATORY COMPARISONS.
lodgings. As a great favour, I got the only room left, as
they said, in all Pera, and at a most exorbitant price,
a single small room (but carpeted and comfortable), at
twenty-five shillings a week, not a word to be heard
but Greek. My landlady and several children on the
ground floor of two small rooms and a kitchen ; with
two square feet of boardedin yard at the back, in which
her poultry can hardly stir; but where, poor things,
they contrive to make themselves half happy in the
wet and dirt. As I throw them crumbs out of my win-
dow, they take some interest in me, and I am quite as
grateful as they are.
In all sorts of miseries one may draw some consola-
tion from the greater wretchedness of others, and bless our
stars we are not in the " deeper still." Here is a young
Greek of Athens, in the room over mine, at the point
of death. He has been confined to his bed by some
incomprehensible malady for these two years.
And these poor chickens I what have they done that
not only are they doomed to slaughter, but they must
endure their short lives, deprived of their wings, their
liberty, their natural food even of a perch to roost on !
Surely man is the most good-for-nothing, hard-hearted
animal in creation; indeed, in fact, the only cruel
one!
Tigers, hyenas, rattlesnakes, wolves, do but obey a
wisely implanted instinct it is nonsense to talk of their
PASSAGES HOMEWARDS. 351
cruelty ours is the only hideous real thing; inflicted
wantonly on all created living nature round us, and on
each other !
But a truce to moralising. I am but too glad of any
excuse to myself for cutting short this irksome, solitary,
vegetating kind of life. I find there is an immensely
long screw steamer come in from Liverpool last from
Gallipoli, where they landed their stores, and just now,
across from the barracks at Scutari, where they landed
some fifty horses. She goes home by the way of
Smyrna and Alexandria.
The Austrian Lloyds and French steamers touch at
Athens, and so up the Adriatic to Trieste, or by Malta
to Marseilles : the fare, thirteen pounds to Trieste, and
twenty pounds to Marseilles, meals not included ;
whereas our screw steamers charge but twenty pounds
to Liverpool, table and all ; any part of the way equally
reasonable to Smyrna only two pounds, Alexandria
six pounds, Malta eight pounds ; and, except to those
who have acquired a French taste, a better table.
There is another great advantage in our merchant or
freight screw steamers, in their remaining some days at
each port they touch at long enough to give you
some general idea of the place, without risking the
chance of the next steamer being, perhaps, crowded to
excess, and leaving you in durance vile ; something in
the same way I find it here for to remain on this
352 QUEER VOLUNTEERS.
lonely, know-nothing and nobody-footing any longer is
impossible.
Let no man come abroad without letters to his
ambassador, by all means; but to somebody is really
imperative, if one makes the least stay.
I am naturally social, if there is the least opening ;
but all the people I meet are in families or hunt in
pairs. You may exchange common-place civilities at
the hotel table, but you remain strangers; as they are
entirely taken up with themselves for even here there
is some excuse for being shy of strange faces. There
are so many queer British subjects just now here as
adventurers. The steamers, the hotels, the cafes, are
full of them. In this way there was no want of
sociable companions. I tried it in one or two instances ;
but not only the talk and intelligence of these wander-
ing individuals did not repay me, but their own stories
of themselves and of each other were so excessively
queer, so very suspicious, that I found it necessary to
keep them at a distance. One of these young men,
with a revolver which threatened to shoot backwards
on its owner, was on his way to join the French General
Pacha commanding at Kars as a volunteer ! not
knowing whether the pacha would have him or not !
Another of these loose fish meant, when on his last
legs, to join some Turkish corps as officer, without one
word of Turkish, or any one requisite for command.
THE WAY UP TO PER A. 353
He was quite surprised to find us English in no parti-
cular demand for the army, either at Silistria or Yarna ;
and that, even if recommended for employ, a rigid ex-
amination had to be gone through.
As to our own officers with the army, at the hotels,
and at the pastry-cooks in the High Street, Pera,
opposite the Hotel d'Angleterre, over from Scutari for
the day, they were so occupied with themselves had
so much to think of, from the novelty of their situation,
so taken up in the crowd with eating ices, that
though I exchanged a civil word with two or three, it
led to nothing. One must possess youth above all,
youth, and buoyancy, and light-heartedness, to make
advances, or sustain the cool indifference of the world
with reciprocal sang froid and composure.
Coming up the streets from the landing at Tophana,
there is a small mosque to the left, where there are a
kind of bazaar stands or counters, under the arcades
I conclude of the faithful, as turbans prevail. Then
we pass a row of apple and pear stands in the street ;
then a market. Crossing this last, the rise is rapid, and
pipe-bowl makers are seen on both sides, with their
brown clay bowls in the first stage of drying in the
sun ; then shops of cherry- sticks, manufacturing to
match. Then heterogeneous shops (all open to the
street, and the Turks squatted at work,) of all sorts of
second-hand things omnium gatherums, like our own
A A
354 TURKISH TRAITS.
"marine stores" the lots rather more clean indeed.
I have been bargaining with an old Turk for a white
and red leather halter, to strap my burnous up with.
He leaves his shop very often to smoke a pipe at a cafe
a hundred yards off; no fear of any body robbing him,
though so easily done. They have not come to our
refinement yet. He was evidently poor, yet wonder-
fully indifferent about selling me the halter !
The High Street, Galata, is full of deal chest-makers,
clumsy solid things, a load in themselves all on one
invariable pattern, without paint, simply planed smooth.
Wearisome as the time passes these last three weeks,
yet does it seem all too short as now, at the last
moment, I begin to think of the many obscure, or-
dinary things to be seen and known, not yet touched on
by any body ; for, after all, we know very little of the
real sense, or feeling, or ideas, or notions of the Orien-
tal or any foreign nations. We go on writing to each
other we try to amuse, and try to convince, but we
only deceive each other. After all, most assuredly we
are as wide of the mark as a certain General Fillet,
when, some fifty years ago, he described and finely
abused England and every thing in it, to the great
edification of the whole reading French nation. If we
could only find out, and did but understand each
nation's train of thought and train of reasoning !
If elephants and lions or eagles could write travels
DETAILS OF PERA. 355
and histories, what fine fellows they would be, and how
very small we should look ! At all times, and at this
moment, the two belligerents are both proclaiming vic-
tories after every battle or skirmish ! and there is no
truth in us.
My most frequent walk was backwards and forwards
in that one interminable Pera Street, which runs from
the lower bridge on the Golden Horn, up through
Galata, up a steep hill (almost an angle of forty-five,
like most of the other streets all about and everywhere
in this city of steep hills) then, close to the Genoese
tower, by the Dervish's kiosk and burnt tree terrace
of the fine view ; on, on, within sight of our ambas-
sador's gate, and the portal of the burnt Polytechnic
School, to the right, and Greek cafe and theatre to the
left, almost a mile out (still rising) to the Armenian
and old English burying-grounds, which lie together
very lovingly near the Artillery Barracks and a
cafe beyond on the top and brow of the hill, at last,
looking down over other barracks far below, Dolma-
bakshi, and the new palace of the Sultan on the shore
of the Bosphorus I have mentioned before.
I had plenty of time for meditation and observation :
can I say anything new of these same Greeks of to-
day ? Not a word 5 I leave them quite as ignorant as
I came, for not one word can I understand.
Except the fellows who hang about the hotels, who
A A 2
356 A LOBSTER BARGAIN.
talk a gibberish of Italian. French, and English (at
once amusing and provoking, for everything turns out
a mistake !) not a soul in all this bee-hive speaks any-
thing but Greek nnd Turkish. Of course just as if an
unhappy Turk were in lodgings in some one of our laby-
rinths of streets in Lambeth, innocent of English ; just
as our good people would smile, and nod, and wink,
and turn up their eyes at the said forlorn Greek or
Turk, so did the Greeks and Turks at me.
I longed much to have a friend at the embassy,
where I spoke to the porter on two or three occasions,
once leaving my card ; and, had I persevered, might
perhaps have been allowed, as a personal favour between
us, to have a peep at its walled-in paddock or garden,
or studied its outward and very gigantic proportions.
But the fates always drove me through the mud or
dust down hill, along the cypress cemetery at the back
of it, or along the overhanging back streets on the
other side, where I picked up nothing, except, one
day, a lobster in the street fish market; which was
within an ace of bringing me acquainted with the stout
bold Turk fishmonger and his man Friday, as we con-
sulted by nods and winks, and " yoks " and " evets "
(yeses and noes), as to the important matter of changing
a ten-piastre note he to take five for said lobster, or
tenpence. The difficulty was, how he was to part with
tenpence change. He looked at the lobster and the
GREEK AND TURKISH WOMEN. 357
bank note alternately, sorely perplexed ; twice was he
on the point of consigning his shell fish to its basket ;
and, in truth, these notes are sad trash everywhere
taken with reluctance : but I trifle.
What of the inhabitants? I don't know. The
Greek women seem fond of lolling out of their windows
by the hour looking at nothing in the streets, or they
dress up and visit each other in the mornings. They
seem very vivacious, and on the whole prettier and
fairer than the Turkish women one meets in the streets;
at any rate, who all appeared to me, young and old, very
sallow, and very plain: but their yak mash over the
eyes and nose is horrid, giving them the appearance of
turned-up noses, as this lower bit of white cloth or
muslin stretches tight across under it.
The richer Greek and Turkish women are con-
stantly met in their one-horse, odd, shallow carriages in
the streets, piled on one another, painfully dragged
about and jolted over the cruel stones, the horse led
by their Greek or Turk groom ; while those who can't
afford this torturing luxury are met everywhere in the
streets, and bazaars, and shops, quite as fond of shop-
ping and gossipping as our own ladies : but then it is
always by themselves ; if a man is ever seen with them
it must be some slave, or among the higher Greeks,
who dress and affect Paris or London fashions, and
these are comparatively few.
A A 3
358 AUSTRIAN BALL.
They, however, form the connecting link at the em-
bassies between the pure European strangers and the
natives ; so that when balls or great parties are given
by the ambassadors, and they are not infrequent, the
rooms are filled by these Greek ladies, with a sprink-
ling of English, French, Austrian, &c.
The Austrian ambassador gave a ball the other night:
some of our hotel young men and officers were invited,
and talked next morning of the Greek beauties they had
danced with. I, too, had a (< sleeping partner's" share
in this pleasure, while in bed, listening to the music ;
the sweet sounds wafted fitfully up the hill by the
night breeze ; as the sun rose, gilding all the
masses of roofs, mosques, and minarets, still was it kept
up, "we won't go home till morning," "that dying
strain ! "
They have very good bands, mixed Italian, French,
and Greek ; all the more pleasing when heard occasion-
ally, in contrast to the native lugubrious droning noise,
which alone delights the pure Turk and Greek. One
wonders at such ears; why change but the name, and
we find the same thing among ourselves, or the French
or Italians. When the untrained taste of the people is
wholly at variance with the cultivated taste of the few,
what signifies who is right ?
Are not three parts of most operas people of fashion
TASTE IN MUSIC. 359
sit out, a positive infliction, in sound and sense ; un-
meaning chords, and noise, and nonsense.
Why not as well listen to a Calabrian bagpipe, or a
Scotch ! or be in raptures at the ranz de vetches of the
Swiss I
The Greeks and Turks of the present day, taken as a
whole, strike me as smaller than ourselves but a
handsome race, well turned limbs, and regular features ;
but dress changes the look of men and women very
much. I wish, however, the men had stuck more to
their own ; and surely the women do well not to adopt
the refined, and most unnatural, unhealthy, ungraceful
corsets of northern Europe.
Apropos of dress, we English swagger through these
streets in jim-crows and tweeds, in every variety of
fantastic cut and shape, "motley's your only wear;"
our faces are covered with hair, just found out I while
our officers, by way of startling contrast to the very loose
garments of their idle countrymen, are done up in the
least possible quantity of scarlet and grey cloth so
tight that one dreads the threatened bursting ! I am
convinced the Turks must mutter inwardly an Allah,
Allah, Inshallah! God is great ! as they sleepily con-
template our motley groups passing their coffee-houses,
where they sit smoking, in a quiet easy state of beati-
tude, perhaps philosophising on this wonderful inroad
360 PERA THE WEST END.
of friendly, northern, barbarian, Christian dogs ! come
to keep off the Russian wolves !
One might attempt a faint moral comparison be-
tween this and London. Constantinople itself may be
called the city : St. Sophia, its St. PauTs : and its
silent, lonely walled-in seraglio, its Tower : while Pera
flaunts it as Belgravia and our West End, for here
are seen all the great, the rich, the fashionable ; the last
distinction a thing still strange and exotic.
Here most money is spent, the whole European
world, shipping, army, navy, travellers, ambassadors,
princes, generals, and, lastly, the Sultan himself, all
keep, and circulate on this side.
The floating bridge over the Golden Horn, to be sure,
is always crowded by all the world crossing and re-
crossing, but it is among the high and mighty only
to visit the city, as in London proper. They live at
Pera, or up along its Bosphorus suburbs, sprinkled near
the water above and below the Sultan's new and old
palaces.
Pera itself, in its many abrupt hills and hollows,
contains many fine houses and gardens of the rich
Greeks and Turks those of the European ambas-
sadors conspicuous. The Russian, which is of the
largest, looks chop-fallen, its gate on the Pera High
Street above it, fast locked.
T pathetically lament not having a Murray : I never
NATIONAL GARBS. 361
see a book, rarely an English paper, which is impe-
rative, if only to know what we are about in this land
and these waters Allah Akbar I who knows ? who can
tell ? Perhaps my Lord of Redcliffe ; but he has the gout,
and is besides hermetically sealed up. The embassy is
tabooed, sacred to private friendship, and the haute volee.
It is wonderful what virtues, and good fellows, are found
in private, unknown to outer barbarians !
I sometimes run down to the Tophana wooden
wharves, squat myself in a caique (there is a good
regulation among themselves to prevent any one of
them having an undue share of fares, each in his
turn,) and cross to the barracks at Scutari to look at
our fellows drilling, in a grilling sun, in the square,
of a morning ; or prolong my walk to the tents of the
Highlanders on the plain beyond ; their dress is at
least graceful, one is not ashamed of it : but what
stuck pigs in their brick-coloured baize, collars, and
senseless bracings, are the great body of our poor
soldiers I
I return by the great cemetery I have mentioned, (a
dark forest of cypress,) down the steep streets of Scu-
tari, opposite Leander's Tower ; then turn back along
the shore streets, and by the hill-side regain the barrack
landing, which is a mile from the centre of the town,
indeed more, for Scutari ranges interminably along
the shore, upwards, in the same way as Pera opposite.
362 WOMEN WITH OUR ARMY.
Sometimes I watch the poor frightened cavalry-
horses being landed from the screw steamers; how
many die, how many are killed ! Here is a fine
hunter, worth a hundred and fifty guineas, floating
about dead under the bows of the caiques, they broke
his back landing.
Close by are knots of fatigue parties piling baggage
and luggage on the bullock waggons.
Our army is hampered and crushed by loads of use-
less baggage, truly impedimenta! twenty women to a
regiment ! What business have they with twenty, or
one, on such an errand? The French come more
sensibly near the mark, with but one jolly vivandiere,
and she is in half uniform, and is wholly a soldier.
Meantime steamers arrive full of troops from day to
day, and the men are landed ; all these large troop or
horse steamers lying on the Scutari side by the bar-
racks.
To-day the bands of those in barracks were playing
to them in their march up the hill, nothing loth to
welcome their newly arrived comrades in arms.
Sir De Lacy Evans is lodged in or near the bar-
racks, the two Princes in villas of the Sultan's, I think,
just above his own palace (the Mahmoudieh) on the
Bosphorus ; that is, about two miles above Tophana,
and in the eastern outskirts of the Abasiktas village.
But all these shores are a string of villages and
PLEASANT COMPARISONS. 363
houses at the water-side, for some six or seven miles
upwards ; indeed, as far as Therapia, the shores are full
of villages and villas.
Nothing transpires as to the movements of the army,
French or English; only it is whispered they are wait-
ing for ammunition ! which, by some strange neglect or
oversight, has been left behind. This may account for
the paucity of field days.
It is impossible to guess at much of what is going on
in the camp or the council at Gallipoli, but maugre
awkward reports trust that the troops at length shake
down smoothly with the inhabitants.
In spite of their dress, there is great satisfaction in
seeing the strapping figures of our Guards, and the
handsome picturesque appearance of our Highlanders,
placed suddenly before the eyes of these Turks, Greeks,
Jews, and Armenians. A good many are always
looking on, on the plain which skirts the great Scutari
cemetery (the largest in the world one would think !),
and in at the barrack gates.
Our petty officers are allowed to cross in parties
daily to the city on leave ; they land on the bridge
mostly, turn to the right for Galata and Pera, or cross
at once for the bazaar at Stamboul, there is nowhere
else to go.
Some few of the corporals and the sergeants are
taken by the Turks for the superior officers of the
364 NOTHING KNOWN.
army so much more showy, compared with their own
officers ; dressed in their miserable, short, scanty, tight
shell jackets : no wonder !
I explained to one party of Turks on the bridge,
and corrected so far the mistake.
There is now one of the Sultan's small passage-
steamers to attend on the army ; it crosses every hour
to and from the bridge to the barracks.
To-day, middle of May, there is some " on dit " of a
forward move towards the Euxine, whether to Varna,
or what other point, time will tell ; but if they wait
either for horses or ammunition, of course the day can-
not be fixed.
Meantime we know nothing of what is passing on
the Danube, an on dit that the Russians are bom-
barding Silistria; but these vague uncertain "it is
saids " are good for nothing. Another report came a
few days ago that we had two or three of Sir Charles's
fleet sunk before Cronstadt ! which, at any rate, I won't
believe, indeed, to know anything certain at Pera, it
must come all the way from home, in the shape of the
Times ten days old, or Galignani the last date 30th
April.
One thing is certain, say what we may, gather all
men's opinions, it is certain never was there a war
involving so many conflicting interests, hopes and
fears, in which so little is to be gained, and so much
SCANTY SUPPLIES. 365
very probably lost, or such a tangled skein of op-
posing facts to disentangle ; the worst confusion
arising from the hostile interference of the Greeks, and
the conflicting hesitations of Austria and Prussia ;
which nor France nor ourselves can much blame,
however provoking ; to put down the Greeks with a
strong hand would only add to existing difficulties, deli-
cacies, and imbroglios.
Then, again, the terrible fact of this sad year of bad
harvests. No grain left anywhere ; exports stopped ;
imports none ; and perhaps not ten days' bread in store
in Constantinople !
Bread is very dear now, dearer than in London, I
have no doubt; for I pay a penny, or half a piastre, for
a very small slice cut, and exactly weighed, from their
small brown loaves. This is my mite for dogs en
passant) and my cocks and hens. The scarcity is ge-
neral, and accounts too for the half-starved appearance
of the donkeys, labouring under their heterogeneous
loads of planks, earth, lime, and stones, up these steep
streets.
I am unhappily too old for fiction, or for much enthu-
siasm in anything ; even Albert Smith is now and then
more romantic than myself; for I cannot be so often in
raptures about things here, which I think and feel far
exceeded in our own dear isle ! What are all the hills,
houses, valleys, and sweet waters here, compared to our
366 LANDSCAPE ATTRACTIONS.
own lawns, streams, villas, and valleys ! The China
orange to all Lombard Street.
We may and do wish perhaps for a Bosphorus, or six
or eight miles of it, both sides, to prolong our own
dear ill-used Thames below Gravesend ; and what a
heaven we should make of these hills and dells, com-
pared with the mode, and manner, and appearance,
which contents here !
About taste there is no arguing; the Turks and
Greeks are happy in their own way, we in ours ; and it
may be conceded that their domes and minarets are
prettier objects in the distance than our heavier same-
ness of straight lines : even their wooden houses are
as large, and more picturesque, than our villas : but
leave this distant view, and enter the gates, or the
rooms, the gardens ; and this novel, vague, grand, un-
defined charm is dispelled.
Again, we cannot for ever enjoy fine views, we want
repose ; nay, the quiet of a plain green lawn, and the
round shade of our elms and oaks. If we do not
economise these bursts of enthusiastic delight, they
would soon be worn out. Smith's or other people's
" breath being taken away? &c., seems to me all bosh,
exactly that " Erctes' vein " he laughs at in more stilted
writers, and very justly.
There can be no doubt all our writers on the East
insensibly exaggerate when trying to impress on their
SILLY CURIOSITY. 367
readers their sensations about this or that city, or tract
of country, or combination of land and sea.
Distant rocky mountains edged with snow, and the
blue sea, delight us by contrast with our own lower
shores and more confined view ; but we enjoy these
distant generalities but for a moment ; we soon seek
our kindred lawns, our cultivated valleys, our exquisite
neatness, and grace, and comfort combined ; looked for
in vain near the eye here, nothing here " comes home
to our business or our bosoms."
For my part, I only covet a slice of this land and sea
brought home to diversify our own, but would not
exchange it for a world of distant minarets and moun-
tains, or wild, neglected plains.
Setting aside the intolerable heats of summer, the
mud, and dust and dirt the want of interchange of
ideas, too, rendering life one long miserable blank
for even to speak or comprehend a language by halves
very little helps the matter.
We may truly say we have no business here, where
we are certainly taken for a queer mixture of fools and
madmen ! While the Turks prostrate themselves to
God, we invade their sacred temples, grinning, chat-
tering, staring, as if we reverenced nothing. While
the Greeks, Jews, and Armenians cunningly hoard riches,
live on an excessive economy, are happy, even in
poverty, we come to show them how to squander,
368 HOT SUN, COLD WINDS.
ask foolish questions, do silly things without meaning,
or pleasure, or profit.
As at Gibraltar there is a constant swift current
sweeping into the Mediterranean from the Atlantic, so
here, at the Bosphorus, the current sets strongly from
the Black Sea westward into it too, along the Sea of
Marmora and through the Dardanelles.
Nothing but a leading wind and a strong breeze can
master it. No wonder sailing vessels are often delayed
for weeks going eastward, either to Constantinople, up
the Dardanelles, or, being there, up the Bosphorus into
the Black Sea. Our steamers must have been very
essential to tow those of our fleet not fitted with screws.
It may too well account for any delay occasionally
getting into the Euxine, from whence the strongest
breezes generally blow, and bring a piercing cold with
them in winter in summer the coolest airs. It is
even now, with a fiercely hot sun, icy cold in the shade
and wind, when it is from the east and north-east,
just as it is with ourselves.
In short, these winds reach the Mediterranean, as they
do England, across the steppes of Russia from the icy
regions of Siberia. Thus, too, the winters are so
cold at Constantinople, crossing the flat Crimea and
sweeping across the Euxine, south of the Balkan chain
of mountains.
But I must attend to my own small concerns. I
TREACHEKOUS KINDNESS. 369
look up my Greek George, who gets a porter (and
his clumsy pad between the shoulders, on which they
pile every thing it is in advance of our London
porters, however): we venture to load him, after two
full days' notice at the ambassador's of my intended
exit, when the porter sends me off to the Consulate,
where they kindly tried to hamper me with a special
pass to the Turkish police office (poor mystified tra-
vellers and Turks!), not in the least essential, except
to shell me out a couple of francs ; I smilingly and
politely thanked the demi- semi-consular embassy attache
(the embassy send all their small work to the consuls, not
to be troubled by England's Oi-polloi). He had just
confessed in friendly converse how egregiously vexatious
all these passport trammels were, while he was stamping
this very gratuitous paper link in the long chain of
fleecing contrivances we trot abroad under. I put it
in my pocket as a curiosity, and wish I could, without
too much trouble, put it here. Off we went to my
steamer, under the noses of the police and custom, and no
questions asked ; nor ever would, but for this embassy-
consular-red-tape officiousness.
As we approached the vessel, George advised giving
three or four piastres to a scarlet custom-house Turk
ensconced in his caique alongside, who, after scratching
a hole in my pipe cover to see if it was cherry-stick ?
let us get on board.
B B
370 QUIT STAMBOUL.
And now adieu Byzantium! good-bye, a long good-bye
to pointed mosques, minarets, and cypress cemeteries !
I shall never more see such streets, such houses, such
shops and bazaars. I like their quiet, smoking, contented
barbarity. They certainly enjoy more than we black-
hatted, coat-snippited, highly civilised giaours do. I will
back any Effendi and his lady any twenty-four do-
nothing-hours against any of our most fastidious Carlton
Gardens couple, and give them the entre of the Palace,
Ahnacks, and the opera into the bargain ! We run
about our own and other lands, and are seldom pleased
above a few minutes at a time ; but are we more alive to
the sublime and beautiful ? How do we know I We
are certainly much more trifling, restless, vicious, and
discontented. Steam and minie guns, and paixhan*, and
railroads, and geology and chemistry all all do
nothing for us as to happiness, and enjoyment, and
content! We mustn't laugh too loud. I think the
Turks have the best of it, by having nothing of what
we boast.
Nowhere are steamers more welcome, indeed neces-
sary, than up these seas, and among these innumerable
islands ; where contrary currents and baffling winds or
calms often spin out a sailing vessel's passage for weeks.
We repass the Sea of Marmora during the night,
and the Dardanelles next day. The shores looking a
little, and but a little, greener than three weeks ago ;
CONFUSION AT STARTING. 371
and so a last look at Turk and Greek ; to much strange
good, ill understood ; to much evil, real and imaginary ;
to fine distances, dirty streets, discomfort, and lonely
vacuity !
A ship, like a house, always partakes of the neglect
or the botheration of its head. I find on getting on
the quarter-deck of my steamer, when they should be
all clear, cargo stowed, and men at the crank for
weighing, that all is confusion worse confounded ;
hoisting in bales at the bows, and chromate of iron
handing in in baskets by the natives astern. To make
matters worse, passengers' luggage blocks the way ; and
nobody is appointed either to look after it, or direct what
is to be done with it. Both sides of the vessel crowded
with boats and people, begging and praying for an
answer, for help to get their things up the ship's side ;
others bawling to and at each other; above all this din
the mates are heard; not to put anything to rights,
however. The captain is a great man, and sips his wine
at lunch, ignoring the hurly-burly on deck. Next
come off five-and-twenty well-dressed Turks, Hadjis
going to the tomb of their Prophet, The captain and
mates set their faces against them, and make these poor
men feel it in many ways totally gratuitous. Nobody
speaks a word of their language ; they get on deck, and
their bags, chibouks, pots, and pans, prayer-carpets, &c.
as they best can ; few and simple enough their wants :
BB 2
372 HADJIS' RECEPTION.
nobody will show them where to go ; they come on the
quarter-deck, and are rudely driven off. They go
patiently on the horse-boxes; spread their mats, and
prostrate themselves in prayer wherever they can find
some little spot unoccupied.
But what idea must these people have of us ! of our
petty pride, our petty distinctions ! The agent at the
office on shore telling them nothing about what is ex-
pected of deck passengers! How can they conceive
such miserable money distinctions !
Well might I suffer for these poor people and for
myself, to witness such obtuse illiberality. I had a
brush with the mate (I found him afterwards, a rather
enlightened and good-hearted fellow) about my own
luggage, as he seemed disposed to carry everything
with a high hand, quite above passengers' unhappy
trunks. I think among the cargo, we took in forty
tons of hazle nuts. At length when nearly dark, and we
had lost all chance of seeing anything of the Sea of
Marmora, the islands, the Propontis, or shores any-
where, we weighed and screwed away to the westward ;
and passing Gallipoli, enter the Dardanelles early the
next morning.
T feel more sorry to quit my poor cocks and hens
which I fed under my window, than anything else in
diplomatic Pera. They alone, and a poor dog or two,
will miss me !
SALT WATER AMENITY. 373
My sympathies are now wound up with these Hadji
Turks going to Alexandria on board. They have put
their things in the horse-boxes; but they are driven
about brutally, with scarce a spot to spread their mats
to say their prayers. Can we wonder at being hated
and despised and perhaps repaid with interest, when
we are caught wandering towards Mecca?
But independent of this ill-natured, ignorant con-
tempt, shown by pushing, even by kicks, if they get
in the way of any of these sea- swabbers, each and all
inferior to these men they affect to despise so much.
How wrong, how impolitic, this detestable inhospi-
table carriage towards Mussulmen ; as prone as them-
selves, good Christians, only to judge from the feelings
of the moment : whose very religion teaches them to
think us a very inferior set of animals Christian dogs !
And here are these very Christian dogs treating them
like felons more than respectable men, strangers, and
passengers, who have paid for their passage ; going on
a pious errand to the Tomb of their Prophet I
I observe, however, that all this is the captain's
fault, quite as much as the obtuse nature of his mates
and men. They all forsooth hate Turks. The captain
" doesn't want them," but the owners, his masters,
order them a passage : so his ill-humour is visited on
these patient, inoffensive pilgrims.
They have behaved, under very trying circumstances,
BBS
374 CONSULAR FORTS.
with infinite good-humour, and astonishing patience
(their arms all taken from them I find) ; when I fully
expected they would in a body have resented their
ill-treatment ; that is, being rudely pushed, even kicked
off the quarter-deck, as they are deck passengers,
having no place assigned them : even the surly cook
at first driving them away from the only fire ! and
not allowing them to light their pipes besides con-
stantly Avetting the deck about where they nestled
themselves, hoping for some little dry spot! and all
this without one word of gentleness or explanation !
I do what I can to soften it ; but the best thing for
them is, that it will only last a couple of days, at
which we all say, Inshallah !
I think I have mentioned the forts about half way
through the Dardanelles facing each other, where all
vessels are obliged to bring to, and obtain a pass to
proceed. Now all this fuss, loss of time, and extra
trouble, expense, and vexation, might be swept off in
a day, if our Foreign Affairs chose it. Instead of
which, here we have a consul with a fine house he has
built on the Asiatic side at the water's edge, to coun-
tenance and enforce all this drag-chain to commercial
activity.
The Turks will do whatever we please, particularly
at a moment like this ; but we ourselves hamper and
annoy our own merchants. Indeed, Downing Street, as
CALL AT SMYRNA. 375
in the barbarous ages, is still the enemy of our Thames
Street ; consuls and custom-houses do their worst,
and rather prey on than help the exertions and enter-
prise of the commercial world.
Repassing the plains of Troy and Tenedos, we thread
these shores on to Smyrna ; passing a great many small
islands, and ranging along the eastern shores of Mity-
lene where, towards its south end, we see many pretty
spots; its mountains rich in rocky ravines, and what
constitutes the beauty in shifting lights and shades of
distant scenery.
The second night we run into the deep bay of
Smyrna ; keeping under the high land on the eastern
side, to avoid the shoals which lie off the low white
castle fort three or four miles outside the anchorage.
The shipping is anchored close to the town. We find
some two dozen merchant-men a Dutch, and Sar-
dinian frigate; and the American frigate Cumberland,
with the Commodore's pendant, and his attendant
war steamer, the Saranac.
Smyrna disappoints me ; after Constantinople, one
misses the rich effect of her wooden houses here we
have more stone, and all is less picturesque : one endless
street runs along the face of the town, cut off from the
water side, however, by masses of houses, which are
passed through from the water side by lanes and courts,
and passages, closed occasionally by gates and doors.
B B 4
376 LOOK OF THE TOWN.
The wharves have no continued range; mostly on
wooden piles they break off, and we can only land in
certain spots : the one most frequented is the English
Coffee House, including its own landing, near the
largest hotel, the " Two Augustes" kept by one Au-
guste Mile - very expensive, and quite French : there
are other hotels, but here, all English travellers are
directed, as their charges are high, and they dine at
seven two things indispensable; this is at the left
extremity of the high street most frequented ; the bazaar
being at the other, towards the barracks, on the right
of the town, as we look at it from the harbour : this
right, is the Turkish side, where the Pasha resides ; the
Greeks keeping more on the left.
Most part of the town lies low, the Turkish end only,
creeping some distance up the nearest hills, crowned by
a castle and fort : beyond, at the back, mountains rise
in a majestic range, continued more or less high all
round ; the highest, pretty near, rising, it is said, three
thousand feet.
There is but one conspicuous mosque, and few
minarets : walking along the streets, the same features
occur as at Stamboul. There is a bazaar, rich in carpets,
Turkish and Persian : the women wear the upper part
of their head-dress, the yak-mash, of black gauze, and
it is kept from the face by a kind of bow, giving an odd
appearance. A good many loaded camels are met in
IMPERATIVE BACKSHISH. 377
the streets, I did not see a single one at Constanti-
nople.
After an hour's walk along the one street, and a peep
at the small bazaar, there seems nothing left to see, or
do, unless a ride into the suburbs, on donkeys, may be
worth while. Some of the merchants have their houses
in the environs, up the flatter part of the valley, to the
left, on the only road out of the town ; but even now,
there is said to be very little security from robbers,
Turkish police vigilance being intermittent at best;
the last band have been but partially dispersed, and
those caught not at all or partially punished.
Vegetables are better, I think, and more plentiful
than at Constantinople; green peas, of a good kind
the first we have seen in Turkey. I got a hearth-rug
and a brown burnous, the only things in the bazaar
particularly tempting and moderate in price a pound
each. A custom-house officer intercepts us at the wharf,
and expects backshish ! these fellows are only trouble-
some, if not paid in this way ; any export duty is not
their object.
On our way to Smyrna we had two ladies of fortune
(sisters) passengers. I was delighted to see such fine
samples of our island beauties. They were very hand-
some one of them lovely: they had been five years
on their travels all over the Continent, and much here
in the East, among the Greeks and Turks, with their
378 SELF-EXILED LADIES.
lady's-maid and a clever courier, who managed every
thing for them. Such Cosmopolitan maiden philoso-
phers are not at all uncommon. They are met every-
where, now-a-days, all over the world India, China,
Australia, California ! no voyage too hazardous, no
land too strange or distant. We men are scarcely ahead
of them in our rovings. I was very sorry when they
left us ; conversation at the table lost its zest. I could
not help musing on this peculiar roaming feature, in
search of novelty, in our women, quite independent of
any man, and only seen as yet in the daughters of Great
Britain.
They were next for Athens, and meantime went to
the wretched French hotel where I called, and found
they had ridden out on donkeys, in the melting sun,
dust, and teazing flies what a contrast to their own
hall, woods, lawns, comforts, and friends ! And yet
they meant to remain abroad for another year another
year ! And thus they waste their sweetness on Turks
or the Acropolis. But what a pity years and years
ago they were not made useful and happy wives at
home.
379
CHAP. X.
LEAVE SMYRNA. ISLANDS. ANCHOR AT ALEXANDRIA. TUB
SHIPPING. TOWN LIGHT-HOUSE. PALACE. PACHA. DONKEY
BOYS. CAFE EXCHANGE ROOMS. SQUARE OF HOTELS.
BAZAAR. CANAL. PILLAR AND NEEDLE. LOAD WITH COTTON.
AND CRAM WITH PASSENGERS. START FOR MALTA. COAL.
ON TO GIBRALTAR. SILENT CHANGES. SPAIN. PASSAGE
HOME. A WORD ON SHIPS AND STEAMERS.
LEAVING Smyrna after a day's stay, we run along
the coast, winding among many islands, Scio the largest
which last we were near enough to distinguish some
pretty spots. The coast of Asia and all these islands
are mountainous and rocky, the shores bold, the
outlines everywhere grand.
We leave Rhodes on the left, too far to make out its
details and do not see Candia, though so large an
island, at all. We lay off (the lighthouse in sight)
Alexandria on the third night, and running in early
next day, get a pilot from the forts and cluster of wind-
mills west of the harbour's mouth ; where the shore is
bold : by closing well in with it, the passage into
the shipping is easy and plain enough.
380 PLAGUES OF EGYPT.
Already the heat is quite insupportable with a south-
easterly wind, as we have it : now the middle of May ;
a swarm of musquitoes and most annoying flies fill the
air, in spite of the strong breeze.
A dozen boats sail off to us, much like our own, each
with a man and boy in it : they soon get all our pilgrims,
and take them on shore bag and baggage ; and I am as
glad as they are, poor fellows, that they are out of the
clutches of these salt water bruins.
A Turk or two came off to give pratique and
there is some talk of passports, to the Greeks; for we
have taught these Turks all our European stupid con-
trivances of annoyance.
It is so very hot, I cannot muster resolution to go on
shore ! These flies are the modern plagues of Egypt ;
enough without any other ; either locusts or the plague.
Flocks of sea-gulls flutter near our stern, to pick up
refuse eatables.
There are a good many ships in the harbour, but no
steamers ; two or three Englishmen come off to enquire
about a passage, anxious to get away from such a place,
and no wonder !
Alexandria I think exceeds what we are led to expect
of it. Independent of its square of hotels, exchange,
and offices, there are some pretty wide streets and large
houses but sand and dust and heat and real Egyptian
GKEAT SQUARE. 381
flies are quite insufferable. The day is scorching; a
south-east wind blows, and brings us off a cloud of flies
and mosquitoes. They cling to one horribly, and at
night continue the day's torments !
So much for us strangers; but this eternal glare of
sand and whitened walls is dreadful ; one thinks of
ophthalmia, and already, though hardly arrived, I long
to get away.
We remain a week, and I fully intended to run up
to Cairo ; particularly as they talked of a railroad com-
pleted for a few miles beyond the canal. But at the
exchange and coffee-house, the only spot where a paper
is to be seen or the least thing known, I find the
steamer only starts upwards about once a week even
then uncertain, depending on Indian passengers ; that
the steamer from England has not arrived though
due several days; that the hotels are all full of expectant
Indians impatient to continue on homewards : so there
is no chance of getting up the Nile.
The lighthouse at the north point of the harbour, two
hundred feet high, is in one equal column, and the Pasha's
Palace near it, are handsome objects from the harbour ;
next them the arsenal or dockyard ; and then the line
of the town walls and wharves ; and following round,
more walls, sand hills, and windmills in groups : no
mosques or minarets meet the eye ; indeed they are
382 ABBAS PASHA.
fe\v ; and built very low comparatively, not much seen,
even where all is flat. Pompey's Pillar is just seen to
the right not so, Cleopatra's Needle, which lies at the
extremity of the new harbour, beyond the body of the
city, at the north part of which a kind of neck divides
the two harbours.
The outer forts are at each end of a tongue of land
next the sea, forming both harbours, in the shape of a
T; but the new one is empty, and at best only fit for
coasters.
There are forty or fifty vessels here taking in wheat,
or cotton, some few : but the greater part are our
colliers, bringing coals, now at three pound the ton : one
collier refused four pound ten at Messina, thinking to
get more here.
The Pasha's men of war have all been sent to the
Sultan ; the only ones visible here are an old seventy-
four as a kind of guard-ship, with but a few men on
board, and her topmasts down ; another old line-of-battle
ship in the dock-yard and a few hulks; nor is there
a single steamer of any kind in the harbour, except
ourselves, at this moment.
There is apparently very little doing. In fact, this
Abbas Pasha thinks of nothing but his own oppressive
monopoly, hates the whole Christian world, and would
willingly never see our faces. Things, once advancing
DONKEY BOYS. 383
in our European fashion under his grandfather, stand
still or retrograde ; and but for the transit of our
Indian officers and civilians, at the hotels, on the
donkeys, and in the shore-boats, the little stir seen
would cease ! These are the last facts told us by men
of business here, where all our English merchants con-
gregate at the Exchange, Coffee-house, and reading
rooms, where we see the Times of about a month old,
an Italian Gazette with nothing in it, and some old
Charivaris. Even this is a welcome lounge out of the
dust and glare of the great square.
I am struck by the activity and intelligence of the
Arabs, particularly their harbour boatmen and donkey
boys, who all speak a few words of English.
From the landing wharf you ride in about a mile along
a street suburb to the square ; then if the heat is not
too great, continue on about the town to the streets on
either side; to the bazaar, where nothing is seen very
tempting, except, perhaps, a blue burnous and red tassels,
or good strong yellow slippers. Or take your way to
the west suburbs to Pompey's Pillar, where one
" G. Button " has helped to vulgarise the pedestal of
this noble granite shaft and one Thompson above.
We pass some inclosures, of the date palm, the
only bit of green visible anywhere. Passing the
column half a mile, we come to the east of the Mali-
384 PILLAR AND NEEDLE.
moudieh Canal, where I saw a steam-boat or two lying
idle. The water-wheels raising water from this canal
are ingenious. Then, by a circuit outside the city walls,
and entering by another gate, we come upon the new
harbour side, where the obelisk stands, (Cleopatra's
Needle), with a second granite obelisk prostrate, and
covered over by some one of our Consuls, near the wall,
to preserve it from being chipped and broken ; perhaps
with some very remote prospect of one day sending it
to England !
The one standing rests on a broken point, on a
crumbling loose stone base, so insecure that the least
shock would topple it over ; perhaps, the removal of a
single stone! Nobody ever comes near this more
remote inner harbour, which contains nothing per-
haps occasionally a few fishing boats or a stray coaster
requiring but a foot or two depth of water to float in.
A simple map of any city is worth a hundred descrip-
tions. Alexandria is quite flat, as are all these shores.
The French raised a mound, and planted a fort in the
centre of the town, which still exists, a kind of citadel
but in decay and neglect. ,
On landing at the transit wharf, where all baggage
is first deposited mails and passengers ; and where
there is a guard ; and where the donkeys congre-
gate to carry you on to the square of the consuls,
of hotels, and business of the place, you at once enter
LOCOMOTIVE POWERS. 385
the town, and ride your donkey up the street to this
square, about a mile. The distances in any direction in
any of the streets are nothing, except this one in, not
half a mile ; and were it not for the glare and heat, it
would be much easier walking than riding; though,
indeed, the asses are good little things, and shuffle along
quickly ; but the trouble is to keep them clear of the
crowd of women and children. Half the English
walk up, and take advantage of the shady side of the
streets; which, on donkey-back, you cannot do so
well.
The Arab boys, intelligent, cheerful creatures,
follow you up close, and seem to prefer a full run ;
perhaps to get rid of their " ugly customers " all the
quicker at the exchange coffee-house and reading-
rooms the only spot you can poke your head into.
This exchange is a sort of subscription casino in
one with the coffee-rooms, open to every body; and
any of the agents or merchants give you the entrde.
The only Lions I hear of besides the Pillar and
Obelisk, are the slave market, the pacha's gardens,
towards the canal, and the bazaar all done in an hour's
trotting about. We must see everything; but they
are, after Stamboul, hardly worth the trouble : still,
though inferior as specimens of the East, the Arabs here
are more Turkish than the Turks of the Sultan. The
mixture of Greeks is not so predominant. As to the
c c
386 NEW KAILROAD.
street population, one sees fewer red Fezes, hardly ever
a Greek or Turkish lady, or any female above the lower
classes ; but all, I think, more cheerful and intelligent
than at Constantinople.
Many of the porters, boatmen, and boys have a
smattering of English, and less of the lingua franca,
or Italian, than I expected to find ; less French, too
though the French are more at home here than we are,
and keep almost all the shops and hotels.
Not only the donkey -boys, but the boatmen and their
boys, are extremely lively, good-natured and intel-
ligent. They handle their boats admirably under sail,
no longer caiques, they are much like our own.
The present ruler, Abbas Pacha*, resides at Cairo
entirely never comes to Alexandria ; his palace here
is shut up, but may be seen.
In other things he is getting back as fast as he can
to the pristine state of good Mussulmen.
A large inclosure of date palms, whose waving
crowns form the only bit of green visible anywhere,
is called the Pacha's Garden ; it forms the only pro-
menade possible. I trot on once more to the end of
the Mahmoudieh Canal, near which the talked-of
rail to Cairo, and across the Isthmus, stops short,
after being completed some twelve or thirteen miles,
with little prospect of being proceeded with. To
* He is since dead.
EGYPTIAN CLIMATE. 387
be sure, if it ever pays, it must be by us English,
and our money must make it, if ever done. Alex-
andria may be tolerable during the winter, but with
the first month of spring comes heat insupportable
a glare enough to put one's eyes out. No green
meets the eye no colour but yellow and white.
Ten thousand plagues hover in the air mosquitos,
and peculiar, devilish, flies, if possible, more tormenting
what entomologist would dare classify them ? This
happens the moment the wind changes to the south.
With a north wind we find it pretty tolerable, though
already the sun has a force here more oppressive than in
our hottest August days at home.
How strong must the incentive be to make money,
to induce any Englishman to remain in such a land!
and yet there are a good many ; at least, they should
speak Arabic, and, after the tanning of ten or twenty
years, with a good Mussulman oblivion of all that
makes life desirable in their own country, attempt some
little comfort and consistency, by turning Turk in good
earnest. No doubt any man may become anything, by
a firm resolve to stick to it when, " custom becomes
a second nature."
To carve out one's fortune in youth, rather than idle
shamefully at home on one's friends, better go to the anti-
podes, or grub with the quasi brutes of the interior of
Australia ; but it moves one's special wonder to find
c c 2
388 UNREQUITED MERIT.
such men as Murray putting on a consul's harness here
from the wild freedom of the Pawnee wigwam
fresh from the luxuries, the varied fun and exquisite
blandishments of a palace ! Not that Mr. Murray is
here now somebody else, in quest of a small ambition
and a large salary, has superseded him, to settle with the
flies and the sands as they best can. Politically, none of
our consuls can be of much use to their country unless
long resident, and speaking the language of the country
fluently. A little French, Italian, or lingua franca, is
but a hobbling make-shift how talk to the Pacha, or
men in office, of their interests or of ours ! Inter-
preters' interpretings are a mere solemn idle farce, and
never lead to anything anywhere.
Look at this same Egypt ! we have not advanced,
to any good understanding, a single step these fifty
years. The carts to and from Cairo to Suez, and the
refuge houses, were entirely the creation of poor Wag-
horn's persevering enterprise barely tolerated for the
sake of a direct revenue ! at Cairo, without title, au-
thority, or any encouragement from our enlightened
government, except a little penurious reimbursement,
wrung from them for very shame, when the thing was
done ; and extended in the same unwilling, unhandsome
fashion to his widow.
From having a long table in the cabin, with nobody
at it, suddenly forty or fifty Indians pour off from the
hotels, with fifty or a hundred tons of luggage.
FLIGHT OF PASSENGERS. 389
The regular Indian steamer from Southampton had
missed her turn, and, as I have said, the hotels in the
square were crammed with these Anglo-Eastern
nabobs, excessively anxious to be no longer victimised
or detained on their way. They were but too delighted
to find a passage could be contrived for them on board
our steamer.
The new comers were composed of the usual persons
on leave, or retiring from service generals, colonels,
captains, subs and civil servants, with their ladies, and a
plentiful sprinkling of little ones, going to England for
their education ! Would'nt it be better to bring them
up in India, where most likely their future fortune lies?
It is but fair to say our captain and his steward ma-
naged to stow them all away, and feed them excellently
well, and that, too, at a very moderate fare home
only twenty pounds : this last item, considering how
Indian travellers are fleeced on all hands, gave additional
satisfaction.
Now that we have a good heterogeneous mixture of
men, women and children, we have the usual humours,
amusements, and laughable incidents common to sea-
voyages ; where so many strangers are suddenly thrown
together. The most fortunate of us were only two in a
cabin, over each other, and not even room to sit; four
in a cabin, and six, fell to the lot of the majority. These
last including the married couples and their children;
c c 3
390 PASTIME ON BOAED.
some babies, with their Indian Ayahs, who contrived,
poor things, not to lose caste, by eating their little
messes alone, with certain precautions.
All the Indian officers wore tiles of the most fantastic
descriptions : some, a cotton wadded helmet ; others a
shawl, as a superstructure, round the crown of a wide-
awake ; others, caps of queer contrivances. The ladies
were less remarkable.
Our dinners passed off very agreeably, succeeded by a
walk, arm-in-arm, on the quarter-deck, of an evening.
Tea brought on renewed social chat, and the
favourite round game of vingt-un, which generally
produced much laughter; heard, indeed, above the
incessant din of the screw, and clatter of the tiller-
chains.
This same screw is a stern nuisance, and mars all
cabin comforts. You cannot write hardly read. In
this particular, the fore-cabin, for second-class passen-
gers, is much the best off.
As these vessels make passengers but a secondary
object, there was no piano ; so that our only music con-
sisted in the squallings of the children, con strepito,
pretty incessant. We had to get used to it with a good
grace, as their mothers were very amiable, and had
their own peculiar troubles with their small fry, added
to the inevitable disagreeables of " aboard-ship."
Having taken in a cargo of cotton, we start for
SEE ALGIERS LIGHT. 391
Malta ; a long stretch of eight hundred miles a run of
four days, unless by fast steamers ; screw ships seldom
go beyond nine or ten knots at best ; and we have a
constant west wind against us.
We pass transports now and then, with munitions of
war, and occasionally a steamer.
Malta is more quiet and dull since the departure of
our troops, of course, and things settled down into the
usual routine. We take in coal (all our steam com-
panies have coal depots at the chief ports), and once
more steam on west, passing the fine high Island of
Pantalaria, just a hundred miles west of Malta. Next
we see the mountains of Sicily to the right, and about
Tunis on the left; pass between the Island of Galata
and the Sister Rocks, off the coast of Africa, which
is all along high and bold : on these rocks the Avenger
war-steamer was lost. We keep the African mountains
in sight, till past Algiers, whose lighthouse alone was
visible from our deck on the second evening out : then
cross the Mediterranean to the Spanish side, seeing its
snow-capped mountains near Cape de Gatte next morn-
ing ; and arriving off Gibraltar during the night of
Saturday ; the fourth day and anchor next morning to
coal. All these lands look their best at this time of the
year, while yet their rocky mountains contrast beau-
tifully with their green plains and valleys.
So is our rock seen to great advantage; frequent
c c 4
392 TOWN OF GIBRALTAR.
showers bringing their flowers and gardens to perfection
almost burnt up in the summer. The whole colony is
much improved of late years, the walls and forts
repaired, strengthened, and the town doubled in houses
and population, in spite of rigid garrison rules ; a great
many Spanish families make it their home, and there
is a constant intercourse with Algeziras opposite, and
with the country across the lines. Indeed, Gibraltar
is the best market the Spaniards have, in an immense
circuit on these shores; for their agricultural produce.
One is hardly aware of the size and grandeur of
Gibraltar till on shore in the streets, or walking in the
garden promenade of the Almeida, under this stupen-
dous mountain of granite. There are rides round the
west face, and paths, looking like lines of thread, lacing
its rugged sides ; half way up, two little circular plan-
tations are nestled above all practicable horse-roads,
and add to the richness of the whole.
The town is divided by the garden below (the Al-
meida and parade), the south town being a kind of
West End, where all the finest houses and villas with
small gardens are found.
Altogether, one cannot fancy the rock a disagreeable
station subject, however, to the strictness of a gar-
risoned citadel, ever on the watch; where you go in and
out, not through an open gate or portal, but, on the
water side, through a small wicket, where only one
GRANDEUR OF THE STRAITS. 393
individual can pass at a time and sentinels are sta-
tioned every where: where it requires a pass after
sunset where every thing is military steeped to the
lips; in the drawing-room, every day ideas, and house-
hold words : here a man must be a soldier or nothing.
Coming from the east, approaching Gibraltar, the
continents on both sides are high mountains, and bold
shores. Apeshill, on the African side, is first seen,
soaring to the clouds above Ceuta (from the east).
Here, at the narrow entrance to the Mediterranean,
the winds and current, and waves, are "still vexed,"
fierce, inexorable : it is difficult to get out, even with a
favourable wind, if light ; if adverse, impossible, to
sailing vessels ; which linger or anchor at the back of
the rock, after beating up the Spanish coast.
In this difficulty, steamers have much advantage;
getting over this constant current of the Atlantic
pouring in ; but the weather is capricious, and gusts
and storms frequent.
The bay of Gibraltar is mostly full of shipping, riding
at single anchor, in or out ; stopping a few days, as at a
house of call, but constantly on the qui vive ; as the
bay is only sheltered on the east by the rock itself, and
is open to the straits, which are about eight miles wide ;
while on the opposite side of the bay, at Algeziras, six
miles off, the extensive plains at the foot of the mountains,
gather the west and north-west winds as to a focus, sweep-
394 SILENT CHANGES.
ing across the bay where, indeed, the sea is very seldom
smooth to the great annoyance of smaller vessels and
boats. Even landing at the rock is difficult at the ex-
treme end of the town, far from the anchorage and
the boat fares expensive, by government regulation.
A small steamer runs backwards and forwards to
Algeziras, at fifteen pence ; but they refuse to take our
currency, making it an excuse for imposition. This is
but one trifle of ten thousand, in which, friendly,
grateful Spain, shows her catholic hatred of England !
Still, they will take our dollars but our shillings only
at eleven pence !
While Gibraltar is before my eyes, as time flies
now the midsummer of 1854 what can I say new of a
place so well known, a place exhausted in pen-and-ink
and pencil descriptions? Nothing! And yet much is new,
and silent changes go on even in the very granite itself,
which gets worn and gnawed away in tiny portions, by
that pigmy man. Yet generations pass away, and its
outward form is still the same ! The town has grown
almost into a city, with a city's luxuries ; for there is an
opera, and the officers have races. Cabs, carriages and
hack-horses abound ; society is split into circles, in imi-
tation of London ; and its shops glitter in expensive
European things, infinitely superior to what they were
fifty years ago, in Nelson's day !
Steamers alone have changed the face of things
THE GARRISON. 395
thick coming and going, they bring it within five days
or a week of England, and tie it closer to its own
Spanish shore to Algeziras, Tarifa and Cadiz ; for
still land-carriage is as barbarous as ever, as are posa-
das and tondas, where inquisitive travellers are taken in
as of old.
For the morale of the rock those only can know
who dwell on it. As far as England goes, it is still the
same ; governor succeeds governor in a long succession
of old officers, more or less disciplinarians, more or less
popular, for the brief term of a worn-out life. One
thing is clear, whoever commands should speak Span-
ish well, and be instructed to cultivate the good will
and interests of the surrounding country ; visiting the
authorities at each town of the smaller sea-shore cir-
cuit, and encouraging by every means a friendly and
trading intercourse for our mutual benefit ; for it is of
no use lamenting the miserable imbecility and ingrati-
tude and tyranny of its government, where all seems so
very silly and so very selfish.
The people of all countries are innately well disposed
and friendly ; the present generation knows nothing of
the last, and, after all, cannot be said to be ungrateful ;
crowns and ministers alone recollect nothing know
nothing learn nothing!
The panorama of Spain, and Africa opposite, as seen
from any part of Gibraltar, is extremely rich and fine ;
396 FESTA AT ALGEZIRAS.
Apes Hill, one of the Pillars of Hercules, backed by
high mountains equal to itself; and Ceuta, with its
long low neck of land, immediately opposite our " Rock"
forming the narrowest part of the passage. Noble
mountains frame in the picture round the bay, from
Algeziras to St. Roche on its hill ; and so stretch to the
east and west.
The lower grounds, green in their young crops and
pasturages, are now seen after the showers to the
greatest advantage ; for Spain, on this her southern side,
is much burnt up in the summer.
She is beautiful only in the distances, with the
lights and shadows of her mountains.
I went over to Algeziras for an hour by one of the
small steamers. They take nearly an hour to cross the
bay. There was a fair going on, and a large amphi-
theatre, just outside the town, was filling for an ap-
proaching bull-Jight.
I had no time, nor any inclination, to witness this
cruel, cowardly sport it was quite enough to see the
violent contrast between the three or four miserable
horses led in for the piccadores, and the rich gorgeous
dresses in silver and gold of the men themselves about
to ride them.
A more pleasant contemplation was the general air
of neatness and comfort of the whole town. The houses
of two stories, without exception, looking as clean and
FRUIT MARKETS. 397
bright as possible ; the grated windows on the ground-
floor so ornamental as to do away with all ideas of
prison bars ; with many groups of young girls laughing
slily behind them, watching the crowds passing up the
chief street.
The town is not so large as it appears across the bay,
we should class it as a market-town ; nor did I see any
signs of active trade of any sort, though many small
vessels and coasters are anchored on this side of the bay ;
but the " Rock " absorbs all the activity and stir of
this part of the coast. The market is much superior,
and everything cheaper, than in any of the adjacent
towns wholly Spanish. Just now oranges, cherries,
and small peaches are in great plenty ; potatoes, peas,
and other vegetables, and all extremely cheap ; oranges,
very sweet and good, eighty and one hundred for a
shilling.
People say little of passages or of steamers; but
nothing so much concerns us travellers, whether we
cross the Atlantic, or coast the shores of France, Spain,
and Portugal, where the weather and the waves are
even more fickle and fierce than further off; or, crossing
our ever-vexed two hours of channel, we again have to
take boat at Marseilles or Trieste.
The Mediterranean boats, French, Neapolitan, or
English, are expensive, and very indifferent in any one
good quality. Ours are the most liberal, on the whole ;
398 PASSAGE STEAMERS.
for, in addition to the same fares, the others make us pay
for the table extra.
The Oriental boats to Alexandria are the largest and
the best ; starting from Southampton ; but they are
always crowded with Indian officers and civilians going
and coming, with families of spoiled children. Next
come various screw-steamers of late years, mercantile
in purpose, but carrying passengers at reduced rates.
They call at Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria, and Smyrna,
to and from Constantinople, when they go so far. Many
of them, like this we are in, are now taken up by
government to carry horses and troops.
They are almost all of iron, and the shaking and
rattling of the screw is quite enough to upset any or-
dinary nerves ; no time can reconcile one to it. It is im-
possible to read, or write, or sleep, if by chance and ill
luck your cabin is near the stern. Then, again, the
extreme length of these boats, and their absurd nar-
rowness, make them dangerous in a heavy gale ; nor are
they built strong in proportion.
So much for the boats. It must be admitted, indeed,
that their engines are admirable, and that they contrive
to carry large cargoes, besides the necessary coal for a
week or ten days' run ; re-coaling at their own depots at
the Rock, at Malta, and Smyrna, even at Constanti-
nople, and thus avoiding the enormous price of coal
bought in the Mediterranean.
COAST OF SPAIN. 399
By-the-bye, the coal hulk at Alexandria was no less
than the "Ariadne;" one of those wretched post-sloops,
hardly yet set aside the bane of our navy the ab-
horred of seamen : but this particular sloop-of-war, or
" floating coffin/' was once honoured by the command
of that true genius, and noble seaman, Frederick Mar-
ry at ; who took her out to Pegu in our first Burmese
war, and who has left us witty evidence enough of the
unfitness of this kind of vessel. Poor Marryat ! once
my dear friend, his premature death is an irreparable
loss.
We have but the few hours while filling up our coal,
and start for England at sunset, passing Tarifa during
the night Cadiz, and Cape St. Vincent on the second
morning ; the wind the whole way blowing obstinately
against us ; with the usual swell of the Atlantic. We
skirt the coast of Spain about twenty-five miles off,
and pass outside the Birlings, island, and rocks ; here
we see many fine, sturdy fishing-boats, twenty miles
from the shore.
The nearer home we get the more impatient we
grow ; and yet patience ! patience ! we have got to pass
Cape Finisterre, and the Bay of Biscay; always an
ugly customer, though not quite so bad as many ac-
cidents, and Dibdin's famous song, describe it. If the
sea is worse than elsewhere in the Atlantic, it must be
from the great rolling-in swell meeting the bottom at
400 CHOPS OF THE CHANNEL.
a less depth I but, however capricious the winds and
waves, this coast is not much worse than our own chops
of the Channel.
Then come our ScilJy Isles in soundings, and our
St. George's and British Channels ; each troublesome
and dangerous, when all other troubles and dangers are
passed ; as but too many have sadly proved. But here-
abouts all curiosity ceases ; nobody can ever pick up
or invent anything worth talking about on their return
home from the moment they catch sight of the Land's
End, all narrative breaks off abruptly.
In a pretended obedience to this established rule, I
should be careful not to say a word of our waters or of
our land everybody is supposed to know all about them
so well ! Yet how much there is highly interesting
which our light-reading world would be very glad to
know something about !
Of what goes on and is to be seen, for instance, in
the British and St. George's Channels ; of its shores, of
its towns (of late years) ; of the noble appearance of
the Wicklow and the Welsh mountains (equal to many
Greek), as we steer up St. George's Channel ; or, when
happily we get well on, still advancing towards Liver-
pool, and turning the corner at Beaumaris and the
Skerries Light, we thread that fifty miles of intricate
maze, of muddy sea and shoals, leading to the Mersey's
mouth ; of which nothing is known beyond those thrill-
JOYOUS ANTICIPATIONS. 401
ing tales of disastrous wrecks which every now and then
fill the columns of our journals.
Of how long since, the middle ages Liverpool was
but a few huts on the beach, and the Mersey was
nothing; when ancient, quaint Chester and her little
river and sea-approach, now neglected, were the great
mart of the small commerce of those days.
Such are the silent workings of time and tides ! Our
tides, indeed, are the most wonderful in the world ; the
most violent, awful, and useful in their every-day
effects. They and some partial knowledge of our
coast, form the sole study and business of men's
lives ; not alone coasting-masters and pilots, who, by a
life's buffeting, gain most local experience, but all our
naval and mercantile marine. Yet how imperfect
witness our daily disasters ; as often traced to ignorance
and shamefully defective vessels as to the elements !
All this would induce one to linger on our Welsh
and Lancastrian sea-approaches more uncertain, more
troublous, and more dreaded, than the quiet, simple
Scylla and Charybdis were I equal to the task, or if it
were not time, now that I find all my fellow-passengers
excited at the near prospect of once more setting foot
on their native land, to put away my own foolscap,
destined most likely never to see the light. Away then
with pen and ink, let me share the general joy ! Brief
D D
402 FRUITS OF TRAVEL.
joys, so few and far between ! lasting a minute or an
hour ; obtained by months or years of misery, or of
apathy, or of ennui.
People say, travel. ' The reminiscences of your travels,
of distant lands and people, of strange and curious
things, of the excitement and dangers you have under-
gone, will cheer and sweeten old age at your winter fire-
side ! and amuse your family circle and juvenile offspring !
Not now-a-days, at any rate I Everybody is travelling.
Youths vote their own fire-sides a bore, the governor
and his travels into the bargain. Our little island
supplies the whole world with fortune and adventure
hunters (including the diggings in both hemispheres),
and curiosity-mongers of both sexes. Some, like
myself, tell their own story ; the great body, perhaps
more wisely, keep it snug to themselves : but I think
I may fairly doubt if any pleasurable sensations are
derived from the contemplation of our wanderings ; on
the contrary, we do but grow the more discontented,
unsettled, doubtful, and unhappy !
We become more wide-awake to our own absurdities,
prejudices, anomalies, and imperfections ; not only the
inevitable and pardonable, but those the most conceited,
stolid, and obtuse ; which are, from education and habit,
among ourselves, considered excellences ! Thence, as
no man in any one country can ever live to see any
perfect or radical change in anything, we are not likely
REPENTANCE. 403
to become more contented or happy, when we retire
from our travels and. our street, to sit down for the quiet
rest of our days in some country cot to cultivate
cabbages. This, by the way, to those who are obliged
to remain sensibly at home they have the best of it,
in simply and so easily reading what we have got to
say.
And now that I have got rid of that abominable
screw, which stunned and jolted facts and ideas out of
my head, and at my ease can run through my journal,
with a foolish wish to see it in print, I grow frightened
at its infinite faults, at none more than a certain tone, I
could wish more diffident and humble. But I cannot
write it all over again it must take its chance ; if it
escapes the reproach of prolixity and dulness, or, worse,
of having found nothing but mares' nests, I must con-
sider myself pretty well off.
If I venture to hope that, in the course of what I
have touched on, something may be extracted to prove
of use to those who intend, sooner or later, going the
same way, so too, now that I must wind up, many
things occur to me which, introduced in their proper
places, might have been more acceptable than political
disquisitions or querulous aggressions against things as
we find them.
One stubborn fact, however, which I have alluded to
D D 2
404 BUILD OF VESSELS.
more than once, impresses itself on me more forcibly
than ever, in this immensely long, narrow, weakly-built,
iron screw-steamer; and I cannot resist endeavouring
to explain it to my readers, with a view to draw the
attention, at least of our travelling world, to the fact.
It is the continued defect of our naval architecture !
All our knowing naval people will stare at such an
assertion. They would possibly admit the thing here
and there in detail one ship ugly, another crank,
another a bad sea-boat, or a dull sailer ; but I am sorry
to say our ship and boat-building is generally and radi-
cally wrong, from the first lines chalked out in the
model lofts of our Queen's or private yards throughout
the empire !
It would exhaust a pamphlet to explain all this in
detail ; but it is sufficiently proved at a glance, in the
eye of any seaman who has ever considered the proper
shapes of floating bodies: but to look at our ships loaded,
afloat ; and, going on board, simply walk their decks !
The great defect I allude to is so obvious, that to me
it is quite unaccountable how it is we so obstinately
persist in it. It is the constant want of proportionate
breadth in our vessels afloat, from a cutter to a frigate
I can hardly except our line-of-battle ships ; and the
consequence of this long, narrow, peg-top build is, that
none of them carry their guns high enough out of the
water, that they want room inboard, and that essential
GLARING DEFECTS. 405
stability in a moderate sea-way, to enable their guns to
be carried with ease, and worked with advantage.
As time has gone on, even up to sending Sir Charles
Napier's fleet into the Baltic, this constant error has
been persisted in through all the more recently-launched
craft steamers and all, which latter vessels, most espe-
cially, should be perfectly flat-floored^ and draw the
least possible water ! instead of which, they are so
deep in the water as to be unable to approach any coast !
They artificially multiply all the inevitable and natural
dangers of rivers, or shallows, or rocky shores.
I could name at once many of our steamers totally
unfit to fight their main-deck guns in any thing of a
sea, so low do they carry them ; and, indeed, when all
coal, stores, &c. are on board, they must be almost use-
less and helpless even in a moderately rough sea or
rough weather ! It is this wretched build all under
water, and not half enough above that I think dis-
tinguishes England's present marine, great and small.
Then, again, our forecastles contracted* sharp up !
and down, it is buried in a sea way, instead of bearing
out above the water-line, to ease her in plunging. Nor
is the breadth of beam carried well out aft, as it should
be, to give room and create buoyancy. All this need
not interfere either with a fine entrance or a fine run.
* The new Phaeton for instance, a mere overgrown cutter
whose praises were sung ad nauseam I
406 SCREW TUGS AND FERRY BOATS.
We have nothing to do (and why are we not more
wide awake ?) but compare our ships with those of the
United States, to show us these defects most glaringly,
particularly in our small craft and steamers.
Years ago I did myself the honour of representing to
the Admiralty the many advantages of flatter floors,
more beam*, greater room, everywhere less draught of
water, &c ; and particularly suggested of what incal-
culable service a small class of flat-bottomed steamers
might be for our coasts and harbours, on the plan partly
of the American river steamers, ferry-boats, &c., which,
from their drawing so little water, are enabled to put
their noses on any beach as easily as a two-decker's
launch.
These screw-steamers might carry one or two large
guns, on a pivot, at once to defend our shores, carry
troops from one point to another, and, in short, form the
government active daily carriers, and be our guard
mobile all round our coast ! Mere ferry steamers or tugs
on this plan, might turn out on such errands properly
built. Not such lumbering stolid contrivances as our
Portsmouth ferry-boat to Gosport !
With bulwarks breast-high, filled in with hammocks
* As this goes to press, I see they have at length built one
dispatch boat with beam enough to draw only six feet water. This
is, so far, good, but no occasion for three masts ! nor to " lower"
and the topsides of such boats might be carried up high enough
for any engine ; they are not meant to lay before batteries !
DISPATCH BOATS. 407
or havresacks, troops would be sheltered from mus-
ketry.
These are the things I now, on my return home, find
wanted and cried out for in the Baltic, to land our
troops, and cover their landing ! and generally to scour
the shores and look into shallow waters and rivers.
So will they be wanted in the Black Sea.
But we are so in love with grubbing under water
without room to stir in on deck above it (while you may
wash your hands over the side !) that the "dispatch " boat
built to meet this demand, I see draws thirteen or four-
teen feet water ! I ! (with guns at the sides !) when such
things should not draw Jive, and should be, as to capa-
city for carrying troops and fighting one pivot gun, three
times as efficient. The models for such boats may be seen
in every river and harbour of the United States, where
immense boats (floating platforms), and swift, (partly
from skimming over the water, not under !) may be seen
drawing but from eighteen inches to two or three feet !
carrying hundreds of tons and quite equal to such seas
as the Baltic or Euxine ; but I am persuaded, even in a
gale of wind, they would make better weather of it
than the things we send afloat. As it affects mere
passengers in our slight built long low narrow iron
steamers (called splendid!) this pervading defect is
of consequence, both to their comfort and safety. In a
gale and a heavy sea, a clumsy wide French fishing boat
408 MISTAKES IN CONSTRUCTION".
would be infinitely more safe. I am persuaded half the
disasters we hear of, both on our coasts and at sea, spring
from this egregious fault which nobody, scientific
or working by rule of thumb, in or out of our yards,
seems to suspect or have the least idea of.
If it is ever happily departed from in the right way, it
is in the vessels built by us for other governments ! *
The dispatch boat built in the river the other day for
Prussia was a much better boat and more to the pur-
pose than our own poor thing: which, if the Times
is to be believed, knocked about so at Spithead
that firing her gun or guns from the ports was quite
a failure. It moves one's special wonder how she came
to have ports ! or how she could possibly, for her size,
be made to draw thirteen feet water I both queer qualities
which exactly unfitted her for the very thing for which
she was supposed to be built !
In all our new vessels, steam or sails, nothing is
talked of but speed as if other qualities were not
equally essential ; nay, much more so imperative.
Thence the awkwardly long low things daily turned
out of our yards, with no topsides no room anywhere
and all keel, so sharp they may be said to progress
under water rather than above it.
* A notable example of this kind occurred in 1847, when an
Anglo-Russian war-steamer brought over the Grand Duke she
lay close to our heavy-rigged, low, deep, tub, the Dragon, at
Gravesend Hyperion to a Satyr !
THE LAST WORD. 409
Our Clyde and Glasgow builders sin least in this
way, but let any man look at our Hamburg boats
our Irish boats, those of our Channel Islands. Those to
France from all our ports in the British Channel, even
our fast Gravesend and Greenwich boats ; and it is
quite impossible to say any one of them is at all near
what she should be either as to size or speed : all owing
to this one radical defect of build since being down
under water such an absurd depth, offers the greatest
resistance (no matter how long or how sharp they are)
to going ahead ; infinitely more than the increased
divergence of the angles from the cut-water, thrown out
in a flatter and extended floor. This might be illustrated
in a hundred ways. But I must have done. I have said
enough to set my readers on thinking of what should be
the good qualities of the sailing or steam vessels they
embark in, from the moment they get up the side.
THE END.
E E
LONDON :
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Price ONE SHILLING each.
THE TRAVELLER'S LIBRARY,
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Comprising books of valuable information and acknowledged merit, in a
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Already published, forming Thirty-four Volumes.
1. ME. MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON WAKREN HASTINGS.
2. MR. MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON LORD CLIVE.
3. LONDON IN MDCCCL. & MDCCCLL BY J. R. M'CUL-
LOCH, ESQ.
4. SHI ROGER DE COVERLEY. FROM THE SPECTATOR.
3. WILLIAM PITT and THE EARL OF CHATHAM. BY
T. B. MACAULAY.
6-7. LAING'S RESIDENCE IN NORWAY.
8. MR. MACAULAY'S ESSAYS ON RANKE AND GLAD-
STONE.
9-10. IDA PFELFFER'S LADY'S VOYAGE ROUND THE
WORLD.
11-12. EOTHEN, OR TRACES OF TRAVEL FROM THE
EAST.
13. MR. MACAULAY'S ESSAYS ON ADDISON AND WAL-
POLE.
14-15. HUG'S TRAVELS IN TARTARY, THIBET, AND CHINA,
16-17. THOMAS HOLCROFT'S MEMOIRS.
18. THE EARL OF CARLISLE'S LECTURES AND AD-
DRESSES.
19-20. WERNE'S AFRICAN WANDERINGS.
21-22. MRS. JAMESON'S SKETCHES IN CANADA.
23. BRITTANY AND THE BIBLE. BY I. HOPE.
24. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. BY DR.
KEMP.
25. MR. MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON LORD BACON.
26. THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH, ETC. BY DR. G.
WILSON.
27-28. JERRMANN'S PICTURES FROM ST. PETERSBURG.
29-30. THE REV. G. R. GLEIG'S LEDPSIC CAMPAIGN.
31. MEMOIR OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
32-33. THE AUSTRALIAN COLONIES. BY WM. HUGHES,
F.R.G.S.
34-35. SIR EDWARD SEAWARD'S NARRATIVE ABRIDGED.
London : LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, and LONGMANS.
2 The Traveller's Library.
LIST OF WORKS continued.
36. LOED JEFFREY'S ESSAYS ON SWIFT AND RICHARD-
SON.
37. RANKE'S FERDINAND I. AND MAXIMILIAN II.
38-39. MEMOIRS OF A MAITRE D'ARMES. BY ALEX.
DUMAS.
40. BYRON AND THE COMIC DRAMATISTS. BY. T. B.
MACAULAY.
41. MARSHAL TURENNE. BY THE REV. T. 0. COCKAYNE,
M.A.
42-43. OUR COAL FIELDS AND COAL PITS.
44. BARROW'S TOUR ON THE CONTINENT IN MDCCCLII.
45. SWISS MEN AND SWISS MOUNTAINS. BY R. FER-
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46. GIRONEERE'S PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.
47. TURKEY AND CHRISTENDOM.
48. CONFESSIONS OF A WORKING MAN. BY EMILE
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49. THE CHASE IN BRITTANY. BY I. HOPE.
50. THE LOVE STORY FROM SOUTHEY'S DOCTOR.
51. AN ATTIC PHILOSOPHER IN PARIS. BY E. SOU-
VESTRE.
52. MR. MACAULAY'S SPEECHES ON PARLIAMENTARY
REFORM.
53. THE RUSSIANS OF THE SOUTH. BY SHIRLEY
BROOKS.
54. INDICATIONS OF INSTINCT. BY DR. LINDLEY
KEMP.
55-56. LANMAN'S ADVENTURES IN THE WILDS OF NORTH
AMERICA.
57-58-59. DE CUSTINE'S RUSSIA.
60. DURRIEU'S MOROCCO.
61-62. SELECTIONS FROM SYDNEY SMITH'S WRITINGS.
63. SCHAMYL, THE CHIEFTAIN OF THE CAUCASUS.
64. RUSSIA AND TURKEY. BY J. R. M'CULLOCH, ESQ.
65-66. LAING'S NOTES OF A TRAVELLER.
67. ESSAY ON MORMONISM.
68-69. RAMBLES IN ICELAND. BY PLINY MILES.
To be followed by
ESSAYS ON CHESTERFIELD & SELWYN. Reprinted from the
Edinburgh Review.
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